Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Thursday that “America is sick and tired of blame, we’re ready to get in the game,” as he addressed the “The Cities’ Platform for Election 2020” during the opening general session of the National League of Cities City Summit in San Antonio.
“The people who elected us to office, our neighbors, are counting on us every day to ensure their families are safe and (their) neighborhoods are healthy,” Garcetti said during his speech. “Government works best when it is rooted in politics of addition and multiplication, and not of division and subtraction.”
Garcetti and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez are co-chairs of the league’s 2020 Presidential Task Force, which also includes West Hollywood Councilwoman Lindsey Horvath. Los Angeles Councilman Joe Buscaino is an ex-officio member of the task force as the league’s first vice president.
The task force is intended to build a platform of local priorities and uplift community issues during the 2020 presidential election cycle, according to the NLC.
“The work we’re doing in cities drives America forward every day, and the issues we face should be top priorities for every presidential candidate,” Garcetti said last month when the task force was announced. “This bipartisan task force will help us shape and promote a national agenda for the future of our communities.”
The four-day City Summit is “the National League of Cities’ conference for local leaders to convene and collaborate on solutions to the common challenges facing America’s cities,” according to the league. More than 4,000 delegates from nearly 2,000 cities were expected to attend, according to organizers.
The National League of Cities is an advocacy organization that bills itself as “the voice of America’s cities, towns and villages, representing more than 200 million people,” working “to strengthen local leadership, influence federal policy and drive innovative solutions.”
Garcetti is set to return to Los Angeles Thursday evening.
On Dec. 6, Garcetti will take part in asking questions at a presidential candidate forum hosted by Accelerator for America, a nonprofit he co-founded, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Waterloo, Iowa. The forum will have several mayors ask the candidates questions about their presidential agenda.
Candidates Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro, Amy Klobuchar and Tom Steyer have committed to attending.