During the last few weeks, I attended both a Broward League of Cities General Membership Meeting and Board of Directors Meeting. At the General Membership Meeting, a professional from the Dale Carnegie Center gave a presentation on increasing communication abilities through simple changes in conversational technique. The guest speaker provided interesting insight, pointing out that simple changes in attitude towards discussion translate into substantial differences in productive communications. Afterwards, I shadowed Ben Chen, a civil engineer responsible for many projects in numerous cities in Broward. This led to an interesting night where I was introduced to many city officials, and Nova High School preformed a musical number. Their presentation was not only an amazing demonstration of singing ability, but also including many important themes like anti-bullying, funding for school programs that promote extra-circular learning and learned behavior from role models. Additionally, after reflecting upon the messages of the performance, my table discussed changes society was confronting and the status of upcoming elections.

At the next Board of Directors Meeting, we met at the Junior Achievement of the South Center at the Broward College campus. While on a tour of the facility, our guide explained to the group the education-based benefits that children in 5th and 8th grade enjoy. For example, after participating in simulations, students have reported greater insight into the real world and the value of both a high school and college education. Furthermore, as a result of this tour, I now have a greater understanding of the effects of promoting unique forms of learning. Once the tour finished, everyone gathered into the meeting room, got seated and prepared to analyze the ethic task force’s proposal, a country wide tightening of standards under which all municipal government members would be subject to.  From semantic technicalities to fundamental legislative changes and additions, Chad and I listened attentively and pondered how the changes would affect our government member’s ability to perform their duties. In one example a section of the legislation imposed strict restrictions on the amount of money acceptable as a gift for municipal members of the Broward League of Cities.  Some members preferred a number that met state-wide regulations, other preferred stricter standards and still other members were diametrically opposed to the idea of changing their own cities policies and submitting to country-wide regulation. However, at the end of the day the issues proved to be too controversial to settle within the time period and were differed to more task force meetings.

By: Alex Weiner