Community Corner

Commissioners Weik, Lehrke Attend 'Why Counties Matter' Conference

Press release:

Washington County Board Chair Lisa Weik and Vice Chair Autumn Lehrke recently joined 2,300 fellow county officials from across the country during the 2013 NACo Annual Conference: County Solutions and Idea Marketplace in Tarrant County/Fort Worth, Texas to establish national policies affecting counties and work collaboratively to find and share innovative solutions to challenges facing American communities.  The theme of this year’s annual conference was Why Counties Matter.

 

NACo’s Annual Conference is the most important gathering of county officials of the year.  Decisions made during the conference allow counties to speak with a strong, clear and unified voice to the Administration, Congress and the American people on issues ranging from transportation and water infrastructure, health care and court and jail systems.  In addition, delegates in attendance elected and installed its 2013-14 association officers to lead NACo and heard from prominent national speakers.

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The commissioners said they enjoy attending the educational workshops and both serve on NACo committees.  Lehrke is very passionate about the work she is doing for veterans at NACo. “One of the big issues facing our veterans is unemployment and credentials,” Lehrke said. “A service member will have saved lives while in service, but when they return from deployment, they are not even acknowledged as EMTs. This next year, the committee’s focus will be to address this issue so that our service members can get credit for the skills they have obtained while serving our great country.”

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“As a border county, Washington County has greater economic development challenges and can learn much from other county officials who’ve developed best practices in their home states,” Weik said.  “And as NACo proceeds through a transitional phase, I’ll continue to monitor whether benefits to citizens exceed the increasing costs of belonging to this national non-partisan organization.”

 

 

A major issue of discussion at the conference was NACo’s efforts to protect the tax-exempt status of municipal bonds.  NACo recently released important new research on the risky impact of changes to the tax-exempt status of municipal bonds on counties and their residents.  Municipal bonds enable state and local governments to build essential infrastructure projects, such as schools, hospitals and roads.

 

NACo President Chris Rodgers, commissioner, Douglas County, Neb., thanked all the NACo members who participated in the annual conference in helping to shape the policies and federal funding priorities that will guide NACo over the next 12 months.  Policy resolutions adopted at the conference will be posted soon at www.naco.org.

 

NACo membership elected and installed its 2013-14 officers: President: Linda Langston, Supervisor, Linn County, Iowa; First Vice President: G. Riki Hokama, council member, Maui County, Hawaii; Second Vice President: Sallie Clark, commissioner, El Paso County, Colo, and Immediate Past President: Chris Rodgers, Commissioner, Douglas County, Neb.




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