Broken Arrow’s mayor is in Washington, D.C., to talk about city issues ahead of the 2016 election.
Mayor Craig Thurmond is on a bipartisan, 17-member task force working under the National League of Cities. The task force hopes to make the NLC presidential candidates’ main resource on local government issues.
Thurmond said federal officials don’t always get to interact with city government.
"Right now, a majority of the funding goes to the state, and then the state takes a percentage and gives it to cities," Thurmond said. "So many things are done local, and that's really where things happen and where the needs are."
The task force is not choosing a candidate to support. A few common problems were identified today in the first meeting.
"A lot of the city issues have to do with things like transportation," Thurmond said. "The Community Development Block Grant is the only government money that we get that we have some discretion in what we spend and where we spend it."
The inability to collect Internet sales tax came up as well.
"It's a big issue to almost all cities, because so many cities are funded with a majority if not all — we're the only state with all, but a lot of cities still get the majority of their funding from sales tax," Thurmond said.
Thurmond has been involved with the NLC for 14 years and serves on two committees in addition to the task force.
Two Broken Arrow city councilors are also in Washington for the NLC’s Congressional City Conference.
