Texas Municipal League

they just ran out of money. It’s almost always for dire financial reasons. Then, if they get back on their feet in a couple of years, they’ll always rejoin. I don’t remember anybody dropping out because they don’t see the value anymore. It’s usually a concrete financial decision.” For the smaller cities, one of the most driving factors is the League’s staff of six attorneys that are there, every day, to answer legal questions - essentially access to unlimited legal advice for free once they pay the membership fee. “That is almost invaluable to a small city of 200 people or even 1,000 people, which is not nearly big enough to have an on-staff city attorney,” Sandlin notes. “That, alone, makes it almost a given that you’d want to be a member of the League.” The League has a monthly print magazine, “Texas Town and City,” and a weekly email newsletter called “The TML Exchange” that has all the up- to-date info, including legislative updates and schedule of conferences and trainings. The League’s biggest event is its annual conference/ convention every October; the 2018 conference in Fort Worth was the second-largest attended conference held, with 2,700 paid city delegates, mostly elected and appointed officials. There’s a smaller conference or 300-400, the Elected Officials Conference, held typically every February or early March. There are dozens of other stand alone trainings, such as for economic development, a public funds investment training conference, annexation conferences, small city problem-solving clinics, and many other topic- specific conferences throughout the year. “Every state except Hawaii has a Municipal League,” adds Sandlin. “We all do very similar work. Texas is one of the largest, as we’ve got one of the highest number of cities. We communicate extensively. I’m on a listserv with my counterparts in other leagues and we communicate because a lot of the issues we face are common around the country, so we share information. I go to a national conference with some of my colleagues through the National League of Cities, which was formed by all the pictured San Antonio, Texas