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On Saturday afternoon, dozens of residents from around the region shifted around in their seats in Palo Alto’s City Council Chambers. Some shyly raised their hands to shout out answers to questions like “How many state assembly members are there?” and others scribbled in drawing applications.
It wasn’t the typical crowd, but the children and teenagers were there for the same reason many residents attend City Council meetings – for a chance to express their concerns and be heard.
At Assembly member Marc Berman’s sixth annual Youth Town Hall in Palo Alto, local students discussed concerns ranging from immigration, to environmental justice to mental health in a world increasingly dominated by technology use.
Berman began hosting the annual town hall when he realized that his bi-annual community coffee discussions didn’t typically cater to youth because of timing conflicts with school hours. The town hall is an effort to “talk a little bit and to listen a lot” regarding youth interests.
This year’s town hall featured free pizza, tabling from local educational and youth-centered organizations, a Q&A session with Berman and, for the first time ever, a panel discussion with local students.
For many attendees, some as young as 10 years old, the opportunity to speak with Berman was a rare occasion where they felt their concerns might be taken seriously.
“One of the main barriers to participation in government elections is that often, our voices are undervalued or dismissed, and that’s because a lot of times representatives don’t pay attention because we don’t vote yet, we don’t pay taxes, so they don’t see us as a serious group of people,” said youth panelist Amani Shroff, the chair of the San Mateo County Youth Commission.
For Shroff, one of the most prominent issues affecting youth today is political apathy.
Ahead of the event, Shroff conducted a casual lunch-time survey, where she learned her peers were able to name each “Kardashian” but not their state senator.
“One day, we’re going to inherit a world that we refuse to participate in,” she said.
It’s an issue that coincides with a lack of institutional trust as young people struggle to disseminate the truth on social media and keep up with information overload, said panelist Priscila de Franca Moreira, former student government president for West Valley Mission Community College.
Throughout panel discussions and the Q&A session, various students like Nueva School senior Colin Chu said climate change is of utmost concern for youth.
“It has been incredibly saddening to see a lot of the effects that pollution, climate degradation as a whole, has had on the environment,” he said.
Berman urged youth to hold lawmakers accountable for following through with sustainability initiatives, like one he helped pass to ban the sale of gas-powered leaf blowers by 2028.
“I’s important that we actually, as they say, put our money where our mouths are, and make sure that we fund the programs as necessary, whether that’s rebates for electric vehicles or … our really world-leading cap-and-trade program that caps the amount of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions that different industries can emit,” he said.
Climate anxiety has also affected youth mental health, an issue that was brought up by numerous speakers at the Saturday event. One student speaker asked how law makers can make school “less stressful,” and another who asked how politicians could better address students who are in alternative school environments due to mental health complications.
“Less than a third of Palo Alto teens are actually utilizing mental health resources, even though 50% say that they are struggling with mental health,” said panelist and Palo Alto Youth Council member Maddie Park. “And what I thought was even more astonishing was the fact that 40% of these teens started struggling since they were in sixth grade.
Mental health is an issue, especially in Palo Alto, Berman said, that he hopes to prioritize.
“I’ve told groups, if you have a good idea around youth mental health every year, every year I’ll introduce a bill in the youth mental health space,” he said.
Various other youth attendees asked how to better engage with government officials in order to make change – to which Berman recommended speaking at local government meetings like the City Council.
“When youth show up, adults shut up,” he said, reflecting on his years as a city council member in Palo Alto.
Panelists like Franca Moreira also encouraged youth interested in making change to “start small” by joining their student government and learning about state agencies like school boards.
“To all the young people out there, believe that when you show up to articulate your concerns or your beliefs or your positions on things, it really cuts through a lot of the noise to us elected officials,” Berman said. “Don’t hesitate to use that power.”
