The Kindersley Youth Committee won a third place Saskatchewan Municipal Award for revitalizing youth engagement and other reasons. The 2017 committee (back row left to right): Brianna McBride, Jocelyn Cannon, Jace Borgal, Shayla Olafson and Kathryn Sawatzky (vice-chairperson), and (front row left to right) Joshua Enns-Wind, Jillian McArthur, Tessa Sautner (chairperson) and Colton Leismeister.

Kenneth Brown
of The Clarion

An administrative change has shut down the Kindersley Youth Committee,and the program’s future is unknown just a year after earning provincial recognition.

A decision was made early in 2018 to cut the manager of culture and heritage position from the town’s administration. Michelle McMillan, the former manager of culture and heritage for the town, served as the co-ordinator for the youth committee.

Mayor Rod Perkins said the town has not made a decision to cancel the youth committee for good. He noted that the town is exploring an option for Sun West School Division to help with the program. The committee is a casualty of circumstance from the decision to downsize the administration, but it might continue.

“Our game plan is to talk to them and see how else we can make it work, but we haven’t got there yet,” the mayor said, referring to the pending discussion with school officials. “It’s not scrapping it totally, but it is a pretty small special interest group.”

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Perkins said the town plans to work with the school division to see if the school could help to administer the program. It is not economically feasible at the present time for a member of the town’s administration to devote as much time to the committee as McMillan, he said.

Town officials hope to restructure the committee and the town would provide an operating grant to the school for the committee to access, he explained. The town has been providing the committee with an annual budget of up to $7,500.

The youth committee goes back to 2009. Wayne Gibson, the town’s communications manager, was hired to be the manager of culture and youth, a new position at the time. He worked to establish the youth council.

At first, the Kindersley Youth Council had seven members including a mayor and six councillors. The program expanded to allow former members to be senior administrators and the council continued until 2015 when members worked with McMillan to create a less formal group.

The Kindersley Youth Committee started in 2016 and it was the continuation of the youth council program. The committee’s membership was opened up to students from grades 9-12 while the council was only open to students from grades 8-10. The committee could have more members and there were nine members in 2017.

Groups including the province’s urban and rural municipal associations and the ministry of government relations sponsor the Saskatchewan Municipal Awards program. The awards program is there to recognize the best practices of municipalities.

The youth council won a municipal award in 2011 and the youth committee won a municipal award just a year ago in 2017. The 2017 committee’s chairperson only saw the award at a council meeting in February, a month after learning the committee was not going to continue as planned.

Perkins said several of the programs and initiatives overseen by the manager of culture and youth could be considered softer programming or fluff, and the town is trying to keep taxes down for residents amid fiscal pressures.

The town has to make several “major expenditures” in the near future and the current council has a mandate to keep taxes under control, so tough decisions must be made, he said. The regional landfill and lagoon expansion projects are a must, and the town is also building a new aquatic centre and fire hall.

Tessa Sautner, the committee’s chairperson in 2017, said she is graduating this year, so she did not apply to be a member of the 2018 committee. She said the term runs from January to December, so she could not commit to the full term.

Applications had already been accepted for the 2018 committee. According to the town, a total of six students applied to be on the committee this year. The former chairperson said she was prepared to offer advice and guidance to the new members, but the program came to a halt.

“The interviews for the new committee were already being conducted,” Sautner said, recognizing the program had progressed as usual. “The new committee was waiting for orientation, and then we all found out that it was no longer in the works.”

She noted that she did not know about the decision until January when McMillan contacted her to let her know the 2018 term would not proceed and she no longer worked for the town. The decision came as a shock, Sautner said.

Sautner, who was also a member of the Student Leadership Council at Kindersley Composite School when on the youth committee, said the school has leadership programs, but the committee offers a different set of benefits and learning opportunities. She said the program is unique because members get to work with adults.

The members get to learn a different set of organizational skills and they got to be more hands on with respect to planning, she said. All of the members had a chance to develop their public speaking skills and they also got to learn more about how a municipality works, she added.

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youth committee