YEO Policy Academies Clean Energy & Environmental Justice Pol. Academy | Page 45
YEO Bios
Svante L. Myrick
Mayor
Ithaca, NY
Svante L. Myrick was sworn into office in January 2012 and became, at 24,
the City of Ithaca’s youngest mayor and first mayor of color. Myrick was
first elected to the Common Council at the age of 20 while still a junior at
Cornell. His first budget included a radical overhaul of city government
that merged departments, streamlined processes, and was able to
successfully close a $3 million deficit—all while delivering the lowest
tax increase in the City of Ithaca since the year 2000. Myrick turned his dedicated mayoral parking
space into a public park and made sorely needed revisions to the City of Ithaca’s sidewalk policy.
He also overhauled the city’s storm water utility legislation; led a successful implementation of
the total rehabilitation of the Commons, Ithaca’s downtown pedestrian mall; and made changes
within the Ithaca police department to improve police and community relations.
Shayla J. Nealy
City Councilmember
Union City, GA
Dan Pabon
State Representative
Denver, CO
Dan Pabon grew up in the same community he is serving in the Colorado
State House. The son of working-class parents, his mom a nurse, his dad a
Medicare benefits specialist, Pabon studied engineering at the University
of Colorado at Boulder. An attorney for five years at a prestigious Denverbased law firm, Pabon built a practice that focused on real estate and
green building development. He became a member of the U.S. Green
Building Council and a strong advocate for green technologies and investing in Colorado’s new
energy economy. As Pabon’s practice grew, his clients became his friends, and his friends and
neighbors became his clients.
Clean Energy & Environmental Justice Policy Academy | 2016
Shayla J. Nealy is a councilmember in Union City, Georgia, and a water
resources engineer with Clayton County Water Authority. She has held
a variety of leadership roles within professional and community service
organizations. She was named as one of Georgia’s best and brightest
in the 2011 class of Georgia Trend’s “Top 40 Under 40,” as a 2012 New
Leaders Council (NLC) Institute Fellow, and as a Jewell Jackson McCabe
Emerging Leader. In her spare time Nealy enjoys nonprofit outreach, mentoring, and dance. Nealy
has a bachelor’s degree in biological systems engineering from Florida A&M University and a
master’s of public administration from Central Michigan University.
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