2021-09-08 Youth Commission MinutesPage 1.1.1
Youth Commission Meeting Minutes, 9/8/2021
Commission Members Present:
Chair Owen Lee
Brooke Rinehimer
Brook Roberts
Sydney Pearson
Finn Paynich
Aaron Nateephaisan
Audrey Lim
CALL TO ORDER
Commission Members Absent:
Staff Present:
Casey Colley, Youth Commission Coordinator
Chair Owen Lee called the meeting to order at 6:05 pm.
Brooke Rinehimer read the land acknowledgment statement.
PUBLIC COMMENT
Vivian Olson —wanted to say hi. One of your council members. Wanted to join you tonight at the
launch of your new year to meet all of you and see what your plans are. I'm always so excited
about the youth commission. Specifically I'd like to share that last night at our council meeting
there was a mental health and suicide prevention presentation and during it shared a statistic
that just 56% of our youth has a high degree of optimism about their future —and I felt like that
statistic must have been taken when you guys weren't together because I think you and your
awesomeness should be a reason why you are optimistic. Bringing that back to a governmental
part I think this is a difficult time in our country where there is a lot of struggle and a lot of
refiguring things out that maybe weren't working well for everybody and we live in a democratic
republic and I think that's something to really celebrate and appreciate and hopefully by being
involved in things like the Youth Commission you guys start to really understand what that
means, but ultimately it means that the people get to decide and whatever you aren't liking you
can change and sometimes it takes a while and it's a lot of effort but it's in your power I wanted
to congratulate you on your road to participation that you guys have shown so much initiative
for being here already. I know you're in a recruitment phase but you know right here the people
that are already part of the Youth Commission can really help inspire the youth of Edmonds to
be a part of that. Thanks for everything, good luck and happy New Year.
LEADERSHIP ROLE CHANGES
Now that we've been operating for a few years it's time to edit and review the leadership roles.
Removing the treasurer and replacing with a communications manager. We will get your input
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and edit these roles as you all see fit. Then once we have the commission seated in October we
will vote members into these roles.
Members to be elected to these roles. If the elected member cannot meet the requirements,
responsibilities and deadlines they will be removed from the position and a new member will be
elected into it. Members aim to reach a consensus. A vote is taken if consensus is not reached.
The majority wins the vote. All members accept the majority decision.
Owen read the Chair roles. "Presides at all meetings doing their best to use Robert's Rules of
Order. The chair runs the meeting, all remarks are addressed through the chair. When
discussion is underway, it is the chairperson's duty to ensure that it flows smoothly by involving
all members present and by not permitting one or two people to dominate the meeting. The
chair will work with the co-chair and coordinator to create the next meeting's agenda. The
agenda must be emailed to the Youth Commission Coordinator one week prior to the meeting.
Estimated time spent a week: 1-4 hours."
Aaron read the Co-chair roles. "Performs duties of chairperson when absent. If agreed upon, can
alternate duties of chair for every other meeting. Works with the Chair and the coordinator to
complete the agenda and have it submitted one week prior to the meeting. Estimated time
spent a week: 1-2 hours."
Audrey read the Secretary roles. "The guardian of the process of meetings keeping formal
records of the commission's process and decisions. Responsible for recording meeting minutes
and submitting them by the Friday (2 days) following the meeting. Estimated time spent a week:
1-3 hours."
Sydney read the Communication Manager roles. "Manage the Youth Commission Instagram
account. Create a weekly post with content relevant to Youth Commission's mission and current
work posting to Instagram, once approved, and send to the coordinator to post to the parks and
recreation Facebook page. Draft or edit all statements and help draft press releases. Estimated
time spent a week: 1-3 hours."
Youth Commissioners added a few edits to time for each role added to the communication
manager role. Then all reached a consensus that these sound right and accurate.
IV. APPLICATION & RECRUITMENT
Looking for 4 seats to be filled. If anyone knows any freshmen please encourage them join.
Sydney made a poster to be printed and distributed around schools. Change the due date to
September 22"d. Finn doesn't start school till the 15t" so they aren't sure how many people can
be reached in the time frame.
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Getting the flyer uploaded to peachjar. Will need to inquire how we can hang in schools. Once
the date is changed Casey can print in full color and get copies to everyone.
Online we have one recruitment Instagram post. Owen is going to try to make another. Still
thinking about the Instagram videos and adding subtitles has taken a long time but it's
important for accessibility. Brooke suggesting trying on the computer instead of the phone since
it may be quicker. Happy to help Owen and devote time to that. Owen wants to post the senior
ones as a promotional "here's some graduated seniors talking about their time on commission"
does that sound good to everyone?
Any other ideas for recruitment? Clubs? Speech and debate, civics clubs, key club? Edmonds
school district is fully in person now with an option to opt into virtual. All club and
extracurricular activities are looking like they will resume. At Edmonds wood way clubs aren't up
and running yet. Any other groups we can reach out to or advertise? Brooke mentioned the
Edmonds eLearning academy for those that have opted out of in person school. Should reach
out to them so those students get to hear about the opportunity.
