Washington, DC
August 29, 2003

Governors' Annual Meeting, Indianapolis

At the Governors' Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, August 15 — 19, the recall effort in California was being discussed by some governors as an alien part of American political life. Many mayors face the recall situation and some have survived it. It's another example of how mayors are more accountable on a daily basis, on a more personal level than governors as a rule.

Our good friend, former Mayor of Boise, Idaho, Dirk Kempthorne, became Chairman of the National Governors' Association. We congratulate Governor Kempthorne for another political accomplishment in his life. Many of us have watched him grow from a new, young Mayor of Boise to a United States Senator. Then, he gave up his senate seat here in Washington to go home and be governor. As a Senator, we worked so successfully and — with fun — in our "stop the federal mandates" effort. The Kempthorne bill was passed and signed into law by President Clinton. As a freshman senator, he proved he had incredible political skills. He is a caring, decent person and you can't help but like him because he connects with people. But he's tough at the same time. It's always good to see a mayor make good! Congratulations, Governor Dirk Kempthorne! We look forward to working with you.

Conference President Hempstead Mayor James A. Garner (NY) leads our mission to Africa this week. This is our fourth mission to Africa. Former Denver Mayor Wellington E. Webb led our first mission to Senegal and Ghana in 1999. We also were part of a second Webb mission during his presidency of the Conference of Mayors. In 2002, President Bush appointed then USCM Vice President Mayor James Garner as his official delegate to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. Burlington Mayor Pete Clavelle and Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown and Assistant Executive Director Judy Sheahan were all part of a most successful mission as Mayor Garner met with Secretary of State Colin Powell and the UK leader, Mr. Tony Blair. Mayor Garner also hosted a very special meeting with mayors attending the international summit where future initiatives were established.

With Mayor Webb and Mayor Garner in 1999, we signed an accord of cooperation with the Mayors of Senegal and recently our organization has been strengthening our presence in other nations of Africa.

At the time of the struggle in South Africa to establish a true democracy against apartheid in a black majority with white rule, The United States Conference of Mayors stood with Mr. Nelson Mandela who was given a life sentence in 1964 and imprisoned on Robben Island off the coast of South Africa near Cape Town. Resolutions were passed by USA mayors asking that Mr. Mandela be freed. In addition, we supported the boycott against multinational corporations doing business with white-ruled African nations who practiced apartheid in black majority African nations. So our history is there and our organization with its strong support for democracy in Africa.

The Garner mission this year is our largest mission ever undertaken in our 71-year history. It is a four-nation mission to South Africa, Namibia, Uganda and Swaziland. It starts in Cape Town, South Africa, where we will meet with Cape Town Mayor Nomainda Mfeketa and her cabinet to develop in her city, with a sharing of best practices and learning, how we can together build partnerships with the business community — both national and international — to come together to help development of her city providing more jobs for economic security and independence for the citizens of Cape Town.

Mayor Garner will also have separate meetings in Cape Town with business organizations to discuss how public-private initiatives can be fostered to support mayoral and local government efforts. In this area, we also have been able to involve the Cape Town International Business Conventions organization. USCM Business Council Managing Director Geri Powell and I met with Cape Town Director Mr. Rick Taylor at the IACVB national meeting recently when he was in Kansas City. Mr. Taylor has been most helpful to us. The business community is most important as we visit the international cities because we know local governments must be joined together to make our cities stronger through the development of sound infrastructure and jobs for city residents.

In Johannesburg, we will also meet with Mayor Amos Masondo to have similar meetings like we will have in Cape Town.

Johannesburg will also be the site of training sessions as we will be joined with the CDC Global AIDS African Program director. Teams from the UN organization AMICALL will come from Namibia, Swaziland and Uganda. We have been working on this mission "24/7" since our June Annual Meeting in Denver. It's intense and it's hard work because the missions to Uganda, Swaziland and Namibia are to foster best practices on the national catastrophe of HIV/AIDS that is threatening all aspects of life throughout Africa.

