Youth and young adults of St. Albert will get the chance to develop a bylaw to govern the establishment of a youth council.
City council ended up unanimously supporting motions to allow administration to work with youth to develop that bylaw, in addition to a terms of reference, as well as draw up to $1,000 from the council contingency fund to help cover any associated costs.
Young people who were consulted as part of advance staff work to develop the idea praised the concept ahead of the council meeting.
University of Alberta political science student Ben Throndson was credited by Coun. Tim Osborne with initially approaching the councillor with the idea.
In an interview ahead of the council meeting, Throndson said the written staff report reflected a lot of the ideas young people provided during meetings with city staff.
“I’m pretty happy with how it looks,” Throndson said. Feedback given by the young people included seeing the youth council’s role as advocacy and political rather than a volunteer organization.
They suggested that the age range should be diverse, possibly from 15 to 25 years of age, and were asking for a councillor to be appointed to the youth council but also for several meetings a year with council as a whole.
The outlined mandate included everything researching and writing policy proposals to educating youth on municipal governance.
Throndson said he was inspired in part by the Edmonton youth council, noting that group tackles some serious issues like youth homelessness or affordable housing.
He said he thinks there would be enough interested young people in St. Albert to make such a council viable.
Fellow university student Mychaela Risling was part of the group that participated in consultations with city staff. She said the group wouldn’t want to double up on the work of Building Assets and Memories (BAM).
She saw some potential work for the council around youth engagement, the arts and also social issues.
Risling said it would be nice for young people to have a voice in city planning and said she sees a huge disconnect when it comes to decision makers taking youth into account.
Council did give the green light to taking the next steps, which includes drafting a terms of reference and a bylaw, but had some concerns about some of the ideas in the report.
Connie Smigielski, the community manager for the Family and Community Services department, promised to take feedback from council about the number of meetings, membership numbers, length of terms and that a city administration member should be present back to the group.
“There is interest in a youth council and excitement,” Smigielski said.
Coun. Sheena Hughes had expressed concern about this committee being treated differently than others, especially when it comes to helping draft the group’s bylaw.
“I understand they’re eager, but I also understand that this may be more than they can chew,” she said.
Osborne had made the original motion that triggered the work already done, and made a motion on Monday so that work can continue.
“I think you’ve heard from council that there is potential for some tweaking,” he said, noting his own feedback would be around membership numbers.
But he likes the approach of giving the youth an opportunity to give input, and said that this might be different from a traditional city committee.
It’s likely the group will make some stumbles, he said, but it can be part of the learning process.
“I don’t want to see us being too prescriptive,” Osborne said.
