Official Publication of the National League of Cities OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES
NATION’S CITIES WEEKLY
Volume 34, Number 10 | march 14, 2011

IN THIS ISSUE
www.nlc.org
PAGE 3

PAGE 3
City of Camden Standing Up and
Moving Forward
PAGE 4
NBC-LEO Foundation Fellows Program
Accepting Applications
PAGE 4
NLC, Partner Organizations to Sponsor
Freight and Passenger Rail Conference

Congressional City Conference to Focus on NLC’s
Agenda for Economic Growth

by Cyndy Liedtke Hogan
Erskine Bowles, who recent-
ly served as co-chair of the
National Commission on Fiscal
Responsibility and Reform, a
bipartisan group charged with
identifying policies to improve
the nation’s fiscal situation, will
be among the general session
speakers for the Congressional
City Conference taking place
this week in Washington, D.C.

Erskine Bowles
was appointed by President
Obama to co-chair America’s
debt reduction commission,
Bowles is at the center of the
national dialogue on what must
be done to address America’s
deficit crisis.
He will discuss what leaders
on both sides of the aisle must
do to bring America’s spend-
ing and deficit problems under
control before the consequences
become dire for generations to
come.
Early in his career, Bowles
worked for Morgan Stanley
and founded his own finan-
cial investment company
before joining the Clinton
Administration to run the Small
Business Administration and
eventually become President
Clinton’s chief of staff. As chief
of staff, he was a pivotal nego-
tiator in getting America’s first
balanced budget in decades.
As president of the University
of North Carolina system from
2005 to 2010, Bowles was a
leader who himself had to face
down budget woes as head of a
system that depended on a state
in a fiscal crisis for much of its
funding,
As a Democratic opera-
tive and candidate for office,
2011
Bowles also trains his eye on
the American political land-
scape and will provide his can-
did views on the current issues
making their way through
Washington.
Sessions at the Congressional
City Conference will focus on
NLC’s Agenda for Economic
Growth, which calls on
Congress and the adminis-
tration to: continue to take
action to create jobs; protect
level funding ($4 billion) for
the Community Development
Block Grant (CDBG) program
in the fiscal year 2012 budget;
authorize a new federal surface
transportation program; and
enact comprehensive immigra-
tion reform.
Protecting the CDBG pro-
gram, which is being consid-
ered for cuts for both fiscal
year 2012 and the remainder of
2011, is a major theme for the
conference.

CDBG WORKS
CDBG Funds Support Arvada’s Economy

by Kalisha Davis and Stephanie Spirer

Newspaper Handling

Arvada, Colo., is a suburb of Denver
located between the state capital and
the city of Boulder. Once considered
a “bedroom community,” the budding
city has a population of more than
100,000. Local industries, including
construction, manufacturing, and retail,
support the community’s job market.
However, like many cities and towns
today, Arvada has limited resources.
“Our fiscal budget is heavily depen-
dent on sales tax revenue and with eco-
nomic conditions such as they are, there
is less revenue available,” explained Ed
see page 7, column 1
The Creekside Project in Arvada, Colo., used CDBG funds to modernize three deficient, deterio-
rated and hazardous pedestrian crossings over a body of water known as Ralston Creek.