By Josh Weinhold, Truth Staff
jweinhold@etruth.com
WASHINGTON -- For a while, Elkhart Mayor Dick Moore thought he had no business visiting the nation's capital.
The time away from the city and the cost of travel was a considerable price to pay, he said, and he could easily send other staff members in his place.
But then, Moore said, an adviser pointed out that lots of decisions affecting Elkhart were being made far away from the City with a Heart.
"A little advice came along and I clued into it," he said. "'Everything's happening in Washington right now. This might be a good time for you to go.'"
The mayor and three of his staff spent much of last week in Washington, attending the three-day U.S. Conference of Mayors winter meeting. They also convened with the city's Capitol Hill lobbyist, U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly and a member of U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar's staff.
Moore went to the White House along with more than 200 other mayors for a session with President Barack Obama. The Elkhart contingent also had a private session with Obama's mayoral liaison.
The expense was undoubtedly "significant," Moore said, but he stopped questioning it when he reflected on a similar trip he made in 2009. The day after Obama's inauguration, he and a few staff were on the ground in Washington, meeting with congressional officials and lobbying for economic stimulus money to be directed Elkhart's way.
That, Moore said, was a visit that made a difference.
"We came here about a year ago and since that time we've received more than $40 million," Moore said. "I'd like to think that's the investment you make to get those kinds of things."
In this together
The conference, the mayor said, made one point abundantly clear: Elkhart is not alone in its struggles. Many of the problems the city deals with -- shrinking revenues, transportation issues, the struggle to get stimulus money -- are all common troubles.
"You get around a table of a group of mayors, and I felt he or she was saying the same things I've been saying, feeling the same things I've been feeling," he said. "We are definitely all in this thing together."
Moore's staffers who attended the conference -- executive assistant Arvis Dawson, airport manager Andy Jones and city engineer Mike Machlan -- stressed that there are important lessons to learn from the ways other cities are facing challenges.
"Talking with mayors and staff people about the day-to-day operations of their city is just a wealth of information," Jones said. "I've got a book full of notes."
Elkhart's recent economic plight, Dawson said, seemed to be well-known among conference delegates, due to Obama's visits and the stream of media attention that followed. One man was able to recount the city's strife in detail, while another referred to Elkhart as the president's "second home."
And while certain economic statistics may be heightened back in Elkhart County, Dawson said, that doesn't make the difficulties elsewhere any less challenging.
"I haven't ran across any city where there are no problems and everything's going well," he said. "The struggles are universal across the United States."
One goal remains
There's a simple way to get cities further down the road to recovery, the mayors group emphasized throughout the week. Send stimulus money directly to communities, they argued, and relief will come quicker.
Some current federal programs, they told Obama and other federal officials, like community development block grants, assign money automatically to cities based on formulas. Only about one-third of the stimulus money has been spent, and the mayors urged Obama to find more effective ways of distributing the hundreds of billions that remain in the program.
Doing so would allow the funds to be deployed quickly and efficiently, mayors say, because community leaders understand their area better than a bureaucrat.
"You can't be at another level, even the state level, and possibly know the needs better than us," Moore said. "Because we have one goal. In Elkhart, Ind., there can't be any other goal than jobs."
Though ideas and proposals swirled throughout the conference, Moore said it was apparent that most success stories ended before the recession. Now, he said, mayors are looking to hold their ground and cling to what they have.
It'd be nice to launch all sorts of initiatives now, he said, but finding the money seems like a nearly impossible challenge.
"While there's a lot of great ideas here and there that people have done, I think our goal right now for 2011 and 2012 is hanging on," Moore said. "And keeping the money and the funding to provide the basic and essential things we need."
Truth staff writer Josh Weinhold was in Washington, D.C., last week, reporting from the winter meeting and Capitol Hill.