Mayors from across U.S. descend on D.C. for annual con­ference, meeting with Biden

Spectrum News 1
BY ANGI GONZALEZ WASHINGTON, D.C.
PUBLISHED 11:00 AM ET JAN. 19, 2023

More than 250 mayors from across the U.S. are in Washington, D.C., this week for the United States Conference of Mayors' 91st Winter Meeting.

The annual gathering, which began on Tuesday, culminates with a visit to the White House and a group meeting with President Joe Biden on Friday.

 “He’s going to meet with mayors -- a bipartisan mayors who are attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors. This is something that the President certainly is looking forward to attending and,” said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre during a press briefing on Wednesday. 

Organizers said the goal of the meeting is for mayors to learn from each other and get ideas about on how to harness federal programs to their advantage. 

“There are issues where cities and states cannot do it alone. We need all levels of government doing their part," said Francis Suarez, the Mayor of Miami and President of U.S. Conference of Mayors during a press conference at the Capital Hilton Hotel. "Perhaps there's no better example of how a strong local federal partnership can benefit our company and infrastructure." 

In addition to sessions on accessing funding from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, each day of the conference is a marathon session of forums on a wide variety of issues. On Wednesday, meetings were held on the challenges of affordable housing, responding to the influx of migrants, reducing gun violence and tackling homelessness. 

“I come to conferences like this to get ideas, innovative ideas, and to be able to bring that back to your city and take a look at how you can implement them to fit your city," Don Hardy, the Mayor of Kinston, North Carolina, told Spectrum News. 

The mayors aren’t just discussing these issues amongst themselves. During their visit, they have the ears of several Biden administration officials. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas are among the officials who have spoken at the conference. 

"I realize it may be a little unusual for the secretary of state to address the Conference of Mayors," Blinken said during his speech at the conference on Wednesday. "But I wanted to be here to spend time with the leaders who are probably closest to our communities, and the reason for that is it's a key part of fulfilling a pledge that President Biden made at the beginning of this administration: As he put it, every action that we take in our conduct abroad, we have to take with Americans, working families in our minds. That's the instruction that I got on my first day on the job."

In about three weeks, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will welcome the nation’s governors to the White House House for their annual winter meeting. The state executives are expected to discuss how the Biden administration’s economic agenda can be maximized at the state level.