Washington, DC
October 19, 2007

In New York City at the Annual Americans for the Arts Gala, I was honored to receive the most prestigious award given by the Americans for the Arts commending our 75 years leadership in supporting arts in our cities with our own money and our private business and corporation partners. The award was also given for the bipartisan political energy we continue to give to support the National Endowment for the Arts. We were cited for our strong advocacy during the 1990s when those in Congress tried to abolish the agency uttering ridiculous arguments that the United States Government should not be in the business of supporting the arts for one reason or another.

As I rose to accept this award in New York City this week, I, of course, had flashbacks of our history and the never-ending vision I will die having of what our national government and our White House could do to move the arts up on the agenda if only it would.

Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson in the mid 1970s, as chair of our Arts Committee, had an initiative within the Conference called Arts Means Business. During that period in 1978, we worked with Mayor Jackson and an incredible staff person named Shirley Franklin as we showcased what Atlanta had done with its renaissance of arts partnering with business to make Atlanta what it was then and what it is today. It all came about due to the vision of Maynard and Shirley.

Of course, when Mayor Bloomberg spoke also at the New York City Gala, he proclaimed that New York City is the cultural capital of the world. He does that on every occasion and we cheer him on, especially when we are in his city, and some do it even when he says it in DC and other cities.

And you don’t have to be around Chicago Mayor Daley too long in conversations before the arts comes up on the radar and he articulates how arts is interwoven into the daily lives of Chicago. And when you see what the great Maggie Daley has done and continues to do here in America and around the world with Gallery 37, you can see the results of what arts does in Chicago to provide its youth a track of daily activity that leads to a positive life of hope and contribution and to many, a economic path to employment in the arts and overall success. One only has to visit Chicago and its there to see, hear, experience. The arts in Chicago and the way Mayor Daley incorporates it into the business of the city and into the people, young and old, is legendary and it will be said when the history is written, that Mayor Daley’s vision of the arts and Chicago is one of the greatest achievements in modern urban world history.

The examples of arts in our cities could go on and on. Charleston has its Spoleto Festival; Louisville with its regional theater, Minneapolis with the Walker Museum, the Guthrie Theater and the great corporate giving; Milwaukee with Summerfest; Pittsburgh with its Three Rivers Festival. Every city large and small is doing something with arts and people.

In New York City this week, I touched on history but my remarks that beautiful evening was more about now - 2007 - and where we are going forward in 2008 with the Arts.

Four years ago, Miami Mayor Manny Diaz and I, along with Assistant Director Tom McClimon, looked at the economic impact of arts to our nation. In this effort we partnered with our true partner, The Americans for the Arts. Together, with Mayor Diaz’s leadership The United States Conference of Mayors endorsed and supported the establishment of a cabinet-level department and post for the United States of America. I always cite First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy who was in the White House when arts was much higher cerebrally as she tried to push President Kennedy and others to establish a “Minister of Culture and Arts” like France and other nations have today. Mayor Diaz continues to advocate our strong position and Conference President Palmer has included this goal in our 2008 Mayoral 10-Point Plan we are advocating during the present 2008 Presidential season.

Over the past few years since 911, I have been working very closely with the travel, arts and tourism industry. While 911 brought us together and I was asked to serve on the Board of the Travel Business Roundtable by the chair of TBR, Loews CEO, Mr. Jonathan Tisch, our partnership has developed into a visionary and bipartisan political business agenda that fits right and is now a part of our overall arts agenda.

In today’s world, arts, as Maynard Jackson was telling us it would be, is more than just “arts” as we once thought of “arts.” Today it is the culinary and restaurant industry, the travel industry, the tourism industry, the entertainment industry, the transportation industry, the convention industry, the catering industry, the service industry and every other industry that develops as we live in an electronic wireless communication world. It is mind bending and sometimes too much to grasp.

But one thing is very clear. It’s a lot of new American money that is being generated from the word “arts and culture.”

The economic impact and contribution to our national economy must be recognized with our new President after President Bush leaves office. Together we are gathering allies to make certain that arts, culture, travel and tourism is in the top of our 2008 Presidential transition priorities.

Conference President Palmer, along with the help of our Tourism, Arts, Parks, Entertainment chair Mufi Hannemann, mayor of Honolulu and others, are our strongest advocates to push this sector of our economy higher on our agenda. President Palmer has agreed for a major session on this subject for our January Winter Meeting, and then we are scheduling more events as we develop our message and recommendations during the transition period for a new President in the fall of 2008.

Again we are proud of our history. Today the Americans for the Arts recognized our organization for our service and support. Together the two organizations USCM and AFTA have had some victories. But we must not rest on what we have. We must be restless about what we have. We thank Bob Lynch, President and CEO and Nina Ozlu, Chief Counsel and the Board of Americans for the Arts for their most special recognition. Together, we will seek other partners as we continue to provide leadership and vision for a new kind of alliance and a new and belated response from our national government. The USA mayors will and must be strong on this issue. It’s economically sound and it is a meaningful and productive goal as we enrich the creative, spiritual and soulful lives of all our people living in our cities.

The nation’s mayors congratulate Vice President Al Gore and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on October 11.

Mr. Gore is on a roll this year and has been spending a lot of time on the real red carpet when his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” won two Oscars and his TV channel won an Emmy and now he was awarded the Nobel last week.

We are pleased he cited the Climate Change USA mayors in his award winning documentary. Since the film our numbers continue to grow and today we have 700 cities.

The red carpet wins plus the Nobel has of course caused some speculation in a ‘08 Presidential bid. He continues to decline questions on his political ambitions and reiterates that his role as a Nobel Laureate will be to lobby for changing attitudes, lobbying, and leading a crusade to confront global warming.

If he does not run for President, his endorsement will be interesting indeed. Let us hope that the award for Mr. Gore’s effort will help give strength to the new Congress to continue even more to assist cities in our individual and joint efforts to confront global warming.

The significance of the win with the UN panel, IPCC, is the statement coming from 2500 scientists in Paris early this year who for six years studied the challenge and announced that they were 90 per cent certain that climate change was caused by human activities and behavior. This finding by such a prominent and pristine group gives validation to our statement as we created our United States Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Center, that mayors can and will change human behavior. Working through the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, we will soon have 25 percent of the nation’s population. As we have changed human behavior at the local/city level with other critical issues such as recycling, smoking, transportation modes, and the use of arts for recreation and exercise, mayors all over the globe will make a difference to change human behavior and meet the goals we have set for ourselves.

Again, we congratulate Vice President Gore and the IPCC. We are pleased Mr. Gore will be joining us by satellite at our November 1 luncheon at our USCM Climate Protection Summit in Seattle, Washington.

President Bill Clinton will be joining us in person in Seattle. And we are very pleased to have met with Mr. Ira Magaziner, Chairman of the Clinton HIV Aids Initiative and the Clinton Climate Initiative as we prepare to announce a new and exciting endeavor between the USCM Climate Protection Agreement Mayors and the Clinton Foundation

Conference President Douglas Palmer, host mayor Greg Nickels and I look forward to seeing you in Seattle for a landmark meeting as we continue to celebrate our 75 years of service to our past and even more – to our future.