A publicly funded youth group that was supposed to help turn D.C.’s young people into the next generation of city leaders has been turned into a public relations arm of Mayor Adrian Fenty‘s administration, group leaders charged.
The D.C. Youth Advisory Council was founded in 2002 under then-Mayor Anthony A. Williams. New members of the council say that they want to make the group useful but aren’t getting any help from the Fenty administration.
“We’ve reached out to the mayor’s office,” said youth council chair Howard Brown, 22, of Southeast. “He’s never showed up.”
The youth council is given about $300,000 in public funds plus tens of thousands of dollars in private donations each year. According to its founding legislation, the group was designed to give D.C.’s young people a chance to give “an organized youth perspective” to public policy questions.
It hasn’t worked out that way, treasurer Brooke Bode, 16, of Georgetown, told The Examiner.
“It’s not to advocate for the youth, but to go and give out T-shirts and sunglasses at events,” Bode said.
But Fenty spokeswoman Carrie Brooks said the mayor has actually helped reinvigorate the group. The group didn’t have a quorum – despite its six-figure budget – for nearly four years until Fenty revived it.
“Since we’ve come into office, the D.C. YAC has gotten a lot more active,” Brooks said. “The mayor is supportive of them. He has no problem with them weighing in on issues.”
At the heart of the matter is the vague language of the youth council’s founding law. Although nominally independent, the youth council’s funding came out of the mayor’s budget. That created an insurmountable internal conflict.
Fenty aide Janice Ferebee recruited a full roster last summer and the new youth council members were excited to affect change in their city. Instead, Brown and Bode said, they were organizing pizza parties that no one from the Fenty administration attended.
“It was a big waste of time and money,” Brown said. “It was just PR.”
