Trafford mock council meeting gives students the reins on local government

Though she’s no stranger to attending municipal meetings, the view of the Trafford borough council looked a lot different to Penn-Trafford junior Ally Moraca from up in the council seats.

Moraca, 17, is the first member of the borough’s Junior Councilperson Program. She has spent the year attending Trafford council meetings and learning about local government. On Thursday, she took on the role of council president during a mock council meeting.

Moraca presided over a practice-run of a typical borough council meeting in Trafford, alongside two other students, Ainsley Gilmore and Gregory Maynard, who are both applying to the Junior Councilperson Program next year.

Participants at the meeting brought up concerns about overgrown lawns, clogged storm drains, new recreation spaces and the use of property in the borough during a public comment section.

The meeting occasionally veered into humor, with non-student participants using names of superheroes and other fictional characters and joking about township goings-on. The mock council debated the wisdom of contracting with Superman to solve municipal problems and the benefits of assigning public works employees to sweep up cobwebs early in the morning. Members of the township board responded alongside the junior council representatives to discuss the mock meeting’s topics.

For Moraca, the meeting and the Junior Councilperson program as a whole were windows into what makes local government tick.

“In school, we learn about how federal laws are passed, but we don’t learn about what’s actually happening in the community,” she said. “I thought it was a cool opportunity.”

Before joining the program, Moraca had attended some similar meetings in other municipalities, but none in Trafford. She learned about the program through Penn-Trafford School District and thought of it as a chance to “learn more about how different things work behind the scenes.”

Over the course of the 2022-2023 school year, Moraca sat in on board meetings, and participated in tours of parts of the local government, like the police department and public works.

She plans to participate in the program again next year, alongside other students.

Teaching local government

Council president Kris Cardiff, who began developing the Junior Councilperson program back in 2019 before the pandemic, said the program’s goal is to bring more youth attention to local government.

“It was a rare occasion that you’d see anybody under 35 in the audience,” he said. “I was trying to figure out, how do I get more youth involved, or at least the next generation to come? The other problem we were seeing was that young folks we talked to around town didn’t understand what local government does.”

Cardiff was awarded a Governor’s Award for Local Government Excellence for developing the program. While putting it together, Cardiff focused on a different theme each month, so that the junior councilperson could learn about different departments. The mock meeting was meant as an alternative end of the program instead of assigning a test.

“Let’s actually put her in a position, see how much she’s learned and observed, since she comes to our council meetings, and take everything she’s learned and put it to the test that way,” he said. “But let’s not make it super serious—let’s have a little fun with it.”

Superintendent of Penn Trafford School District Matthew Harris said the Junior Councilperson program is a way for students to explore community involvement and promote community responsibility.

“(It teachers) all of the soft skills that we promote on good citizenship, community ownership, how to be involved, how the process happens, and the deep analysis, like if there is a situation, how would you vote, looking at all the different sides and angles,” he said. “I know this was a mock situation, but when they get to real situations, there’s two sides for everything.”