Mayor Shirley Franklin to Receive 2004 Public Official of the Year Award from Governing Magazine Tonight

Tonight, Mayor Shirley Franklin will be honored in Washington, DC as one of the 2004 Public Officials of the Year selected by  Governing Magazine. The other seven honorees include Mark Warner, governor of Virginia, and John Chichester, state Senate Finance Committee chairman; Kevin S. Burke, chief judge, Hennepin County Court, Minnesota; Tricia Leddy, administrator, Rhode Island Center for Child and Family Health; Jim McConnell, director of facilities services, Los Angeles Unified School District; Richard H. Moore, treasurer, North Carolina and W. Val Oveson, chief information officer, Utah.  The honorees were selected from nominations by readers, interviews with state and local government specialists, and reporting by the Governing staff.

WHO:	Mayor Shirley Franklin and seven (7) other state and local government officials will be honored as Governing Magazine's 2004 Public Officials of the Year
WHEN:	TONIGHT, Wednesday, November 10, 2004 6:30 pm            Reception 7:30 pm            Awards Dinner
WHERE:	The Westin Embassy Row Hotel 2100 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20008

Mayor Franklin is profiled in the current issue of Governing Magazine. In summarizing why Mayor Franklin was selected, Governing Magazine stated :

"Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin found herself trapped in a box that wasn’t so much partisan as regional. When she took office in 2002, her city faced crippling budget problems, and the government leaders in jurisdictions surrounding her hadn’t shown much interest in helping. Ignoring that history, Franklin successfully reached out to the county executives, state legislators and federal officials who were in a position to make fiscal recovery significantly easier. Atlanta isn’t out of the budgetary woods, but Franklin’s willingness to think unconventionally and cultivate new allies has given the city a sense of optimism it has not felt in a long time."

A link to the complete article is: http://www.governing.com/poy/2004/franklin.htm

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