Mayor Todd Gloria's Speech from the USCM 94th Annual Meeting
Incoming USCM President San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria addressed attendees at the Saturday plenary lunch, outlining goals for the Conference and mayors in the coming year.
Jun 06, 2026
It is an incredible honor to stand before you today as the 84th President of the United States Conference of Mayors.
I want to begin by thanking Mayor David Holt for his leadership over this past year. Your steady hand has strengthened this organization and positioned it well for the work ahead. Thank you.
To Mayors Gaylor-Baird and Rickenmann, I appreciate your willingness to step up and serve your fellow mayors. I look forward to partnering with both of you this coming year.
I also want to thank Tom Cochran and the entire USCM staff for your service to America’s cities and to the mayors in this room.
And, finally, to my fellow mayors from communities across this country: thank you for the work you do every single day.
There are very few people who truly understand the weight of this job.
Over the last several years, we have led our cities through moments none of us could ever imagine.
A pandemic. Natural disasters. Inflation. Political division. Violence and grief in our communities.
Many of us have gone from celebrating a ribbon cutting in the morning to consoling devastated families later that same night.
And in those moments, people are not looking for political rhetoric. They are looking for steadiness. Compassion. Leadership.
That is both the privilege and the burden of being a mayor.
As President Lyndon Johnson once said:
“When the burdens of the presidency seem unusually heavy, I always remind myself it could be worse. I could be a mayor.”
There is a reason that line still resonates.
Because mayors govern where life actually happens.
We keep the water clean, the streets repaired, the buses running, and the neighborhoods safe.
We balance budgets. Respond when disaster strikes. And answer directly to the people we serve.
At this moment in our country, that kind of leadership matters more than ever.
As I heard, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, say recently, “mayors are literally holding this country together.”
There are moments in American history when national uncertainty forces local leaders to step forward.
Moments when the world feels the absence of national leadership.
Moments when cities become the places where confidence in the future is either restored or lost.
That is the story of this organization.
The United States Conference of Mayors was born during one of the hardest chapters in our nation’s history.
In 1932, Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy called a meeting of the nation’s mayors because cities were struggling amidst the enormous burdens of the Great Depression and Washington was not moving fast enough to respond.
It turns out one thing all mayors have shared for nearly a century is the experience of waiting for Washington to catch up with what cities are already dealing with.
Think about what those mayors were facing.
An economic collapse.
Mass unemployment.
Bread lines and soup kitchens.
And yet our predecessors did not agonize. They organized.
They traveled together to Washington to demand action from the federal government.
And in doing so, they made history and fundamentally changed the role cities would play in shaping national policy.
That spirit—practical leadership in moments of uncertainty—has defined this Conference ever since.
Repeatedly, when Washington struggled to find consensus, mayors found ways to move us forward.
During the Civil Rights movement, it was mayors who confronted our nation’s deepest injustices.
During the AIDS epidemic, it was mayors who rejected fear and stigma to help those who were suffering and dying.
At pivotal moments in our history, this organization has led when others wouldn’t because our communities could not afford to wait.
My colleagues, I believe we are at a similar moment today.
We are living through a moment of profound uncertainty.
People question whether our institutions still work and whether we can still solve big problems.
And perhaps most importantly, whether the next generation will enjoy greater prosperity and security than the last.
Those questions are showing up in our cities every day.
Americans are anxious.
Too many families struggle to make ends meet.
Too many young people wonder if they will ever buy a home.
And too often, our national politics rewards outrage over problem-solving.
But mayors don’t have the luxury of performative politics.
The problems are too urgent, and our residents expect results.
While Washington debates mayors deliver.
That is why local government remains the one Americans trust most.
Mayors are trusted not because our job is easy but because our work is real.
Trust is built when people see their problems being solved.
Over the next year, we will focus this organization on the real issues Americans discuss around their kitchen tables in all of our cities.
Can I afford to live here? Will my neighborhood be safe? Will our children have more opportunities?
Under the banner of the “Mayors Deliver Agenda: More Homes, Safe Neighborhoods, and Lower Costs,” we will focus relentlessly on practical solutions that improve people’s daily lives.
First: Housing.
Across America, high housing costs are testing whether working people can continue building their lives in our cities.
Every mayor in this room has seen it for themselves:
Parents wondering why their children cannot afford to live near them.
Teachers commuting for hours because housing has become unattainable.
Young families delaying their futures because they don’t have the stability that comes from having a roof your head at a price you can afford.
That must change.
And cities are already showing what is possible.
In most of our communities it isn’t Right versus Left. It’s Builders versus Blockers.
And my fellow Mayors, we are the builders!
From Austin to Minneapolis, Miami to San Diego, mayors are reforming outdated codes, streamlining approvals, and employing new approaches in order to build more homes.
