SOUTH BEND, Ind.–South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg is finishing his final term as mayor in a few months. The possible Democrat candidate for president delivered his final State of the City address Tuesday, saying he’s concerned about how some of the Trump administration’s policies will affect smaller cities.
Buttigieg noted that the infrastructure plan leaves cities and municipalities to bear the brunt of the cost of replacing aging roads and bridges.
“After raising hopes and expectations around a national infrastructure plan, the administration has made it clear that local and state governments will continue to bear most of the burden of funding our aging physical infrastructure,” he said.
Buttigieg, who is back in South Bend after a live CNN town hall at South by Siouthwest in Austin, also said he’s concerned about the administration’s plan for the census and how it might affect South Bend.
“I am very concerned that the federal administration’s proposed, untested, and legally questionable addition of a so-called citizenship question to the census, will lead to an undercount in South Bend in 2020,” said Buttigieg.
He also talked about his concerns about gun violence in the city in his hour-long speech. But, he said he is glad to see the economic growth the city has enjoyed in the past ten years.
“For the better part of a decade the city of South Bend has been the work of my life,” he said.
“That work has been so rewarding, so demanding and so absorbing that it is difficult to believe it will end in a few short months.”
He concluded, “For as long as I live, this will be home.”
Buttigieg has an exploratory committee helping him decide whether he’ll run in 2020.
PHOTO: Hutton Supanic/Getty Images
