State & Local Law News is the major way that we communicate with our approximately 7,000 members, providing information on opportunities for networking and service, conferences and webinars, and articles of substantive importance, and receiving and publishing member news, articles, and photos. This issue comes hot on the heels of a highly successful Section conference, part of the ABA Midyear Meeting in Miami, including the first Land Use Institute held under our auspices.
January 02, 2017
Editor’s Message
We list the dates and venues for the next five quarterly Section meetings, including the second Land Use Institute as an integral part of Spring 2018 in Detroit. We hope that you will be able to make travel plans to include at least one of these and also travel to Williamsburg for the William & Mary Law School Property Rights conference on October 10–12, 2017, when past Section Chair David Callies will be honored with the prestigious Brigham-Kanner Prize.
In her message, Section Chair Ellen Rosenblum highlights the opportunities of ABA membership, particularly for law students and young lawyers, as well as opportunities for service on Section committees and continuing education online via webinars. A sample of webinars offered in 2016 and available online is provided on page 16 of this issue. Four short articles delineate professional accomplishments of members of the Section: Jennifer Bragar, of Portland, Oregon, David Callies, of University of Hawai’i School of Law, Andy Gowder, of Charleston, South Carolina, and Juan Thomas, of Aurora, Illinois, and offer warm congratulations.
Understanding the First Amendment Limitations on Government Regulation of Artwork, by Brian Connolly, raises interesting questions when the First Amendment is becoming an important part of our national discourse. His article is a pre-publication chapter of the forthcoming ABA publication, Local Government, Land Use, and the First Amendment: Protecting Free Speech and Expression, due to launch in 2017.
Finally, an article by Liz Peetz, co-chair of our Young Lawyers Committee, who organized it, shares our community gardening service program in Phoenix. Since we started after 4:00 p.m. it was too dark for printable photos of Chair Ellen Rosenblum gardening with Michael Kamprath’s children, or Larry Bechler and a group of lawyers throwing rocks into a dumpster, or Andy Gowder shoveling dried chicken manure, or some of us weeding, but you can visualize the scene! And afterwards we cleaned up and went out for dinner and had fun, in accordance with Goal 9 of our Section bylaws.
Erica Levine Powers, Editor