 My name is Aziz, you guys first of all are remarkably quiet so hopefully we'll change that today and we'll get you guys engaged in the session. I'll first introduce myself to give you a sense of why I'm here. We're going to be talking a lot about the government today and we're going to learn about what the government does, the structure of government, how a bill becomes a law and and we'll kind of take the conversation from there and we'll see what issues we can get into today. A little background about myself, I grew up here in the Bay Area, grew up in Fremont. Anyone from Fremont? A few people? Okay cool. Where is everyone else from like the Pleasanton, Livermore area, Dublin, San Ramon? Most of you guys are from this area? Awesome, awesome. Well, so a little bit about me. I first got involved in government when I was 18. I ran for mayor when I was 18 years old. I had just graduated from high school and I felt like I was very disappointed in what our local government was doing with a lack of representation, a lack of kind of thought for the future and planning for how we would improve the Bay Area and make it a more attractive place for people to come and live and work and raise a family and all of that. So I ran for mayor of Fremont. This was back in 2012. I didn't win, otherwise we'd be having a much different conversation today. But I did stay very involved in government and so I ended up serving as a consumer affairs commissioner for Alameda County when I was 19. And then at 22 I got elected to local government. So I got elected to the Alameda County Water District's Board of Directors. We service the Bay Area, particularly Alameda County, and we deliver water. So all the water that you drink that you use to bathe, all of the water that reaches your home and that reaches businesses, we help make sure that there's enough water and that we can actually deliver that water. So that's some of the work that I do. When I got elected I was actually the youngest Muslim American to get elected within the United States. And so hopefully that's been broken now and we're going to keep getting younger and younger Muslims involved in government. But I really believe that it's incumbent on young people, young Muslims in particular, that we need to advocate for ourselves and we need to make sure that we're pushing forward policies that we think align with our values. And so that's really how I got involved and why I stay involved in government. And I think we're going to have a really, really fun conversation today about why government matters and the ways that you guys can have an impact locally and beyond that as well. Let me first start with a question. Have any of you guys ever thought about running for office or have been interested in government by a show of hands? Yeah, you've thought about running for office. What kind of inspired you in that way? The fact that I looked around and I saw there were quite a few issues that actually needed to be changed, like I don't know, for instance, school budgets. Yeah, awesome. Anyone else ever thought about running for office or anything like that? How about this? Have any of you guys been to a school board meeting or a city council meeting or some kind of like a public meeting where you got to listen to and interact with other electeds? Anyone ever been to a session like that? Do you want to tell me a little bit about that session? So I went to a council meeting because I was in this organization called the Youth Voter Movement and we were going around schools in the Bay Area and getting people pre-registered to vote. Awesome. And so we went there to get a certificate, but we also sat in and they were sort of coming up with ideas on what to do with the elder population, like a new community center for them. Okay, awesome. And what city was this? Fremont and New City. Okay, fantastic. Anyone else been to any kind of session like that? No? All right. Well, hopefully we'll change that pretty soon. So we're here to talk about government. I'm going to start to, I think everyone has the paperwork, right? You guys have the worksheets. So we're going to start with one where we start to talk about, first of all, who represents us? I think everybody knows who the president is generally speaking, right? Does anyone know who their mayor is? Have you guys ever talked to like your city mayor? No? Yeah? Okay. Well, yeah, of course you have. Well, then, all right, we're going to get into this worksheet here and we're going to start to talk a little bit about who represents us. And then as we're going through that, I'm going to start to talk a little bit about what specifically they do and we'll start to talk about the levels of government because we have the national government, but then after that, we have the state government, the county government, the city government, and we're going to go through each of those layers. So why don't we start with that worksheet? This worksheet is called Who Represents You? If you want to pull it out. Everyone found it? So we've got a few blank squares here. I'm going to help us with the national one and then I'm going to turn it to you guys to fill out the rest of it and then we'll come back as a group and start to talk about it. So like I said, there's different layers of government and each layer of government has a different set of responsibilities and it has a different group of people who run that layer of government. So we start at the national level. Obviously, the national