President-Elect Message
Rich Lee, CSMFO President Elect, Finance Director, City of San Mateo
Happy Fiscal New Year CSFMO membership! As President-Elect, I wanted to give you a brief update and let you know that the Host Committee has been very busy since my last update planning the 2023 Annual Conference. In fact, on July 6th, we had an in-person meeting in Sacramento to view the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center in preparation for the conference.
And I’m very pleased to report that the convention center went through a significant remodel during the pandemic, and the substantial amount of space and will allow us to have separate rooms for the general sessions, exhibit hall, and the dining area, so we won’t have to juggle using rooms for multiple purposes like we have had to do in smaller convention centers in the past. We also sampled the conference lunch options and were very pleased with the food. Please see just a few of the remodeled Convention Center spaces below:
The Host Committee also had the opportunity to tour venues for both the President’s Dinner and the Thursday Night Event. While we haven’t signed agreements yet, we have selected Ella’s Dining Room & Bar for the President’s Dinner, and Punchbowl Social for the Thursday Night Event. As shown in the pictures below, the latter has a lot of fun activities for everyone. Whether you like to bowl, show off your bocce ball prowess, compete in table tennis, be a billiards shark, dust off your arcade game skills, sing karaoke, listen to music, dance the night away, or just socialize, Punchbowl Social has something for you:
While the 2023 Annual Conference will certainly be a great opportunity for learning, networking, and fun, it will also provide a chance to give back. As such, in addition to financially supporting local non-profit organizations as detailed in my last update in May, I would also like to have a Day of Service on Tuesday, January 31st. This would be during the 2023 Annual Conference and activities would include preparing care packages of toiletries for the homeless and possibly volunteering in a soup kitchen. For CSMFO members that would like to give back, please keep this in mind as you prepare your conference itinerary.
And lastly, a sincere thank you to our municipal and commercial members that submitted a conference session proposal. Our Program Committee will be reviewing the responses and selecting the conference sessions over the next couple of months.
For my next update, I will announce our featured speakers and provide greater details about CSMFO’s philanthropic efforts. So please stay tuned! The 2023 Annual Conference is shaping up to be a great event. You won’t want to miss it!
Rich Lee has served local municipalities all throughout the San Francisco Peninsula over the past 17 years, including South San Francisco, Los Altos Hills, Millbrae, Foster City, and since January 2019, as the Finance Director for the City of San Mateo.
Rich was elected as President-Elect of CSMFO in October 2021. He has also served in other leadership roles, including Board Member, Chapter Chair, and Vice Chair of the Career Development Committee. In 2019, he was appointed to GFOA’s Ethics Committee.
Rich is also an active freelance bass trombonist and has performed with several artists, including Barbra Streisand, Peter Cetera, Gladys Knight, Bernadette Peters, and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra. He has also performed and recorded several albums with local jazz big bands
During the pandemic, Rich developed audio and video engineering skills and received two awards from Music In Place, a non-profit organization providing support to San Francisco Bay Area musicians to continue creating music while sheltering in place. His various isolation music projects are available on YouTube.
