Meeting in Atlantic City on April 21-23 for their 36th Annual Conference and Exposition, more than 200 New Jersey mayors focused on "Mayors and New Jersey's Youth... Creating the Partnership."

The theme of the New Jersey Conference of Mayors meeting was established in coordination with The U.S. Conference of Mayors' focus on "The Year of Youth" under President Deedee Corradini of Salt Lake City.

While the long-standing program for the meeting had been devoted to the issue of youth development, the conference took on increased significance in light of the tragic school shootings that resulted in fifteen deaths at Columbine High School in Littleton.

Following a presentation by Conference Executive Director J. Thomas Cochran during the Board of Director's Dinner on April 21, The U.S. Conference of Mayors National Action Plan on School Violence and Kids from 2:00 to 8:00pm was unanimously adopted as official policy of the New Jersey Conference of Mayors.

At a press conference the following morning, incoming NJCM President John DiMaio of Hackettstown announced that he has appointed Hope Mayor Timothy McDonough to lead a special committee working on implementation of the plan within the state of New Jersey.

NJCM President T.C. Kay of Pemberton said that "mayors are taking a pro-active stand on violence... and violence does not discriminate, it touches us all."

New Orleans Mayor Marc H. Morial was the Keynote Speaker at the NJCM Conference, and participated in the press conference on school violence.

Morial Demands Industry Responsibility for Gun Safety

During his comments at the morning press conference and again in his keynote luncheon speech, Mayor Morial stressed the need for a comprehensive fight against gun safety, and offered sobering statistics to make the case for increased vigilance:

In 1995, the latest year for which complete numbers are available, 5,285 children died as a result of firearms in the U.S., compared with zero in Japan, 19 in Great Britain, and 157 in Canada.

1.2 million elementary school children have access to guns.

Fully fifty percent of firearms related incidents involving children occur in their own homes, or the homes of friends and relatives.

"In Vietnam we lost approximately 50,000 lives," Mayor Morial stated. "I would venture to say that if we looked at the 1990's alone, the number of young lives lost due to firearms, on domestic soil, in a time of domestic tranquility, may be equal to or exceed the total number of people we lost in Vietnam 30 years ago."

"We cannot, with what has occurred in Littleton, continue to sleep silently, or go complacently forward," Mayor Morial continued. "I think Littleton shows us, in the most dramatic way, that the problems of young people in America are not problems of black people, or white people, or brown or yellow people. They aren't problems of the suburbs, or exurbs, or urban communities. They aren't the problems of the East, West, North, or South, but problems that touch every community in America, every community."

As potential responses to the problem to youth violence and access to guns, Mayor Morial offered several specific Best Practices he implemented in New Orleans to protect young people, including:

• Hiring better educated, more qualified police and providing them with better training;
• Instituting the toughest youth curfew in the country; and
• Creating more after school and summer work and development opportunities for young people, both with public dollars and through private sector partnerships.

Mayor Morial encouraged those present to consider the National Action Plan on School Violence and Kids and 2:00 to 8:00 pm as a comprehensive blueprint for action, and warned again against complacency on the issue of youth violence. "We close this year an unbelievable century in human history," Mayor Morial said. 100 years ago we didn't know the telephone, electricity, the Internet. An unbelievable century--but that progress cannot give us a false sense of security in terms of where we are with our young people. Let us hear and respond to our young people, and use the power and trust that our citizens have placed in us to make a difference for our children."