While the national elections roll on with a few days left, our organization of elected mayors, led by Conference President and Boise Mayor H. Brent Coles, continues our effort to build the political infrastructure with the private sector. This increasing partnership will enable mayors and business to go forward into a new era of growth and strength for American cities as the next Administration takes shape.

Last week, in New York City, President Coles announced and launched our new initiative Council for Investment in the New American City. The Mortgage Bankers Association is our new partner. The current President, Christopher J. Sumner, and CEO of Crossland Mortgage and the incoming President, Andrew Woodward, Chairman of Bank of America Mortgage, stood with Mayor Coles as well as Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton.

The site of this historic meeting was the Chase Manhattan Bank Corporate Headquarters in New York City. Thomas Jacob, CEO and Chairman of the Chase Manhattan Mortgage Corporation, was a most gracious host as well as a major part of our meeting and press announcement.

We have all talked about taking more polls to show that the American people now agree with a lot of what Mayor Coles is developing in his Conference of Mayors White House Transition policy statements. Ten mayoral teams continue to work on these policy proposals and the poll should make the mayors feel good about where they think the American people want to invest their federal tax dollars sent to Washington. For example, suburban voters want more invested in transit and rails. When we poll suburban people and city people on crime, suburban people fear crime and say crime is a bigger issue for them than persons living in the city indicate. Large numbers of suburban Americans say they would come back to the city if certain conditions develop.

We are seeing early signs that those persons who once feared the city now want the city life, the amenities Denver Mayor Wellington E. Webb talked so much about last year during his tenure as Conference of Mayors President and those needs are reflected in our proposals: parks, theater, the arts, museums, and sports.

At the press conference, Mayor Menino stressed that he has a low vacancy rate for housing rentals in Boston. He believes we must face the question of affordable housing or else rent controls will come from the citizens. He also says the Federal government should do more in housing production.

Mayor Sayles Belton is encouraged by our new partnership with the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). She was the host of one of our regional meetings with MBA this year.

Next week Mayor Coles speaks to the Annual Meeting of The Mortgage Bankers in San Francisco. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are also hosting events for Mayor Coles' participation. We have had meetings with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and we hope they too will join our Council for Investment in the New American City.

In New York, Mayor Coles eloquently articulated his concern that both Presidential candidates, Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush, are not addressing a Conference priority to have a national rails policy as other industrialized nations have. We will be reaching out to invite the rail sector, business partners and organizations to join our new Investment Council.

Mayor Coles' vision is to have all business partners from all sectors who spend their efforts rebuilding and building in American cities to be members of our new Investment Council. This approach will help us bring our transition policies to fruition. We will need the business community with us — big time — no matter who wins the Presidency. This is our strategy. This is our goal. And we are making it happen. Last week, while in New York, Mayor Coles also announced that we will have a Summit of mayors and business partners/CEOs here in Washington 120 days into the next Administration to support the transition policies we have developed for the new Congress and Administration and to forge new energy for this new era of American cities. I am also pleased that Dave Gatton will be the Director of this new initiative. He is a veteran USCM staffer and the right person for this job. Together, he and I, as well as our senior staff, will be working with mayors as leaders to build support for our priorities and goals.

Great Cities Universities

In addition to the business partners, Conference senior staff joined me and University of New Orleans Chancellor Gregory O'Brien in engaging leading academics from urban universities to scope out what we need and what they are doing. Our Washington meeting was a very positive bonding. So many of the priorities of the large urban universities are the same as The U.S. Conference of Mayors. Several board members of the Conference continue to emphasize their desire for us to have academic partners to validate what our political minds tell us. This USCM/Great Cities' Universities partnership is a response to members of our board and an idea that came to me and New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial. We thank Chancellor O'Brien and all those who came into Washington to spend time working with me and my staff. Last year, we asked former USCM President Bill Althaus of York (PA) to help us coordinate our work with this exciting Universities/Mayors initiative and we are pleased with our progress. At last week's meeting it was agreed that the universities would assist us in developing action research for two areas: rails and public schools. We look forward to this new energy within our organization. We should have been involved with them before now. Thank you Mayor Morial and Chancellor O'Brien for your vision and thank all the mayors who have helped us give this initiative a lift. Richmond Mayor Timothy Kaine co-chairs, along with Mayor Marc Morial our Mayors and Universities Task Force, and he will be co-chairing our activities at the upcoming Winter Meeting a few months away in January. Last week's meeting with my senior staff and university representatives will provide a focused agenda for us as we go forward with a new Administration and Congress.

The Current Congress and Cities

While you would think with all the bickering back and forth with Messrs. Gore and Bush about what President Clinton and the Congress have not done, we believe you are going to be surprised about a number of positive developments that will come out of this Congress. While we are giving you some signs of good news in this week's edition as Congress ends, we encourage all mayors to visit usmayors.org to get the final "score." In addition, we will publish a completed report in detail in our next issue. We appreciate the way mayors have responded to us since Labor Day to "educate" House and Senate Members and yes, our friends at The White House and President Clinton on our priorities. Members of the House and Senate have been coming together on a number of issues most important to mayors and cities. We thank those leaders in the House and Senate and we thank President Clinton, his staff, and Cabinet Officers who have championed the mayors agenda before and within the Congress. We will be more specific later when Mr. Bill Clinton finishes the signing. It ain't over until we get his John Henry. Keep up your efforts as we approach the last days of the Congress. We must be vigilant or some big things can be lost in the night.

Happy Halloween! Lets hope when the fighting, the howling and scratching of backs is over and the political blood is on the floor, we will have more treats than tricks. I think we will.