Youth council members make like Wellesley administrators for the night
THE INS AND OUTS of municipal government can be hard to follow, but the Wellesley Youth Advisory Council is diving right in.
On Monday evening, the youth council took on the roles of councillors, mayor and township staff, holding a mock youth council in Wellesley Township council chambers, with their realworld counterparts sitting next to them. They passed motions, made amendments, discussed zoning changes and the like, just as the seats’ usual occupants would.
Township staff appeared as delegations speaking both for and against an imaginary food truck in the Wellesley arena parking lot, and the use of recently purchased recreation lands.
Lisa Parker from the Woolwich Community Health Centre heads up the Youth Advisory Council and she says taking part in a mock council like Monday night’s gives the young members a chance to see how decisions directly affecting them are made.
“It is just about seeing how all of this works. It can be intimidating because it involves a bunch of processes that we don’t necessarily use in our everyday life,” she said. “So, when you get a bit of practice, make it a bit less scary, make it a bit more informal, it is easier to navigate. They discuss things like new land purchasing and how to use that land, discussing some other less contentious issues such as the Canada 150 celebration, just to get some practice on those kinds of things.”
The group has been thinking about holding the mock council meeting for about six months, and when young people filed into the Crosshill council chambers, township staff was there to greet them, and help them get through the agenda.
“We have those adult champions by their sides to, saying, ‘yes, we are going to help you, yes, we are going to guide you,’” said Parker. “It takes away the scary parts and normalizes the people who do this work.
Wellesley Mayor Joe Nowak says the kids on the youth council are future voters, and it is important they learn how municipal government works before they hit the polls.
“It is great for these kids to learn as much as they can about their local government, the one that takes care of their immediate needs and understand why that it is important and how that process works, how those decisions are made.
“There are probably some people in the community that have a hard time distinguishing between federal, provincial and the municipal,” he said. “The municipal is front line and that is important. These kids will be voting soon.”