Rescheduling of CityVision
As most of you know, the League of Municipalities made the difficult decision to postpone our annual conference, CityVision 2018, scheduled for Sept. 19-21 in Hickory, in the days just before Hurricane Florence struck a devastating blow in southeastern North Carolina. The decision turned out to be the correct one, as we now know that the damage to roughly a quarter of the state made focus on storm response and recovery a much more important priority for both those members affected by the storm and our membership collectively.
At the same time, we believe CityVision is critically important in our larger mission to connect you, the League membership, with one another and with ideas that strengthen and make all of towns and cities better places to live for all residents. With that in mind, the League has decided to reschedule and hold our upcoming annual conference May 14-16, 2019 in Hickory. Moving forward, we are committed to holding future annual conferences in this same late April/early May timeframe, permanently shifting the time of year that CityVision is held.
These decisions reached by the Executive Committee of the NCLM Board of Directors accomplish a number of aims. One, they ensure that the conference can be held in Hickory, honoring the work that that city's staff had already put into CityVision 2018 and the expectation that the event would be held in a great city with a long history of contributions to North Carolina's economy and a current-day focus of reinvention. Two, we hope that this schedule allows more time for League member cities and towns, to the degree possible, to recover from the tremendous storm and flooding damaging, giving more municipal officials a better opportunity to attend. Three, we believe by moving CityVision to this time of year moving forward that we will be less prone to disruption by tropical storms in the future and that we create a better path to hold conference in more locations in the eastern part of the state, hopefully as early as 2020.
Also know that the previously scheduled Advocacy Goals Conference slated for November 29, 2018 in Raleigh will continue forward, and be expanded to provide greater value and support for cities and towns as they deal with ongoing storm-related issues.
We look forward to a great CityVision 2019, and are very thankful that logistics allowed us to reschedule in Hickory. We hope you can and will attend. Thank you for your understanding regarding these changes. And finally, for those affected by Hurricane Florence and still dealing with its aftermath, please know that we are here for you, and please be safe.
