Youth Leadership Visits City Hall

This past week we welcomed the Carter County Youth Leadership to City Hall. We always try to make the experience fun and interactive for the students. After all, there’s no better way to learn than by actually doing! During their visit, the students elected a City Council, elected a mayor, and appointed a City Manager in the same process our real City Council follows.

The controversial topic for this Council to decide was whether or not to expand our Historic District into the rest of downtown. Students were assigned to one side of the issue or the other and were given an opportunity to be heard during the public hearing. As always, the students presented some interesting perspectives and new ideas to each side of the argument. Many of them got up to speak and let their representatives know how they felt about this particular issue.

After the public hearing, it was interesting to see the seven mock-council members debate the issue. Some on the councilpersons where legitimately for the expansion, other legitimately against, and for the majority this was the first time they’ve heard about it. Ironically, there was some of the same angst and back-and-forth discussion that we see play out with our real councilmen on real issues.

In the end, the mock-Council voted in favor of expanding the Historic District to bring in the remainder of downtown. I hope the students (especially the mock-Councilpersons) walked away with a better understanding that each decision is complex and no decision is easy.

Just like the mock-Council, the our City Councilmen are your representatives and need to know how their constituents feel about a certain issues. Let them know by attending a City Council meeting and making a comment during Citizen’s Comments or during a public hearing whether for or against the issue as our students did.

Just like our mock-Council, our City Councilmen are faced with complex issues that rarely come down to being either for or against the issue. The mock-Council asked many questions about the impact on business, on tourism, on city finances, on future generations, and on the larger community. All of these have different answers each with their own shade of gray rather than being black and white.

What can each of us do to better understand the issues before our elected body and what can we do to better communicate how we feel these issues should be resolved to our elected officials? Let’s talk about it!