Monday, October 08, 2007

City Managers in Pittsburgh

I rode into Pittsburgh yesterday on a plane from Minneapolis and sat next to a gentleman arriving for the Annual Conference of the International City/County Management Association (ICMA). The conference website is here, and the ICMA has a conference blog -- though it appears that you have to go through the conference website to get there.

If my seatmate is representative of the organization, and I hope that he is, this is a group of public sector employees who will give the City and the region a thorough but fair going over. I hope that the blog will turn out to be something more than tourist reactions. Honest feedback is welcome! If Pittsburgh can impress the IMCA, then we're doing something right.

Welcome to town. Have a great convention.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mike,

It is being reported that Boy Wonder Luke Ravenstahl was slated to offer yesterday's opening remarks to the near 4,000 folks in town for this convention; however, in true Boy Wonder form he was a last minute no-show. If I was a betting man, I would say that he opted for the Steelers-Seahwaks game and a couple of IC Lights, rather than a stuffy convention of city managers. After all, that's what 27 year olds do . . .

Anonymous said...

Dave F is wrong.

Anonymous said...

You are correct Matt. The story on KDKA turned out to be less than accurate. But what remains true is that both the Mayor and the County Executive both opted out of a convention of 4000 city and county managers from around the country. What does that say about our city/county leadership, not to mention our hospitality?