Those out of district is there many Edmonds residents at your school? Is it worth getting word
out to them? Brook Roberts said he inquired at Shorewood and they said they can't recruit in
the school since it wouldn't be relatable to the students since the majority live in shoreline and
not in the Edmonds boundaries.
Kings have a good number of Edmonds residents but they aren't very motivated to join. Audrey
will reach out though.
Can all Youth Commissioners share the posts and stories on your personal Instagram accounts to
get the word out and spread to the youth? Need to get at least two IG posts a week to get
visibility about the openings. Ask the people you talk to on IG to post your stories as well.
V. PROJECTS FOR THE YEAR
Have everyone brainstorm and share what you are interested in covering this year. Once we get
more appointed you all can vote on what you want to pursue this year.
Sydney —working on the committees more and having more committee time since the topics
are great but we didn't have enough time to get work accomplished. As a whole commission I
need to think more on it.
Brook Roberts —youth town hall with council candidates for 2021. Still a fine line with not
supporting candidates and remaining non -bias. A safe space program where there's a coalition
of businesses and buildings where people can turn to when they are in distress such as the
Winco that has full AC. A safe place program for those in distress where officers could drop off
people to have a place that's safe and can be monitored. Framework for youth in other cities for
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how to develop youth commissions in their cities would be neat. It could be a good way to see
how other cities run and how they involve their youth in government. I also want to redesign
the agenda and I'll felt Owen talk about that.
Owen —the agenda can help to run our meetings more like city council meetings. Approving our
agenda at the start of the meeting. Adding little things that help us run more like a city body. As
we grow it will be helpful to have those formalities.
Brook Roberts —interested in scholarships for youth programs in the city. There are scholarship
opportunities in the recreation department. Maybe we could do a grant and support a project,
or have our own scholarship program.
Casey —to my knowledge the un-used budget rolls into the general fund. If we wanted to pursue
a grant or scholarship program we would need to write up a proposal and present it to city
council when they start to discuss the budget in April. Maybe create something sooner to take
to them to see what the feedback would be and if you wanted to pursue it further.
Aaron —more time to committee meeting time. We've talked about projects we would want to
do but haven't really started on anything. For youth government we have a lot of projects we
want to get to but haven't had time.
Brooke Rinehimer—more an environmental subcommittee area. Last year it revolved around
recycling and promoting it Edmonds. Organizing some sort of recycling drive for things that are
harder to recycle like old electronics or batteries. Use money to hire a service that can do that.
Hand out fliers of what can or cannot be placed in the recycling or trash.
Finn —I was thinking it could be the diversity committee but I don't know. Dedicating different
months to different groups. I want to do a lot of disability activism. I know we already have
months like pride month. I don't know what type of action we could do with that or if it would
just be visibility.
Brook Roberts —December has a national disabilities awareness day. We could potentially do
something for that.
Owen —the Youth Commission could have a big focus on awareness of disabilities and
advocating for those with disabilities. Awareness of facilities and accommodations are
something we are I feel we are talking more about in my experience.
Audrey —like what Sydney and Aaron said I would like to focus on the government committee
we have really exciting small and large projects such as the youth court we would like to get
started on. We have the diversity and equity committee maybe we could encourage students to
join that conversation to talk about justice, equity, inclusion, etc in a forum atmosphere.
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Owen —could we run an advisory board in partnership with the diversity commission? Even if it
can be a formal community board that can meet virtually?
Casey —I would have to check to see if that's an option.
Brook Roberts —city councils is doing closed captions for their meetings. Is there anything for
the boards and commissions regarding that?
Owen —youth field guide to city government. Have we worked anymore on that?
Brook Roberts —I am working on that by reading off the city code and simplifying it into a word
document and collaborating with a few city council members. Would like to get the mayors
feedback. Still in the stage of creating the document. This would be great to educate those on
how our city government runs.
VI. COMMITTEE MEETING TIME 54;12
Right now there isn't enough members for each committee to meet with 2-3 people. Talk about
how the committees have been going. Is the time allotted during meetings been working for
people? Is it enough time? Do we need more structured time? Have people been spending time
outside of commission meetings? Mental health, Youth and Government, Environment and
Diversity and Equity committees.
Brooke Rinehimer—Environment. Jacob and just her in it and he left in June. Haven't done a lot
of work during the summer. Had a solid idea of goals so it shouldn't be hard to start up again.
Have ideas for IG posts and know what they want to do. Just need to take action now.
Audrey —Youth and Government. It's going well we wisely spend time and have solid ideas. We
plan on meeting outside of the zoom calls to work on the municipal government guide. Going to
start emailing other Bothell youth court people to work on that project. Youth court is a
community based intervention and prevention program that provides an alternative option to
the adult municipal court for first time traffic offenders. Advocate for fair disposition replacing a
traffic fine by using justice principles in court. This idea is from the Bothell youth court and we
need to talk to them to see if it would be applicable to Edmonds.
