24 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY november 16-22, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com The youth council’s work on mental health has put Gonzales, a small rural city in South Monterey County, in the national spotlight. Gonzales won the 2022 Ruth Vreeland Award for Engaging Youth in City Government from the Helen Putnam Awards. This year, Gonzales was one of 10 cities nationwide that received the AllAmerica City Award from the National Civic League, a nonprofit that promotes civic engagement and building equitable and thriving communities. The Gonzales Youth Council’s impact has grown beyond city limits. Soledad started a youth council in 2019, and Greenfield is now working to launch one. In the City of Salinas, Community Safety Administrator José Arreola says he and his team are researching models that could work, with the potential for a proposal in the next fiscal year. (Salinas disbanded an earlier youth council in 2016—one participant was now-Councilmember Anthony Rocha.) In 2019, several students spoke at a Soledad City Council meeting and showed interest in creating their own youth council. Mayor Anna Velazquez, then a city council member, Soledad Unified School District officials and teens organized a meeting with the Gonzales Youth Council to learn about their model and how to implement it in Soledad. Velazquez was invested in bringing the concept to Soledad after seeing a positive impact in Gonzales. When she was younger, she couldn’t wait to leave Soledad—and she was interested in a different framework for today’s youth. “I didn’t feel like I was invested or engaged in the community, so I really wanted to change that,” Velazquez says. The Gonzales Youth Council relies on two adult advisers; this year they are former youth commissioner Cindy Aguilar-Castañeda (who now works for Slade’s C4 Consulting) and Jessica Olmedo-Albor, the city’s recreation coordinator. It is also a peer-to-peer model where former commissioners guide upcoming young leaders. Both youth councils include 12 to 16 teenage members, with at least two representatives from ninth through 12th grade. In Gonzales, youth commissioners attend a seven-week paid summer fellowship to learn about how the city and the school district works; the group has dedicated staff and $41,408 annually from the city’s budget, which includes the contract with C4 Consulting. Soledad’s youth council, on the other hand, currently operates with volunteers. (This year, SYC members will be city interns. “Having that deeper time commitment to this council and to local initiatives is important,” Soledad City Manager Megan Hunter says.) Becoming a commissioner is a lengthy process, which includes an application and an interview process in both Gonzales and Soledad. “We really want to see is somebody who has the intention to change their community, and the intention to collaborate with others and work as a team—that their commitment is to really not only represent their voice, but others’ voices,” says Ivan Ibarra Mora, Soledad Unified School District president and Soledad Youth Council adviser. In September, four students applied for two commissioner positions in Soledad. The interviews, held inside council chambers, were a formal affair. On one side was a five-person panel consisting of city and district officials—Mayor Velazquez, City Manager Hunter, Community Engagement Manager Jesus Valenzuela, Superintendent Randy Bangs and Ibarra Mora. Across from them, one teenager at a time faced the panel to respond to questions. The interview process lasted two days, with two applicants per day. They were asked a series of questions and also asked to role-play with the mayor to discuss alternatives to a hypothetical commercial development proposal that would bring businesses and jobs to the city but mean losing Veterans Memorial Park, which many residents use for recreation, such as soccer practice and dogs walking. Both Soledad and Gonzales youth councils are starting a new cohort this school year and will start brainstorming projects they will focus on. “One of the things that we emphasize a lot in the youth council is ensuring that your ideas are informed,” Ibarra Mora says. “Another aspect is to ensure that when we look in the room, see who’s missing and seek that input.” In 2021, SYC’s focus was on students who are neurodivergent or have other special needs. They partnered with PANECS (Padres de Niños Especiales del Sur del Condado—or parents of kids with special needs from South County), a primarily Spanishspeaking parent group, and hosted a virtual forum. Students presented in English while parents collaborated in Spanish. “It was really interesting to see intergenerational collaboration between adults and youth,” Ibarra Mora says, noting language barriers often marginalize Spanish-speaking parents. Teen participation has increased in Soledad, with young people weighing in at the city’s housing element workshops and on local ordinances. That includes a tobacco retail license ordinance approved last year, which prohibits selling flavored tobacco. Youth also advocated successfully for getting free Wi-Fi at Orchard Lane Park, the first inclusive park in South County, which opened in August. A youth-led organization like this holds a direct connection with the school district, but provides an opportunity for students to weigh in on issues outside of their schools. Liliana Negrette, 17, is a 12th-grader at Soledad High School and is serving for her second year on the SYC. “I was never a part of student government,” Negrette says, noting she didn’t know that city council meetings were open to the public. “I had no idea the public could go and really learn about what’s happening within their city.” After two years in the SYC, Negrette knows the ins and outs of city government and she feels empowered: “My voice does mean something. It makes me feel really good that there are people who are willing to listen to you, no matter how young you are or how old you are.” Ibarra Mora says their main goal was to ensure youth input on the city’s future and district’s decision-making. And in a city populated heavily by young people, that can be especially important to the future. When someone is under 18, they don’t have the right to vote; they can’t make decisions in many medical procedures or own property. However, the youth council model has shown they don’t need to vote to influence public policy and participate in the decision-making in the place they live and the future they want to see. Hunter says getting youth involved High school students Rodrigo Chavez (left) and Liliana Negrette (above) meet with a panel that includes Soledad Mayor Anna Velazquez, City Manager Megan Hunter and Gonzales Unified School District Superintendent Randy Bangs as part of the application process to serve on the Soledad Youth Council. “My voice does mean something.” celia Jiménez celia Jiménez
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