Update: Mayors accept White House offer of new meeting
3:16 PM Mon, Jun 15, 2009 | Permalink
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PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Mayors will take up the White House's offer for another sit down --this time in the nation's capital -- to discuss implementation of President Obama's economic stimulus plan. But members of the U.S. Conference of Mayors will not be able to make the June 29 date proposed by Obama's senior advisor Valerie Jarrett, according to Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, who spoke on the issue following his swearing-in as the 67th president of the mayors conference. Nickels says the conference will be sending a letter to Jarrett later today reflecting what mayors hope to accomplish with a meeting with members of President Obama's administration after they pulled out of the mayors conference's four-day convention here in the Capital City. "We want a good solid agenda that will allow us to get into the real substance of the recovery act," said Nickels, who declined to elaborate on what the conference's specific proposal to Jarrett would be. While the White House's invite extended to all mayors, Nickels pointed out that not all mayors will be able to clear away their schedules to try and meet with Obama officials again. And there is no indication from the White House that it will cover mayors' travel expenses. "A lot of mayors had to work long a hard to come here," said Nickels. In his first address as president of the conference of mayors at a Monday luncheon at the Rhode Island Convention Center, Nickels perhaps gave a hint at what mayors would want to convey in a meeting with Obama officials. Nickels said that the focus of his one-year term will be forging a "new deal" with the White House and American cities. He said that while Vice President Joseph Biden and the nearly 100 federal officials -- who pulled out of the conference at the last minute -- "missed an exciting opportunity for us to learn from them and for them to learn from us," mayors will not "linger over the issue "We need greater communication between the White House and cities more than ever. We need communication that is direct and based on mutual respect and goals," said Nickels. Nickels said that mayors must take every opportunity to convey clearly "what worked and what did not" in the implementation of the $787 billion federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act thus far. What is clear, said Nickels, is that it was a mistake for the Obama administration to have relied on old formulas to distribute the first round of stimulus dollars, which came in the form of direct infusion to state governments for public infrastructure and transportation improvements. Federal resources, he said, did not go to where they could have resulted in the greatest amount of economic activity and job creation, a point driven home by many mayors throughout the conference, which began Friday and ends on Monday. Nickels pointed to his city of Seattle, which represents 68 percent of Washington State's economic output, but received only 4 percent of the money allocated to the state through ARRA. "There needs to be investment where there is the biggest bang for the buck," he said. The original version of this story was posted at 12:24 p.m. 
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Why couldn't someone in the administration or from the Mayor's conference think of holding a video teleconference. Candidates used this venue many times during their Presidential campaigns. That way, no one would have to worry about crossing "picket lines" and many dollars could have been saved by eliminating airline fares, hotel bills, meals, limos, secret service details, etc. In fact, even without labor problems, they should use this venue for all of their meetings.They should only leave their offices under extreme circumstances.
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Congratulations! At least a majority of mayors had more common sense than Mayor Cicilline. If he ends up going at all, I'm sure he will bring a large entourage all flying first class and staying at the most plush hotel they can find. Then he would go to the meeting and do nothing more than whine about how they didn't come to his party. What he should be doing is trying to get more stimulus dollars for the citizens of Providence.
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QUOTE from the PRJO:
"Union officials, for their part, say they achieved what they had set out to do, even as they anticipate the picket won’t translate into a speedy resolution of their grievances with the city."
So much for the picketing.
Someone should let the Federal Government know how effective their solidarity with the Firefighters impacted their cause.
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