Burnsville, MN Mayor Elizabeth Kautz to Be Inaugurated As the 68th President of the United States Conference of Mayors

BURNSVILLE, Minn., Jan. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Burnsville, MN Mayor Elizabeth B. Kautz will be inaugurated as the 68th President of The United States Conference of Mayors during a special inaugural ceremony at the Performing Arts Center in Burnsville at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, January 5, 2010. The event is OPEN to the press.

This special event in Burnsville, MN will take place due to the fact that the current President of The Conference of Mayors, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels was defeated in the most recent mayoral election and his term ends on January 2. Mayor Kautz is currently the Vice President of The Conference and under the rules of the organization's Constitution, when the current President is no longer a mayor, the Vice President automatically becomes President. Mayor Kautz will serve the balance of Seattle Mayor Greg Nickel's term, which would have ended in June 2010, and then serve a full term of her own as President of the organization until June 2011.

On behalf of the Executive Committee and the membership of the Conference, U.S. Conference of Mayors CEO and Executive Director Tom Cochran will pass the gavel and introduce Mayor Kautz as the new President of The U.S. Conference of Mayors at the ceremony. As President, Mayor Kautz will preside over all official meetings and execute the bipartisan political agenda adopted by the nation's mayors, appoint committee and task force chairs, and will be the global and national spokesperson for the USA mayors' organization.

Mayor Kautz will preside over her first official meeting this month from January 20-22 in Washington D.C. at The 78th Winter Meeting of The U.S. Conference of Mayors when the nation's mayors assemble at The Capitol Hilton to meet with the Obama Administration and Congress to advocate for a national bipartisan political agenda that confronts the unemployment that still exists on main street America, the need for a federal/city partnership on climate protection and energy with block grants to cities producing green jobs, and a more balanced transportation bill next year that recognizes the necessity to modernize the current transportation system in order to daily move goods, services and people in our metro areas of the nation.

Mayor Kautz was first elected Burnsville's Mayor in 1994 and has been re-elected five times since. Mayor Kautz will be the fifth woman President in the history of The U.S. Conference of Mayors. Mayors Helen Boosalis of Lincoln Nebraska, Mayor Kathy Whitmire of Houston, Mayor Deedee Corradini of Salt Lake and Mayor Beverly O'Neill of Long Beach each served one term respectively. Due to her immediate succession next week, Mayor Kautz will be the longest serving woman President in the organization's 78-year history.

WHO: Elizabeth B. Kautz, USCM Vice President and Mayor of Burnsville, MN

Tom Cochran, USCM CEO and Executive Director

WHAT: Inaugural Ceremony to Introduce Mayor Kautz as the New President of the USCM

WHEN: Tuesday, January 5, 2010 at 11:00 a.m.

WHERE: Performing Arts Center 12600 Nicollet Avenue | Burnsville, MN 55337

The U.S. Conference of Mayors is the official nonpartisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. There are 1,139 such cities in the country today, each represented in the Conference by its chief elected official, the Mayor.

SOURCE The U.S. Conference of Mayors