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Name: Susan Mourgas

Occupation: Rehabilitation practitioner

Residence: Buffalo

Judging by the name, what would you guess the Mayor’s Citizens’ Participation Academy is? It sounds like its a rally the troops, encourage everybody to think about your community, to get involved in your community, do well for your community.

What would you like to learn about your local government and how the city is managed? It would be nice to know what different things are available for the citizens at large to do. I know occasionally they’ll have programs to clean up around the parks, but what are some other things citizens can get involved in that will be helpful.

Several city commissioners and officials are promised to be on hand to answer questions for this program. Who would you like to hear from?I don’t frankly know enough about city government [to know who specifically], though I’m not proud to say that. But sometimes it seems like the problems that plague the community seem so overwhelming, so large and all-encompassing, that I don’t really feel like I can make any difference, so I guess [I would prefer to hear about] something a little bit smaller-scale, that I can be of some service and participate in.

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Name: Mazen Kassav

Occupation: Student

Residence: Buffalo

Judging by the name, what would you guess the Mayor’s Citizens’ Participation Academy is? I would guess its a meeting for the citizens of Buffalo to talk about anything they have to talk about with the mayor.

What would you like to learn about your local government and how the city is managed? I’ve learned a little bit, and it makes me not want to learn anymore, to be honest. There’s hope, but it takes a long time.

Several city commissioners and officials are promised to be on hand to answer questions for this program. Who would you like to hear from? Well, my major is pre-med, and I know that Western New York will have a shortage of doctors in the upcoming years. Maybe someone to talk about that. Another thing is, I can’t think of an important figure here [to ask], but maybe they could bring in an expert or a professor [to provide analysis] because the economy here is not doing too well, there are a lot of poor neighborhoods.

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Name: Meryl Gellman

Occupation: Student

Residence: Buffalo

Judging by the name, what would you guess the Mayor’s Citizens’ Participation Academy is? It sounds like a coalition bringing people together from the city of Buffalo to hopefully enhance it a little bit and bring the neighborhoods back to where it should be.

What would you like to learn about your local government and how the city is managed? I think I would like to know more about their long-term goals, because I think my generation wants to leave Buffalo as quickly as possible because we don’t see where it’s going. I would like to know more about their plans for the far future, when we’ll be raising our families here. In 10, 15, 20 years, what is Buffalo going to look like?

Several city commissioners and officials are promised to be on hand to answer questions for this program. Who would you like to hear from? I don’t know any really in particular. But I would like to see the school system blossom more. I would like to send my children to a public school, but that’s one thing that would worry me about raising my kids here. Also, with the neighborhoods, even along Elmwood, you’ll walk down a really great block with really great shops, but then on the next block there’s a dilapidated house. That has a lot to do with economic development and sort of spreading the wealth. People are trying to get it back together, but I’d just like to see that really happen. I’ve been reading about individuals or private groups of people organizing to do that, but i’d like to see our local government step in a little bit more and help them out with that.