One of Panama Central School’s JCC Leadership classes, pictured in back, attended the most recent Panama village board meeting. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

PANAMA — As part of a requirement for one of Panama Central School’s Jamestown Community College Leadership classes, students are asked to attend a meeting of a local government, and recently students were in attendance during the May meeting of the Panama village board.

Mayor William Schneider welcomed the students to the meeting, and throughout the meeting took the time to explain certain aspects of what the village board did.

“These young folks are learning about leadership skills and what it takes to be a leader,” Schneider said. “So, like I said, as part of their class they have to attend a meeting where leadership is running an organization and making decisions on behalf of that organization or group or tax base. They are asked to try and do local municipality meetings so they can see what is going on in their area and how decisions that we make may affect their daily lives.”

Schneider said the village board meeting is fairly open, and encouraged students to ask questions as they went along. During the privilege of the floor section of the meeting, Schneider explained to students that this time is when if someone comes from the public to speak to the board they would be allowed to do so.

Students asked if people come to talk to the board a lot, which Schneider said does not happen a lot.

“Usually there are very few times when we have people actually come to the board meeting,” Schneider said. “As a municipal leader and the board, we take that as everybody’s pretty happy with what’s going on. Usually, if you see somebody, there’s an issue, or you have some type of bid situation going on with some type of service.”

Being in a small, rural village, Schneider added that they have a unique situation in that unlike in big cities both he and village board members will see people around the village every day. Seeing their constituents every day means that when people have issues they will let someone know when they see them, or give them an immediate call. These things then get brought back to the board, as Schneider said these issues are important to get taken care of.

A public hearing for the village’s budget was also held before the meeting, which students were also able to attend. The budget was discussed and approved by the board.