America's mayors chose to hold their conference where they would cross the firefighter picket line but Obama stood in solidarity with union members. Hooray for Obama!

Pinellas Park Mayor Bill Mischler recently returned from the annual conference of mayors with his nose a bit out of joint. He - and the other 179 mayors who attended - were outraged because members of the Obama administration, including Vice President Joe Biden, had cancelled plans to meet with the mayors.

Why? To make the meeting, administration officials would have had to cross a picket line of firefighters who were in the midst of a contract dispute with the city of Providence, R.I., where the mayors were meeting.

According to a report in the Providence Journal, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs explained that the International Association of Firefighters had asked the administration to "respect the picket line." Although the Obama administration took no position in the nearly 10-year long dispute, Gibbs said the administration has "always respected picket lines and administration officials will not cross this one."

The explanation wasn't good enough for the mayors, who were so insulted and miffed that their executive committee wrote a letter on June 16 chiding Obama and - in a bit of tit for tat - refusing to meet on an alternate date the administration proposed.

"We must tell you that, in our 77-year history, there has never before been an instance where the entire federal government refused to participate in one of our national meetings," the letter said. "We believe that your decision to boycott this meeting at such a critical time was a serious mistake."

The letter added: "It had been our hope that our annual conference would be a meaningful opportunity for mayors and your administration to address these many issues, and to strengthen our partnership on our many shared priorities. But because of the administration's reaction to a local labor dispute that was not a 'picket line' and was not honored by any other local public or private union, this did not happen. We worry about the precedent this has set as your administration attempts to travel to America's cities in the future to carry out the business of the federal government and the American people, where similar protests are now likely to arise."

The mayors then spurned Obama's offer to meet with them on June 29 in Washington "due to severely challenged local budgets....Airfares on this short notice would be prohibitively expensive."

The mayors then offered for their executive committee to "work directly with you and your White House to set a date for such a meeting this summer, and to develop the agenda for such an important discussion."
-- Anne Lindberg, Times Staff Writer

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