Washington, DC
November 4, 2009

Unemployment - Washington and Joblessness in Cities

Over the past few weeks there have been ongoing discussions concerning the rising unemployment rate and the increase of people without jobs in our cities.

Conference Vice President Elizabeth Kautz led a group of mayors to the White House on October 27 and met with Dr. Larry Summers, Director of the National Economic Council and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, and others to discuss mayoral concern about unemployment and other financial challenges such as access to credit for small business and for large developments in our cities now halted due to a lack of credit or the ability to borrow.

Overall, the mayors did a great job in presenting our case. This was a listening meeting for Dr. Summers and other Obama Administration officials to hear what is happening on the ground, on the streets, and in the neighborhoods of cities, large and small, across America.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and I also met on the same day with House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel. Mayors have on their list of priorities a request for targeted fiscal assistance to our cities along with public employment funds in a number of categories. Chairman Rangel indicated that Speaker Pelosi and House Leadership are weighing options to deal with unemployment needs in our cities. And we know that Speaker Pelosi, a friend of the cities, will be supportive of people without jobs, as she has proved throughout her career.

So any unemployment package is in what I would call a formulating stage. Leaders in Congress and the White House definitely have the unemployment picture on their radar. We will continue our dialogue as things develop.

We thank all of the mayors who came in with us to meet with Dr. Summers. Mayor Kautz announced that the group of mayors will remain connected and in contact with Washington. Her goal is to be certain that any employment package provides direct funding to cities. Certainly all agree that the Administration and Congress approved operating monies for the 50 states to plug up their budgets, and the mayors want direct funding to stop the bleeding and layoffs and provide jobs for the people who come into direct contact with mayors on a regular basis. They ask the mayor, city hall, for a job. They can’t take a bus to see the Governor, Congressperson, Senator, or the President. Jobless people see the mayor, and mayors are under a lot of pressure. Expectations were so high with the stimulus program, but the funds expected have not arrived.

We are especially concerned that the Department of Energy can’t seem to get the money awarded from our Energy Block Grants transferred from Washington to our cities. One thousand mayors have signed our U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. USA cities are leading the way on climate protection and providing new green jobs. These funds from the Energy Department need to move quickly. The concern is that letters have been sent “awarding” millions. But the letter comes without the money. We do not want to be in a position that anyone in the Obama Administration or elsewhere might ever say that they awarded the money and the mayors haven’t spent it. We don’t want any thoughts or utterances of a “pipeline” problem. Conference staff, along with the other city and county groups, have come together on this issue. Over the next few days we will continue to express our concern over the seeming reluctance of the Department of Energy to cut the red tape and get the largest chunk of the stimulus money, our Energy Block Grants, out to our cities. This is most important as the local unemployment continues to rise and these funds can, and will, be used to put people who want jobs, now in the millions, back to work.

Election results, as U.S.Mayor goes to press, show that many mayors were re-elected. And because of defeats and term limits, we have lots of new faces and new mayors. I will be meeting with a number of the new mayors at the JFK School at Harvard later this month. And those new mayors, of course, will all be with us at our 78th Annual Winter Meeting, January 20-22 at the Capital Hilton Hotel here in Washington.

Term limits, defeats, decisions to quit, and yes deaths, all present changes to our organization because these factors bring new human beings, new mayors with new ideas and new energy to our organization. We welcome our new mayors. I look forward to working, along with my staff, to be sure that new mayors are welcomed and as we stand ready to help all, as you take on the most challenging and exciting office on earth – the mayor of an American city.