Latest news with #civicengagement
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Peru student shadows Stec in Albany
ALBANY — State Sen. Dan Stec (R,C-Queensbury) welcomed Peru High School junior Connor Baehre to Albany Tuesday as part of the League of Women Voters' 2025 Students Inside Albany Conference. Baehre, one of 60 students statewide selected for the conference, spent the afternoon in Albany at the Capitol and shadowed Stec while the Senate convened for session. Stec appreciated having the opportunity to welcome him to Albany and show him firsthand how the state's legislative process works. 'It was a pleasure to welcome Connor to Albany and show him how the state Senate operates,' Stec said. 'I'm glad to assist in a program like the Students Inside Albany Conference, which helps encourage civic engagement and participation and allows our young people to see our government in action. I hope Connor enjoyed his time at the Capitol and that the experience furthered his interest in government and public service.'
Forbes
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
Strengthening Civic Health: How CivicLex Is Revitalizing Local Democracy
The founder of CivicLex in Lexington, Kentucky, discusses how his work is redefining what's possible in community and civic life – showing that in an era of national uncertainty, the most meaningful democratic renewal can begin locally. Ashoka: Richard, let's start at the beginning – what made you want to create CivicLex? Richard Young Richard Young: Through my previous work, I'd spent a lot of time around local government, and I kept seeing this lack of meaningful public engagement – only a small group of people were showing up to meetings. I'd watch these major policy decisions move through with hardly any public input. But then, like clockwork, right before any policy would pass, people would suddenly appear opposing it: "Why wasn't I told about this earlier? This feels like it's being done to me instead of with me." The thing is, these policies take a year or two to develop before they ever get to council for a vote. I realized that a couple of well-organized people could actually make a real impact on local decisions. This was around 2016, when national politics felt so divisive, and I wanted to build something that could make people feel good about contributing to our community's civic life again. I ended up getting a small $5,000 grant from the Knight Foundation to do work around civic information in our public transportation system, and that helped seed the idea for CivicLex. Ashoka: How does your team approach civic engagement differently? Young: We focus on three core things: civic knowledge, social cohesion, and building responsive institutions. First, people need to actually understand how civic life works. It's not something we're taught in school, and with local news shrinking, there's just less access to information about local decision-making. So our team teaches thousands of students how local government actually works. We also run adult workshops on civic processes, and we operate as a local newsroom covering city hall. Second, relationships are crucial, so we focus on social cohesion – how do we all build relationships with people who are different from us, and across different levels of civic power? Everyone should be able to talk to civic leaders and share their perspectives. We foster these relationships through events and by improving public spaces where people naturally meet. And third, our civic institutions need processes that actually welcome people into decision-making. If people show up wanting to participate and the process is terrible, they're not coming back. So we work with institutions to make participation meaningful for the public and helpful for government, too. Ashoka: How do you work with local government in the mutually beneficial way you describe? Young: For starters, we don't advocate for policy outcomes like affordable housing or minimum wage. Instead, we advocate for changes in process, which is a distinction the government recognizes. If we supported specific policies, our relationship would fundamentally change. We also approach our work with humility. People in government have decades of experience and really rich ideas about public engagement. If you come in saying, "You all aren't good at public engagement," you're discounting people who've put their lives into public service. So we build relationships and collaborate at the speed of trust. We also demonstrate a value proposition: good public engagement can actually convert opponents to supporters. Nothing helps in local government like having someone show up to say "yes," because almost always people show up to say "no." Ashoka: Can you share an example of success in changing government processes? Young: Sure. During Covid, when we were meeting virtually, our city suspended public comment because white supremacists were Zoom-bombing meetings. We reached out to a council member and said, "This is bad, and we get why you suspended it, but the process was broken to begin with. Could this be a starting point for actually fixing this?" So we surveyed about 1,000 residents and 85 top city staff about the legislative process, and when we asked where people should provide input, a significant majority of both the public and officials said "as early as possible." This revealed an unknown consensus. We then made 15 recommendations to change meeting structures and participation methods. The city adopted 13 of those 15, including creating two new types of pre-legislative council meetings to get public input before legislation even enters the stream. Ashoka: Civic engagement can be difficult to get excited about after a long day at work. How do you flip the script and make it something people want to do? Young: We've all experienced how learning about civic engagement and government processes can be boring, right? Convincing people to participate can be like convincing someone to eat spinach. If we want more participation from all groups, we've got to make it something people actually want to do. Following the pandemic, there's this real hunger for community and we try to build on that. In our educational events, like workshops on the city budget, we include games like "The Price is Right" where people guess dollar amounts about city government. We also host purely social events. We've invited people to paint pumpkins with elected officials, build birdhouses, and attend pancake breakfasts. These spaces build relationships because you're not trying to convince anyone of anything – you're just having fun together. All the decisions being made by local government are serious – they can literally add or subtract years from people's lives. But if you talk about it that way, it sounds like taking medicine. People don't want lectures, they want fun. Ashoka: CivicLex is a powerful place-based model for civic engagement. How do you think about impact and scale? Young: We're missing crucial civic infrastructure in our country, with too many organizations going broad rather than deep. The Elks Clubs, Rotary Clubs, local press – these were important because they were contextualized to place, making them feel authentic and rooted. Now, everything's watered down, trying to appeal nationally. The natural inclination would be to make this a national organization with "CivicLexes" everywhere, but that's like taking two tablespoons of peanut butter and spreading it over a whole loaf instead of one slice. We see another way to grow, and we've had over 100 communities reach out about building similar organizations. Where there's demand, we want to share our lessons, show how these three impacts work together, and help communities build something that actually works for them. Ashoka: What's next for CivicLex? Young: We're thinking about our role in this tense political moment and especially want to amp up our work on relationship building and social cohesion. We have big projects coming up focused on potential changes to our city government structure, and we're planning to expand to include our public school system. The big thing I'm focused on is how this becomes like the library – an institution that feels permanent, that people will access for decades to come to help them feel a sense of agency over their lives. And now that we feel secure in who we are, we're thinking about how we can help other communities build something similar but tailored to their needs. Richard Young is an Ashoka Fellow. This interview was condensed for length and clarity by Ashoka.
