Executive Director's Column

This week, the aftermath of the November 2 elections around the United States continues to rearrange the power players in the official leadership of our federal government.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, certainly a friend of mayors and cities throughout her political career, has won a challenge from North Carolina Congressman Heath Shuler. Congresswoman Pelosi will become the Minority Leader when she is sworn in as the new Congress convenes. As Minority Leader, she will continue to stand and fight for us as she has done before. She is the daughter of the mayor of Baltimore. Her brother was the mayor of Baltimore. I have said before that the office of mayor is in her DNA. And throughout her tenure as our Speaker from the first week when former mayor of Trenton, Doug Palmer as our President, met with her, she endorsed and supported our Conference of Mayors 10-Point Plan.
Throughout this last Congressional mid-term, there was a concerted plan, a funded effort, in many Congressional districts to demonize her and attack Democratic candidates for voting with her. Many of these votes were votes for federal resources for our own Conference of Mayors legislative priorities.
We cannot predict what the future holds for many of our Congressional priorities. We send money to Washington from our cities. The Constitution provides that Congress shall allocate all this federal money nationally. Our challenge for decades is to get the money back to our cities where today 85 percent of Americans live. Throughout Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi's career, she has been a champion for the cities and the mayors of America. In the morning, noon and all night, she is there for us. That is important because there is a lack of transparency today with so much of how Congress operates. Throughout history, we read how a Congressman or Senator voted on key turning point pieces of legislation – Civil Rights, Declaration of War, etc. Today, key votes are done in Committee, in the middle of the night where our priorities are imbedded in some omnibus legislation. And we don't know who is with us or who is cutting us because of the secret machinations of Congress. This system continues and if anyone questions why it is important to have Nancy Pelosi in the leadership, I ask you to look back at previous votes where year after year she has been unwavering in protecting our programs.
The day will come soon when the future of the Community Development Block Grant may well be once again on the chopping block. We will have to fight again and again and again for key urban programs. Nancy Pelosi will be there for us. Morning, noon, and night in the summer, winter, spring, and fall you can count on her to defend and to fight for us. That's why I'm glad she's still up there. She could have ridden off into a Western sunset and spent her time left on this earth with her grandchildren. She decided to fight not only for herself, her reputation, her career; she decided to stand and fight once again for us, for cities and for mayors. We appreciate her support and we look forward to working with her as we develop our strategy in the political atmosphere brought on by the mid-term elections as we now enter and face the beginning of the Presidential campaign of 2012.
These are challenging times because of the economic conditions in so many of our cities who are experiencing a jobless recovery from the worst recession since the Great Depression. Our President, Burnsville Mayor Elizabeth Kautz, is communicating to all of you to let you know that she is working with me, staff, and our leadership as we establish our contacts and have meetings with the new Congressional Leadership.
As we thank so many at this Thanksgiving time in our nation, we need to thank our mayors and their teams who live with the economic pain and suffering of foreclosures and loss of jobs of so many of our people. Through other great crises in the last century, in a different time, in an almost different world, in time of want, when people were in breadlines, looking for jobs, they looked at Franklin Delano Roosevelt and he told them that the only thing to fear was fear itself. Well, FDR is not around anymore. And people nowadays don't look to Washington the way they once did. They turn to their mayors. Today, we are thankful to you, and this nation will one day look back at this period and marvel at how when Washington was confused, and Washington was fighting, it was our cities, our mayors, and yes our people who just kept going forward. Mayors, large and small, are working together at the local level with their partners in the metro areas doing their best to wipe away the tears, comfort the jobless and to do their best to work with the private sector, state, local, and national partners to keep their cities and metro areas economically strong. As we all know, our metro economies will drive the national economy to recovery.
On behalf of President Kautz, our officers and staff, we wish you and your families, those you hold dear and close, and to your staff teams who give so much, a blessed Thanksgiving of 2010 as we continue to move forward for our cities and above all for our people.
Happy Thanksgiving 2010!

