How do you engage Brea? Not on one knee with a gorgeous diamond ring in your hand, but through the seven sessions of helping residents understand their city.
For the third year Brea is offering its residents, age 16 and up, Engage Brea, Understand Your City, which is an opportunity to learn how the city’s departments, including police and fire, work to make living and working in Brea easier.
The program is hosted by the city in partnership with Cal State Fullerton Professor Scott Spitzer, Ph.D., associate professor of political science.
The sessions will be held mainly at the Brea Civic and Cultural Center on seven Thursday nights, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., March 21 to May 2. On May 7, there is one last and very special session. That’s when each Engage Brea attendee will be honored at the Brea City Council meeting.
Engage Brea is offered at no cost to attendees and gives them much more than a bird’s eye view of how the various city departments, City Council, commissions and committees work together and with outside agencies. Each week a department head will explain what their people do, and how the various city departments interact with each other to get projects moving and issues resolved.
Yerika Ambriz, Brea’s senior management analyst, will be the lead contact for the program and will oversee all of the sessions.
“As of now, plans are underway to have a mock Planning Commission meeting,” said Ambriz.
A mock commission meeting has been done at the previous Engage Brea sessions. The attendees are the commissioners and it’s a good way to see how that commission is governed and the responsibilities involved for each planning commissioner. It is a great experience for folks thinking of applying for a spot on the city’s Planning Commission.
Ambriz noted that Professor Spitzer will be the presenter on the first night and will take part in all of the other sessions. Spitzer became involved with the program in its beginnings and continues to…
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