Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, October 9, 2015

Last weekend, more than two dozen of our nation’s mayors joined me here in Baltimore for a leadership meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Our goal was to develop an agenda that we believe must be part of conversation as our nation picks the next president in 2016. We know people are frustrated that, thus far, this campaign has not been wholly focused on issues that matter most to working families and people who live in our cities – where the majority of people in this country live.  

The mayors engaged in robust conversations to develop both an agenda and potential strategies to ensure that the challenges facing our cities are considered by the presidential candidates of both political parties. We all know that gridlock strangles Washington, and the consequences of that are passed to us. Major campaigns like this one come along once every four years, and mayors are uniquely positioned to influence the national dialogue. 

We will publish our priorities in a new document, The Mayors’ Compact for a Better America: A 2016 Call to Action. While the exact wording of the document is still being finalized, we reached consensus on many of the critical areas that we want to see part of the national campaign conversation, including:

• Investing in our nation’s infrastructure, both transportation and water
• Educating and Training a 21st Century Competitive Workforce
• Strengthening the Federal-Local Partnership on Homeland Security and Public Safety, and Reforming our Broken Immigration System
• Expanding Clean Energy Use to Grow the Economy and Protect the Climate and Environment
• Investing in community development and affordable housing;
• Encouraging Pathways for Access, Entrepreneurship, Technology, and Innovation in Cities
• Improving Access to Healthcare, particularly mental health services
• Re-Directing Tax Policy to Promote Investment in Cities, Advance Middle Class Growth, and Reduce Income Inequality
• Increasing the Economic Strength of Metro Economies Through the Promotion of Trade and Exports, and Attraction of International Tourism

I want to close with a brief note about the part of last weekend that perhaps best demonstrated the willingness of our nation’s mayors to collectively roll up our sleeves and get things done. Early last Sunday morning, the mayors and members of their staffs joined me in Pigtown for a service project with Flight 1 Carriers and the Parks & People Foundation, assembling emergency food supply packages for our city’s most vulnerable residents. As all of us worked together – Democrats and Republicans, side-by-side.

The one thing that mayors know how to do is work together.  We are a bipartisan group that puts ideology aside to focus on the things that matter most to our residents, because our jobs demand results.

This originally appeared in the Rawlings-Blake Review. If you do not receive the Mayor's weekly newsletter, subscribe here.