Mayor’s Meeting Opens with 4 NJ Mayors in Washington

WASHINGTON-The 86th winter meeting of Mayors in Washington, DC started at noon today with a kick-off meeting of mayors.

Just four of the 109 mayors invited to meet with President Donald Trump at the 2018 Mayor’s Winter Conference today are from New Jersey. Those mayors include East Rutherford’s James Cassella, Hope’s Timothy McDonough, Woodbine’s William Pikolycky and Jackson’s Michael Reina.

Jersey’s small-town mayors will be in attendance with mayors from cities such as Dallas, Rochester, Tampa, Oklahoma City, New York City, San Diego and others.

The agenda for the discussions over the next few days will revolve around how Washington can help Smalltown, USA to move forward on many infrastructure projects.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu opened the meeting by saying Americans see chaos and confusion from Washington, D.C., but it is America’s mayors who are in the trenches representing the people of America.

“Mayors are forced with no choice but to govern but we have to govern in real time despite what’s going on in Washington.  We’re hoping to find partners in Washington to get the job done,” Landrieu said.

This afternoon’s keynote speaker, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said education is the key to America’s future.  In Chicago, if you maintain a B average, Emanuel said those students get free college tuition.

“If you get a B average in high school, community college is free,” Emanuel said, “Every kid has a chance at the American dream…regardless of what neighborhood you’re from.”

Whether or not the local mayors will have the chance to pitch their infrastructure projects to Trump or his department representatives is unknown at this point.

“While some send out tweets, we are fixing the streets,” a representative of the U.S. Conference of Mayors said today.

Mayors in attendance…President Trump will meet with the conference in the East Wing at 3:20 pm.