June 2010 – Page 2 – Your Code of Ethics

Reference: Cities, national organizations of

The USA.gov website provides links to, and corresponding descriptions of, the following national organizations of city, county, and town government:

• International City/County Management Association "Professional and educational organization for members of the local government community."
• National Association of Counties "only national organization representing county governments in the U.S."
• National Civic League "Nonprofit, non-partisan organization dedicated to strengthening citizen democracy in local communities."
• National League of Cities "Largest national organization of municipal governments, representing 18,000 cities, towns, and villages in the U.S."
• State and Local Government Employees "information and services for state and local government employees, including links on grants, disaster management, and education."
• U.S. Conference of Mayors "Official nonpartisan organization of U.S. mayors, representing cities with populations of 30,000 or more."

Reference: Cities, counties, towns

The "American Hometowns" site of USA.gov contains links to government websites of cities, counties, and towns via their state websites.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors has a Meet The Mayors website that links to city/county/town government websites, via a map.

Reference: Research by topic

A remarkable Internet resource for searching about almost any topic in which government has its hands is found at the main search engine of USA.gov. Linking primarily to other government (city, state, and fed) sites, it provides an excellent way to quickly find out the kinds of things that government (city and state as well as Fed) is doing. For instance, do a search of "welfare city" and you'll get, literally, one million results.

According to the "About" section of USA.gov:

"USA.gov is an interagency initiative administered by the U.S. General Services Administration's Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies. It got its start when Internet entrepreneur Eric Brewer, whose early research was funded by the Department of Defense, offered to donate a powerful search engine to government. That gift helped accelerate the government's earlier work to create a government-wide portal.
In June 2000, President Clinton announced the gift from the Federal Search Foundation, a nonprofit organization established by Brewer, and instructed that an official U.S. web portal be launched within 90 days. USA.gov went online on September 22, 2000 under the name FirstGov.gov. The GSA and 22 federal agencies funded the initiative in 2001 and 2002. Since 2002, USA.gov has received an annual appropriation from the U.S. Congress. In January 2007, FirstGov.gov officially changed its name to USA.gov."