SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio city budget meetings are nothing new around town. What is new about Saturday’s session, however, is the audience in attendance.
More than 80 young people between 12 and 24 years old spent the day speaking their minds with city leaders.
“You know, even though we can’t vote, we still want to be a part of the conversation,” Jonah Espinoza said.
Espinoza, 19, is a UTSA student and the Vice-Chair of the City of San Antonio Higher Education Student Advisory Board. He helped organize Saturday’s budget meeting.
Espinoza said education is a personal passion. He wants young people in San Antonio to stay educated about what’s happening in the city.
“I mean, just statistically, youth make up 35%. That is ages zero to 24 of San Antonio’s population,” Espinoza said. “But this past fiscal year budget, only 6% of the general fund was allocated towards youth programming.”
Organizations like the San Antonio Youth Commission helped organize Saturday morning’s event. The commission helped bring city leaders like Mayor Ron Nirenberg to speak to attendees.
They first discussed how budgets work and what would be included in the city’s 2025 budget. Attendees then asked questions and offered feedback on what they’d like to see the city do.
“I can definitely see how it could be boring, but I’m a big proponent of the concept that it is what you make it,” San Antonio Youth Commission chair Julia Doski said. “And I think that if you really get involved, you start looking into the budget, you kind of build those questions and that wonder for yourself.”
Doski, 17, said she wants to convince other people her age to develop an interest in city politics.
“A lot of the decisions that are being made in politics now are going to affect us the most,” Doski said.
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