Ever since the first caveman told the first cavechild he couldn’t come on the Brontosaur hunt, the youth of the world have struggled to make their voices heard. Where can a young person go when they’re disgruntled, when they’ve got something worth saying to their leaders? The Seattle Youth Commission, now in its second year, is riding to the rescue.

Born under the Nickels Administration as the Mayor’s Youth Council, the group was established in order to advise the mayor on a variety of topics related to youth concerns, including juvenile delinquency, law enforcement and the effectiveness of programs aimed at Seattle youth. Under the new mayor of Seattle Mike McGinn, the program has been renamed the Seattle Youth Commission, although its role as a youth advocacy group in city government is still fundamentally the same. It’s comprised of 25 members from around the city, five each from Ballard, Central, Southwest, Northeast and Southeast Seattle.

The commission gathers the material for their mayoral sessions from community meetings, held once a year in each of the five areas its members are drawn from. The annual Central District meeting was held just before winter break, and it was run in part by Abby Chin-Martin, a senior at Holy Names Academy in Capitol Hill. Chin-Martin joined the Commission a year ago.

“I remember being in class and hearing a guy ask, ‘How can the government represent us if we don’t vote?’” she says. Inspired, she decided to apply to the Council. Roughly 50 students apply each year, a process which involves answering a 10 question application, getting two adult recommendations and undergoing multiple interviews.

The meeting began with introductions, promises of pizza and a few ice breakers. After about 15 minutes of pleasantries, two-year Commission veteran Zabia Colovos finished up and got to the point, saying “Now, you guys tell us what you’re worried about, and we’ll talk to the mayor.”

Note cards were distributed, and attendees were instructed to list their top youth concern in the City of Seattle. The three most popular concerns, gang violence, police brutality and racism, were put up on a piece of posterboard, and the crowd of about 40 split up depending on which topic interested them most.

After 20 minutes of discussion, everyone came back together and each group presented possible solutions to their group’s problem. The police group’s findings, focusing on more community oversight, elicited a positive audience response. The gang violence group advocated for better education on gangs in schools, while the racism group didn’t have a solution, concluding that race relations were tense but deeply rooted. After a thank you by the Commission members, the meeting adjourned.

After these community meetings, the Commission will meet, and eventually “They’ll get to present policy recommendations to both the mayor and the city council,” according to Jenny Frankl, a program coordinator. This will be the first year that the Commission gets to present to both the council and the mayor, lending them legislative and executive influence in the city’s policy making process.

As she stacked chairs, Colovos said that it had been “a pretty typical meeting.” The 40 or so attendees represented a solid cross-section of both public and private schools in central Seattle. Three boys had come from Washington Middle School because of a flyer they had seen advertising free pizza, along with girls from Holy Names, a few boys from Lakeside, several from Garfield, a couple kids from Nova, and a handful of individuals who had graduated or who had dropped out.

The Seattle Youth Commission meets at least once a month to hold their committee meetings and draft policy proposals, and they hold their community meetings annually.

Frankl said that “the council meetings are a lot different from these [community meeting].” The mood is more business like, with the commission focused on writing policy proposals that have a legitimate shot at affecting city policy. When pressed for past commission successes, the members running the meeting explained that because most only spend a year or two on the commission, it’s difficult to chart how successful the commission had been in the past. It’s a sizeable time commitment, but Chin-Martin says,

“By being a part of this commission, it’s helped me believe that I can make a direct difference in the community.”

A list of current Commission members, information about applications and agendas for past meetings can all be found at seattle​.gov/​n​e​i​g​h​b​o​r​h​o​o​d​s/syc/.