Glen Ellyn high school students will soon have a rare opportunity to influence local village government decisions.
Starting early next year, four commission seats will be filled by teenage residents of the village. The following commissions will each have one student who can vote: Architectural Review Commission; Cable Communications Foundation; Environmental Commission; and Historic Sites Commission.
“I felt that these would be the areas that the youth would be most interested in,” said Joe Wark, village president. “This is a natural step in involving youth in our community.”
An initiative to create more opportunities for young people resulted from Vision Glen Ellyn, a yearlong project that used surveys and focus groups to define long-term goals for the village and encourage citizen involvement.
“We’re hoping that the youth council will nominate some names of potential applicants, which would be representatives from both Glenbard South and Glenbard West,” Wark said.
