By Jill Sperling

Students and city staff gain insights from Junior Council program

Dec 18, 2018 | 2:47 PM

KAMLOOPS — It was an idea introduced by late City Councillor Marg Spina — a junior council, providing an opportunity for youth to weigh in on the matters that come before Kamloops City Council. 

Last spring, Spina’s idea became reality, with students representing schools across the city coming together to help lay the groundwork for the program that would also teach city staff and councillors a great deal about how to engage with youth in the community. 

They may be young, but the Junior Council members are engaging in thoughtful discussion on municipal issues. 

At Monday’s Junior Council meeting, the last of the 2018 calendar year, city administrative staff presented updates on the city’s Recreation Master Plan and the Downtown Plan, with the four junior councillors present asking questions to gain a better understanding of potential future changes. 

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“Before I was part of this, you would see changes happening around you but you wouldn’t really understand the process of how that change came to be, or why, or who was responsible for it,” said Grade 12 South Kamloops Secondary student Graeme Koppes, “all of these different factors that you don’t really know, you just sort of see them happening.”

Koppes was a part of the pilot project that began last spring, working with other students from School District 73 to create the Junior Council. 

The first full year of meetings began this September. 

“Once we had it created obviously I wanted to be a part of the thing I had created and so it’s been a fun ride since then,” Koppes said. 

The students take turns in the role of chair, essentially presiding over the meeting as mayor to get a sense of the entire council process.

“Mostly just in terms of being the chair and the roles of each individual member of the council, in terms of like voting process and decision making,” said Grade 11 Valleyview Secondary student Zack Kuan. 

While the idea of a junior council was Marg Spina’s, she passed the torch to Councillor Arjun Singh when she became terminally ill. 

“The students have basically run the whole process, we’ve just been very much in support roles,” Singh said. 

“The decisions have been theirs to make, and we’ve just sort of tried to be as supportive as we can and help them stay away from areas where there might be some issues for them to go, but also there’s a huge array of things that they can talk about that are pretty practical for all of us.”

The city’s Chief Administrative Officer, David Trawin, has helped guide the students through council processes. 

Trawin says the program is greatly beneficial to the city’s administrative staff. 

“One of the main goals on this is to bring forward strategies on what we’re doing; Various plans, various strategies, various policies the city runs through and get the junior council’s input on how we can liaise more, what are the best ways to liaise with people their age,” Trawin said.

The Junior Council program is currently only open to School District 73 students, but may be opened up to the city’s private schools in the future.