SECTION NEWS

Homeland Security and Emergency Management Committee

The Homeland Security and Emergency Management Committee has had an extremely active year, completing several projects of importance to the Section and to lawyers practicing state and local government law.

First, the Committee revised and updated its 2002 “Draft Checklist for State and Local Government Attorneys to Prepare for Possible Disasters.” This checklist was the original product of the Committee and has been widely disseminated and cited; it shows the vast range of issues that state and local government attorneys face as their clients take steps to prevent, mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from catastrophic events of natural or nonnatural origin. The 2005 “Checklist,” prepared by Otto Hetzel and Ernie Abbott, is now available on the ABA State and Local Government Law Section website at www.abanet.org/statelocal/checklist406.pdf

Second, working with ABA-CLE and the Section’s Jefferson Fordham Society, and with support from the Public Entity Risk Institute, the Committee has completed work on a 70-minute video: ARE YOU PREPARED: What Lawyers Need to Know About Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Recovery. This video provides numerous practical insights on the critical role of the lawyer in emergency preparedness, from reducing a community’s risk of loss in catastrophes, to maintaining operations during terrorist events, to seeking federal grant assistance to help recover from disasters.

The video captures lessons from a wide range of catastrophic events—from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, to the destruction caused by wildfires in the West, to Hurricane Ivan in 2004. The video debuted at the Section’s Spring Meeting in Anchorage, Alaska (June 2–5)—and provides an hour of CLE credit for those attending!

Third, the Committee’s Program Chair, Alan Cohn, has developed an important program on the legal issues raised by mutual aid agreements, also presented at our Anchorage meeting. Interstate and intrastate mutual aid are among the most important ways state and local governments can quickly obtain personnel, equipment, and supplies with which to respond to natural or terrorist events in their jurisdictions. Under the National Incident Management System and Homeland Security Presidential Directives 5 and 8, state and local governments are required to have mutual aid systems in place in order to qualify for federal preparedness funding—and their lawyers need to be familiar with the liability and licensing issues (among others) that are raised by mutual aid.

Finally, the Homeland Security Committee has submitted its book project, tentatively titled Homeland Security and Emergency Management: Legal Issues for State and Local Governments, to the Section’s Publications Board, and publication is anticipated in late summer. The book, edited by Ernie Abbott and Otto Hetzel, includes chapters from the current general counsel of FEMA, the chief lawyers for the Emergency Management Agencies of the states of Florida, California, and New York, as well as several private practitioners and academics. This work will be a significant resource for state and local practitioners and their clients.

2004–05 Student Awards for Excellence in Land Use and State and Local Government Law

Each year the Section of State and Local Government Law recognizes outstanding students working in the areas of land use law and local government law at the nation’s law schools. Each honoree is nominated by the dean of his or her law school for this recognition. The student honored receives a special award that includes a current Section publication and a certificate of recognition.

Congratulations to all the honorees for their outstanding work! The 2004–05 award recipients with their law schools are:

John Allan, Georgia State University,
Jennifer L. Beidel, Penn State The Dickinson School of Law,
Rosa Jean Evergreen, William & Mary Law School,
Heather A. Golding, University of Connecticut School of Law,
Samantha Karen McCart, University of Alabama,
Jacob Morrow, Quinnipiac University School of Law,
Helen Pope, Tulane University,
Courtney S. Radick, Albany Law School,
Aaron Seable, Brigham Young University,
Thais M. Triehy, Albany Law School,
Jeremy Craig Vaughn, William & Mary Law School, Khela M. Von Linsowe, Texas Southern University,
Andrew H. Wood, Albany Law School,
Kevin W. Welsh, University of Connecticut School of Law.

Report of the Nominating Committee 2005

Pursuant to Article IV of the Bylaws, the Nominating Committee makes the following nominations for each position to be filled by election at the Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois.

Chair-Elect—EDWARD J. SULLIVAN, member of the law firm of Garvey Schubert Barer, Portland, Oregon. Served on Council and as vice chair–programs for the Land Use, Planning and Zoning Committee.

Vice-Chair—BENJAMIN E. GRIFFITH, member of the law firm of Griffith & Griffith, Cleveland, Mississippi. Served as Communications Director.

Secretary—ADRIANE J. DUDLEY, member of the law firm of Dudley, Clark & Chan, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. Served on Council and as assistant budget director.

Budget Director—PATRICIA LYNCH, city attorney, Reno, Nevada. Served as a member of Council.

Communications Director—RICHARD G. OPPER, member of the law firm of Opper & Varco, LLP, PC, San Diego, California. Served as CLE director.

Editor of The Urban Lawyer—JULIE M. CHESLIK, professor of law, University of Missouri–Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri. Has served as editor of The Urban Lawyer for the past few years.

Editor of Section Newsletter—JUSTINA CINTRÓN PERINO, staff attorney, Government Law Center of Albany Law School, Albany, New York. Served on Council.

