INSIDE WASHINGTON/Alliance of local interests targets Congress

More than 20 organizations representing local government, business and labor have joined together to lobby the 107th Congress and the new president to substantially increase federal funding to cities and counties nationwide. The broad-based coalition, which is promoting the Investing in Communities agenda, hopes to persuade federal lawmakers to make “strategic, high-leverage investments that produce positive outcomes” in communities across America.

Even though the group has varied interests, it has adopted a detailed action plan that it will promote when the new Congress and new White House go to work later next month. “This is kind of an umbrella approach … that really does try to get a philosophical agenda before the Congress and new president,” says Larry Naake, executive director of the National Association of Counties. “We think it is vitally important, and we are very excited about it.”

The alliance includes organizations such as the National League of Cities; NACo; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC); the National Community Reinvestment Coalition; and the National Youth Employment Coalition.

The idea to bring together those different groups is credited to Detroit Mayor and NLC First Vice President Dennis Archer. The alliance, Archer says, will promote a message that local government leaders across the country need federal investment dollars to expand and rebuild their communities.

With the new Congress split nearly evenly between Republicans and Democrats and a president who could be weakened by the recent election controversy, a strong alliance of local government interests is important to ensure that city and county priorities are not lost in the shuffle. “With no real margin in the House and the Senate, and no real mandate for the president, we hope that a bipartisan approach to the issues of concern to communities will get the attention and support of members on both sides of the aisle,” says Cameron Whitman, NLC’s director of policy and federal relations.

A snapshot of the coalition’s action plan includes asking Congress and the White House to help local governments:

– improve public education, job training and public transportation;

– support the availability of low- and moderate-income housing, while investing in revitalization of existing communities;

– provide financing and investment incentives to maintain and upgrade new and existing infrastructure;

– invest in family and youth development programs; and

– promote equal opportunity.

David Brown, executive director of the National Youth Employment Coalition, says being part of the group makes sense because it helps his organization involve children and teenagers in rebuilding poor neighborhoods. “Rebuilding distressed communities is not just a matter of infrastructure, but it also involves the human capital of the community,” Brown says. “The untapped human capital is often young people. The idea is to invest in a population that is often perceived as being a threat to the community.”

ICSC got on board because of figures that showed that, in 1999, 9 percent of the country’s employed population worked in shopping malls and strip centers. Because retail centers are a fixture in communities across the nation, the organization decided it, too, wanted to be a part of the effort, says Herb Tyson, ICSC’s senior director for state and local government relations.

“The organization is committed to helping communities revitalize, and shopping malls and strip centers are important to the economic vitality of most communities,” Tyson says.