AB 1234 now requires local public officials to make a written or oral report of conferences attended at public expense. Although I only have to make this report at a City Council meeting, this recent event was so good that I wanted to share it with everyone.

 

From February 7 through 10, I attended the 2007 National Summit on Building Healthy Places and the 2007 New Partners for Smart Growth Conference in Los Angeles. Click Here

For a more detailed report that includes hyperlinks to a lot of useful resources.

 

2007 National Summit on Building Healthy Places

 

On February 7, 2007, I was one of only two city council members nationwide on the panel of the 2007 National Summit on Building Healthy Places, sponsored by the American Planning Association, National Association of County and City Health Officials, Local Government Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, American Public Health Association, Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kaiser Permanente, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Lewis Operating Corporation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

 

The purpose was to create a joint national public health and planning action agenda that will create health promoting policies and practices at the local and regional level. The evidence continues to grow that development and land use planning decisions have a significant effect on public health, particularly on risk of asthma, diabetes and childhood obesity.

 

Some of the 48 Summit participants, who mostly represented public health, environmental and planning officials at the highest levels, included Valerie Rogers, MPH, Program Manager, National Association of County and City Health Officials, Geoffrey Anderson, Director, Development & Community Environment Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Howard Frumpkin, MD, Director, National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mark Horton, MD, California State Public Health Officer and Lisa Feldstein, JD, Senior Policy Director, Public Health Institute.

 

Why is this important for Richmond? Residents of Richmond suffer from abnormally high incidence of all three lifestyle-related and location-related diseases -- asthma, diabetes and childhood obesity. Decisions made in years past by the City Council, Planning Commission and Design Review Board have literally made us sick, and future decisions have the power o make us well.

 

Through a grant from the California Endowment, a Health Element has been added to the ongoing Richmond General Plan Update, and we will have an opportunity to incorporate planning regulations into our new General Plan that will result in a healthier community.

 

New Partners for Smart Growth Conference

The New Partners for Smart Growth Conference has grown significantly since it began several years ago — increasing in scope, attendance, and prestige — and is now considered to be the "premier" smart growth conference held each year. The strength of this conference comes from the variety of participants and speakers who cross disciplines to share experiences and insights, and valuable tools and strategies to encourage smart growth implementation and "get it done."

Until this year, the New Partners for Smart Growth Conference had been a partnership of the Local Government Commission (LGC) and Penn State University. This year, the LGC had an opportunity to go it alone, and the result was the largest conference ever with over 1,500 attendees.

All the members of the Richmond City Council are members of the Local Government Commission, and I serve as vice-chair of the board of directors.

The 2007 New Partners for Smart Growth Conference began on February 8 with a record-breaking attendance of more than 1,500 people, mostly involved in some aspect of local government, planning, transportation and public health. Jim Rogers and I attended from the Richmond City Council are. Also from Richmond or nearby were Barbara Becnel, Director of North Richmond Neighborhood House, Nancy Bair, Program Manager, Contra Costa County Health Department, Bruce Brubaker, local architect with the Berkeley firm of Design, Community & Environment, Janet Abelson, Vice-mayor of El Cerrito, Melanie Mintz, Project Manager, El Cerrito Public Works department and John Troughton of Cushman & Wakefield.

 

The conference was intensive, going on twelve hours a day for three days.