we are doing well in our technology school. you have to understand what the needs of the children are. it starts when the kid is born. we have to figure out how with vocabulary, have the parents read to them. make sure they get the medical help. so they have all this behind them. it's nothing new going to school. also create a four-year program. when i became mayor, we did that. the mother dropped kid off in the morning. the kid had a half-hour to take their coat and jacket off and had some milk and while the mother went to the fitness club. so we created a full day of care and test scores went up. let me tell you, because we

can't get on like this. we have pilot schools which negotiated with the teachers' union. regular public schools, the charter schools, parochial and private schools. i don't care what school it is as long as the kid gets a good education. that's our goal. every kid gets a good education in boston. it's the child and their future. >> mayor, that's a top priority. >> we have three major priorities. they are -- they all go together. education has been well-established here. infrastructure and jobs. they all go together. in our area we have had such a lack of infrastructure building that a lot of folks just need to get the basic infrastructure. streets, if you don't have a good broadband infrastructure, you are not able to communicate

with people about the nextgen ration of jobs and development. in my area, we had roads and streets that had not been done in 50 years, so we put together a plan that would in three parts pull together the infrastructure base. the first was the city to invest in our own infrastructure. we did a $10 million bond issue. for a lot of cities, $10 million isn't a lot of money. but for a city with 40,000 people in it, $10 million goes a long way. we partnered that with a federal and state program to ensure we were leveraging those dollars so where the city took the $0 million to do neighborhood streets, we worked with our state partners and department of transportation to do the roads during the same time periods and work with our senate delegation in order to get other dollars to do some of the major thur fairs in our

area. what resulted was a lot of work that happened over a short period of time and is still going on, and we could see those tax dollars at work. it did a tremendous amount for our community. because neighborhoods and areas that had never had street repair had an opportunity to see investments happening in their neighborhoods every single day. we saw some great things come out of it. greenville is one of the first cities in the mississippi state to use asphalt recycling. we are able to use and get more done with less. and i think that's the type of things cities have to look at in this day and age. we have been able to allow and show our industries and businesses, hey, we're investing in the infrastructure base, in the things that are going to continue to see our communities grow, and we're not

just doing it alone. we're partnering and putting together packages of how these things will help to progress our communities as opposed to saying well, we're just going to lay one neighborhood street here. no. this is a part of a larger group. i think that when we do that, cities then, i know for our area, in the mississippi delta, we are not only going back and correcting problems that should have been done years ago, we're properly planning and forecasting into the future, the direction that we need to go. and we have a good and solid infrastructure base. we can then have a good and solid economic developmental base, a good, solid job base to attract jobs into the area. from there we can work better to i think really invest into education, which is another -- a highly important topic and

needs to be explored because education in the mississippi delta is a vital, vital need. >> your priority and what you're doing to move it? >> i think the economy and stimulating jobs is one and they go hand in hand. for me it's education for our children. at the end of the day you cannot have a great city without great schools. and that has to be at the forefront of what every mayor does. i talk jokeingly about the challenges i was embracing as a mayor, but the opportunities are great as well. the mayor and i vice chair a task force for the u.s. conference of mayors in relation to arnie duncan and the president. our commitment is to try to figure out what the spectrum of mayor involvement in their schools? their basic level is mayors aligning their city services with their school district.

at the end is where mayors control their schools. they can appoint a school board, a superintendent. they have influence over the budget. that is all our dreams but we don't all have that flexibility. so the mayor on the national level, and i'll bring it back to the local in a second. but we took on through the u.s. conference of mayors a very important policy called lifo. anybody heard of that? >> it's called laugh in first out. it's called seniority-first layoff. anybody heard of that? >> yes. [laughter] >> it happens at state level and locally that you have school districts and superintendents laying off teachers based on seniority and not based on performance or quality of work. none of us would run a business or city when you have to make choices like that. that's just not good policy for children. so in relation to sacramento,

we're creating the commitment where we make the decisions based on kids, so kids come first, number two, great teachers in every classroom. number three, parents deserve choices, four, you invest in what works and five, you major in rewards for results. that seems like no-brainer-type things that you should be doing, but it doesn't happen in cities around the country. so in sacramento, just to give you one data point. we believe in a portfolio of schools and all the things we have eve talked about here, but i want to use third grade as a key indicator for children. sacramento only 39% of our third graders are reading at a third grade level. that means 51% are not. if kids are not reading at grade level by the time they leave third grade, 80% of those

