2019-01-16 Youth Commission MinutesYouth Commission Meeting Minutes 1/16/19 CASEY'S
Commission Members Present Staff Present
Alissa Berman Shannon Burley
Caitlin Chung Casey Colley
Caroline Wills
Cole Albaugh
Emily Sanger
Kaleb Nichols
Nathanael Perdomo
Noah Erickson
Owen Lee
Stephany Janssen
Sydney Pearson
Call to Order:
Casey called to order the meeting at 6:07pm once the last few members showed up.
Minutes Approval:
Motion to approve 1/2/19 meetings minutes; there were two minor grammar/spelling errors corrected.
Motion taken: Minutes approved.
Team building:
Casey led 2 truths and a lie icebreaker. Members were able to learn more about one another and have a
laugh.
Commission Rules 101, OPMA, Expectations:
Shannon led us briefly through these for the newly appointed members touching on open public
meetings and disclosure act, and expected archiving and use of emails and texts. Instructed all to use
their city emails for all youth commission duties and communication. New members were given the
same packets as the members were given on 12/19/18. New members were asked to read through at
home and to bring any questions they had to the following meeting.
Announcement of Puget Sound Regional Council:
Casey introduced the idea and asked all to read the following information about it.
"The Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRQ the agency that coordinates regional transportation, growth,
economic, and environmental planning for King, Kitsap, Pierce, and Snohomish counties, is extending the
region's long-term plan to 2050. The regional strategy, VISION 2050, will provide a guide for sustaining a
healthy environment, thriving communities, and a strong economy. Over the next two years, PSRC is
working with cities, counties, tribes, other agencies and interest groups, and the public to develop VISION
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2050. We are also hoping to engage youth in the planning process.PSRC will host a free, multi -part online
event to engage high school students in the VISION 2050 process in spring 2019. Students will have the
opportunity to learn about regional planning and work through different growth alternatives to learn
about how and where the region grows affects people, the environment, and the economy. The event(s)
would ideally culminate in a report to PSRC policy makers summarizing the students' feedback and/or
students providing comment at a policy meeting.
Shane Hope recommended the Edmonds Youth Commission as a great group to participate in the summit.
If the commission is interested in participating, please fill out this brief form to provide a bit more
information about the timing and topics that work best for the group. Submitting this form is not a
commitment to participate in the summit.
Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. We hope the Edmonds Youth Commission is able to
be a part of these important conversations."
There was a motion to participate and all members agreed to do so. Shannon will be contacting Laura
for further instructions on participation.
Vote Chairs for Commission:
Took turns reading aloud the following roles of each chair member:
"Officers to be elected. 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. Chair: Presides at all meetings
using Robert's Rules of Order. The chair runs the meeting, all remarks are addressed through the chair.
Members do not interrupt each other. 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. Works with city staff member and secretary to create next meeting's agenda. Co-
chair (optional): Performs duties of chairperson when absent. If agreed upon, can alternate duties of
chair for every other meeting. Treasurer: Financial management and/or oversight. Treasurer may manage
or oversee the management of the financial affairs of the youth commission with the city staff member.
Secretary: The guardian of the process of meetings keeping formal records of the commission's process
and decisions. Works with chair and city staff member to create the next meeting's agenda. Responsible
for emailing out papers for the meetings. This can include the minutes from the last meeting, agendas,
and any papers for discussion. For more information see "How to Guide" on meetings, agendas, minutes,
chairperson and secretary roles, etc. https://www.skillsvouneed.com/ips/teams-groups-meetings.html "
Members chose to have a co-chair to share the workload. Members then nominated themselves or
others for each role and we took a blind vote with heads down and hands up. Votes and nominations as
follows:
Chair
Co -Chair
Treasurer
Secretary
Stephany-8 votes
Kaleb-8 votes
Caitlin-4 votes
Owen-11 votes
Cole-1 votes
Noah-3 votes
Owen-3 votes
Noah-2 votes
Alissa-3 votes
Elected Officials are as follows:
1. Chair is Stephany.
2. Co -Chair is Kaleb.
3. Treasurer is Caitlin.
4. Secretary is Owen.
Work Plan Discussion:
From prior meetings the discussion was focused on a variety of issues affecting us at local and national
platforms. The two largest ones of interest are gun violence and mental health. For now the commission
will be focusing on gun violence. Future interests are mental health, immigration, social anxiety and teen
mothers. The commission will be modeling their plans after what the City of Kirkland's Youth
Commission has accomplished with building a teen center and creating new more relevant and accurate
mental health videos with a school sanctioned public forum.
