By Elena Temple-Webb
February 2, 2009

Several mayors gathered for the opening press conference of the 77th Winter Meeting of The U.S. Conference of Mayors to discuss pending economic recovery plans. Led by Conference President Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, mayors urged Congress to move quickly on then President-elect Barack Obama's call for a National Economic Recovery Plan to immediately create jobs and make investments in the future economy.

Diaz said he was pleased with the President-elect's proposal saying, "This plan is the first crucial step in a concerted effort to create and save millions of jobs, jumpstart our economy, and begin the process of transforming our America for the 21st Century. Mayors are pleased to see significant funding for local programs with targeted investments and unprecedented accountability measures."

Diaz stressed that many of the programs that have been proposed in the House legislation represent long-term priorities that the Conference of Mayors has been promoting for years, including items called for in the Mayors' 10-Point Plan: Strong Cities, Strong Families, for a Strong America. In addition, the House measure reflects funding in every one of the ten program areas the mayors recently called for in their MainStreet Economic Recovery.

The mayors discussed the Conference's new MainStreet Economic Recovery Report which shows how quickly cities could produce new jobs with an infusion of federal dollars. Over the last two months, mayors have released a series of MainStreet Economic Recovery Reports that inventory local "ready-to-go" infrastructure projects that could be completed in two calendar years. In the latest version, 779 cities across the country reported a total of 18,750 local infrastructure projects that could produce over one million jobs with a federal investment of $100 billion.

Conference Vice President Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels spoke about how mayors are aligned with the priorities of the American people saying, "Mayors are closest to the people and have the inside as to what kind of investments will bring real, lasting and long-term change for our people. The stimulus proposal is a great first step in helping our residents who need help most."

Nickels' comments underscored the findings of a Zogby poll conducted for the Conference in which respondents reported they trust local government over state government by a margin of three to one. In another significant finding, 84 percent of respondents believe that infrastructure improvements are important to the health of the local economy. Finally, while only 37 percent of respondents said they believe the President-elect's Economic Recovery Plan will help "people like me," a majority of respondents believe the plan will help create local jobs (55 percent) and help stimulate the local economy (54 percent).

Similarly, a new Conference report prepared by IHS Global Insight forecasts unemployment rates in cities around the country for 2009, emphasized the urgent need for Congressional action on the Obama Economic Recovery Plan and reinforced the opinions of respondents in the Zogby poll. The report, also released at the Winter Meeting, projects a significantly deteriorating job market in the nation's 363 metropolitan areas during 2009. According to the report, all but five metros will lose jobs.

In talking about the proposed recovery plan, Diaz said, "The economy is getting worse, more job losses are on the horizon, and small businesses are folding or holding on by the skin of their teeth. We need Congress to act now on a recovery plan to put people back to work."

The report also projects that by the end of 2009, one-third of all metro areas will have experienced no overall job growth for the decade. For these metros, this decade will be known as the "jobless decade."

"Our cities and their metro areas are the drivers of our national economy," said Dallas Mayor Thomas Leppert, Chair of the Conference's Metro Economic Committee. "This report underscores that any national economic recovery depends on how soon our metro economies can begin producing jobs. Without the economic recovery of metropolitan economies, there can be no U.S. recovery."

Conference Second Vice-President Burnsville (MN) Mayor Elizabeth B. Kautz echoed Leppert's comments with the question, "Why should cities be the chosen as the vehicle of government to distribute and to execute making America work with all these projects? Because we are the most transparent form of government, that's why."

Diaz concluded, "Cities and metropolitan areas are where 84 percent of the American people live and where the pain of this economic downturn is being felt most. Because of this, cities are where the greatest resources should be placed and are where public investment can have the greatest bang for the buck."