FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEWPORT NEWS NAMED FINALIST FOR NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES’ 2010 AWARDS FOR MUNICIPAL EXCELLENCE

City Recognized For Outreach Efforts In Hispanic Community

The National League of Cities (NLC) has announced that the City of Newport News is a finalist for the 2010 Awards for Municipal Excellence.

The National League of Cities (NLC) has announced that the City of Newport News is a finalist for the 2010 Awards for Municipal Excellence. The Awards for Municipal Excellence recognize cities and towns for outstanding programs that improve the quality of life in America’s communities. Newport News is one of eight finalists in the 150,001 to 500,000 population category and was chosen for its various outreach efforts to strengthen ties with the Hispanic community.

The City’s application was titled No Longer Lost in Translation: Strengthening Ties with the Hispanic Community and described the impetus of our outreach efforts and how that has expanded over the years. In late 2003, the Newport News Police Department realized that due to a lack of trust in law enforcement, and in some cases fear of being deported, some members of the Hispanic community who had been victimized were not reporting the crimes. The Hispanic Victimization Project was created by Officer Xavier Falero and several other Hispanic and Latino Officers to address this issue by reaching out to the City’s Hispanic population to establish relationships and to build trust. Since then, the program has expanded and changed its name to the Hispanic Community Outreach Program and now includes cultural awareness training for police officers, regular appearances on the local Hispanic radio station, and soccer matches between police teams from Newport News and other Hampton Roads localities and teams from the Hispanic community.

Additionally, the Newport News Hispanic Advisory Committee to the City Manager was established in 2007 with community members and representatives from several city agencies including human services, the fire department, the police department, Newport News public schools, planning, the Sheriff’s Office and other organizations that offer services and programs that may benefit the Hispanic community. The committee provides input and guidance to city government on the needs of the Hispanic community and works with the city to meet those needs.

“We are pleased that Newport News is a finalist for our Awards for Municipal Excellence,” said Donald J. Borut, NLC’s Executive Director. “This shows that even at a time when so many cities are struggling financially, cities and towns continue to develop the most creative and innovative solutions.”

NLC received nominations from cities and towns in 40 states. Finalist programs exhibited exceptional public-private partnerships, productive citizen and community collaborations, management of municipal resources, implementation of government policies, project implementation with tangible results and/or the ability to replicate the project in other cities. Two finalists in each of the four population categories will be selected as winners of the 2010 Awards for Municipal Excellence and will be announced during NLC’s Congress of Cities and Exposition in Denver, Colorado, November 30 – December 4, 2010.

Information on other finalists and the Awards for Municipal Excellence can be found on the NLC web site at http://www.nlc.org/PRESSROOM/PRESSRELEASEITEMS/AwardsFinalists2010.aspx.

The National League of Cities is the nation’s oldest and largest organization devoted to strengthening and promoting cities as centers of opportunity, leadership and governance. NLC is a resource and advocate for 19,000 cities, towns and villages, representing more than 218 million Americans.

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