Parks and Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome, everybody. I'm gonna call us to order. Today is 02/06/2026. This is Jacob Rigoli, the chair commissioner. We're still waiting for a few individuals to come, but it is time to start our meeting, at least to open it up. And so I'm gonna go ahead and do that, and we'll jump into our calendar today and begin with our Pledge of Allegiance. Everybody, please stand and join me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, everybody. So

looking at our agenda today, we have a few things on the agenda. I'm just gonna sort of say high level while we're waiting for others to join. But we do need a quorum today to take action on a few items, and we don't have that quite yet. I think we will, though. Commissioner Barrett is not able to join us today. Commissioner Barry is here. Man Wearing, myself, and Owens are all here. We're just missing Randy, Commissioner Mitchell, and Commissioner Williams, Joe. Randy did contact us, and he is on his way. So once he's here, I think we should comfortably be able to then take action at that point and or once Joe is here too.

So if that sounds good for everybody, I'm just going to quickly recap our agenda for today before we jump into it. We'll do our usual adoption of our agenda and approval of the consent calendar. I will get that in just a minute. I'll just say on the consent calendar, again, we've got the approval of our last minutes, as well as just a few items that are in the packet, right, the items portion of the consent calendar, so to speak, that has the accessions and or potential deaccessions. So if everybody's had a chance to look at that, we'll be able to just vote on that here momentarily.

Anything can, as you know, be called out of that. If there's something that you'd like to pull essentially out of that list for review, that is also something that we can do at point. Afterwards, we will immediately proceed to Bryce, who will take us through his report from staff, and then we'll move into our postponed elections for twenty twenty six chair and vice chair positions. We elected to postpone that last I think it was January 2 was our last meeting, just because we technically had enough people for a vote, but it just was a good idea. Think we agreed that we would wait one more session, and that way we ensured that we had everybody here who could take a vote on that.

As well as approving the resolution and bylaws. That was not deferred. It's just that in our last session, we had all of the edits to the resolution and bylaws complete, and we wanted to give everybody ample time and the public ample time to be able to review those so that we can now take action in this meeting. And we will do that today, assuming we get the full quorum,

and

then we'll progress from there into our regular updates as we move towards closing out. Did I miss or misstate anything from commissioner's perspective on the agenda or from administration? Okay. So we don't have a quorum yet, so I'm gonna skip elect to skip past the consent calendar. I do wanna have everybody here for that. So that means the minutes as well as the consent calendar itself, inclusive of the items, will hold until either and or Randy or Joe are here, and we'll move into report from staff unless there's any objection to that path. Okay, then we'll move straight into report from staff, 260-0303.

That's the library director. And considering that we're waiting for another individual or two, I'm thinking that we'll probably jump into kind of the behind the scenes portion of catalog at first. And I think we've got a tab open with that. We wanna do so And and so if you're preparing preparing that piece, I'll just mention that Catalogic is our database platform where we're importing historical photos, And, we're very close to or actually, we've we've gone live with it so that we can we can, show everyone in the in the room and also folks at at home if they are following along in real time, they'll be able to view the database. But this has I think we've got maybe a 100 live photos that have the metadata attached to their complete records, and we have about 700 more in the wings that have been uploaded, and we have at least 25,000 that have been digitized that are further in the in the wings.

And then we have even, you know, additional items that one day will be digitized. But this, of course, is the is the first step. And the El Rado Hills Friendsville Library, very generous. They pay for the initial year of the of the database. And then I think I'll probably leave that to the introduction of of this piece. And Kelly was going to talk a little bit about some of the the specifics behind the scene.

Right. So this is it's a collection management system, and so this is where we'll be putting in photos and the records of the artifacts and objects at the museum as well. So right now, I have all entries. We can break that up. You can see I have some folders here that I've started.

And right here where you see this little globe, these are the ones that are publishable. So these are and we are publish publishing the to the hub, then these are the folders that are gonna seen in the public so we can control what they see and whatnot. So here I have this is objects, and so this is one of the folders that we'll have for all of the artifacts at the museum. And so here is Here's the two that I have, and so we'll be taking new photos of these because we have There's We're taking better photos, but I just wanted to see what we could do with this. The photo here, we can upload more than one photo.

This artifact, I know that there is something on the back, so we'll want an additional photo of that as well. With that, anything that we have, and I can't move. Should be able drag. Can I drag this? Yes. And you should be able to move the participants as well if you click at the right slide. Okay. There we go. And so this is what it looks like when we're not entering anything. We can just there's all sorts of information here.

You can see that there's some linked data. So if you click on that, you can see the other records that are in catalog. You can see other records that are in the category furnishings, etcetera, etcetera. And then so here is when we are editing some of the information. It's in here.

We can do it comes preloaded with the lexicon, and so we just there's a drop down menu once we start. And you can choose what you and let's see. I'm I'm more familiar with the photo ones. And so you can put in the dimensions what it looks like. This is where it is, farther exhibit.

And then there is also the condition, and I probably am at Protonox. And so this is where we see where it came from, and you can see who that is. And then there's another folder in here that there's information about this family that had this. And one of the nice things about linked data on this, so I'm just gonna save this, is we can find out all sorts of things. So for instance, this is something that was long, that I was visiting.

Apparently. Yeah. So this is something that was loaned at one point, but so we have there's also an area where we have our outgoing loans, and so I click on this link, and here's the outgoing loan information. And then if I go back here, and here's where the profiles are. These are all the radicals.

These are really fun. This is where we are loading in a lot of our controlled vocabulary with persons, organizations, but if you click here to out, and click on this, this is pretty funny. So other things other things if if all of these other items here, can see on the right here, the essential numbers, if they had all been in here down here at the bottom left, you could click on that, and then it would move to back to Diapers. So you could see there would be a link to all of the items on there. So it's just a really good way of knowing where everything is at all time, and there's all sorts of stuff that we can put in there just to, like I said, know everything at all times, where this came from, any kind of movement that it's had in its life.

Did you are we

still waiting to look at that? I just wanted to mention that to individuals that may watch this video later on. So we're looking at a Victorian era Wow. Hair reef that was the origins from the Georgetown area. Mhmm.

And there's multiple pictures of it, and then we have our metadata fields that are that are populated. Currently at the museum, we're rearranging one of the areas for to set it up to where we can take even more professional photos of artifacts and other items. And we also have a scanner that was purchased by the El Dorado Hills Friends of the Library. So depending on the size of the the artifact and the the need as far as photographs and importing them, so we'll be even better equipped to create professional looking photos. And so we're also looking at I'm not sure all the the terms, but we have a a light tint and and other things.

So we're we're continuing to move in that direction. And one of the of the elements of that was defining and creating space where we could work on things of that nature to create these photographs.

Yeah. And then this is one of the profiles. So this is a person that we have a photo of him, and you can see that with there's a link here. But, also, with the with the explanation of him, you can do a whole genealogy thing you can add. So he is linked to Stella Tracy. He is her uncle. And so we can just fill out all of this, and then you go you go to her. And this is. Here's Stella. And then down here, she is used eight times.

So she she's popped up as a person in at least eight photos. And then so you click on that, and here's links to all of her photos that she's in. It's very easy to navigate. But like I said, these these can be real rabbit holes as we have the organizations and the people, and we're trying to fill all those out. And then so when we go to catalog a new item and it is a a Michigan Cal item, that's already populated in there. So that just comes up as a drop in when we start it auto autocomplete.

Big thank you to for working on these pieces and also our volunteers. Very exciting to be able to to offer this. It's completely new element that we're offering to the community from the museum services scope and with digitizing and then allowing for access really from wherever you wherever you are and whatever device you prefer. You can look at this database on your on your computer, on your phone, on your tablet. I think there's even an app if you wanna get a little more integrated into things.

And it's all reactive, so it'll it'll resize your screen size. Very easy to to navigate for the for the user and also for staff on the on the back end with with populating

contents. There's also a website. And I'd like to mention, also, Dean has been uploading maps into this too. Do you want me to go over here?

