Parks and Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. This is the 04/16/2026 Library Commission meeting. We do not currently have a quorum. However, commissioner Sheridan is on his way, so we will be moving changing the agenda. The consent calendar does need to be postponed to the next meeting as we do not have forum who were sitting commissioners to approve the minutes from the January 15 meeting. So that would be postponed to the July meeting. That would be the end of the consent calendar. I suppose they didn't call

us to order. We'd be

called to order at 03:03. Now we would be jumping into open forum. This is an opportunity for members of the public to address the commission on subject matter that is not on their meeting and agenda and within their jurisdiction. Public comments during open forum are limited to three minutes per person. The Commission chair may limit public comment during open forum. Is there any public comment from the room? Is there any public comment online? Nope. Alright. Open forum is closed.

So without further ado, we would move to item number two twenty six-six 99, the Library Director's Report.

Thank you, Creswell, Library Director. I also oversee the Historical Museum and the Eldorado Western Railroad. A few things to share. The Eldorado Western Railroad recently had their eggstravaganza train, which was an a hunt type of event aimed at kids aged zero to nine. It's very successful.

I think they ran six trains in total. It was a sold out event. It was also the first time that the Railway Foundation utilized an online ticketing system. And so that is in place. It worked without any any hitches.

We're very happy with it. It's called SimpleTix, t I x. With the upcoming just regular excursion rides, we've noticed that riders have have booked and purchased their their tickets online through this system. So we make it available roughly a month out. But very successful event.

Thrilled to have the online ticketing system in place, so a big thank you to the Railway Foundation for doing that. Makes it easier for not only the volunteers and train operators, but for the public as well so they can book and secure and pay for their ticket all online. Oh.

I see. Welcome, George. Good afternoon. To get

Did either of you get to me?

Well, I did, but I was in I was in transit as well. And I just jumped into the beginning of of my report. I was talking about the El Dorado Western Railroad, and they recently had an event called egg extravaganza. And it was an egg hunt program aimed at kids zero to nine. They ride the train, and then it would it would stop, and they would exit.

And then there was an egg hunt element. They get back on the train back to the depot. And we have our online ticketing system now, and our riders are able to book online, reserve their seat, and pay for the ticket. And it it worked flawlessly. So we're all very happy with that new ticketing system.

We'll move to item c, the museum. The photo database, the historical photo database that we've been working on is now live. We've started promoting it. We have four or five different categories of photos so far, but lots more to come. The I think Crystal is bringing that up maybe on the screen.

Within the report, the Livestar item, the links are live. So if folks see this later in time and wanna click on those, then it will bring you directly to the papers. But this is an example of one of the the flyers that we put together to promote the collection, so we're very happy about that. A A big thank you to the El Hills Friends of the Library for supporting this project and getting us set with the with the first year of we use a product called Catalog It, and so that's been funded by the Colorado Hills Friends of the Library for this first year. And in other museum news, starting next month, we'll we'll expand open hours.

We'll be open three days a week, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from ten until four. So we're very excited to offer that to the community. With item e, I've listed measure B, which is South Lake Tahoe. That is the ballot measure that's coming up for the June. And now this one, measure b, is related to the South the South Lake Tahoe library, and it's a proposed renewal of a parcel tax.

I included some more detailed links in that item, including the board item. We also have a link that goes to our website now that has measure b. It's a fact sheet as the community is eager to learn or may have questions and wanna be aware of additional details. And let's see if it loads.

No worries.

The small screen

Anyway, the the link Yep. Yeah. The link is

Let's see if can see

your sub card. I don't know if

we put in the slider yet, but it is available through our website. And then we do have it printed and available for patrons. You know, when they visit the library and if they have additional questions, staff can provide those fact sheets.

So that's for see, am I finding it?

I have to click on the link in there. I forget the full URL. That took us to the Is it a different That's not it. Or is it? No. But that one's useful, well, because it goes to the county site as far as for elections.

Alright. Gotta be around here somewhere. Seen it.

Well, it, you know, it would probably come up if you did a, a Google search, but then also with the URL currently, I think it might be titled like, fact sheet. I don't have my actually, let me check my phone, and I'll be able like, you may have the wrong link in that.

Yeah. Press.

There we go. For that computer.

Do we have a sense of how this is bowling? Do we think it's gonna pass?

Sense of who you ask.

Nothing official, just kind of feelings.

I don't know, Bryce, but you would netwitter than I do.

Both districts and both of those libraries have historically been very well or beloved by those communities. So that is in the let's see. With with the parcel tax being, implemented, and then it was renewed multiple times previously, which the the link in that, item contains the board item with a with a complete history. So there has, has been a a a pattern of the parcel, tax being renewed. Trying to bring up this this URL.

I have it. It's just maybe it will show where you are. Here. Okay. So it is it's anything you see there in the URL, you could probably actually just go back and then edit the the the last part of it. And so instead of about the library, just type in measures. There we go. Alright. So that's the link that was supposed to be in the original document. But then as you click on one of those, go ahead and click on measure b.

And so this is an overview of the information, which is it's an expansion of what's in the ballot question itself, but, yeah, it provides a detailed overview. And we have, of course, measure b, that relates to the South Lake Tahoe library, and the parcel tax and potential funding. And then we also have measure c, which is the Georgetown library. And then we can move to staffing updates. So Cameron Park, El Dorado Hills, and Placerville.

El Dorado Hills, we had a vacancy that came up, and that was filled through an internal promotion. So we're excited that that Katie will be in her new position as library librarian at El Dorado Hills. With, Placerville, we were able to offer a part time position to someone who was working as extra help in our system. And then with that shift, we're looking at since we no longer have that extra help individual assisting at Camera Park in Colorado Hills, we're looking at one of the vacancies we have and creating a position that assists at both of those sites. So that would be something that could happen next fiscal year, but that's what we're exploring as far as operations right now.

