Earlier today, various municipal leaders assembled in Baltimore for the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting passed a resolution calling for an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The resolution asks Congress “to bring these war dollars home to meet vital human needs, promote job creation, rebuild our infrastructure, aid municipal and state governments, and develop a new economy based upon renewable, sustainable energy.”
After hearing about their bold statement, we got curious: What sort of ideas did D.C.’s own Vince Gray have to offer at the meeting? An impassioned call for D.C. voting rights? A plea for more education funding? An initiative to stimulate urban economies?
Nope. Nothing, as it turns out. Gray sponsored none of the 77 resolutions proposed at this year’s meeting.
Meanwhile, Gray’s colleagues were eager to lend their names to many of the resolutions; they’re not all controversial. There’s one that includes a call to support the America’s Cup and one that tries to combat childhood obesity. Here’s a breakdown of how some of Gray’s fellow mayors stacked up:
- Michael Nutter (Philadelphia): 34
- Antonio Villaraigosa (Los Angeles): 29
- Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (Baltimore): 21
- Michael Bloomberg (New York): 15
- Thomas Menino (Boston): 15
The meeting rules stipulated that all proposed resolutions had to be received at least 30 days prior to the first day of the event. Perhaps our mayor’s goose egg can be explained because he’s had other things on his mind recently. Or perhaps he just isn’t all that into utterly symbolic resolutions—it’s not like the U.S. Conference of Mayors can legislate any actual policies, after all.
We’ve reached out to Gray’s office for an explanation of the mayor’s inactivity. We’ll update this post when we hear back.
Photo by Darrow Montgomery