The 2008 League of California Cities Annual Conference and Exposition will be held Sept. 24-27 in Long Beach. Don’t miss this opportunity to network with your peers and learn how other cities are addressing some of today’s toughest issues.

Featuring the theme “Sailing Into the Future,” the conference offers sessions on a wide variety of topics of interest to elected city officials and staff. Program highlights in the area of finance include ways to succeed with public-private partnerships, using community facility district financing and an update on city finance issues. Housing session topics include what you should know about California housing laws, how cities are dealing with group homes and what local officials are doing about abandoned foreclosed homes. Transportation funding, infrastructure bond implementation and California’s water are some of the issues covered in the infrastructure and public works arena. Other topic areas include community services, environmental quality, disaster response planning, ethics, personnel, technology, public safety, youth and children, and much more. Join your colleagues to share ideas and learn about solutions — both immediate and long-term — that can help your city save money and increase efficiency.

Neal Petersen Presents “No Barriers — Only Solutions”

Neal Petersen is an award-winning author, solo racing yachtsman, founder of an investment bank and much more. In 1998, he raced solo 27,000 miles around the world in a 40-foot boat he built at home.

Petersen has faced many challenges in life — poverty, discrimination and other obstacles — and responded by looking for opportunities and solutions. Facing the unknown and conquering fear are central elements of how Petersen approaches his goals and his life. Learn how he balances risk with good judgment and how he faces the abyss.

At the Opening General Session on Sept. 24, Petersen will talk about the potential of living by goals, planning and preparation. In sharing his high-impact extraordinary adventure, he delivers a powerful message: “In life, there are no barriers — only solutions!”

Richard Florida Asks, “Who’s Your City?”

It’s a mantra of the age of globalization that where you live doesn’t matter — you can telecommute to your high-tech Silicon Valley job from a ski slope in Idaho, a beach in Hawaii or a loft in Chicago; you can innovate from Shanghai or Bangalore. But according to Richard Florida, this is wrong. Place is not only important, he claims, it’s more important than ever.

Florida is one of the world’s leading observers of economic competition, demographic trends and cultural innovation. In the past five years, Florida has written two national bestsellers, The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class. His new book, Who’s Your City?, examines the way that people choose where they live and how that affects everything in their lives.

Join Florida at the General Session, Thursday, Sept. 25, as he explains why “where” is more important than “who” or “what.”

Doris Kearns Goodwin Offers Lessons in Leadership

Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin won the Pulitzer Prize in history for her bestseller No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt — The Home Front in World War II. Her most recent book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, illuminates Lincoln’s acumen as the one-term Congress member and prairie lawyer who rose from obscurity to become president. Team of Rivals focuses on how Lincoln’s mastery of men shaped the most significant presidency in the nation’s history.

Goodwin provides informed and enthralling commentary on current events by offering a historical perspective. Don’t miss her keynote address, “Lessons in Leadership,” at the Closing General Session, Friday, Sept. 26.

This article appears in the September 2008 issue of Western City
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