Do we wanna jump back to the consent calendar and then

And then come back to this? I would say, let's stay with this. I'm just so anxious to give kudos. Is it the right moment for that? Or

We always give kudos. I

don't wanna take away from the demonstration, though, if you still have I mean, there's more to demonstrate, so maybe we if you wanna take us further through, but then there's definitely some thanks the commission wants to give. Okay.

Crazy one and So

we might let's jump into the PowerPoint first.

Oh, I don't know where that

Because this will this will tie in. Okay.

Can the public see this in the recordings part, or should I talk to the So fact that we opened up a

we're not screen sharing. We received some feedback from the public that when we had screen shared in the in the past, it made the room camera for the or I guess what would we call this? The the video thumbnail that was so small that it was difficult to see the room and then determine who speaking at different times. So we've decided that the best practice is we're gonna move away from screen sharing. However, with this presentation, the the it's been exported as a the PDF, and it is attached in the LEGISTR item.

You can get to it from the from the agenda, and so you'll be able to follow along slide by slide.

Very good, so then just for those who are watching the recording, this is a slight change of practice for us. We're currently looking at Attachment B, Director Report Presentation, 02/06/2026 PDF. So future person watching us, you are able to just open that file and follow along with us now as we're looking in the room at the presentation.

Yes. So this should be a fun one because there's an interactive element. So question, can you describe the current museum logo? And if so, raise your hand. And I know that perhaps you all looked through various files recently, but maybe think, before that, you how familiar were you with the with the logo, with with the branding? And then also think with the general public. Are they there a connection there? Is it identified in a certain certain way? So if you want, you can participate. If not, that's fine as well.

But we're perhaps we frame it as before maybe you look at this presentation, were you very familiar with that logo? Were you able to describe it? I'm seeing some yeses and maybe maybe not. Absolutely. And reason for the purpose of this presentation is to to share some of our processes and where we landed with certain things, and then open it up to discussion.

Let's go ahead and go to slide two. So this is the current logo. I'm not sure exactly when it was implemented. Maybe in the nineties sometime. We don't actually have all the source files, so it's difficult to work with.

We did put it in a vector imaging program and clean it up a little bit so that we could place the logo on our website. But it's problematic as we create flyers and and then as as we perform an outreach and having the same quality branding as the recent library branding refresh. And it is a design from the Studebaker wheelbarrow with this Go

ahead and go to the

next slide. So a few quotes to kinda set the stage with a few things. And so we have various famous designers, and first quote is although it doesn't sell directly, it identifies. Something else to consider is design is the silent ambassador of your brand. Let's go ahead and go to the next.

A logo is the period at the end of a sentence, not the sentence itself. Mhmm. And as we continue on, what works good is better than what looks good because what works good lasts. Food for thought. And let's go ahead. Should be well.

We have a furniture maker.

Didn't just do furniture. She's a legend.

Yeah. Direct Coke and Coke. And a few other things to consider. When you love them branding, is it appropriate in feeling? For example, I don't know. So Toys R Us comes to mind. I don't know if these still exist, but Toy Store. So with their branding, it was appropriate. It it had that that feel related to toy store and and you. So that's an example appropriate and feel.

Maybe with a corporate kind of entity, if you use different thought, you'd have different symbols. Appropriate in field. Another thing to consider is it's simple yet distinctive. In particular, with changes in technology over the past, I guess, several decades now, you have the symbol, logos, icons that need to be reproduced well in a very small small format, but then in a larger format. So if it was, say, on the on the side of a vehicle.

We're also talking about when you open a new tab in your in your browser, there's generally an icon or a logo there. Very, very small. The other thing to consider, is it is it unusual or unique enough to where people remember it. Let's go ahead and go to the next slide. Okay. So here's the final. We're gonna look at the following slide. Hang on, Crystal. We're gonna look at the following slide for one second. So it'll be a one one thousand, and then we'll go to the next slide.

So if everybody's ready, here we go. Ready? One one thousand. And okay. So with the image, you know, as you're processing and and and being reflective, what did you see? And if asked, could you could you draw that on you could you draw it right now? So sometimes this is used as a test to see to kinda gauge, okay. How simplistic and memorable it's something.

Go ahead. Go to next. I'm not gonna make you drowning.

Let's be walking. And so this is the image that we looked at. And so this is where we land with the with the process in working with a designer as far as the museum branding. And I think that the inspiration was the idea of a wheel was ultimately the Studebaker wheelbarrow. As we consider our mission statement and our vision statement with the aspirational goal of becoming a nationally recognized museum, and then also the scope of embracing all history and story.

So the idea of being a little more abstract, but still wanting to embrace the appropriate feel of a museum, maybe traditional academic element with some of the colors used. It's a very, very dark burgundy, and then you'll see with some of the other colors, they may remind you of parchment or I'll leave interpretation up to you all. But this is the process, and this is where we landed through that process. Let's go ahead and go to the next slide. Another element to consider is as we promote library services, museum offerings, and also railroad offerings, what do the brands look like when they're placed together on the same flyer or during the same outage?

And actually, the colors on the screen are slightly off. So logos and colors will look different, slightly different on different screens, different printers. Our blue is not quite that that vibrant. It's a little bit more of a reserve blue. And then with the museum element, that's actually more of burgundy.

There's less of a of a red tint. But you get the idea. And we're also showing a different lockup in the logos here. So this is a a a stacked or vertical lockup, which is important because different applications require different types of lockups and files. So earlier, you saw a landscape type lockup, and this, of course, is vertical format, almost like a postage stamp.

Go to the next slide. And so this would be the using a separate color and then on a darker background. And let's go to the next slide. And this is an idea of what things could like could look like if it was implemented in a cataloging database.

If you scroll down just a little bit

go back. Sorry. As as far as needs with with branding and and technology, you'll notice that there's the the symbol that's in that avatar on the left side. Now, this is just another example of some of the needs with branding from an, favicon, which is one of the images in the say, when you open up a new tab in your browser, but then an avatar or something like that, also the different lockups. And as we go to the next slide, this is an example of the if you scope just a little bit more, so these are some search results from cataloging their various museums.

And as you look at their avatar, and you think about that element of identifying, well, a few of them have chosen to use a picture where you get an element of the picture in a circle. That's difficult to recognize. Some of them have chosen to do medallion lockups where you have text. That is also a bit more recognizable, but reading that text when it's nearly a thumbnail is difficult. You also have one example on the top right where it's not a circle, and so it's reduced in text even further.

You also have an example of I

think it's the is it

the e e bell of LA collections? Mhmm. So it's a a a strong word word mark, but it's thin. So as it's reduced, it becomes more difficult to recognize. And then you see the with the Old Robbin County Historical Museum, and you have higher contrast and more of a simplistic symbol, easier to identify than some of those other offerings. So things to consider. And as we go to the next slide, these are the colors, that you're seeing

used, and we can keep on going.

With with fonts and ease of recognition and and also being able to read from from a distant, gen generally, the less ornate or complex the font, the better the better. So this is you scroll down just a little bit. We have the the name of the font. I think it's I'm not sure I can pronounce it. But we have it in the in the presentation, and it is a and I think I have this right.

It's a sans serif font, so it doesn't have additional detail around some of the letters. More flat. And you see fonts like this being used more and more frequently as technology continues to change. And it it it adapts well to screens, print, and other application. If you go to the next, then this shows the lockup on a lighter background.

And then I think that's the last or no. I need a few more. Fantastic. So stay with me. And we have mock up of what that particular branding could look like as far as more of a monument sign.

And, again, consider if it's appropriate in feel and then what that all conveys, not only from the scope of curating and protecting collections, but also if individuals were to to donate, what is the branding saying? Which would be perceived as more trusted? To the next one. Here's another example of a medallion lockup and moving right along. And then we have that that core lockup that we started with at the beginning.

So I wanna present the overview, some things to consider, and where we are with the process.

Can you clarify, and I'll show my confusion here. Yeah. Where where where do I see the wheelbarrow with the gold pan or the gold panner's panning for gold? Or or is there one with a wheelbarrow and the gold panner? No? Yes.

I can't I've only seen Is it

the gold panner with the pen?

I've seen that in photos and bar emblems. Yeah.

Anyway, a lot of people really associate the the Wilbur on the gold standard. The it's the marsh?

It's the Plaster Gold.

It's on the same Plaster Gold.