government, also known as the federal government, are you guys familiar with that term federal, federalism? Yeah? So the federal government controls things for the entire United States. From there, you go into the state government, which for us, they just focus on issues specific to California and then you have your county government. We're all in Alameda County and or Contra Costa County for some of you. Your county government will look at issues specific to your county and then it boils down to the city. That's kind of the four layers that we generally focus on. So the national government has an executive, an executive meaning that there's one person who is kind of the leader of the national government. Everyone knows who our executive of the national government is. Raise your hand or shout it out who it is. Joe Biden. Yes, it's your president. So in that first square there, we're going to put in the president and we're going to put in Joe Biden. And you can see in the square next to it, some of the powers that that executive has. So the biggest one in the United States is that you have control of the military. And so they're called not only the president, but they're also called the commander in chief, commander in chief meaning that they command the armed forces. Apart from that, they also oversee Congress. They get a lot of different appointments. So they get to like send ambassadors across the world to represent the United States and our interests. They give what's called a state of a union state of the union address. So every every year they will have to give this speech on kind of what's going on in the United States and their perspective on on how to improve the US basically. And then they you can read in that in that square the other powers that they have. Now, are you guys familiar with Congress? Do you guys know have you heard that term? Do you guys know kind of what they what they do? Raise your hand if you want to tell me a little bit about what Congress does. Otherwise, I'm going to start calling on people. All right, no one's no one's even looking in my directions. Do you want to tell us what Congress does? I know. Yeah. I know you raised your hand. So Congress does a lot of stuff. Yep. Thank you. Thank you for a great answer. So Congress, they're the big thing is that they are able to pass laws. So anytime you want any kind of law passed across the United States, you take it to Congress and they write a bill that bill then goes through the different chambers of Congress that I'll get into in just a moment. And once that passes, it goes to the president. Once they sign it, it becomes a law. So the big thing to always remember is that Congress gets to make the laws. So there's two parts of Congress. You have what we call the Senate and the House of Representatives. So the reason for that is because you want to have enough people to actually debate all of these issues. You don't want just one person making all the laws for the United States. That would be a dictatorship. We don't like those. So we have these two chambers and they're kind of given the same set of responsibilities, but they work with each other to be able to come up with these laws and they have to negotiate and debate each other. So you have the Senate. The Senate is made up of two people from every state in the US. So you have 100 members in the Senate. Every state gets to elect two people and they send them to the Senate. That's called the upper house. So they have a lot of power. Every state gets to send just two people. The House of Representatives is a lot bigger. So the way that that works is that every state, for every 500,000 people in that state, you get to elect one person that you send to the House of Representatives. So a state like California, therefore, will get a lot more people than a state like Wyoming. And the reason that we do that is because we want to make sure that where there's a lot of people, all of those people are equally represented. And so California, for instance, having a lot more people should have more say on the laws that we try to enact. So we're going to start to fill out this paper. We're going to start with the House of Representatives. Does anyone know who represents them in the House of Representatives for your area here? Yeah, Eric Swalwell. Yeah. So for most, I think for pretty much everyone here, it's going to be Eric Swalwell. If you live in southern, in like South Fremont or anything, it will be Ro Khanna, if any of you have heard that name. But I think for the majority of you, it's going to be Eric Swalwell. Now can anyone name our two U.S. Senators from California? I know this one's a little bit tougher. They're not as high profile or they are, but anyone know? All right. How about this? Why don't you guys Google this? See if you can figure out who our two U.S. Senators are for California. And as soon as you know, just raise your hand. Correct. Yeah. So the two U.S. Senators for California are Alex Padilla and Diane Feinstein. So in those two underneath where it says U.S. Senate, you're going to write down Alex Padilla and Diane Feinstein. Now for the rest of this worksheet, I'm going to give you guys like maybe 10 minutes or so. Why don't you, again, Google who your state governor and county executives and city executives are, fill it in to the best of your ability and then we'll come back as a group and we'll discuss it. And if you need any help or anything, just raise your hand and I'll come by and help