Commission is selecting one local issue and one national issue to pursue. The national issue will be gun
violence. The local issue will be getting involved with local salmon clubs/programs and volunteering
while being conscience of the connection to the Edmonds march, another "hot" local issue.
Caroline said her school club, students saving salmon, just placed egg hatching boxes in local streams
filled with salmon eggs. She also told us they have an event once a month that's typically on a Saturday.
She will be finding out the February and March dates.
It would be a great opportunity to get the commission to volunteer while being "seen". Commission will
be contacting the newspapers to come and join/document the members. With the press members can
connect their salmon volunteering to the Marsh daylighting project and how these habitats connect to
one another and how they assist in salmon survival. This will be good exposure to catch the public eye.
All in favor of volunteering for saving salmon? All members are in favor of this project.
Three big topics the commission really wants to address:
1. Gun Violence —first topic to address
2. Immigration —this will take longer especially with the current presidential climate
3. Mental Health —summer project; runner up once the commission is established
Gun Violence
• Bring in police chief
• Meet with superintendent for the district
• Be well educated before these meetings
• Figure out what questions we (the commission) wants to ask at these meetings
• Let's go home and research in our county, state, nation
Caitlin did some research and found data:
o 2015, USA had 360,247 deaths from guns; 61% suicides, 36% homicides
o During the 2015-2016 Washington state school year, there were 130 firearms on school
grounds (schools, buses, facilities, etc.)
0 2016 King County asked 81h-121h grade students if they would be caught carrying a gun at
school-11% of 81h graders, 16% of 101h graders, and 23% of 121h graders said they would
not be caught if they brought a gun to school.
o Relating to mental health, adolescents with access to firearms in the house were 2.6
times more likely to die from suicide
Research is really important
• Want to be experts
• Any ideas?
• Place/invitation where teens can come and express their opinions so we know personally what
their opinions are
• Conference/public forums with teachers, students, parents
• Community needs to have a voice
Morning announcements at schools may be a method to pass on information
Come up with a date for a forum
Can we create an Instagram?
o Manage social media account
o Talk to school district
o Talk with school newspapers
Spread information and invite to events: Edmonds community college newspaper, my Edmonds news,
the beacon
Performing arts center would be a great place to hold an event/summit
City of Kirkland's Youth Commission
• Brought in experts
• Had breakout sessions
• Made schools excuse the absence
• Held during school day
• Used school buses to transport any students who wanted to attend
Stephany can talk to the Woodway superintendent
Noah can talk with the Seattle public schools superintendent
Carrie Hite —get contact info for Kirkland Youth Commission
Should we have a school session and a community session?
Pick details about what the audience, agenda, and outcome you want from the summit/forum
If doing two sessions, will the parents, teachers and community be first? Then they can start the
discussion with their children.
Need to talk with different schools, maybe during staff meetings?
Wednesdays —Mountlake Terrace meets
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Thursdays— Meadowdale meets
Need to find out what days other schools meet
Noah will take photos next meeting (2/6/19) then send them to Casey to load onto the Commissions
webpage along with bios
Homework—bios should be submitted prior to next meeting
Homework assignment:
Commission members create a paragraph biography and using their new city email send it to Casey
Colley to be posted on the Youth Commission website. If you cannot access your city email, send an
email to Casey describing what problems are arising.
YC Notes: 1/16 Owen's
Continuing work plan:
Stephany reviewed variety of issues we discussed; as a local issue, we will focus on the Edmonds Marsh,
and as a national issue we will focus on gun violence. Other options for future issues include
immigration, mental health including social anxiety, and teen mothers.
We can model our approach to this national issue off of the Kirkland Youth Center, who created series of
educational videos and a school -sanctioned public forum.
Caroline: Salmon hatchery volunteering is a way to show that we are here; we can try to get more
people to get there, but we can start with just being seen in the community more and just ourselves
volunteering.
