Maryland’s Municipal League Summer Conference returns in-person, giving leaders more opportunities

OCEAN CITY, Md.- Municipal officials from 157 cities and towns across Maryland gathered for the State’s Municipal League Summer Conference at the Roland Powell Convention Center in Ocean City. While there, leaders engaged in 21 workshops, exhibits, and discussed important issues.

“There is a lot here, a lot that everybody can learn from the littlest person, a municipal clerk, up to the great state governor’s,” Amelia Handy, a Hebron Commissioner and Conference Planning Chairperson, said.

“There are a lot of topics that are very top of mind right now, like mental health, mental health issues, public safety issues, our leaders are going to be talking about that,” Scott Hancock, Executive Director of MML, said. “We are also going to be looking at how to properly spend the American Rescue Plan money.”

Hancock told 47ABC a neat aspect about this conference is the networking opportunities for municipal leaders and that’s something Maryland Governor Larry Hogan says he’s taken advantage of while being in office.

“The smaller ones need to join together and they need to talk together on how best to utilize their money,” Hancock said. “Some of them are pooling their resources to provide more of a regional approach in taking care of infrastructure needs or taking care of water or sewer upgrades.”

“I promised as I was elected governor I would work together with the municipalities and have a real partnership; and I think that the best way to run state government is in partnership with our local governments and I think we’ve done exactly what we said we would do,” Gov. Hogan said.

Now, with the knowledge these leaders will take home with them the Conference Planning Chair Person tells 47ABC representatives can better help communities thrive.

“A lot of people are coming out of despair, from the pandemic itself, they are still struggling, they are still trying to get to the top, but however there are ways that the county governments can assist with that,” Handy said.