Tuesday, October 4, 2011

CP students shake hands with Mayor Rahm Emanuel


At a meeting with Alderman Joe Moore on the north side of Chicago September 16, Chicago Program students were thrilled to meet with Mayor Rahm Emaneul, who was holding an impromptu press conference that morning!   The Mayor shook hands with Chicago Program students and opened the press conference by welcoming students of the ACM program. 


At the press conference, Mayor Emanuel announced the city’s partnership with Foursquare https://foursquare.com/explorechicago .  The goal is to get folks to explore different parts of the city.  If you check in at five of 20 spots around the city, you can earn an official city badge, and brag to all your friends that you’ve earned the badge.
The press conference was held at the Heartland Café, http://www.heartlandcafe.com, located in Rogers Park on the far north side of Chicago.  The Heartland Café is one of the 20 locations in Chicago's Foursquare initiative.  One of the owners of the café, Katy Hogan, was a faculty member of the ACM Urban Studies Program, and was actually one of Joe Moore’s teachers when he was a student on the program.  Joe is an alumnus of Knox College, class of 78.
Alderman Joe Moore spoke to our group about the responsibilities of an alderman, and the powers  and  abuses of power.  He also talked about participatory budgeting, where people in the community decide how community dollars are spent.   In response to student questions, Moore talked about the beautiful murals abundant in the community and empowering youth by allowing youth 16 years old and above to vote on the spending decisions in the community.    

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