Brucker Reports to Council on U.S. Conference of Mayors

Mayor Barry Brucker reported to City Council Tuesday on his recent trip to the United States Conference of Mayors gathering in Washington, D.C.

Brucker, who attended the conference last week, said he "took such pride" in discussing the work of the city's mayoral task forces on government efficiency and small business issues during a discussion group that focused on small businesses.

"Beverly Hills is doing a very good job of keeping people in contact and posted on how to make their life a little bit easier," the mayor told his fellow Council members.

Conference attendees heard numerous talks from government officials, including House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Reps. Barney Frank and Frank Pallone, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and cabinet members in charge of the departments of Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Education and Agriculture.

President Barack Obama hosted a reception where he mingled with the mayors. Business and media executives such as Eric Spiegel, president and CEO of the technology company Siemens, and Arianna Huffington, president and Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post Media Group, which publishes Patch, also participated in the three-day event.

Brucker said he came away from the conference with several stand-out ideas that included creating a webpage on the city's website that factually addresses residents' concerns.

"There needs to be a repository of just hard fact without any editorial," Brucker said.

Another attention grabber for the mayor was similar to the city's "Ask Bev" wireless software application. SeeClickFix enables residents to expeditiously report non-emergency issues to local governments.

"I really think people ought to take advantage of letting us know what is broken in town, what maybe needs replacement or needs fixing," Brucker said. "It gives us a chance to let 36,000 residents really be the eyes to help protect the safety and quality of life and beauty in our community." 

And largely due to the often perilous traffic conditions at the six-way intersection where Lomitas, Beverly and Canon drives come together near , the mayor discussed a study of roundabout intersections conducted by the city of Carmel, IN. He instructed City Manager Jeff Kolin to forward the study to Beverly Hills' traffic engineers. 

"The beauty of these conferences is, this is really an opportunity ... for mayors to network and talk about ... some of the challenges they're experiencing [and] share some of their success stories ... that we can all learn from," Brucker said.

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