FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                              June 6, 2006   Release M-58-06

HANNEMANN NAMED TO CONFERENCE OF MAYORS ADVISORY BOARD

            Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann has been selected to be a member of the Advisory Board of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, elected by his peers at the 74^th annual meeting of the conference, which is currently under way in Las Vegas.

            “I am honored to be chosen for the board,” said Hannemann. “This will help Honolulu through contacts and networking and greater opportunities for federal funding and public-private partnerships.”

            The U.S. Conference of Mayors is a nonpartisan national organization whose members are the mayors of America’s 1,183 cities with populations of 30,000 or more. Its primary roles are:

·       Promote the development of effective national urban/suburban policy;

·       Strengthen federal-city relationships;

·       Ensure that federal policy meets urban needs;

·       Provide mayors with leadership and management tools; and

·       Create a forum in which mayors can share ideas and information.

            Hannemann was elected to one of nine seats open on the 30-member advisory board of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. He is the first mayor from Hawaii to hold a national leadership position with the U.S. Conference of Mayors since then-Honolulu Mayor Neal Blaisdell served as the organization’s president in 1965-66. The U.S. Conference of Mayors has a long history with Honolulu, having held general held general membership meetings in Honolulu twice, in 1963 – when President John F. Kennedy spoke out on civil rights just five months before he was assassinated – and 1967.

            “I remember President Kennedy’s 1963 visit because that’s the first time I laid eyes on a president of the United States,” said Hannemann. “I was a Cub Scout and our den mother, Aunty Becky Runnels, took us down to Waikiki to see the president and I saluted him as he rode past us.”  

            Hannemann is also chairman of the conference’s newly formed Community Trees Task Force. He presided over that group’s meeting on Friday, one of several functions he performed during a single, busy day he spent at the annual meeting before returning to Honolulu on Saturday. Also on Friday, Hannemann was a featured speaker, along with the mayors of Dallas and Trenton, at a session on healthy cities.

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Contact:

Bill Brennan, 527-6928

Mark Matsunaga, 527-5767