Stephany: And to get more people there, we can reach out to Students Saving Salmon, newspapers, and
schools.
Ms. Burley: And day -lighting Willow Creek, which is a big issue right now, ties directly into salmon
hatcheries. It's all related.
Stephany: That's a good point, and we can talk about how everything is one big circle of life with
reporters and how it is all connected. We can research that.
Caroline: Volunteering with the salmon hatcheries is once a month, but it's not usually at Willow Creek;
it's often at the Meadowdale Beach Park stream.
Stephany: So for volunteering with the salmon hatcheries, we should look at dates, someone should
reach out to newspapers, and people should go talk to clubs at their schools. This will be a good way to
be united as teens in an issue.
Caroline: I think that next date is sometime in February, but I will text to group chat to make sure of the
exact date; there will also be a day in March, and they are usually on Saturdays and last between 2-4
hours.
Stephany: All in favor of approving this as our local focus, say "aye" (consider revision). Three main
national ideas are gun violence, mental illness, immigration
Alyssa: We know there's teen interest in gun violence because of the many walkouts and widespread
support among students for gun control, especially in our area.
Stephany: Mental illness is a good summer issue, as opposed to something we should work on right
now, because we can get to school in September with a plan for how to combat it. Immigration is also
really important right now, but it will take a lot of energy and focus. It also requires a unique perspective
because we need to build on the issue so we know it will be the kind of thing that will help people; my
opinion is that it is good to start with gun violence and work on immigration as a side project because
we have a clearer picture of how to combat gun violence and we can be successful before school is out.
Ms. Burley: We can also leave room for something else just in case a huge issue comes up and we feel
we need to address it.
Stephany: We also need to develop community events that will have more attendance by teens; my
mom went to a protest but I didn't even know about it, which shows how teens are not a focus when it
comes to activism. But let's shift our focus to gun violence.
One thing we talked about last time was bringing in a security or police officer to talk about what's going
on, or get the superintendent to talk to students about what's happening when it comes to keeping guns
out of our schools.
Kaleb: We need statistics to determine what we want to talk about, ask, or focus on so we need people
to research at home.
Alissa: Yeah, and we also need to talk to people in our community before we get into the bigger issues
so we don't make mistakes and represent our community correctly.
Caitlin: I did some research on statistics for gun violence. In 2015, the U.S. had 36,247 deaths from
firearms (information found on U.S. government sites, probably includes accidental deaths) and these
deaths were 61% suicide, 36% homicide. Washington superintendent reported that in the 2015-2016
school year, there were 130 instances of firearms on school property in Washington state. In a King
County 2016 survey of 8th-12th graders, when asked if they would be caught if they were carrying a
handgun without parental consent, 11% of 8th graders, 16% of 10th graders, and 23% of 12th graders
reported that they would not be caught with a handgun without parental permission. And relating to
mental health: adolescents with firearms in their household were 2.6 times more likely to die by suicide
than those without access to a firearm.
Ms. Burley: The Puget Sound Regional Council also wanted to work in tandem with us, and they
suggested an online program where we can add to their plans; however, they are also interested in
coming to our meetings instead of an online session. Does that sound good to people? (Everyone says
yes). Great! I'll respond to them tomorrow morning.
Stephany: To go back, research is really important because we will be talking to expert officials; when
talking to experts, we want to be experts too. However, once we move past research, what do we do to
combat gun violence?
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Caitlin: We could have a place where teens can come just to express their opinions and so we can know
personally what they want, just like an open meeting.
Stephany: It's really good to know what people want early in our process so we should do that sooner. A
public forum headed by us so we can speak for youth correctly is a really good idea. It's important for all
issues we address too so we can always give people a voice.
Noah: We should also petition to get something into morning announcements about it in schools so we
can get people to come to it. We should start a date and a schedule so we can get publicity and so that
people know it's happening.
Alissa: Could we create an Instagram account for the Edmonds Youth Commission?
Ms. Burley: You might be able to, but it's hard to keep track of everything. The City of Edmonds has a
Facebook where everything gets saved but we don't have anything set up for an Instagram.
