Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

After an announcement last month that the White House luminaries and a company of experts from the federal agencies would converge on the annual mayors gathering in Providence, the White House cancelled its program a week ago. The administration cited its unwillingness to cross a union picket line. At the time, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said leaders of the mayors conference would later be invited to the White House.

Some mayors made it clear earlier this week that the Gibbs offer of a White House meeting for select leaders, while welcome, was no substitute for the lavish attention that the national organization had been promised during the four-day symposium in Providence.

"You cannot replace'' the Obama team's pledge to speak in Providence "to 300 mayors at the same time,'' Helena Poleo, spokeswoman for Miami Mayor Manuel A. Diaz, a Democrat, said Wednesday. "Unions have the right to picket,'' she said. But "the mayors have the right to have their interests heard.''

John Robert Smith, the Republican mayor of Meridian, Miss., said the Obama administration has deprived itself of an "equally important'' opportunity: "Listening to this nation's mayors about their problems putting money into shovel-ready projects and cutting the red tape'' surrounding the gigantic economic revival package. "Mayors are doing absolutely indispensable work in the recovery,'' said Smith.

Jarrett's letter appeared to take note of that point: ``We have every hope and confidence that we will continue what has started out as a vibrant and productive working partnership.''

She also said, "The reason we decided not to participate in the Providence gathering is simple: we felt that Administration officials would have had to cross a picket line to attend. And while we understand that this is a local dispute, and are clearly not taking a position on the dispute itself, the President and Vice-President have a long-standing commitment to respecting picket lines.''

Omitting Cicilline's name, Jarrett alluded to an unsuccessful effort to induce the Providence mayor to skip certain sessions of the conference in his home city, in return for which the union would have suspended its picketing and the administration officials could have entered the convention. When the White House said that Cicilline had not agreed to that suggestion, the mayors conference replied that its leadership had stood unanimously with its host mayor in Providence.

"We worked very hard with all parties to create a scenario that would allow Administration officials to attend, but the various participants, for their own complicated reasons, weren't able to make it work,'' Jarrett said in her Thursday letter.

Hays, of North Little Rock, said many mayors in Providence Friday are "scratching our heads'' about how the sophisticated Obama political team became embroiled in a labor-management dispute that might easily have been foreseen. "It's incredible to me that the administration would place this much capital'' in a local union-versus-City Hall scrap that might have repercussions well beyond Providence, Hays said.

Hays said the firefighters success in keeping the Obama administration out of Providence might give other municipal unions ideas. "I'd be very reluctant to invite an Obama administration official to my city now,'' Hays said, because a union in bargaining talks with him might raise a picket line.