Washington, DC
June 19, 2006

74th Annual Meeting/Las Vegas

The 74th Annual Meeting of The United States Conference of Mayors is over. We thank “The Happiest Mayor in the Universe” Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, his wife Carolyn and their team for all that they did – and it was quite fantastic! – to make our 74th nothing short of spectacular. As Las Vegas celebrates its 100 years, we were pleased to be there in the fastest growing city with a new person arriving to live there every six minutes and a new house being completed every 19 minutes. Hearing Mayor Goodman and his development team keynoting our Mayors Business Council breakfast tell their story of how they are developing downtown Las Vegas was fascinating and informative. We thank Mayor Goodman for his overall 100 percent effort to support our 74th and we especially thank him for the “best practices” session giving us the success story of how downtown Las Vegas is turning into a strong economic area contributing to the expanding metro economy of Las Vegas.

Mayors also honored outgoing President Long Beach Mayor Beverly O’Neill for her leadership over the past year. Her term as our President was fraught with difficulties and challenges when Katrina, Wilma and Rita hit Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. But she went to the region and pledged our help and support and we followed up. Even with the natural disasters, President O’Neill was determined to keep her “Cities for a Strong America” initiative active and we did follow through and hold summits all over the nation covering key topics. No doubt, the Energy and Environment Summit we had in Chicago will be and is today a landmark event. Mayor O’Neill led us to take first steps in bringing together to show and learn from what mayors and local governments and business are doing to provide more efficient, cheaper and healthier energy initiatives. Our new President Dearborn Mayor Mike Guido and leading mayors are committed to keep this issue alive, up front and center of our organization.

We thank Mayor O’Neill for her three terms as mayor of Long Beach. We thank her for her leadership in transforming Long Beach into the destination city it is today. And we thank her for her “body of work” she gave us even before she was our President as she led the way with her workforce summits giving us new insights and best practices on workforce and education issues.

As President too, in addition to our response to Katrina and the innovative summits we held, we appreciate her strengthening our continued relationship to the Chinese Association of Mayors. Due to her energy and presence in China, we brought to Las Vegas Beijing Mayor Wang Qishan and we will have next year our 5th Sino/USA Mayors Summit in Chicago.

One year as our President goes fast. But it was not one year. It was twelve - three terms. Two elections somewhat easy with her name on the ballot and the third term, the hard way, with a write-in campaign in an election where your name is not on the ballot. That’s how the folks in Long Beach feel about her. She defied term limits and the political world of our nation stood up and recognized it too.

I had always hoped that she would serve us as a past-President to give me advice and counsel. But next month she leaves office and as I write this column I am headed to Long Beach to offer remarks for all of you at her gala “send off” dinner. She will be missed from our midst.

As a college President with a remarkable career behind her, she could have retired but the people called her for further service to be the greatest mayor of Long Beach. And even though she is no longer mayor, I have her phone number and don’t think for one moment I am not going to call her to get her thoughts and ideas about things that somehow are thrown my way. Thank you Mayor O’Neill and God Bless you and your family. We know you will be successful and meaningful in any endeavor you choose as you leave office to start another exciting phase of your illustrious life of public service.

Our 64th President is Dearborn Mayor Mike Guido. His speech before a packed inaugural breakfast in Las Vegas was well received. Mayor Guido is no novice. He has served as Mayor for 20 years and his city is one of the most diverse cities in America.

Over the next few weeks he will be announcing his new Chairs for our Leadership as we go forward this year. He is bringing together his two top officers, Vice President Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer and Advisory Board Chair Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, to Dearborn next month. He will give his officers his political map for the coming year. And in mid September at our Leadership Meeting in Santa Barbara we will begin the implementation of our strategy as we face the 2006 Congressional elections this fall and we face the beginning of the 2008 Presidential campaign that is looking straight at us after the Congressional elections are out of the way in November.

President Guido has already announced he wants to continue and expand the Energy and Environmental initiative started this year. Plans call for more energy summits after our leadership meeting in Santa Barbara.

As President, he will need your help as we go forward and he wants you to let him know of your interest and your thoughts of how your participation can add to our organization. Member mayors are pleased with our best practices sessions in Las Vegas and Mayor Guido wants to continue to strengthen opportunities for mayors to come together to learn from one another. We are getting the message from all of you that that is what you want.

We changed our Annual Meeting in Las Vegas to give you more time with one another in smaller(mayors only) best practices sessions.

Mayor Guido will continue to lead us in that direction and he will need your help too as we face Washington and do what we can to protect cities from harmful fallout and do what we can to engage Congress and The White House to support innovations that are flourishing in our cities, thanks to your leadership with your city government, your citizens, business community, nonprofit and civic groups.

On behalf of Mayor Guido, and all of us, we encourage all mayors to be active with us as we head toward our Diamond Jubilee 75th Anniversary of the founding of The United States Conference of Mayors. Los Angeles will be the place for all of you to be next year. We want you with us, but before we get there, there is work to be done. There are challenges ahead we know about and yes, there will be surprises. But through it all, we can be stronger if we communicate. So thanks to all of you for your service to the U.S. Conference of Mayors and as this year begins, please let me know if I can be of any assistance to you. You give so much at home. And we want to hear from you about it. Together, we learn from each other. Let us continue to come together for our great cities large and small that truly make America what it is.

Happy Independence Day! Happy Birthday America! – The greatest nation on earth because of the great cities of America that make her what she is. And it couldn’t be as great as it is unless we have you, our mayors throughout this nation, who are “working it” 24/7 to do their part in making their city better places for us to work and live and indeed give us the reason to celebrate our nation and our life here in the USA in 2006 on the 4th of July! Have a good one! You deserve it!