Okay, everyone.

Welcome to today's second assembly work session.

The title of the session is Meet and Greet with Assembly Youth Representative Candidates.

So we're going to start with roll call and then I'll talk about what we're going to be doing for the rest of our hour.

So go ahead.

George Martinez.

Janice Park.

Aaron Baldwin Day.

Sydney Scout.

Daniel Boland.

Anna Brawley.

Yarrow Silvers.

And do we have any members on the phone, assembly members?

Okay, we don't have any right now.

We may have in a bit.

And then I'll also note that we have assembly council in the room, legislative services, one of our former youth rep members, Mr.

Lavarius, and clerk staff.

And then we also have our youth candidates.

So we will get to introductions of you all.

I will note for everybody that we have six folks that we've invited to be here.

It looks like we're still waiting for one of them, and then one is on the phone.

And so just to note those are our folks will hear from them shortly.

And I'll walk through some pieces of our business before we get to that.

So thanks everybody for being here today.

It's once again time to select our assembly youth representative or representatives.

And then as I've said in the past, we've had a cohort of folks.

So we are considering uh multiple, potentially multiple candidates for this role.

Uh the purpose of this work session is to get to know our candidates to help inform the selection decision for our 2026 to 2027 cohort.

While this program doesn't require a specific number of representatives, we found that a cohort of multiple uh students has worked well for our business and for the youth reps themselves.

So uh at this point, our assumption is we're going to be selecting multiple people.

So we'll move into that.

The selection responsibility ultimately falls to the chair.

Um, so this is not a body vote or decision technically, um, but in following the process that we've set out and that we've used in the past, we have invited candidates to spend time with the full assembly so that you can hear from prospective candidates.

And I definitely will welcome feedback um sent through legislative services staff, uh, Jen, who's been managing this process, and she will compile compile members' comments to help us make uh that decision.

Uh so we had 13 applicants this year, which was really amazing.

Uh it was really tough to narrow down candidates for the second round of the selection process.

Um, I'll just note that in that process, uh, three assembly members, myself, myself, Ice Chair Boland, and Member Silvers participated in that review and selection process.

Um, so that that's kind of how we got to the list we have today.

So we have six candidates before us today.

They represent or are from uh five different Anchorage Area High Schools.

And as a reminder, uh youth representatives will be serving during the upcoming school year, seated with the assembly during uh meetings, beginning with our first meeting in September, which is September 1st, and running through the end of April.

They may also join committees and participate in work sessions and informal meetings, community events, things like that as they're able.

Uh the youth representatives receive the same materials presented to assembly members for regular and special meetings, and their role is to give a yes or no preferential vote on each item that's up before the assembly, with some exceptions, such as uh alcohol and marijuana, which are uh things that are related to uh things that you have to be 18 or 21 to consume.

Uh the selected candidates will receive training and orientation from legislative services in the clerk's office.

We hope to match them with an assembly mentor.

So assembly members, if you are interested in being a mentor for one or more of our folks, um please let me know.

Um, or just think about it and let me know as we do our selection.

Um, so to our youth candidates.

And I see we've been joined by um Miss Is it Katone or Katoni?

Yeah, Katone.

Okay, thank you.

So we have all six of our folks uh represented here.

To our youth candidates, thank you so much for making time in your final days of summer vacation this year to join us.

Uh we understand it can be intimidating to sit up here.

Um so we want to assure you this is a welcoming space.

We want to encourage you guys to be yourselves, do your best.

No right or wrong answers here.

Um, and really we are just getting trying to get a sense more of who you are and what you're about.

Very few of us up here were actually involved in our local government at to this extent at your age.

So I think I can speak for all of us.