Yeah. It's Plaster Gold out of them.

Right? That's right. Because it it's like We can

keep those out. Yeah. It's it's possible.

There's also those old county historical signs. I think, like, a third party put them up in the sixties and seventies. They're you'll see them on county roads occasionally by a a landmark. It's a miner in blue pants and a

red shirt with a gold pin.

This is El Dorado County Historic Landmark.

Now is there a county I'm sorry. Is there a county logo? And again, refresh me.

Yeah. We can probably pull it up to Matt's presentation and the very first one.

Oh, okay. This is the one that looks more governmental. Yeah.

Okay. Thank

you.

Why did you cut off the sides of the wheel?

That was a a design choice to make it more more unique. So that was something that was proposed by the designer, and it is definitely as I fire the thoughts of of individual that that see this, you know, it's been mentioned more than once. It definitely makes it for a more unique mark.

I think something's wrong with it. I like to circle really bad. I

I know the spokes. I

would like you to ask a 100 people what that is because I had to look at it and go, that's a wheel because it doesn't look like a wheel. Unless you've seen that kind of wheel, that's not

a wheel.

Looks like Roman wheel. So I'm going that's supposed to say something, what is it saying if you don't know it's a wheel?

And the intent of the logo is to endear itself and endure over eons or eras carrying forward across the eras of collections of different types of time periods in our history of the county and so forth. But I have to say the abstract of the wheel perhaps could have a little bit of addressment or in style or whatever to give our Western flavor and such. This looks like a Roman wheel, isn't it?

Well and then two, is it's I think a lot of people would identify it as some type of wheel. And with the intent intent of trying to be a bit more abstract, to be more inclusive, if we did just put a wagon wheel or a gold pan or another element that is is rooted in perhaps maybe one view of certain stories and and histories is that does that line with our vision and our mission?

Could we hijack the gold panner guy and just put him there? Because that's what, you know, people, the gold era, the gold rush, the gold everything's gold hills, gold this and that. Tell me

if I'm hearing you correctly, though. Sorry to interject. No. I can't. Okay.

It's just because this is good. We're having a conversation about this, and we've just been presented with a new logo that is, if I'm hearing you right, that you have created and your team has created and whoever's involved in that, but to better capture the new mission statement, the new vision statement also, which is we really spend time trying to make sure that that tried to be more inclusive and tried to help people in the community find themselves, if you will, in the mission of the museum. And so this abstraction is, I think, what you're telling us becomes a way of doing that. It is abstracted intentionally is what you're telling us. You were looking at this and saying, If I just do something that's clearly a wagon wheel, for example, well that's one dimensional.

I need something that gives more of the impression of actually, you know, it's a wheel, it's clear, although I did stumble for a minute when I looked at the chopped up sides, But then I realized, and that the spokes aren't lined up, and it took me a minute to kind of adjust to that, but I realized maybe there's motion in it. I'm starting to see things in it. I see motion in it. I see that it doesn't look like something I don't want it to look like. It doesn't look like a pizza. Like this, I never I thought if I brought because I was imagining when you were showing me

I love pizza.

Well, I love pizza, right?

That might get a lot of

if it did look like a pizza, you see what I'm saying? Then suddenly we're gonna that's not gonna be good for us. No. No. I can't It has

to be out of my eyes. Yeah. There's

and did did you try it

with the with the with

the sharing and the and the and the con conversation? Something else to to consider is that there's no, not sure if it's the right term, but, you know, artist statement or statement of the of the intent, there's potential there because you have element, you know, a circular element that can be tied to time. We have pieces that could absolutely be tied to the vision and the mission statement. So with a more abstract mark, it potentially enables some of that with a symbol that is rooted in, you know, maybe maybe just one viewpoint, then that's gonna be going against our mission statement. By your point, do

you mean, like, when we say

Well, it's not just the 18 it's not just the discovery of gold. It's the of California, and those who came before it was California, and those who've come since it's been California. And is that what you're trying, I mean, that's not how you would have worded it, but you're saying it's more than just the wagon wheel and therefore more than just the discovery of gold? Yes. But it could

be a basket.

But it is a wheel.

Could be.

Do you want it to be?

Well, that's

What story does it tell you?

That's part of that's part of my problem with Fisher. I have no problem with an abstract idea. But even an abstractionist has an image of what they see. I just worry people are gonna try to make something out of it and not be able to make anything out. And that that's that's the problem with some abstract art is you look at it and go, I don't get it. But this is this is speaking to you as a guy who has his degree in art.

I see you're an art professor. History

came along later. Just need since it's for the history museum, I just need one little a little bit more of a pull in to a thing than just totally abstract. Because museum of art, abstract's fine. Museum of the future, all these other things, but we are a concrete thing. And I would like to see some more concrete. Doesn't have to be greatly. That's why I asked, did you look at it with a hub just for the heck of it? I know the idea is keep it simple. It's just a dot. I'm not asking for fancy, but something to give an impression of it being a wheel.

I'm afraid the wheel's gonna fall off with those spokes.

I can see if it's like this It's

more authentic, probably,

in some ways. I know. It's And, like, Definitely.

Don't try to use the student maker real quick. And and, again, with the with the logo piece and and and branding, it's it's goal is to identify. So we still have all the marketing pieces and also what we offer to the community and our our reputation. And so the logo builds power over time, recognizing recognizing. And with that one quote that was mentioned, the logo is it's it's the period at the end of that. That's a question mark, dear friend. That's my problem.

It were a period, I'd be there, but it's a question mark.

I like the way that it stood out as the other logo issues showed were not clear.

Yeah, yeah,

that's true.

Well, maybe reflecting on one other thing I'll add here, too. I think that, you know, this is the domain, really, of the administration also, and I sure appreciate that you're bringing it to us, And to even have our input, we would love We're providing it. We're loving the ability to provide it. So thank you for that, I guess, is what I wanted to say. How far along are we with this? Is it kinda going into is this what's rolling out, or

is there actually look at the the the process and working with the designer and the and, you know,

all

those specific. So we are done with that process. Now with this branding element, does it does it solve the problem that we that we have with our with our branding? Is it is it a potential solution? I would say yes.

And we've kinda setting the stage with everybody taking consideration for some of the logo best practice, leaving some of those quotes. Just curious of the the comments, the thoughts from from the group. And you look at many and, typically, with these processes, the first time you see change, a logo, you won't like it. And that's been the case, for example, IBM. Very famous logo.

I'm sure everybody can you know, IBM got lines through it. It was immediately rejected because it was thought that it looked like a prison uniform stripes. Now is that a very strong and fabulous mark that has been test of time? Absolutely. You also think about the the a b ABC logo. Right? That means diesel. That was developed in the, I think, in nineteen fifties or '19 oh, maybe not. Okay. Apple.

Not a whole lot of people. Apple is a wonderful example. Their early logo was so complex, and they moved to the Apple, and they further simplified that. And it's like, okay. Well, what does Apple have to do with computers? It's like, well, that builds power over time. And, of course, you have the little the the bike out of it, which is, like, kind of a play on, like, you know, little fucking computer thing. Okay. So things to things to consider.

You're saying, well, grow to love this. I gotcha. I gotcha.

I'm saying It's Harley.

I'm saying it Could be a bot. It's all Could be a The logo, the branding hurdle. I

do like it a lot, by the way. I will say I do like it. I just agree with Randy too that it does feel like maybe that I've always I've just been sitting here and having this problem with the center. The center is what's getting me. But anyway, don't know how long we wanna dwell on this, as long as

you want to. Is it identifiable and

Sure. You remember it.

Yes.

Because the center's not like that, but I just do not.

Yeah.

But So we're gonna be remembering

They remember the zone.

It's a

little outstanding.

Yeah. Right. And the itching is Still think that Roman, we gray.

If I understand correctly, when it was all centered up, it looked tree. It looked like a pizza when it didn't when it was all centered up then. Yeah. This is a pizza that I kept.

But so the colors, mark, the feel appropriate.

Yeah. All that I'm I'm

okay with all that. Did did did the designer at all try putting some kind of a deal to give it an indication of a hug? Just curious.

