Students Take on City Hall

"Think for Yourself," read the posters in a history classroom at Mira Costa High School, and students did just that recently by opting to stay inside during their lunch break for a chance to grill two city council members.

The students, who sat alongside Councilwoman Portia Cohen and Councilman Wayne Powell, made the most of the opportunity. 

First on the students' agenda: lengthy council meetings. Sometimes proceedings don't wrap up until after midnight, making it hard on both students and the community at large to participate.

Cohen agreed.

Next up: the parking meter rate increase.

"Was there any kind of study done to see if when the cost of the meters was increased the stores actually lost business?" one student asked.

"That's a great question," Cohen replied. The answer is no. With a faltering economy also in play, she explained, the Council decided it would have been too difficult to "isolate the variables" of the situation.

"Decisions that seem simple are always more complicated," Cohen said.

Taking their U.S. government studies to another level, the students at Mira Costa are getting an insider's perspective on local democracy and turning a critical eye toward City Hall.

Since teaming up with the Manhattan Beach City Council in January for the Costa-Council Project, students have been attending Council, commission and task-force meetings and reporting back to elected officials during a monthly meeting at the high school. The first phase of the project will culminate in a student presentation during the summer assessing the triumphs and pitfalls of their city's government.

"I think we'll have a lot of suggestions," said ninth-grader Adam Gerard. "We've got the opportunity to influence how our city is run."

Cohen, who laid plans for the project during her nine-month term as mayor in 2009, said that the purpose of the program is to encourage students to learn in "real time" about the inner-workings of local government. But it's also an opportunity for the Council to learn a thing or two.

"We have the fifth best academic school district in the state and these kids are really savvy," said Cohen. "I want to learn from them."

History teacher Andrew Caine, who heads the project at Mira Costa, said he wants students to see how messy a process democracy really is.

"Running government is all about competing interests," Caine said. "The great thing about going to the [City Council] meetings is that you get to hear from everybody who has an interest and their reasons for caring. And once you do that, you really get a sense of how hard a job it is to run the government."

But to stave off discouragement at their recent meeting, Cohen asked Gerard to read a quote from former President Teddy Roosevelt about the importance of civic participation.

"It is not the critic who counts," read Gerard animatedly. "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena."

Gerard, at 15 years old, is already accustomed to the "arena" of City Hall, as a member of the environmental task force. He plans to pursue a career in politics, with an emphasis on environmental policy. When it comes to certain issues, said Powell, such as the environment, these Manhattan Beach teenagers are often "smarter than their parents."

For the students, the Costa-Council Project has become an opportunity to exercise some of their own hard-fought wisdom and put the theory in their textbooks to work.

"We have a lot to offer," said Gerard. "It's our city and we really need to step up and take the wheel."