Belize City Council to Launch New Shadow Councilors Program with International Exchange Opportunity

The Belize City Council is looking to enroll a new cohort of shadow councilors.  This round of councilors will see an addition to the group as one will be assigned to shadow the recently installed City Manager.  As the council prepares to welcome this new group, they are also looking to introduce new opportunities.  Two of them will be selected to get a first-hand look at the inner workings of a City Hall in the United States through the council’s relations.  With the council recently establishing sister-city relationship with Miramar City, Florida, the two are looking to engage in an exchange program. It would involve sending two shadow councilors to Miramar to engage in a professional learning experience. Belize City Mayor Bernard Wagner spoke to Love News about the initiative and why the council feels it is important to expose young people to other governance systems.

Bernard Wagner, Mayor of Belize City: “In Belize City along with Miramar we want to see how we can leverage. We have a shadow council that we spoke to Mayor Mesam about and he is very enthusiastic about that program. They would want to implement something like that as well in their neck of the woods. So we want to see how we could out of this cohort get two of those, the best out of those shadow counselors after they have completed the entire course and have performed up to the top notch then we would have two of them go on an exchange in Miramar to undertake governance, municipal governance in that municipality, visit the emergency headquarters and see how they as a municipality administrate the day-to-day operations. So it will be a great opportunity for our young shadow councilors. You know we have put in a lot of work and resources into the shadow council. Each year, it has gotten to another level where we are seeing the applications are tremendous that we are getting now. And so we see that what started way back in 2018 as just an idea has now evolved into something substantial for our future leaders in this municipality.”

The council says it will announce the new shadow councilors soon.