you guys fill it out. And feel free to work together with each other too. Let's start to share some answers and then hopefully we can all fill this out together. So who wants to volunteer to help us with the state row here? So starting with the governor. Anyone know who our governor is? Yeah. Gavin Newsom. Did everyone get that? Gavin Newsom? Does everyone kind of know who Gavin Newsom is? Have you guys heard the name? Seeing some heads nodding? Okay. Great. All right. Now let's look at the legislative body with the state House of Representatives. Did anyone, so it's not, it's not actually called the House of Representatives, but did anyone kind of figure out what our legislative body in California looks like and what it's called? Yes. Exactly. Yeah. So we have a state assembly and a state Senate. And does anyone know who your assembly member is? Were you guys able to look that up and find it? There'll be a lot of different answers, but raise your hand and yeah, Alex Lee. Yeah. Anyone else have somebody, someone else's their state rep? Those of you in like Pleasanton, Dublin, San Ramon will have different people. Yeah. Bill Quirk is another one. Yeah. Anyone else? Yeah. Neobonta. Yeah. If you're up in, in, you must be in Oakland. Yeah. How about, did anyone put down Rebecca Bauer-Keyen? Is that, is that a name? Yeah. Perfect. So you must be in like the Dublin. Perfect. Yeah. All right. Cool. Now how about, so on, for state Senate, they have two lines. You only have one state Senator. So you can, you can cross out the second line. But did anyone figure out who their state Senator is? Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Steven Glaser. Yeah. Some of us might have someone else. Baba Kowsky. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. I think that'll be, that kind of covers most of the, most of this area. So similar to the federal government, you know, where I said you have the, the Congress has two chambers. You have the Senate and the House of Representatives. In the state government, we have the same thing. So again, the state government can make laws. They have to go through the legislative body. And those laws then are applicable to all of California. So, you know, if we're talking about, let's actually take an issue that's, I think, near and dear to all of our hearts, climate change. So there's a lot that we can do to combat climate change, right? But there's very little being done at the federal government level, right? Trump didn't want to do anything. Biden isn't really doing anything. I think a lot of us who would want to see some stronger protections to protect the environment so that, you know, we're not polluting it or we're not worsening the situation. The federal government really isn't doing anything. So at this point, the state government here in California has stepped in and said, well, we're going to do something about this. And so they, at the state level, have started to pass more laws that are only impact California for better or for worse. But they want to make sure that we have some environmental protections, at least at the state level, because of the inaction at the federal level. Yeah. Didn't the Supreme Court actually pass something that stops the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon emissions recently? Yeah, yeah. Actually, not even just recently. This was like three days ago, I think. It was this week. Did anyone hear about this news story about the Supreme Court and the EPA? A few people. So there's an organ. Does anyone know, have you guys heard of the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency? Some of us have heard of it, maybe. So that's an agency that part of the federal government, and they are tasked with, as the name suggests, protecting the environment. And so Congress passed a few laws to cut down on carbon emissions, that cars need to be a little bit greener, things like that. And the Supreme Court, in all of their wisdom, ruled this week that the Environmental Protection Agency is not allowed to protect the environment, which is bonkers. But that's the state of the country that we live in right now. Along with some other very questionable decisions from the Supreme Court in just the last few weeks, they are ruining this country. But I digress. So I gave the example of protecting the environment. Does anyone else have any examples of laws that you find interesting or that you've heard that the federal government or the state government have tried to pass? Anyone? No? Okay. Well, let me think if there's another example. How about school funding, for instance? We'll get into that a little bit more. But I think you guys can relate to the fact that schools don't have a whole lot of money right now. They're just not getting a lot of funding. The federal government has not stepped up. They're not giving any more money to the schools, and they're not investing in students. And so the state government now has stepped up and said that, hey, we're going to start to put more money into our schools, pay teachers, get better equipment, bring more technology into the classroom, things like that. So there's a lot of work that can be done even at the state level when you have a bad federal government, when you have a federal government that isn't stepping up and doing really anything to tackle these issues. So a lot of power at the state level. Now let's move on from there to the county level. So one thing I probably should have told you guys, the county doesn't have an executive. So those first two squares you can just block them out. But the county has a very strong legislative body. Was anyone able to Google that and figure out what's the county's legislative body? What are they called? Take a stab in the dark if you're not sure. Yeah? No worries. It's called the board of supervisors. So in that square where it says legislative body, you're going to write down board of supervisors. Has anyone heard of the board of supervisors for the county? Maybe not. You met one of them. Yeah, Richard Baie. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's called Leg Bow. Yeah. Yeah, you know, well, let's talk about it. So at the county level, you have even more power, right? You want, let's say, actually, you know, there's a lot of parts of Alameda County, for instance, that don't have a fire department. I think a lot of you guys might know that, especially if you live in like the Dublin area, for instance, you don't have your own police department, fire department, things like that. All of that is done at the county level. So what the county does is that they say, hey, there's a lot of areas here where people need services, but there's not enough people for us to just hire someone specifically for them. So what we're going to do is we're going to pool all of our resources together as a county, and we're going to set up a new system where we can start to provide some services. So fire, for instance, is done at the county level. So you have the Alameda County fire department for any that protect anyone who's not in like a city, for instance. You have the sheriff's department. If any of you guys have heard of the county sheriff, that's also controlled by the board of supervisors, and they have more powers like that. So they get to do things on a more local level, at the county level, they can pool all of our resources together and give us more services. Now let's move into the city. So now everyone's going to have two different answers here for who actually represents them, but what do you call the executive of a city? Basically, what do you call the president of your city? Yeah, the mayor, absolutely. Okay. So we're going to write down mayor in that square. Anyone know who their mayor is for each of your respective cities? Were you guys able to Google that? Yes. Lily May. Yeah, in Fremont, we have Lily May. How about for those of you who live in Dublin, San Ramon, Pleasanton, anyone want to volunteer? Yes, Union City. Yeah, Carol Dutrovernacci. Yeah, anyone else? I think in Dublin, it's like Melissa Hernandez, right? Does that sound familiar? And I'm forgetting Pleasanton and San Ramon. I'm forgetting the mayors for each of those cities, so you'll have to Google it. So the mayor has even more power, right? But at a hyper-local level. So the mayor is, like I said, basically the president of your city. So if you have a city-wide police department, fire department, they lead those. If you have like potholes or anything on the roads, or you need a new stop sign, all of these things, they sound kind of basic. But to have a functioning city, you need someone in charge of these things who will take care of all of these things. So the mayor is the point person that you go to who helps organize all of this. Now you also have a legislative body for your city. Anyone know what that's called? Yes. City Council, yes. So in that third box, they're under legislative body, you're going to put down city council. Now I'm not going to ask you guys to figure out who your city council members are because there's a lot of them and that'll take a lot of time. But similar to the mayor, the city council has a lot of the same responsibilities. They oversee the budget for the city, for your police, fire. In Fremont, for instance, we have our own hospital. So they help fund the hospital. There's so many things that you need for a well-functioning city. The other thing also is that they're in charge of bringing more housing to the city and more business to the city. Those are two of the very, very important aspects of what it means to be a mayor and city council member. Your job is to make sure that the city is very attractive for people who want to live there, who want to work there, who want to eat there, who want to raise a family there. All of those things fall under the purview of your city council. So that finishes our first worksheet here. Anyone have any questions? Were there any things that you felt weren't clear on this worksheet? Otherwise, we're good. So everyone had filled it out. We're all set to move on. Yeah, awesome. All right, let's see. Where do we want to go next? Why don't we pull out the local government information sheet next? Let's go with that one. So as you guys are pulling that out, for someone like me, I find a lot of value in local government. As I was talking about the things that the local government can do that the city council and the mayor can do, it's a lot of stuff that you can do and that you have control over within a city. You have a lot of tax money, a lot of people who you hire to kind of help run the city with you. Just as like a point of reference, Fremont, for instance, which is not a very big city, can you guys estimate how much money, how much tax revenue they raise just for the city of Fremont? Throw out a number. 10 million? You think about 10 million? Anyone else have a guess? Anyone? 