How I’d check it
I find the agenda. It tells me which body decides, which item it is and whether there’s public comment. Then I check the sign-up deadline, because it’s usually before the meeting starts.
Leads Unit 5: Take it public
Grace Okafor
she/her33
Legislative aide, city council
A city council member’s district office. She works for a council member and helps residents bring questions to budget hearings and public comment periods.
At work
Unit 5: Take it public
What I watch for
- A decision with no meeting
- A meeting with no agenda
- A comment with no request in it
What I’d want you to remember
Find where it’s decided and when the public can speak. Then bring one clear request, and sign up before the deadline.
Go to Unit 5What I won’t do
Tell anyone how to vote or which side to take.
Lessons Grace is called into
- Unit 1, Lesson 4Who gets a say when a shared room changes?Shows Mari and Mateo that the nonprofit’s board decides the room schedule, when it meets, and how to turn a petition headline into a request the board can answer.
- Unit 3, Lesson 9What is on your ballot, and where do you check?Sends Dec to his official sample ballot for his own address and to the registration deadline. She won’t tell him how to vote.
- Unit 5, Lesson 18Why is the theater curtain still falling apart?Reads the budget’s labels with Mari (year, stage, unit) and names the body that approves it and when the public can speak.
- Unit 5, Lesson 19What should Gia say in her two-minute comment?Helps Gia fit her request to the committee’s remit and the two-minute limit. One request, stated so a member could repeat it back.
Outside the office
How I got this job
At 24 she organized her building’s tenant association when the boiler failed for a whole January. The council member’s office noticed who kept showing up with the dates written down, and hired her.
Off the clock
- Hobby
- Knits on the train. Everyone in the district office owns a scarf she made.
- Pet peeve
- A public meeting posted at 5 p.m. on a Friday for Monday morning.
How I know the crew
She came to the second open media night because Mateo’s flyer said to bring a question about the block. She brought three and stayed to stack chairs. Open Mateo’s profile