CBC
13-05-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Thompson council backtracks on cutting public comments at meetings after pushback from residents
Dozens of people showed up Monday at Thompson city council meeting to defend what they call a vital part of democracy. They were there to support a motion aimed at saving a bylaw that allows an open public comment period before the start of meetings. Council in the northern Manitoba city had voted to remove the bylaw in April but on Monday, after pushback from the public, they reversed course. Not everyone agreed, though, in a 4-2 vote. Mayor Colleen Smook cast one of those dissenting votes and said she stands by her decision. "I may be in the minority but I definitely believe that trying new things is a good thing for council," she said, noting people were still able to address council if they emailed the city for permission no later than the prior Wednesday. Smook said the open comment period, which allowed people to speak without an appointment, was underutilized — council meetings had just two or three observers on a good night. And the open mic was often abused by those who did take advantage, she said, but didn't elaborate. Ron Matechuk, a long-time Thompson resident and former city councillor, is one of the devout observers of council meetings and has spoken up in at least 75 per cent of them, he said. "I guess they don't want to answer questions, is what it looks like to me," Matechuk said before Monday's meeting. Most people in Thompson don't seem to care about what happens at council, but there are still some that do and it's a vital part of a democracy, Matechuk said. "Openness and transparency is a very important part of [democracy]. I took a civics class back when I was a kid and they taught me a lot. It's very important, the people must be heard," he said. Coun. Sandra Oberdorfer was one of those who voted in April to remove the bylaw, but changed her mind and supported it on Monday. "Over the past three years that I've been on council, I have not seen it [the public comment period] be overly productive. We were not getting productive feedback, we weren't reaching our constituents," Oberdorfer said about why she voted against it originally. "So I just felt that it wasn't a productive way for us to communicate with our taxpayers" Oberdorfer said she was interested in looking toward more productive ways of engaging with the public, such as having them contact councillors via email or phone. "It was clear that our taxpayers, based on the audience that we had in the room, were not happy with our decision to remove the community comments and feedback," she said. "And at the end of the day, our taxpayers are the ones who voted for us to represent them." Coun. Duncan Wong was fiercely opposed to removing the bylaw in the first place and was at the forefront of the fight to bring it back. He said Monday's win might be temporary as the vote still has to go through a second and third reading at coming council meetings. And he's worried about the alternatives, which include a proposed quarterly town hall. "How could you address a winter issue in the summertime? I mean, it's a bit too late for three months to wait," he said. Matechuk said it's less about the public turnout for council sessions and more about having the opportunity to make comments.