50 million? You would think so, right? Fremont raises about a half a billion dollars in taxes every year. It's somewhere between 300 and 400 million dollars every year. They have, I think, about two billion dollars of assets, give or take, just for one city. That's a lot of money. That is a lot of money. There's only five people in Fremont, actually now seven people in Fremont who sit in city council. I mean seven people control almost a half a billion dollars and two billion dollars of assets. That's a lot of power, right, for those seven people to have. You want to make sure that they're spending that appropriately. Otherwise, you're going to have a lot of issues. You're going to have people who are just trying to take that money and pocket it for themselves, which is unfortunately very common. You want to make sure that you're holding your local government accountable and we're going to start to talk a little bit about what our local government does and on the next worksheet we'll start to talk about how you guys can actually get involved in local government as well. Actually, I'll give you another point of reference. The Alameda County Water District, where I serve, all we do, our job is to make sure that we have enough water, then we get that water from wherever it is in the state and we bring it here locally. So, actually, let me ask this question. Where do you think most of our water comes from? The water that you drink every day? Where do you think it comes from? Yeah, down near LA, okay? Sierra Nevada, yeah? So actually, we don't get any water from down near LA. We do get quite a bit from the Sierra Nevada. We get about 40% of our water from the Sierras. The other 60% or so, well, 40% of it, Sierras, another 40%, what we call local water. So that's like rain or, you know, we have a lot of rivers, like Alameda Creek that flow through our area and so we get a lot of water from them. Quarry Lakes, for those of you who have heard of Quarry Lakes, we store a lot of our water there. Another 20% we get from Yosemite. So I don't if you guys know, but Yosemite is actually owned by the city of San Francisco and all of the water that you get throughout the Bay Area tends to come from Yosemite. So we build these big, big pipes, these pipes that are like, I think 40 feet in diameter. So like if you took like eight of me and stacked them on top of each other, that's how big these pipes are and they bring water from Yosemite all the way to San Francisco and that's the water that all of us drink on a daily basis. That takes a lot of money. So for the water district, for instance, I'm in charge of a budget of about $130 million. So again, a lot of money and you want to make sure that you have the right people in place who are spending that effectively so that you actually have water, you know, passed today, especially in California where we're in a drought almost constantly. So let's get into this worksheet here. There's some questions on here. I'm going to give you guys five or 10 minutes. Work is a group. I want to see some interaction, but see if you can fill out as much of this as you can. And then we'll come back together and we'll start to answer anything that you guys had trouble with. All right? All right. So depending on what city you live in, I think everyone's going to have kind of different answers, but we'll see what we can come up with. So question number one, what is the form of your local government? For example, do you have a mayor council, a council manager, et cetera? Anyone want to raise their hand and volunteer a response? Yes. You have a council manager? Okay. What city do you live in? Arenda? I think, yeah. Arenda is one of the few cities that has a council manager. Awesome. Yes. In Danville? Okay. Awesome. I actually didn't know that. Very cool. Yes. For Pleasanton. Okay. Cool. Anyone else? I think everyone else, unless you live in those cities is probably going to be mayor council, right? So did everyone else get mayor council? Yeah. For like Fremont and Union City, Dublin, San Ramon, I think all of those cities are mayor council. All right. Question number two, when and where does your local government meet? So again, we're all going to have different answers, but let's get a few. Yes. Awesome. Okay. Great. Anyone else? Yes. It's the same? First and third Tuesday? Okay. Anyone else? Yes. Awesome. Okay. Let's get a couple more. How about anyone from like, yeah, go ahead. Great. That's Fremont, right? How about someone from Dublin? When does Dublin meet? The first Monday of every month? Awesome. All right. Now question number three, are any meetings open to the public? If so, which ones? So actually kind of like a trick question. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So public, sorry, government meetings by law, unless there's a lawsuit involved by law, these are all public meetings. So you can basically walk into any time the local government is meeting, and you are allowed as a member of the public. Even if you don't live in that city, you don't have to live in the city. It's a public meeting for everyone. And now primarily because of COVID, all of these have become virtual as well. So you can join by Zoom, you can join online. In Fremont, for instance, they actually have their own TV channel. So you can watch all of your city council meetings on TV. And if you have any comments, you can email them or call them. And they'll share that in those public meetings. All right. Question number four, how long is the term of office for the elected officials in your local government? Anyone want to take