Torres attends council meeting for Youth Leadership Initiative

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Nubia Torres, a sophomore at Perry High School, attended the Monday meeting of the Perry City Council as part of her membership in the Youth Leadership Initiative of Greater Des Moines.

Nubia Torres of Perry, a 16-year-old sophomore at Perry High School, attended the Monday night meeting of the Perry City Council and saw a typical cross section of city affairs.

Torres, president of the sophomore class and a member of the PHS student council, came to observe the machinery of city government as part of her membership in the Youth Leadership Initiative (YLI) of Greater Des Moines.

The YLI, according to its website, “fosters leadership skills among high school sophomores and juniors in Greater Des Moines through experiential mentoring and leadership opportunities that enhance self-esteem and encourage involvement in all levels of community life.”

Torres said she is the first Perry High School student to be admitted to the Des Moines-centered leadership group, and all it took was a letter of recommendation from one teacher and an application. The group’s first meeting was Sept. 6 in Des Moines, she said, and included a tour of the sculpture park and other sites.

Torres chose a meeting of the Perry City Council that was fairly representative of the usual range of matters taken up by the council members.

“This gave me a new outlook on what’s going on around town,” Torres said after the council adjourned. She said she liked the way the meeting went from fine-grained details of sealing cracks in the Wiese Park trail up to the niceties of parliamentary procedure in amending a city zoning ordinance.

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