kids never catch up. how can a young person's future be decided by the time they are in third grade if we talk about this american dream? you guys know if you can't read, you're not going to graduate high school or have earning power or go to college or have a meaningful career. but the correlation of third grade reading ties to criminal activity. sacramento 2/3 of young people that come in contact with our juvenile system, 2/3 are illiterate. so you have an environment are kids are not reading at grade level, and they are going to be involved in the people system. 2/3 of the kids in our area are being put in juvenile based on reading at grade level and prisons are being built based on that. we have something called third

grade reading so they can read at grade level. it's big, bold, and it's doable. it starts with school ready ness. then it talks about school attendance. then summer learning loss. what happens in the summertime. so that's one quick data point in terms of sacramento. we have a long way to go. but mayors, it may not be in our job description, be we have a moral obligation to make sure we have an obligation to be involved in our schools. >> i don't understand why the most important political executive is not number one involved in the number one public service. >> if i divide my day how i spend my days, right now it's snow plowing. [laughter] >> unfortunately we have fresh

me to object ground at the time the mississippi river is heading towards a record crest. so the challenge as mayors is we want to focus in on these important long-term structural issues and the day-to-day stuff becomes overwhelming as well. but education, education, education. it is absolutely critical that we integrate everything we do. whether it's community redevelopment, the light rail line, which is one of the largest transportation projects in the state under construction just as of this month. everything that we're doing in our libraries and parks and rec center with community-based and faith-based groups is all going toward the issue we face. it's remarkable in some ways also troubled because at the same time we have one of the highest graduation rates from high school, one of the largest rates of post graduate

education, etc. we have one of the largest achievement gaps in the country. in the twin cities region, we had the highest discrepancy in unemployment rates between the white community communities of color than in any place in the country. so we have this reputation of this really progressive state and highly-educated state, yet we have this huge achievement gap that if we don't change, the demographics are going to overwhelm our ability to put a workforce together to work for 3 m and boston seentistics and all the other companies we have. i don't control the school district. i wish i had more authority to apoint school board as other mayors have. i think it's a critical question, if nothing else to have a central accountability. to have somebody say it's your responsibility to do this. or to not do it.

but we've also said there's so many things we can do as a city that don't involve direct time in the classroom. it's setting up the structure of the school programs, setting up the whole community-based support to make sure what's happening through the course of the day, on the weekends, through the course of the sum ir. very fortunate to be one of the communities in the country to israeli the promised neighborhood planning grants from the department of education. we're working aggressively to make sure we put that plan together, hopefully to receive flementation funds. al in addition, the promised neighborhood is in and around two schools, we're dividing the city into what we call learning campuses to identify the resources to connect to the school to say how can we make sure a child who leaves the building at 2:30 in the afternoon has a safe place to go where they can get tutoring

or mentoring, get a bite to eat, engage in extracurricular to activities that relate directly and indirectly to education. it doesn't have to be a math mentoring program but if you can incorporate some into the art-based program or into a music program or a sports program, etc., etc., we think we can get a lot out of existing resources if we can just focus more. so we want to take all the things we do and just say we are going to step up and play our role to make sure there's 24 hours of support that the children need to be successful. >> thank you. going back to just sort of the basic conditions under which you're operating. you-all came into office, i'm confident, with agendas, with bold plans. but then things happen. remember heavyweight -- former

heavyweight champion mike tyson used to say everybody who fights me has a plan. then they get hit. [laughter] mayors get hit. we talkability the cuts a little bit -- we talkibility -- talk about the cuts, but do you feel you spend time working with things that are out of your control or can you move ahead pro actively and not be completely die verretted from the ideals you came into office with? >> following on your analogy, i just saw the fighter, head-body. head-body. unfortunately, i didn't realize they were talking about the hits i would be taking. one of the examples of that is we had a program we laumblinged in my initial year in office in 2006 called investing. it was to build on the work of

so many community-based organizations and so much good work that had created to really kind of take this to the next level and say we've stabilized our neighborhood, now let's make sure every one of our departments when they are planning a sidewalks, they are planning it in a way that connects children with safe routes to school and make sure they have theability -- the ability to walk to grocery stores and move beyond just projects here and there and have a comprehensive froach neighborhood revarietylyization. then the mortgage crisis hit and boom. one step forward and about 10 steps backwards that has been really, really difficult. so the challenges even when we were able to identify resources, the game changed so dramatically with the foreclosure crisis that it just overwhelmed our ability to implement those long-term and comprehensive strategies.

