Youth Appreciation Students Learn to Appreciate City Council
Caitlin Carter
October 27, 2009
Filed under News, Student Life
On October 19th, 2009, fourteen NAHS seniors stood outside the newly-completed Municipal Building for Youth Appreciation Day, having exactly no idea what our North Augusta government had in store. The students, knowing only that they were to be given the honorary title of a position of city government, were essentially clueless, save for the added perk of being dismissed from school nearly three hours early.
Some of the Youth Appreciation Day participants, like Anna Flouras, thought the field trip would be analogous to job-shadowing. Anna, who represented Councilman Ken McDowell, said of her expectations, “I thought we would be following the person we were representing all day, go through the daily routine of the council members, and help prepare for the City Council meeting that night.”
Instead, the trip consisted of a town-wide trek to three significant subsidiaries of local government: the water treatment plant, the recycling center, and Public Safety Station II.
The water treatment plant, as you ever-so-astute readers may have discerned, is responsible for the drinkability of all of North Augusta’s precious H2O.
Fun facts derived from this visit include the mind-boggling realization that the employees often spend ten and a half hours of an eleven-hour shift in a laboratory monitoring the pH, chlorine level, and other vitals of the water drained from the river. Trey King noted that, while the information was interesting and significant, it was difficult for the students to understand. “It might have been easier if we had had more time there to learn about the specific processes,” he added, acknowledging that it was a surprise to learn that such a simple part of life is derived from an intricate and somewhat incomprehensible process.
Other than scientific applications, the trip also revealed a bit of North Augusta history, as one side of the plant was built in 1953, with three renovations occurring between then and now to keep up with population booms. This demonstration of a vital yet largely thankless job engendered appreciation in the students.
From there, Youth Appreciation Day moved to MERV, the recycling center. Despite the stench in the air and pestering yellow jackets, the young guide was extremely enthusiastic about the work done at the site. This includes separation of different types of substances, as well as the removal of easily recyclable items like newspaper from the general trash pile. Our MERV sorts garbage for many parts of the CSRA, including parts of Aiken and Augusta, instead of being limited to North Augusta’s waste products.
The afternoon’s activities were closed with the short visit to the Public Safety station. In addition to seeing the practice firing range, the Youth Appreciation kids had the opportunity to rise about 103 feet in the air on top of the remote-controlled fire truck ladder, giving an excellent view of the surrounding area. Some of the students responded favorably to the vantage point; others…didn’t.
“It was crazy!” said Jennifer Price, who was there representing City Administrator Samuel Bennett. “I don’t do heights, but I had to do it so I wouldn’t look like a chicken.” City Council representative Re’ven Smalls corroborated her opinion, saying, “Since I don’t really do heights, it was kind of scary, but I think I did pretty well to actually get up in the fire truck bucket, as you might call it. Plus, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!”
The Youth Appreciation Day seniors, (from top row, left to right) Frederick Grimm, Trey King, Jennifer Price, Dayne Porter, Alex Baker, Nicholas Gamble, Rajan Amin, Stephen Stuberfield, Grace Manci, Anna Flouras, Kay Meyer, Re'ven Smalls, and Kayla Davis, pose for a snapshot after the City Council meeting.
An added bonus to the afternoon excursions was the method of transportation: police cars. This close interaction with a police officer also provided the opportunity to inquire about our local suburban legends. As per example, Jennifer seized the occasion to ask her driver if “the ‘speeding ticket quota’ rumor was true.” (For the two people in North Augusta who haven’t heard or spread this rumor, the gist of it is that the reason traffic regulations are so strictly enforced by police officers is that they must meet a monthly minimum of tickets.) The officer in question denied the allegation in good humor, saying simply, “Not to my knowledge!” All of the police officers spoken to affirmed the practice of not pulling over a driver until he or she is ten miles over the recommended speed limit.
Despite the fact that the activities of the afternoon served their purpose of showing the students lesser-known sectors of North Augusta, the raison d’etre (“reason of the day” for all you non-French-enthusiasts) was the City Council meeting that night, during which all of the students were seated next to the members they were intended to represent. Some of the “council members” even got the opportunity to read proclamations aloud from the agenda.
Mayor Lark Jones emphasized the meaning of Youth Appreciation Day is to encourage youth awareness of and desire to participate in local government. As for the first criterion, all of the members of the audience can attest to the fact that it was definitely not a censored meeting. When the Mayor opened the forum to public comment and question after taking attendance, a man took the opportunity to complain, very vocally and apparently without feeling the need to soften his tone in the slightest, about the lack of individual copies of the very thick budget for each audience member and commented that the size and upscale quality of the new Municipal Building conflicts with the city’s claims to be too poor to offer its employees raises.
(From left to right) Dayne Porter, Stephen Stuberfield, Rajan Amin, Nick Gamble (face covered), and Alex Baker horse around after the City Council meeting last week.
As the second complaint of his is a sentiment often expressed recently, the Mayor took to a simple explanation: the idea to spend millions of tax dollars to erect a new public building for the city was formed and passed by the Council three years ago when economic times were far more prosperous. In addition, the Mayor assured the speaker and the rest of the audience that any debt incurred by the new building could easily be paid off within the next fifteen years of taxes.
Re’ven also had an opinion on the protest of the man in the meeting. “It was very unexpected and a little frightening at first, but it was kind of funny after I discovered that, apparently, he comes on a regular basis (which is probably why the Mayor calls him by his first name).”
After voting on a few measures, the Council and company moved to an informal banquet in honor of the Youth Appreciation students and their parents. The Mayor sneak-attacked his student representative, Frederick Grimm, with the task of closing comments. After recounting the day’s events and giving appreciation to the sponsoring Optimists Club and Municipal government, Frederick closed with saying that “being able to experience public works firsthand shows us how government applies to real life.”
