Mayor Paula Zelenko is one of more than 300 mayors from across the country who descended on Washington this week to attend the United States Conference of Mayors.
The Burton Michigan Democrat said she was inspired to attend the conference for the first time for one reason; the incoming administration of Donald J. Trump.
“I wanted to see where he was standing on all of the issues that affect all of our cities, our mayor’s and our communities. We are all in this together; let’s see how we can all make it work,” she said.
Zelenko said her biggest issues in the city that borders Flint, Michigan is infrastructure funding, “Especially water and sewer lines,” she said. But she also pointed to pensions and other legacy issues, and the scourge of most of America, heroin.
With a population of 30,000, Burton adjoins Flint, but she dealt with her corroded underground iron and ductile iron pipes that were rapidly decaying and constantly leaking before the dramatic crisis in Flint became a national story.
“We have similar financial issues to Flint’s, but before their crisis happened we had already fought our county government to put a procurement process for pipe replacement in place to upgrade our water system,” she said.
“A good relationship or direct line to a White House can make all of the difference for not just a Mayor but a city and a region,” said Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, who has had just that with the Obama administration.
Pittsburgh has been the beneficiary of a strong relationship with the current White House. in 2009 the G-20 was hosted by Pittsburgh. In the fall of 2016, Peduto welcomed Obama and his administration for the first White House “Frontiers” conference, sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon, which underscored the country’s innovations in medicine, computer science, and space exploration.
And last week, the city was given a huge boost by the Department of Defense when Carnegie Mellon University and a nonprofit led by CMU was awarded $250 million to start a new advanced robotics manufacturing institute in the city at the old LTV Steel site that has been barren for 17 years.
Those kinds of relationships, said Peduto, are what he will attempt to continue to forge with the Trump administration, despite their different political persuasions.
This was a very different presidential election for sure, said Zelenko. “You have to wish the president and his new administration well and hope that they are going to be successful. Because if they are not successful neither are our cities,” she said.
Jeff Brauer, political science professor at Keystone College, says city mayors are on the front line of where most Americans live in and around. A relationship with a White House like Trump’s willing to talk infrastructure projects and jobs in a way they haven’t heard for decades is music to their ears.
“Mayors and city councils are responsible for providing necessary services for citizens’ everyday lives and for businesses to be successful,” he said.
Such services include fire and police, parks and recreation, sanitation and water, roads and bridges, public transportation and schools, cyber capabilities, and so on. They need to maintain a strong tax base for such services and the personnel necessary to support them. This has become very difficult as many of those who use the services choose to live outside of city limits and beyone the tax base.
“City employee pensions and deteriorating infrastructure have been especially plaguing city budgets, Brauer said. He stressed that these are not political issues, but services — services that touch every demographic and every organization and business. These services are not partisan and shouldn’t become partisan,” he explained.
Which is why most cities like Burton, Michigan and around the rest of the country now feature nonpartisan elections that do not allow a party listing. And many regions have also moved to council-manager form of government, where a professional manager is hired by the council to run the services of the city.
“Infrastructure, in particular, has long been a nonpartisan issue in the United States,” said Brauer, “Traditionally, despite party, elected officials have been supportive of and have recognized the great benefits of infrastructure projects.”
However, over the past few decades, which have been marked by growing deficits and shrinking tax bases, infrastructure has been severely neglected. Republicans, in the name of fiscal responsibility, have especially been reluctant to fund projects.
“With the recent election of Republican Donald Trump, this could all change dramatically,” said Brauer.
“Trump consistently campaigned on making major infrastructure improvements. It is the one clear area in which Trump can garner very strong Democratic support at all levels of government,” he said.
It is also an area in which intergovernmental partnerships can be forged. In particular, mayors, despite their own political leanings, will be clamoring to work with the Trump administration to get resources needed for projects in their cities.
Peduto, who spent plenty of time on the stage with Obama and Clinton over the years, says he recognizes that when it comes to projects, you have to keep the line between the White House and his office open
That is wise and important said Brauer. “The type of projects that can be accomplished with a good working relationship between the White House and a city office help everyone from low-income citizens having clean water and safe public transportation to profitable businesses having reliable roadways and cyber ways to get their products to market,” he said.
For decades, elected officials have been trying to reinstate passenger train service from Scranton to New York City through Hoboken, NJ. For those same decades, they have run into the same problem over and over – a lack of funding to refurbish the tracks, build stations, and address other infrastructure issues.
Brauer, who lives in Scranton, said perhaps with this new administration, through intergovernmental partnerships, this project and thousands like it will finally have a chance of being completed.
Zelenko said she was really encouraged by Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s presence at the conference and was looking forward to what he had to say to address the needs and concerns of the elected officials who govern at the most granular level.
“It gives mayors a from-across-front-row opportunity to listen to what he has to say about infrastructure — not just roads, but aging water systems and sewers. Funding has just always been an issue, and there have to be ways to allow communities that are economically disadvantaged to address those issues,” she said.
“What we are doing in Burton is taking our infrastructure projects and paying for them over time. However, the federal government can help by creating jobs. If they can put more people to work with those projects, our tax bases increase and we have more to spend to support our communities,” she said.
Creating jobs was one of the central messages of the presidential election she said, adding, “I think a lot of other mayors in this conference hall are ready to hear how we can work with the Trump administration on how we start creating them.”