so you stabilize through a process. and then the state cuts and federal cuts and cebg proposal that the republicans in congress put out to strip that program away. even cuts proposed by the president, although, not nearly as significant. it is just a constant challenge, because we as mayors, we know our communities. we know what we could do with the resources, with the concerted efforts. with the community-based groups that are supportive of that. and then you're dealing with the outside sources that are out of our control. the challenge with being mayor now, there are just so many forces outside of your control, that you're struggling to keep up. >> i think you absolutely have to keep moving forward with the ultimate mat goal in mind. something we're dealing with right now. gas. just because gas prices go up,

does not mean that your fair to trucks and police trucks don't run. they still have to run and respond. how do you deal with that? when we had the gas crisis that came before. when i first came into office, we were dealing with a $4 million budget deficit. no one else knew this, including myself. [laughter] >> so you can imagine my surprise. you can imagine my surprise when i come in and they tell you, you don't have $4 million. you need to sort of find that in order to catch up. we were able to do it. we got our budget into a good position. and then what do you know? we get hit with the gas crisis. luckily we had taken enough measures on the front end that we actually had funding such that we were not hit so bad that it put us back into a deficit. so what are we doing now? we're looking at how do we

handle the situation for and what measures -- have we taken those measures? have we looked at energy efficiency and looked at alternative fuel sources? sthings we have to work on not just on a local level but in conjunction with our state and local level associates. looking at the fact that there were not any hybrid cars on the state contract. i don't know about your state. i know in mississippi we typically have to go through a state contracting source first to see what the vehicles are there and then we go from there. so what were the fuel efficient hybrid vehicles that were coming up on state contract? there were not any. we were looking for these two and three years ago. what are the ways we don't have to run so much fuel as we had to do two or three years ago. we always need to be looking to what is going to be the ninks

that could happen so we don't have to be reactionary but that we've started to plan for what we know will come. we've been through these things before. history has shown us this is what will happen every few years in our country. so what things are we looking at and preparing for? that's one thing as mayor where we do end to do well. we end to react to so much that it becomes second nature. to look and say all right, we're going into emergency mode. set up the command post and let's pull out the plans everybody was dreaming up four or five years ago and let's put those into practice now. >> one thing for all of us, we all ran because we wanted to solve problems in our community and find solutions. what drives us crazy is when we can't be accountable for the things that impact our community. so when we talk about schools, we don't have, other than mayor m. here, we don't have in terms

of accountability for our schools. your question was what frustrates us? it is the things we're held accountable for that we don't have any control over. my thing would be as mayor of sacramento. california is the eighth largest economy in the world and i'm the mayor of that capital city for california. what happens each year, the state of california cannot balance its budget so as mayors we're all expected to balance our budget. california has a $20 billion short fall over the last couple of years, so year after year, so what california does to get creative, is they say let's take money from the cities up and down the state to balance the budget. so they are robbing peter to pay paul, and we don't have any control over that. california can't balance its budget because it has a 2/3 notion to balance the budget. so if you don't get a 2/3, you

can't pass a budget. so they have to have budget reform. that comes back, they balance their budget on the backs of cities. taking ate a step foote, california's credit rating is the worst in the country as a state so as a city, it puts us in a very awkward position when we're trying to borrow and bond some of these things we typically do. the reason it's hard for sacramento is it's a capital city. if we, as a city have the majority of our government jobs and when california can't balance a budget and has to layoff people, it affects the whole state but as a capital city, when you start furloughing our workers, they don't come downtown and they don't shop at the shops. so there's a double whammy in terms of california and sacramento. the last spart strange. last year we got up and done legal fees and sathe we're

