Video Description:
Library Board Meeting – May 23, 2021
Note: The following is the output of transcribing from a video recording. Although the transcription, which was done with software, is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or [software] transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the meeting, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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Unknown Speaker 0:01
Okay, I have it’s seven o’clock by my computer. So I’ll call the meeting to order. I did not hear from Donna as to whether there’s anybody from the public.
Unknown Speaker 0:13
We did not say that she had anybody. So we did not have anyone from the public request
Unknown Speaker 0:19
admittance. Okay, great. So we’ll move forward then. Approval of the minutes from last meeting. Do I get a any discussion or conversation about the meeting? minutes? Or can I move for approval?
Unknown Speaker 0:42
not seeing any indication that we want to talk about this any further. Can I get a motion to approve the minutes? I move the minutes be approved. Second? Catherine, you really need to approve. And unmute myself Second. Okay, Aye. Aye. All in favor? raise their hands. Okay, meeting minutes are approved. Let’s move on to do the normal stuff, then. The reports and the informational items. Nancy, you want to kick it off, please?
Unknown Speaker 1:29
You were and the first thing I had down was the status of the construction project, which I wrote one thing up and then things change today. So So every time we think we’re getting closer, we’re not quite there yet. So um, I believe since the last meeting, I don’t believe at the last meeting, we had the anything about the East entry, the East where we were almost we were almost done. And looking toward reopening, we were hoping for early June. But since then, we have had a discovery that the area in the East entry, which is right as you walk into the East lobby of the library, there’s kind of a tall trade ceiling. Apparently, that used to be a hole used to be a pass through to the upstairs of the library when the library was first constructed. And it stayed that way. 93 would it open until about 97. As far as we can determine at which point they closed off the hole. For the upstairs. I think part of it was because it was people told me it was kind of an echo chamber and that it was really super loud. So apparently when they did that, though, and it was not done with a strong enough structure to be truly load bearing. So it’s a good thing that we only have some computers upstairs above that and carols and not not bookshelves. So because it wouldn’t have been able to support the weight for long. So starting tomorrow, they’ll be ripping the ceiling out. And please the downstairs part we don’t know if they’re going to have to tear it all the way through to the upstairs. Or if they’ll just have to go up to the steel underpinning. There are beams there, but they are too small. And apparently there’s some other work that has to be done there as well. So we will be for the patrons, they’re going to see the same thing for curbside that we’ve been doing all along. But the staffs going to have to go sprinting through the back staff area and ouch and emergency exit door and around to be able to do curbside. So like I said, we decided to keep it on that side instead of trying to flip it to the other side because we thought it’d be too confusing for patrons. And the west side also has a lot of landscaping work and machinery in the way. So we’re kind of macgyvering another solution to providing service to patrons. And Theresa Meyers who who left to go to public works natural resources for their PR position, but it was handling ours as it had to do with construction is going to be handling the construction aspect of our PR and marketing stills. So she’s going to be overtaking some videos and and publicizing our latest library elements. If I can put it that way, we will know more about the length of the project. And also the complexity of the project after they’re able to take down the ceiling tomorrow and Wednesday mornings. So I knew that that was coming this past week. But today found out that there are at least four or five spots that have to be investigated on the second floor. So we thought we were in the clear there. We don’t think we are so some things have been diagnosed by the engineer. And so we’re going to have to do some moving of shelving potentially and some are moving. Remember a little carpet up stairs to see what those cracks or flaws look like. So we’re not quite out of the woods yet downstairs looks great. With the exception of the foyer that’s about to not look great. The Children’s area has been completed. So everything is is moving back there. And someday we’ll get out of curbside. So that’s where we are with the construction. And let’s see, if we go to the budget update.
Unknown Speaker 5:29
Before you do that, the question? Yeah. So with all this activity that’s been going on to, you know, repair things as, as the city finds them, all those maintenance issues that you had, from previous years that have built up and that you were looking for, I guess supporting in remedying Are they all part of this project as well.
Unknown Speaker 6:00
Some of them are some of them weren’t part of the project, but they’re being addressed anyway. As long as they’re in there doing things, you know, we’ve had areas that were not originally intended to be part of the project, some flooring, some flooring in the staff bathrooms are hallway, flooring leading into the loading dock some of those areas that weren’t slated to be done as part of the project. But as long as they’re in there, they have attended to those, as well as I think the biggest was what we talked about last time, which is the team lab area. So we have had quite a few other issues addressed. The keyhole is still being worked on the keyhole that’s outside the outside portion of it. Here, the children’s department where we had the leaking and the other other problems that just no longer leaks it’s being worked on now. So we still have some other issues, we have not had one of those torrential sideways rains, where it leaks in all of our windows. And so I mean, there are still other building issues, our h back is not completely reliable. But there are some other smaller things that have been attended to kind of outside of the project.
Unknown Speaker 7:08
In all those those Kwazii maintenance safety issues that we were kicking around for a year or so when you come out of this show, you’ll be absent those that
Unknown Speaker 7:23
know not all of them. Not every single thing in this building will be up to code or or fixed through this this project was kind of limited in scope. So
Unknown Speaker 7:35
so so the I may not have this right. So the there were like some concrete issues and
Unknown Speaker 7:43
the concrete issues have been addressed, those have already been fixed on the east side so that the areas where we had the cracks have been fixed. And worried about tripping hazards on the east side and the west side. Those are both in fixed, okay, great. And actually they’re going to kind of as long as they’re there, they have replaced the railing on the east side by the by the patron entrance. And they are going to fix the stairs and the railings along the loading dock area to which are not up to code. So those will be repaired as well. Okay. Thanks. Thanks for that additional bit of
Unknown Speaker 8:21
Nancy, I was just wondering, are you getting pushback from the community for being closed? Like you were saying about PR effort? No,
Unknown Speaker 8:29
we were until we did a lot more PR about what the issues are. And you know, we do have the videos that were taken that we’ve pointed quite a few patrons to and etc. And so after that, actually we got cards and chocolate and all kinds of nice comments from patrons saying Oh, you poor things. So, you know, we have really nice patients and some of them are frustrated as we are with just the length of time that it’s taking, but they’ve been very kind. Okay, any other questions on this topic? Okay, Nancy, please. Okay, we have submitted our preliminary budget to the department has so. So our budget that you know, our budgeted amount is negligibly different than last year. So we have the same pretty much the same base budget with a couple of exceptions. One, we’ve had a couple of things that came up this past year. One is the obligation now to pay non benefited employees one vacation hour for every 40 hours worked I believe it is so with our staff, it comes out to about three days a year for a part time, non benefited in play that they are now they have three days of paid sick time in a year. So I was trying to to request that and was told today that I did not need to request that separately. that that would be something that would be added on to our budget through the city. So since we have a lot of temp employees that comes out to, we figured about $8,000 a year, in sick days, for our part timers, part time numbers of employees, but we are, as we had discussed at one point, going to ask for several positions, we are asking for a full time bilingual outreach coordinator, we’ve been talking about this for quite some time, that would be a library in one position. And right now we have several of our bilingual employees that are, are doing a lot of our actually all of our translation work, etc, and a lot of our bilingual outreach, but they also have jobs, or they have