Yet Mayor Riley set a response to the legislators' report as the top priority at the organization's winter meeting in Washington last month.

The officials are seeking canned foods, items for infants, clothing and building materials said Mayor Riley.

Mayor Riley said that officials were still advising people not to drink water from their taps until tests could be run to determine the bacterial content.

Mayor Riley is working on two projects aimed at telling the story of the slave trade here.

Chief Greenberg is popular, on the whole, among the city's blacks, Mayor Riley said.

"The speed is the problem," Mayor Riley said of the Federal disaster officials.

Mayor Riley told me that economic opportunity had provided the key to the dramatic improvement in relations between the races in his city.

But Mayor Riley said economic pressure was the least of his reasons for organizing the march.

Mayor Riley replied that it was all a misunderstanding.

"I had to act according to my strongest sense of the city and what the festival has meant to it," Mayor Riley said recently.