going to come up with a proposition. proposition 22. it precludes and prohibits the state of california to take money from the city. that passed overwhelm glifment this year we thought we were going to benefit from it. the state said hmm, let's just eliminate redevelopment agencies now. so because they couldn't take money, because of this proposition, they decided to eliminate redevelopment which pavegly was a loophole she nan gans to take money from the city balance them. those are the things that make it difficult for us as mayors. >> in addition to mayors being blamed for things out of our control. my mentor said paul since we're going to be blamed for things that weren't our fault, let's take some credit for the some of the good things we actually didn't do. i don't know if that works or not. >> but -- [laughter] >> we are 28% of the growth

state revenue and only get back 9%. the local farmer doesn't work for a capital city like boston. how come when we had the crisis a few years ago -- i went to all the unions and asked them for a pay freeze. for one year. so i could get some revenues into my revenue basket so i could deal with some of the issues. also some of my departments, i asked to reorganize. it's interesting when you look at some budgets. i always pride myself on being pretty good on budgets. i had to have our public health division cut and nobody in the city recognized it. nobody complained once, because we as cities have some items in our budget that stay there forever, because we have a executive director that does nothing at all until we get to a crisis stage, we cut the

these things out. but we went to the state and got them to give us some opportunities to raise revenue. our meals tax, hotel taxes. we never have that opportunity before. the only way i was able to finance a city was through real estate taxes, fees and fines, and local aid. you're never going to figure out what the local aid number will be until probably july, because state legislature never would pass a budget early on to help out the cities and towns, so as mayor, you have to understand that the budget process is the most important process to have. and i think as i do, as mayor, because the budget works, if the budget works, the city works. what happened a lot of times in cities is they if you would budget together and hoped it worked. we have to be conscious of the fact that that's how we operate with numbers. our police department, fair to department, schools all have

the necessary departments for public works. we have the schools working, the police department working and the fair to department. i say to you-all that i just went through the my bargaining agencies came in three weeks ago and gave us triple a on one of the companies, and double-a-plus on another. he would lose almost $100 million from the state government last year, because my financial team is probably one of the best in the country. and they know how to make it work. my department heads pay attention when they have to cut % or 2% off the budge tet next year. we work together. they always cut my favorite programs bd and what i do all the time and is go over the budget and say why did you cut that? they know i'll pull it back in so i go in and cut somebody else's budget out.

but folks, we do pay for crisis out there. i wish the federal government would stop this nonsense about cutting programs. look at what cities do. and listen to us. accept some of these programs we have. you know, they stopped and said well, cut out cbgg. the job creation program. it creates affordable housing. they want to cut that out. some other programs. bailout programs they won't cut out. thereon us, because we know, all four of us are on the front lines err day. we know what works. now listen to us. accept some of the suggestions we have as mayors. they don't listen to us. they speak to us. they say what do you think? how can we solve these problems? so stop, look, listen, and be

part of the solution. don't be part of the problem. >> i want to ask another question that will shift it a little bit. but also ask you to be thinking of a question you would like to ask one of your fellow panelists as we go forward. that has to do with the shape of the city. i mentioned in the n my opening demeants in contrast to the 1960's and 1970's when the cities represented everything that was bad and there was this flight from the cities that were going on, that significant parts of our population have really embraced and shown progressiveness far look at town life. i want to ask each of you what are you doing to enhance that urban specialness that seems to be attractive to at least significant segments of the population. anybody? >> watch some of the recent census numbers.

we went up to over 600,000 people who live in our cities. first time we have gone over 600,000 since 1970. during the daytime we have 1.2 million individuals who work in the city of boston. with 27 colleges and universities around us, we try to make it an attractive place for those graduates so they'll stay. we retain 26% of the graduates. one out of three bostonens between the age of 20-34. so we're a relatively young city. we're a younger city because of our college and university. that's why i help -- our health care and financial services our industry keeps on growing, because the people that live in our city but also because of the that, the challenge we have is our diverse population, how do we make them feel like they are part of the main stream of

our city? we put 10,000 people through an e.s.l. program to help them be a part of the main stream of the jobs in the city of boston. and we have events that attract people to boston. that's part of it. the friendly climate that works where everybody wants to work together to make this a city that works for not some of our people, but for all our people. that's the challenge we face as mayor to make sure it's a city that's open and accepted by everyone. that's the reputation of the 1970's around those days, we saw terrible city then. boston is a much different city today than it was in the 1970's. it's a much more open and taller and welcoming city. we as mayors have to make sure that we have the programs and the housing and the neighborhoods have to be strong where people live. main street program. we have to make sure they work.

