Business View Magazine | July 2019

341 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JULY 2019 TEXAS MUNI C I PAL LEAGUE • To promote constructive and cooperative relationships among cities and between the League and other levels of government, councils of governments, the National League of Cities, educational institutions, and the private sector. • To provide for and conduct training in relevant and timely topics related to municipal government. • To provide, in a timely manner, any additional services or information which individual members may request, consistent with the member cities’ common interests and the League’s resources. According to Bennett Sandlin, Executive Director of the TML, “The League’s founders felt that Texas cities needed a common voice at the Texas capital. Then as now, the League’s central focus is providing services to cities that they can’t provide for themselves. That typically involves putting on conferences and training, teaching council members and mayors how to be better city officials, and legal advice for a number of our cities that can’t afford city attorneys. Probably most important to most of our members is advocating for them at the state and federal capitals; to speak with a common voice for issues of cities’ concerns. We’ve been doing that since we were formed in 1913.” Membership is formidable, with 1,160 members out of about 1,214 Texas cities. “A number of the cities that aren’t members are no longer active cities, so nearly all Texas cities, certainly all the larger cities of note, are members,” says Sandlin. “The city of Houston is our largest member, all the way down to cities with populations of 50 or so. Every city is eligible to join and most do. Cities that drop out, occasionally, are typically the very smaller cities that literally can’t afford the $580 member service fees we charge our smaller cities. It’s very seldom, and not on my watch of eight years as Executive Director do I recall anybody dropping out for philosophical reasons. Typically, those cities are just not active anymore or who don’t have the budget for it; pictured Austin, Texas