Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Delivers Remarks at USCM Press Conference

October 3, 2015

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you so much. I want to thank Mayor Rawlings-Blake and I want to thank Mayor Cornett for their leadership.

You know, one of the great things about the Conference of Mayors is it’s predicated on the notion of all for one and one for all. And you can feel it, when you’re at these meetings, folks from every region of the country, different-sized cities, Democrats, Republicans, independents alike, but there’s a lot we agree on, and we’re going to use the weight of all of our cities and towns to have an impact on this national discussion. 

I’m very proud as a New Yorker to say one of the founders of the Conference of Mayors was our greatest mayor ever, Fiorello La Guardia. And I think they understood back in the 1930s – another time of great economic challenge – that mayors had a particular role to play in our national debate because we’re the closest to the ground.

Now what’s changed since then? Our cities are now evermore important because we are the ultimate engines of the national economy. That’s much more true today than it was even ten or 20 years ago. And I think what’s important – you’ll hear from all these mayors – is fundamental investments in our infrastructure will allow us to thrive and create opportunity and help build the whole nation. If our cities do not get that investment, we can’t move forward sufficiently as a nation. 

So it’s very, very practical. The Conference of Mayors says to Washington, D.C., to both sides of the aisle, invest. Invest so we can grow and we can create greater opportunity and greater equality of opportunity. 

We have not had a federal partnership that truly understands the strategic power of cities in many years, and this is an ideal time. 

One thing that’s energizing all of us – 2015, 2016 is an ideal time to change that discussion, because none of the presidential candidates can afford to ignore cities at this point, both because of what we mean politically and what we mean economically. 

So we are united in bringing these issues to the fore, state by state, in what’s obviously going to be a very contested year and therefore a great time for our public debate. 

Just one other quick point I want to make in terms of all for one and one for all, and I think this is heartening to New Yorkers and everyone in the  New York metropolitan area – we went through the pain of 9/11. Our first responders – over 70,000 first responders who aided in the rescue and recovery at Ground Zero – many are still suffering the health impact. Well, this organization, back in June, at the annual meeting in San Francisco, supported our first responders and called for an extension of the Zadroga Act. Mayors all over the country – it didn’t matter where they were – they felt the responsibility to our first responders, and it’s time for our Congress to feel that same level of responsibility. 

Thank you very much. 

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Question: Education Secretary Duncan just a few days ago called on states and local municipalities to take 50 percent of non-violent offenders and find solutions for them other than in prisons, saying it’ll save $15 billion that can go into schools. Has that been discussed at all?

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Mayor: Well, I want to note – and I think this is something that gets a little misunderstood in the national political discourse – I want to point to Mayor Cornett’s comments, because he raised so powerfully the question of mental health earlier in the session. It’s something we in New York City are increasingly focused on as well. Well, you know, if you think about Oklahoma City and you think about New York City, some real differences in geography and the political backdrop, but, you know, we’re also two places that, for example, are both leaders in pre-k. The state of Oklahoma has been outstanding in terms of its progress on pre-k, and we’re very proud in New York City to have reached full-day pre-k for all our kids. And Mayor Cornett and I had the opportunity to speak to the issue of infrastructure spending by the federal government – and we did a joint op-ed in the New York Times a few months back. I’m using it as just a little vignette of what happens here among mayors all the time. It doesn’t matter if we’re from different places. We are pointing to some of the foundational things that have to happen. So if you go to the question about the random violence, I think a lot of us would say regardless of where you stand on the issue of gun regulation, we know that the trajectory of violence would be changed, one, by robust mental health plans that actually reach people – that reach the grassroots and de-stigmatize mental health services – and two, by reaching a lot of our young people earlier with educational opportunities. Those are two things that I think unite a lot of mayors across the country, and we will bring that into the national debate and the presidential debate in a very sharp manner, which is the value added here. One thing I think you’re going to see increasingly from mayors is we’re not going to accept a national discourse that leaves out issues like mental health, or leaves out issues like early childhood education, the things that we know actually could turn the tide on the realities we face, like random violence.