pretty much full time job duties already. So we would like to have a more coordinated concerted effort towards serving our Spanish speaking community. So we’re looking for someone to coordinate to do all of the outreach themselves, but to coordinate the outreach being done by by themselves and various other library employees that are bilingual. We are asking for the money to restore our prospector loan service, that is a service that we had abandoned this past year, the vendor would not negotiate, it’s quite expensive. I think I had mentioned that before that we were we paid for our consortium with whole eight branches, about, let’s see, we pay 52,000 a year for this service. And I think Denver Public pays 17. So we were trying to do negotiate that a bit. I don’t know how negotiable it is. But that is something that our patrons have really missed. That is the service that provides books very quickly from books and materials from all over Colorado and from segments have a couple of other neighboring states. So I know I use it on a regular basis, when I place holds, I’m always, you know, fascinated when I get something from Denver or something from Grand Junction in two or three days, we did not have that this year. So when we didn’t have it this year, we have had to use a lot of Interlibrary Loan instead. And what that means is that we have library staff that look up through a catalogue that covers pretty much libraries across the country and outside of the US to they have to often make a lot of phone calls back and forth to see they can find an item in another library, they have to call to see if that library will learn the item. And then there’s mailing actual physical feeling of items back and forth. So for us, we have what used to be a rather a relatively small amount of work on interlibrary loan that one person did as part of their job to something that three people are working on. So it’s just not cost effective for us to not have prospector and I think it’s been detrimental to the service we’re able to provide that takes a lot longer, you can get anything through interlibrary loan, if you’re a patron, but it may take weeks or a month instead of a couple of days like pasta,
Unknown Speaker 12:58
asked for that to be week, funded or funded once again, not being funded. or asking for a couple of 20 hour part time non benefited positions for children and teens. Now that we have that new teen area, we actually need to have a little more staff to be able to staff that service point. We do not have any room in the team for children in the teen and children’s work room area to swish one more body in there. So they pretty much have to go with some some part timers that can come in and come out and not need a dedicated just space there. We have asked for our Wi Fi hotspot maintenance ongoing. We have 89 Wi Fi hotspots at this point. I’ve counted sometimes some days we have 85 checked out out of 89. So they’ve been immensely popular. The friends funded our initial nine hotspots. We received 80 more through a grant, but they have a service contract every year. So we’ve asked for 90 $600 to keep those hotspots going. We’ve asked for a computer lab coordinator since we are looking to relocate our computer area upstairs and expand that area where the compact shelving used to be. We are looking for someone to coordinate classes and our efforts up there. We are asking for a new large scale printers slash plotter. We have one now it is quite bold. We print posters and signage not only for the library, but for other departments. And it’s requiring a whole lot of maintenance and babying every time we use it. So I think let’s see we asked for one last thing in addition to our regular budget. We are looking for pre pot pre processing costs for library adult and children’s fiction. I’ve been talking about this since I’ve been since I got here. This is the only library I’ve worked at in the 20 something years I’ve been in library is where we do every bit of the processing of materials by hand, everything gets backed up, it is not cost effective to have staff doing that. So we’re looking to have our vendors initially do all of our fiction materials. What that means is that when we order them, you pay a small fee per item. for that item to have the stickers, the barcodes, the stamps, the RFID tags, put on them, as well as the mylar plastic cover that goes on them, they come to your library, ready to go on the shelf. So you check them in and you put them on the shelf. Right now we get all of them just naked from the vendors just as though you would have gone to buy it at at the bookstore. And we have to do all of that by hand. So we end up with our little our materials sitting on the shelf for quite some time in the back before they end up in patrons hands. And that’s a lot of staff time. So in the long run, for the most part, it is usually less expensive, at least for the fiction materials that don’t have to be cataloged or catalogs records changed, it’s more cost effective to actually have that done by the vendors. So the rest of our budget is pretty much those are above and beyond what’s in our base budget, our base budget has not changed, like I said from last year. It is what it is. And so we’ve shifted a bunch of things around in our base budget to try and better match what our actual spending has been. We didn’t really look at 2020 as any sort of comparison with you know, because it’s just totally abnormal. So when we look at when we look at our line items in our base budget, we really look at how they’ve been spent or not spent over time. So we do have access in our budget system to the last four years of data for comparative data. So that’s been really useful just to look and see Oh, look, we always overspend here. Look, we always understand here. So we are making progress. Some things that they’ve been adding to the budget process this year, are some explanations of how our budget requests support equity, diversity and inclusion. So that is something that’s that’s not terribly difficult to look at. With library budget requests. It’s you know, hard to say that a bilingual outreach coordinator does not support equity, diversity and inclusion, for example. So so we we feel pretty good about what we’ve submitted so far. We’re still in the preliminary stages, though. Well, you give money back to the city this year. We did last year. Because you know, there’s no way that we could I mean, some things we just couldn’t spend money on, because it was COVID.
Unknown Speaker 17:41
I don’t know, I understand. I hope the city recognizes that. Do you think you’ll be giving money back in 2021?
Unknown Speaker 17:48
I hope not. I hope we spend every dime. So that the best I’ve ever done is at one library in Illinois, it was off by nine cents for the entire year. That was kind of a fluke. But no, I hope I hope we’re able to spend it all this year. Okay, great. Any other questions for Nancy? Well, Katherine, and then Tim.
Unknown Speaker 18:12
Oh, just briefly, I was wondering if there are any other like linguistic communities that need you know, translation services? I’m I’m not familiar in long one if there’s, like another substantial community outside of the Spanish speaking community, or if that are some growing segments
Unknown Speaker 18:29
of the community that speak other languages, but so far, not not a huge significant number. So, um, you know, you’re looking at 26% of the population that Spanish speaking and that’s very significant. There are some other languages and we are adding to some of our cart of World Languages collections, but we have not seen a huge growth in other segments yet.
Unknown Speaker 18:55
Tell someone? Thanks, Mark. Yeah, what’s your what’s your top line? Regardless of all of the the line items in the budget, what does it roll up to in terms of total dollars?
Unknown Speaker 19:07
I think we’re at three, we’re at 3,000,800. And something
Unknown Speaker 19:12
okay, cuz 4 million is what I’ve had in my head, right as the as the rounding? Yeah. There. You got it. 200,000. If so, here’s a follow on question. Has anybody asked you about one time? What would be are your priorities for one time expenditures in 2021?
Unknown Speaker 19:32
We have a couple of priorities. But we you know, we’re going to talk about this and in I think a little bit later in this meeting, but there are a couple things that we’re looking to spend some most refined money on to
Unknown Speaker 19:42
know I’m not talking about most your fund money. I’m talking about general fund money. No, you haven’t been asked if you had if you have recommendations or proposals or priorities for the expenditure of one time general fund money in 2021.
Unknown Speaker 19:56
Well, we weren’t we weren’t told not to. I mean, so I could put something in I mean, the things that we’re looking for that we were looking for a potential motor find money, but it could be out of the general fund would be our electronics order. That’s, that’s about. That’s about 225,000 for that project. And the other thing that we’re looking looking to put in, like I said, is put in a computer lab space upstairs. So we’ve been talking to a company called very var II, that does bless panels that linked together that are about seven and a half feet tall, so that we could use those to both make a computer lab in the area where the compact shelving is now that we’re getting rid of, and also use those to enclose two more alcoves for study rooms. How much is the printer? The plotters, 5300 and something for that?
