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WASHINGTON — Schenectady Mayor Brian U. Stratton will meet with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden Friday as a national conference of city leaders travels to the White House.
     
"It's all about the stimulus program and how it can be applied," Stratton said by phone Thursday evening, calling from a briefing about Friday's events.

He'll join 39 others from the national Conference of Mayors, pushing for stimulus money to be injected directly into city governments.

The mayors will arrive at the White House around 8 a.m., meeting first with five cabinet secretaries, then with Obama and Biden at 10:30 a.m. The group will speak with media an hour later in an outdoor news conference.

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SCHENECTADY
Stratton to meet Obama, hopes to discuss cash fl ow
Mayor in group of city officials
BY MICHAEL LAMENDOLA Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter Michael Lamendola at 395-3114 or lamend@dailygazette.com.

    Schenectady Mayor Brian U. Stratton is scheduled to meet President Barack Obama today , along with 39 other mayors, to discuss the federal stimulus bill, he said.
    “It is an honor to have the opportunity to meet with the president and the vice president,” Stratton said by phone from Washington, D.C. Stratton is in the nation’s capital to accept an award from the Association of Government Accountants.
    Stratton said the United States Conference of Mayors, which attended the award ceremony, asked him to join a delegation to see Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.
    The itinerary includes meeting with five cabinet secretaries and then with Obama and Biden. The meeting is scheduled to run from 8 a.m. to noon.
    “I don’t have a line-by-line agenda, but the first thing I will do is thank him for his leadership and ask what we can do to help him to bring federal stimulus money to the city,” Stratton said.
    Among the questions Stratton will ask is how will the stimulus money flow to cities? “That is a confusing subject. Some goes to the state, some goes through Community Development Block Grants. Those are valid questions,” he said.
    Stratton said the meeting will provide the perfect opportunity to “speak directly with the president and the vice president and with the five cabinet secretaries most critical to the stimulus dollars.”
    New York state will receive $24.6 billion over 27 months through the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that Congress approved Feb. 13. The money will go toward Medicaid relief, education, transportation and other initiatives. The stimulus bill is designed to combat the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
    Stratton is making his ............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar01103

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Obama warns mayors not to waste stimulus money
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WASHINGTON – Invoking his own name-and-shame policy, President Barack Obama warned the nation's mayors on Friday that he will "call them out" if they waste the money from his massive economic stimulus plan.

"The American people are watching," Obama told a gathering of mayors at the White House. "They need this plan to work. They expect to see the money that they've earned — they've worked so hard to earn — spent in its intended purposes without waste, without inefficiency, without fraud."

In the days since the White House and Congress came to terms on the $787 billion economic package, the political focus has shifted to how it will work. Obama has staked his reputation not just on the promise of 3.5 million jobs saved or created, but also on a pledge to let the public see where the money goes.

His budget chief this week released a 25,000-word document that details exactly how Cabinet and executive agencies, states and local organizations must report spending. It is a system meant to streamline reports so they can be displayed on the administration's new Web site, Recovery.gov.

Using his presidential pulpit, Obama demanded accountability, from his friends in local government as well as his own agencies. He said the new legislation gives him tools to "watch the taxpayers' money with more rigor and transparency than ever," and that he will use them.

"If a federal agency proposes a project that will waste that money, I will not hesitate to call them out on it, and put a stop to it," he said. "I want everyone here to be on notice that if a local government does the same, I will call them out on it, and use the full power of my office and our administration to stop it."

Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, who leads the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said he welcomed Obama's warning.

"Absolutely. We get called out every day at the local level," Diaz said, drawing laughs from other mayors in a gathering with reporters on the White House driveway. "We have plenty of constituents who will be doing that before the president does."

Mayors of both parties said they appreciated the invitation to meet with Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and a handful of Cabinet secretaries. They cautioned, though, that the stimulus plan will only work if leaders at the state level direct the money to their cities in a clear, timely way.

The economic plan will inject a sudden boost of cash into transportation, education, energy and health care. Beyond new spending, it aims to aid people through a package of tax cuts, extended unemployment benefits and short-term health insurance help. The cost will be added to a growing budget deficit.

Obama said government leaders have ............................http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090220/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_mayors

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Well, at least the pigeons will have a place to roost.