Teens form council to shape community

Local teenagers have their own ideas on how to make several Livingston County communities more attractive to young people, from starting a battle of the bands competition to building a new youth activities center.

A group of high school students are forming a youth council that would bend the ears of officials in Putnam and Hamburg townships and the Village of Pinckney. They want to have a voice in local government in order to make the communities more youth-friendly.

"We'll be working hand-in-hand" with the two townships' boards and the village's council, said Tori Conquest, 14, a 9th grade student at Pinckney High School.

"We'll give them a perspective of what a teenager wants to do. With all adults on the councils, us teenagers are kind of left out in the background," Conquest said.

Annabelle Blanchard, 14, would like to see a larger youth center, the Pinckney High School 9th-grader said. Promoting that idea to local government officials would be the kind of thing the youth council could take on.

"The one we're in is kind of small," Blanchard said of the HUB youth center, a small building that used to be a senior activities center located at Putnam Township Square. "If we have enough teenagers who want to have a bigger youth center, we could probably find a way and raise funds."

Conquest said they could bring back Empty Bowls, an event that local schools used to do to raise money to fight hunger by selling ceramic bowls that kids made in art class and soup.

Another potential idea would be to start a battle of the bands event that would also feature arts and crafts booths in Putnam Township Square.

When it is up and running, the youth council "would be totally run by high school students," Blanchard said, adding that, right now, members are from Pinckney High School and Kensingston Woods High School.

The teens have received guidance from adults involved in the Pinckney Community Youth Development Initiative, known as PCYDI, which champions the #RecreatePinckney movement and The HUB youth center, 131 S. Howell St. The non-profit organization, in large part, aims to promote healthy lifestyles and discourage drug use, as well as promote leadership skills. Adults would be there to answer questions and encourage them, but ultimately the responsibility would be on the teenagers' shoulders.

"This is totally autonomous and we are just there to keep their wings in the air," said board president Rosemary Gass.

The idea came from Pinckney resident Bryan Farmer, who was instrumental in starting up the Farmington Hills/Farmington Mayor's Youth Council. One of the things that youth council accomplished was helping to get Riley Skate Park built in a city park.

Teenagers from the Pinckney area have started presenting their thoughts to local officials at public meetings.

"The kids are asking each municipality to pass an ordinance, so that it becomes law that the municipalities want to listen to the kids" and "so it will continue" after current students grow up and graduate, Gass said.

Conquest and Blanchard participated in a presentation Wednesday to the Putnam Township Board of Trustees.

"I think they have some good ideas," township treasurer Pat Carney said. "I hope they come back with some more good information, so we can go forward with this. ...The board was very receptive to it."

Carney said township officials and the township's attorney have already chatted about establishing an ordinance and sponsoring the youth council with public funds in the future.

Representatives from the burgeoning youth council plan to present the idea to Pinckney Village Council on Monday night and the Hamburg Township Board of Trustees soon.

The teens would need to fine tune their mission, create bylaws, write a draft of an ordinance for municipalities to consider and figure out how much annual funding they would need from public sources.

They also plan to attend the Michigan Youth Symposium 2015 in Detroit, where they could get ideas from other youth councils in the state.

"Teenagers are like, we want to have it done now, and adults are like, eh, we'll do it tomorrow," Blanchard said. "They say, I was a teenager once, so I understand, but they didn't really live in our generation and it's different. So, they don't really know."

Chris Steubing, who recently became co-executive director of PCYDI with his wife Amy, said youth participation in public discourse can "be a big contributor to their sense of purpose in the community" and "expand the awareness of the local governments of the needs of youths."

Contact Livingston Daily county and townships reporter Jennifer Eberbach at 517-548-7148 or at jeberbach@livingstondaily.com.