that's what it is. it's a climate you create where people say gee, i want to live there and stay there. if you make decisions, it's about where do the youngsters go to school? that's part of the whole criteria. playgrounds, streets, all those things make a city work. that's what i do as mayor. i believe my colleagues do that every day. >> when i first came in we put in a strategic plan with the five pillars. education, public safety, financial stability and all those things. and when we got to the end of the list, we said there's just something missing on this, and it really went to the what i call the jimmy the greek intangible category, so we entered a category called the soul of the city. if youen really want to attract whether it's people coming back, empty nesters that are

moving back. people that left to go to the suburbs, how do we get them back? how do we attract businesses? so we started to focus on trying to bring more bars and restaurants and places to be -- for people in downtown. we started to really focus in on creating a great jazz festival. it will rival your -- in june i'll come to your blues festival in september. but those are the things. and we've seen directly the payoff as there was a major corporation network looking to move out of the suburban community, because they were trying to attract talent from across the globe. they were competing against boston and silicon valley and places around the world. and they wanted to come to a vibrant community. so when we could show them not only what we have done but what we are planning on doing to increase the things that would make a 25 or 26-year-old

graduate from m.i.t. want to come to the city of st. paul. those became critically important selling points i think it's one of the frustrations i have is that people say well, you hear this mantra, just focus in on the basic. well, the basic are not so basic. it's not just one tool in the toolbox that makes the city a vibrant, healthy, safe place. they have to have great jobs and schools but if there's nothing to do after 5:00, people are going to be looking elsewhere because they know they have to have that kind of activity level. one of the things we're doing also is selling the amenities from a regional per speblingtive. when i talk about downtown if st. small a great place to own a business, in a couple years you'll be able to hop on a light rail and go see a vikings game or a hockey game.

part of it is focusing in on the specific things you're doing in your community but also understanding how they tie in the other activities you have to sell as a community. >> my perspective is going to be more from rural. because again, where my colleagues are in large cities, my city is where you guys come to get away from it all. [laughter] in light of that, we've seen a population decline. and it's very simple. we've seen a population decline happen at least since the 1970's and 1980's because jobs have left. of course you're going to have a population that leaves when the jobs leave. the entire delta region has the largest african-american population in the entire state of mississippi, which has the largest african-american population in the united states of america. when you've seen the type of jobs decline that we've seen

over the past 30 years, you understand now why we have 40,000, almost equivalent to the size of my city we've got to work on bringing jobs into the community. that's when we talk about why education is so critically important and infrastructure is so critically important. so we can employ people so they can live in our communities. when we look across the broad scope, we can see, with no offense to the urban areas, there's a trend of people coming to smaller areas with the john set of broadband infrastructure with the ease of being able to work from anywhere in the united states as well as the world, we do see people coming into smaller areas, smaller communities to live and do business and raise their children. there has to be benefits there. that's certainly something we're working on in our community, providing first that

infrastructure to locate the business. but then what are the benefits to education? the quality of life issues that really matter to a family? we're beginning to see some of our retirees come home. we have a joke, if you're from mississippi, if you're from chicago, then you're related to somebody in mississippi. you just are. [laughter] >> because chicago is our suburb. [laughter] [applause] >> but we love those people to come back home. we want home the come back to mississippi. we must exand if tourism that makes our culture so rich. we talked about the blues stuff. but there's so many different things that are the life and blood of the mississippi delta that people from all over the world want to come and see and experience. a quick example. there's an area right outside -- how many people know where

tune kay, mississippi are? not just casinos. a lot of hands. [laughter] tunica, mississippi a couple years ago was the most impoverished place in mississippi. 2340u you go and there's 15 casinos up and down the highway. but someone came up with an ingenious idea to put these little shot gun houses as a hotel for people to come and stay in t gnu ica, mississippi. so you can go and the little shog house looks like something from where i grew up. but it's a little one-room-style house complete with newspaper on the wall. complete with the little rod beds. people come and spend $100 a night to sleep in a shog house. [laughter]

