Director’s Notes

Boy, I hope you are all planning to come to the Annual Conference in October – together with the City of Sioux Falls, we have put together a fantastic range of programs and opportunities for you. This year’s Annual Conference is going to offer an incredible range of quality and depth, and once again, the best speakers have been recommended by our members.

Several of our members told us about our keynote speaker on Thursday afternoon (October 5). At our first general session, “How to Steal $53 Million from a Small City, ” David Hancox is going to explore the largest municipal fraud in history, showing you how the fraud wascommittedandtheactualdocumentsusedtocommit the fraud. He will explain why it wasn’t detected for 22 years, how documents can be altered, what municipal officials need to do to minimize the possibility of fraud occurring, along with ideas on how to detect fraud.

We are very pleased to offer a new option for the laterafternoon general sessions on Thursday – Mobile Workshops. You can choose your topics by reviewing the tentative agenda on pages 33-36 and please be sure to PRE-REGISTER to participate in these. It is really exciting to give you this kind of option, so please take advantage of this unique chance to see behind the scenes! Friday morning finds us doing what we all do now –keep up with technology. Data Security on a Budget leads off, followed by an extremely impressive panel of experts discussing the challenges and opportunities of small cell technology. Small cell technology is going to give your municipality many advantages, but like most things,requirescooperationandcoordinationatthelocal level.

Great information is also going to be available throughout Wednesday and Thursday morning as all of the affiliate groups meet, and on Wednesday morning, make sure you keep up with your Pools – you own them, and these are your membership meetings.

If you are able to get away early, any member should feel free to sit in on the SDMLBoard Meeting, Tuesday, October 3 at 7:00 p.m.

And don’t forget the lighter side! Starting with the golf tournament Tuesday afternoon, to a really great Wednesday night experience Sioux Falls is lining up, to the Thursday evening comedian and dinner, and wrapping up with some terrific door prizes at Friday ’s Annual Business Meeting.

There is something for everyone at this year’s conference, and we are so looking forward to seeing you all there!

Until next month, remember we are always available at 1-800-658-3633 or yvonne@sdmunicipalleague.org

Yvonne Taylor Executive Director