LOUISVILLE, KY. (WDRB Fox 41) -- Louisville Metro Mayor Greg Fischer is among over two hundred mayors attending the winter meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors.
The mayors are focusing on creating and retaining jobs as they meet over the next three days. They are encouraging the Obama administration and Congress to help the unemployed.
The conference released an economic report Wednesday that says nearly a third of the country's 363 metro areas will still have a 10% or higher unemployment rate at the end of the year. It also reports that 42% of those metro areas will not return to the job levels they had before the recession until after 2014.
Burnsville, MN Mayor Elizabeth Kautz, who is the conference president, said in a news release, "This data is solid proof that Congress needs to be laser-beam focused on jobs creation...We are in the middle of a ‘jobs emergency' that demands decisive and swift action."
The conference is calling for block grants to help create jobs, especially on public transportation and energy.
Click here to go to the Conference of Mayors' website.
The mayors also encouraged adoption of a "Civility Accord" prompted by the recent shootings in Tucson.
From the U.S. Conference of Mayors:
The complete text of the Civility Accord can be found on www.usmayors.org, but the core principles are as follows:
- Respect the right of all Americans to hold different opinions;
- Avoid rhetoric intended to humiliate, de-legitimatize, or question the patriotism of those whose opinions are different from ours;
- Strive to understand differing perspectives;
- Choose words carefully;
- Speak truthfully without accusation, and avoid distortion;
- Speak out against violence, prejudice, and incivility in all of their forms, whenever and wherever they occur.