a stab at this one? Mayor's two years, council's four years. And what city is that? For Dublin? Great. Anyone else? I think for most of us, for most seats, it's about four years. Generally, most cities will do four years. So I think for all the cities that you guys have mentioned that you're living, I think generally it'll be like two to four years. Most of them four years. Number five, are the members of your local government appointed, elected by district, at large, or some combination? Anyone want to try this one? Go ahead. Yeah. Dublin's at large. Okay. Anyone else? How about Union City? By district? How about our friends from Fremont? Do we know? By district? Correct. Yeah. How about Pleasanton? Not sure. I think Pleasanton is by district. Is Pleasanton by district now? City council? Do you know? I'm just curious. Don't know? Don't know yet. Okay. Don't know yet. But yeah. We'll Google that after. Okay. Then final question for this worksheet. Number six, how many members are in your local government? Anyone want to try this? Yes. Nine members in Danville? Anyone else? Yes. Orinda has five. Okay. How about Dublin? How many in Dublin? Five in Dublin. How about Fremont? Seven. Yeah. What are the cities, do we say? Pleasanton? Do we know? Don't know. I think Pleasanton is five. I'm pretty sure. Cool. All right. Well, that finishes this worksheet. So we'll put that one to the side. Before we move on, any questions on that one? Did you guys kind of get a sense of what your local government does and when they meet and all of that? Do you have a better understanding? Yeah. Cool. All right. Now we're going to move on to this one. It doesn't have a title on it, but it's the one that has like four columns and one column has a bunch of different issues. So let's pull out this one. And this one, I'll be honest with you guys. This is one of my favorite worksheets because I really get to see a lot of the creativity from all of you. And so we're going to spend a little bit more time on here. Do everyone pull this one out? Everyone has this worksheet? Fantastic. So like I was outlining to you guys, there's different levels of government. There's different ways that people operate in these governments. And then there's different responsibilities that each of us has as just a member of the public or a different way that we can engage with each of these levels of government to make sure that we see what we want to see at the city, county, state, and federal level. Because at the end of the day, government is a reflection of us. They are accountable to us. We want to make sure that what we want to see in government, the policies we want to see, the laws we want to see, the way that we want people to be treated, all of that requires us to keep our government accountable. Before we get into the worksheet, I'll give you a really prime example of this that I think many of you guys may know quite well. And it stems from the Black Lives Matter movement. Were any of you guys involved in that movement at all? Not surprised that you're involved. Good. And how about any of you guys, right by show of hands or yeah, do you want to tell me a little bit about your experience and kind of what got you interested, I guess? I went to some of the protests. And I just thought it was important to raise awareness about them too. Awesome. Wonderful. How about anyone else want to share theirs? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. What a great message. Great message. Anyone else? Okay, by show of hands, who else went to some of these protests back in early 2020? Just a few? Okay. So let's kind of talk a little bit about why that even happened, right? George Floyd, for instance, didn't live in California. He didn't live in Pleasanton, Dublin, San Ramon, Fremont. Why does it matter to us, right? That's kind of the underlying question. What the killing of George Floyd showed us is when we do not hold police accountable for their actions, anywhere in this country, doesn't matter where they are, they will take advantage of that lack of accountability. And that is exactly what they did in that situation as well. And in many, many other situations. But that one was caught on camera. And so we all saw and witnessed what actually happened. So you want to make sure police is just one faction of government. You want to make sure you are holding everyone in government accountable. Someone like myself included. You want to make sure that they are actually doing what they say they are doing. And if they are not, we need to be in the streets. We need to be protesting. And we need to make them uncomfortable and make sure that they know that they can't get away with trampling on our rights. So I just wanted to kind of start with that. We're going to go into a few more issues and talk a little bit about what you can do as a citizen. And we use citizen more as a generic term. It doesn't matter if you're not a citizen per se. But as a member of the community, what can you do? Then we'll talk a little bit about what local government can do. And then we'll talk about what you can do in combination. So when public and government come together, what can be done to tackle these issues? So let's do the first one together. And I'm going to turn it to you guys. Have you guys fill out the rest of it and then we'll come back and start to talk about them. So the very first problem that we're trying to address is that there have been several car accidents at an intersection in your