We are most grateful to HHS and the Centers for Disease Control who sponsored the African Delegation of Mayors to travel from Africa and have meaningful meetings in June at our Denver Annual Meeting. We held a special session with U.S.A. and African mayors, myself and my staff in the middle of our Annual Meeting. The African mayors could not have come to the U.S.A. without the financial support of CDC in bringing the African mayors to us. I had reservations about a delegation coming to Denver with our hectic schedule, when the Democratic and Republican mayors had their partisan meetings. One afternoon, I sat with Assistant Director Crystal Swann, officials from CDC and AMICALL, along with our African mayors, to develop the schedule, goals and objectives of the four-nation mission we are undertaking. It worked. We knew what we had to do when we left Denver and through the days and nights we have worked to perfect the plans for this undertaking before us.

And so, we go to Africa with clear minds and strong hearts dedicated to the proposition that if we can do anything in Africa to save lives and help mayors learn from each other, it is worth it. We know also that this mission will not be a sea change for the terrible HIV/AIDS epidemic challenging that continent. So we don't have all the answers, but we are willing to go and to face the truth of these challenges in mayor — to — mayor meetings, and we will learn from the African mayors, their staff and their people.

We don't know everything, but we do know this. In the early 80s when the AIDS disease hit America, we bonded with the Reagan Administration through our Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. He came to us when our nation was in fear. He knew the mayors were the ones that could get on television and lead discussions about this disease. The CDC knows and we do too — that the mayors of the United States through our professional organization stood up and forced us to talk, lead, and mentor through awareness campaigns in educating our young and old on safe sex practices. Mayors quelled the fear and led us to more thoughtful, intellectual understandings for all Americans through this period of death, fear and misunderstanding. It was a piece of this organization's history when we can all say that the mayors made a difference.

We now go to Africa facing a totally different situation where millions of children are in orphanages, in cities with African mayors throughout the African nations. We know that 28 percent of the college students in South Africa are infected. There are enormous work force issues that must be confronted if economic and commerce activities are to be strengthened. Our missions are serious and they are focused.

We also know we go to Africa when we are joined with President George W. Bush in the war against terrorism. We know our embassies are targets and we know that USA mayors and American citizens are targets anywhere they go as official delegations. But we trust our State Department and our military at our missions. We thank Secretary Powell and Ms. Nilda Pedrosa and her staff at State who have been so helpful in this mission. We could not have embarked without the total support we have received from our State Department.

Mayor Garner, on behalf of our mayors of The United States Conference of Mayors thanked President Bush for his $15 billion commitment to HIV/AIDS in Africa. It is our understanding that our friend, HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson will follow President Bush to Africa later this year. We appreciate that President Bush has appointed Mr. Andrew Tobias as a full-rank Ambassador to deal with AIDS in Africa. We have officially asked that we be given an audience and meeting with Ambassador-designate Tobias once he is confirmed.

Together, Democratic, Republican and Independent mayors stand with President Bush, HHS, CDC, the State Department and the United Nations to do what we can in the most appropriate way to face and help Africa as the motherland of so many of us go through this age of darkness, fear and death. We were with Africa in her political struggle and we will be with her as she faces the greatest epidemic of a continent that we have experienced in the world since the Dark Ages.

President Garner will lead the mission to Namibia along with Mayors King of Gary and Johnson of Jackson.

Knoxville Mayor Victor Ashe will lead the mission to Uganda along with Mayors Ellis of Macon and Kautz of Burnsville.

Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf will lead the mission to Swaziland along with Mayors Anderson of Richmond, CA, and Guido of Dearborn.

We will have a film crew with these missions shooting all at the same time in three different countries. We will develop a documentary for our mayors to be shown at our January Winter Meeting in Washington. We will share that documentary with the Bush Administration, the Congress, our mayors, the business community, the American people and the world. Film is more powerful to so many than the written word.

We thank God for Mayor Garner's leadership and the mayors that are about to embark on this mission. We ask for your prayers as we go. But we also ask for your hearts and hands when we return. Some talk and wonder what should be done. The USA mayors walk and do what must be done and that is the spirit and the energy we have from all of you as we go forth — to learn, to share, and to return so that together we can do our small but most important part to the challenge that will not be met unless it is done at the ground level with peace, hope, hard work and understanding in city halls and the neighborhoods throughout the continent of Africa.