baffles my mind. but there's a uniqueness. we have to capture and understand what makes us who we are and then allow and really encourage the innovateness of our people such that they can capitalize on their own uniqueness. and that's what we're working on doing in our area. >> so st. paul is simple. my last year in the nba was 2000. and we were taking a trip on a team bus. and i asked my teammates what were their three favorite nba cities and they said the three snavert i said what were your three least favorites? they said it. i didn't. i'm just -- don't shoot the messenger. so salt lake city, milwaukee and sacramento. and that's -- i went -- oh!

sacramento? why sacramento? they said, you're in the capital of california. at 5:00 downtown there's nothing open. how can you be a capital of california and not have any restaurants or shops open past 5:00? further more, they said we play a game that ends at 10:00 and then by the time we get back to the hotel we have to order room service because you-all don't have any restaurants. so the irony is probably why i ran for mayor is because i wanted to make sacramento not in the bottom tier of nba cities. [laughter] >> but it's as simple as people are making decisions today not just on jobs. they want to live in a cool place. at the end of the day, this nextgen ration, the millennium, they are making decisions on where to live based on cool cities so that's where we're trying to find the balance between culture and we have two

rivers. anybody here from san antonio before i say this? san antonio. they are known for a river. it's not a river. it's a canal. [laughter] they pump water, you know, down this canal that'sal marketed brilliantly as a river walk. we have two rivers and we're doing nothing about it. so there's opportunities each of us have that are unique to our communities. >> my friend at the harvard business school has remarked on the current internet rev pollution where anything can be done from anywhere, the distinctiveness of a place matters even more. now i'd like to invite you mayors to ask each other some questions. mayor hudson, you have a question for one of your fellow mayors? >> what was asupposed to ask him again? >> the options -- >> she said it all. boom. there. prince got ahold of her, it was

over. >> my question actually would go to my colleague from boston. you've -- you sit in a very unique position as having control over the school board. that was one of the things expressed that that is something that a lot of us don't have the ability to do. how did you first go about setting what were the priorities that you needed to happen within your school system in conjunction with what your constituents were saying needed to happen in the school system? >> my predecessor, he wanted when i came into office the sunset clause that said we had to go before the voters to make it permanent. at that time, why we got appointed the school is we had

school members with ashtrays of each other, stealing each other's speeches, the school system was in complete disarray. one went to jail. the custody junior was very important. the teachers union were important. the kids were the least important part of what was going on with boston public schools. so we had the second referendum. and the initial poll we took, i was losing by 26 points. they said i could not retain apoint school board. i went to the business community and said you trays money, i'm going to win. the issue in the minority community was we're taking their voting rights away from them. the very fragile thing. i had to convince the minority community that we were not taking their voting rights. we were giving the rights of children and education. so by the time we got to the election day, we turned around and won it by 40, because we

got a lot of the folks indicating they wanted to see how important this was. it wasn't about voting rights. it was about kids. let's say i was very happy with the decision. and we had progress. and -- folks, when you think about public education and public school systems, we take all kids in. e.s.l. kids, handicapped kids. every kid out there who is disenfranchised comes to boston schools and we have to make sure all our schools accept all kids. that we'll be able to give all the schools, take all those kids in. some of the schools and we have a difference of opinion sometimes. they choose and pick who they want. but now under the new educational farm bill they are

not going to be able to choose and pick, because they were cherry picking. if the kid wasn't going to graduate they would pull him back but in june they said all our kids graduated from high school, yea! they are going to college. well, they are back with me again. the legislation wasn't dealing with that issue. not all the schools were like that. but there were so. i don't care if they are charter, public, private, whatever they may be, it's about the children. it's not about the buildings. it's about the children and how we get those kids educated. that's all that should be focused on. forget about the rest. also you think about these kids. what do they do wrapped around the schools? what do they do in the summer time? what are the programs we have kids in? because if a kid doesn't have a program in the summer time, they can lose a whole grade by

