MIAMI – A recent Op-Ed by The New York Times columnist, Bob Herbert, urges the two presidential candidates to listen to U.S. Mayors and pay attention to problems in the home front.
Mr. Herbert points to how City of Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, and President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, “has been harshly critical of the federal government’s failure to address the most serious needs of the nation’s cities and metropolitan areas.”
To urge Washington to face urban problems, the U.S. Conference of Mayors is hosting the Mayors ’08 Action Forums, a national tour to five major American cities, where the nation’s mayors will forge an action agenda for cities and metropolitan areas. These recommendations will be presented to the next President of the United States during the critical first 100 days of the new administration.
The Mayors’ Action Forums, held between August and October, will focus on five areas that mayors believe are in need of significant federal investment and are at the center of the Mayors’ 10 Point Plan: crime, poverty, arts – culture – tourism, infrastructure, and environment.
Mr. Herbert’s column focuses on the Mayor’s Infrastructure forum held in New York last week, where mayors called for a new local/federal partnership to bring critical investment to our nation’s cities in transportation, water and other critical public infrastructure. Mr. Herbert points out that “very little attention is being given to the nation’s neglected infrastructure needs.”
The article can be viewed at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/16/opinion/16herbert.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
