Minutes 08/10/1943 - Laserfiche WebLink

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August 10th, 1943. held at the Hotel Roanoke, Roanoke, September 26th- 28th~ inclusive~ to the attention of your Councilmen and department heads at your earliest convenience. The meeting this year ~ll be in the nature of a war conference of delegates of ~he cities and towns. I am sure I e~oress the feeling of every municipal official in ~aying that the Executive Committee is endeavoring to adhere to the wishes of the Office of Defense Transportation in regard to the holding of essential meetings insofar as it is possible to do soo The O.D.T. on July 15th, renewed its request for the cancellation o f conventions. Immedi- ately thereafter, I asked a representative of our Washington Office of the American Municioal Association, the national federation of state leagues of municipalities, to contact Mr. East - man's office directly to secure information to ~uide us in making a decision as to whether our meeting should be held this year. I am glad to be able to report that our representative talked personally with Mr. Eastm~u himself. Mr. Eastman does not ~sh ~o pass officially on the es- sentiality of any proposed meeting~ naturally, but he has suggested some limitations for the holding of necessary meetings of delegates from the governmental units. He acknowledged that "undoubtedly these are some meetings of pdblic officials which are necessary mnder war ti~e conditions.~ The limitations call for the streamlining of the meetings~ elimination o f social functions, discontinuance of wives accompanying officials or deleg~tes~ attendance being held to the minimum of adequate representation of each municipality at the meeting, and meeting sites being selected in view of the comparative adequacy of transportation facilities. Propose~ plans for the forthcoming municipal conference of city end to~m officials seem to meet all of these limitations in general. The delegstes of individual communities naturally vary consi~er- s2oly, but the total number in attendance does not average much o vet one for each incorporated city end town in the State of Virginia~ and t~-ds would certainly not seem tone-excessive. It ~is obvious that the larger communities, especially, will n~ed several delegates to adequately represent their legislative s_nd executive bodies and the various d eoartments and bureaus. I ~m glad to bring t~ suggested limitation~ listed above to your at- tention and express the hope that every city and town in Virginia may be adequately represented at the forthcoming meeting. It is the opinion of ~he secretary and executive committee of the League~that t~s meeting of city ~ud tov~ officials is essential and that the work which you are doing is sufficiently important that c~ucellation of the meeting would do more-harm than good, and particularly so under conditions which prevail in the B~oanoke section. Plans for the meeting embrace not only ~he adootion o v an important !e~-~ mslati~e program, but ~oort~ut representation from the ~ar Production $oa~d and the practical consideration of p~£olic works progra~us and post-war planning, as well as Current Droblem~ of defense Mud of municipal finance. No municipality should fail to be represented at t~his stream- !ined~ brief, war conference~ If the dates for the meeting should conflict with your scheduled coun- cil meeting, will you please arrange to change the ~ate of your council meeting for ~his one week? Please arrange also for your munlci~ality to be represented at the Po - libe, Building and Weights & Measures meetings in Poanoke, the week of the League Conference. ~ith best wishes~ I Very sincerely yours, Harold Io Baumes, ExeCutive Secretary." On motion adjourned. Approved~ ~ President~ City Clerk.