Unknown Speaker 20:49
Well, I’m just suggesting last Tuesday night, we were we’ve got our in our first budget, discussion and presentation from Jim. And we grossly underestimated what what general fund revenues would look like in 2021. So for the first time ever, we were asked if we had recommendations or priorities for one time expenditures, had I known we were going to get that question I would have chatted with you ahead of time to say, you give me your list, right? Yeah. So I offered a couple of ideas. But as you’re as I’m listening to you now, I’m listening for what what are the one time expenditures that you might, you know, I’m having that mix and the printers one of them. If you would send me even just a sentence or whatever, whatever description with $1 figure, I promise you, I will follow up to say, let me add Harold to my, you know, to my recommendations, for one time expenditures in 2020.
Unknown Speaker 21:51
I was looking at those, I would also look at some furniture and furnishings for our new teen space because we didn’t have that space and didn’t expect that space. Yeah. And also some I don’t have a quote on this, though. But new shelving for the children’s department. The shelving is just abominable in the children’s department. It’s ugly. It’s the laminating itself. Little by little strips are coming off, and it almost fell apart when it got moved to do the carpet.
Unknown Speaker 22:17
Don’t be bashful. Give me give me give me a list of descriptions in $1 figure. Okay. Okay. And I can’t make any guarantees. Other than I’ll get it. I will get it into the into the queue. But I also promised I’ll follow up on it. Right. Yeah, I will. I will be happy to send you a list of things we’d like to spend money on. Yeah. One time one time expenditures, all the other things you talked about sounded like ongoing, you know, personnel service, printer, plotter those were ongoing. Yeah. So. All right. Thank you, Mark.
Unknown Speaker 22:49
Can I ask Nancy, what vintage of the strategic plan are you working on?
Unknown Speaker 22:56
We don’t even have one mark. It expired right before I got her. So we were looking Originally, we were looking toward originally toward the material and findings from the consultant to inform our next strategic plan.
Unknown Speaker 23:13
No. Okay. That was just thinking in response to the council members question that might be a source of ideas for you to pass along as well. If current,
Unknown Speaker 23:29
we do have some I will send that along with some some info, though, because some of the things that we’re looking at were things that were clearly identified by respondents to our feasibility study.
Unknown Speaker 23:41
So that’d be real helpful to be able to connect our ground. Yep. whatever else you would add to that list, in what you what you’ve heard. You know, and I don’t know that there is I don’t know if it’d be worth going back to anything that might have been in the quality of life survey from, you know, a year or so ago. We haven’t. We’re behind the curve. I think we need to do that again. And I talked to somebody about that earlier today. But But anything in terms of one time expenditure, we could talk tied to a identifiable need, or as Mark was suggesting, and objective to say, if we’re serious about this objective. This is this is unnecessary expenditure. If we care about seriously care about objective x, whatever it is, so
Unknown Speaker 24:26
get a jumpstart on your feasibility recommendations. You had something that was clearly a strategic objective for the library and now see opportunity where you might get some funding seemed to me that would be negligent, not to at least put in front of counsel,
Unknown Speaker 24:47
when looking at the computer lab space that we’re talking about, you know, we were at that’s one good thing I guess about being closed for a while is that you know, you get really intimately acquainted with your building. We looked at that compact shelving that was Really not being used upstairs. And that that would be a prime space, if there’s anything we learned from COVID. It’s how wide the digital divide actually is, and how even when we give folks, you know, a Chromebook, or a Wi Fi hotspot, etc, they don’t know what they’re doing with it. So I think you know, what, what we heard over and over during COVID, from our patrons, and when we spend a lot of time on the phone, and now by our texting a text Librarian service is that they need more than actually the machine that they can plunk down at at the library, that they need the instruction that goes with it. So you know, some some things have come from previous strategic plans, and also from our first visit our first part of the feasibility study, but some things have come from have emerged from COVID. You have what did people miss the most need the most? that we don’t have?
Unknown Speaker 25:53
So? Well, the only other thing I’ll say is, this is the first time we’ve been asked it ever in a budgeting cycle, but especially in the middle of the year. Do you have a wish list? And yeah, so let’s not miss the opportunity.
Unknown Speaker 26:10
No, I will be I will happy to give him he’ll be happy to give them to you along with accompanying price tags. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 26:19
Okay, great. Any more questions on the budget? Oh, this is just a quick one. Nancy, what’s prospector? Is that part of a group effort with the consortium?
Unknown Speaker 26:32
Yeah, it prospector. Up until now it was always a consortium effort, a combined effort. And this year as a consortium, you know, we could have afforded it, but some of the libraries could not. So they were one of the few vendors of any sort of electronic resource or other resources that would not negotiate at all. So we all decided as a group that we would not use prospector this year, hoping to have a little bit more bargaining power, etc. It didn’t really work with them. So I don’t know whether the consortium as a whole will choose to go back to prospector next year or not. But you know, we’re looking at it is our patient service at this point. So some of the libraries that especially a couple of the smaller ones, that they’ve barely had any patron complaints about the lack thereof, we do a lot more lending, a lot of borrowing a lot more borrowing and lending from that and other libraries do in our consortium. So I think we’re using more in staff time, then I know we’re using a lot more staff time. So I think it’ll actually be cheaper for us to go back to prospector than to stick with a lesser service. Okay. We’ll move on unless you had something else Nancy. Yeah, we have you know, your basic library stuff but but I can, you know, send that out or summer reading is coming. Most of our programming is still virtual because we had no idea when we would open. So still doing a booming curbside business. Very good. Friends and library report.
Unknown Speaker 28:16
Yes, I have. They had their annual meeting on May 19. The board will not meet until Wednesday of this week. At the annual meeting, the treasurer Lynn Newberry gave her report. They their pasture income has been about 1/5 of the amount that’s been earned in prior years obviously due to the pandemic. The income they did have came from the lobby shop, their online sales, the gift shop and Dreamworld books. However, they do have an amount of savings that was held, and this has funded the programming for this year. And it will continue to do it for in the future. The quarterly book sales should be able to resume later this year. They’re hopefully looking for one sometime later in the fall. They have four vacant positions on the board. So they elected four new board members. A gentleman Frank says kowski, who has been working with the treasurer to learn the treasurer’s duties. He’ll need to be elected by the board at the board meeting. Wanda Ferguson, Linda Stewart and Maria karagiannis. And that was pretty much it for the annual meeting. Nancy gave a wonderful update about the library situation and she had some questions and so forth. But it was a good meeting and I’ll learn more at the board meeting on Wednesday.
Unknown Speaker 29:50
Okay, any questions for Kathy? No, but it looks like we have a member of the public who just showed up for the public wish to be heard Miriam, she’s so big.
Unknown Speaker 30:11
Whoa, whoa, hold that in abeyance till she wants to say something. Okay, city council liaison report. I asked you have a couple items just included on here. Councilman to to help us stay current with some of the things that might impact the library at some point, you can pass along with additional information you might have in that regard in your report. That would be great.
