WASHINGTON — The annual gathering of the Conference of Mayors is a chance for local leaders to meet with federal officials about issues important to their communities.
Mayor Cavalier Johnson, D-Milwaukee, said he’s interested in learning more about gun violence prevention. Milwaukee had 169 homicides last year.
“By communicating with other mayors across the United States, who’ve also seen spikes in homicides in their communities after COVID especially, it’s presented an opportunity for us to learn, to adapt new strategies to continue driving those numbers down in Milwaukee,” Johnson said.
Johnson said he is also focused on combating reckless driving in Milwaukee, by using federal dollars to improve the city’s roads and build protected bike lanes.
“We’ll take all the resources that we can get,” he said.
When President Joe Biden visited Milwaukee last December, he said he’s provided Wisconsin with $130 million to remove lead pipes. Biden hopes to remove all lead pipes by the end of the decade.
“Joe Biden has a very ambitious timetable for reducing, actually eliminating, lead service lines across the United States and Wisconsin. Milwaukee’s got roughly half of the lead service lines in our state. So it’s very, very important for us to make sure we do that because of the health impacts. I also see it as an opportunity to have an economic impact for our community as well. I think the President sees that too,” Johnson said.
Sheboygan Mayor Ryan Sorenson said he’s seeking information about how his city can benefit from the two-year-old bipartisan infrastructure law, which provides money for roads, bridges and rails. Sorenson said Sheboygan has more than 200 miles of roads.
“Making sure that our infrastructure is safe, secure and be efficient and effective. We need to get caught up,” Sorenson said. “And when we can partner with our federal agencies to make improvements to our roads, we can get caught up.”
Sorenson said he also is interested in building more affordable housing in Sheboygan. He said Sheboygan has benefitted from Community Development Block Grants provided by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“So making sure that those programs are fully funded are very important,” he said.
Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, D-Madison, said she’ll also continue to compete for federal dollars for infrastructure.
“We always have work that we’re trying to do on our water system, our sewer system, and we’re applying right now for money to plant more trees in our community,” she said.
Rhodes-Conway was particularly excited about Biden’s clean energy plan. She expects Madison is eligible for $13 million federal dollars.
“That means we are going to get funding from the federal government to install solar panels and geothermal systems, to do energy efficiency, to buy electric vehicles, all things that we wanted to do but we are now going to be able to do more and better thanks to the Biden administration,” she said.
The mayors say they look forward to meeting with the President in-person on Friday, and further discuss how legislation he’s signed into law can impact Wisconsin communities.