Washington, DC
September 27, 2012

In Dallas Texas this week, mayors and Workforce Directors came together to discuss the jobs issue. It is clear after this meeting that the big challenge for America is that there are thousands of jobs out there but we do not have the skilled workers to do the work that the jobs require.

This issue of “we have jobs” from the business community and “we don’t have the people with the skills to do the jobs” continues to reverberate in many cities across the nation.

What we learned is that Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and his workforce team are leading the way in bringing the public workforce team together with the Dallas Metro area business community to provide the skilled workers to fill the jobs with the people as they become taxpaying citizens in meaningful and productive employment.

Mayors were inspired by the best practices presented during the Dallas Forum, sponsored by Siemens, and this discussion is most important as we go forward to develop a 2012 jobs agenda.

The discussion at the Dallas Forum this week with the mayors is a continued awakening that we must engage the business community, large and small, to continue to produce jobs by the thousands and recover from the greatest recession since the Great Depression that started with ‘08 meltdown.

As U.S.Mayor goes to press, The United States Conference of Mayors will raise our bipartisan flag in Denver October 2.

We join with Denver Mayor Michael Hancock on the eve of the Presidential Debate, devoted to domestic policy, to challenge the media and both the Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates to focus on the real domestic city issues that mayors face each day.

Specifically, we are asking the Presidential candidates and the media to focus on the economy and jobs, jobs, jobs.

There are four areas we will put on the table for domestic policy discussion and recommendations. Today’s mayors know that jobs will come from infrastructure investments, exports, education reform and recognizing that training is essential to narrow the current enormous skills gap.

Let us hope that the first domestic agenda 2012 Presidential Debate on October 3 will go beyond the shallow policy discussions we have had as all mayors want the Candidates to move forward toward more specific recommendations.

We continue to hear about global competition; we need to bring the discussion more to the main street discussion and take note of how USA mayors are working with their business community in our metro areas to produce job growth.

I have said over and over that when the history of the recovery of the greatest recession since the Great Depression is written, it will prove and show it was the USA mayors working with the American business community at the local level who deserve the credit for the job growth we have had for continuous months.

Again, Mayor Mike Rawlings and the Metro Dallas Business Community have shown us this week that growth will happen if all mayors work their business community in partnership with education institutions to produce the skilled workers we need at this time. No doubt, mayors and their workforce staff teams left Dallas with renewed energy and all energized with an agenda and specific recommendations to push forward, front and center to the next President and Cabinet during the Presidential transition and first 100 days of the next Administration.