Winter 2013 Policy Meeting

Vicki Arroyo is Executive Director of the Georgetown Climate Center of Georgetown Law where she is also a Visiting Professor, teaching experiential classes on climate change law and policy. She oversees the Center’s work on climate change mitigation and adaptation at the state and federal level. She previously served at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, most recently as Vice President for Policy Analysis and General Counsel.  For over a decade, she directed Pew’s policy analysis, science, adaptation, economics, and U.S. policy programs. She has worked at all levels of government and in the private sector on environmental issues, including serving in two offices of EPA (Office of Air and Radiation and Office of Research and Development) and as Policy Director for Louisiana’s Department of Environmental Quality and Environmental Advisor to Gov. Roemer.  She has also practiced environmental law at leading firms. She currently serves on the Executive Committee of the national Transportation Research Board, on the Board of Trustees for the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, and on National Science Foundation’s Advisory Board.

Robert Weissbourd manages RW Ventures, LLC, an economic development firm specializing in technical analysis of urban assets and markets, and in creating the information, products and enterprises necessary to successfully grow urban and regional economies. Mr. Weissbourd was a lead developer of MetroEdge, the Center for Financial Services Innovation, the Urban Markets Initiative and the Metropolitan Business Planning Initiative, which he co-manages with the Brookings Institution. Mr. Weissbourd previously served for ten years in executive positions at Shorebank Corporation, designing, delivering and managing comprehensive development finance initiatives to invest in distressed communities. Before Shorebank, Mr. Weissbourd spent a decade leading complex civil rights and other constitutional litigation, and representing community and other non-profit groups and leaders.  Mr. Weissbourd brings over thirty years of experience leading economic development work in dozens of cities and scores of neighborhoods.

Mr. Weissbourd is a nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Center, and served as Chair of the Obama Campaign Urban Policy Committee, on the Obama Transition HUD Agency Review Team, and as President or Vice-President of the Boards of City Colleges of Chicago, Crossroads Fund, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, BPI and PROCAN, as well as on the Visiting Committee of the University of Chicago Law School. Mr. Weissbourd is a frequent author, public speaker and guest lecturer on a broad range of urban markets, housing, business and economic development issues, and has testified on these issues before federal, state and local legislatures.

 

Kathleen Lee, Vice President of Research and Strategy for the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, supports the organization’s strategic initiatives, business development activities and regional competiveness through research and analysis in economic development policy, tax policy, fiscal analysis, competitive analysis, industrial cluster development and evaluation of new market opportunities. During her time at Greater Phoenix Economic Council, Lee has driven research efforts that have resulted in the successful passage of economic development policies, including the Arizona Renewable Energy Incentive Program in 2009.

Lee’s experience has also led to advancements in collaborative community planning. In 2009, she implemented GPEC’s Community Partnership Program, which established strategic planning sessions hosted by community leaders and the region’s economic development professionals. Lee’s contributions also include GPEC’s Convening the Community, a series that engaged business and political leaders in an effort to promote the region’s competitiveness.

Prior to joining GPEC, Lee served as vice president of research at the PMR Group, a Los Angeles-based consulting firm. Her work there resulted in state and federal grants to assess the technological impact on California’s industries and analyses of labor market dynamics. Lee has also worked overseas at a think-tank in Seoul, Korea. As a research fellow, she conducted industrial planning in the Philippines.

Lee attended UCLA’s Urban Planning Program where she completed doctoral coursework focusing on regional specialization. She has earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Lee has also taught undergraduate courses at Arizona State University.

Lee currently resides in Tempe with her husband who is a member of the faculty in the College of Geographic Sciences and Urban Planning at ASU.

Cecile Bedor has served as the City of Saint Paul’s Director of Planning and Economic Development since June of 2006. She also serves as the Executive Director of the City’s Housing & Redevelopment Authority. She is responsible for all planning functions in the city, and implementing and administering the City’s participation in housing development, economic development, small business lending, home rehabilitation lending, mortgage foreclosure prevention programs, emergency shelter grant programs, and the Neighborhood and Cultural Sales Tax loan and grant programs; she also oversees a $100 million Parking and Transit program.