Aaron —Youth and Government. Same thing Audrey said. Didn't do much during the summer
but we have a list of projects we want to establish and it should be easy to get back into it. We
need more time together to talk about the projects.
Sydney —Mental Health. The only other person on it was Grace and she left in June. The last
thing we did was compile the list of mental health resources to post on the Youth Commission
website. We want to look at mental health education in the school district to see what is taught
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and who it reaches to see if it reaches everyone. Talked with two people from the district last
year. Joanna Rockwood and Rob Baumgartner.
Brook Roberts —Youth and Government. We could make better use of commission time if we
didn't have committee time during it. I think we should use this time to work on stuff together. I
think we should use the 3rd Wednesday night for committee meetings and leave it up to the
committee heads to decide and meet together.
Brooke Rinehimer—we normally have extra time at the end. We could maybe have one
committee meet with the entire commission to fill in what has been being done. Maybe rotate
committees each time we meet and we all agree and are giving input on projects.
Finn —Diversity and Equity. With Owen and we didn't get very much done during the summer.
Owen —Diversity and Equity. We haven't done a whole lot yet. We talked about setting up
meetings with people around the city. Trying to get meetings with Mindy, maybe Alicia crank
and other people. We started a list but haven't done a lot with it. Maybe we can discuss that
and disability awareness day or month and take it on as a project.
VII. FINAL COMMENTS
Casey —Reviewing roles and responsibilities as a commission member for all no matter if you
have a leadership role or not. On the application you filled out if you look at the member
requirements are:
• Attend Youth Commission Meetings via Zoom or at the Frances Anderson Center on the
2nd & 4th Wednesday of every month from September -June from 6:00pm to 7:30pm.
• Assume a leadership role during the course of the school year.
• Be an active member in Edmonds Youth Commission seen through attendance and
participation in events/activities outside of Wednesday night meetings.
• Average monthly time commitment: 4-10 hours.
• Terms of service: Each member shall serve a term of two years from October 1st to
September 30th. Graduating seniors will be appreciated as they leave in June.
It is important you are all here for meetings. I know it can be hard but to get the dialogue going
and projects accomplished it really takes all of you. You are all special and valued and hearing
from all of you is important. Life happens and if something comes up and you are not able to
make it, however if it becomes a pattern then we will need to talk about the commitment to
your role on the commission and that you are able to fulfill the role.
Owen —I would say that 4 o 10 hours is that we spend 3 hours a month on meetings so that's
one hour at least of work outside of the meetings. My Edmonds News covers what the city
council talks about briefly on twitter so you can look that over.
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Brook Roberts —once the whole commission is seated can we review all of the Roberts rules of
order with everyone. If we get more applicants then open seats we have can we do a
mentorship program with them? Invite them to a meeting a month.
Casey —some admin stuff to touch on. I'm going to send out the fillable waiver for photo release
and emergency contact to its okay to post photos. I have a contact info sheet to make sure your
current number is on there in case we need to get a hold of you and there is no response via
email or GroupMe. My number and Jay's number will be listed on it as well that way you are all
able to get ahold of each other. Still need Finn's updated bio.
Brook Roberts —volunteer opportunities —Joe Scordino has an opportunity to volunteer this
Saturday to restore the Edmonds Marsh. Spent this summer trying to understand government
at a deeper level and I went on a tour of the Edmonds Wastewater Treatment Center and really
enjoyed it. Also went on a police ride along to understand what our department does at a
deeper level and seeing it on a deeper level.
Owen —Brook, where are we at during the new police chief selection. I know mayor mike nelson
made his nomination.
Brook Roberts —Chief Bennett was confirmed unanimously by council.
Casey —Can we go around and say what is most exciting about school starting.
Finn —excited for the social aspect of school since that's been lacking and excited about the
forward momentum with college apps.
Sydney —really excited to see friends every day and to get to talk to them. I realized today how
much I missed talking to everyone. Excited for a full band again and getting to meet in clubs
again. All of that will be really fun.
Brooke Rinehimer—mostly excited for being able to do labs in science again. Still have a
laboratory class which will be great instead of watching videos. Might be glad to be out of the
house again.
Aaron —I'm excited to see what colleges I will get into this year. Not excited for the process but
excited to know what's next.
Owen —excited to graduate, see where I go to college, and see that's next.
Audrey —really excited for this years in person speech and debate, it's my favorite activity and
I'm excited to do it again. Excited for graduation, to see what college I get into after 4 years of
hard work.
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Brook Roberts —finishing out associates at SCC through running start on social work then
hopefully transfer to UW to get bachelors. Excited for orchestra and really happy to be back in
person and all the competitions we are scheduled to attend and plan to win our division.
Casey —I am excited to meet my baby shortly. Getting to take leave which will be nice. Nervous
about taking the leave since I love working with the Youth Commission. Excited to come back to
see what you all are working on and the projects being accomplished. I want to see what the
new normal is that unfolds as more vaccines and boosters roll out.
VIII. ADJORN
Chair Owen Lee adjourned the meeting at 7:31pm.