Introduction

[Seth Schofield (ICMA) <sschofield@icma.org>]

I work for the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) based in Washington, D.C.  ICMA is a professional and educational organization representing appointed managers and administers in local governments throughout the world, http://icma.org.  One of our primary goals is enhancing the quality of local government management.  In the broad context of environmental information, our most relevant program is the Local Government Environmental Assistance Network (LGEAN), <http://lgean.org >.

LGEAN is a "first stop shop" for environmental management, planning, and regulatory information for local government elected and appointed officials and their staff. Through this network we are providing up-to-date environmental information that affects local governments. We are also dedicated to building local government capacity to participate in the environmental decision-making process. I urge participants in this dialogue to visit our site to learn more about what we are doing. I believe that on a small and specific scale we are accomplishing what participants in this dialogue are hoping to accomplish on a much broader scale.

As an intern at the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) this past fall, I was involved with some of ELI's initial background research on using public libraries as community resource centers for environmental information. I am excited to see that the idea moving forward, and that there is such a broad level of interest on the topic. I look forward to participating in this dialogue over the next two weeks.

-Seth Schofield
sschofield@icma.org