By Laurel Walker of the Journal Sentinel
Waukesha - Mayor Jeff Scrima will be spending three weeks in Cambridge, Mass., next month participating in Harvard University's "Senior Executives in State and Local Government" program.
The $11,450 program cost will be covered by $3,677 from the mayor's conference and training budget and from Scrima's own pocket. If is offered through Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
According to the program website, the course offers both traditional and hands-on learning experiences with a focus on such things as leadership, negotiations, public-private partnerships, microeconomics and dealing with the media.
It runs from June 4 to 22. Scrima's office said he would be available by email and cellphone while he is gone. Council President Joe Pieper will chair the council meetings in Scrima's absence.
About Laurel Walker
Laurel Walker covered local, school and county government for 20 years -- the last half of that at the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -- before she was named Waukesha County columnist in 1997. Today she writes about the people, places and events around metropolitan Milwaukee with a broad suburban focus.
She was the youngest of nine children raised on a central Wisconsin farm before leaving the nest for journalism studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and a masters degree at the University of Oregon.
She has spent the last half of her life in Waukesha County, where she and her husband raised two sons. Though she has a fondness for life in Waukesha, she eagerly partakes in the culture of the big city to the east and the recreation of the forests to the west. With sons in the arts, she has a special fondness for symphonic music concerts and art museums. She finds peace in a good book at a Northwoods getaway weekend, adventure in family visits to the east and west coasts, and satisfaction in a column well-written that reaches readers.
