Mayor Barrett meets with Biden, other mayors in D.C.

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett headed to Washington, D.C. -- where he met with Vice President Joe Biden and shared ideas with other top leaders at a meeting of mayors. FOX6's Mike Lowe sat down with Mayor Barrett to talk about his trip.

Mayor Barrett is just back from the U.S. Conference of Mayors Summit meeting in Washington, D.C.

"There were well over 250 mayors from around the country," Mayor Barrett said.

Mayor Barrett discussed a variety of urban issues with mayors from across the country -- including Chicago's Rahm Emmanuel, New York City's Mayor Bill de Blasio and San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro -- among others.

"Just to get the chance to sit down with other executives from other cities in a very pragmatic way to say 'what's working, what's not working,' because the organization is not particularly partisan, because mayors more than anybody else have to make sure things get done," Mayor Barrett said.

Milwaukee's aggressive plan to deal with the foreclosure crisis has become a model for the nation, and Mayor Barrett gave a presentation to the other mayors on that topic.

"We wanted to share some of the practices we have in terms of how we save homes, market property, and find out who owns property, and some of the small cities benefit from that," Mayor Barrett said.

In the meantime, Mayor Barrett heard from a host of other mayors on a variety of municipal challenges.

"On issues ranging from what type of fuel to use for your trucks, to how we can make sure libraries are serving people, to manufacturing," Mayor Barrett said.

Manufacturing was the topic of Mayor Barrett's meeting with Joe Biden. He says he sat next to the Vice President.

"That was one of the main topics I covered with (Biden) -- how do you connect people with jobs, and to cut out the middle man so people actually get training for jobs that not only exist, but they can fill," Mayor Barrett said.

Mayor Barrett says while he has the Vice President's ear, he stressed the importance of getting federal resources to local governments -- bringing back federal dollars and good ideas from the conference.