Mayor Cindy Lerner joined more than 1,500 local elected officials and city leaders at the National League of Cities’ Congressional City Conference in Washington. The five-day conference is the nation’s largest gathering of city officials focused on advocating city priorities with members of Congress, the White House and federal agencies looking for solutions to addressing the nation’s most pressing challenges.
Mayor Lerner participated in meetings designed to connect Pinecrest to Capitol Hill and build skills to better govern, serve and advocate for Village residents.
“The conference provides an opportunity to bring back new ideas and best practices to implement in Pinecrest, as well as to advocate for our needs before Congress,” said Lerner. “Our involvement at the national level has literally put Pinecrest on the map.”
As the vice chair of the NLC Energy, Environment and Natural Resources committee, she held a joint meeting with the Transportation Committee, which Councilmember James McDonald sits on. Together they met with Florida Senators, Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio, and Florida Congress members, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Mario Diaz-Balart. The conference featured several important announcements, including the creation of the “Homeless Veterans Leadership Network,” which challenges cities to end veteran homelessness in their communities in 2015.
The National League of Cities (NLC) is dedicated to helping city leaders build better communities. NLC is a resource and advocate for 19,000 cities, towns and villages, representing more than 218 million Americans.