Youth In Government Day Canned

As last night’s Board of Finance (BOF) meeting was drawing to a close, board member Kurt Schwanfelder asked chair Joe Mooney what had happened to the Youth in Government Day this year. This was a program that paired high school students with the first selectman and town department heads, giving the students an opportunity to learn how town government works.

Typically the event takes place on the Monday the BOF sets the mill rate, an event that began in the high school and then moved to Town Hall some blocks away. Yesterday would have been the day.

But this year it didn’t happen. Schwanfelder was curious why. So were Charles Shelton and Ken Kaminsky, who both told the Eagle they liked the program immensely.

Mooney didn’t answer the question directly. He passed it over to First Selectman Jamie Cosgrove.

Cosgrove Explains

Cosgrove explained that the BOF calendar schedule had changed from a morning to an evening meeting this year, a calendar the BOF adopted. He also told the finance board he did not feel the program was working all that well, that some students were shadowing department heads whose jobs didn’t interest them.

And it turns out some department heads voiced unhappiness that they had to drive the students assigned to them back to Town Hall in their own cars.

“This was not a great idea,” Cosgrove said.

In an interview after the meeting Cosgrove said he still hopes to have some version of the Youth in Government day this school year, and he is talking to School Superintendent Hamlet Hernandez about it. ​“I had some ideas. He had some,” he said. So far no agreement has been reached.

Hernandez could not be reached for comment.

What still seems to be a sore point is the transportation issue.

If so, it was not raised with school officials back in November when the issue first came up.

Email messages to and from Cosgrove, obtained by the Branford Eagle through a state Freedom of Information Act request, show how surprised top school officials were to learn that the Youth In Government program, a program they believed was highly successful, was about to change or disappear.

November Alert

The first warning that the program was in trouble came shortly before Thanksgiving last year, on Nov. 21, when Town Clerk Lisa Arpin, who also serves as the BOF’s clerk, sent a message to Lee Panagoulias, principal of Branford High.

Arpin’s message to Panagoulias came as the BOF was finalizing its 2015 meeting schedule. Arpin wrote in her message that it ​“was proposed to hold our May meeting as a regular evening meeting of the Board of Finance at Fire Headquarters. If we did that, it would eliminate the customary Youth in Government Breakfast at BHS, and also would eliminate shadowing of YIG students with Town department heads in conjunction with the meeting.”

She did not say who made the proposal or why.

“Before we consider this change, kindly provide your comments and approval/disapproval of this program change before 4:30 p.m. on Monday, as the BOF is meeting on Monday, 11/24 at 7:30 p.m., and approval of the 2015 meeting calendar is one of the agenda items.”

In the past the Youth in Government Day program began with the Board of Finance holding its mill rate meeting at Branford High School in the morning. Afterward the students went to Town Hall, where one or two would spend part of the day with the first selectman and the town’s department heads, learning what their jobs entailed. (Here is our 2011 story on the event.)

Panagoulias first learned the program was in trouble when he received Arpin’s email. He responded to Arpin by email on Monday, Nov. 24, at 9:38 a.m. He copied his email message to Cosgrove and to Mooney.

“My hope is that we would be able to continue our partnership and support our students involvement in Branford Youth in Government,” the principal wrote. ​“We always receive very positive feedback from students and town officials and this program aligns so well to our mission statement that strives to partner with our community to develop informed and contributing members of society.

“If this is a logistical roadblock, I am hoping that we can work together to preserve this experience for our students.”

“What Is This All About?”

Arpin’s email came just before the long Thanksgiving Day weekend. It appears from the emails that Hernandez did not learn that the Youth In Government program was in trouble until Dec. 2. He was clearly baffled.

“Gentlemen,” he wrote to Mooney and to Cosgrove: ​“What is this all about?” He signed his brief note ​“Hamlet.” He sent his email at 5:03 p.m. that day.

Cosgrove replied at 6:01 p.m.

“Hamlet, I believe we can create a more effective Youth in Government Day. I can meet with you and Lee to discuss further in greater detail. Let me know some dates that work,” Cosgrove wrote.

At one point Arpin stated in another email that she shared the principal’s concerns with Cosgrove. He suggested, she said, ​“that he could have his department head meeting with the students at BHS for the usual YIG breakfast. Will that work for you? “ 

Such a meeting would put students and department heads in one room for a short period of time, during which presumably questions would be asked and answered. Apparently this format was used some time in the past. It would dramatically change the nature of the day-long event. Students would no longer meet with department heads in their offices.

The released email messages do not include the principal’s response to this suggestion. But four days later on Dec. 6, Hernandez sent another email to Cosgrove. He wrote: ​“Lee and I can meet with you to discuss your thoughts about revamping the Youth and Government Day. Again, let me know when you are available. I look forward to hearing from you.”

Asked in March about the issue, Hernandez said he hoped to save the program. ​“No one has met,” he said. He said Town Hall was changing the nature of the event. ​“I don’t know why. When students shadow him [the first selectman] and other town employees; it gives the kids an insight into government.”
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