May 19, 2005

Over the past two weeks, The United States Conference of Mayors has been involved in a number of international activities — most significant and historic.

At the invitation of Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, who addressed our Winter Meeting, Conference President Don Plusquellic and a number of USA mayors participated in U.N. sessions on May 3 in New York City with mayors on the subject of controlling the spread of nuclear arms. Plusquellic co-chaired the U.N. sessions with Hiroshima and Nagasaki mayors. For the first time in our history, the Secretary General sat alongside the President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in a U.N. session. And another first, as President, Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic introduced the Secretary General, Kofi Annan to the delegates assembled on the U.N. floor.

The substance of the U.N. meetings focused on the "loose nukes" issue. Mayors from around the world were asked to step up and raise grass roots concern to the dangers the world faces with stockpiles of nuclear weapons. While many have images of nuclear bombs being dropped on an American city the way we did in Hiroshima at 7:30 a.m. on August 6, 1945, the fact is nuclear devices can be shipped into our ports or over our borders and used by terrorists — domestic and international — without ever getting into an airplane.

At the U.N. meeting, a number of academics presented hypothetical situations illustrating possible security gaps at our ports and borders of the United States, which could result in the deaths of thousands.

Today, so many Americans are focused on their everyday lives and the stress we face, loose nukes and the spread of nuclear arms are not the topics discussed at the breakfast table. Lately a number of prominent Americans are coming forth to join with the world mayors on this issue.

Former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn, co-chairman and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), has worked to produce a 45-minute DVD movie entitled LAST BEST CHANCE which shows in a most graphic way, how little control the President of the United States might have in the event of a nuclear incident. Nunn indicates we have dealt only with 50 percent of the nuclear stockpiles that are located in what was once the Soviet Union. Nunn is respected by all on this issue and he is most serious. He hopes that the DVD movie will help arouse the interest and the action of the American people. Since leaving the Senate, he has worked on this enormous challenge with Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Billionaire financial and investment titan, Warren Buffet, has called the nuclear issue to be the "Number one issue of mankind." Buffet says if Sam Nunn is worried, we all should be worried.

Millions from the private sector are being donated to this cause but Buffet says that this is a task for the governments of the world. Until the governments step up, Buffet says he will continue to contribute and do anything he can to help Nunn's efforts on the loose nukes issue that exists today and also to prevent other countries from developing or getting nuclear weapons.

In the movie, the USA President is played by former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson and there is a scene when our President says about nuclear weapons when there is a possibility of an incident, "I don't know where they are and I don't know how many there are." Then the presidential aide says, "The horses are out of the barn."

The mayors at the U.N. and other notable Americans, like Nunn and Buffet, are speaking out and others will eventually join in this discussion. Lets hope the movie never happens. Lets hope the horses are never let out of the barn. We will continue to work with other mayors as they speak to their people in cities across the nation supporting their national governments for governmental action. Again, it might not be a plane. It may be a car. It may be a bus. It may be a truck. It may be a ship. It may be a suicide bomber. Scare tactics? Don't think so. Nunn is telling us the truth. And the issue is not going away.

Conference President Don Plusquellic led a Conference of Mayors Mission to Dublin, Ireland after the U.N. meeting. Joining Plusquellic was Conference of Mayors Vice President Long Beach Mayor Beverly O'Neill and senior Trustee Palatine Mayor Rita Mullins.

Plusquellic was most interested in learning how once a poor nation, Ireland has today, in over a twenty-year span, transformed its education and workforce ability with private sector partnership to be the number one nation in the world with high tech jobs per capita.

The mayors met with the Lord Mayor of Dublin, The Honorable Michael Conaghan, who gave us the story of what has happened in Ireland and he says without equivocation that it is the cities of the world that now drive the economies of our nations around the world. This statement is echoed everywhere we go these days. We have trumpeted our metro economies initiative here in our own country. Other nations get it and many in our USA business community understand that it is the metro economies that drive our national economy.

In addition to meeting with the Lord Mayor, we also were briefed by Dublin City Manager, John Fitzgerald and his team who gave the mayors insight and ideas to be taken back to their cities.

Matt Rossmeissl, Managing Director, European Operations Center of Microsoft, stressed the key to the Irish success was the willingness of the top federal government structure to move quickly and encourage Microsoft to locate in Ireland.

The President of the University of Dublin, Dr. Hugh Brady, was most kind with his time as the mayors sat with him in a give and take dinner session explaining the significance of relevant education being linked to jobs, which has proven most successful for the Irish economy and the increased wealth of the Irish people.

From Ireland, Plusquellic and I went to Berlin, the site for Metropolis -05, commemorating the twentieth anniversary of Metropolis, an organization of the larger world cities, which is headquartered in Barcelona.

Our friend Barcelona Mayor Joan Clos, President of Metropolis, presided over a powerful meeting involving workshops and forums on five of the common issues global cities face today. Plusquellic joined the President of Germany, the mayor of Berlin and other mayors on the opening dais centering on the role of cities in driving the national economies.

We have been working with Clos and his Metropolis team for four years. I had gone to Barcelona then to enlist his support of our international initiative for our 2003 Denver Annual Meeting. Later, O'Neill represented the Conference of Mayors in Istanbul on a major transportation forum and I continued to work on a more formal relationship and partnership between the United States Conference of Mayors and the Metropolis organization.

I am pleased to report to all of you that Plusquellic and I this past week signed an Accord with Metropolis which brings our two organizations together for the purpose of involving USA mayors with Metropolis and vice versa. Hence, we have joined Metropolis.

Addressing the General Session of Metropolis, I shared our concept of best practices, our metro-economies initiative and expressed our appreciation for the Accords signed by Plusquellic and Clos, along with Roig and me as your executive director, indicating that The United States Conference of Mayors had found a "home" in this vibrant and active 20 year old organization of World Mayors, Metropolis.

This week our program for Chicago, approaching its final additions, can be found on our website, usmayors.org. We are blessed with the leadership of our host, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley who has done so much to welcome his mayoral colleagues to his city. Plusquellic and the Akron/USCM Chicago team have developed a substantive meeting that covers the major challenges USA mayors face. And, just as important, we want to highlight "what is working" in America. No doubt you will learn so much from the city that does work and today ranks as a world-class city. But as Daley has so humbly said through the years, he learns so much from you, the other mayors in our organization of large, medium and smaller cities. It's all about best practices, sharing — and taking back to your home town some idea or initiative that is working in other cities that will work in your city.

We need you in Chicago. We are still fighting to save the CDBG Program. The big Transportation Bill, passed by the Senate this week, will still be in play. Challenges to homeland security and hometown security continue. Energy, environmental, workforce, health and other issues all will deserve your careful attention as we adopt or renew policy that guides me and my staff as we serve as your advocate here in Washington and throughout our nation and across the globe.

Register now. We need you in Chicago June 10-14. And you need to be there for the most important and the one and only mayoral bipartisan political event of the year, our 73rd Annual Meeting in the one and only CHICAGO!!