Charmaine Chua: Policy Pitch Competition

I'm sure I mean I'm a master's in public
policy as well as a masters in social work

specializing in community organization so
I think when I 1st

started my career I had a very narrow view
of changing the war maybe like some of you

maybe not like some of you but what I
thought I was going to do I thought I was

going to be a lawyer I thought I
was going to help many clients and

I thought I was going to maybe make
some impact case law along the way but

as I began my career as a lawyer I
found myself questioning on a very.

On a very frequent basis how was
my work serving my clients So for

example if many people come to a lawyer
asking for compensation for accidents

one where you can help them is to give
them that compensation getting it through

the court system but another way that you
can approach this is analyzing the issue

from a different perspective trying to
avoid such accidents in the 1st place by

helping to enhance safety guidelines for
trucks so that kind of shaped my approach

to the work that I wanted to do I wanted
to approach problems that my clients

faced in real life I wanted to think
about the interest that were at stake and

I wanted to solve it in a way that
wasn't limited to just legal options so

this summer I had the opportunity to in
turn at Detroit City Council I was working

in council member Calcuttan yet I Lopez
office what she does is that she advocates

in city council making laws for the city
of Detroit and she also works on a very.

Close basis with about 100000 constituents
in her district that she serves and

one of the issues that we're face in
her district was a huge truck problem

so about 25 percent of US Canada
trade goes through the trite and

her district that's one bridge that allows
all the trucks to pass through and there's

a new bridge that Guardi how international
bridge that's coming up as well.

So as I began to analyze the issue I
thought OK it is a big part of the charts

economy Detroit is even painting itself as
a larger sticks help so there is a reason

to look at how to help truck companies
operate better helped truckers

operate well but at the same time a lot of
trucks are going through on your own and

residential areas including in the
district and this cost a lot of problems

for example it could cost traffic problems
congestion it could cost safety problems

with accidents and it also says could
cause a lot of unseen pollution which will

lead to reduce health outcomes and
I also realized by

my thing which is that heavy trucks
actually lead to increased road where

which means more potholes for all of
us traverse a Michigan roads every day.

So what I did for the office was I helped
to generate innovative options by doing

compared to research on cities and
countries around the world and

what I discovered was really interesting
for example one option that I discovered

was that New York City community members
actually partner law enforcement and

they get money from helping to enforce and
idling laws and

from a totally different
perspective just thinking about

the engineering part of it you can do
basic trucking modifications as well for

example if you remove the mirrors and
you put safety cameras

you can actually increase fuel
efficiency and this reduces emissions so

I believe although it only takes about
a policy to be implemented I believe that

this will help to fund sustainable
trucking that will help to balance

the different interests at stake and
that will help to build a better Detroit.

So as compared to the past before
this internship I'm and coyote's that

I want to continue to explore these
big problems that people face and

I want to continue to look at different
interests as well as to explore many

options to help decision makers
reach better solutions and

in order to analyze this open
mind I've taken up some.

Future positions for example I'm doing
a social route few work placement

with the Office of metropolitan
impact in New Hampshire one and

that covers a wide range of interests as
well as I'm starting a research assistant

ship working on financial policy
at the Center for finance law and

policy which is just up there
said this building Thank you.