Under-30 Set Is Joining Political Establishment : Government: O.C. cities trying to tap into fresh ideas are courting a cadre of young adults for service.

Tony Espinoza knew long ago that he wanted to dive into politics--but he didn’t expect he would be running for a Santa Ana City Council seat so soon.

Like many of his twentysomething contemporaries, Espinoza, 26, has zigzagged from college classes to his job, looking for the right break. That break came a year and a half ago, when he was appointed to Santa Ana’s Planning Commission at the age of 24.

“I really wanted to be involved in my city, but I wasn’t sure how,” said Espinoza, a Cal State Fullerton business student. Joining a commission made his decision to campaign for the City Council in this November’s election “that much easier.”

Espinoza belongs to a cadre of young people who local governments are trying to attract for advisory boards, commissions and committees in an effort to tap into youthful ideas for a more representative government.

In Irvine, for example, the 15-member Youth Action Team comprises students from four high schools who advise the City Council about the concerns of young residents. Tustin has a committee on youth issues, which includes three local high school and middle school students.

“City officials are realizing that you need to include citizens regardless of their age, if you’re going to provide services” for them, said Sheri Erlewine, spokeswoman for the League of California Cities. “We need to have their views about a variety of city issues.”

Bob Bartlett, president of the League of California Cities and mayor of Monrovia, agreed. The league is trying to bring more teen-agers into the circle of government this year, he said.

“It’s time to start looking outward and including young people in the decision-making process,” Bartlett said. “I think it’s going to be the trend” for local governments.

To some young adults, participating in local government is a steppingstone--or test of mettle--for political office. To others, it’s a way to ensure that their voices, the opinions of the under-30 set, get equal time before decision-makers.

Espinoza said he finds his work on the Planning Commission rewarding because he has learned how city infrastructure is built and how the city staffs work. It also makes him want to affect other city issues far from his grasp as a planning commissioner.

A graduate of Orange Coast College, Espinoza has been a deputy probation officer for six years and counsels youths at Juvenile Hall. He landed the job a few years after graduating from Valley High School, where he was student body president.

School government is how he met Ted Moreno, 26, former student body president of Santa Ana High School, who was elected to the Santa Ana City Council in 1992. Moreno appointed Espinoza as a planning commissioner last year. Of the 10 people Moreno appointed to city boards, eight were under age 30, the councilman said.

“I wanted to see more young people involved to prove that the next generation can do something and be productive in cities,” said Moreno, who is running for the state Assembly in June.

Anaheim has its own youthful aspirant in 20-year-old Fullerton College student Manuel Ontiveros.

Ontiveros ran for Anaheim City Council--unsuccessfully--in 1992, at the age of 18. He was a member of Anaheim’s now-defunct Youth Commission and still serves on the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission. He also works part time as a reservations clerk at the Disneyland Hotel and interns for County Supervisor William G. Steiner.

Steiner appointed him to the county’s Human Relations Commission about two months ago.

“He’s a good role model for young people, and I felt he would bring a youth perspective to the Human Relations Commission,” Steiner said.

The commission “should reflect diversity throughout a county of 2.5 million, and certainly the perspective of young people is an important one,” Steiner said.

“We’re going to turn all this over to them some day,” he added.

Ontiveros held the post of student body president at Savannah High School, but when he got to college, he looked beyond school government.

“For me, I can make a change in my entire community being active in city politics,” he said. “On a campus, you just focus on that campus.”

Participating in local government gives young adults a “taste of what local governments face,” said David Mars, professor emeritus of Public Administration at USC. “Even if they don’t go into politics, it would make them better informed citizens.”

Sometimes, it’s about getting the voices of the young generation heard.

Espinoza’s 22-year-old wife, Aida, a Rancho Santiago Community College student, is no political aspirant, but she joined the Santa Ana Human Relations Commission because she wants better services for Latino residents, she said.

“I figured if I got involved, I hoped to do something about it,” she said.

Aida Espinoza said that despite the snail’s pace at which government sometimes operates, participating is worth the effort because it allows her to register her opinions.

The experience also has mellowed her fervor, she admits. “Once you’re in a group and have to accomplish something, you have to learn to meet people halfway,” she said.

Ontiveros said he tries to advocate recreational activities and classes that young people want.

“Sometimes, I think other (older) commissioners overlook youth activities,” said Ontiveros, who will enroll at UC Irvine next fall as a criminology major. “There are a lot of senior citizens on a lot of boards and commissions, and sometimes they don’t think that when you start cutting programs you shouldn’t cut after-school programs for kids.”

Tony Espinoza said he wants to take his concern for youths, especially the ones from gang neighborhoods in his hometown of Santa Ana, to higher office. He plans to run for the City Council in the Nov. 8 election.

“Because of my age . . . I could come in with fresh ideas on working with kids,” he said, noting that he knows former classmates who are in gangs but was never tempted to join one himself. “Maybe I could show kids that another person (who grew up) with similar circumstances could make it.”

Ontiveros said that many young adults feel they live a world away from the governmental decisions that affect them. They do not believe they are part of “the process,” he said.

“Take education fee hikes, for example,” he said. “Students are hurting, but a lot of the time, they’re not the voting segment of the society. . . . If young people would get out and vote and be active, they’d have more of a voice.”

Tustin tries to give its teen-agers a voice by putting them on an advisory board, in an effort to assure the city’s youth that they have input into the projects the city envisions for them.

“There’s no sense in putting in a program if the kids don’t want it,” said Tustin Councilwoman Leslie Pontius, who works with Mayor Jim Potts on the city’s youth committee.

In Irvine, the Youth Action Team presents quarterly forums on matters high school students want to discuss. Recently, they invited students to talk with several Irvine police officers about conflicts between police and young people.

Youth Action Team members, who are paid $5.98 an hour and put in five-hour weeks, also run a yearly survey to tap the voices of Irvine youth and listen to their concerns. The group presents its findings to the City Council in a “State of the Youth” address.

“Among people I knew, there was a disillusioned attitude toward the community, school and police,” said Luke Fenchel, 17, a junior at University High School and Youth Action Team member. “Teens in Irvine sometimes don’t feel like they’re heard. A lot of problems come from people not feeling a part of things.”

Ontiveros admitted that he gets frustrated at how powerless advisory bodies sometimes seem, but he would rather participate in them than assail them.

“A lot of people like to criticize government and criticize the system,” he said. “But if you don’t work with the system, you can’t change it.”