Unknown Speaker 30:43
Yeah, I’ve had. Well, let’s just let’s just focus on that. And there. I mean, if you have questions about fireworks, healthy choices, or anything else that we’ve talked about this made the news, I’m happy to answer your questions, if you have them. But if we stay kind of in that flow of, of what we’ve been talking about, I’ve had a couple of conversations with leadership of epi, the most recent of which included, held them Angus and another council member and trying to help them think through the timing on a strategy, what that strategy might look like, especially if it was a strategy crafted with Friends of the Library, depending on what we see from from the consultant working on the library feasibility study. So at the bottom, and by the way, that what prompted that was the NIC it’s on the agenda is the the next item under under my report is the museum. We turn the public engagement process in where they’re going with the update of their strategic plan. So we’ll talk about the the combination of these things. So one of the outcomes of the conversation with epi leadership was Bob Bozeman, who is the chair of that group and is the director of the corral was going to follow up, Kathy, in and in, reach out, and I offered your name, but reach out to friends of the library to invite people to, you know, just to have a conversation over a cup of coffee, do you know, either you or Nancy or anybody else in this? You know if that’s happened? I don’t think it has yet. And I don’t know that it’s that it’s urgent. But I do think it’s going to be important for the leadership of epi, for for city leadership in in cam and others involved in the library, the update of the strategic plan, and anybody to whom others would listen about the library and what might be coming as a result of a feasibility study. Just so that there can be some coordination of messaging. And and in the value of people thinking about what does it look like to work together on these things? One of the things that came up in that conversation, which was a surprise to me, that we were that we’re thinking about this as a possibility is the is the possibility of if we got a if we got a recommendation, whether it is to create a library district or not. And I see we’re going to talk about the what boulders doing in their decision. But whether it’s a dedicated sales tax, with the library staying in the city, or does proposal recommendation council to create a Library District. That question for the first time I’ve heard Harold talk about that question potentially having enough, being closely associated enough with the Performing Arts Center, and recreation facilities that we could roll all those up into one potential ballot question. Now, it would be a surprise to me if we can actually do that. Since the last bond election, we couldn’t put the Civic Center, the Justice Center in the in the recreation services together in one ballot question, right. We had to put those into three separate ballot questions because of what what is what the law prohibit or prevents or restricts, in terms of what’s called log rolling to roll disparate questions, or projects into one question. If we could, if we could put all those in one question. You generate a pretty broad support base in the community for for whatever that question is, if you put our performing arts community, our friends of the library and not just the friends, everybody in town who loves the library, and the whole west side of town, if you were to put a recreation recreation center on the west side of town, if we if we got legal advice that we could do that it kind of changes the thinking about What a strategy may be. But in any case, it is not too early for Friends of the Library, the leadership of epi, in Friends of the museum to, to come together over a conversation over a cup of coffee to say, what do we say or not say, that advances the interest of of all of these potential initiatives. Without confusing the public. The the PI group is really, really nervous about what’s going on with the library. And, and there’s going to be a public engagement process or event on June 4, I think,
Unknown Speaker 35:40
June 3, because of what they’ve heard about the potential for a 500 seat auditorium, as part of the the the not just the plan, but if the plan were to be approved the the redevelopment or new development around the line around the museum. I think it’s unlikely in spite of what what Kim hears from the community. And despite what the aspirations, I think it’s going to be highly unlikely that the ultimate ultimate plan would include a 500 seat auditorium, just because of parking constraints around the museum. You couldn’t, you’d have to close down the Rec Center to host an event that would that would accommodate 500 people just for the parking. So I just think as a practical matter, that’s unlikely to happen. But but there’s a buzz about it. In the law pie folks are really nervous about it. So. So the agreement was the bob is going to work out to reach out to friends of the library to start a conversation about what how do we work together, assuming whether it’s a library district or dedicated sales tax, so that we get that everybody with an interest in kind of the future and the next big opportunity to create or enhance strengthen amenities in Longmont. We do this in a way that we don’t have winners and losers, we just we have a bunch of winners. I’m happy to play a role in that if I can, I shouldn’t have to, I’m happy to make phone calls or whatever. But Kathy, you should just be aware. And if and I’m happy to follow up with the epi folks and say you were going to call a friend to the library. That would be a good idea, idea to do today. Right? We shouldn’t let this linger. So in terms of in terms of strategy, there won’t be real discussions. I don’t think about strategy until there’s a the result of the library feasibility study, there’s a little more data gathered on the museum. We’re already starting to hear from advocates for recreation centers, how many how many of those voted for the pool, a nice facility, or a guest that I don’t know. But there’s a lot of interest in in not just interest kind of expectation that that we need to return to the conversation and then a proposal that would look more like a rec center and less like a competitive swimming pool since the school districts gonna build one of those on their own. So that’s a ramble mark, how much of that is helpful?
Unknown Speaker 38:19
It’s all the perspective you can provide us I think will ultimately be helpful. I mean, we know we’re at the point in the process. In my opinion, we’re we’re grappling for the right road to travel. And, you know, we don’t have our maps detailed enough to know what that is. feasibility study, in my mind will will help clarify that. And to the extent that there are activities being conducted by the museum or being put forward through the museum initiative, that would impact what we’re thinking about or that we can benefit from more or coordinate with them to achieve for both our goals. Like we want to know that and think about it and figure out how we can best use it.
Unknown Speaker 39:18
Yeah. As as Nancy was responding to maybe was Cynthia’s question about where are we with or maybe years mark with the new discoveries about work that has to be done that we weren’t anticipating and how it’s delayed the whole schedule for the the updating the construction schedule for the updating library. As I was listening, it occurred to me that if Nancy if you’re interested in Mark, and in maybe if not Kathy, then friends, somebody from the Friends of the Library, some combination of folks with interests in the library. You in leadership roles that we were scheduled to do a backstory. We recorded a backstory today on the new legislation on guns, gun safe storage of wet firearms and, and reporting of lost and stolen firearms, as a one of a series to try to do some educating about what we can do to reduce risks of gun violence. I don’t know what kind of reaction that will get. But I would be happy to schedule to do a backstory if you’ve ever watched any one of those. But it’s just storytelling, right about what’s going on in the city. But it may be worth telling the story in two segments about the library one, just kind of an update on where we are with construction and what should people know and when will we open? And to hear from the Friends of the Library about their interests? Mark, you as the chair of the advisory board? And do kind of a what’s the right term a bay, right for or a teaser? for what’s coming that come You know, tune into the next backstory on the library. And we’ll we’ll be presenting the results of the feasibility study what it might mean for us. So if you want to do something like that, I’m happy to put it together. And you know, we can promote it in any way we want to to try to build some viewership. But it’s a way to tell the story about where we are, what people should anticipate. You could link it to the to the website, do whatever else you want to do, it might be useful for the friends as well.
Unknown Speaker 41:35
Okay, well, from my part, let me think about it. I’d probably want to chat with Nancy, sure, to see if we could offer up anything interesting. Well, I have no doubt interesting, but I’m not so sure I would.
Unknown Speaker 41:51
Well, I don’t doubt it would be what we know is the library is the most highly valued asset in the community. Right, I think a lot of folks would be interested. And, and, you know, we’ll spend some time crafting the kind of questions you’d want to be asked. So that we have a chance to you get a chance to respond to the questions you want to respond to both about the reopening and about what’s kind of on the horizon. So other than that June 3, there will be an event there’s a scheduled event on June 3 at the museum as part of their public engagement process, you might, you know, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to just to drop by and see how they’re approaching that if, if you’ve got time to do it, I would do it except I’m going to be out of town on the third of June. So I won’t have a chance to participate.
