From Mitch Weiss
"When I was in government, I found many instances of great public servants coming together and making progress on the biggest challenges they saw." - Mitch Weiss, former chief of staff and a partner to Boston's Mayor Thomas Menino
Friends and fellow citizens,
Municipalities typically address issues and implement solutions much more quickly and efficiently than national policy is enacted. Why is that?
On Wednesday, November 3, at 12:30 p.m. CST, the Vanderbilt Project on Unity & American Democracy will explore this question during a virtual panel discussion, "Getting Things Done at the Municipal Level," that delves into possibilities for strategies that are effective at the local level influence to be incorporated at the national level.
The panel includes three former and current municipal leaders:
- Bill Purcell is an adjunct professor of public policy at Vanderbilt. He served as the fifth mayor of Nashville and Davidson County, elected first in 1999 and reelected to a second term in 2003. In 2008 he was named director of Harvard University's Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He now practices law in Nashville.
- Mitchell Weiss is the Richard L. Menschel professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, where he created and teaches the school's course on public entrepreneurship. Weiss was chief of staff and a partner to Boston's Mayor Thomas Menino. Weiss helped shape New Urban Mechanics, Boston's municipal innovation strategy, which became a model for peer-produced government and change. He is the author of "We the Possibility" (HBR Press, 2021).
- Mayor David Holt is Oklahoma City's 36th mayor. He was elected Feb. 13, 2018, receiving the largest vote percentage for a non-incumbent candidate for mayor since 1947. He also is the youngest mayor of Oklahoma City since 1923; the first Native American mayor of Oklahoma City; and, at the time of his election, the youngest mayor of a U.S. city with more than 500,000 residents.
Please join us next week for our virtual event. To register, please click here.
We'll also be posting about the event and other updates on our new social channels -Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter - so please give us a follow to stay up to date on the latest Unity Project news.
Respectfully,
Gray Sasser
Executive Director
The Vanderbilt Project on Unity & American Democracy