- Tue, 2012-02-14 03:06
- 0 Comments
Dear Women of South Florida and Beyond,
As Mayor of Miami Beach, I’m excited to welcome you to the 5th Annual Miami Beach Women’s Conference. Over the years, thousands of you showed up to share with, and be inspired by other women in local politics, business, media, health and other industries.
This year the cast of local female stars for the Morning Mayor's Panel at City Hall is quite impressive. It includes Patricia Ireland, Elizabeth Schwartz and Jersey Garcia. The Event is Free to the Public.
Each woman brings a unique perspective to issues that affect all women in the complicated world in which we live.
The Conference will be followed by the ever-popular annual fundraiser "Lunch in the Garden" with Honored Guest Florida Senator Gwen Margolis featuring top local women chefs and a Silent Auction of great local deals at our beautifully renovated Botanical Garden. The admission is $30 in advance and $35 at the door. Please book early as seating is limited.
This event is produced annually by Women’s Exhibit, Inc.(WE), a Miami Beach-based nonprofit, and a dedicated core of volunteers for the benefit of local women’s organizations.
I look forward to greeting old friends and meeting new ones as we do what women do best — make connections and empower each other.
Please join us!
Sincerely,
Mayor Matti Herrera Bower
MATTI HERRERA BOWER
BIOGRAPHY
In 2007, Matti Herrera Bower became Miami Beach’s first woman mayor, and its first Hispanic mayor. It was just the latest in a long series of firsts for this tenacious community activist. Mayor Bower started out more than 30 years ago as a PTA mom, fighting to save an elementary school in danger of closing. She also joined the fight to save the historic Art Deco district in South Beach, which led her into yet another battle to help create decent affordable housing for the elderly and young families.
As is typical of her, Bower didn’t know when to quit solving problems, so she went on to run for the Miami Beach City Commission, becoming its first Hispanic female member in 1999. There she caused a lot of trouble in all the right places — resulting in a new focus of the city on providing more and better parks programs for children, affordable housing and social services to the elderly, and a clear direction toward empowering civil rights for all citizens, regardless of gender or sexual identity.
After eight years mixing it up with her colleagues, Bower was drafted by a grassroots coalition of citizens to run for mayor. Her enthusiasm for helping others – with problems big and small – and her independent-minded leadership, have endeared the community to the woman everyone calls simply “Matti”. “Matti is my name,” the Mayor explains. ”The title comes and goes.”
Now in her third and final term as Mayor, Bower is concentrating on redeveloping the Miami Beach Convention Center campus to stimulate the city’s economy and to provide a better connection with the city’s business and cultural center.