Publications Director—DONNA J. PUGH, member of the law firm Vedder, Price, Kaufman & Kammholz, Chicago, Illinois. Served on Council and as chair of the Land Use, Planning and Zoning Committee.

CLE Director—DALE F. RUBIN, professor of law, Florida A&M University, Orlando, Florida. Served as newsletter editor.

MEMBERS OF COUNCIL

term ending 2009
LORA A. LUCERO, land use and planning attorney, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Served as vice-chair of the Land Use, Planning and Zoning Committee.

THOMAS G. PELHAM, member of the firm of Fowler White Boggs Banker, Tallahassee, Florida. Served as chair of the Land Use, Planning and Zoning Committee.

PAUL D. WILSON, member of the firm of Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Poppeo P.C. in Boston, Massachusetts. Served as vice-chair of the Land Use, Planning and Zoning Committee.

Section Delegate—term ending 2008
SHOLEM FRIEDMAN, The Port Authority of NY & NJ, New York, New York. Served as Section Delegate for the last three years.

New Book on Legal Guide for Affordable Housing

The ABA Forum on Affordable Housing and Community Development Law and the ABA Section on State and Local Government are sponsoring a book entitled the Legal Guide to Affordable Housing. The book is being co-edited by Tim Iglesias, associate professor at the University of San Francisco Law School, and Rochelle Lento, clinical law professor at the University of Michigan Law School. It is a collaborative effort of twelve other authors, which includes academics and practitioners from around the country who are contributing chapters on various topics related to affordable housing law.

The purpose of the book is to provide attorneys involved in the development of affordable housing a single reference source for the wide variety of laws that affect the development of affordable housing, and, to some extent, a sense of the hot issues in affordable housing, i.e., smart growth and exclusionary zoning. The book is divided into three parts with each part focusing on a different aspect of the development process.

Part I focuses on the regulatory foundation for affordable housing development. Chapters in this section include coverage of planning for housing requirements including state-mandated comprehensive plans and federal consolidated plans; federal and state judicial and statutory responses to exclusionary zoning and NIMBY; state and local regulation of particular types of affordable housing (i.e., accessory units, SROs, manufactured housing, farmworker housing, emergency shelters); state and local regulations that promote affordable housing, such as inclusionary zoning and density bonus ordinances, rent control, landbanking, land trusts; and state, local, and federal building and housing codes affecting affordable housing.

Part II discusses financing regulations and sources at the local, state, and federal levels, and local government financing powers that affect affordable housing. This section discusses the Community Reinvestment Act and and the Fair Housing Act; reviews major federal financing sources, such as low-income housing tax credits, Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), the HOME program, Section 8, and other HUD programs; provides coverage of state sources such as state tax credits, state housing authority programs, debt allocations, and state CDBG funding; and reviews local government financing powers, such as those imposed by taxation and fees, tax increment and infrastructure financing, bond financing, housing trust funds, and other subsidies and guarantee-type programs.

Part III focuses on issues that arise after housing is built, with a focus on regulatory agreements, monitoring, and enforcement, including the oversight role of local and state government. It also discusses preservation issues and legal requirements implicated in rehabilitating housing, such as replacement and relocation obligations.
The primary audiences for this book are private practitioners representing affordable housing developers (nonprofit and for-profit) and attorneys who represent governmental entities, such as state housing authorities, counties, municipalities, and other redevelopment agencies who need to know the legal issues affecting affordable housing development. The book should also be useful to private practitioners representing market-rate housing developers who need to manage affordable housing laws that affect their clients or developments as well as those offering legal training or courses in affordable housing and community development.

The book is in the final editorial stages and should be published and available this summer. For more information, contact either Tim Iglesias at iglesias@usfca.edu or Rochelle Lento at rlento@umich.edu.

Notice of Proposed Bylaw Changes
ARTICLE III
Section 6. Council Members’ Attendance at Meetings.

If any elected member of the Council shall fail to attend two successive meetings of the Council, the place held by such member shall be automatically vacated, and the Council shall fill the vacancy in the manner provided for in Article VI of these Bylaws. For the purpose of applying the foregoing provision, the failure of a member to attend a Council meeting for valid personal or professional reasons due to the observance of religious tenets or beliefs or due to war, insurrections, riots, floods, earthquakes, fires, casualties, acts of God, medical disability of the member or the members of the immediate family shall not constitute an absence. Written requests for an excused absence shall be granted or denied by the Executive Committee on a case-by-case basis. If there are regular meetings of the Council held immediately preceding and immediately following the close of any annual meeting of the Section, pursuant to Section 5 of Article VII of these Bylaws, shall be deemed to be one meeting.

ARTICLE VI
Section 8. Annual Committee Meetings.

Committee Reports at Annual Meeting. The agenda for the annual meeting of the Section shall make provision for oral and/or written Committee reports when requested by the Section Chair or the Chair of a Committee.