The way that that process works is the designer creates various drafts. And we we started with the idea, actually, of the student well, we started with the idea of doing a slight refresh of the current brand. But then as then you consider the mission statement and the vision statement. Well, that doesn't fit. Yeah.

And so it moved to a bit more abstraction. And then there was a few other potential solutions drafts of of of other types of of marks. And this was the one that, you know, solves the the puzzle to the greatest degree.

So no. Randy, that sounds like a no. It's a no.

It's a no.

Thing thing. If we use the wagon wheel, we're essentially excluding other viewpoints.

You mean points in history, I think is what you're trying to say, other historical elements that identify El Dorado County. So the basket, an indigenous basket, a pickaxe, Stella Tracy shoe made by her husband. If that were the logo, we'd just be telling the cobbler story instead of the broader picture of our history, right?

If it's anything and not, absolutely. If it's any, potentially anything and it's not abstract, then there's that potential for perceived exclusion or ignoring other points of view, history, or even it's still a wheel, though.

Right? A wheel can be very inclusive. It's gonna be interesting. Your

wheels can't find. Wheel. Right.

The mop and everything. See a Different pieces, slices, or different parts of history of one we are many.

It could be Pepperoni. What is this? I'm sorry, Brian. Sorry. Is it I'm happy. Exactly.

We've been seeing what we're what we're looking for with this with the conversation and and Yeah.

Thank you for taking our Individual. Feedback and input onto it. Good great in so so many ways. Maybe every way, but I, yeah, maybe we're just caught on that.

Adding levity to the meeting. Right.

It's a knife. Yeah.

Well, the wheel does transcend the errors from the very beginning through the transportation, even the railroad and everything else. The wheel has been along for the ride, so to speak.

Well, and then after looking at this when he showed me the different choices, this was one of them, and we were out in the museum yard, and there's just there's wheel pieces everywhere in the museum. Yeah.

No. I'm just struggling with And not identifying it right

they're not all symmetrical in the museum. No.

No. Even if they were at one

time. Yeah. We have a lot of wheels that

look like that in the museum.

Thank you again for showing us the work that's like several things. One, the great work that's being done to take the museum and evolve it. Now in light of the new mission statement and the the new vision statement, which we're gonna put on today, by the way, getting that solidified, the whole bylaws, that is, and the resolution. But then also that I do think the intent of making us more recognizable visually as well as in reputation, memorably as well as impressionistically, I love that. I think that's wonderful.

I would propose we move on in the conversation, actually to go back to something, and I'm giving you warnings that you can tell me, no, you wanna stay on this if needed, but I wanna go back to catalog it because we didn't even appraise on you for that, and I would like to come back and do that for a moment, but only if conversation is run as quickly. And I have to open it up to the public probably on this as well. Yeah.

Yes. That sounds great. And we can go back to well, we're live right now with it. So real quick, I wanted to share

maybe you can move some

of those windows around.

It works really well there. But the Eldorado History Museum needs to be has a black line around it so you can see it against the background. So we actually have a

lot of control over that element of this database. We can change the photo so that there's additional contrast. Oh, okay. And, of course, this is just a draft. We're just excited to show the functionality on the I mean, this is live right now, so you can even look at it on your on your phone. So really big. See? It's

So we go, this is the landing page for the hub.

For those online who can't see the screen, we're now in CatalogIt, which is hub, hub.catalogueit.app, and then that's, like, a big hub for everybody who uses CatalogueIt, I assume, of which we are now one group.

You might have to throw in

My goodness. Does it have a search

in it? Yeah. If you do a search

A little bit must have been. Yeah. There

we go. If you do a search

And so the question It

looks good. That easily recognizable? Yeah.

I'm sure it's

The water the the bell tower and the what's now the doughnut coffee shop. And I

do like it better that those colors. Right. The yellow on Nice.

Nice. Yeah.

And we do have that option even within the database with the darker color. Yep.

This week, we changed some of

the grid of the of the

photos popped a little bit more.

But this is a piece that I wanted to show everyone. So Kelly has made it to where the the logging collection so far, that is live, and also the railroad collection. So about a 100 items in total. So now you get to see how this all comes together if you're gonna browse on your computer. So super exciting. Go ahead. When you click on when you click on railroads first.

Yeah. We have somebody here. Mhmm.

Thinking about it.

So this is strange because this is a very, very fast database. Yeah. Yeah. And so I haven't seen that happen before, but it it's pretty it's pretty seamless. We're very happy with Is that

where I say user error?

And you're fine. Actually, it's not showing as much on

the screen.

We have various windows, so it's kind of obstructing it a little bit. But as we scroll down, when you scroll through just that page there, so you can see all the wonderful photos there, very easy to to explore and navigate. And when you click on the one in the bottom left corner there, Fabulous photo. This is a snowplow train, or I call it a snowplow train, but that's why it's designed that way. And we actually have photos of this that it's it's plowing the snow. Forget the exact area, but we have it to where there's, like, five, six feet of snow, and it's plowing through. And you can see we have the metadata on the right side. And then

with a good amount of photos, We're able

to include the date of the photograph, but not all of them. And then if you click on the photo, then it'll bring it up in the screen, and then you also have zoom option and and a few other things. The zoom option is obstructed by the video thumbnail right

now. You can't

see it, but it's there.

But it's it's lovely being able to to zoom and really explore these photos. And if you go back, Kelly, easy to navigate. And then on the left side, that's where we have our published curated collections. So if you go to logging, there's even more photos in here.

If you wanna go ahead and compare to

the railroad collection right now, but if you go ahead and scroll down and just show how easy it is to browse, and maybe find what you like and click on it.

If you can see that there the pitch a picture can be in more than one folder. Mhmm. So because it can, like, pertain to more than one store. Here's iMiker's.

Yeah. And and we have a fair amount of photos of train wrecks. Hopefully, everybody was fine, but some of the trains, you know, toppled over. Yeah. Very, very interesting. And, of course, logging element.

What comes across is the magnitude, complexity, the immenseness of the equipment and the infrastructure and the dynamic of that industry and the, you know, the smoke and dust and dirt flying and everything, trains derailing, blah blah blah. But I I just think in a way it's sad that we don't have any representation of that dynamic. You see it in the photographs.

And we can also upload different types of of media. Currently, we're trying to track down a few different videos of the train or of a train in El Dorado County. I think it's in the nineteen fifty. Wonderful footage. But the the things like that, if we were able to obtain them, then we could upload them, and then just as easily as you can browse and be able to watch the the full videos within the data.

Can I ask a clarifying question? Not to interrupt the License to use, how does that work for the public?

Great question. And in the in the past, my understanding, there was a form that could be filled out. Donations were given to the museums foundation. I've seen other museums where they have something on or within their within their database or their website online form. So we're still working on those those pieces.

That, of course, all have to go through appropriate channels and counsel. We've been focused on the the technical element and and populating it. And now that we've we've come to this point, we'll dig deeper into into some of those pieces with in use. And that's something that is it's a little bit different from the library world, but it being it being dorked off. There are Right.

Yeah. A lot of researchers. They want to use the photos. Exactly. And we also have even with certain county projects and contractors, vendors, sometimes they are compiling reports, and it might be appropriate for them to use something. And then there would historically, there have been compensation for using photo.

I think I remember, I'm not sure, way back several meetings ago, at least, the topic of usage came up. I can't pinpoint it, obviously. And I think you said at the time that you were open to making this pretty open, like, making it hard for the public to be able to use it. If my memory is correct, I still feel that's a great pathway. Again, now in our roles as sort of advisory, which I would open it up to the rest of the commissioners to think about this too, but there are some barriers which I think are starting to erode away, not everywhere, but like filling out forms, paying money, you know, pretty restrictive use.

And you see now a lot of movement towards like Wiki Commons and you can, you know, a lot of things are out there in the public for use. You have to do attributions, And I love the direction that society broadly, if not specifically in the museum space per se, is moving. Does the administration have a perspective? Or you might be saying we need to still think about this and have consultation with the legal team before we can really say?