neighborhood. So let's kind of brainstorm here. A lot of car accidents at an intersection in your neighborhood, obviously that makes you feel very unsafe. So what do we want to do to try and mitigate this problem? Trying to address this problem and fix it. Okay? Yeah. Interesting. Okay. And so it was more just like people understood that they needed to yield and to stop. Gotcha. Okay. Anyone else? What do we think as just a member of the public, what can be done in a situation like this? Request the local government to do something about it? Absolutely. Yeah. And when we say do something about it, what are we thinking? Like put a stop sign, cameras. Yeah. Great. Anyone else? What else? What else as a member of the public can we do about it? No? Okay. How about what local government can do? I think we kind of, we can kind of dovetail off of that. You got stop signs. You can put up a traffic light. You know, speeding cameras are very common now as well, things like that. What else do you think the local government can do in a situation like this? Maybe like a public awareness campaign. You know, people need to drive slower, be more mindful of others on the road, things like that. Yeah. And then that kind of leads us into what can they do together? You know, public awareness campaigns require all of us, not just someone telling us what to do, but all of us buying into that. And so that's one way, you know, putting, once there's a stop sign, we want to make sure that we respect that stop sign and we actually stop and we don't just blow through it. Things like that. Okay. Do we kind of get how do we, how to fill out this worksheet then? Want to try it on your own? Or in groups? Y'all are hella quiet. Yeah, please. I'm, I'm encouraging you guys to work together. This one really requires you to brainstorm. So I'll give you guys like 10 minutes. And then we'll, we'll all come back together. Okay. So there's quite a few good ones on here. I want to kind of hear what you guys were able to come up with as a group. We don't have to go through this in any particular order. Does anyone want to have something that they want to share? They think that they came up with a good answer for any of these. We can maybe start there. Any volunteers? Can I call on you? Yeah. Parks and recreation. We said that citizens can donate money or request for more of them to be built for parks and recreation. Yeah. Okay. So citizens can pull together money and, and actually plan out a park that they want to see. Yeah. Yeah. How about what local government can do? We said build more of that. Build more parks. Yeah. Absolutely. That's that's what the job of public government is. They should be building more recreation and yeah. Love it. And how about what you can do together? I didn't really get one for that. I was confused. That's fair. Yeah. You know, not all of these will have an answer in every box. Did anyone come up with something that they want to share on for parks and rec? Can be similar. It can be a totally different answer. Okay. I'm going to call on it. How about you? Do you want to share what you came up with for parks and recreation? So I said that after the park is created, then the citizens and both the government can come together to bring traction to the park. Yeah. Okay. That's a good answer. I like that. Great. Okay. How about let's try another one. Chemicals and fumes from a factory are polluting your neighborhood. This is a very interesting one. Who wants to volunteer? Some of their answers for this one. Let's start with what citizens can do. Do you want to share what you put down? What citizens can do for this one? Oh, I'm looking at the next one. The chemicals and fumes from a factory one. File a complaint. Yeah. Perfect place to start. Anyone else? Did everyone come up with something similar to that then? File a complaint? Yeah. How about what local government can do? This is pollution. What can what can your government do to help with this issue? Do you want to go? Pass more environmental laws? Absolutely. Absolutely. What else? Yeah. Right. Right. So force them to move the factory where, you know, there's fewer people who live there and so there'll be fewer people who actually have to breathe in the harmful chemicals and fumes. Absolutely. Anyone else? Do you want to share your answer? No. Okay. Fair enough. How about what what can be done together? If you bring the public and local government together, what can you do to tackle this issue? Anyone come up with anything? One of the answers that I've heard in previous sessions that someone suggested was help organize a boycott. You know, if if this is a company that's ruining your neighborhood and they're polluting your your environment, then why should you give them your business? You know, and so they suggested you can work with your local government or even just your your community groups to boycott that company and stop buying their products, which I thought was a very, very interesting answer as well. All right. How about your sister has turned 18 and wants to register to vote? What did we put for this one? Yes. Okay. Yeah. That's fair. Yeah. No, that's that's totally fair. So it's already accessible. And so it's just the job of the individual to register to vote basically is what you're saying. I like that. Okay. Anyone else? So for this one, I think one of the things that to always keep in mind, and you know, we were talking about the Supreme Court earlier and some of their ridiculous decisions that