This particular event has been one that I have been looking forward to all semester. The Student Assembly City and Local Affairs committee, which I have been a member of all year, organized a town hall meeting between students and the city council. The purpose of this was to increase communication between students and city government and give students a platform to voice their grievances regarding government matters. Things like housing, parking, road maintenance, are all issues that affect students that the school has little control over. These issues can only be resolved with the aid of city government and students rarely communicate with the municipality.

At the town hall, Mayor Svante Myrick spoke about his highly controversial legislation known as The Ithaca Plan. His effort to eliminate the drug problem in Ithaca has caught the attention of major news outlets such as the New York Times and CNN. The most notable clause in the plan is the implementation of heroin injection centers, were addicts will be able to use heroin under medical supervision. The aim of this plan is to prevent deaths from heroin overdose, which occurs far too often than it should. Whenever people visit the site, they are under clean and safe medical conditions, and are given a chance to talk about their addiction. The goal is then to help wean people off the drug. Hearing the Mayor talk about the plan that I had heard all over the news was a great experience and I loved having the chance to talk to the mayor himself about the plan. This event made me feel like I was a part of the larger Ithaca community, not just Cornell. Up on the hill, it’s easy to get caught into a bubble on campus. Ithaca is a “gorges” community that many Cornell students do not take the time to explore. After the town hall, I felt like I really was an Ithacan.