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State & Local News Vol. 23, No. 1, Fall 1999
Chair’s MessageBy Sholem FriedmanI am looking forward to an exciting year in which our Section plans to immerse itself in many of the hot button issues of the day. We are already deeply involved in three matters that have generated a great deal of interest within the ABA, the bar and many segments of the public at large: "Pay-to-play," urban sprawl, and disputes regarding the "Takings clause" of the U.S. Constitution. First, our Section has been at the forefront of the "Pay-to-play" controversy that has been the focus of a great deal of media attention and the subject of heated debate within the ABA over the last several years. Pat Arey, our Chair-Elect, Jim Baird, and David Cardwell, our Delegates to the ABA House of Delegates (and both former Chairs), Roy Koegen, the chair of our Public Finance Committee, and others have all done a remarkable job representing our Section on this issue. Although a Resolution on the subject supported by our Section failed to pass in the House of Delegates by the narrowest of margins at the Annual Meeting in early August, it is likely that this is an issue that will be around for some time to come. Anyone interested in obtaining more information on this subject or becoming actively involved in this issue should contact Roy Koegen at Perkins Coie, 221 North Wall Street, Suite 600, Spokane, WA 99201. Second, the "growing" problem of urban sprawl has already been the subject of several Section-sponsored CLE programs as well as the subject of a book authored by our own Robert Freilich, editor of The Urban Lawyer. To give you an idea of the degree of public interest in this issue, last November, there were 240 "anti-sprawl" or "smart growth" ballot initiatives around the country, most of which were passed by an electorate concerned over uncontrolled urban growth. The scope of these measures ranged from stripping local authorities of the power to approve new subdivisions without voter approval, to the use of tax dollars to purchase open land before it could be developed. In an attempt to deal with urban sprawl in Atlanta, the site of our recent Annual Meeting and the area most often cited as the horrific example of what can happen when you have unsupervised growth, the State of Georgia recently enacted the Georgia Regional Transportation Act, which places the Governor of Georgia at the head of an agency in charge of land-use decisions across Atlanta's vast metropolitan area. In a real coup for our Section, Georgia's Governor Roy Barnes was our guest speaker at the Section's General Membership Reception and Dinner held at the Carter Presidential Center. This reception and dinner followed an earlier luncheon where our Section's Jefferson Fordham Society was addressed by Mayor Bill Campbell of Atlanta. I would like to thank Larry Ethridge, who, in his words, holds the "coveted title of Immediate Past Chair," Janice Griffith, Dean of Georgia State University College of Law and a past Chair of our Section, Marva Jones Brooks, a member of our Council and a prominent Atlanta attorney, and John Mobley, a member of our Section and another distinguished fixture of the Atlanta bar, for getting both the Governor and the Mayor. The only way to top that is to have Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton address us in New York next summer. I'm working on it. Finally, a "retreat" co-sponsored by our Section this past June on the "Takings Clause" of the Fifth Amendment has generated a tremendous amount of interest. In response to a National Law Journal"Podium" article somewhat critical of the way our Section handled the "retreat," I sent a proposed "Podium" article to the National Law Journal; that article is reprinted on page 3 of this issue. Anyone interested in obtaining more information on the "smart growth" or "takings" issues, or in becoming actively involved, should contact Peter Buchsbaum, the chair of our Land Use, Planning and Zoning Committee, at Greenbaum, Rowe, 99 Wood Avenue South, Iselin, NJ 08830. All three of the above issues will be explored further at our Section's upcoming meetings. The Section's Fall 1999 Meeting will be held in Kansas City in order to celebrate the 30th anniversary of our premier publication, The Urban Lawyer, which is published in conjunction with the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. An all-day program on "Hot Topics in State and Local Government Law," featuring legal experts in municipal liability, economic development, regulatory takings, employment law, environmental law, and ethics is scheduled for Friday, October 15, 1999. On Saturday, October 16, the Section and the Law School will present a half-day program on "smart growth." Our Section's Spring 2000 Meeting, May 5-7, 2000, will be held in Scottsdale, Arizona, where the "takings" controversy will receive top billing. Finally, at our Annual Meeting, which will be held in New York City on July 8-10 and in London on July 17-20, 2000, our Section is planning informative and timely CLE programs on a variety of important state and local government law issues. In addition to "pay-to-play," "smart growth" and "takings," we hope to address privatization, government operations and liability, land use, transportation, the environment, public schools, particularly vouchers, charters, and religion in the schools, and the Model Procurement Code Revision Project. I invite each one of you to join us in helping to provide leadership and resources with respect to all of the critical state and local government law issues our Section is actively involved in. To those of our members who have yet to attend our meetings, I urge you to make every effort to do so in the coming year. Given both the range and relevance of the subjects our Section will be dealing with, I assure you that you will not be disappointed. Sholem Friedman is Chair of the Section and Chief, Real Estate and Environmental Law Division of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in New York, New York.
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