Unknown Speaker 42:44
Okay, a question for the Councilman. Okay, let’s move on. And I have old business update on the feasibility study. Anything Forester, Nancy,
Unknown Speaker 43:02
I have an update. So it took a while. But the contract has been shaken loose and sent to the consultant. And I believe it’s been completed in return. There were a couple questions and which I which have been answered. So I will I hope to be talking to Annie Seeger, our consultant within the next day or two about setting up our initial meetings with our team that’s going to be kicking things off. We are hoping to involve some of the folks that were in on the interviews with the consultants, or at least somebody from the board, and the friends president or someone else from the friends board, I am continuing to vote. I’ve already spoken with Kim, the museum director who still wants to continue with that group of the consultants of the team, we’re going to be talking to the consultant Kevin, I have been talking quite a bit about their strategic plan and their public engagement process. And I think there’s a lot of congruence between some of the things that they are looking to accomplish in the museum and their organization and ours. So she will be a part of that, as well. Karen Roni, me my management team. So looking at moving forward with that and seeing what the first steps are. The first steps I think will be I think Annie has a she’s been just chomping at the bit to get that contract going to start working on this. So she was let me know she has a whole list of things. So she has a list of questions for us. And he has gone over that data that the first part of the feasibility study with a fine tooth comb and is found a bunch of things that she would consider holes that needs to be filled in. So there will be some initiative, some additional data gathering as well as some probably additional public input questions to be put out there. So we’re really Ready to get started? now almost
Unknown Speaker 45:05
Are you getting any impression from any that she would have trouble beating the suggested deadlines by the fact that we’ve we haven’t been able to get to her? Well, she slipped out on her end.
Unknown Speaker 45:27
Now, I think her deadlines are pretty flexible. And I had told her, he or she and I have known each other for several years now. And I had told her pretty Honestly, I’m actually very honestly from the beginning that it would not start as early as you thought it would start. Because things would take a while to go contract would take a while to go through purchasing. So I don’t think we’ll have an issue.
Unknown Speaker 45:52
Any questions for Nancy on this one? Okay. Hey, Mark, let me just just clarify what is the anticipated deliverable date?
Unknown Speaker 46:06
We had plucked August out of a hat. But it may, you know, it may even be before that, I don’t know, way to, you know, get in, get started, see what is that we need? And see if you know, as soon as we can get her whatever else she needs to be able to, to great results. What does that mean to you, Tim? Do we set that issue or not? No, I don’t think so the
Unknown Speaker 46:35
the epi folks are chomping at the bit, you know, to, to figure out what kind of progress they can make with framing and presenting the results of a feasibility study of for Performing Arts in conference center. And but there are there’s just a ton of decisions that have to be made, including about their capital campaign, but management of a facility governance of the facility, the business plan, maybe just a bunch of and they’re not problems, just decisions. And they’re not ready to come to the council for any kind of proposal or to the community without working through a number of issues. And I don’t know where they are honestly, mark right now with working those through. I think they’re early in their discussions. I think if there was, if there was an August, if I deliver a delivery date for a deliverable, right, or whatever the deliverables are from this second phase, if that arrived in early August, it’s probably the timing is pretty good to start putting people together in anticipation of the opening of the school year. And you know, to the degree that this becomes something that people want to talk about during a campaign or an election cycle, I don’t think that’s a bad thing, right? There’ll be visibility around big ideas or ideas how big they are. During the during city council campaigns, I don’t think it’s a bad thing for people to be asked where they stand on, on, on these kinds of ideas and potential development of amenities for the community. So
Unknown Speaker 48:10
I noticed that Annie had seen it while she had done this before, when I worked with her. But she also mentioned in her interview that, you know, if if it was desired, she is perfectly willing to come speak with, you know, talk at a council meeting halfway through, and then at the end, here’s what I’m working on. Here’s what I’m seeing so far. You know, here’s what I’m working on. Next. Here’s what I’ll present at the end of the study. And she said she’s actually found that useful if you think it would be useful?
Unknown Speaker 48:38
Well, I think it honestly, I think it would be useful what here’s what, here’s what would be helpful, Nancy, if you give me an idea, what what the midpoint would be right. It’s easy enough for me on a Tuesday night to say I’d like to direct staff to schedule her to place on agenda or just talk to Brian and and given his prerogatives with the agenda to get report, we could do it early in the meeting, special, you know, as a special item, just a status report on the feasibility study. That would have been actually I think that would have been helpful had had the the team working on the feasibility study for the Performing Arts Center had that happened, it would have been a good idea.
Unknown Speaker 49:18
But I think you get because it it, you know, generates questions, you know, not just at the end. So so you know, if people have questions or concerns that you can address those before the final report. I think that that’s something that she indicated that she thought would be useful. So I think I would agree. So let me know. I know when when I get more of a grasp and she has more of a grasp of the actual timeline. Well, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 49:43
we’ll talk about that. Yep. And then I’ll do my thing. So okay, great. Anything else on this one? Okay, Katie, can you lead us through the next one, please?
Unknown Speaker 50:00
Yeah, I don’t know that this ever got sent to the group. It did. Yeah, it did. We just were reluctant to. Alright, they were like, ah, I was very hazy for a while so. Okay, so if everyone has I’m, if everyone has access to a patisserie guide, I guess I can’t go to the emson and Mosher funds, does everyone have that document? Or can reference it? Trying to share my screen, but it’s not really wanting me to do that. Can you see my screen? What do you see right now? I see the document the documents there. Are you saw it? Okay. Yeah. By the way, though, what? It just disappeared? Yeah, well, it didn’t, it looked like I was sharing something else, which is not applicable to this meeting. Alright, so anyway, yeah, this is what we had put together. Or, you know, I threw something together, I sent to mark and he reviewed it, um, kind of around some guidelines, I guess, for how to deal with the emson and Mosher funds. So, really, the kind of main thing that was front of mind for me when I was putting this together was that that would be something that was top of mind every year for the board, it didn’t just come up willy nilly. It was something that was, you know, similar to elections, or similar to whatever else we talked about on an annual basis, it was something that we, we talked about regularly. But then throughout the year, the library was also really kind of thinking about, you know, we had these things that we asked the friends for, we have these other things that are obviously in the budget, what are some things that we could use these funds for, let’s put it in front of the board. And, and determine if they’re, if those are good things for the Moser, M and M’s and funds to be used for. So that was kind of my, my thought process. So as you can see that this the things that are really up for, that we thought would be good to discuss would be when to do that, or if everybody thinks that’s a good idea to do it on an annual basis. And then this kind of bottom section here. So that we’re in line with the library. So sorry, I got it. I’m gonna try to do the minutes too. So I’m going to what I just talked about, but then if you guys, Mark, if you want to, I guess lead the discussion? Well, I don’t know you’re doing a good job. Sorry. I’ll come back. I’ll remember what I said. And I’ll come back into the minutes.