So our our focus is is access and and awareness and also how that that ties into outreach and obtaining for preservation and that that that that sphere. When we talk about, you know, usage and and within usage rights and and and that arena, so we're talking about if somebody were to use a a photograph and generates kind of revenue, whether it's in a book or something of that nature. And and so historically, that's been my understanding of how some of this collection was used and why there was a a use fee. But knowing that not everybody can come to the museum and that we want to share as much as possible history of El Dorado County. And we have this fabulous, massive collection of, well, maybe more of a traditional library and information science scope.

We wanna make that as easy to access and enjoy and explore and discover as possible. In questions like this, I mean, you you you mentioned how things will change over time. And I know that some museums choose to do this with their the collection is becoming more and more of a of a rarity where you saw it decades ago with the standard. And that's something that we we all talked about was the idea of a watermark on an image, which I would say ruins the the the experience and does little with all the advances in AI and other tools.

You can just have that

cleared out automatically. So we're really concerned with with access, discoverability, and encouraging the community to interact with collection.

That's good. Does the commission generally feel in agreement with that statement, or is there any dissent?

So you're saying if somebody took something off of there and made something and sold it, there would be no repercussion?

I'm saying that with or historically, there has people had to come to the museum, and then if they were going to utilize a photograph in that fashion. They would pay for it. It would be be provided on a CD or or a flash drive. And that's with the with the usage piece and then individuals collecting revenue or with certain types of of projects, that's something that council will guide us through. That's not something that the department will that has has a authority to navigate that.

So who have has that been discussed with council? Don't know the council.

It's it's something that we're in the early stages. Now that we're we've got the technical piece and then sharing potential branding, and this is the first time that we've gone live and and and shared with with the public. Now will we will we keep it live at at at this point, or will we have to pause it a bit longer until we get more information from council? That'll likely that'll likely be the case. But we weren't ready to jump into those conversations until we were at a certain point.

It's very complicated.

It's kinda

Yeah. So one of the one of the things that we need to the fine lines that we need to walk is we want the accessibility. Right? But we also need to think about fair use because not all of these photos are ours to share. And so these have been uploaded from other institutions that have them. For some reason, we don't have all the pictures of Eldorado County. So we're gonna have to be very clear in this with a very clear disclaimer statement instructions on what to do if you want to use this photo for for these actions.

State Library has an excellent template for that format. They basically say, you know, we're we're putting this out in the public domain, but we we do not claim that we own it. That is Yeah. That burden falls on you, the user. It could be Very similar with that. And paste. I I would works for the state library, and it's a great they've got

a great repository. So it could just be a disclaimer as easily as that, and it could be on every single one of those. Mhmm.

Open I a can of worms with that question, but and we'll just maybe that could be an ongoing topic unless there's any disagreement to wanna bring us back into the agenda or moving towards the agenda. But any last comments from either administration or commissioners on this before we begin to wrap up this part, catalog it, and I'm gonna take public comment here momentarily also. Then I'll just add this, that so happy to see this happen, that catalog it has come together. I can't imagine how much work, I can just vaguely imagine how much work has gone into this effort of making this accessible. I also want to underscore preaching to the choir in the room, but for those on video who may watch later, and for history, so to speak here, that this really does show an intentionality and understanding and intentionality of the mission of the museum, which is to make available the assets and get more people interested, and it should be more visible and accessible, and it's happening.

That's what it says. It's exactly what we're watching happen. I'm so thrilled about that. Maybe in the next meeting that we have, since we still have quite a few agenda items before us today, but maybe in the next meeting if there's time for it, recognizing your comment earlier about the number of the multiple tens of thousands, multiple tens of thousands of backlog in terms of digital assets that are already wherever they may be to be processed. I wonder what that timeline looks like.

Do not be tempted to answer that question right now. It's probably too scary to even contemplate, but I would love to better understand kind of what lays before us still in getting all of that in, knowing also that the resources of the library are not infinite. And if there's any way that the that this comment then becomes a future agenda item, it's meant to allow the possibility that a request is even made to have the commission advocate, as is also our role just in general for the museum for, you know, resources to support things like that, maybe that specifically, but things like that. Just love everything I saw there. Let's do a quick round now of commissioner final comments, keeping our eye on time, and then we'll open it up to the public.

Any comments from the commissioners at this time? Okay, not seeing any. Then I'm gonna turn to the public in the room first. We have the entirety of the public of El Dorado County represented in one member now. But no comment there, it looks like at the moment.

Thank you. And I'm gonna look online, and I see that we don't have any participants at the moment online, so we'll close out this item and with our thanks again because this is a tremendous progress and clearly aligned to the mission and vision of the museum. Okay, so we're gonna go back to sort of the beginning now. We have forum, and so we're able to process our consent calendar. If you've had time in advance of the meeting to already review the minutes, and also the accession, deaccession list as well.

Are there any comments or requests to pull items on that? Do I have a motion to pass these items? I motion to pass these items. Do we have a second? Second it. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Looking for public comment on these items. Maybe I should have that a second ago, but I'm not seeing any. Okay. So that passes unanimously for those present, noting that we have two absent today from our commissioners. Okay. We are gonna move next then to report from staff, assuming that that wasn't what was discovered or maybe that was part of it.

Is there still additional detail there? No. Okay. So we'll consider 26.303. We already covered that. Thank you again, Bryce, for those updates, really excellent. And now we'll move into discussion and action items. Twenty six point zero zero five five is the first election of chair and vice chair physicians. As a reminder, this was actually before us at our first meeting of the year, as is called for in our documents. But we weren't able to get there.

We elected not to because we didn't have enough people here, really. Technically, think it was enough, but we postponed it to this meeting anticipating that we would have more of the commission here, and we do. So this is up for formal action at this time. Two individuals, myself and Randy, are still interested in those physicians, we're taking formal action on that. Point of order here, I'm not actually sure if I am the one who should bring this forward or if it should come from somebody else since I'm one of the people being elected, potentially into the role. If there's any disagreement, I think I will move it forward.

I think the only question is, is there anybody else who would be interested in either office? If not, then we can move forward.

Thank you. Is there anybody else yeah. Yeah. Not seeing any interest to the movement for that? Okay. Then is there a motion then to We should open that up. Okay. Thank you. He doesn't want anybody. Does the public have any comments before we take a vote?

No comment.

Okay, thank you.

And I'm gonna look online. There's nobody online at the moment, so no other public comments at So this I think we're ready for a motion to move forward with myself and Randy as chair and vice chair, respectively, for this year.

I move that we accept with appreciation your willingness to serve and that we approve you for the positions identified and that we go forward. So that would be my motion at this time.

Do we have a second?

I'll second. All in favor?

Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Alright. Thank you. So we're gonna close that out and move on to our next item. And by the way, we are grateful for that and take our roles very seriously. Moving forward then to our next item, this is 20 six-two 91, approved resolution and bylaws replacing ordinance 4,551. We're taking formal action at this time.

Again, this was actually brought up in our last meeting, but it wasn't for formal action last meeting. It was meant to give it was meant to be brought up, reviewed, which we did, and allowed to have time with the public as well as with us through to this meeting as such that we would then come back into this meeting. And if there were any additional comments, etcetera, we would hear those today. But I think we pretty much settled last meeting. We were in a good spot with these documents.

So I'm going to open up for questions first, first conversation. Is there any additional input from any of the commissioners at this time on the bylaws and or ordinance now, Thank the you. Before we take action, I'm gonna check-in with administration. There had been, I think, one question that might have been outstanding, but it was more within administration, which was, if I remember correctly, related to whether the language in the bylaws and or the resolution pertaining to evaluations or valuation essentially, and the insurance requirements. If any of that, it seemed to potentially impose a burden upon administration to actually pursue evaluation of any donated items, which might be onerous.

Did that get wrapped up, and is everything good there?

So we, under California state law, we have to have an evaluation of anything that's donated. But under the IRS federal law, we cannot place the value on that. So the donor has to give us the value. Whether it's realistic or not, that's up to the donor to give the value. We as staff or commissioners cannot place that value on there.

The implication, I think, therefore, being with administration, then as any donation may come into the museum, and we're we have to fill out the form. Right? And then the form has a space that says the owner's valuation essentially at the time of donation, and they can put down anything they want they want to.

