Official Publication of the National League of Cities OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES
NATION’S CITIES WEEKLY
Volume 35, Number 5 | February 6, 2012
IN THIS ISSUE
www.nlc.org
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Leadership Training Institute Announces
Seminar on Economic Development
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NLC’s City Showcase Programs Set a
High Bar for Economic Development
PAGE 5
A Local Perspective: For Mayors, It Is
About Integration… Not Immigration
Wallace Foundation Partners with NLC and Nine Cities in
$7.8 Million Initiative to Strengthen City Afterschool Systems
by Michael Karpman
Continuing its nearly decade-
long effort to help cities expand
access to high-quality after-
school programs, The Wallace
Foundation has announced that
it will award up to $7.8 million
in grants to nine cities as part of
a four-year initiative to improve
local citywide afterschool sys-
tems that serve children and
youth. The cities and grantee
agencies include:
• Baltimore: Family
League of Baltimore City
• Denver: Mayor’s
Office for Education and Youth
• Fort Worth, Texas: Fort
Worth Parks and Community
Services Department
• Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Our Community’s Children
• Jacksonville, Fla.:
Jacksonville Children’s
Commission
• Louisville, Ky.: Metro
United Way
• Nashville, Tenn.:
Middle Tennessee Community
Foundation
• Philadelphia: The
Fund for Philadelphia
• St. Paul, Minn.: St.
Paul Parks and Recreation
Department
Each city will receive a
grant of up to $765,000 over
four years to strengthen exist-
by Leslie Wollack week. The Senate is expected to act quickly on its
own bill, which is vastly different from the House
version. Watch www.nlc.org and Nation’s Cities
Weekly for further details on the bills.
As Nation’s Cities Weekly went to press,
the House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee passed H.R. 7, a five-year $260
billion surface transportation program. The bill
includes funding for federal transit, highways,
bridges and rail programs.
This bill would replace the program that
expired in September 2009. The current exten-
sion expires on March 31 and Congressional
leaders hope to avoid another short-term exten-
sion.
The full House will consider the bill this
ing systems for coordinating
local afterschool opportunities
offered by city agencies, schools
and nonprofit organizations. In
addition, the foundation will
provide a $1 million grant to
NLC’s Institute for Youth,
Education and Families (YEF)
to help coordinate the initiative
and serve as a resource to the
participating cities.
see page 6, column 1
Local Governments Tell Congress No
To Proposed Ban on Taxes
by Lars Etzkorn
Newspaper Handling
This week, NLC testified before
the House Judiciary Subcommittee on
Courts, Commercial and Administrative
Law in opposition to legislation pre-
empting local authority over rental car
taxes. Specifically, the bill prohibits cit-
ies and states from imposing taxes on
rental cars at a rate higher than they tax
other businesses, what proponents call
“discriminatory taxes.”
Cities and states “maintain that any
industry’s plea for federally mandated
tax favoritism opens the door to other
industries asking Congress for similar
special exemptions or protections from
state and local taxing authority,” said
Ray Warren, deputy commissioner,
Office of the Commissioner of Revenue,
Arlington County, Va., who testified on
behalf of NLC, the National Association
of Counties, the U.S. Conference of
Mayors and the Government Finance
Officers Association. “Legislation of this
kind poses a dire threat not merely to
state and local tax revenues, but to the
entire existence of independent state and
local taxation authority in our system of
federalism.