Unknown Speaker 53:20
No, no, no, no, that’s, that’s all right, I’ll take a shot at it. But feel free to correct me or steer this conversation in a in a more productive direction. But so the idea, I think, is that there’s a lot of money involved in both the emson and moshier fund. So as a board, we should treat that seriously, because it does represent a lot of money. And we should be good fiduciary managers of that money. At the same time, I don’t think we want to create a process that needlessly impedes goals that the library has set out, and it wants to implement through the use of these monies. One of the challenges that historically has has been an issue with respect to the use of the money is the original purpose that was assigned to that use that, you know, may or may not make sense or as much sense as it did when it was initially crafted. So part of the thinking in in Katie’s work here is to try and create a process where we recommend the repurpose of those funds or a portion Have those funds so that it creates more latitude for the library in terms of needed items that they’ve been precluded from before. So that there’ll be a process. I mean, it won’t be something that will necessarily, in my opinion, be strictly within the control of this advisory board. But we can make recommendations to Council. And hopefully the council and city staff will find the wisdom of that, and then they’ll go along with that, and that that’ll be the operational definition going forward. And we can try and create some flexibility that way. With that increased flexibility, then that suggests a different spectrum of projects that it might be considered. How does that consideration occur? Do you know if it’s, in my mind, it should be big items, it should, it should be noteworthy items, it should be things that the library would not expect to get from the friends and his been unable to secure from the city. And in these funds represent a last resort, so to speak. And that’s hopefully how all those engaged in this process will treat this, this isn’t the first go to to get the money. This is this is the last best hope kind of thing. Because I don’t want to supplant I wouldn’t want to see us supplant the city, in terms of stepping up in the budgetary process to support the library. That’s, that’s, that’s been a mission of mine for quite some time now. And I hope this wouldn’t deter that. Nor what I like to get between the library and the friends, because I think that’s, that’s such a healthy and successful relationship, I think that would be a mistake to do that. But assuming that there are a selection of of projects that can be crafted, or put together that would make sense to be funded by the Mosher, or Epson funds, then I think, as a board, we need to decide how we want to make that approval process occur. I mean, if it’s a small dollar amount, as as proposed here, maybe it’s just majority rolls in and you get get three out of five, they say they want to do it Fine, let’s go forward as the dollar amount increases, and I think the
Unknown Speaker 58:04
inherent responsibility of the board increases. So if you’re talking large dollars, I mean, really large dollar. So I think we need a either a supermajority or unanimous remedy for approval is a signal to council that this is something that the board strongly supports along with the library. And that will help move that approval process through and the check gets cut, so to speak. So my my reading on all this, that Katie, so adequately put together was an attempt to try and one figure out how we want to use those funds going forward, how we want to x, how we want to facilitate their use by the library, how we want to be responsible as a board to the expenditure of those funds. And also I didn’t mentioned previously, but there’s probably some amount either already set up in the guidelines to the funds or ones that we should set up that says, We can’t just spend it all. We could only spend 20% in any year or 30%. Now you can’t catch us liquidate all of the the seed corn if you will. You’ve got to save some for another year. That was my two cents. So Katie
Unknown Speaker 59:48
Yeah, I think that was drilled and I mean, Nancy, I kept we’re kind of looking to you, because I know. We always there’s a wish list but you have a way Do you have like various wish lists? Right? So I think the question really is,
Unknown Speaker 1:00:06
I think that, you know, this, if we’re going to limit this to once a year, which is a little limiting that just in case, but it would have to be, you know, after your budget time, when we see one of our wishlist items, our requests have been fulfilled or not. And
Unknown Speaker 1:00:27
so So could I just jump in? We’re not saying that the expenditures occur once a year, but just that the board gets a chance to look at the list once a year. Okay, that makes sense. And they look at it more than once a year. Sure. Okay, well, you know, if the funds are there, or whatever, and there’s a timing issue, it doesn’t all have to happen on January one, I don’t think,
Unknown Speaker 1:00:53
yeah, I’d like my understanding of the amount that can be spent, I’m not sure the exact number on the emson fund, but the motor fund, because it has not been spent there, you know, there’s a certain amount of the fund that is expendable that you can spend now, and then there’s a certain amount of the fund that is still, you know, earning interest and doing what the fund does. Because it’s just sat there for a long time, the amount was close to $600,000, at the end of 2020. So there is that much money, which can be spent? I would not suggest spending all of it, but I would suggest that it’s sitting there. So
Unknown Speaker 1:01:32
definitely, because because we anticipate that it will that you know, the friends you say, I would like this, and then they’d have a vote, and then they’re like, great, you get it. Our anticipation is that this could be a little bit more of a process, like, how does it fall within the parameters of each of the funds, we now need to go to the city to determine this. So I do think that it’s a little, it could take more time. So it can’t be like let’s review it. Maybe I mean, we could do it quarterly that might be a little too often, we could do it twice a year. But I would say that one of those times should certainly be after the budget is? Absolutely, that’s when you’re really gonna have like we didn’t get this, but we really need it.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:21
He was saying before, what Tim was saying before their budget years in their budget years, you know, most budget years, you’re not going to go if you’re the library and say, Hey, we want an extra $225,000 for this disorder that we’ve been talking about for years. Because it’s just not going to happen. So yeah, I mean, I just see this as a big ticket item. thing. Also mark, I don’t see this as a smaller amount thing, the smaller amount things we usually do go to the friends and ask for them to help out with those.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:55
I think that’s a good approach. Because if it’s a big dollar allowed, then I could actually envision that the board has to make a pitch to council to make sure that the council understands that we support this expenditure, and that they should think well of writing the check. And they may not do that, absent that kind of support. But you wouldn’t do that sort of thing for every $5,000 at the library bench. But if you have if you have a couple $100,000 I think that’s probably required. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:39
Would if we end up having a different funding scheme for the library, would that change anything with regard to our relationship with this money? Like would it just mean that you get to see it in its entirety? Potentially? I mean, do we want to set it up? I guess I don’t want to?
Unknown Speaker 1:03:58
That’s a question. I mean, that you’d really have to look back into the all the fine print of the original donation and see you if the library if the library, for example, what district would this money still be available to the library? Or would it revert to the city? Or you know how that how that works? I think that’s in the fine print?
Unknown Speaker 1:04:16
Well, I think that’s exactly right. And hopefully that would be something that would get covered in in an inter governmental agreement that this is, you know, this is who gets dibs on this money. And this is, you know, the kind of approval that they have over a deal with the authority to approve it.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:39
Mark this. Can I just jump in just real quickly. If I think you’re I think you’re spot on if the if there’s a recommendation to create a Library District and that is approved. And we’re going to talk about how what what boulders do In just a few minutes, I can’t it’s inconceivable in my mind that these funds would not go with the library. I mean, the library would have moved out from underneath the city, that money was dedicated, donated to the library. I mean, I would be it would be a pretty weak case that a council would try to make to say, Oh, no, no, that was those guys have to stay here, even though we don’t have a library anymore. So probably, the IGA would be the way to do it. But I just can’t imagine that becoming an issue. And as long as I’ve got the floor, are you sure that the council has to approve expenditures of the motor fun? Or either of these phones?
Unknown Speaker 1:05:39
They have to release the funds? They have to write the check? Okay. Well, who who did you hear that from? I mean, that’s how we’ve done it when Judith was here. That’s how we we always had to make a motion to the mayor. To release the funds.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:59
Okay, Aye. Aye. Before you. Let’s get clarity on that. If you don’t have to go to Council. My strong recommendation is don’t write this requirement. Go to Council. It. My impression was the first time I talked about this with Jim golden, is that you have that authority. Now, maybe Jim didn’t understand. But But let’s clarify that.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:23
Well, I think we have the authority, well, maybe we either have the authority to recommend or approve, but we don’t have the checkbook or the pen. So we can say, Okay, well, you approve this, but somebody has to release the monies. And that’s, that’s where the rub comes in. Because then you have to convince council or someone at the city that they need to write the check.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:48
Let’s get clear on on what what stipulated in in what the whatever ordinance the city council would then passed when they accepted the funds, assuming there was an ordinance or resolution? Let’s let’s get clear on that. Because if because if you’re authorized to approve any expenditure, then I don’t think that would require way there’s a ton of expenditures to get made the city that city council does not authorize. I mean, there’s very few actually, that come to City Council for authorization. Well,
Unknown Speaker 1:07:27
I think with Jim Bolden because I thought he said something to that effect to Tim. And I was surprised that this was money that could be spent. So we can clear that up with him, Mark. Okay, so you’ll take take that one back, if I will. And where does that go? Does that go to? Jim golden? Or does that go to? Karen? Or does that go to? city manager?