Is there another museum out there that does that so that maybe we could have a template to see how that works? Do you know? I don't know. I could look into it and see what I

can find for you, though. Okay. Yeah. And then our current template will be reviewed by

counsel. It could also maybe review.

We we have various documents that will go to counsel for review because that hasn't been done recently. And so this is part of that.

So you're gonna let count her staff look at it first before they go, right, so they can make suggestions on it? Is that what you were asking? Absolutely. Right. And I'd also like to see where it says that everything must be completed to people. I can send it to you.

The history says they can take a ton of donations. I wonder if they don't have the template you're speaking of.

I'll say common practice is that generally, notwithstanding any laws that may apply specific to California, but museums are absolutely against being in the middle of an evaluation, Right? Because it places, obviously, a burden

for some You might find that more in art museums than museums, but the value that there's the intrinsic value itself in the museum. And I can sunder that a

little bit and say, like, for art museums too, you know, they need to they're going to individually value a piece for insurance purposes, for example, and they can vary so widely there. So for us also, generally speaking, we would not want to be in the business of creating valuations or having to obtain valuations. But on the other hand, past acquisition, like let's say something's come into the museum, well, it's a different thing not to be conflated with than going to, I don't know how our insurance works. We're probably self insured in the county, I don't know, maybe not. But that is a separate thing where then the museum at that point talking to the insurer and the underwriters, that doesn't have to have anything to do with the acquisition of the item and its valuation at that point.

Ideally, just our recommendation, I'm gonna keep us out of moving, I'm gonna keep, we're gonna move this forward today with a recommendation, just that, you know, we not try to create a necessity, although the law may require it. So what can you do? But if it if it can be avoided in any way, for example, even by, as I think you're implying, in the form itself, you know, when somebody comes in, we could give them the form and say, we're not valuing this, right, but if you have evaluation, you can put it there. And we're out of we're we're not involved in that, nor do we require it if they don't put something down or if they put a zero down. I I don't think we should have to then be obliged because the law seems to imply, which is kind of where I think the clarification is needed, like that if somebody writes a zero or leaves a blank that we've gotta go now and hire somebody who will charge us a lot of money to do that.

Can't let that happen. Okay, can I move us past this, though? Because what we are here today to do is now just vote, if you agree, to move this forward, essentially, right, saying we've got a final version of the resolution and bylaws, understanding that we are allowing, we don't say it in the course, but that there may be a change to that section which does not need to come before us again as a commission as to whether there's any tweaking that may take place regarding the valuation of an artifact coming in. So I would propose that we do move these forward. But before I make a motion to do that, any additional clarifying comments or statements either from administration or from the commissioners?

Really, just making an advisory. We're saying we're okay with you doing this. That's basically all we're saying.

Yes.

Sure. I that's exactly right.

Not seeing comments then. May I open it up to the public in the room first for any comments before we vote on this?

No comment. K.

If look online, there's nobody online. Okay. So is it appropriate for me to make the motion? Does anybody wanna make it?

We've already made a statement about what we're doing, so I so move we approve the bylaws and the resolution. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you.

And with that, we now have a set this in motion for the next steps, which will eventually lead us in front of the supervisors. That'll be a to be determined date. And when that happens, we'll communicate here, but, you know, through the administration, And if you're available, I would like us all to try to show up for that and show our support in particular for the fact that these now have been updated in a way that I think captures much more usefully and accurately and intentionally what the museum is to become in the future. Okay.

Okay. And and and we are going to the department will will take that to the County Board of Supervisors in March. And

On the twenty fourth.

March 24. Okay. Great.

It is a department matter. So right now Let me see if I can get it on a time certain and let you guys know because we're Okay. I I couldn't even say when it would go on this at this time. So let me see if I can get it on a time certain.

Sounds good, and then I'm already just looking at my calendar and embarrassed that I'm gonna be with my nephews, and we won't even be in town

on the twenty fourth. Well, we can take it a different time if you guys all want to be here.

I would love that, but I don't mean to be selfish. No. Mean, the point is that it passes.

So I'm we can you guys are doing on March or excuse me. April 7, you're doing That's right. Presentation. Mhmm. Right now, you are slated they're giving you thirty minutes. Do you think that we could put that in?

That'd be great. And it

wouldn't be more than five or ten minutes with the board. Would love that.

Is that okay? Wonderful. Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Thank

you. Thank you. Yeah, we're like, we have a time for that already, I think. If I remember, it's like I mean, roughly speaking. 10:00. Yeah, 10:00.

Okay, good. Good plan.

Back to our agenda. Thank you. That took us some time and energy from many parties involved to bring that together productively and successfully, and I really think it's in that. So my thanks to each of you and many other groups actually who have been involved more broadly, the way through the supervisors, administration. And I neglected to give a thanks a little bit earlier.

I'm just remembering on a separate topic, but to the friends at the library of the field, who obviously are contributing quite a bit also for the benefit of the museum, the library system more broadly, but that was noticed as well, and we thank them. Okay, we're gonna move next into collections committee. I don't think there was anything specific added to the agenda for this round, but I would love, in our next meeting, if at all possible, I think there was a known request, and it just didn't make it this time into here, but for, there was an item, I think, that's sent back to the old post office on Main Street. So we'll see that come in for consideration, either as part of consent calendar or we'll probably pull it just to, it's one of those things that we probably should do very much out in the open and sort of take a look at that request to have that deaccessioned and moved over to what used to be its original at that time. Let's see, there's, again, that's a little off topic.

There was actually an agenda item under collections committee just acknowledging that that was intentional for this meeting. We'll next move then into museum program updates, and we'll begin with Dee for the Research Room.

Okay. Well, the Research Room kind of has two things we work at. One, I'm doing research requests that come in people. And the other is kind of organizing and working with the materials in museum. And every week, we usually have somebody come in usually.

We have some visitor that has a question and we work with them right there. But we also get requests by paper, by email, and we deal with those too. So that takes a good part over time when we're there. I usually take the property history ones because I like the old maps and using the old maps, people would give us an address, I can geo reference it and see exactly where their property is and I can put it on all the old maps and we can get names. And then Rhodey takes the names and she just goes with it for that.

She's really good at digging into finding out about people that we're looking for. One interesting request that we've had is about the stone building that's on the corner of Broadway and Main, right where you turn, and it's made of rhyolite tuff but it had plaster all over it. And the owner has taken all that off. They've sandblasted it, I think. And it looks really I haven't looked at it recently but really cool to have all that off of there.

And he wanted to know the history of it, so I was going through the deeds and I discovered that it was built on the site of the Broadway Hotel that burned in 1853. And the deed was interesting because it had it detailed every single thing that was in that hotel when it burned, down to how many pillowcases there were, and how many spoons and glasses that described all the different kinds of glasses and all the different kinds of silverware. And I never in my mind had a picture before of all those things I ever thought about, all those things that would have been in that in 1853. Don't know, I just anyway, that was really interesting to read it. Those deeds are really fun to look at.

And Rhodey, she just is like a dog with a bone when she's after something. She's been working on Peg Legg Smith. Someone had a question about him, and he was in our county. But he's been all he was all over the place too. And I think she's going to be recognized in his book that he's going to write because she's given him so much information.

Besides research in the there, we have a lot of projects, and the photos are in files file cabinets, and many of them are all they're all organized, but then we found others that had missed the cataloging and many, many ones that don't have any information on what they are where they are. Usually, a lot of people from photographers. And we we sorted all those, and that's what Kelly used when she did the display in the library before Christmas. We've made inventories of other materials. There are a bunch of CDs and even floppy disks.

Remember those from a long time ago? Hard I know. And zip disks, and we haven't looked through those yet. And and I I think we're gonna find that a lot of them happened. The pictures have been taken off and are in the collection, but we wanna get rid of those until we find out whether we really do have the information on them.

I finished inventorying a really large donation of mining documents. A lot were copies, but there were some original things in there too. And we're planning to have a special area in the research room for the mining to get all the mining material together so that when we have someone interested in mine, it'll be easy easier to find material on it. We're preparing to do scanning in the near future, hopefully. And the the museum is filled with binders.

If you've been back there in the research room, you've seen them. And if they were scanned, they could be searchable. So an example is Sue Silver and Susie Micas years ago took county microfilm and they recorded all the deaths and accidents that ended in death. And they organized it by date through those binders. So it's really not very practical.