Prior to joining the City, Ms. Bedor was the Director of Partnerships and Development for the Minneapolis Public Library, overseeing the system’s marketing and communications; community library capital projects; and community partnerships. Ms. Bedor has also held various leadership positions related to the development of affordable housing, working with the National Equity Fund, the Metropolitan Council, the regional governmental agency and metropolitan planning organization for the Twin Cities, and Aeon Homes, one of the largest developers of affordable housing in the region.

Ms. Bedor earned her BA from the University of Minnesota, with majors in Economics and English.  She currently co-chairs the Minnesota Foreclosure Partners Council, and serves on various boards including the Family Housing Fund (a philanthropic organization) and Hope Community (a local CDC). Ms. Bedor lives in south Minneapolis with her two teenage children.

Toni L. Griffin was recently named Professor and Director of the J. Max Bond Center for Architecture at the Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York and maintains an active private practice, Urban Planning and Design for the American City, whose current clients include the cities of Newark, New Jersey and Detroit, Michigan.

Prior to returning to private practice, Toni was the Director of Community Development for the City of Newark, where she was responsible for creating a centralized division of planning and urban design.  Between 2000-2006, Ms. Griffin served as Vice President and Director of Design for the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation in Washington, DC, and held the position of Deputy Director for Revitalization Planning and Neighborhood Planning in the DC Office of Planning.

Prior to locating in Washington, DC, Ms. Griffin served as Vice President for Planning & Tourism Development for the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation in New York City. She began her career as an architect with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP in Chicago, where she became an Associate Partner involved in architecture and urban design projects.

Ms. Griffin received a Bachelors of Architecture from the University of Notre Dame and a Loeb Fellowship from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Dr. Mildred E. Warner is a Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University where her work focuses primarily on local government service delivery, economic development and planning across generations. Dr. Warner’s research explores the impact of privatization and devolution on local government and the role of human services as part of the social infrastructure for economic development. Her work shows potential for market based solutions in public service delivery but also raises cautions about the uneven incidence of market approaches in depressed inner city and rural areas. Her work on planning across generations explores new community development models for addressing human services and linking the needs of children and elders.

Dr. Warner has a strong extension orientation and consults widely with local government and union leaders on local government reform, and with child care policy makers and business leaders on economic development strategies to support social infrastructure. She is a Research Affiliated Scholar with the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and a Research Associate with the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC where she spent her sabbatical in 2005. Prior to her professorship at Cornell, she served as a program officer with the Ford Foundation in NYC and as Associate Director of Cornell’s Community and Rural Development Institute.

Dr. Warner has a Ph.D. in Development Sociology, a Masters in Agricultural Economics from Cornell University and a BA in History from Oberlin College.

Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone, first elected in November of 2003, began his fifth term as Mayor of Somerville on January 2, 2012. He had previously served for eight years as an Alderman at Large. He earned his B.A. from Boston College in 1990, and a J.D. from New England School of Law in 1994. Prior to his election as mayor, he had served as an attorney in private practice.

As Mayor, he has successfully implemented a wide range of reforms and new programs that have earned Somerville many distinctions by regional and national organizations, including the designation by Boston Globe Magazine as “the best-run city in Massachusetts,” by America’s Promise Alliance as one of the “100 Best Communities for Youth,” and a winner of the 2009 “All America City” competition.

Mayor Curtatone established a policy advisory commission to develop a comprehensive reform agenda for the Somerville Police. He created Neighborhood Impact Teams that combine fire, health and building inspectors – along with representatives of the Council on Aging and the city’s environmental office – in a coordinated effort to monitor and improve the health, safety and appearance of Somerville’s businesses and residential neighborhoods. After inheriting a government in fiscal crisis, he has stabilized city finances and begun a restoration of lost city services and personnel cuts that occurred before he took office – and he led a successful effort to end years of delay in the development of Assembly Square as a transit-oriented, mixed use, Smart Growth project on the banks of the Mystic River.