Unknown Speaker 1:08:03
I would send it I would I mean, I would tell Karen, I’m sending it, copy her and send it send the initial question to Jim golden. Okay, I think that I think that would be the right protocol. And the right, I think he could have Jim knows all in that area, I think he would be a good person to start with, or he would at least be able to steer us in the right direction.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:26
Obviously handled however you want. My advice is, do not put yourself in a position to be dependent on a council decision, if you don’t have to
Unknown Speaker 1:08:39
do so then. What’s the I guess? Are we I’ve never seen the quote by brain I don’t know, who has underscored it anyone? Um, what’s the oversight then for the use of the funds? If we’re not asking council to approve it? Like, how do we because you know, it was given for research materials or whatever. And we’re just kind of saying, well, this is kind of sort of a research materials, is it just the trust thing? Or? Well, first of all, if you were if you’re authorized, you would have the oversight. So I guess I’m asking who is who do could we see the actual document and so that we would know what we’re actually able to? I think that’s what Nancy is gonna follow up.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:33
Yeah, I’m gonna get the copy of the actual of the actual document Katie, because I think we just need to look and see what it says we know originally, that is that one was given for visual materials for folks with with your lack of visual acuity, etc. But, but you know, obviously, number one, you can get almost all of the visual aids free. Now, those subsidized by local, state and federal governments. So we’re not going to spend $600,000, on Braille books, etc. So I’ll have to talk to Jim and ask what happens when you have a request like this that, or the the folks who originally gave you the request are no longer with us, etc? And what happens with with that?
Unknown Speaker 1:10:22
Yeah, I think there’s two issues with that the there’s nobody to go check with you from what we understand you can’t go back to the original donor and ask for an interpretation because they’re not around you. And in our league, are we then therefore free to repurpose this says, as we deem is most beneficial to the larper?
Unknown Speaker 1:10:50
I don’t know the answer to that. My impression was when Jim and I spoke about this Initially, I think the answer to that was yes, that you had the authority to do that. And maybe not it maybe would have to go back on your recommendation as an ordinate, that the council would have to pass an ordinance based on that recommendation. But but that’s a that’s an answerable question. And I think, yeah, to get an answer, and I think you ought to understand, you know, way more about what the library needs are in your city council, does your, your way closer to what’s the best and highest use of the most refined or any other source of funding Friends of the Library, real in relationship to what’s budgeted? And what your priorities are, then? The Council is your that’s what that’s why you do this every month, I think you ought to not defer if you don’t have to, Because you are the best informed people in town about what to do with those funds. In my opinion,
Unknown Speaker 1:11:52
thank you. We value your opinions. So what do you think the next steps on this are Katie, that they should take this after based on this discussion, and come back and talk about it next time around now that we have some background and rec recommend options or changes to how we should do this? Or how do you want to take this?
Unknown Speaker 1:12:23
I mean, I really do think it’s important, I think we didn’t really need to get answers on those two, those questions seem pretty important to me. Because if we don’t have a lot of wiggle room, it’s kind of moot. We got to rejig everything. If we have we do have a lot of wiggle room, then I think then we Yeah, we can kind of come back and admit and make notes on this initial proposal. So I personally, if, you know, maybe I don’t, I don’t know if we can get it up before the next meeting. But if we can review the actual paperwork, because hey, you know, quite a bit of this document. could go if we don’t need approval, fantastic. That part goes away. That’s a good amount of work. And, you know, hours from the board, if we do have to go to Council for approval if we don’t, great. But then also, you know, what is our what is our wiggle room for the use of the actual funds because that will drive what we’re telling the library to give us as well. Or it gets what we’re asking for from the library as far as their wish list goes. So I think we need to get our hands on those copies and those answers before we do anything else.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:42
She saved that as possible in the MC before next meeting. So we have that I can I
Unknown Speaker 1:13:48
can I can ask the questions right away, but we’re in the middle of budget, so I don’t know. You know, what, what on the other side what their availability is to answer this or meal maybe? I don’t know. I mean, maybe it’s an easy question for them. So I will talk to the city financial folks and see what I can find out.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:07
Okay, very good. Thank you. And then if we have the answers to that then I would recommend to the rest of the board if it’s okay with Katie that we think about changes to her document based on the information that comes back made if it’s an if it’s a no go that’s clearly an alternative but if it’s a go I think we should do like the Councilman suggesters manage it within our own priority prerogative.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:44
Yeah, I think if it’s a go Yeah, we can put together apparently. I mean, I think we fairly easily can put together a project plan for it and move forward.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:58
Okay, on this one any more. comments before we move along here. Okay, any anything to report on the local Free Library sketchy? Nope. Since they haven’t actually had a board meeting. Okay, so let’s see, let’s shovel into new business, then. I’m not sure whether you all had cactus. But there was an initiative that finally was approved by Boulder City Council to create a process which might result in a Library District. As I understand it, and those that are more well read on the subject than I am, please correct me. But counsel was evaluating three, three funding opportunities for the library, because there was a recognition that the library and some other Boulder City services were we’re currently in historically underfunded, one of which was the library. The choices again, as I understand them, were to keep going doing the same thing that they’re doing now. And maybe try and funnel some money over to the library to create a funding mechanism through property tax support, that would have city governance associated with it. So there would be a strong city council control over the use of that money, even though there would be additional monies coming in. And then the third option would be to create a Library District with its own governance. And with the support of that same dedicated property tax levy, and they had different different potential villages, depending on how extensive their catchment area was an A in, in the literature, we’re throwing a pretty wide net, I mean, they were going out and pick the trend to pick up nyuad and gun barrel and lions and some other the other areas that long one had discussed from time to time.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:34
The
Unknown Speaker 1:17:38
I guess the mechanism that they chose to try and drive home a solution on this was to create a subcommittee that will eventually be tasked with forming the intergovernmental agreement between whatever mechanism comes out of this potentially, and the city, the council reserve the prerogative to appoint the trustees, to the subcommittee that creates the IGA. On it’s an unusual activity, the IGA would actually be done before the Library District or the follow on mechanism would be approved. So it in some respects could almost be considered a poison pill, because I mean, if this thing is, is really bad, nobody’s going to prove it, it won’t get any further. But if it’s, if it’s viable, and it looks like it’s positive occurrence for the library, and border and what have you, and it may move forward, and they may elect to choose a Library District is as an alternative. So processes just started, as I understand they’ve got a ways to go. We wanted to make sure that our board was aware of it, because some of the issues, they’re going to be wrestling with the same ones that we’ve been wrestling with for a while now. And maybe we can learn something from the process and try and gain from their successes and try and avoid their pitfalls. So that’s kind of why it’s fun the agenda. Questions on the floor? Okay,
Unknown Speaker 1:19:42
say what their timeline was? Oh, sorry, Tim, into your hand. No, go ahead. Listen, good question. I was just curious what what their timeline was and how that might align with our feasibility study process and all that.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:56
I don’t know. I think they’re driving to a ballot initiative, but I don’t know. I can’t tell you when their deliverables are I got the impression that the IGA would be produced in the fall. Do you know, Nancy?