But if we scanned all those papers, then we could search it by name. That would be more helpful. Well, one thing I want to get scanned are the deed books we have. They're not books with deeds in them. They've got the names and the books and pages that the deeds are on so that we can get them from recorder's office.

And they're little binders, you have to go through them, but if it was scanned, we just put the name in and pop up what book and page to find it in. We've been assisting the surveyor's office with their scanning of map. Upstairs at the museum, there are map cases and they're organized by township and range and surveyors they come office comes down and they take one drawer at a time and they scan them and then bring them back and take them over. So that's a nice thing. And we've started to inventory I've started to inventory the maps upstairs, and we've got a spreadsheet made up so that after they're all inventoried, it'll be easy to find them.

We've got lots of duplicate too. So those that we determine are not ones that people are going to look at a lot or duplicate. They're going to go to the basement of the in the library, there's an area that's in museums. And we'll have it have them organized so that if someone wants one, we'll have the spreadsheet, we'll have the data that they can see if that's the map they want, we can go easily get it and find

Will that be in catalog by chance? Is that how that might work in the future too? It's like the digital version is accessible there, and the location is the metadata, if you will, around it, and we would know, oh, the location is underneath the library,

in the basement of the library.

Oh, wow. There's probably thousands of maps.

Yeah. Right.

But is

that the general construct that's envisioned? I don't know if that is or isn't. Or is it that there's a spreadsheet that has to be referenced in separately? Yeah. But it's okay. TBD. Never mind.

Sorry. Yeah. It's definitely nice to have it all. A spreadsheet also is easy to please. Mean, don't think you think too much.

Yeah. There's also opportunity to integrate Rekord into into our online catalog. And so there's it's just there's a lot of surveyor's office has been needs to be great to work with, and they have multiple scanners, and they recently secured a new one. Very expensive. Produces lovely scans. It's scanner. Yeah. I think it was it's over 20,000. Somebody

needs to scan some of the

more deeds at the recorder's office. I was there right before I came here and pulled it up. You can't read it.

They they can the the the lady there was able to find it and print it, but you can't read it on the computer there.

Okay. Well, there might be an opportunity to to collaborate in their office as as well. And we're doing that with the surveyor's office with I mean, they have they've scanned under it. Maybe there are up to thousands of items now. They have it in their database. I understand their their PDFs, and then we can we can hear that potentially and catalog it or our regular catalog.

Thank you. And amazing work that's happening there in the Research Room, and I'm glad to hear that the public is coming in. And some individuals, and so anybody who may watch this, please know that there is a is a way to come in. And if you have research that you want to accomplish, you're writing a book, looking at your family history, you wanna find something about a mine that you think might have been on your property or is on your property, as just a few examples, there is a pathway to do that. And we can't wait to receive you there at the museum to help you with that research. Any questions for Deep?

Just a huge thank you from the library department. Great to see all the the energy at the museum with all of our volunteers and just the the space continues to look fabulous. And then, of course, with the visual element and having the, you know, the the scanners that'll be put in place, working with multiple departments. But, really, I mean, library staff and our volunteers, there's so much life that they breathe in the museum. We're getting more and more positive comments from the community, and it just continues to grow.

So thank you for that. And also to our DAO analyst, Era, and then we also have Emma in there. Always very, very helpful, but helped us tremendously with the library and the museum and the railroad.

Excellent. Alright. Thanks to Rody too by extension as well, who I know has been helping there.

Oh, yeah.

We'll move next into the Alderwater Restaurant Road with this.

Okay. Very good. Thank you. You know, normally, January, February, we're laying low and just letting the rain fall and going about our business indoors to the extent we can. However, this year, everything's upside down.

We have had extremely busy January doing things that usually would be several months down the road. First of all, we're working with county and the Cal Fire, I believe, on fire fuel mitigation starting at El Dorado Station going west, and they've been cutting around El Dorado Road, and they'll continue to the El Dorado Y and possibly as far as Blanchard this year. That's a fence line to fence line mitigation of fire fuels, meaning they're not they're not the specimen trees. They're not the majestic trees. They're things like madrone and other very volatile fuel starters and so forth.

So we're working with mister Press, and we're using our rail equipment, a high rail truck and a large commercial rail mounted chipping machine. And so it's a good collaborative effort going well, and that'll continue with another workday here in every week. We're also working on fire fuel mitigation several different ways. One, we cut and ship ourselves year round for clearances, and we go out 12 feet from the railhead and 22 feet up. That's a FRA

boundaries requirement.

And even that is a sizable bunch of tree pieces in process. We also are now having had a class with with the county ag a couple weeks ago. We're now applicator by certificate, so we can work with county now to apply the chemicals to the roadbed and so forth to to produce prevent a huge amount of foliage that can quickly take over and present a real fire hazard. So we're happy to be doing that as, again, volunteers of the railroad and representing the museum and county. And so that's coming along.

We next week at our foundation board meeting, we'll approve the operating schedule for this year. That will include the large excursion train out of Eldorado. It'll include the maintenance away track gang cars out of Shingle, and we will start out running a large train two Saturdays a month and the ACARS two Sundays a month, I believe. Plus, we now are proposing five special holiday driven events using the large excursion train. The five holiday events would be a spring hop.

As if I had to work at the name, you know, for a while. Anyway, spring hop, and there'll be an Easter egg. Sorry. Egg search, and children will be there will be a bunny rabbit in costume who occupies the same address I do. She's eager to be the no.

So that'll be coming along in the spring. Then we move to July 4, our country's anniversary, two hundred fifty years. Why not have a holiday patriotic train going from El Dorado up to Missouri Flat Road with bunting and flags and so forth? And, certainly, if people have costume elements they wanna exploit, that would be fun. Then in the fall, we move to the pumpkin festival, and that was held last year with great success.

And so we're now starting actually the search for a number of pumpkins and and so on. And let's see. What am I oh oh, I'm sorry. Step back. Halloween. We propose to run a civilized, calm, family centered Halloween train where the children can kids can have their costumes, but not terrorizing. No. And no no no terror.

So no haunted train?

Well, you can have friendly you can have friendly ghosts.

It's a Caspers.

You can have Casper's, and you can have you can have traditional American family costumes, but no violence, no extreme stuff.

No headless horsemen on a horse chasing you guys alongside with the pumpkin. My god. That would be brilliant. I'm already thinking of it.

It's not like family friendly. That's all. You gave yourself a long. We have individuals who has

I don't think that's times about bringing out the marshals with their firearms, and I'm going, wait a minute. And

That's right.

Anyway, so we think that that would have some fun, and people at the crossings would enjoy, perhaps, Santa, feed the kids, and so forth. So then back to November, we have the pumpkin patch run, and that's pretty well established. And then in December, we have the holiday Santa holiday runs for two Saturdays. And those were popular last year and full trains and people enjoyed it, and we had Santas at the station. And so we look forward to putting some spice into the schedule and have some fun and bring the community together with the railroad operation by taking the events out onto the railroad versus just being at the station.

Okay. I did wanna mention that we have now received the two diesel locomotive local diesel engines, Cummings, by the way, from Niles Canyon Rail Museum. They're in the Department of Defense green capsules that all that stuff was put into years ago, and it's and they're full of cosmoline. So they've been in a suspended state of animation, but their new Cummins specified Cummins qualified diesel engines, and they fit our locomotives, which we have historical locomotives. So diesel engines that would fit our locomotives need to be historical as well.

And so these do, and so the plan is to take one and with Doug Beerkamp's help, lift out the engine that has some problems on the green and yellow center cab diesel, put this engine in place using the long block parts like pumps and hoses and this and that, and and then start it up, and that locomotive will have two functioning diesel engines so that it becomes the backbone for runs out of shingle, which we'd like to entertain as soon as we have a excursion car to put in the center of the train. We are happy that the coffee shop continues, and they have done preticketing for us, which is a big help this year, so we see that happening again. And I think that's pretty much it for the quiet month of January and February, but everybody's working hard. We have volunteers putting in thousands of miles a month coming from Georgetown and Cool, Sacramento, Fair Oaks, all over El Dorado County just to work on certain days on the equipment or to operate the trains or to do whatever. So in a year's time, they put in huge amount of mileage and and volunteer time to participate and and bring the railroad to life.