Associated Press
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
In Pittsburgh, candidates face their future voters, part of a national effort to engage the young
PITTSBURGH (AP) — At Perry Traditional Academy, students took time out from classes on a recent Thursday to listen quietly in the school auditorium while a small group of their classmates questioned the four candidates running in Pittsburgh's upcoming mayoral primary. The topics covered an array of issues important to the teens: policing, school funding and youth involvement in their administrations. The forum, coordinated by the Allegheny Youth Vote Coalition working with Pittsburgh Public Schools, was the eighth held at a public high school in the city, all designed to get the youngest and future voters involved in elections. After the candidates left, they had a short oral civics test on elections, with prizes for correct answers. What's happening in Pittsburgh and surrounding Allegheny County is part of a national trend. Young people have consistently turned out to vote at lower rates than older Americans. Civic organizations are hoping to reverse that by getting teenagers engaged in public debate before they are even eligible to vote, seeing it as foundational to the future of U.S. democracy. A Pew Research Center analysis found that voters under the age of 30 made up 15% of voters in the 2020 election and 27% of nonvoters, a slight improvement in both categories over 2016, when that demographic was 13% of all voters and 33% of nonvoters. Voters were also much older than nonvoters, on average, in the 2018 and 2022 midterm elections, according to Pew. Allowing teens to have a voice in local elections Among the groups leading the effort nationally is the Civics Center, which works with high schoolers to run voter registration drives and hold forums that are geared toward raising their participation in elections. Others, such as The Gem Project Inc., in Newark, New Jersey, have pushed for students to be able to register and cast ballots in local elections before they turn 18. Last year, the Newark City Council dropped the minimum voting age to 16 for school board elections, making it the first municipality in the state and the second largest city in the country to do so for any election. Oakland was the largest city in the U.S. to lower its voting age in 2020, but teens voted for the first time last year. Breanna Quist, 18, and one of the recent registrants in Newark, said the push was especially important to her because it allowed students to vote for an office, school board, that directly affects them. 'This just shows how young people should always just take action. They shouldn't be fearful. They should always advocate for what they believe is right,' she said during an interview at a voter registration town hall earlier this year. Nishani Ward, 16, said it was an inspiration when Newark lowered the voting age for local elections. 'Doing this right now, I'm more likely to do it in the future and do it more routinely in the future,' she said. Media reports said turnout among 16- and 17-year-old registered voters in the April school board election was less than 4% but outpaced the overall turnout. Helping young people learn their role in democracy In some places across the country, young people have had success when demanding a greater voice in political decisions. They've argued that voting adults don't always consider them or their needs when casting their ballots. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 21 states and the District of Columbia allow 17-year-olds who will turn 18 by the time of a general election to vote in primaries. Even though the youth vote tends to bend left politically, this might be a good time to reconsider the minimum age because it's become less predictable, said Daniel Hart, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University who has studied lowering the voting age. Data from AP VoteCast, a survey of interviews with registered voters in all 50 states, found that Democrat Kamala Harris had a slight edge over Republican Donald Trump among young voters, but young men swung to the right for Trump even if they didn't agree with him on all issues. The Allegheny Youth Vote Coalition held two vote huddles in 2024, drawing students from throughout the county. They learned about the electoral process and held more than 20 voter registration drives, said Rachel Martin Golman, senior director of social impact of the National Council of Jewish Women Pittsburgh and a coalition member. During a workshop earlier this year, one student attendee asked why the candidates didn't come speak to them, Golman said: 'And we all thought, yes, why not, and worked to make it happen.' Laura Brill, the founder and CEO of the Civics Center, a Los Angeles-based coalition member, said the point is that 'most teens today have few opportunities to consider their important role in our democracy.' She said engaging the candidates directly is 'the kind of formative experience we believe has been missing from high schools for decades and has undoubtedly led to the low rates of engagement we see among the up-and-coming voters.' 'You are the future' At Perry, the students in the audience didn't shy away from asking questions important to them and their peers. Makaila Nyambe, 17, asked each mayoral candidate about funding for schools, while fellow junior Deahmi Mobley questioned how they might establish a good relationship between law enforcement and teens. Previous forums at other schools included questions on other issues, including how each candidate would implement diversity, equity and inclusion into their administrations. Trash, homelessness and public safety came up constantly, along with a disagreement over whether more school spending would improve academic performance. Infrastructure, road repairs and cuts to public transit also generated discussion. The students listened closely when all four candidates talked about neighborhood policing and building relationships -- and about the importance of young people at such a forum. 'You are the leaders we have been waiting for,' said one of the mayoral candidates, retired Pittsburgh police detective Tony Moreno. 'You are the future of Pittsburgh,' said another candidate, Thomas West, a business owner and former television news producer. 'You are the future of America.' Stalea Chapman, a 17-year-old senior, said afterward she was glad the candidates were taking the students seriously and reaching out to them because their futures are intertwined with politics and policies, especially now. 'It is a lot of pressure being young and seeing what the economy is turning to and what's going on in the world,' she said. 'It's frightening for young people because we want to be successful.' ___ Alexander reported from Newark, New Jersey. Associated Press Polling Editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux contributed to this article. ___ The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about the AP's democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