not having any programs in the summer time. so that's a part of what we have to do. it's not easy but all mayors want to be involved and we all have a certain degree. i'm fortunate that i appoint how it works with the appointing of a school board. there's a citizens group that every time there's an appointment, they give me three names. i pick out of those three names. out of the seven members, i'll tell you honestly, five of them i didn't know before they walked in the door. i take it very seriously, the appointment of the school committee. they take it seriously also. so i think that's where we are in appointing the school board. every major city, because you have to be so -- the teachers union and custody -- custodian union can run our city. >> if you're going to run for the governor of mississippi, when you get to this point in the program, you're supposed to start off by saying i'm

wonderful. i'm so great and let me tell you why i'm great then the question is don't you agree with me? [laughter] >> so here's an example. no. i'm generally -- there's -- so much of the focus right now has been on teachers and teacher accountability, etc. but i really have come to a different place on this, and i wanted to see what others think about this. my new phrase is who has the parking spot closest to the front of the building? we spent so much time focusing in on our teachers that we kind of let the hook off of principals who have the ability to change the culture of buildings and hold teachers accountable more so than any other level of leadership. principals in the city of st. paul and minnesota have tenure rights, the same kind of union

rights but i've always been puzzled by that, because they are management. when i have a problem with my management, you hold the workers accountable but also the leadership of the department accountable. are you kind of looking at any of the ways we can change the culture of the building? a ha moment for me, my daughter is working in the city of new york. the building was about to be closed 10 years ago. they brought in a new principle and completely changed the culture and the outcome of the school. didn't change the demographics just the outcome. i think that we just seem to threat level of leadership skate by with no accountability. >> i'll address that. i agree. and this is a simple formula. you cannot have a great school without a great principal.

so in sacramento we have 100 schools. if i tpwhuzz charge of the schools, i'd get a 100 great principals and i know our school district would be one of the best in the country. you give the principal the autonomy to choose the teachers and figure out how to reward and recognize teachers. the autonomy to hold parents and teachers accountable, you're going to have an entirely different environment. so you have great teachers in the classroom with a great principal, parents will be part of the equation and the try angler dynamics is important but you will not have a great school system without a great principal. >> and they used to be unionized until the 1993 -- took them out of the union. >> under new legislation, we have turn turn -- turnaround

schools. we go in and remove the principal in some, and the principal has the right to hire, and staff the teachers and everybody else. some of our schools this year were turnaround schools brought new principals in. principals are the boss and they went to hire new teachers. going to those schools, you talk to them. but talk to the students that have been there for a while. they tell you the atmosphere in the school has changed. the educational process and the kids are enjoying the classroom. teachers didn't enjoy school before. had a hard time going there. but the new principals brought in, they are the bosses. we have to have the ability of changing those principals at all the schools. we're trying to fight with the unions of course. on that, and the unions are not -- i understand their first

obligation should not be just protecting people. they should protect the educational process. we, in boston, have a very militant teachers union right now. and they are trying to block everything we're trying to do in education. but i just sty them, we'll continue to fight. hey, i fought for the firefighters union for five years. the teachers union fighting with them for the next five years? who cares? we're going to get things done. but unions have to understand, folks, they have a responsibility. they have a responsibility to the students and the parents. and it's so is unfortunate that they don't understand that. tough guy, the president, but he understood when he had to move on issues. he gave us part of the schools early on in my administration, which broke some of the management rules, but now a

management system says i want to give it to him. i don't want anything. so you have this reverse decision making going on and teachers sometimes say can't move my president. >> do you have a question? >> yes i would like each of the colleagues quickly, what's the population of each of your cities and what's the size of your general sunday in >> >> slightly under 40,000. with just census numbers in, that are putting us roughly about 38,500. we're down from 41,643. >> your general fund is? >> roughly $18 million-$20 million. >> that's $230 million general funds. >> over 600,000 folks live in our city. our budget is about $2.4 million. >> in sacramento we have almost

a00,000 and our general fund is about $500 million. so each of our cities have challenges based on the size. mayor coleman, you talked about regionalism, the twin cities, just give me a thought in terms of what's the competitive advantage that you have in your particular city as you think about a regional approach? >> well, minneapolis and st. paul have been historic rivals. they've fought more than they've gotten along. probably the thing that's happened since i became mayor, everybody was saying it's so great that you and the other mayor are getting along and just by starting to have a dialogue and look at approaches from a regional perspective as we've gone out to look like -- we really had an opportunity to say we're not trying to isolate this piece of the region or that piece. we're really looking at this on

