Chuck and fellow IMLA Members: What a great idea to coordinate municipal attorneys in campus towns. I am the City Attorney of Lansing, and my contact info is below. The Mayor has launched a "Linking Lansing and U" Initiative to connect East Lansing and Michigan State University with the Lansing, the state capital. We are developing Michigan Avenue as a corridor between the two urban hubs. I also look forward to working with the Capital City Collective of municipal attorneys and sharing thoughts and frustrations about managing a city whose real estate is dominated by tax-exempt state office buildings. Looking forward to working with everybody, Brig ****************************************************** It gives me great pleasure to submit the first post to the University Cities listserv as a way to launch this project. To help make this list vibrant and effective I hope each of you will introduce yourself to the list by replying and posting your name, your title and the community you represent, the colleges or universities in your communty, your contact information, your experience in this area of the law, what you hope to gain from the list and any issues you'd like to discuss. Feel free to brag briefly about your school. Currently, Marion Radson from Gainesville, Florida is the moderator of the list. To post to the list, simply send an email to: universitycities@lists.imla.org . While the list can handle attachments, by default most will need to be approved. For that reason, one of the administrative issues for the list to discuss is how best to pass documents around. IMLA can accept documents and post to its web with a private address, but it might be more effective if each member consider doing the same or there may be resources such as "Google Docs" that you might want to consider (although security concerns me with that option). A conference call might be a good way to discuss some of the administrative concerns and IMLA is happy to provide that resource. I think everyone on the list is an IMLA member, but initially, we will allow non-members to join so that all of you can get the most out of the list. Within a year, however, we will probably ask non-members to join IMLA if they are to continue, as providing these services requires resources. If you know people who should be on the list, please let them or us know, so we can get them on it. I feel that this can be a terrific tool for you and hope it proves to be. Please feel free to let me know problems you are having. We use an outside IT resource, so some problems may not be resolved as quickly as we'd like. Also feel free to let me know any of your ideas or suggestions for improvement about anything IMLA does. Chuck Charles W. Thompson, Jr. Executive Director, General Counsel International Municipal Lawyers Association (IMLA) 7910 Woodmont Ave., Suite 1440 Bethesda, Maryland 20814 direct: 202-742-1016 202.466.5424 x 7110 Cell: 240.876.6790 cthompson@imla.org <mailto:cthompson@imla.org> IMLA 2009 Seminar - Wash. DC April 19-21 IMLA 2009 Conference - Miami, FL Oct. 18 - 21 IMLA 2010 Seminar - Wash. DC April 18-20 Brig Smith City Attorney Office of the City Attorney City of Lansing 124 West Michigan Ave. Lansing Michigan 48933 http://www.lansingmi.gov/attorney (517) 483-4320 tel (517) 483-4081 fax PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL: This electronic message, together with all of its contents, contains information from the Office of the City Attorney. This information may be privileged, confidential, or otherwise protected from disclosure. The information is intended for the addressee(s) only and any unauthorized use is prohibited. Do not disclose, copy, distribute, or otherwise use this message or its contents if you are not the intended addressee(s). If you have received this message in error, notify the Office of the City Attorney immediately at 517-483-4320 or CityAtty@ci.lansing.mi.us.