I just attended 3 days of Training and Discussion Sessions sponsored by The Association of Towns at The NY Hilton in NYC. It was most informative and thought provoking. There were over 100 possible sessions during Monday and Tuesday that one could attend.

The most interesting, for me anyway, was the one given by The Department of State and Ben Syden of the LaBerge Group along with Steve Neuhaus, Supervisor, Town of Chester (Orange County.) It dealt with Shared Services: Does it make Cents or Sense? My big "takeaway" was that you need to involve all the stakeholders very early in the process for it to have a chance of being accepted and successful. I'll be discussing the matter further with my fellow Council people and hopefully have more to report. It seems to me, the more we can learn from the experiences of others, the better and more effective a job we can do for our constituents. We all want, and need, to do more with less and this area, I think, potentially has fruits to bear.

I also attended sessions on how The Town might lower Health Care Costs and how we might utilize Worker Safety Training Programs to help lower Workmen's Compensation expenses.

There was an excellent, lively presentation given by Robert Freeman, the executive Director of The Committee on Open Government which discussed the requirements and ramifications of The Freedom of Information and Open Meetings Law. Several topics were raised by the audience and opinions offered by Mr. Freeman.

A very informative presentation was made on The Proposed Tax Caps and their possible impacts on Local Governments. Proposed modifications to pending legislation in Albany were explained along with predictions of dire consequences, for Town Budgets, should there be no relief, or exemptions granted, from the mandates imposed on Towns by The State and Federal Governments.

Several hundred elected and appointed Town representatives were in attendance and those of us that had been selected by our Towns to be "official delegates," voted this morning (Wed. Feb. 23, 2011) on The Associations legislative agenda for 2011.

I felt it was time well spent. I would hope that next year some of my fellow Town Board members might be able to attend as well. I made some good contacts and obtained offers from some of the presenters to come to one of our "Work Sessions" or televised Town Board Meetings to share their thoughts with our Board or, in some cases, with our "public."

Ernie