Did you know – Counties invest $600bn in our communities and employ 3.6m public servants (1 of every 50 American workers)? Counties allocated $65.1bn as part of ARPA funding to bolster our local health programs? Almost one-third of all counties operate under home rule. NACo helps to compile and compare statistics from all counties to help us understand the differences across our nation?
Last month, I attended the annual National Association of Counties (NACo) Conference in Denver. This was the first time I was back in-person at NACo since 2019, and it was a great opportunity to reconnect with elected county officials from across our nation, representing counties large and small, rural and urban, liberal and conservative. I hold two positions at NACo that led to a very fruitful and engaging conference experience: the Resilient Counties Advisory Board, on which I have sat for four years, and the Environment, Energy and Land Use Steering Committee, in which I have participated for six years. As usual, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can bring back what I’ve learned to Sonoma County. I posted on Facebook about one of our panel discussions, and a responder made a cynical comment asking why I was participating in this – and the comment caused me to ponder the benefit for our County in participating in national or state conferences.
What is NACo? – The National Association of Counties (NACo) serves nearly 40,000 county elected officials. Founded in 1935, NACo unites county officials to advocate county priorities in federal policymaking, promote exemplary county policies and practices, nurture leadership skills and expand knowledge networks, optimize county and taxpayer resources and cost savings, and enrich the public’s understanding of county government. In simpler language, County Supervisors and commissioners come together twice a year physically and monthly by zoom or conference calls to help us understand legislation moving forward in 10 policy steering committees and learn about funding and programs offered to counties.
Just as importantly, we share information on what other counties are doing to move toward resiliency and recovery after disasters, prepare for a future of renewable energy, protect natural resources, provide services on mental health, substance abuse, celebrate arts, and plan bicycle/walking trails and so much more – all policy areas important to Sonoma County.
As an example, a provocative panel discussion started the EELU Committee off the first morning of the 4-day conference – “Innovation in Energy Policy”, with 4 speakers from the Colorado Energy Office, Executive Director of ICLEI, Director of Xcel Energy and Director of the Energy Institute at Colorado State University – each sharing the latest on research, scalable solutions, opportunities for collaboration, carbon capture, decarbonization, electric vehicle programs, hydrogen hubs and strategies driving down emissions from agriculture. With this discussion, I was able to feel more hopeful about our climate future as these different perspectives are increasingly coming together to provide leadership and direction for all of us.
But elected commissioners and supervisors provided a counterpoint in the afternoon by narrowly approving resolutions advocating opening more land in the west and oceans for oil/gas leasing – a subset of the debates happening in our state legislatures and federal congress. But we are making progress – at least the concept of climate change is accepted, and we are working together on advocacy for resources for planning and adaptation – a marked change from 4 years ago. Megafires, hurricanes, drought are affecting all of our counties across the nation and help us to come together.
That is from just one of the policy committees; others include Agriculture, Justice and Public Safety, Transportation, Public Lands, Transportation, Human Services, Economic and Workforce Development, Veterans Affairs, Health Policy…and more.
Workshops on Proactive Leadership in Crisis, Community and Land Use Planning to Building Wildfire Resilient Counties, Practical Policy Solutions to Promote Affordable Housing and many others peppered throughout the conference inspired me and provided me with nuts-and-bolts information for policy direction in our County. That is the benefit of attending this and other conferences throughout the year – bringing home great ideas to help us work together for the future.
The final day of the conference brought excitement for Sonoma County and the California delegation with the political convention-like atmosphere of electing the 2nd Vice President of NACo – with candidate speeches from the three candidates, flyers, posters, give-aways and vote reportouts from each state. With 71% of the vote, Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore was elected handily. This means that in three years, he will assume the position of NACo President – and with that comes knowledge, responsibility and influence on government policy direction and advocacy for Sonoma County, California, and county-services and perspectives. Congratulations James – we know your efforts are important and will elevate our concerns about climate, megafires, recovery, health and human services, criminal justice – we will depend on you to carry our messages forward. Many of you remember that former 1st District Supervisor Valerie Brown also was elected NACo President over a decade ago, and served us well.
More information on counties and NACo can be found at the link below.
