Watson Wire: Amalgamated Mayors

A fun, valuable experience is participating in meetings of The U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM). Last week, over 200 mayors from large and small cities in all parts of the country were in Kansas City for the 92nd annual meeting of the USCM. I always learn a bunch and stay impressed at how these gatherings help guide our advocacy work and ensure that Congress and the White House understand the priorities of America’s cities.

Except for some badly misguided comparisons of Kansas City and Austin BBQ, this was a great meeting. In addition to my being able to have substantive one-on-one discussions with White House and other Administration officials, I was part of the USCM’s discussion and action on a variety of issues impacting cities, including affordability, homelessness, mental health, and gun violence.

Transportation

The USCM is more important than ever— especially as the role of local government continues to grow. I’ve been asked by the Conference President to serve as Vice Chair of the standing committee on Transportation. Austin is seen as a leader with all that we have going on from airport expansion, to building light rail, to reconnecting our community by improving I-35 the right way, and more.

I spoke to the mayors and other attendees about the need for focusing on localism when investing in our nation’s transportation system. We’re starting the process of the surface transportation renewal by the federal government. These are massive amounts of federal highway program dollars—now more than $70 billion annually. However, our system is more localized than ever in part because of the way COVID changed how we work and commute. A growing share of our economy is occurring on our local road network, operated and maintained by local government entities.

40 percent of all US workers now work from home, permanently or part time. We have more delivery trucks bringing products directly to homes. One way of looking at it is that our new “employment centers” are local cul-de-sacs. Our local cities and metropolitan areas are where most Americans live and produce the overwhelming majority of our nation’s GDP. We need to be making 21st Century decisions about funding and avoid a model created in the middle of the last century.

I also had an excellent meeting with Amtrak officials to discuss how to get intercity passenger rail between DFW and San Antonio, which, of course, means intercity passenger rail between here and SA.

Workforce

I was asked to talk about workforce development, too. In fact, the Austin Infrastructure Academy was the subject of a resolution passed by the Conference. The USCM recognized the Academy’s significant value and sees it as a national best practice.

The wonderful collaboration we’re seeing, including the help of our skilled trade unions, ACC, the private sector and, of course, our amazing workforce development board—Workforce Solutions of the Capital Area—was something I highlighted. I also pointed out our focus on making the Academy available so that everyone can build careers that will sustain families, which means we are paying attention to childcare needs.

It's a joy to be mayor of a city that so many see as doing things the right way. And, I might add, that has the best BBQ.?