Executive Director's Column

As U.S.Mayor goes to press, once again we are in the midst of another great swing of political power going in a different direction than we had in 2008 when President Obama was elected. Another swing was in 2006 which brought us a new Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, who was and is a true friend of America's cities.
Historians are saying this is the biggest swing since World War II. Recognizing that, many of us remember 1994 when President Clinton's world was turned upside down as Congressman Newt Gingrich became Speaker.
This morning we rejoice for our mayors running for Governor and Lieutenant Governor. Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, who jokingly says he still would rather be mayor, won big. A friend of mayors and cities, he will be even stronger on the political landscape and soon be mentioned as a presidential contender for 2016. You heard it here.
In Denver, Mayor Hickenlooper goes down the street from Denver City Hall to the next Governor of Colorado.
In California, two mayors, Jerry Brown, former Mayor of Oakland, and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom move to be Governor and Lieutenant Governor of the "Republic of California."
In New York, Andrew Cuomo, Clinton's Secretary of HUD who is in his heart a mayor, and Rochester Mayor Robert Duffy will go to Albany with strong urban credentials to run the Empire State of New York.
In Connecticut, the Nutmeg State, a tough campaign with night balloting in Bridgeport brings Stamford Mayor, our dear friend, Dan Malloy, to win the closest race since Abe Ribicoff won the Governorship in 1954. In Tennessee, Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam was elected. So all in all, mayoral candidates fared well in the Gubernatorial races. Not too long ago, mayors were not statewide contenders. Today mayors are running statewide and winning.
And of course, we must congratulate our own Mayor of Providence, who hosted us in Providence for our 2009 Annual Meeting and who has always exhibited extraordinary loyalty and leadership to our organization. That's Mayor David Cicilline who won the race for Congress and is replacing the only member of the Kennedy family serving to be the First District Congressman from Rhode Island.
So changes are here. And we will feel the change. House Members and its leadership and Senate members and its leadership - even Presidents - come and go but the U.S. Conference of Mayors, representing our mayors and our cities here, as solid as a rock to meet the challenges before us.
We will never forget the loyalty and leadership given to us from Speaker Nancy Pelosi. No matter where life takes her, she is our friend, always.
My experience is that once the rhetoric has calmed, the new Speaker of the House will realize he is the Speaker of the House and I have every reason to believe that Congressman John Boehner will meet with us and work with us to strengthen and perfect our key programs.
Conference President Elizabeth Kautz, a Republican from Burnsville, Minnesota, will lead us to establish our working relationship with the new Speaker in the coming weeks.
Our mission, our goals, and our bipartisan political agenda are strong. It has been since Mayor Elizabeth Kautz took the gavel - jobs, jobs, jobs. She has said it over and over since President Obama had us over to meet with him last January.
In addition to jobs, it's about a fair and balanced transportation legislation to help the blue, red, and purple states with – traffic.
It's also about protecting our key urban program, the Community Development Block Grant, HUD program, and to retain funding for our new Energy Block Grants. Together, our officers and members from both parties will rally behind President Kautz.
This is not the time to shudder in fear of change. Change is our middle name. Mayors live with it, morning, noon and night. We must be agile and mobile and politically alert because we are the guardians and protectors of our cities and our people.
In the coming days, we will also reach out to President Obama to support him and help him as he now faces a divided and split legislative branch – a Republican House and a Democratic Senate.
At this time in America, when we are more divided, and in some instances devoid and bereft of civility – The United States Conference of Mayors is the last bastion of bipartisanship left in the nation. We must convince The White House and the new Speaker that they must work together. Mayors do it every day. I know I speak for our President, Burnsville Mayor Elizabeth Kautz, our Vice President, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and our Second Vice President, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, when I say - Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Majority Leader Reid – let's all come together. Let's all work together. So much is good and great about America in 2010. Together we must provide the economic growth and jobs for all as we begin 2011. So many people are still unemployed. It is a jobless recovery. Together, involving all at the table – federal, state, and local government, we must make a difference now. The nation's mayors will be strong in our efforts asking all to come together as we do in our cities each day to make our cities stronger. It's our nation. It's our USA. We all need to put the partisanship aside now and work to support the working people of the nation who want what we have always wanted, a decent job, a decent wage, and a decent place to live. It seems like it's not a lot. Today people are hurting. Mayors know this. They live with it. Somehow let us hope that maybe the shift of power, the political earthquake we feel today can bring Washington back down to Main Street America. We are Main Street. And once again the nation's mayors are asking Washington – The White House, the House, the Senate – to give it up for what needs to be done, for what needs to be delivered. As mayors, we have no choice. And as mayors, we will continue to reach out to our federal government asking them to all work together. Mayors reach consensus and move ahead in cities large and small throughout America. This is an opportunity for Washington. And the nation's mayors welcome this opportunity to work together on a common agenda that is so needed at this time in our history.