CULVER CITY, CA – Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is in Washington, DC on Wednesday for the 2022 US Conference of Mayors winter meeting, which will see mayors from US cities with more than 30,000 residents joined by congressional leaders, Biden administration officials , foreign ambassadors and other experts will hear.
Sue Himmelrich, Mayor of Santa Monica, attends the event.
Garcetti, chair of the group’s Infrastructure Task Force, spoke Wednesday morning at the inaugural press conference hosted by USCM President and Mayor of Miami Francis Suarez.
“What a joy to be with my fellow mayors, where we come from, to show that not only does America’s 30,000 local communities still function, but that America can function.” Because we look at a society that increasingly finds what divides us, but when we go home we find what unites us,” Garcetti said.
The purpose of the meeting is to discuss how to meet the cities’ 2022 goals, and Wednesday’s sessions will focus on metropolitan economies and immigration issues, as well as implementation of American Rescue Plan Act funding spending and reduction gun violence and homelessness.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge and US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo are expected to attend the conference, which will last through Friday.
Garcetti spoke on Wednesday about the bipartisan infrastructure bill that would pass in 2021, but urged Congress to pass another key part of President Joe Biden’s agenda, the Build Back Better Plan.
“It was great to finally see the physical infrastructure – to finally have funds that will help rebuild bridges and railways, ports and airports, waterways, etc. – but we have to hand over the human infrastructure, we have to rebuild better,” he said Garcetti.
“We need Build Back Better to be passed, we need the environmental and climate aid which is really not flowing at the level right now to do justice to this crisis,” he added.
The US Mayors’ Conference began in 1932 during the Great Depression, when cities across the country faced bankruptcy and millions of people were out of work.
This meeting, which will be attended by 179 mayors, is the 90th winter meeting of the conference.
The 90th Annual Meeting is scheduled for June 3-6 in Reno, Nevada. During the annual meeting, the committees recommend policy positions for the conference to adopt, and each member is given an opportunity to speak on an issue and vote on each resolution. Adopted policy positions are intended to represent the views of the nation’s mayors and are submitted to Congress and the President.
Other Southland mayors registered for the Washington meeting include Artesia’s Melissa Ramoso, Culver City’s Daniel Lee, Downey’s Blanca Pacheco, Irvine’s Farrah Khan, Long Beach’s Robert Garcia, Maywood’s Heber Marquez, Brenda Olmos from Paramount, Monica Sanchez from Pico Rivera, Sue Himmelrich from Santa Monica and Patrick Furey from Torrance.
– City News Service and Patch Editor Nicole Charky contributed to this report.
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