At Youth Empowerment Summit, Winters students learn about local government

impassioned speech to close out the summit. “If this was during the school day, you could understand because they have to be here,” Dodd told the Express. “But these kids are here on a Saturday, all day, on one of the most beautiful days that we haven’t seen since the fall, here they are working hard.” And there was a lot of work to do — from a mock election where participants picked where their lunch would come from (Pizza Guys and Costco beat Domino’s and an unspecified fourth business) to a workshop on fake news hosted by officials from the Yolo County Library in which participants had to identify real news articles from ones that were designed to deceive. The students weren’t the only ones voluntarily spending their weekend at the summit: They were joined by around 20 elected officials from throughout the county and state including Winters School Board President Robert Warren and City Council Member Jesse Loren. City Manager John Donlevy was also on hand, delivering a presentation on how to effectively pitch a perspective on community matters to local government bodies (Donlevy was the only elected official to receive three unprompted rounds of applause from the students — two for his acting abilities in re-creating both effective and ineffective ways to deliver a speech before a city council, one when his speech was over). “They were extremely articulate, they are well informed and knew the issues and most importantly, the diversity of views expressed was impressive,” Donlevy said of the students assembled. “Their opinions covered a wide view of opinions which was refreshing…to see this coming from 17-year-olds was very reassuring that the next generation is going to hold their own on key issues.” Student participants from Winters said they were equally pleased to see elected officials willing to hear them out on important issues. “They way that they were down to get into conversation and hear everyone’s opinion…was something I didn’t expect,” Spalding said, adding that many of the officials who sat with the Winters students listened attentively and took notes. Participants and elected officials who spoke with the Express at the end of the summit deemed it to be a rousing success. Salinas echoed their sentiments, though toward the end of our conversation, it became clear his mind was already set on how to make next year’s event even larger. “I would like to see double-digit numbers from Winters,” Salinas said. “I think that’s realistic — we can do that…we just need the cooperation of the community and education leaders to get those students.”