transportation and housing and workforce development etc. from a regional perspective. but we are a highly-educated workforce. we have a lot to sell. we have 21 fortune 500 companies many, than any other per capita in any other region. but instead of selling those assets, we were saying don't look at that side of the river. just look at this side of the river. again, the light bulb went on and you said why wouldn't i sell that fact that the minnesota twins are in a beautiful new ballpark 10 miles out of st. paul? the museums and things they have done, the theaters are some of the best in the country. if i wasn't selling those assets when i was trying to sell st. paul. i was missing out on a huge

reason why i love living in that region. we now have a new council of mayors. bipartisan, non-partisan. it's really saying let's stop fighting and competing against each other and start competing against singapore and other parts of the world. >> we are about out of time, but we have time for a parting thought from each of you if you can keep it to a minute or less. mayor johnson? >> i feel a whole lot better today than i did when i first got here. [laughter] and i know if the mayor has a question, he's going to bring up the boston celtics. so i want to leave you with this thought. i played in the nba from 1988-2000. you guys didn't win championships during those years. so i used to always like coming to your city during that day. [laughter] >> whoa! ok, pal. [laughter]

>> i think -- you know, a lot of this conversation we've had this afternoon, i think one of the things -- mayors have a difficult job. and but, you know, it's made easier by folks like yourself out there, working with us to solve our problems. and nobody even mentioned what this does for our cities and improving the quality of life. we just had a resilient neighborhood announcement in boston. i think that's one of the most creative programs that has come down in a long time. it brings people together working together as one organization to improve some of our most troubled neighborhoods in the city. the other thing is we met with the staff and they worked with us on how to create the community. that's what it's all about, folks. in this room we have a lot of brain power, a lot of experience. and we know how to work

together. the work day should be collaboration. and how we collaborate together to achieve the common goal or making neighborhoods in our cities a better place to live. not just for some of our people, but for all of our people. i hope we all leave here tomorrow. how we all work together? it's so important that we all work together to make this a better place, because we have to understand the resources we have, how to use those resources to make it a better place. >> mayor coleman? >> i will expand on that. we don't have a professional basketball team in minnesota, so we wouldn't know about that. yes. we do. but anyway, to -- i'll expand on what the mayor said. think -- i think the city is under assault like never

before. in the 1980's there was drugs and crime and when we were starting to rebuild our communities we're being assaulted by congressmen and fwovers, and i think it's unfortunate, because i think we were just at a point where we were fundamentally changing what was going on in this, long-term. structural tiers. the work at the brookings substitute was doing to kind of heighten cities and we've had to change it to community-based groups that are going to help us fight the fight. and rarlings of what happens on the state or federal level, all of us in this room need to do what we know is important and we just can't be detered from our work. >> thank you. >> last word, snare >> traditionally we always workedal together but the

smaller rural communities are now being involved, and i'd just like to say thank you. thank you, because even though we are a smaller community, we may not have this large of a budget. we may not have the same population and size, but we do have many similar problems, and i do hope after this conversation today, not only do we understand even other better but we can learn from each other. rural communities and learn from urban communities and together we can collaborate to understand better to understand the issues our people deal with and understand how bet tore solve them. good and powerful things come out of small places. [laughter] >> and certainly -- [applause] certainly i appreciate you very understanding that and involving us in the conversation. >> well, we've talked candidly

about the challenges, but we can all agree with four leaders like this, there's every reason to be optimistic. please join me in thanking our wonderful panel. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> if you'd like to see this discussion again, you can watch it in other c-span programming online at c-span.org. a couple of live events to tell

you about this morning. friends of the earth comparing japan's nuclear situation, the nuclear power plant in russia. that's at 9:30 eastern. after that we'll be live on c-span 3 when the national association of community health centers hears from the head of the centers for medicare and medicaid services. and mary wakefield, the administrator of the health resources and service administration, the primary agency for addressing health care for the uninsured. a few moments, your calls and today's headlines live on "washington journal." tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern we'll have live coverage at the canadian news program "the national." national." it will cover today's