Washington, DC
March 3, 2006

Since 9-11, port security has been a top priority and concern of our mayoral members, and especially those members with ports. Since 9-11, in those years leading up to her presidency of The United States Conference of Mayors, we have been fortunate to have Long Beach Mayor Beverly O’Neill as our lead spokesperson on ports and port security.

Weeks after 9-11, we learned from public discussion that, of the millions of containers that come to our ports, only 2 percent were inspected. Through those years since 9-11, the fear of the possibility of a terrorist placing a smart bomb, nasty bomb, you name it – into a container on a port and then be placed on a truck to be transported into an American city – has caused fear and alarm among so many of our citizens.

The talking heads on television tell us since 9-11, “It won’t be with an airplane next time.” The attack will be through other means and certainly our ports have at least appeared to be vulnerable. Most people feel better about passenger airlines. We fly. They search us. They take our scissors – large and small. They take our cigar lighters, our bics and tweezers. Its okay. The U.S. Conference of Mayors called for a federal security force to prevent terrorists from quite easily going through airport security, take over passenger jets with rudimentary weapons to cause death and destruction we never saw before. While we feel better about airport security, we are told it will happen again. We witness the subway attacks of Moscow , Madrid and London. We raise concern about rail security and federal funds to protect our rails. Congress cuts our rail security funds.

As for ports, we are now told that since 9-11, five percent of port containers are inspected. That’s up from two percent. Should we feel comfortable? Elizabeth (NJ) Mayor Chris Bollwage, who has had experience personally working in ports and who is a port mayor, argues that the technology for port security has not changed since the 1970s.

We, too, have been very much aware of the terrorist threat at any time or any place. Since that day, 9/11/2001, our leaders have reminded us every day of the terrorist threat. Since that day, too, we have had a national election with the terrorist war as the major issue. Since that day, mayors and police chiefs have worked hard with each other, with state and federal officials to prevent another attack.

Color code red, color code orange have converted soccer moms into security moms. Terrorists are discussed everywhere.

Fear is stoked by our leaders intentionally to motivate us to protect ourselves so that American citizens are aware of what might happen. And again, we are told “it” – whatever “it” is – will happen again. So there is the terrorist fear out there. It is discussed at our breakfast room tables, in our coffee shops, in our bars and even in our places of worship.

Then Katrina hits. Another attack but this time an attack from a natural disaster. Our response, at the federal, state and local level bothered lots of people and it didn’t do anything to alleviate the concern and fear that we already had of a second big terrorist attack resembling 9-11.

Then the “bird-flu” comes on the screen and we worry about that. Another type of fear. They say not if – but when. Domestic ducks went down in France last week. A cat died in Germany. And four flamingos now have it in the Bahamas. Will our governments - federal, state and local protect us? 9-11, Katrina, “bird-flu,” what’s next?

Then the news comes last week that in a less than transparent process, our federal government is allowing the United Arab Emirates, a country with alleged past ties with terrorists to operate terminals in USA ports.

Six ports are involved in the deal, which includes Baltimore and Miami. Both Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley and Miami Mayor Manny Diaz have voiced their concern. At our Leadership Meeting held in Florida, other mayors shared their sentiments.

As President, on behalf of The United States Conference of Mayors, Long Beach Mayor Beverly O’Neill has requested Congress to investigate to be certain that our ports’ security are not further threatened.

President Bush assures us not to worry and has promised to veto any legislation that would stop the $6.8 billion deal for the Dubai owned company, DP World, to purchase terminal operations in the ports from a British privately-owned company. The reports coming from the White House press suggests that the President didn’t know about the deal until the news of the deal leaked out and caused a political furor.

The Republican leaders in Congress, usually solidly behind President Bush, have come out of the woodwork protesting quite vehemently of the deal. Some don’t like the secret way it was handled; some are opposed to it from a more ideological approach that opposed foreign companies managing USA ports. Former Mayor Sue Myrick of Charlotte, now a North Carolina Congresswoman, sent a terse one sentence letter to President Bush saying, “Not no, but hell no.” Former St. Paul Mayor, now Senator Norm Coleman supports a bipartisan proposal to provide a new 45-day review of DP World’s $6.8 billion bid. Senator Coleman has indicated, “If we don’t like it, we will have the right to say yes or no.”

We will continue to express our strong concern for safe ports. The Dubai proposal isn’t why we are doing it. We have had this issue up front and center since 9-11. And it will continue to be there.

The Governors are in town this week. President Bush met with them twice. President Bush invited them to the White House for serious meetings and topics that covered our cities. President Bush also feted the Governors to a “State dinner” black-tie event – a wonderful affair.

We had hoped so much for President Bush to come over to see us while all of you were in town in January for our Winter Meeting. There’s so much to talk about and so many things we are working on together. We thought we had President for our Winter Meeting, but his schedule prevented him from being with us. It wasn’t because we didn’t try. And we thank the White House staff for their efforts. We are now reaching out for President Bush to join us for our National Energy Summit in Chicago May 10-12 and our 74th Annual Meeting in Las Vegas June 2-6. We will continue working with White House staff on this matter and we will be asking our member mayors to support us as we have common goals on a number of fronts.

A interesting story came out this week from D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams. Many of us know that in many of the funding streams of federal legislation, the District of Columbia is treated like a state. They have direct funding from the federal government to the District of Columbia. We also know that the Chief Officer of DC in 1871-1874 was called Governor. Mayor Williams has wanted to go the NGA meetings to sit with the governors and he is tired of being “snubbed.” Last week he said, “The reason we are not allowed into the party is because I don’t have the title of governor and for the next mayor, we should consider and I would support changing the title.”

Of course, the statehood issue is still out there and the National Governors Association is saying they can change the title if they want to, but DC is not eligible to join the Governors to sit at the big square table of Governors of the 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands.

Meantime, Mayor Williams is always invited to join us as he has on so many occasions and as he has at the National League of Cities when he served as their President last year.

And to the next Mayor of D.C. let’s talk. Come to one of our meetings first. Give us a try and you may never want to go there.

The National Leagues of Cities and National Association of Counties are in town over the next two weekends for their Spring Legislative Conferences. We are united on stopping the $1 billion cut being proposed for the Community Development Block Grant program - CDBG.

We are working hard within our CDBG Coalition to stop this cut. Our Coalition will hold a national press conference here in DC on March 15 to further mobilize congress to stop the proposed $ 1 billion dollar cut and provide full funding to our priority program. We beat them back last year. We must do the same this year. NACo, NLC, USCM, NAHRO, NCDA and other national groups are joining with business allies and Republican leaders in our effort. Together we must and we will save CDBG — again!