Students Rule the Day : Education: High school youths take authority in stride as they step into Santa Clarita officials’ shoes.

Teen-ager Mike Magdaleno thought he knew the sheriff’s deputy whose job he was to perform during Santa Clarita’s Youth-in-Government Day. How could he ever forget the cop who nabbed him for speeding? Twice.

As city officials and their student counterparts gathered at City Hall early Wednesday, the stocky youth was biting his lip at the prospect of getting a close-up view of government through the eyes of his nemesis, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Thomas Banks.

“Banks has given tickets to over half of Saugus High,” said Magdaleno, 17, who aspires to be a sheriff’s deputy himself, despite his brushes with the law. “I think that’s who they said I’d get.”

But Magdaleno’s fears turned out to be unfounded.

“I’m Lt. William Bengston, and you’re me today,” said a tall deputy, extending his right hand to Magdaleno and ending the teen-ager’s ordeal.

About 23 other Santa Clarita teen-agers endured a few nervous moments of their own, as they strived to converse one-on-one with city officials during the half-day program sponsored by the city’s Parks Department.

They even passed a curfew on themselves, jumping the gun on a debate by the real City Council only hours later.

The youths, representing many of the area’s seven high schools, volunteered to miss classes for a day and were assigned by program administrators to shadow officials, including City Council members. All donned ties or other appropriate office wear, as suggested by their teachers.

Not everyone got his first choice of job assignment.

“I wanted to be the city manager, because I figured he does more work than the council members,” said Kyle Draganov, 18, who played the role of Councilman Howard (Buck) McKeon.

The surrogate fire chief, 17-year-old Heather Stewart, couldn’t have been more pleased with her assignment.

“I’m all stoked--maybe there’ll be some good-looking guys at the fire station,” Stewart said to her friends before the students left with their assigned officials.

At the Los Angeles County Fire Department station on Seco Canyon Road, firefighters stood at attention as Stewart and fellow student Kevin Bialas, 17, conducted an inspection to see that they were properly groomed and that their equipment was in good condition.

Later, all Stewart had to say about the thirtysomething firefighters was “too old.”

Deputy Fire Chief Leon Provost had a couple of pointers for the students during the inspection.

“You want to make sure there are no tears in their protective clothing, but one of the obligations when you make an inspection is that you don’t want to cost the county a lot of money,” said Provost with a wry smile.

Less than a mile away at the sheriff’s station, 17-year-old Stacy Ottenhoff was making her first decisions as head of detectives.

“Put on a tie, sergeant, and no, you can’t have the day off,” said Ottenhoff, whose long blond hair and innocent expression attracted a great deal of good-natured ribbing from the male detectives.

Ottenhoff used her position to personal advantage, advising Detective William Wood to thoroughly investigate an actual burglary that occurred two weeks ago at her 24-year-old brother’s condo.

“You better solve that one,” Ottenhoff said jokingly.

For students assigned to jobs at City Hall, the morning was filled with preparations for both a mock City Council meeting in the afternoon and an actual one that evening.

“I was surprised to learn that I can only meet with two council members at a time or else I’d be suspected of trying to influence their vote,” said teen-ager Ye Won Min, who sat in the city manager’s high-backed chair preparing for the mock council meeting.

The mock council took about an hour before voting 3 to 2 to approve the most important measure their adult counterparts would debate only a few hours later--the proposed curfew on those under 18.

Despite some misgivings, they voted in favor of it--but amended it to begin at 11 p.m. instead of 10 p.m.-- after hearing an impassioned plea for the proposed law by Joe Cedillo, the 17-year-old playing the role of Sheriff’s Capt. Robert Spierer. The curfew was proposed by the Sheriff’s Department because of repeated complaints about large groups of teens who congregate in parking lots, cruise the streets or descend on normally tranquil neighborhoods for parties.

Free to be themselves again after the vote, the teen-agers seemed more relaxed than they’d been all day.

In a parting speech, City Manager George Caravalho told the group not to worry if they felt uncomfortable with city officials. “On a personal note, I was somewhat of an introvert when I was young and would have been very uncomfortable with this,” Caravalho, 52, said.

Former police official Cedillo supplied the youths’ reply, speaking confidently into the microphone on the council platform:

“On a personal note, if you ever want someone to run the city again, you can call us back.”