So, anyway, thanks to everybody. The historical society charter run the other day was wonderful, and we were very, very happy to participate and provide provide a little bit of other historical environment. And so we hope that everybody in the historical society was happy and

We're raving about it. Thank you guys again for accommodating us.

You bet. Do you mind

adding to that a little bit and talking just briefly since it sort of spills over into community engagement, which I think is okay, but we'll just can you add anything about that since it's directly tied to

We had a narrow gauge logging error, which this is not a narrow gauge, but the same tracks that the Eldorado Western Railroad travels were used by Michigan Cal lumber company to export their lumber to Sacramento, San Francisco, and the world. So it was a narrow gauge railroad presentation by Phil Barry, whose grandfather Swift Barry is a forestry icon and lumber icon in the county. Phil is almost 90, and he shared his memories of growing up in Michigan cataloging Camp Number 15. He's one of the few people left alive. He was four and five, and his memory is in front of and he described, with historical footage that actually belongs to the county museum.

So we need to talk about that because I'm not even sure people are aware that it's there. But apparently, a lot of that footage is already at the museum somewhere. So another conversation. Oh, so Yeah.

Perhaps what we saw mirrored on Facebook, we actually have the original or are we talking about different

Different, but just as good. Wow. Okay. And older. So that I got excited by that.

So we can talk later. But he he this footage was put to a documentary documentary years ago, and Phil narrated what you're actually seeing in that footage from that little five year old boy's perspective who rode the cable across the American River Canyon. And then afterwards, folks were able to ride on, with the on those tracks, then where that lumber went to market. We had a snafu with our venue double booked, and we found out an hour and a half before a 100 people descended on the venue for Phil's presentation and then to ride the train, and we really didn't know what we were going to do. Doug Verkamp had asked if he could he and his wife, Laurie, are historical study members.

They bought tickets. He brought his 1948 fully restored Michigan Cal logging truck to show off for people to see what was used at the time that Phil would be reporting on. And we said, Sir, there's hope we don't have a venue. And he said, Well, I have a museum, and I think it would be the perfect venue, you know? So Jacob and I are feverishly texting and emailing a 100 people, making phone so that everybody And he wouldn't have thought it would work, and he had It did work, and everyone had a spectacular time.

They got to see all of this antique fully restored logging equipment, tractors, and then to hear Phil's presentation and with that historical footage, and then to ride the train afterwards. They had to drive from Cold Springs over to

0,

Colorado. But it was wonderful. So there was my little report. It all worked out. It was meant to be, and people had such a good time. So we live in a really special community where people just try to work together to make things happen and to celebrate and recognize our history, our shared history. It's a wonderful place to live. I feel fortunate to live here.

Yeah, and at that point too, just thought that it's pointed out not that we needed it here, but also for the future. Like, here you're seeing what happens when these different organizations talk with each other, you know, share their visions, and then put programming together that helps to surface out of the archives, you know, all of the wonderful stories and histories that then you can even take on-site through EDWR and get on the train and ride and experience it as if you were there in the dirt and dust, as you were describing earlier. Anyway, but that's it. That's the magic that just got, that just happened. And so just for us all to tell others, which we are, that that's happening.

That pushed everything out three hours, by the way. All the volunteers stayed an extra three hours because everything got pushed out. The venue that didn't work out, we had quite a deposit, and so they of course had to refund our money, and so we turned around and at that very high amount that we would have paid them, that we doubled the amount that we donated to the Western Railroad. So everybody benefited from this. It really worked out. So thank you guys for

your flexibility. Thank you. It was our pleasure.

Yes. Any questions for Keith at this time?

Are you guys gonna do a field trip to Roseville on April 14?

I don't know. Okay. Are you referring to the back shots?

The big boy.

Oh, the big boy. Yeah. You know, that would be some Talk to the other side. Yeah. Sorry. It's a big they're having another tour of the back shops at Sacramento. So, the the largest steam engine in the world is coming through on its tour of America this year.

That is.

Well, and to to piggyback on all of this, from my understanding, shea number two ended up in Southern California some time ago.

Well, let's clarify. There were narrow gauge shays by the dozens up at Pino Grande and so on, and of course, the Diamond and Caldor operation. But to bring the lumber from Camino down to Placerville to interchange the cars with Southern Pacific's freight trains, they had to have standard gauge locomotives. So they own 250 ton Shays, which are about three side three times as big as the Shea in the engine house at the museum. I mean, they're big.

And there's one of the two that was saved and it went to Griffith Park Travel Town, and we would like to have the opportunity to see it repatriated to its home where its history is. But it it is a it is a sizable engine and would be interesting project, but it is standard.

Right. Because I reached out to them just to open up the conversation of, well, just thanking them for keeping it safe. Yeah. And, two, they're they need the opportunity for it to come back home to El Dorado County. So early discussions will but being explored. I think it'd be a great thing to have on display.

We see it at Shingle Springs, which Yeah. Has the property that to be presented properly.

Mhmm. Yeah. We'll see we'll see how it goes.

Is it functional?

I don't know a whole lot about it except it's I I think it's still there. And

It's there and complete, but, again, it's a steam engine from the forties, early fifties. Now you're back to boiler land. So Fantastic. So one thing's for sure, you can add a couple more zeros to the cost because it's much bigger. But at least having it presented in in the state that it operated in I mean, the state of operation. And that it certainly would look a lot nicer with fresh paint and proper, you know, take some TLC. It's kind of lost in travel town. They have so many locomotives.

But it's nice. Here. They're at capacity. So maybe Mhmm. We thinking that it would be a

fabulous It's it's a big shade. Three cylinder. Big, big shake. Anyway, good. Well, thank you, Bryce, for pursuing it.

Yeah. Any other questions for Keith at this time? Okay. Thank you, Keith.

Thank you, guys.

And by extension, everybody at EWRR that's working kind of all over the place. Now commissioners, are there any community related engagement updates that anybody has at this time?

We all wanna go, so I'll keep this very short. The El Dorado County Historical Museum has loaned done a loan for Chinese pioneer artifacts for the Fountain and Tallman Museum's upcoming Lost Chinatowns of Doner Rock County exhibit. We also have a program. All of our exhibits reflect a program that's been scheduled by the historical study for the year. So we will have a lost Chinatown tour with archaeologist and historian Dana Soperniewicz on the February 20.

That's sold out in less than forty eight hours. But then the loan from the county museum, all those artifacts are will be part of the tour, and there will be an interpretation. So we're working with contacts, and they have the Locke Foundation to help interpret the artifacts further, to tell those stories from that community so that it's their stories and their voice that's being shared. So that opens on the February 18, so please come see us at the Fountain and Tallinn Museum. And, of course, there's still all kinds of goodies from the Chinese collection at County Museum still on display on

the floor. That's all I have.

Any other things that anybody wants to share? Then we're gonna go to public forum next, and is there any public comment at this time in the room? Quiet public today. Yes. And there's still nobody that has joined us online.

So as we wrap up then, as I close this out, I just wanna thank everybody. This is all coming together. I'm a pretty optimistic person, so I hope you'll forgive me for dwelling on this as often as I do, but, you know, it really is happening, and I think it's pretty evident the impact that this can have on the community. It is having right now, but that we can grow this even further to wrap us all the way back to what Bryce said at the beginning, to the vision to become one of the leading museums in the country. That if we're gonna achieve that, it's gonna be because more of this happens and we're gonna reveal more people in the community, those who may watch in the future.

Come and join us. There's a lot to be done here in Eldorado County. And if you are part of another organization, we want to work with you also, and that includes everything from history to the arts to you name it. So we do see ourselves as uniquely capable of bringing together people who might not otherwise intersect in the county. That's actually a side effect of what happens here. So with that, we are Yes?

Just wanna thank both of you for accepting your leadership roles for the next year, and we're well represented,

so thank you. It's such a joy to work with you folks. Yes. It just is.

It's it's Yes. Okay. Well, I'm gonna call this meeting adjourned. Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.

Therefore, I'm getting sick.