“Drugs and gangs, violence, oppression, child abuse, neglect, homophobia,” read one banner taped to a wall of the Veterans’ Memorial Center on Oct. 12, where dozens of young Santa Marians gathered for a Youth Town Hall to share their views on community violence.
The banner, filled with negative words written in bright colors, was a chance for each youth attendee to anonymously share the major issues they feel need to be addressed in Santa Maria. On another banner across the room, words like, “outreach programs,” “nonprofits,” “sports,” and “diversity” described the benefits of living in a community that rarely receives praise from outsiders.
The Youth Town Hall was nothing like meetings of the Mayor’s Task Force on Youth Safety, which typically include hours of repetitive public comments and confrontational discourse. Those events, which local youth Vanessa Cantu described at an Oct. 9 task force meeting as “cold and dark” have been deemed unwelcoming to the very demographic they’re meant to serve.
“I don’t want to be here,” Cantu told Assistant City Manager Jason Stilwell on Oct. 9. “How are you going to make this welcoming for youth?”
Stilwell said that while the city values youth input, a lot of kids don’t particularly want to go to public meetings and openly talk about their broken families, neglect, and mental health issues.
But on Oct. 12 at the Vets’ Hall, with the adult attendees sitting in a back corner, an upbeat DJ, and readily available snacks and sugary drinks, kids seemed to have no problem sharing their thoughts, personal experiences, and ideas for solutions. Groups including CAUSE, Future Leaders of America, Just Communities, and One Community Action hosted the forum.
The meeting was entirely led by local youth, who said their voices will be heard by the Mayor’s Task Force, which has been widely criticized for failing to include youth and community input.
“We’re here tonight so we can get input from you guys, the youth, because it’s kind of weird having all these adults make decisions for us without consulting us,” Allan Hancock College student Cristal Robles said to the audience. “Give us your ideas, and we’ll make sure your youth representatives go out there and represent you to those adults sitting on the board.”
Janet Cruz-Reyes of Hancock, Monserrat Nolasco of Santa Maria High School, and Samantha Basulto of Pioneer Valley High School were elected in August by their peers to act as youth representatives on the city’s task force. Representative Basulto, 16, said she and the other representatives would bring the solutions discussed at the Youth Town Hall to the next task force meeting on Oct. 23.
Youth representatives helped lead the meeting, where kids were split into groups, each assigned a different topic to discuss. Small groups of attendees addressed ways to develop healthy families, improve local schools, and increase leadership and career opportunities. After identifying key issues within those topics—frequently areas where Santa Maria lacked infrastructure, security, and services—the groups discussed possible solutions.
Later, all youth attendees were able to vote on which solutions they felt would be most effective. The youth representatives said they would present those with the highest votes to the youth task force.
Some solutions seemed simple: “Fresh food,” received the highest number of votes as a way to improve schools, while, “motivating students to not give up on education,” was a close second. Improving youth programs and facilities garnered a more complex set of answers, though, with building an art gallery, a sports facility, and a sports medical center leading the polls.
“Some people just give up and they don’t want to keep trying,” Santa Maria High School student Jennifer Lopez said. “And when the teacher’s student gives up, they give up on them as well, so we feel like they should give them more motivation and not say that they’re not going to do good in school because they’re just giving up.”
Lopez, 16, also said many of the classes taught in local public schools are interesting and necessary, but totally impractical.
“Yeah, they teach us about math and history,” Lopez said, “but we should learn more about how to save up our money, how to do our taxes, and other stuff like that.”
Another student added that there aren’t enough school counselors readily available for kids experiencing trauma at home. In fact, attendees voted for “therapy” as the No. 1 way to foster healthy family relationships. Several kids said it can be difficult to focus on school and friendships while parents are going through an ugly divorce. Another said it can be even more difficult to be positive as a child of an abusive parent or parents. The group decided that parents need education on ways to avoid dragging children through their own relationship issues.
Other students said that while there are plenty of services available in Santa Maria, kids and families either don’t know about them or don’t feel comfortable reaching out.
Fifth District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino was one task force member at the town hall. He walked around and listened as the groups discussed solutions, he took photos of the votes, and he talked to kids about his childhood in Santa Maria, when the town was struggling with similar issues of violence and oppression. Lavagnino brought a pair of headphones—Beats by Dr. Dre—worth up to $150, as a raffle prize. Kids in the audience gasped when he held them up on stage.
Lavagnino told the Sun that while kids might not fully understand what it takes to change systematic issues, the task force should be more willing to listen to their solutions.
“If we’re going to have a youth task force, there should be youth,” Lavagnino said. “I’m in my 50s, so I don’t know exactly what’s going on in these kids’ heads. So I’m looking forward to a more collaborative future with the kids on the task force.”
One Hancock student, Crystal Estrella Carrillo, said the biggest issue in Santa Maria is the idea that youth don’t have a voice. Adults, she said, have been condescending to students who have tried to get involved with the task force.
“We’re young and we’re told that we have decision making skills, but we don’t get to put them to work,” Carrillo, 23, said. “We don’t get asked what we want, we get told what we want. You don’t just have a voice after high school.”
Staff Writer Kasey Bubnash can be reached at kbubnash@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 19-26, 2017.