The Independent
12-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
In Pittsburgh, candidates face their future voters, part of a national effort to engage the young
At Perry Traditional Academy, students took time out from classes on a recent Thursday to listen quietly in the school auditorium while a small group of their classmates questioned the four candidates running in Pittsburgh 's upcoming mayoral primary. The topics covered an array of issues important to the teens: policing, school funding and youth involvement in their administrations. The forum, coordinated by the Allegheny Youth Vote Coalition working with Pittsburgh Public Schools, was the eighth held at a public high school in the city, all designed to get the youngest and future voters involved in elections. After the candidates left, they had a short oral civics test on elections, with prizes for correct answers. What's happening in Pittsburgh and surrounding Allegheny County is part of a national trend. Young people have consistently turned out to vote at lower rates than older Americans. Civic organizations are hoping to reverse that by getting teenagers engaged in public debate before they are even eligible to vote, seeing it as foundational to the future of U.S. democracy. A Pew Research Center analysis found that voters under the age of 30 made up 15% of voters in the 2020 election and 27% of nonvoters, a slight improvement in both categories over 2016, when that demographic was 13% of all voters and 33% of nonvoters. Voters were also much older than nonvoters, on average, in the 2018 and 2022 midterm elections, according to Pew. Allowing teens to have a voice in local elections Among the groups leading the effort nationally is the Civics Center, which works with high schoolers to run voter registration drives and hold forums that are geared toward raising their participation in elections. Others, such as The Gem Project Inc., in Newark, New Jersey, have pushed for students to be able to register and cast ballots in local elections before they turn 18. Last year, the Newark City Council dropped the minimum voting age to 16 for school board elections, making it the first municipality in the state and the second largest city in the country to do so for any election. Oakland was the largest city in the U.S. to lower its voting age in 2020, but teens voted for the first time last year. Breanna Quist, 18, and one of the recent registrants in Newark, said the push was especially important to her because it allowed students to vote for an office, school board, that directly affects them. 'This just shows how young people should always just take action. They shouldn't be fearful. They should always advocate for what they believe is right,' she said during an interview at a voter registration town hall earlier this year. Nishani Ward, 16, said it was an inspiration when Newark lowered the voting age for local elections. 'Doing this right now, I'm more likely to do it in the future and do it more routinely in the future," she said. Media reports said turnout among 16- and 17-year-old registered voters in the April school board election was less than 4% but outpaced the overall turnout. Helping young people learn their role in democracy In some places across the country, young people have had success when demanding a greater voice in political decisions. They've argued that voting adults don't always consider them or their needs when casting their ballots. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 21 states and the District of Columbia allow 17-year-olds who will turn 18 by the time of a general election to vote in primaries. Even though the youth vote tends to bend left politically, this might be a good time to reconsider the minimum age because it's become less predictable, said Daniel Hart, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University who has studied lowering the voting age. Data from AP VoteCast, a survey of interviews with registered voters in all 50 states, found that Democrat Kamala Harris had a slight edge over Republican Donald Trump among young voters, but young men swung to the right for Trump even if they didn't agree with him on all issues. The Allegheny Youth Vote Coalition held two vote huddles in 2024, drawing students from throughout the county. They learned about the electoral process and held more than 20 voter registration drives, said Rachel Martin Golman, senior director of social impact of the National Council of Jewish Women Pittsburgh and a coalition member. During a workshop earlier this year, one student attendee asked why the candidates didn't come speak to them, Golman said: 'And we all thought, yes, why not, and worked to make it happen." Laura Brill, the founder and CEO of the Civics Center, a Los Angeles-based coalition member, said the point is that 'most teens today have few opportunities to consider their important role in our democracy.' She said engaging the candidates directly is 'the kind of formative experience we believe has been missing from high schools for decades and has undoubtedly led to the low rates of engagement we see among the up-and-coming voters.' 'You are the future' At Perry, the students in the audience didn't shy away from asking questions important to them and their peers. Makaila Nyambe, 17, asked each mayoral candidate about funding for schools, while fellow junior Deahmi Mobley questioned how they might establish a good relationship between law enforcement and teens. Previous forums at other schools included questions on other issues, including how each candidate would implement diversity, equity and inclusion into their administrations. Trash, homelessness and public safety came up constantly, along with a disagreement over whether more school spending would improve academic performance. Infrastructure, road repairs and cuts to public transit also generated discussion. The students listened closely when all four candidates talked about neighborhood policing and building relationships -- and about the importance of young people at such a forum. "You are the leaders we have been waiting for,' said one of the mayoral candidates, retired Pittsburgh police detective Tony Moreno. 'You are the future of Pittsburgh,' said another candidate, Thomas West, a business owner and former television news producer. "You are the future of America.' Stalea Chapman, a 17-year-old senior, said afterward she was glad the candidates were taking the students seriously and reaching out to them because their futures are intertwined with politics and policies, especially now. 'It is a lot of pressure being young and seeing what the economy is turning to and what's going on in the world," she said. "It's frightening for young people because we want to be successful.' ___ Alexander reported from Newark, New Jersey. Associated Press Polling Editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux contributed to this article. ___ The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about the AP's democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
