I returned last night from a few days in Washington DC at the National League of Cities Annual Conference. City Leaders (I can’t believe that title includes me) from around the country come together to discuss issues facing cities and towns and to take advantage of being in DC to “lobby” our Congressmen. I have been appointed to the National Public Safety and Crime Prevention Advocacy Committee of the NLC. We attended a half-day municipal leadership training session that was awesome. I really gained a lot of perspective about being on a national committee.

Our committee meeting really showed me that we are lucky in our community not to have the types of problems that others do. I also learned that we have taken being politically correct to an incredibly crazy level. I heard a director from the Bureau of Justice Administration talk about needing to help “those that have a conflict with the criminal justice system”. WHAT! I thought that they were actually criminals or accused persons. Having a conflict sounds like a disagreement. Then I remembered that we can’t call Dry-Erase boards “white boards” any more or Easel Pads “flip-charts” or Chalk boards “black boards” but that its OKAY to call white tank top undershirts “wife beaters” but not okay to call them “deago tees”. I digress…

My trip to DC ended in a meeting with Senators John McCain and John Kyl. The few of us from Arizona that were there had about an hour with them in an Q and A session after getting our pictures taken and shaking their hands. I must admit that it was a great experience and that they were pretty straight forward in answering our questions. While they still don’t feel like much will get done in these next few months, they weren’t pointing fingers either.

My next trip is to Ft. McAllister in Oklahoma for an Army exercise, that should make for some interesting reading after I return.