Cincinnati Enquirer: Mayor Mallory lobbies lawmakers in Washington

Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory was on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, meeting with members of Congress over the city's top spending priorities.

But this year's lobbying trip might not be as useful as those in the past.

That's because starting this year, both the House and Senate have done away with earmarks, which are special requests from lawmakers for hometown projects.

Mallory said even with no promise of earmarks, his meetings Tuesday were worth the trip. His office did not immediately know how much it cost city taxpayers for the mayor, City Manager Milton Dohoney and at least two other staff members to travel to Washington for the day of lobbying.

Mallory wasn't shy about saying how displeased he is with the change in earmarks policy.

"It could very well hurt the city," he said. "Obviously, there needed to be some corrections. There needed to be some things fixed. But we went from everyone understanding that the earmark process needs to be reformed ... to going overboard."

That means Mallory now must appeal to department officials in addition to lawmakers for funding needs.

And that's a challenge. The mayor of Cincinnati is a somebody when he visits Cincinnati's congressional delegation, but he's a nobody when it comes to lobbying department officials.

"I'm one of everybody that shows up. I don't have a leg up; I don't have a way of standing out," Mallory said. "It's much harder to make a department official understand how much of a priority this is for a particular region than it is to convince your own Congress member or senator."

"It's still important to tell the legislators what our priorities are, and their staff can follow up with the departments and make sure the departments know what's important and what the priorities are," Mallory said.

As a sign of the times, Mallory's list of city priorities has shrunk this year from its usual 10 items to five projects, which total about $20 million.

"We scaled that back because obviously we understand the financial environment that we're in, so we didn't want to come here with any unrealistic expectations or asking for things that weren't absolutely necessary," he said.

The list includes $5.1 million for the riverfront park project; $5.8 million to design decks over Fort Washington Way to connect downtown to the riverfront park; $4.2 million to build a turnkey U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility at Lunken Airport for international flights; $3 million for I-71 corridor improvements; and $2 million for a project to reduce combined sewer overflows in Hamilton County.

At least Mallory has one added benefit this year: Sen. Rob Portman is now a high-profile advocate for his hometown.

"It was great to meet with Mayor Mallory and City Manager Milton Dohoney today to discuss the future of Cincinnati, something that is near and dear to my heart," Portman said. "The Queen City needs their bold and decisive leadership in order to usher in an era of job creation and economic prosperity, and I look forward to doing what I can on the federal level to achieve those goals."