AUBURN - Kara Catino, a student in the Cayuga-Onondaga Board of Cooperative Educational Services' New Visions program, admits she doesn't know much about her hometown of Auburn.

Specifically, Catino, 18, knew little about the city's push for green technology and environmentally friendly practices, she said.

On Friday, she and her New Visions classmates learned about Auburn, neighboring Owasco and Cayuga County and how these areas are changing with the times during the first New Visions Citizens' Academy. They didn't learn about it from a book or their teachers, but rather from the government leaders that have the power and influence to make those changes.

Sitting in the Cayuga County Legislative chambers, Auburn Mayor Michael Quill, Auburn City Manager Mark Palesh, Cayuga County Legislature Chairman Roger Mills and Owasco Town Supervisor John Klink answered students' questions on various topics, from dealing with crows to the kind of education needed to be in government.

While each leader had different goals and plans, the topic of breaking down the barriers that divide the city and the county seemed to resonate strongly.

Quill said a thick wall forged over the past three decades has separated Cayuga County and the city of Auburn, and that it's time to knock it down.

Mills agreed and said it could be done now with the new Legislature. He pointed to the five freshmen legislators elected this past November - Mills among them - and how they could convince their elder leaders to help break down the ubiquitous barriers.

Klink said what he wanted to change was the negativity he says he sees and hears in the public.

“I hear a lot of ‘You can't do this,' or ‘You can't do that,' or ‘Our best years are behind us,'” he said. “We have to overcome that.”

What leaders have to do is bring “a positive approach to the area,” he added. “Just as people can be brought up, they can be brought down.”

Friday's meeting was the kickoff event for the Citizen's Academy, an interactive educational program that informs students about how local governments and agencies are organized and how services are funded and delivered.

The conception for the academy

came after New Visions Teacher Education teacher Natalie Scavone attended the Onondaga County Citizen's Academy. She said the “fabulous” program would provide unique learning experiences for students and allow them to glimpse real-life governance.

“It's a way to get kids to know about the community where they live,” she said. “I'm hoping that once they leave and go to college they'll come back.”

The academy will feature four more sessions before the end of the year. On March 7, students will learn about economic development at the Finger Lakes Mall; April 11 will be about public safety; May 2 about community and human resources; and June 6 about arts and culture.

New Visions Business and Media Communications teacher Margaret Colella said the academy is more meaningful when students are learning from people that are working in the professional fields rather than their teachers.

“We feel that we do a good job with how we present the information to them,” she said, “but it means more when they learn from someone who is living and breathing it.”

And Catino certainly agrees.

“We hear and learn things from our teachers every day of our schooling,” she said, “and it's nice to learn from the people that do this everyday and do it for us.”

Staff writer Alyssa Sunkin can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 239 or alyssa.sunkin@lee.net