President's Welcome

Dear GMCA Members,

It is my great honor to serve as your GMCA President in 2021 and I appreciate your trust in me.

When I first heard the term “new normal”, my first thought was “no…I don’t like this normal; we just need to get through this and get back to the old normal”. By now, though, I guess we all know that the “old normal”, at least in the way we knew it, is gone for at least the foreseeable future. But I believe that out of every bad or difficult thing comes something good, and I believe it will be the same with this. We have before us an opportunity to reshape what our future will be, including the lessons we have learned in the past year…because there is always something to learn in every new situation. That said, taking full advantage of the reshaping, the redefining of our “new normal” is dependent on the input of the body…this is the time to take stock, to evaluate what we have learned, what worked, what didn’t, and how to fine-tune or rewrite to make it better.

I want to encourage all our members, from the smallest cities to the largest, from the smallest budgets to the largest, to let us hear from you. This is YOUR Association…we are here to serve you. Our Directors and Executive Board, our Committees are all working to improve your experience, to help you do your jobs more efficiently, to help you help your cities find a better way forward, and to help you serve the people in your cities. All our experiences are different, based on population, budget, staff, services offered...the more we hear from you, the better we can make the Association that serves you.