Today’s class was the final course for the semester. We participated in a mock city council meeting centered around approving or disapproving a proposal to annex and rezone some residential lots for a planned mixed use development to include affordable residential space and commercial retail space.
The mock meeting was an interesting exercise in understanding, addressing, and mitigating concerns from citizens, city council members, business leaders, and interested parties (i.e. the developer). Each student was given a role and a position to play in the city counci.
I was elected as mayor, which I quickly realized had little say outside moving the agenda along and ensuring decorum was upheld in the the meeting. This task was more challenging than expected as people are highly opinionated and often they have housing and financial interests at stake.
I had suggested at the end of the class that this exercise would be a great capstone for a mini project for the next iteration of the course where the whole semester would be building to the city council meeting. I have left more detailed suggesting in my course critique to the professor.
All-in-all I have really enjoyed this class, aside from the programing piece which I feel did not hold my interest as much as some of the other tools and methods we explored.