Chapter Announcements: President's Message Fall 2024

It's hard to believe that at the end of this year, I'll be through my first term as your Chapter President. I can fully appreciate the time and effort that my predecessors have given in service to our profession and as tireless advocates for great planning in Upstate New York. My goals for when I got started were to build on our past success and future-proof our Chapter for a world that changes non-stop. I'm pleased to share some updates with you here.

First, this has been a year of change as we thanked Highland Planning for being our chapter administrator. Tanya Zwahlen took the leap with us a number of years ago when we engaged her and her firm as our first chapter administrator. I’m pleased to introduce you to our new chapter administrator Kate Manley. I've had the pleasure of knowing and working with Kate for many years in her prior role as a Chamber of Commerce leader. When we started to look for our next chapter administrator, Kate was coming off a number of successful engagements with other professional associations through her company Collaborkate. Her knowledge and experience with invested members is the perfect fit to move us forward. 

This year, I continued to increase our engagement with our national American Planning Association. I enjoyed getting together with many of our members at the National Planning Conference in Minneapolis. Attending the conference allowed me to continue engaging with leaders at a national level. Just a few months prior to that, I also had the good opportunity to meet with other chapter presidents and legislative affairs officers for two days in Des Moines, IA to learn more about what a successful chapter advocacy program can accomplish. I've taken these ideas back as we look at our opportunities in New York, and cooperatively with the New York Metro Chapter.

As an advocate for our Chapter and in response to the comments we made on proposed changes to the Association's by-laws, I was also asked to join other APA leaders as a member of the national Governance Committee. We were charged to consider changes to the by-laws regarding the election of officers via the nominating committee. Our work continues and this has helped me continue to connect with other experts in our field - names and faces you are certainly familiar with.

Finally - at least for the purpose of this report - I want to update you on the important work that our Futures Committee has been working on. Earlier this year, I asked three members to serve as a committee to consider where our chapter is headed in the years to come. This includes matters of governance, programming, and member services. You'll soon see a survey from that committee to gather your input and insight into how we are doing and where we can serve you better. Please take a few minutes to let us know about your experience as an APA and/or a New York Upstate Chapter member. 

We hope to see you at the Annual Conference in Ithaca on October 9!

Sean Maguire, AICP CEcD
Chapter President