December 9, 2002

November 24, 2002

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, President, U.S. Conference of Mayors

"I think the Homeland Security Department was long overdue. The mayors called for it right after 9/11. You know, it's not a partisan issue, it's not Democrat, Republican issue. It's an issue of how we coordinate the services. But there's one missing ingredientÉit's the funding ingredient, and that's the $3.8 billion that was promised to the citiesÉthat's the missing part. [Congress] went home, they didn-t even deal with the issue of finances for cities. Cities have spent about $2.6 billion since last September, and we-re asked to be on the front lines every day, but nobody's willing to help us meet those costs."

Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood

"I'm glad that they have passed the bill to put the department in place because now there will be clear lines of authority, that intelligence information will be able to get down to our local law enforcement professionals in a much quicker way and a much more efficient way, and that's what's important. Because we-ve all been on a heightened state of alert in our cities, and we know that it's important to provide that safe environment for those people who live here and who visit our communitiesÉwe need to see that funding, and we need to see it soon.

"We at the local level continue to take the lead, as we haveÉEvery mayor across America will tell you that we have absolutely done everything we can to make sure that our communities are safe. And we-re engaging our citizens, giving them emergency preparedness training, making sure they have all the information that they need, because we can-t sit around and wait. We-re the ones where things are going to happen, if there's going to be a terrorist threat or attack. And our first responders are the first ones there and the last ones to leave. And everybody else is in a supporting role."

Washington, DC Mayor Anthony Williams

"I think the mayors are right in that Congress has the duty to see that local government, your first line of response, has the resources to help the federal government execute a homeland security strategy. You can-t do that with nothing.

"We-re not where we want to be or where we should be, but we-re a lot better off than where we were on September 11th. We-re coordinating much better with the federal government in responding to events, coordinating much better with them in sharing specific information as to a specific potential event. Where I think we have a lot more work to do is sharing intelligence between state and local government and the federal government, between the federal government and the private sector, in terms of potential threats, where you work with a network, work with local government in actually obtaining that information. We saw with the sniper, for example, where the sniper got through a number of different exchanges with law enforcement without being stopped. To me, that's a failure of sharing intelligence and information."