RailNation: DC Updates, Council Meeting Dates, And More

By Jim Mathews / President & CEO

There’s a new date for the Council business meeting – it’s March 29th, a Saturday, all day in downtown DC. Thanks to our good friends and nonprofit partners at Open Gov Hub, we can offer a beautiful, ADA-accessible space for the meeting with all amenities for substantially less than we have had to pay to host our meetings in hotel ballrooms.

Originally, you may recall, we announced that we would hold the Council business meeting in late April, following the workshops. This was done to put more focus on advocacy, to make it easier for non-Council members to participate in our Capitol Hill visits, and to reduce costs for participating in our grassroots work. But many of you pointed out that for those who truly want to take an active part in our Capitol Hill visits while ALSO attending the in-person Council meeting it would require two separate trips – negating the cost savings and adding hassle.

You can thank your hard-working Chair Meredith Richards for coming up with a great answer, the Saturday session in DC. We talked at length earlier this week about how to make it all work and she suggested plopping the business meeting in between the two weeks’ of workshops, thus minimizing the long stays or separate trips for those coming from the furthest regions of the country.

I told her then, and again at Wednesday night’s Board meeting, “I wish I’d thought of that!”

It’s not a perfect answer, but it does make it significantly easier for many members to attend both a workshop session and the in-person Council business meeting. Next year we’ll set up the workshops with “bookends” to make Meredith’s Saturday session work even better, ensuring that those furthest away are scheduled for either the second half of week one or the first half of week two.

Meanwhile, Open Gov Hub is a great nonprofit partner, which makes it extremely affordable for us to accommodate as many as 100 people in a bright, modern, fully wired meeting space that’s convenient to Metro, buses, hotels, and our own headquarters where we’ll be conducting the workshops.

We’ll be able to charge just $75 to attend the in-person Council business meeting. This fee will include a catered lunch. We’ll have the space all day for extended policy discussions, internal Council business, and the conduct of this year’s elections...a significant improvement over having just a few hours on the last day of a Spring or Fall meeting.

And of course, if you are a sitting Council member and unable to attend in person, as always you’ll be able to participate in the Council deliberations via a livestream.

Remember, as of this year we no longer have a contract with a hotel for the conference, which means you’re free to make any kind of arrangement you want for your lodging. To make that easier, we’ve come up with a list of possible hotels and hostels for you to choose from (including a list of free-breakfast hotels courtesy of Council Member Steve Musen). The hostels are all highly rated – we excluded those with poor reviews – and all are under $100 per night.

We’ve updated the RailNation:DC landing page with all of those details, as well as travel and transportation details for our 1200 G St. NW office location, where we’ll host our in-depth workshops. Click here to learn more.

I really hope we’ll see you there!