‘Cream of the crop’ pledge service as Wellsville’s youth city council
February 19th, 2010 Posted in OpinionBy Kayla Woodring
WELLSVILLE—A new youth city council and youth mayor were sworn in by City Manager Don Hartle at Wednesday’s city council meeting.
The youth city council is advised by Wellsville resident Christine Jenkins, who has been supervising the group for nine years. Her son, Joseph Jenkins, has been named the new mayor of the youth city council. Other council members sworn in at Wednesday’s meeting were Stockton Gunnell, Shelby Petersen, Annie Bankhead, Jace Jones, Kye Raymond and Bennett Rigby. All of the new members are students at Mountain Crest High School.
The council offered their appreciation for the group’s commitment to public service and for their help in getting young people interested in their government.
“We sure do appreciate all that you do and think that you’re a great group of kids and a great organization,” Mayor Thomas Bailey said.
Jenkins spoke to the council about the plans the youth city council has for the coming year. He said they are planning a charity dinner for the Children’s Justice Center, which is the council’s charity focus for the year.
“They do a lot of great work. Lots of charity and service and not just for the Children’s Justice Center, but for many organizations,” Councilman Ron Case said. “They also educate other young people about community involvement.
The new members of the youth city council are all involved in other extracurricular activities at their high schools.
“This group is the cream of the crop. They’re a hard group to even get together sometimes simply because they are so busy,” Christine Jenkins said. “They’re all doing great things. Every one of them.”
The city council also held a public hearing on the concept plan for the Parker subdivision. Citizens and members of the council discussed plans for traffic in the subdivision as development progresses. Many were worried the already overcrowded road would be unable to handle increased traffic flow.
Wellsville resident Steve Kroph said he’s scared for people who use the road to access a local fishing hotspot as well as the baseball field, because they already face danger when using the road.
“I don’t have little kids anymore, but I see lots of kids going to that park and going down to go fishing, and I worry for them because the traffic on that road is atrocious,” Kroph said. “I’ve lived there for a long time and I know that people don’t obey the speed limit. Nobody patrols it either, I’ve probably only seen a Cache County officer down that road five times in the past 15 years.”
Another citizen, Dorinda Lucero, suggested that maybe the city needs to put a sidewalk in on the street to protect children and patrons of the baseball field. Some members of the public didn’t want sidewalks because it would interfere with their land and might affect school bus routes.
Councilman Colin Harris agreed with Lucero. “Some citizens may not want a sidewalk but our first concern is all of the kids who walk down that street,” Harris said.
The council also agreed to help fund the second annual Wellsville Stampede, a rodeo to be held in August. All agreed that the rodeo was a great success last August.
“I come from rodeo country myself down around Nephi. I grew up around lots of rodeos and I was so happy to see this here,” Councilman Jackie Orton said. “I really appreciate all the work that the organizing committee did to put this together.”
Councilman Ron Case suggested that the city create a position to enforce code violations in the city. He and other members of the council felt that the Cache County Sheriff’s Office just doesn’t have the time to come out and look to see whether or not people are complying with code. The council is going to determine whether the position will be paid or commissioned on a volunteer basis.
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Tags: Parker subdivision, public hearing, Wellsville, youth city council
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