Hoboken School Board Member Visits White House

School Board member and Executive Director of the Hoboken Housing Authority Carmelo Garcia didn't expect to meet a U.S. President at this point in his life.

But, last month, he was able to check that item off his bucket list, when he traveled to Washington D.C. with the Young Elected Officials Network. 

In a phone interview on Tuesday afternoon, Garcia remenisced about last month's event in the Blue Room of the White House, where he got a chance to chat with President Barack Obama.

"It was really amazing, it was really a surreal experience," said Garcia. "It’s pretty cool. I got to talk to the president!"

The Young Elected Officials network first gathered in 2006, and has met every year since. Each year, an increasing number of prominent speakers have attended the event, and this year - the president himself attended.

Garcia said he chatted with the president about Hoboken, and finally asked him if he had danced salsa with the first lady in Puerto Rico. The President answered that he had.

"I asked him, 'do you have some skills?'" Garcia said, "and he answered, 'Yes, I got some skills.'"

Garcia, who went to Washington D.C. primarily in his capacity as school board member, said he also spoke to Sean Donovan, the Housing and Urban Development Secretary.

Garcia said several speakers at the gathering spoke about the "state of affairs" and how to engage young elected officials with social media and other means.

Besides taking in information from several speakers and trying to bring back some of that knowledge to Hoboken, Garcia said he was mostly impressed by the greatness he felt being near the president.

It was pretty amazing, Garcia said, "[being] a kid from the projects in the White House."