The inaugural Mayor’s Youth Council, comprised of 32 high school students from Mira Costa and neighboring schools, met for the first time last week.
Started by former mayor Portia Cohen and approved by City Council in February, the program is the result of a successful Costa-Council project, organizers said. The original project brought high school students and city government officials together to discuss city issues and policy matters.
The new program will exposed students to a variety of career paths at seven workshops throughout the year. Next month, the students will visit Raleigh Studios in Manhattan Beach to visit a television production set, and sit down with a film producer and director. “It’s going to be very interactive,” Cohen said. The other workshops will include entrepreneurship with representatives from Body Glove, media with CNN and TMZ, crisis management with the Manhattan Beach Chief of Police, design and architecture with Andy Cohen, health and medicine, and government.
Portia Cohen said she hopes the program helps bring out the leader in every student. “Leadership is as diverse as each one of us,” she said, “It requires all different aptitudes and personalities and there’s a leader in every one of us.”
Charley Binkow, Mira Costa senior, applied for the program with the encouragement of the city clerk’s office, with which he interned this summer. “I’m a pretty politically active person, so it’s great to meet council members and members high up in the city,” he said. Binkow, currently swamped with college applications, sees himself majoring in political science and working for the Democratic Action Center in Torrance in the future.
Others don’t see themselves don’t necessarily see themselves in politics but joined to gain leadership skills. “This program is so interesting because it’s teaching you leadership and connecting you with great people we have in Manhattan Beach,” said Krista Jamgotchian, junior at Chadwick School.
Ian MacCormack, Mira Costa senior and aspiring architect, was intrigued by the career development aspect of the program. “I want to be an architect, so I thought that it might be nice to see…how zoning laws are created and how sites are planned,” he said.
The class graduates in May at City Hall. “My hope is that we’ll inspire kids in their passion and we’ll help them find their aces,” Cohen said, adding, “If they have the courage to marry their aces with their passions, then they’ll lead.”
