A Brief History of the Youth Commission
The idea for the Placer County Youth Commission was developed during a meeting with many youth-serving community agencies in December 2008. With the support from those community agencies, the University of California Cooperative Extension, 4-H Youth Development Program and the Placer County Department of Health and Human Services joined together to form a Founding Team of youth to design and develop the structure of the Youth Commission.
In February, an application for the Founding Team was released. Fifteen youth initially formed the Founding Team which began meeting at the end of February 2008. The team met twice a month from February to May, developing the mission statement and goals, designing the Executive Committee of the Youth Commission, and determining the size of the group and age of eligibility. There were many spirited discussions over those four months!
Founding Team Members (May, 2009)
At the end of April, three members of the Founding Team gave a presentation to the original group of community partners. The partners were impressed and urged the group on.
On May 12, 2009, the Founding Team was ready to present their request for approval to the Board of Supervisors. Supervisor Jim Holmes was supportive on the Commission from its inception and introduced the youth and the resolution to create the Placer County Youth Commission (Resolution 2009-116 ). Five youth from the Founding Team were present to hear the unanimous vote by the Board for the formation of the Placer County Youth Commission.
In early June of 2009, applications for the Placer County Youth Commission were made available to the youth of the County.
In July of 2009, interviews for the 15 Commissioner positions were held, and in August the nominating committee composed of the Adult Advisors, community partners, and youth from the community made recommendations for the 15 seats to the Board of Supervisors. On August 18, 2009 the recommendations were approved. In October 2009, the first ever meeting of the formal Placer County Youth Commission will be held.