By Nicolle Conlogue – City of Manzanita
The second day of Girls State included citizens introducing themselves at the beginning of the meeting. Since there are six cities this year, all the citizens from three different cities introduced themselves today and the final three have been scheduled to introduce themselves tomorrow.
During the transitions of introductions, “Yack-Yacks” were introduced to the group. “Yack-Yacks” are recognized as “groaners”, but they are formally known as corny jokes. One of my favorites was, “I was crushed by my books this past weekend, I can only blame my-shelf.”
After introductions, each city began their own meeting with approximately 26+ people per city. Roles in city government were established such as mayor, city councilmen, and the planning and zoning committees. The City Advisors explained how budgets worked and elected city government members by picking a number and having candidates guess, whichever candidate was the closest to the number would receive the position.
As a citizen of Manzanita, our City Advisor declared that there would be about 60,000 residents in our city. The discussion of which ordinances and resolutions that would be created for our city took place at the end of the meeting. The citizens of Manzanita discussed and debated over what we as a city would hold as an ordinance versus resolution; with our first topic of debate being wearing face masks in public. Unfortunately we weren’t able to establish either an ordinance or resolution at the end of the meeting, but each citizen was given the choice to create one of each tonight and then share them with the rest of the city tomorrow (June 24, 2020).
I can definitely say that today’s meeting was eventful and all the girls in Manzanita are inventive, inclusive, and inspired.