Washington, DC
September 24, 2004

In Barcelona, on September 13, Conference President Akron Mayor Donald L. Plusquellic gave a keynote address along with international leaders from all over the globe. Barcelona hosted the 2nd World Urban Forum and the meeting marked the 29th Anniversary of UN-HABITAT, which will celebrate its 30th Anniversary in Vancouver in 2006 which is where the UN-HABITAT movement was born.

Accompanying Plusquellic to this important meeting was Dearborn Mayor Michael Guido, Advisory Board Chair of The United States Conference of Mayors.

Plusquellic and Guido had meetings with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and when you meet him you understand the charisma of this man and you understand, too, just how he and President Reagan came together to bring the Cold War to an end.

President Plusquellic and Advisory Board Chair Guido had a private meeting with Anna Tibaijuka, Executive Director of UN-HABITAT. Conference staff and I had met with Tibaijuka in the spring of this year in New York to emphasize the necessity of USA mayors having prominent roles in U.N. meetings relating to the world cities and across the globe. In Barcelona she was most receptive to the Plusquellic and Guido recommendations, and the mayors there representing our organization left with a renewed energy to continue our international activities and presence with the mayors of the world.

The 3rd World Forum takes place in Vancouver in 2006, and we had meetings with USA and international representatives to affect the Vancouver agenda in a manner conducive and appropriate for our mayors, the chief elected officials.

Habitat for Humanity International / Guido / Barcelona

Dearborn Mayor Michael A. Guido took the lead for us in a special session focused on the international habitat movement. Tom Jones, Vice President Habitat for Humanity International, presided over this jam-packed lively session devoted to housing needs and best practices being implemented worldwide to provide adequate and decent housing.

Because of our long standing relationship and USA mayors housing builds that have taken place in cities across America and at each of our Annual Meetings, Guido was most powerful in asserting the need for community based groups and the business groups to work with mayors to reach the housing goals of the habitat movement. No question, we need more sessions like this one. There was a lot of give and take. Tom Jones and his team did a masterful job in running this session as if it were a town hall meeting. It was indeed a welcomed contrast to the opening sessions which put all of us through the pain of 26 speeches, a long musical program followed by no lunch. But it was all worth it. We will continue to stress that dialogue, of give and take sessions, providing real and useable best practices is the best way for all people to learn and share in international forums.

HIV/AIDS Pandemic Panel/Scrimger/Barcelona

Following the mayoral sessions, Kay Scrimger, Director of International Relations for The Conference of Mayors, participated in a special panel on the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Our friend Mina Mauerstein-Bail, Director UN-AMICAALL, moderated the panel. Mauerstein-Bail was our partner last year supporting the four-nation mission to Africa involving African and USA Mayors focusing on HIV/AIDS in the nations of Africa. Joining the panel was Her Worship Nokutula Mthembu, Mayor of Ezlwint, Swaziland, who sadly reported that 39 percent of all the people of Swaziland are now infected with HIV/AIDS. Discussions centered on redefining the plight of orphans as a world human rights issue. Looking toward the Spring 2006 in Vancouver, the group pledged to continue to demand international attention for this pandemic which now affects Russia, Eastern Europe, and Asian countries such as Thailand, India and China.

Mayor Joan Clos / Barcelona / Metropolis

In Barcelona, Mayors Plusquellic and Guido met with Barcelona Mayor Joan Clos along with his international coordinator and Metropolis Secretary General Josep Roig. For some years now since our first meeting Plusquellic and I had with Clos, we have supported the good work that he does as the leader and founder of Metropolis, a group whose members include the larger cities of this world. Last September in Istanbul, Long Beach Mayor Beverly O'Neill and I represented the Conference at a substantive meeting on transportation during Clos' meeting.

Plusquellic, along with Guido and The U.S. Conference of Mayors, continue to lend our support to Clos and Metropolis. The Barcelona mayor addressed our 2003 Annual Meeting in Denver. Plusquellic and Clos agreed on a more formal and structured relationship between the U.S. Conference of Mayors and Metropolis as we go forward.

Brownsfield National Meeting/St.Louis

From Barcelona, we went to the great City of St. Louis — and it was good to be home where thousands assembled to discuss and celebrate accomplishments and goals of the Brownfield Redevelopment movement that our organization helped ignite over a decade ago.

President George W. Bush sent EPA Administrator and former Governor Mike Leavitt to pledge the Administration's continued support for brownfield assessment, clean up, and redevelopment. Conference President Plusquellic addressed the group emphasizing the priority for brownfield redevelopment that is one of our four priorities continued in our bipartisan Metro '04 Agenda adopted in Chicago last month.

Plusquellic pushed for a new commitment, a new partnership, through a new initiative with the federal, state and local governments called BRAG - Brownfield Redevelopment Action Grants. He cited the UDAG (Urban Development Action Grant) program we established in the 70s when the federal government provided seed money for cities and counties to leverage with the business community to transform challenged cities of that era, such as Baltimore and Cleveland, to the showcase cities we have now. Elizabeth, New Jersey Mayor Chris Bollwage and Augusta Mayor Bob Young have been there with us as leaders in the brownfield movement. Plusquellic has Republican, Democratic and Independent mayors behind him supporting him as we go forward for an embrace and discussion on the necessity for a federal-city partnership to redevelop the precious land of America and recycle the land within our urban, suburban and rural areas into recreational and economic assets for our metro economies.

