As the March 2 mayoral election approaches, many Santa Fe teens are planning to cast the first vote of their lives. As always it can be hard to cut through campaign promises and wordy rhetoric in order to understand where the candidates stand on issues important to teens. So Generation Next asked each mayoral candidate — incumbent Mayor David Coss, former City Manager Asenath Kepler, and — the same set of questions regarding parks, youth's role in the city, the dropout rate and a planned-but-unfunded teen center. Here's what they said.

Parks

On the whole, all three candidates feel the same about parks. They should be properly maintained and operated. According to both Coss and Kepler, a revenue bond that allots money for the improvement of parks and trails is still being tapped to renovate both parks — such as Patrick Smith — and trails throughout the city.

"The parks have to be a priority ... because they are a part of the basic services that we deliver to the people," Kepler said.

But there's also the issue of the curfew imposed on Santa Fe's parks.

"Santa Fe doesn't have a curfew, per se, but the parks all have a curfew of dark," Coss said, who cites an inability to keep the parks safe due to a lack of police officers to monitor every park. However, both Chavez and Kepler would be in favor of extending the curfew on the parks — especially in the summer months when days are long and people stay out later. The biggest issue appears to be the fact that many Santa Fe parks are close to many neighborhoods.

"I think for some of the parks we could probably be more flexible and make the curfew 10:30 (p.m.), which is what the old curfew used to be," Chavez said. "I would consider having more flexibility in the curfew so that in the larger regional parks, the curfew could be 10:30 but for neighborhood pocket parks, keep the curfew of dusk or dark," Chavez said.

All three candidates view skateboards favorably and feel the need to find money to build a new skate park or maintain current skate parks.

Incorporating teens

Right now, as far as teens in the city go, there is a Mayor's Youth Advisory Board, headed by Santa Fe Preparatory School student and GenNext staffer Alex Wirth. According to Coss, he was "the first mayor to appoint a teenager to the (City) Planning Committee." That person has now graduated and is in college.

Both Chavez and Kepler feel the need to keep MYAB in place. One of the things they all agree on is the fact that teens need to be involved in the way the city is run in order to make it more youth friendly.

"The youth's role in our community would be to try to focus on your education in order to have the skills that are required to go into the workplace ... and try to make a positive impact on your local community by volunteering," Chavez said. Kepler and Coss agreed — Kepler emphasized teen community service and Coss emphasized his work with YouthWorks and creation of what he calls "green-collar jobs."

Addressing education

"We need to be using our public-information capacity to get out to the people how very, very important it is for the people of the City of Santa Fe to help our young people by encouraging them to stay in school, by working with them to stay in school and achieve their goal," said Kepler. Despite the fact that Santa Fe Public Schools is under the watch of the state, all three believe the community must do what is necessary to keep kids in school. Coss touts his green-collar jobs internships as well as the city's work with YouthWorks. Chavez, like Kepler, sees a need for students to see practical applications of what is being learned in school through city internships and other opportunities to get involved.

"We are trying to fix the defects in the public school system but we have limits — the city has limits to what it can do," Chavez said.

The teen center

According to Coss, there has been a new teen center planned for Santa Fe for a while. It has been drawn out, and the hope is that it will be built on Llano Street, where there is an unused swimming pool at the LaFarge Branch of the Santa Fe Public Library, but there is no money.

According to Chavez, the family of the late Michael Maloof, a beer distributor, donated money to the city to be used for a teen center, given that the center be named after a member of the Maloof family, and the city turned that offer down.

But, according to New Mexican archives, the Maloof family offered $1 million to the city for the Southside Branch Library, not a teen center, on the condition that the library be named after Michael Maloof. The city didn't want to name a library after a beer distributor, so the family withdrew its offer.

Chavez said the city should have taken the money. "When he have these opportunities ... we need to embrace concepts like that and accept the funding when we have it so that we're not in this situation," Chavez said.

Kepler also feels it is important to "do the hard job of cutting unnecessary spending" in order to fund both parks and the teen center.

David J. Salazar is a junior at Santa Fe High School. You can reach him at davidjsalazar@gmail.com.