The nation's mayors send their ideas for Obama

Montana

Missoula, MT
Pop. 68,000
John Engen, mayor
1. Increase direct federal financial support to the Community Development Block Grant program for entitlement communities. The city of Missoula's share of federal CDBG and HOME funds has dwindled by 19 percent in just five years. These programs are the most effective, efficient support for low-to-moderate-income folks. Here the mortgage crisis has much more to do with the fact that working families can't afford to buy a home than it does with folks losing their homes because they can't make the payments. 2. Expand the CDBG program to include infrastructure funding. In Missoula, we've got millions of dollars worth of road projects, sewer-plant upgrades, trail enhancements. We need to build a police facility, an emergency operations center, parks, sidewalks. We could rehabilitate thousands of homes, conserving energy, saving money, creating jobs. Our Green Blocks pilot project has brought energy-saving measures to more than 60 homes.

Nebraska

Bellevue, NE
Pop. 44,382
Ed Babbitt, mayor
1. Financial crisis and the economy. Regulations need to be put back in place on banks and other financial institutions. Relying on Corporate Officers to look out for stockholders does not work, they have no incentive. There should be sufficient penalties for mismanaging financial institutions including prison time. Total pay packages should be limited compared to what they have had and no payments of any kind should be legally made when officers are terminated.
2. Long term planning and implementation so we can reach a balanced budget and steps to ease or erase our trade deficit. Our country is being sold bit by bit as you can not continually buy more than you sell. This problem appears to be completely ignored.
The above items will strengthen the economy and make local government more able to fund their responsibilities.

Nevada

Las Vegas, NV
Pop. 600,000
Oscar B. Goodman, mayor
1. Create a fund which will assist non-speculating homeowners to avert foreclosure. The stabilization fund presently established addresses only post-foreclosure issues. It seems that the Washington thought process on this one is upside down and backwards.
2. Create a cabinet position addressing tourism issues. That industry is a fertile economic engine which is not being effectively utilized at a time when the economy needs all the help it can get. Tremendous sums of revenue and tons of goodwill are not being actualized.

New Jersey

Beachwood, NJ
Pop. 11,000
Ron Jones, mayor
1. The biggest challenge is the high level of foreclosures. In my community alone there are 93 foreclosures and 145 homes for sale. All municipal subdivisions in New Jersey statutorily must maintain a solvent reserve for uncollected taxes fund. As foreclosures rise and banks failures increase, our collection rates drops and the fund becomes overburdened. The federal government must implement a stimulus plan to insure these citizens are able to maintain their residency and back their tax payments until the economy stabliizes.
2. Perception is powerful. During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt ralled the nation in an unprecedented show of solidarity and nationalism. President-elect Obama possesses an uncany abiliity to make people feel positive and stimulates the soul to rally around meaningful change. United, we will prosper and move our great nation into accomplishments far beyond its wildest dreams.

Englewood, NJ
Pop. 30,000
Michael Wildes, mayor
Comprehensive Immigration Reform: While most mayors throughout our nation are concerned about national security, the law has always placed immigration enforcement in the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government. At first blush, the ability of police to enforce immigration law seems a viable solution to our nation's challenge of illegal immigration. Actually, local enforcement will discourage and even prevent undocumented immigrants from accessing police services and deprive police of the benefit of immigrants' cooperation in fighting and investigating crime. Such alienation will only reverse years of police efforts to gain the trust of immigrant community, and strain the resources of local police. Our new President and Congress must enact comprehensive immigration reform that incorporates an earned legalization, appropriate legal channels for hiring low-skilled workers, and increased employer enforcement and sanctions.

Fair Lawn, NJ
Pop. 31,637
Steven Weinstein, mayor
1. Increasing the dollar amount and effectiveness of the funding for community development. Every year, funding shrinks and prior year dollars are still encumbered and not being used. In essence, not be used in a productive manner.
2. Focus on municipal funding and looking at the particular issues in different states. For example, in New Jersey, a heavily home-ruled state, look for ways to funnel money through incentive programs; incentives to communities to cut costs by sharing services. Many times communities need start-up dollars to share services.

Howell, NJ
Pop. 48,903
Joseph M. DiBella, mayor
1. Roadways all over N.J. are in disrepair and the state has been ineffective in crafting an effective plan for maintenance and repair. Local grants are often distributed on the basis of political patronage and not based on objective criteria. If the president is truly going to lead from the center on a less partisan basis, then perhaps he can prepare a roads improvement plan for all American communities on the basis of some objective criteria (like travel usage, current conditions).
2. N.J. has been crippled by a series of court decisions and local regulations that mandate the creation of affordable housing. The rules promote more growth and development and in the end fail to provide for low or moderate housing. The President should look to design model affordable housing rules to ensure that people in need have access to it absent the red tape that often comes with local bureaucracy.

Jackson, NJ
Pop. 42,816
Mark A. Seda, mayor
The economy is the most important, and second would be federal assistance for local governments.

Madison, NJ
Pop. 16,530
Mary-Anna Holden, mayor
1. Reauthorization of the Transportation Enhancements (TEA-21). Transportation enhancement grants provide needed capital to protect and enhance communities' quality of life and streetscapes, provide for safety and education, and environmental mitigation, as they relate to highway, pedestrian, bike and rail. It also funds to encourage creation of jobs through a youth conservation corps.
2. Re-establishing the federal historic homeowners rehabilitation tax credit and removal of the "condo" provision that prohibits developers from using the federal commercial version of the credit when adaptively reusing historic buildings for housing. (After all, historic preservation is also the original "green" building, capturing an existing building's embodied energy rather than sending it to a landfill.)

Montclair, NJ
Pop. 38,977
Jerry Fried, mayor
1. Create a national service program on the model of the Peace Corps. Volunteers will earn the same low wages of an average worker in struggling communities and can teach necessary skills, retrain workers, build low-cost housing and provide necessary social services.
2. Implement an economic stimulus package that specifically funds green initiatives including public transportation, alternative energy, conservation, recycling and environmentally sustainable construction and reconstruction of public facilities.

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