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. 43