Warden students attend council meeting

WARDEN — Warden High School students packed the city hall chambers.

The students from Shanna Golladay’s leadership class were there to observe how a city council meeting operates. This is the first year the high school teacher required students to sit in on a city council and a school board meeting.

“If they actually made a presentation, they got an extra 10 bonus points,” she said.

Golladay said the exercise had two goals, the first was to show students how a meeting is run, and the second is to find out what is going on in the community.

“I kind of get a debriefing afterwards,” she said. “It’s kind of interesting to see what they get out of it. Even though they don’t want to go, they’ll probably say they it was a valuable experience.”

Along with learning about the council, Golladay hopes attending the meeting helped members of the student government will benefit from attending the meeting.

“They’re total chaos. Everybody thinks everything is unfair,” she said. “That is the reason why I had them go to the meeting. They can learn how a meeting is run and just find out what’s going on in our community.”

The students asked questions ranging from what is happening with closed down city water toys to how they can stop children from using foul language.

Fernando Capetillo asked about the non-functioning water toys at Volunteer Park in Warden, asking if the city is planning to fix them.

Mayor Roldan Capetillo said there is about $45,000 to replace them with functioning toys, adding the project ends up getting delayed by more important matters.

“It started as a $25,000 project six years ago, now it’s a $45,000 project,” he said.

Councilmember Tony Massa echoed this, saying it’s in the budget and he keeps hoping there won’t be an emergency to delay the project.

Another student asked about the block watch program started by resident Kayla Kight as a response to complaints about crime in the city.

“It’s not something the city has done,” Roldan Capetillo said. “It’s something started by a private individual with help from the Warden police. It’s something you can continue with … The neighborhood watch is still in effect.”

Angelica Gonzales said she was surprised with the size of Warden’s $5 million budget, which passed on Tuesday night.

“That was a real eye opener for her,” Golladay said.