By Washington, DC
April 11, 2003

As U.S. Mayor goes to press, Congress is resolving on how it will distribute approximately $80 billion supplemental appropriations for our Iraq War, which contains $2.2 billion for first responders. Of that small portion for homeland security, $700 million is proposed for high profile security areas, which includes cities.

With the leadership of Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, we pushed hard to support an amendment that would have provided direct homeland security funding for cities throughout the nation that never saw action on the Senate floor. Instead, an amendment proposed by Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter would provide $600 million for high-risk areas.

The Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, has the authority on how this money will be distributed. While all cities will not be funded, Secretary Ridge has indicated that he is rethinking the question of how money will be distributed and that means that there is a rethinking of whether all the funds should go through the states. Just this week, Secretary Ridge let go of $100 million federal dollars that will go straight to seven cities without going through the states. While only seven cities got money from this $100 million, the Secretary did provide the money to cities. It was a step in the right direction. Other cities want more of this new Ridge policy and we hope our voices will continue to be heard by Secretary Ridge as he is about to receive from Congress the billions the mayors have worked so hard to secure.

We are also encouraged by an USA Today editorial this week, which headlined "Too many states siphon money leaving local needs unmet." The editorial provides statistics we have heard from Mayor O'Malley. Maryland got $16.8 million last year to prepare us for possible bioterrorism attacks. Of the $16.8 million, Baltimore got only $459,593. That's 2.7 percent of the total. Baltimore with 762,000 population density has 12 hospitals, a major seaport and airport.

Mayor O'Malley spoke to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce/Travel Business Roundtable Summit this week hammering away to big business and the CEO's of the travel and tourism industry that if you want safe conventions, safe hotels, safe restaurants and safe airports — the money must come straight to city halls and not siphoned off for state governments to develop a so-called state plan. Then Mayor O'Malley raises the question of why should he have to wait and endanger his people because the bureaucrats can't get their state plan together in Annapolis. He is very effective because he, like our other mayors, have been living on the edge with plans developed and implemented immediately after 9/11/01 — long before we went to high alert because of our war in Iraq.

From New York came our Mayor Michael Bloomberg also weighing in with President George W. Bush and the Congress against the State of New York on the same issue Mayor O'Malley has advocated — direct funding for New York City. Mayor Bloomberg has put his political life on the line on this issue and he sparred publicly with his own Governor Pataki on this issue. When it was over, Bloomberg had won for his city an agreement that high threat funds would go directly to New York City. Later this week, Pataki heard from his supporters as they took our position of direct funding over funds going to Albany.

So, while we are not there yet, we have made progress since we called for direct homeland security funding for cities within weeks after our roles suddenly changed and cities became high target areas for terrorist.

Travel and Tourism Summit/U.S. Chamber — Travel Business Roundtable

This week mayors gathered in Washington under the leadership of Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin to participate in our first ever Summit with the United States Chamber of Commerce and the Travel Business Roundtable.

Mayor Franklin was most precise in telling Washington power makers and the nation's business leaders that all is not well with the travel and tourism industry in her city. She cites 9/11, the Iraq War and now SARS as reasons for a 30 percent drop in international travelers in Atlanta. She reminded the group that Hartsfield Airport has more passengers than any airport in the world and it will lose $5 million in concessions, $2.5 million in parking revenues over the next 60 days if the United States stays under a "high risk" of terrorist attack.

The orange alert costs Atlanta $180,000 a month says Mayor Franklin and, further, she stated that the cities' hotel occupancy is down 8 percent since the first of the year and has cost Atlanta 16,000 hotel jobs.

She does a masterful job in linking her budget challenges as the safety and security issues merge with the economic security issues. Overtime and high alerts push security expenses higher. Fear and concern stops people from traveling, which cuts into money spent in Atlanta, and reduces tax receipts going into the city coffers and thus revenues go down. She has recently balanced her budget. She needs help. She doesn't think homeland security money coming from Washington should be reduced because of state administrative expenses in her state capitol, which is across the street from her city hall.

She has championed, as Chair of our Travel and Tourism Task Force, the proposal that the federal government should spend money promoting our cities across the globe. We called on our government to promote our cities. We are most appreciative to Senator Ted Stevens, Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, for supporting and passing a $50 million initiative to promote American destinations. The French Republic spends millions across the globe promoting travel to French cities and so does Spain and Germany. The U.S. government does not spend one cent promoting American cities. The international traveler has to be reached. We want them here with their money — not in Canada — not in Mexico. We want them here first. Spend it here — then go up to Canada and down to Mexico and spend what you have left. We are encouraged that Congress and the White House has embraced our destination funding proposal. We thank Jonathan Tisch, Chairman of the Travel Business Roundtable and his team for their support as we allied to get our government back in the business of competing with other nations as we recapture the international traveler back to America, which helps our economy. Remember what Jonathon Tisch has taught us. If you go to Chicago and an international traveler goes to Chicago, the international traveler will spend six times more than you spend. So lets get them back up and down there, from over there — from everywhere. Come to the U.S.A. — we got it all!

We also are most appreciative of Mr. Tom Donohue, President and CEO, of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He continues to speak out bringing cities and business closer together as we go forward. We thank him for co-chairing our summit this week.

Samuel Harrison Adams

Another joyous event for me and my wife Carlotta, our seventh grandchild — a boy named Samuel Adams from daughter Havalynn, who grew up within the Conference of Mayors family and her husband Tom Adams. In this period when we celebrate our patriotism we are reminded of the first Samuel Adams. History tells us that Samuel Adams planned the Boston Tea Party and the first battle was fought over a British attempt to capture Samuel Adams and John Hancock. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and at the age of 71 he became Governor of Massachusetts while serving as Lt. Governor when John Hancock died. Samuel Adams was elected three times after that on his own. Entering Harvard at the age of 13, he went on to become the father of the Revolutionary War. And so we welcome another Samuel Adams healthy as can be weighing in at 7.9oz, 20 3/4 inches long, born on March 14. God bless you Samuel and God bless the men and women fighting in Iraq and hope they will soon all be home safe and sound like you!