Washington, DC
September 11, 2009

During this Summer, since our Annual Meeting in Providence, mayors have been most active and focused on the Senate as a healthcare reform bill and a climate bill is scheduled for action after Labor Day.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has been our lead mayor on healthcare reform. We have been involved on grass roots activity. Conference calls with White House staff and hundreds of mayors discussing strategy and policy have been successful. As U.S. MAYOR goes to press, we have just heard President Obama address the nation on healthcare for all Americans. The beat goes on and soon the Senate will move for a vote. Let us hope that after the shouting is over, Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans will come together, and a bill will go to President Obama for signature.

As reported earlier, we had a very successful lobby day on July 21, when mayors came to Washington for a full day of meetings with Senators. California Senator Barbara Boxer, Chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, thanked the mayors for their support of the Senate Climate Bill and she gave the mayors her support to provide language in the Senate that would provide a share of the allowances with funds going directly to cities. Senator Boxer included in her bill last year adequate funding to be distributed with the same formula that is now contained in the energy block grants (EEBG) as contained in the stimulus monies that was approved earlier this year.

As U.S. MAYOR goes to press, mayors, at the request of Chairman Boxer, are preparing to head back to town for our second lobby day on September 14. Conference President Greg Nickels will lead our efforts during our activities next week. With him will be our incoming President Burnsville Mayor Elizabeth Kautz. We have a strong delegation of mayors as we hit those Senators who need to be educated on the importance of the energy block grant program that must be included in the Senate climate bill that will take action before the Senate goes home this Fall.

In addition to the healthcare bill and climate bill, Congress will receive the President’s Budget that he proposes for action early next year. During this Fall, President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will be putting this enormous and most important request for spending of the tax dollars that cities send to Washington for re-distribution to our nation.

Mayors are most aware of the pain and suffering unemployed and laid off citizens are experiencing. Since last September 15, the economic crisis and recession has spread throughout our nation. While there are signs of stabilization this September, the unemployment and joblessness is hitting our cities hard. Mayors are at home facing the faces of the unemployed. Both large and small city mayors know the people who are losing their jobs. Congressmen, Senators, Governors, the President, Vice President and Cabinet Secretaries come and go but the mayor lives with the faces, voices, emails, telephone calls, neighborhood meetings and personal conversations of our people who want nothing more than a job, a decent wage, and work to be productive tax paying citizen. So let’s feel good about the signs of stabilization but understand, not to forget, that the unemployment monster is still alive in our cities and counties.

As the President puts his 2011 budget together, recognizing that there is little chance now for a second stimulus, we must demand that job producing elements of the President’s budget be sufficient with funding levels to match the need to help us provide jobs for millions of our citizens who are without jobs.

The USCM Metro Economies Committee, which has in its jurisdiction the federal budget, chaired by Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie, is currently preparing a request to President Obama to guide him as he makes his decision on spending and investment priorities as contained in his 2011 budget that he will propose to Congress next year. The budget proposal is being put together now. That’s why we will need your help to support our budget request for priorities. Once the letter is completed and approved by our leadership we will forward it to you so that you can help us push for funding levels that will help you provide jobs for those unemployed in your city.

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels is today our President as the nation finally acts on climate protection with a House-passed bill that is currently before the Senate. While Mayor Nickels just became our President this past June, he has been our “President” all along on the question of the green political movement of mayors in America. And without him and his vision, every mayor knows that it was Mayor Nickels of Seattle who had the political vision and leadership to teach his peers, the nation’s mayors, about climate protection. He did it by explaining what he has done in his two terms as mayor within the city of Seattle. Today, as we are about to witness the signing of our 1,000th mayor to our Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, we know full well that the climate protection agreement would not be if Mayor Greg Nickels had not stepped up after Kyoto with a mayors agreement to ask mayors to match the 141 countries who signed the Kyoto accord. In 2005, we had 141 cities. Today, we have 971 and we will hit 1,000 before October 1. Thank you, Mayor Greg Nickels, our 67th President of The United States Conference of Mayors.

USA mayors have followed Mayor Nickels and throughout the world, mayors in those countries recognize today his leadership and our creation of The United States Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Center.

In December, mayors and heads of states will meet in Copenhagen to agree on a plan of action to help change the human behavior and governmental decisions with definite goals for our future.

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels will be there, representing you, along with other mayors of the USA and other mayors from around the globe. Whatever is agreed upon by Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama, we know that treaties must be ratified by the United States Senate. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels will continue to provide the leadership on this issue that is so important as the nation and the world meet in Copenhagen to try again to finally have a meeting of the minds with definite goals to help save our planet.

This Fall, here in Washington and in Copenhagen, we are most fortunate to have Mayor Nickels as our President. He will be most active on the national and international climate agenda as he ends his second term as mayor of Seattle on January 1, 2010.

After serving as probably the greatest American Ambassador to Poland of our history and Polish history and after deciding not to run to be President of Poland! – the former Knoxville mayor and former USCM President, Victor Ashe is coming home. Ambassador Ashe is the only mayor who was held over by the Obama Administration, no doubt, due to the many Senators and friends in the Obama Administration. I know that he has many friends within our organization as well and on September 29, we will be there at the State Department in a special ceremony to welcome him home.

All of us know where we were and what we were doing on September 11, 2001. The nation grieved as we lost thousands to the attacks on New York, Pennsylvania and Washington.

President of the Conference in 2001 was Marc Morial of New Orleans. He and I met with the new Mayor Bloomberg, and Mayor Morial decided to take our Winter Meeting from Washington to New York to visit ground zero to pay our respects, and learn from our first responders of New York’s finest, police, fire fighters, and paramedics.

Since 2001, our organization has had as a top priority to provide whatever was needed to give our mayors and first responders what they have needed to keep us safe from another terrorist attack.

Today, we are thankful to God that we have not had another attack in America. We are thankful also to our mayors and our first responders as they continue every day to work with our federal and state officials to protect us from harm and to prevent our cities from another dastardly terrorist attack.