In 2006, Somerville became the first city in America to offer both a 311 constituent service center and Connect CTY mass notification technology. By calling 311 from any phone in the city, Somerville residents and businesses can now access information and services from any city department and can track progress on service requests through a publicly accessible work-order system. Under his leadership, Somerville has also earned national recognition for its successful joint effort with Tufts University to implement “Shape Up Somerville,” an effective program to reduce the incidence of childhood obesity among the city’s elementary school children. He serves as the President of the Massachusetts Mayor’s Association, a position on the Board of Directors for the National League of Cities, and as a member of the Metropolitan Mayors Association.

Laura Keyes, a certified-AICP Planner, works for the Atlanta Regional Commission in the fields of transportation, housing and aging. She manages Community Development for ARC’s Lifelong Communities Initiative. She holds a BS from the University of Michigan, a MS from Michigan State University and a Certificate in Aging through the Institute for Geriatric Social Work from the Boston University School of Social Work. She is a graduate of both the Regional Leadership Institute’s Class of 2010 and Leadership DeKalb’s Class of 2012 and is the current President for the Georgia Planning Association. She recently published her work on Lifelong Communities in Atlanta in the Journal of Physical and Occupational Therapy in Geriatrics.

Story Bellows joined the City of Philadelphia in April of 2012 as Co-Director of the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics. The new office is a civic idea and innovation incubator, which develops innovative approaches and processes to solving complex problems in the public arena. Prior to coming to Philadelphia, Story served as Director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, a leadership initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the American Architectural Foundation and the US Conference of Mayors. An urban designer by training, Story spent four years in a private design practice Chicago, where she founded a research group and worked with leaders in the public, private and non-profit sectors on urban, education, healthcare and environmental design projects and initiatives. She holds an undergraduate degree from Colgate University and a Masters degree in City Design and Social Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Mayor Vincent C. Gray was sworn in as the sixth elected Mayor of the District of Columbia on January 2, 2011. A native Washingtonian, Mayor Gray has advocated for the residents of the District for more than 30 years. His disciplined approach to public service was born from humble beginnings. He grew up in a one-bedroom apartment at 6th and L Streets, NE. Despite being scouted by two Major League Baseball teams, the Mayor chose to continue his education, studying psychology at The George Washington University at both the undergraduate and graduate school levels. While at George Washington, he became the first African-American admitted in the GW fraternity system, and in his junior and senior years, became the first person to serve consecutive terms as Chancellor of Tau Epsilon Phi.

Vincent C. Gray began his professional career with The Arc of DC (then known as the Association of Retarded Citizens). In 1991, then-Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly appointed Gray to the post of Director of the Department of Human Services. In December 1994, he was named the first Executive Director of Covenant House Washington, an international, faith-based organization dedicated to serving homeless and at-risk youth. During his decade at the helm of Covenant House, Mayor Gray led successful campaigns to purchase and renovate a crisis center for homeless youth and a multi-purpose center and to build a new community service center in the far southeast community of the District of Columbia.

Mayor Gray’s dedication to his community and the residents of Ward 7 inspired a successful campaign for elected office in 2004. During his first term as Councilmember from Ward 7, he chaired a Special Committee on the Prevention of Youth Violence, and created the Effi Barry HIV/AIDS initiative. Two years after joining the Council, Gray ran for the citywide office of Chairman of the Council. He won the general election with 98 percent of the vote. As Chairman, Gray was a leader in efforts to improve the Council’s operations, transparency and oversight capacity, and was a true champion for school reform. He spearheaded the Pre-K Expansion and Enhancement Act, which established a voluntary, high-quality pre-school program to provide 2,000 new classroom slots for three-and four-year-olds over six years. The Mayor’s diligence resulted in that goal being met in September of 2010, well before the 2014 target.

