Nation's Cities - February 28, 2011

4 NATION’S CITIES WEEKLY
February 28, 2011

NBC-LEO President, NPA Colleagues Meet with
President Obama at White House

by Mary Gordon
National Black Caucus of
Local Elected Officials (NBC-
LEO) President Michael
Johnson, councilmember,
Phoenix, recently, joined col-
league members of the National
Policy Alliance in the Roosevelt
Room in the West Wing of the
White House and met with
President Obama to discuss a
variety of issues. This is the sec-
ond time that the group has met
with the President. The first
meeting was in mid-December.

National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials President Michael Johnson and other members of the National Policy
Alliance met recently with President Obama at the White House./ Photo courtesy of the White House
ties and African-American fam-
ilies hardest hit by the current
recession.
While noting the positive
news that 1. 1 million jobs were
created in 2010 and that private
sector job growth has contin-
ued for 12 consecutive months,
the President expressed his con-
cern about the unemployment
rate, which is particularly high
among African Americans. He
also spoke about clean energy
investments, economic prosper-
ity through access to education,
public-private partnerships cre-
ated by the Minority Business
Development Agency, pro-
tecting affordable health care
for all Americans, and Small
Business Administration loan
programs developed during this
Administration to support small
businesses and entrepreneurs in
order to spur job creation in
communities nationwide.

Details: For more infor-
mation about NBC-LEO
and membership/sponsorship
opportunities, contact (202)
626-3169.
OPENCities Monitor Provides New
Index on Cities’ Openness

NLC, PTI to Present
‘Technology Forecast
2011 Webinar’
by Michelle Burgess
The British Council has devel-
oped a new city benchmark,
OPENCities Monitor, as a way to
measure a city’s openness, defined
as a city’s capacity “to attract inter-
national populations and to enable
them to contribute to the future suc-
cess of the city.” The OPENCities
Monitor is a unique tool to help
cities recognize, understand and
expand the internationalism of their
population to better compete in the
globalized economy.

The easy to use, online format
allows for comparative analysis
between participating cities and
allows users to measure city indica-
tors against the baseline of the entire
sample group, as well as against
selected groups determined by the
city’s population size, population
change, gross domestic product, for-
eign labor force, etc.
The program also provides case
studies and example city action
plans to help cities develop their
own openness and integration pro-
grams. Policy recommendations are
available in the areas of managing
diversity, internationalism and gov-
ernance.
Currently, OPENCities Monitor
includes information from 25 large
international cities, including New
York and Los Angeles in the U.S.
These member cities monitor
their own openness and benefit
from the branding and marketing
tool of the OPENCities Kitemark.
Any interested individual can access
OPENCities Monitor to analyze
and compare member cities and to
find resources on openness and inte-
gration strategies.
OPENCities is in the process of
accepting new cities and is specifi-
cally looking for potential American
city participants.
Inclusion in the dataset is by
invitation only, but cities can receive
an invitation by e-mailing Carolina
Jimenez. Membership costs an aver-
age of 4,000 Euros annually, and the
organization plans to create a net-
work of over 100 cities worldwide.
Details: For more information on
the program, to use the OPENCities
Monitor, or to learn how to join,
visit http://opencities.britishcouncil.
org/web/ index.php?home_en. For
any additional questions or to enroll
in the program, contact Carolina
Jimenez at Carolina.jimenez@brit
ishcouncil.es.
NLC and the Public Technology Institute
are presenting the webinar “Technology
Forecast 2011: What Local Elected Leaders
Can Expect.” This webinar will take place on
Monday, February 28, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern
time and is geared to help elected leaders bet-
ter understand how effective technology man-
agement impacts citizen services and govern-
ment operations, and how current trends will
influence Information Technology depart-
ments in 2011.
This free, one-hour webinar will also high-
light “what’s in and what’s out” when it
comes to technology tools and devices used
at the local level. Presenters include Andy
Huckaba, councilmember, Lenexa, Kan.,
and chair of NLC’s Information Technology
and Communications Policy and Advocacy
Committee and Alan Shark, executive direc-
tor, Public Technology Institute.
To register for the webinar, please
visit NLC’s Infrastructure topics page
at http://www.nlc.org/topics/index.
aspx?SectionID=transportation_infrastruc
ture.