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay welcomed the delegates and cited the incredible construction and redevelopment that is now occurring in his city. His remarks were most appropriate and well received by delegates attending the brownfield meeting since Slay and his team are showing the nation and the world that St. Louis is back to stay and is definitely a competitor with other cities in the USA and the world.

After the Brownfield National Meeting in St. Louis the next day, I joined with St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and James Diffley, Vice President for Regional Economics Of Global Insight, Inc., to continue to issue the series of state metro economies reports in conjunction with the Council of The New American City, Chaired by Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and our staff lead, Dave Gatton.

In Georgia on tourism, in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio on jobs and now our latest report on Missouri on jobs shows that Slay, his team and his business community are fighting back and using their entrepreneurial talent and skills to hold the job loss and improve the jobs picture in the St. Louis metro area. The challenge St. Louis faces is the wage gap between the jobs lost and the newly created jobs within the St. Louis metro economy. St. Louis, when ranked among nations, is the 61st strongest metro economy, outranking Singapore and Egypt. When ranked with the 319 USA Metro Economies and the economies of the fifty States of the Union which totals 369 state and local economies, the metro economy of St. Louis ranks 53rd — outranking the states of Kansas and Nevada.

When you are in St. Louis as we were this week on Washington Avenue and 8th Street, there are cranes and construction equipment everywhere. It is happening in St. Louis and Slay is charging ahead to make St. Louis even higher on the USA and global comparison charts depicting the economic strength of these major entities.

So the jobs picture in Missouri is not near as challenging in Ohio where the Buckeye State ranks 50th in jobs growth over the past few years. But Missouri and Ohio are both faced with the wage gap issue which according to our Global Insight reports a major reduction in the amount the new jobs are paying when contrasted with jobs lost over the past four years.

To meet the challenges of job loss and wage gaps, Conference President Plusquellic continues to provide the solution which is the implementation of our four-point: Mayors '04 Metro Agenda. It's quite simple; it is quite reasonable. It's about using our federal, state and local tax monies wiser and in a partnership with the business community involved with us from day one.

The Mayors '04 Metro agenda includes: First, smart investments to produce safe and sound infrastructure, Second, transportation and housing development that produces new jobs, brownfield redevelopment that produces jobs with the business community to recycle our land and vacant lots providing leisure and economic assets, Third, a continued partnership to fight street and neighborhood crime along with the fight against terrorist activities in our jurisdiction, and finally a curtailment of the continued federal and state mandates that are sent down from Washington and State Capitols for us to fund with our already challenged local budgets; we continue to say if you mandate us to do something, we want the cash to back up the press release about all the good things you are mandating us to do.

We will continue to push our Mayor '04 Agenda as we go forward during this '04 Presidential election. We are joining with our allied organization National League of Cities (NLC) and National Association of Counties (NACo) for a number of forums over the next four weeks in strategic political places to push our bipartisan agenda forward. Key to all of us is the last Presidential Debate scheduled in Tempe, Arizona Wednesday, October 13. This week came the announcement that this final debate before Election Day will focus on economic and domestic policy of America. While the national Presidential debate thus far has centered on wars, past and present, it is our fervent hope that President Bush and Senator Kerry will give to us their thoughts and proposed specific solutions to the challenges we face each day as we provide safe places and economically secure places for all Americans living in rural, suburban and urban areas of our nation.

The Power of We: Succeeding Through Partnerships/Jonathan Tisch

Please see book review of The Power of We by Jonathan Tisch written by Tom McClimon on page 23 under "Worth Your Time." Tisch writes about how partners, friends, and mutual respect is so important for success in the private and public sector. As President of The Travel Business Roundtable and Chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels, Tisch has demonstrated himself to be a true friend to The United States Conference of Mayors and to our nation's mayors and cities. Our efforts with him through tourism development have produced a number of wins for us. Since 9/11 we realized more than ever what travel and tourism means to mayors of cities, large, medium and small. He cites our organization in his book and when you read his philosophy and even more ... his action, it is quite similar and rings a familiar tune that is close to the decisive and collaboration that the new breed of mayors, the entrepreneurial mayors, practice today. We have been saying for some time now that today's mayors are "public CEOs". Tisch's book illustrates that there is a fine line today between private sector CEOs, our business executives and "public CEOs" our mayors. We are pleased to recommend his book for your perusal and we look forward to our continued support and working relationship with Jonathan Tisch. He is a man who understands what the bottom line is and he understands the importance of how important the meaningful productive and enjoyable lives of people are as we have successes both in the private and public sectors.

Akron Leadership Meeting October 7-9, 2004

Plusquellic and his team along with staff are looking forward to seeing you at our Leadership Meeting in Akron October 7 and 8.

This is a most important meeting since it comes, as mentioned above, right in the middle of the '04 Presidential campaign.

We will have representative from both parties there to discuss our '04 Metro Agenda.

If you have not already registered, please do so now by contacting Carol Edwards, Director of Conference and Convention Services. Please call her at 202-293-7330 or send email to cedwards@usmayors.org.

I look forward to seeing you in Akron.