FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEWPORT NEWS RECEIVES PRESTIGIOUS NATIONAL RECOGNITION

City Recognized For Outreach Efforts In Hispanic Community

The City of Newport News has been named a gold winner in the National League of Cities’ (NLC) 2010 Awards for Municipal Excellence.

The City of Newport News has been named a gold winner in the National League of Cities’ (NLC) 2010 Awards for Municipal Excellence. Newport News is the gold winner in the 150,001 – 500,000 population category and is recognized for its outreach efforts to strengthen ties with the Hispanic community. The announcement took place on December 3rd at NLC’s Congress of Cities and Exposition in Denver, Colorado.

The City’s application (available online) 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, now known as the Hispanic Community Outreach Program, 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. The program 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.

In 2007, the Hispanic outreach efforts were expanded with the creation of the Newport News Hispanic Advisory Committee to the City Manager. The committee consists of 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 has held listening forums, developed information tools and partnered with community groups and agencies to identify and address gaps in the delivery of services within the city’s 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.

“The City of Newport News is excited to be selected as a Gold Winner of the National League of Cities’ Awards for Municipal Excellence,” said Mayor McKinley L. Price. “We have been working very hard to build bridges and strengthen ties with our growing Hispanic community and to be recognized for our efforts is a tremendous honor.”

As a gold winner, the City received a plaque and NLC will provide a nonprofit organization of the City’s designation with a $2,000 donation. The City has chosen Transitions Family Violence Services as the recipient of the donation.

2010 Awards for Municipal Excellence winners included:
Less than 50,000 population – Kingsport, TN (gold); Clemson, SC (silver)
50,001 – 150,000 population – South Bend, IN (gold); North Charleston, SC (silver)
150,001 – 500,000 population – Newport News (gold); Minneapolis, MN (silver)
More than 500,000 population – New York City (gold); Los Angeles (silver)

The Awards for Municipal Excellence recognize cities and towns for outstanding programs that improve the quality of life in America’s communities. Winning programs exhibited exceptional public-private partnership ventures, productive citizen and community collaborations, effective management of municipal resources, implementation of innovative government policies, project implementation with tangible results and/or the ability to replicate the project in other cities.

About NLC (www.nlc.org)  
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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