Washington, D.C.
February 27, 2004

Over the past few weeks since President Bush came to our Washington Winter Meeting on January 23rd and acknowledged to us the challenge we face getting our homeland security/first responder funds down to our cities, we have been working with Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to set up a process involving state, county and city officials to all work toward that common goal.

At Secretary Ridge's request, Conference President Hempstead Mayor James A. Garner sent me to meet with Secretary Ridge to begin discussion on the process he is establishing as we move forward. Secretary Ridge sent his top staff to our Winter Leadership Meeting in Florida last week and we had productive meetings and are continuing to go forward with a strong commitment of working through this issue.

Upon returning to Washington, it was most unfortunate that a group of State Homeland Security Directors held a press conference at the National Governors' Association and released an NGA press statement ridiculing mayors.

Once the NGA press release was given to the Washington press corps and I got press calls, I felt compelled to issue a statement on the matter as Executive Director of your organization.

I conveyed a sense of disappointment over the tone and rhetoric coming from a group of non-elected officials. I also conveyed the good faith effort and commitment we all have in working with President Bush and Secretary Ridge through the process Secretary Ridge is establishing.

We must not let this unfortunate act in any way deter us as we continue to work with the Bush Administration to make certain that our first responders receive their first responder funds.

Please see page 10 for the two press releases .... the State Homeland Security Directors' press statement along with my response statement.

If there are questions, please let me know — phone: (202)293-2354 or fax: 202-293-9063.

Key West Leadership Meeting

We had a serious discussion among our leadership mayors in Key West concerning the strong need to keep our organization purely bipartisan. Let's face it, there's not too much bipartisanship left in Washington. There was a time not too long ago when there were national issues and national concerns but there is an air in politics today that has almost transformed politics into a blood sport.

It was Fiorello LaGuardia, the Republican Mayor of New York and one of our founders in 1933, who said "There is not a partisan way to fill a pothole." We all know the history of how he worked with the Democratic icon, Mr. FDR, to do so much for our cities and our country during that critical period in our nation's history.

I have said that The United States Conference of Mayors is the last bastion of bipartisanship left in America. We must never lose that cardinal virtue. We must not let the press divide us. We must not let Congress divide us. We must not let the Democratic or Republican Party divide us. Here's why: Ñ We must go as one united voice to the White House, to Congress, to the media, to the business community and to the voters - the general public.

United, we can win and conquer. United, we can make the city issues, large and small, urban and suburban, ones that both parties must support for the good of our nation and our people.

USA Mayors

Mayors work and live in a different arena than other elected politicians. They have microphones and TV cameras pointed at them every day to comment on everything from a school fight, a police shooting, robbing and looting, same sex marriages and sex taught in our schools, closing up firehouses and opening up swimming pools, lead in the water, lead in the paint, the beauty and heavenly scent of flowers in our parks and obnoxious fumes from machines and sewers that almost make you faint, rats, football stadiums, hockey rinks, brownfields and soccer fields, getting the murder rate down, getting hotel occupancy up, vending machines in schools which make our kids too fat, violent video games in city arcades that drive our underage kids to hate, what Jay Leno said last night and what President Bush said this morning, Michael Jackson's nose and Janet Jackson's pose, what the Council did last Tuesday, what the State Legislature did behind closed doors last night, our children, our spouses, our distant relatives sometimes in trouble with the law, Howard Dean's scream and train whistles that wake our babies, the barking of dogs, pit bulls that kill, the skill gap of our graduates, and the GAP store we-re trying to get, homeland security funds for our first responders we didn-t get, a lost child, a lost cat, the plowing of snow, and our budgets low on dough, the digital divide, the racial divide, the new immigrant looking for a house, young people looking for a down payment, what you eat, what you wear, the size of your waist, the make of your car, your makeup and the style of your hair — all this and more the mayor has to offer a comment. They don-t have handlers or pollsters to direct their daily activities. They speak from their heart — even more — from their gut as to what is right or wrong. While other politicians in a political season, as we are already in now, take potshots and are shrill toward our President, mayors don-t get personal.

esday, what the State Legislature did behind closed doors last night, our children, our spouses, our distant relatives sometimes in trouble with the law, Howard Dean's scream and train whistles that wake our babies, the barking of dogs, pit bulls that kill, the skill gap of our graduates, and the GAP store we-re trying to get, homeland security funds for our first responders we didn-t get, a lost child, a lost cat, the plowing of snow, and our budgets low on dough, the digital divide, the racial divide, the new immigrant looking for a house, young people looking for a down payment, what you eat, what you wear, the size of your waist, the make of your car, your makeup and the style of your hair — all this and more the mayor has to offer a comment. They don-t have handlers or pollsters to direct their daily activities. They speak from their heart — even more — from their gut as to what is right or wrong. While other politicians in a political season, as we are already in now, take potshots and are shrill toward our President, mayors don-t get personal.

right or wrong. While other politicians in a political season, as we are already in now, take potshots and are shrill toward our President, mayors don-t get personal.

But mayors do feel strongly about the people and cities they serve because they live with the people, they eat with the people, they smell the people and they know the feeling, needs, hurts and joys of the people more than other politicians. They have to know all about all people if they are to survive. And if mayors believe their city or people are not getting what is fair and reasonable from Washington, State houses, or the County Courthouses or the business community, you can bet your life you are going to hear about it. And sometimes it's not pretty because pure unadulterated unfairness and injustice causes wrath and anger. Tempers flare, even if you-re not Irish.

In Key West we had hot weather outside and it was politically charged hot inside. Mayors let it out. It was needed. And when we left mayors all agreed that we must stay united and bipartisan in our great organization — The United States Conference of Mayors.

Our President, Hempstead Mayor James A. Garner, summed it up in his closing statement urging all to be active in their own party for the candidate of their choice but he urged all to refrain from bringing partisan activities and rhetoric into our "church". He said "The United States Conference of Mayors is a political church and we have all come to worship." In other words as the Sheriff in the old western used to say, "Folks, leave your guns at the door."

Let us continue as we go forward in this already heated campaign to stand with Mayor Jim Garner, our 61st President, who has kept us united, strong and determined to move us forward with one bipartisan force, to meet our challenges and conquer any foe who is not fair and brings injustice in any shape or form to our people and our cities. Praise God. Praise Jim Garner and praise the united United States Conference of Mayors.