    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 12 (Monday, March 28, 1994)]
    [Pages 610-611]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Teleconference Announcing a Defense Diversification Grant for
    Charleston, South Carolina

    March 23, 1994

        The President. Mayor?
        Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. Mr. President.
        The President. How are you doing, Mayor?
        Mayor Riley. Well, I'm doing fine. How are you?
        The President. I'm great. Nice to hear your voice.
        Mayor Riley. Well, it's great to hear yours. And we're pulling for
    you and just keep trying and working hard. We're in your corner. And
    thanks for all the tremendous cooperation we've been getting from the
    administration with our reconversion efforts. It's been terrific.
        The President. Well, thank you. As you know, I'm calling you with
    some good news today. The Secretary of Labor Bob Reich is awarding $15
    million in defense diversification program funds to the Charleston
    County Employment and Training Administration.
        Mayor Riley. Well, that's wonderful.
        The President. We hope it will help to retrain about 1,920 people
    who are being laid off from your naval complex there.
        Mayor Riley. Well, Mr. President, that's great news. And it will be
    a huge help. We've got great workers with great skills. They will be
    making a career change, and to get the training to move from one career
    to another is essential. And this is terrific news for the Charleston
    community; it really is.
        The President. Well, I just want to say again to you what you and I
    have already talked about so many times privately, and that is that I'm
    committed not just to training and preparing those folks for other
    careers but seeing to it that the base facilities themselves are
    successfully redeveloped. And I know that your Best committee is
    aggressively moving forward with redevelopment planning. And I commend
    you for that, and I just want to tell you so you can tell them that I am
    personally, and this whole administration is, committed to working with
    them and making the best use of those enormously important facilities
    there.
        Mayor Riley. Well, that's wonderful. Thank you, Mr. President. We
    have a great committee. They've done a terrific job and I want you to
    know, from your people in your White House, Secretary Perry on down, the
    response couldn't be better and more enthusiastic and supportive. And as
    I told you in our private conversation, our goal--and told Secretary
    Perry--is to make Charleston a model that you can point to of where a
    major reconversion occurred and occurred successfully.
        The President. Well, I know Secretary Perry and the Navy Secretary
    John Dalton have been down there, and I know that the Department of
    Defense Office of Economic Adjustment has already provided about $2
    million in planning grants. But we want to keep going, and we want to
    assist those workers as they begin their transition to new careers. And
    I think you've already got a transition assistance center open on the
    base.
        Mayor Riley. We do, yes, sir. A very fine one.
        The President.  So we now will be able to provide with today's grant
    the full array of services through that one-stop career center there,
    including counseling and basic skills remediation and occupational
    skills training and other kinds of things that we believe will really
    help to get people new jobs

    [[Page 611]]

    in, hopefully, as good or better than the ones they're losing. We're
    going to do the very best we can on that.
        Mayor Riley. It's going to be a huge help, and we are going to make
    Charleston a model, one that you can proudly point to.
        The President. You can do it. I know you can. We'll do whatever we
    can to work with you.
        Mayor Riley. Well, thank you. Thanks for everything.
        The President.  Tell everybody in Charleston I said hello. I always
    love coming there, and I hope I get to come again soon.
        Mayor Riley. Well, I will. Somebody just a couple of weeks ago gave
    me a picture of you and I talking on January the 1st, 1992.
        The President. The first stop I made in the new year, 1992.
        Mayor Riley. That's right. Well, I've got to--it's been marvelous
    chatting. I was doing the talking, and they subtitled it, ``Low country
    advice.'' [Laughter]
        The President. Well, it was pretty high-brow advice from the low
    country, I'll tell you that.
        Mayor Riley. Well, it was heartfelt, and we're very proud of you.
        The President.  Good luck to you.
        Mayor Riley. Thanks for all your help.
        The President. Bye.

    Note: The teleconference began at 10:44 a.m. The President spoke from
    the Oval Office at the White House. A tape was not available for
    verification of the content of these remarks.