they've passed, just because you have a right today doesn't mean that that right will last forever. You always want to make sure you're protecting your rights. You want to make sure that if you are registered to vote that you are exercising that that right, you are actually going out and voting voting is one of the most important things that you can do and one of the easiest things that you can do. But also always keep in mind, there are people who are trying to take your vote away. So luckily, none California and California were actually looking at laws to reduce the voting age. So they want to make it legal for 16 year olds, 16 and 17 year olds to vote pretty soon. So hopefully we'll we'll be able to pass that. But there's others. This is not a state issue, but in other parts of the country, they're advocating the federal government to actually raise the voting age. They don't want 18 year olds voting. And so that would impact people like you. As soon as you turn 18, you want to make sure that you actually maintain that right to vote. So just something to keep in mind as well. Let's see. Okay, how about the last one? There's been more crime committed in your neighborhood recently. So what can citizens do? If there's a rise in crime, what can you do as citizens to try and combat that? Do you want to, can I call on you? On either of you? You want to raise awareness? Yeah, that's, I mean, that's the perfect place to start, right? If there's crime in your neighborhood, you want to make sure that your neighbors are aware of that, and that they're taking the good precautions? Yes. Neighborhood, yeah, you can start a neighborhood watch. Absolutely. Yeah, those are actually more common than you would think. There's a lot of, a lot of different neighborhoods will come together. A neighborhood watch basically is like all of your neighbors coming together and saying, Hey, one night a week, I'm going to stay up all night. I'm going to walk around the neighborhood and just make sure that I don't see anything suspicious. You got to be a little bit careful with these things, but you know, if there's a violent person in your neighborhood, you want to be alone and get shot, you know. But yeah, neighborhood watch is a good idea. How about what local government can do for this one? Yes. More law enforcement, yeah, getting more police to watch the area that's actually affected. Yeah, yes. Putting more lights in the area, absolutely. That's a great deterrent, you know, if there's more light, it's harder for people to commit some of these crimes. Yes. Put up security cameras, absolutely, yeah. All great ideas. Anyone else? How about what you can do together as a more holistic community? Is there anything else that you want to add to this? No? Did everyone kind of come up with some similar answers on this one? All right. Those I think are some of the more interesting ones on this one. Unless anyone wants to add anything from this, I think we can call this worksheet complete. Yeah. Cool. All right. So I do want to be cognizant of time. I think we only have about five minutes left. So I think we're going to kind of end it there. There are a few more worksheets that you guys have. I encourage you to go through them on your own time and fill them out and see what you find interesting. On an ending note, first of all, did you guys learn anything today by raise your hand if you felt like this was a useful session and if you walked away learning something that you didn't know otherwise? Yeah? Awesome. Okay. Well, I'm glad to see that. You know, as a parting note, local government is often overlooked. And I know sometimes it can be like, oh, it's really boring and this, that, and all of that. But just know as you guys are getting ready to vote, as you guys are coming of age, there's a lot that you can do at the local level to have a positive impact on your community. And that's really where it starts. It always starts at the local level. So we might always have our frustrations with the federal government and all of that. But always know that if you want change, change starts at home. Change starts at the local level. So I hope and I encourage you guys to stay active in your local government. Always, always, always remember that you have to keep your local government accountable. You always need to keep these guys accountable. Well, at every level of government, I hope at some point maybe you guys will be interested in running for office. Always know that people like myself and other elected Muslims will always be there to support you guys and encourage you guys. And so whatever we can do to help facilitate that, you should always come to us and let us know. And always remember that you have great civil rights organizations like CARE and others who are doing a lot of work to protect the rights that we have. It's very, very important. And we're learning what the Supreme Court and bad legislators can do and the rights that they can take away from us. We want to make sure that we're protecting rights not just for us as Muslims, but as Muslims it's incumbent on us to protect rights for everybody. And so just always keep that in mind. And any other questions that you guys have, you can always reach out to me. CARE and everyone has my contact information. And so I think, I don't know if you guys shared that with them, but anytime you guys have any questions or anything, just reach out to me. I'll be more than happy to help. But I think that's where I'll conclude today.