June 23, 2003

Outgoing Conference President Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino summed up his year at the helm of the Conference of Mayors on Monday, June 9. Following are excerpts from his address.

The work of America's mayors is more important than it has been in many years. We raised important issues this year, we secured new resources, but unfortunately, some of it got sent to the wrong address!

Now, it's our job to bring these funds back home, where they are needed.

In the past year, we have had to keep our cities safe in the midst of numerous terror alerts, along with cutbacks in other types of federal law enforcement support;

We have had to keep our people strong and our budgets balanced during tough economic times;

We have had to step forward to assume leading roles in education and youth programs, and in health care and housing, as others have retreated or failed;

We have reached out beyond our city limits to build new regional alliances and foster new city'suburb relationships for the 21st century; and we have stretched even further to create bonds with our international counterparts at a time of world uncertainty.

We have pushed and pushed and pushed to get more resources for homeland security, and finally, Congress responded. Funds have been appropriated for first responders and for so-called high-risk urban areas. The only problem is, the monies have yet to arrive.

So where is the money? Ask your state government! They are in the process of slicing and dicing the money. And by the time we see it, it may only pay for a small fraction of our needs.

You know what you-ve been spending on public safety tied to national alerts and preparedness. And through our surveys, you know what's been spent in cities all around our country. It's our job to protect our people and we are continuing to do it.

Meanwhile, the states keep slicing and dicing — but they aren't signing a whole lot of checks!

We stood up for fiscal relief for the states when the governors were silent.

We saw that they handed out tax cut after tax cut in the 1990's, and were poised to hand out local aid cuts left and right in this current economic downturn.

We fought for relief, and with the help of Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, we succeeded in getting 20 billion dollars in the tax legislation. First, we were going to split that money with the governors. Then, it was 10 billion dollars for Medicaid, 6 billion dollars for the states and 4 billion dollars for the cities. Then — presto — the money for our cities was gone!

So now, it's up to us to fight at the state level for the funds for homeland security and economic security. We lobbied hard for those funds — it's time to bring them home — to protect our citizens and to reduce the number of layoffs that many cities are facing due to state aid cuts.

Don't let these dollars disappear into trust funds or rainy day funds. It's raining now in cities across America.

I would urge that a portion of these funds — at least 10 percent — be used for job producing infrastructure projects. In my state, that would generate over 50 million dollars. Funds should also be used to keep teachers in the classroom, cops on the beat and cities moving forward.

Cities today are continuing to change and evolve. We see it in our metro economies reports — America's cities generate jobs and income far beyond our borders and our population. Boston, for example, generates almost one quarter of our state's economy, even though we have only 9 percent of the population.

Cities have reached out to become larger players in their metro economies through many new regional alliances. Today, there are metro mayors caucuses in cities such as Boston, Chicago and Denver. There are metro mayors for the Louisville and Miami areas. And all of us are confronting issues such as housing, health care delivery, energy conservation and emergency management cooperation.

And it's a good thing that we help people access the Earned Income Tax Credit, because working families at the lower end in terms of earnings aren't going to get much out of the President's tax bill. At the last minutes, around the same time that the cities were getting stiffed — the conferees also eliminated childcare tax credits for many working families. I-m glad that some are moving to correct this omission.

This whole tax package has a bad ring to it. I met an executive in my city who said, "Tom, I-m going to make about 250 thousand dollars more as a result of this tax bill, and I don't need it." Meanwhile, the people we mayors serve will get little or nothing.

In any case, I hope that we can continue enlisting national foundations to work with us. The three organizations I mentioned were our partners this year, and I know that more are interested.

So just as Mayor Webb has hosted international mayors this year, I am offering, as the host of next year's conference, to host a forum with national foundations on how cities and foundations can better collaborate in this time of limited resources.

Speaking of housing, I made this my top issue when I became President on May 7th of last year, and we convened a national housing summit soon after. We had an excellent forum in Madison that involved many of you. We set up a regional system of housing chairs, and during Lobby Day, we met with several of the leading committee chairs for that issue. I also had the opportunity to speak all around the country on this critical issue — in Los Angeles, Chicago, Raleigh, Hartford and other cities.

When the year started, we moved forward with a bi-partisan housing agenda. Secretary Martinez spoke at our summit and I met with him soon afterwards. We endorsed the President's homeownership tax credit, as well as the National Housing Trust Fund legislation, which now has 200 co'sponsors in Congress.

We reached out to new partners in this area — groups such as AARP and the American Public Health Association and the building trades. And I urged Fannie Mae to become more vocal and active in helping communities build the workforce housing that families need. The old formulas don't always work, so we need new tools and new ideas for housing American families, especially those who are not ready for homeownership or do not choose that option.

But I think we could have done so much more on the housing issue, if the Administration and Congress had met us halfway.

We are about to enter a presidential election year and that always draws mayors into partisan politics. That's natural, especially with an Administration and Congressional leadership that has great differences on domestic policy, with most mayors.

But remember, there are Republicans who have helped us — I mentioned Senator Snowe already. There's also Congressman Don Young, fighting for more funds for transportation projects; Congressman Rob Simmons, a lead sponsor of the National Housing Trust Fund; and the new OMB Director, Josh Bolten, who met with us in Key West in 2001 and helped us preserve some key programs.

And there are some Democrats who could do a better job by us. I-m disappointed that more of their presidential candidates aren't here in Denver, not just to speak, but to listen. And I was disappointed by the lack of dialogue when we were in Washington last fall. We don't need leaders speaking at us; we need them working with us. Both parties need to improve in that regard.

And finally, we mayors need to step it up in terms of working together. There is a group that will always respond when the need arises, but we need to expand that group. And we have to appear more as a group — not just as committee chairs, who run their meetings, give their press conferences, and leave.