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Subject: Mayors to Seek Clinton Meeting;Strategies for Federal Intervention in Nation's
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 92 05:06:14 EST
Message-ID: <36.1992Nov6.050614@AmeriCast.com>

Mayors to Seek Clinton Meeting;Strategies for Federal Interven-
tion in Nation's Urban Crisis to Be Offered<By William
Claiborne=Washington Post Staff Writer= Mayors from across the
country, describing themselves as "orphans of the Cold War," are
busy preparing strategies for urgent federal intervention in the
nation's urban crisis, which they plan to offer President-elect
Clinton as soon as he will meet with them.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors has scheduled a leadership meeting
in Atlanta Tuesday to discuss ways of "restoring a partnership
with the White House," the conference's executive director, J.
Thomas Cochran, said today.

Similarly, state governors, legislators, county managers and oth-
er local officials are preparing to meet next week in Colorado
Springs to discuss reviving active federalism after 12 years of
what many of them regard as disastrous neglect in the laissez
faire domestic policies of the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Officials of the mayors' conference and the National Association
of Governors, which is hosting the Colorado meeting, said the
purpose of the two gatherings is to discuss specifics of
Clinton's "Putting People First" domestic plan and devise an
agenda for seeing that his promises are met.

As governor of Arkansas, Clinton was active in the association,
and some of the group's members see opportunities for making
their case for more federal intervention than has occurred in the
past.

The governors' association and the National Association of State
Budget Officers issued a report on Sept. 28 warning that despite
three consecutive years of cutting spending and increasing taxes,
states will face years of "phenomenal fiscal pressure" because of
slow economic growth and spiraling health care costs.

A number of big-city mayors has issued similar warnings that they
face either fiscal crises or physical and social deterioration if
they do not receive more attention and aid from the federal
government.

"Now is the time to reach out and say, 'Let's talk. We're operat-
ing on the basis of the first 100 days.' It's not just a question
of asking for money. We're talking about the necessity of us be-
ing involved in an active partnership with the president,"
Cochran said.

The conference's leaders wrote to Clinton on Wednesday, reminding
him that he had chosen the group's annual meeting in Houston in
June to announce his "People First" doctrine, and requesting a
meeting with him soon.

Cochran said discussion of the U.S. mayors' seven-point urban
recovery plan, which was adopted at the Democratic National Con-
vention, has been suspended in deference to the president-elect's
own domestic agenda.

However, he said that in their talks with Clinton the mayors will
press their plan's general themes of targeted fiscal assistance
to cities, funding of immediate public works projects and other
federal initiatives.

He said that when 200 mayors meet in Washington Jan. 17 for their
annual conference, he would like Clinton Cabinet appointees to
attend as a symbolic gesture of their commitment to urban
recovery, just as members of President Jimmy Carter's new Cabinet
attended a similar mayors' gathering at the beginning of the last
Democratic administration that took office in 1977.  However, a
leading urban affairs expert, Isabel Sawhill, senior fellow at
the Urban Institute - who has been mentioned as a possible secre-
tary of labor - said yesterday that any discussion of a revival
of the cities cannot be separated from Clinton's broader domestic
policies, including reform of health care, education, deficit
reduction, taxes and other considerations.

"They are all intertwined, and you can't just focus on things
like urban enterprise zones or community development banks
without addressing the larger domestic issues that go beyond the
cities," Sawhill said.

Moreover, she said, the new president will not be able to address
issues like health care overhaul without developing a consensus
across the country on the issue, which might be possible only
when there are signs of greater economic growth.

And, Sawhill said, "If you try to jump-start the economy without
addressing the long-term deficit problem, you scare the markets.
It's a very tough and complicated question, and the problems of
the cities are mixed in with a lot of other factors."<02:28 11-
06C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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