 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Where to skate? How to decorate? Ask youth
By MAUREEN BYRNE AHERN SEMINOLE -- Here's one thing the teenagers who serve on the city's planned youth advisory council might want to know: Government can move slowly. It's been almost a year and a half since city leaders decided to create a youth board to help them make decisions, such as where to build a skate park and how to pay for it. But while keeping busy with other projects and researching other cities' youth councils, staff members were unable to get the project rolling until now. A draft resolution to organize a youth advisory council, presented Tuesday to the City Council, calls for establishing two individual boards -- one for recreation and another for the library. Members of both boards would make up the youth advisory council, which would report to the City Council. A formal resolution will come before the council Oct. 8. "I applaud it," said council member Patricia Hartstein, who suggested the city establish a youth council during a retreat last year. "I'm so tickled." Hartstein, a dropout prevention specialist for Pinellas County schools, says teenagers like to feel they're making a difference in their community. If the city gives them responsibility and adults don't interfere, they'll rise to the challenge, she said. "If we take that approach, we will get kids involved," Hartstein said. The city will advertise the program in public and private middle schools and high schools. It also will hang fliers in the library and recreation center. The recreation board will be open to students in sixth grade through 12th grade. The library board also will accept fifth-graders. City Manager Frank Edmunds said the city won't limit the number of kids on each board. He also said the city would let the youths decide how often they would meet. And each board would have its own budget. "I see this as a terrific opportunity for youngsters who want to have a voice in what city government does," Edmunds said. Research shows youths are more likely to become active, productive citizens with stronger ties to the community through civic involvement during their teen years, said Beth Tobias, coordinator for Community YouthMapping, a 4-H program operated by the Pinellas County Extension Service. Michael Bryan, Seminole's library director, says he already has a pool of young volunteers, mainly middle-schoolers, who help with the children's summer programing. And he says he already has a job for his advisory board: helping choose furnishings for the teen room in the new library, which opens next summer. "We don't have anything like that in this library, so we want to hear what they have to say," Bryan said. Recreation director Jim Sheets wants his youth board to give him input on the type of programing they would like at the center. He wants to know if they'd be interested in dances, battles of the bands, concerts or trips. "I can't say that I know everything that they would like to do," said Sheets, who added that the recreation center also is planning to dedicate one of its rooms to teens. Youths interested in joining the advisory boards can call Bryan at the library at 397-2112 or Sheets at the recreation center at 391-8345.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times South Pinellas desks Letters |