Mayor Bill Bell stepped into Durham politics approximately 40 years ago with the goal of maximizing Durham’s economy, education and other resources, believing that government best serves citizens by partnering with them and the private sector. Bell a retired IBM Senior Engineer (1996), served as an elected Durham County Commissioner for 26 years (1972 – 1994; 1996 – 2000) and Chairman of the Durham Board of County Commissioners for12 years (1982 – 1994). As Chairman of the Durham County Board of Commissioners he was recognized as the architect of the 1992 merger of the then “Durham City Schools System” and the then “Durham County School System” into the now “Durham Public School System” (DPS). He was elected Mayor of Durham, NC in 2001 and continues to serve as the Mayor of Durham, NC. He is Chairman of the NC Metropolitan Mayors Coalition an organization of the 27 largest cities in NC with populations of more than 30,000. He has over the years served on numerous local, state and national boards and committees. He continues to serve on many committees and boards, such as the Triangle Transit Authority (TTA); NC Film Commission; M&F Bank Durham Advisory Board; US Conference of Mayors; National Conference of Black Mayors, and over the has years been the recipient of many awards and honors.

Born in Washington, DC, Bell attended the public schools in Winston-Salem, NC graduating from Atkins High School in 1957 prior to the integration of Atkins High School. He received his B.S./Electrical Engineering from Howard University in Washington, DC in 1961 and his M.S./Electrical Engineering from New York University in New York, NY in 1968. He served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps as a 1st Lieutenant from 1961 to 1963. He has worked as an Electrical Engineer in both the private and public sectors respectively at Martin Marietta Corporation, Orlando Florida, the U.S. Research and Development Laboratory Ft. Monmouth, NJ and the IBM Corporation, Research Triangle Park, NC where he retired in 1996.

He presently is the Executive Vice-President/Chief Operating Officer of UDI/Community Development Corporation, a 501(c3) Non-Profit Corporation here in Durham, NC. He is married to Judith Chatters Bell and they are the parents of 4 children and grandparents of 3 grandchildren.

Mayor Sly James, a former Marine MP, a small business owner, and a community leader, was elected mayor of Kansas City on March 22, 2011. Sly attended Bishop Hogan High School in Kansas City and graduated in 1969. While there, Sly was the president of his junior class. He also developed a great passion for music and was the lead singer in the Amelia Earhart Memorial Flying Band.

In 1971 he left the band and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps during the Vietnam War where he served as a military police officer for four years in California, the Philippines, and Japan and received an honorable discharge in 1975. When his service ended, Sly returned home to Kansas City and graduated cum laude from Rockhurst College before earning his law degree, also cum laude, from the University of Minnesota in 1983.

He joined Blackwell, Sanders, Matheny, Weary & Lombardi in 1983, and became the first African-American partner in the firm’s history in 1990. In February, 2002, Sly started his own successful small business, The Sly James Firm, where he works with victims to seek justice and positive outcomes to disputes.

In 1992, the Missouri Supreme Court appointed Sly to the Missouri Board of Law Examiners. He was president of the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association (KCMBA) in 2003, director of the Kansas City Bar Foundation, and vice president of the Public Interest Litigation Clinic. In 2003, while president of the KCMBA, Sly established the Diversity Initiative with 26 managing partners of the largest law firms in the city. He was appointed to the board of directors of the Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City, Missouri, and to the board of the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority (LCRA) by former Mayor Kay Barnes. He was also appointed to the boards of the Enhanced Enterprise Zones of Kansas City and the Jackson County Ethics Commission. He served as one of two co-chairs of the Save Our Stadiums committee, a successful tax initiative to refurbish the Truman Sports Complex in Kansas City in 2006.

Sly has been a member and Board Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the Eye Foundation of Kansas City, Inc.; a member of the Board of The United Way; a member of the Executive Board of the Committee for County Progress; a member of the Steering Committee of the Partnership for Children, a joint project of the United Way and the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation; president of the Board of Bishop Hogan High School; a member of the Board of Trustees of Notre Dame de Sion schools; a member of the Board of Operation Breakthrough; and a member of the Board and the immediate past chair of the Genesis School.