BY STACI WILSON

Chris Maby’s brother inspired the Lanesboro mayor to take an active role in his community.

“Why not get involved,” Maby said his brother asked him after he expressed his annoyance regarding a local incident.

At the second Local Government Day, hosted by the Susquehanna County League of Women Voters Tuesday at Blue Ridge High School, Maby not only shared how he came to be mayor but also issued a challenge to the high school seniors in the audience.

He challenged them to go to their municipality’s next borough or township meeting and find one thing they didn’t know about their township. Post it on Facebook, Maby said, and “write it

down and take it to your teacher the next day.”

He also told any future elected officials in the audience to develop a thick skin.

“I’ve been called an ‘idiot’ a hundred times,” he said. “You need to know they are talking to the position and not the person. It’s not about the name – listen to the validity of the concern.”

The forum brings together a panel of elected leaders to discuss local government and its responsibilities. In addition to Maby, the panel included County Commissioner Alan Hall, Sheriff Lance Benedict, Magisterial District Judge Jodi Cordner, Hop Bottom Councilwoman Janice Webster, Lathrop Twp. Supervisor Paul Himka, and Blue Ridge School Director Christina Whitney.

The elected leaders urged the students to not only get involved in their community governments but also to vote.

Hall said that in the May primary, only about 17 percent of the registered voters in Susquehanna County cast ballots.

“Don’t let the 17 percent determine the rest of your lives for you,” Hall said. “Put your voice to work for you.”

The panel also fielded questions from the audience.

Jason Baransky, of Mountain View, asked if the county code – the book of laws governing counties in Pennsylvania – was available to the public.

A large part of the county code is available online.

An Elk Lake student asked how Pennsylvania became a Commonwealth. He said he had moved to the area from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Montrose teacher Joe Festa challenged some of the remarks made by panelists. Hall and Whitney had remarked that if someone who is eligible to vote and doesn’t, then they shouldn’t complain.

“I tell my students that Freedom of Speech doesn’t come with a ticket to punch,” he said.

Festa then asked for opinions from the panel regarding lowering the voting age to 16 or 17.

Whitney said that she believed 18 years of age was appropriate, and with that age and level of education voters would be better able to make informed decisions.

Webster said the voting age had been 21 but lowered to 18. “It hasn’t always been 18,” she said.

Blue Ridge senior Kelsey Wages said she had served as a junior council person in New Milford during the summer. “What happens in executive sessions,” she asked.

The sessions are reserved for personnel, legal and the purchase of property, Hall answered.