Unknown Speaker 1:20:09
You know, I don’t know, because at first I thought they were pushing for November. But now I don’t know if it’s gonna if they’re looking at November this year or next year. And then I heard but totally unconfirmed that they were doing some kind of feasibility study now, before they actually go to the ballot. They’ve done several studies, but not something that’s really similar to our feasibility study. So I’ll have to confirm I have a meeting with the other directors on Thursday. So I’ll have to confirm at that point, what’s going on and what their timeline is. Okay, good question. Caitlyn.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:47
I read that I appreciate the links to the articles. And I was it was a surprise to me that the council
Unknown Speaker 1:20:56
had the authority to create the district without going to a ballot. I mean, I know that 100 100 vote, or 100 signatures on a petition, would get it to a ballot. I didn’t know the council had that authority. So that was new information to me. Obviously, the council doesn’t have the authority to set a mill levy or establish a sales tax, which is, which is where they’re headed. Ultimately. My my impression is, is I what few conversations I’ve been in, and I’m not with anybody with authority, I’m sure that Boulder County, I think would take a dim view of of this showing up in 22 on the ballot, because I think Boulder County intends to have some other items in the ballot. 22. And and I suspect we may have some items in the ballot in in 2022. I doubt we’ll have tax related questions on the ballot, and in November 21. So it could be an interesting balance for municipalities and for the county 2022. So am I did I track it right that the city council made the decision and then these other activities in Qt, including the IGA to follow, which is a little different than this scenario, the sequence that we’ve envisioned here.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:15
That’s my understanding is that the IGA is is the precursor to approval by Council. And and not a consequence of that approval. And I’d also read someplace, and I have no idea whether this is true. But of the members, the council that voted for it, several large standing for election. And there’s a question I think on to others as to whether they would stand for election. So I have no idea what what the life of this logic would be if you get a new counsel in there, and they have a different set. It may accelerate the activity or it just may kill him. I just don’t know.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:04
Yeah, it’s interesting. They they did they decided not to just proceed with putting a tax tax question on the ballot in keeping the library inside the the city structure
Unknown Speaker 1:23:17
$20 million? Tim? Yeah, well, I think I just doesn’t know, we could do really well on half that.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:26
Well, it was part of the reason for my question about what your top line budget is. I mean, their municipality of a few 1000 more people than us. But they just they’re asking for a budget of five times 7000 more people and five times more money. Holy mackerel. Go bigger go home. That’s what somebody said. I guess. It is a disconcerting that they’re thinking about nyuad Lyons, gun barrel, you know, and that kind of footprint, because that’s the same kind of footprint that we might be thinking about.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:02
That at one time going that larger footprint just to cover just to spread out the support.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:09
Yeah. Well, for some of the reasons, same reasons they’re talking, I did just expand your tax base, right. pretty substantial if you prefer nyuad him. So you know, at the point where, where it looks like it’s a possibility that that might be a proposal, depending on where boulder is, that would be a good time for, for it man who we’d approach in, in nitewhite. It’s not like you’ve got a city council, right? I’m not even certain with the governance structure is for nyuad as it as an unincorporated entity. So lions we have a lot of I know, I know. And that’s it. That’s a range. Yeah, well, and it’s the school district. There. They’re there. zip code is along my zip code. I mean, there’s all kinds of reasons why it makes sense for them to be part of what whatever we do here. But there might be the need to do some outreach, I’d be happy if I won’t get too far over my skis. I mean, I’ve got some contacts, and I want to do some sleuthing around, you know, how would that decision get made? And and get into conversation with folks? I wouldn’t do it without conferring, Nancy, with you what this whole group? And then yeah, you know, that our, you know, leadership in the city manager’s office.
Unknown Speaker 1:25:35
That was a desired consequence of the feasibility study at one time was, was to try and evaluate the catchment area. Yeah. But as a knowledgeable person on this, this activity, reminded the group that with taxation comes responsibility. So you’ve got to, you know, if you tax them, you got to put a branch in there. And that, and then you got to staff it and do all the rest of it. So it may not all be good news. The other thing that struck me as I was listening to all this activity come out of Boulder is, you know, depending on how the The news is shaped surrounding their their challenge of meeting meeting and creating a library district or whatever that can affect the public opinion here in Longmont. So if if press goes negative and Boulder, despite our best efforts, that those people, people here read those same newspapers, and that could affect our success rate here. Consequently, or conversely, if it’s all good news, then that may, you know, help our efforts here. You don’t know.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:03
Well, I’ve already seen at least one not that the time not that the TC line represents the mainstream of one month. But I’ve seen one, less than less than affirming comment from from somebody who called into the TC line to say those idiot city council members are talking about creating a Library District. Right. I don’t know if you saw that. But it wouldn’t it’s not a it’s not a bad idea. At some point, relatively soon, I think to get very strategic, and very intentional about the kind of messaging, you know, that you’d want to do in the TC line. Potential letters to the editor and op ed piece. That helps too, and that would be the reason for doing a backstory at some point in time as well, all about educating the community, we have our on the quality of life survey, the library is the most highly rated institution in the city, it has been survey after survey. And that is for an institution that’s severely seriously underfunded. So think about what it would be like if it was funded in the way to make it not just funded. But But moving towards a 21st century vision of libraries right in drawing heavily from the whatever the feasibility study suggests. And
Unknown Speaker 1:28:31
I think it’s super important to get the information out that the second phase of the feasibility study is not looking at going for a district, it’s looking at what the community needs, what the future needs, current present, future needs of the of the life of the community are that a library can fulfill how much that costs and a variety of ways to fund it. Yeah. Remaining a municipal library but set up setting up a different funding mechanism. Forming a district is one forming, forming a hybrid is, you know, there are various hybrids that are others. But I think it will be important at some point to say we’re studying these various funding mechanisms, but we’re not, you know, we haven’t decided on what an optimal funding mechanism would be. So I think it’s presenting people with the different options, it’s going to be really important.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:23
Well, I’m thinking more and more, we got to schedule a backstory, and then all the Friends of the Library to go up, put them on on Facebook and other social media platforms, dropped the link in there and had asked their friends to like it and share it. That’s a way to amplify right to get to use social media to tell the story of where we are, where we’re headed, and how thoughtful we’ve been about it that no decisions have been made, except that we that we’re serious about delivering to Longmont a library worthy of long line. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:59
I’ll stop by
Unknown Speaker 1:30:03
Any other comments on this? topic? I think we have real good discussion tonight board. I think this was a very positive meeting. Thank you. All I have is the last agenda unless somebody wants to add something is our next meeting date, which is June 28. And with that, I’ll open it up to any comments from the board at this point. Seeing that, Oh, well,
Unknown Speaker 1:30:37
I was just gonna say I won’t be able to attend on the 28th. I apologize. We’ll be traveling.
Unknown Speaker 1:30:44
Saying just the one. I will then adjourn the meeting at 830. Everybody, nice to see you, Cynthia, and especially that’ll Miriam