Because housing policy is economic policy.
It is workforce policy. It is climate policy. And increasingly, it is the defining issue in America.
As Mayors we know our crime statistics, our homicide statistics by heart. Well, I want us all to know our permitting statistics and our home building statistics by heart.
If housing is the defining challenge of this moment, then mayors must become the nation’s leading housing advocates.
Because as cities put our houses in order, we must challenge Washington to do the same to help us make even more of an impact for our residents.
I want to thank Columbus Mayor and former Conference President Andy Ginther for charting us on a path to make housing a core focus of this organization.
And this year we will put the full weight of this Conference behind passing the bipartisan, 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.
This is our top priority, we are so close, and I am going to call on each and every one of you to help get this bill over the finish line.
The American Dream is not something we inherit. It is something we build.
Second: Safe Neighborhoods.
Residents should not have to choose between feeling safe and being treated fairly. Across the country, mayors are making generational progress in improving public safety and reducing crime.
Safety and trust are not competing priorities. Communities deserve both.
From Baltimore to Chicago to San Francisco and in cities across America, mayors are making progress because we’ve stayed focused on outcomes instead of headlines.
It’s what mayors do.
We listen.
We build partnerships.
We solve problems.
And we never stop pushing forward.
But this past year our progress and those partnerships have been tested.
To quote my friend Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer “you have to earn the trust in the people in which you serve and that trust is hard to gain and it’s easy to lose.”
We saw that firsthand in Minneapolis and in too many other cities across our country.
It was Mayors of all political stripes who stood up and voiced their outrage as federal agents shattered the trust that we have all worked so hard to build.
And after the dust settled it’s been Mayors who have had to pick up the pieces.
But as Mayors we didn’t just talk, we put forward solutions.
This past year I worked with Columbia Mayor Daniel Rickenmann to put forward a set of common-sense, bipartisan solutions to reform federal immigration enforcement procedures to model the standards we would expect out of our own local police departments.
We will continue to advocate for Congress to enact these changes.
We will stand up against hate in all its forms.
We will speak out when our mayors and cities are being unfairly targeted.
And we will have each other’s back.
Third: Lowering Costs.
People do not experience the economy through headlines. They experience it through rent, groceries, and childcare.
That means local governments have a responsibility to respond locally.
Cities across this country are finding innovative ways to make life more affordable by expanding transit, creating jobs, and increasing housing supply.
And we need to do a better job telling those stories.
That is why this Fall we will embark on a multi-state affordability tour to showcase how mayors across America are tackling the cost of living and delivering real results for working families.
Because one of the great frustrations of this moment is that extraordinary work is happening in American cities every single day, and not enough people hear about it.
America’s cities are engines of innovation, culture, economic growth, and opportunity.
They are where businesses are created. Where discoveries are made. Where families pursue the American Dream.
And every day, mayors are proving that we can still deliver results.
As we look toward the future, mayors must also have a stronger voice in shaping the national agenda.
Too often, cities are treated as stakeholders after decisions are already made.
That must change.
And that begins with preparing our organization to be engaged, heading into the next election cycle.
No matter who occupies the White House in 2029, America’s cities deserve a federal partner committed to solving problems alongside us.
And for us to exert our influence we must be at the table and engaged with all those vying to lead our nation. Because national policy becomes real in cities first.
That is why this Conference will begin laying the foundation for a bipartisan 2029 Mayors Agenda: a clear set of priorities from the leaders closest to the people.
I will be announcing a bipartisan task force to ensure America’s mayors have a unified voice in the national conversation and that candidates from both parties understand the federal partnership cities needs to deliver for our residents.
My colleagues, history shows that the defining moments of this organization are the moments when mayors choose to lead during periods of national uncertainty.
1932 was one of those moments.
The civil rights era was one of those moments.
The AIDS epidemic was one of those moments.
And I believe this is one of those moments too.
Years from now, I want future generations to say that this generation of mayors met the moment.
That we chose competence over chaos. Action over paralysis. Cooperation over division.
That we chose to lead with pragmatism, partnership, and optimism.
Because at the end of the day, the people we serve do not care about political theater.
They care whether they can afford housing. Whether their streets are safe. What kind of future their children will have.
My parents, a hotel maid and a gardener, raised my brother and me to believe that our responsibility in life is to leave things better than you found them.
That is my hope for this organization over the next year.
And that the people living in America’s cities see and feel that progress in their daily lives.
Because this work has never been about headlines.
It is about people.
For nearly a century, the United States Conference of Mayors has done the hard work of moving this country forward.
And at a moment when Americans and our allies are seeking steady leadership that prioritizes practical, bipartisan solutions, it is this Conference that must lead.
Because when communities need results, mayors always deliver.
