By Laura DeKoven Waxman
July 4, 2011

“It’s great to be with friends….I am very envious of the job you have and of what you do,” Maryland Governor and former Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley told the mayors in the June 18 opening plenary session at the 79th Annual Conference of Mayors. O’Malley called on the mayors to help their citizens understand why government is important, what it can accomplish, and that the future can be better.

“You have a critical role to play in getting us over this fear that somehow tomorrow can’t be better….Your willingness to be out there every day, to talk openly and honestly about the realities we face, the budget realities we face, the resources we have, and the ability we have to actually make our government work....to show that tax dollars are not wasted, that there are some things we can only do together: reducing violent crime, improving public schools, making the transition to a greener, cleaner, better economy where opportunity is expanding again and jobs are growing. These are things that fall very directly on your shoulders, along with the most acute challenges we have and the gap between what’s possible and the dollars to achieve it…You can make people believe…that they can do it, if they believe in themselves and in one another, it is possible to make a new tomorrow.”

O’Malley also shared his favorite from the top ten David Letterman list of differences between mayors and governors:

“When you’re mayor you spend a lot of time very patiently listening to very poor people ask for life-and-death important things for which they’re willing to work. When you’re a governor you spend an inordinate amount of time listening to really, really rich people asking for really unreasonable things for which they’re not even willing to pay.”

He concluded by thanking Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake for bringing the most important officeholders in America to the greatest city in America.