Stephany: True, but Instagram is a good way to get to youths; if we do this, we should have a person to
make and manage the account.
Ms. Colley: When canvasing the school district, if they approve we can send messages to all parents.
Stephany: At Edmonds-Woodway, we can talk to Mr. Quinn, Mr. Mindt, and newspapers to get it to
people; there is also the ECC Newspaper, MyEdmondsNews, the Edmonds Beacon, etc. Actually, we
should start a list of newspapers so we can be prepared to contact them quickly.
Alissa: I actually have a list of newspapers already, so I'll send it to you.
Stephany: I'd also love to look at the calendar soon and find dates that will work for people so we can
cover publicity bases, and we also need a building to host this event.
Ms. Colley: We could rent the plaza room, which has a 150-person capacity.
Ms. Burley: The Edmonds Center for the Arts would maybe be better.
Stephany: Oh yeah! It also looks really official. Do we want to look at a date?
Ms. Colley: What would be a good day/time for us?
Ms. Burley: Kirkland did a big one day event with breakout sessions and speakers, and they were
actually able to meet with the superintendent in advance and got schools to get busses and excused
absences. This allowed a lot more people to come; meals were even supported by people who wanted
to attend, so perhaps we could get it to be school sanctioned.
Stephany: I can reach out to superintendent so we could make a bridge with her. If we figure out what
we want, we can bring that to her.
Noah: I also have some connection with the Seattle Public Schools superintendent.
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Ms. Burley: Mike Nelson (the city council member sponsoring the Youth Commission) also wants to
know what he can do to help us, so we could get him to talk to the superintendent with us.
Stephany: Do you have logistics from the Kirkland Youth Center?
Ms. Burley: You should ask them through Carrie so we have groundwork for our plan.
Caitlin: Maybe we shouldn't have this thing during the school day because we can't get teachers, many
students have stuff in school, parents work.
Ms. Colley: Yeah, people my age won't miss work to come to something but weekends might work.
Noah: Could we have a school day and evening session?
Stephany: We could also get a school day thing and then have a thing for parents on a weekend.
Ms. Burley: Who is your target audience? You want to figure this out sooner rather than later so you can
get the right people to attend, and we can worry about details later.
Emily: I think that having teachers and parents before students would be interesting so we can come to
a conclusion with the adults and pass that message on to the kids; plus, parents would then know what
was happening and be able to talk to students beforehand so they can let their kids skip school.
Stephany: If we could get meetings with individual schools -for instance, Edmonds-Woodway staff has
meetings on Wednesday so we could just have a quick conversation with them during their meeting -do
you at other schools have a scheduled staff meeting like that?
Noah: Mountlake Terrace is Wednesdays.
Caroline: Meadowdale is possibly Thursdays?
Stephany: So we could schedule teacher meetings, then have a meeting here the week after, then have
the school skipping thing a week later, or just something like that so it's consecutive and our knowledge
accumulates but stays fresh.
Ms. Colley: It's also important to remember the schools that aren't represented here on the Youth
Commission. I think all of the high schools are Edmonds Heights, Scriber Lake, Edmonds-Woodway,
Mountlake Terrace, Lynnwood, and Meadowdale.
Ms. Burley: The superintendent can help with that too.
Ms. Colley: Okay. To wrap this up, your homework is your biographies for the website (I have two
currently) and if your city email isn't working you can use your normal email. I'll make sure to email
information out to both emails (home and work), but the 3-5 sentence biography about you with a
picture of you so it can be on the website is good to have for the next meeting. We can also take
pictures next meeting; Noah will bring his camera for commission photos.
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Work plan: Kirkland proposal, brainstorm thoughts about event, have a clear picture of what you want
this to look like, Stephany will email Mike Nelson, Stephany will potentially email superintendent about
meeting on 2/6 and another meeting, Caroline will talk to Salmon Hatchery people, Alissa will talk to
Students Saving Salmon at EWHS, Noah will look at Mountlake Terrace salmon -saving clubs, Woodway
kids will talk to Mr. Millette
Two topics of focus currently: Marsh/Saving Salmon, Gun Violence
Next week: who are we going to talk to and what will we talk about, put dates into calendar, photos for
biographies
Next meeting in three weeks (2.6.2019)