At a recent Hollister City Council meeting, seven teenagers were recognized and sworn in as the first-ever Youth Committee. The teens will serve the city by providing the council with a “youthful perspective” that could result in official agenda items for the council’s actions.
The council voted in November 2015 to establish the committee, to be comprised of seven teens between 12 and 18 to serve two-year terms, with a maximum of three consecutive terms. The two-year terms will be staggered so that four of the founding members will have partial terms ending in Sept. 2017, and the other three will have terms ending a year later. Councilman Raymond Friend took the lead in recruiting the teens.
Friend said the time was limited for recruiting the teens, therefore only nine applied.
“We came up with a flyer that we put out at the high school and junior highs and asked the social studies teachers to help us with it,” he said. “Then we passed out the applications that they could bring into city hall with their resumes.”
Councilman Karson Klauer helped Friend review the resumes. One teen was determined to be ineligible because he lived outside the school district and a second transferred to another school. Friend said he and Klauer were looking for community involvement and why the youngsters wanted to be on the committee.
“Most of them said they wanted to bring a voice from the kids to the city council,” Friend said. “Most of them were members of AES at the high school or they were active in their churches or some other volunteer work.”
The seven new committee members are: Faith Fernandez, Lauren Klauer, Angel Leal, Lauren Flaherty, Max Resendiz, Carla Vazquez and Monica Vazquez.
Carla Vazquez and Lauren Flaherty are both 16 and juniors at San Benito High School. They both have ambitions of college. And they both saw being on the youth committee as being important to the city and their own future ambitions.
“It’s giving me an opportunity to interact with the community and put myself out there so I can make a change,” Vazquez said. “I hear kids complaining about there’s nothing to do in Hollister. I think I’d like to make a positive change there. I think if more people are involved in a positive change it can lower crime rates and help us grow.”
She said the one item she would like to see happen is a new library. While she isn’t sure what college she wants to attend or what she wants to focus on, she is considering the University of California, Berkeley, U.C. Santa Cruz and U.C. Irvine.
Flaherty voiced similar sentiments as Vazquez, saying she was interested in giving a voice to the youth of the community and wants to go on to college in California, where she intends to study speech therapy.
Friend said the original idea for the youth committee came from Carla Vasquez’s older sister, who talked to Councilwoman Mickie Luna, who, in turn, talked to Friend about the idea.
“She had researched it through the cities of Watsonville and Gilroy, and had copies of their ordinances that established their youth committees,” Friend said. “I think Gilroy’s is two years old and Watsonville’s is a couple years old. Her sister graduated from high school last year and went on to Long Beach State and she approached me. Then Carla and her younger sister said they wanted to continue on with it, so we met a couple of times and figured out, and then they came and made a presentation asking the city council to consider it.”
Friend said Mayor Ignacio Velazquez appointed him to take the lead. Friend said he asked Klauer to help him with the project. Velazquez said he is enthusiastic about the youth committee because it can offer a different perspective from a specific segment of the community.
“They will bring ideas to the council that the youth are interested in,” he said. “And because they’re not familiar with how a bureaucracy works and how it can slow down the process, they don’t know what they can’t do. They’re just excited about doing something they’re interested in and might remind the adults why it can be important to think how to do something rather than how not to do it.”
“I was hoping to get a lot more applicants, but we only had about three weeks during the Christmas break,” Friend said. “We probably missed out on some kids and maybe should have done it mid-term.”
City Manager Bill Avera will serve as the executive secretary for the youth committee.
“He’ll be the mentor and the question-and-answer person for the city council,” he said. “He’s going to set up the calendar and what he told me it’s going to be within two weeks for the first meeting. It will have to be an agendized item and posted meeting because it’s a standing ad hoc committee to the city council.”
Friend said the youth committee would meet at city hall and that there is no set agenda for the kids yet..
“We just want to hear what the issues are with the kids,” he said, “and what the council can do to help with those issues. It can be anything from youth activities to getting involved with government, schooling or training. I would like to see more students come to their meeting and have input to these kids on whether they want a new bowling alley or the parks to change or whatever. We don’t know what’s going on in their minds and what we can do to keep them busy.”
The youth committee will report to the city council on areas they want the council to look at and then it will be up to the council to pick it up and act on it or ask the kids to do more research, if necessary.
“According to the next budget session they will have a line-item budget for themselves,” he said. “We’ll probably start them off with a small amount because there will be some expenses, whether they print flyers or have something made for themselves or educational materials.”
The amount to be allotted to the committee will be determined at a later date by the council.