Dear colleagues and friends,

I hope this note finds you and yours doing great. What an incredible 2023 Winter Conference we just experienced in Little Rock! Of course, presiding as president was a new experience for me, but you all made me feel right at home. Thank you so much for that. I had an incredibly good time and was so happy to interact with many of you during the week. Your enthusiasm and engagement made for a standout conference that we can all be proud of. The speakers were terrific, and I know we all learned a lot of new information to use as we serve our cities and towns to the best of our ability. Thank you to the League staff for going above and beyond, as always, and thank you sponsors for your continued partnerships and support. We couldn’t do it without you.

The new year is underway, with a new legislative session in full swing. If you caught the conference session about building relationships with your legislator, I want to emphasize those points again. Now is the time to be contacting them, and to stay in touch with them about the many bills being filed and voted on in the coming weeks and months. Our League staff will always keep us updated on important legislative matters, but nothing can replace the personal relationships and conversations that we as local elected officials can and should have with our legislators. Make an effort to reach out to them this week. Let them know that we want to be partners with them and that we appreciate the important work they are doing. It really matters to the future of your city or town.

One big takeaway from Winter Conference was the amount of cooperation and focus I felt from everyone in attendance. By that I mean that our members seem wholly set on working together and just doing the right thing for our people and our places. I mentioned during a session that we need not waste our finite time on pointless, partisan pursuits, especially in local government, and I meant it. Our residents need us working together to develop real solutions to real issues that affect their daily lives. As you well know, that is easier said than done! But I am convinced that we can do it. If we can’t, who else can? Let’s stay the course, and let’s resist when the world around us suggests that we are more divided than we are aligned.

Feel free to reach out if I can be of service to you. Lord willing, we will gather again at the annual convention in June. Until then, I hope to see some of you at various meetings here and there, and I wish you, your families, and your cities and towns a great month ahead.

For greater communities and a greater state,

Jonas Anderson
Mayor, Cave City
President, Arkansas Municipal League