And last few items here, we have item h. El Reno Hills Library is growing hydroponic lettuce and a few other veggies. This ties into our summer reading program and some of the other educational programs that they're offering. The hydroponic lettuce grower has been funded by the Elarana Hills Friends of the Library, and it's re it it's received a lot of attention from the public and during our story times and other events, and patrons have been able to partake in taking vegetables with them, so we're excited to offer something a little different come summer reading. Remind me again the theme for summer reading this year, Crystal.

Plant a seed read.

Yes, So it ties in nicely. Something a little different. So next time you stop by the Elberto Hills Library, you go once you go through the lobby, it's on the left side, kind of near the three d printers and and the design lab there. We have a found home project. We collaborated with Arts and Culture El Dorado for National Poetry Month.

There are poems that are packaged in a very, what would we say, intricate and magical way, and they are hidden throughout the stacks. There's a wax seal on on the back, and so patrons may find those and they can open them. Then it could be that those are, I guess, winning poems that you would receive a book of poetry. There's a few different giveaways that are tied to this. But from my understanding, South Lake Tahoe Library, they have the poems in place, and Cameron All of them.

Okay. I didn't know if Plasticville was still pending.

Plasticville got them yesterday. Pollock got them yesterday. Okay. So it starts today and runs through the thirtieth. There's various poems that they can find, and

some have a Prive attached. Mhmm. Fun collaboration for National Poetry Month. ADA update. So there's been some changes in how we are required to process our documents, say, even this agenda for this for this meeting.

So we've made all the appropriate updates, and we have different software that we use to to check. But there are some new requirements. And so the department has been working on that for some time, and not so much sure that most of you will will notice any differences in in the formatting, you know, with agendas and some of the other items, but they are all fully ADA compliant with and being in or being aligned with the with the the new requirements around all of that.

And our website is as well.

Mhmm.

So I would like a little more information about that. Mhmm. Specifically, maybe you need to give us a document. What are the new requirements as far as digital access and what actions the library took in order to meet those requirements. Mhmm.

I think that previously, we were likely, if not compliant, very close. Some of it relates to contrast. It relates to the or or tags for for photos and the alt tags. With some of our offerings to the to the website and social media, some of it has always been well, perhaps not always, but has been it's it's generated automatically. So one of the things that we examined a bit further was, in particular, the PDF documents that we create, and ones can create that contain tables and more complex formatting.

And if you were to use software to where it would describe each element, is that being conveyed accurately. So some of it, I'd say primarily with a lot of it, it's related to how things are tagged and making sure that also the reading order is logical. So sometimes with certain slides, you may have six or seven pictures. So it's like, okay. Well, where is this what is the sequence here if there is a particular sequence?

And that is also why, mean, we have the upcoming library commission presentation. The Historical Museum gave their annual report recently, and we did work with them to change some of the formatting of the PowerPoint because it wasn't it wasn't a 100% compliant. There was a few different graphics and things that we had to shift, a few things that, from a graphic standpoint, we we removed because it made everything a bit more complex. So that's a snapshot of some of the the the details and how we've been working behind the scenes with the ADA pieces or documents. Does that answer your question?

Yes.

I do have I'd still like to know more about the nitty gritty. As it happens, I'm low vision. I'm not blind, but I can only see the word calendar and the word library and the f. I can under location, since I know what they are, I can read them, but I can't read any of the text that's on the screen. So that's something that happens if you're using a reader, and it's possible the magnification isn't great enough, but more likely, when you magnify things, then you lose part of the field of vision.

It goes off your screen. Sure. So I'd be interested in how we do that, and if the library provides services that enable people to create PDFs, I think there's gonna be a lot of challenges involved in that. So I would like to know a little more about what we've seen as particular issues and how we figure we're addressing that. Mhmm.

Let's see. With the PDFs and how they're formatted I mean, if there are tables in the other element, there's an added text within that from my understanding. And then, of course, because of the type of format, it can be zoomed in in your in your reader or in your web browser. Same thing with our website. With with contrast, the software that we use, it will it will flag it if it thinks there might not be enough contrast.

Some of that is, you know, also something that that the the department might it's a good example here. We had a summer reading flyer recently that uses, two different types of green in the title. So that would be an example of of, you know, there's not enough contrast there, then it could be difficult for individuals to decipher what that text is saying.

So let me ask a related question. Sure. Are there, at this point, agencies or businesses that are putting out materials specifically intended to address this issue that could be widely adopted by libraries.

I think that with these new requirements, wasn't it a recently

It's passed state a federal law that goes into effect at the April. The county rolled it out to us February, I think, maybe January, that they wanted us, the county departments have to be compliant before it goes into effect at the federal level. The IT department it's probably been working on it for a year, I would say. And so I know that the IT department is working with all of the vendors that the county uses to make sure that they're compliant, whatever products that they're offering are compliant, that they would use.

Maybe I should have used the word been using my last question to Bryce because it's been known that the ADA requirements would go into effect at the end of this month. And so not only IT staff at the county level, but presumably people who have seen opportunity to provide materials to the library who have been working on these same issues. And so what I was asking is, are there vendors or are there nonprofit organizations that have said, we have a package that you can use or adopt that will help you make sure you've covered all the bases?

Not to my knowledge. No. I don't believe anybody has reached out to us. Yeah.

It would depend on the vendor and what exactly they're offering, and it could be that they're already compliant. So it looks like this is related to, ultimately, websites and mobile apps to conform with a certain level of accessibility and and standards. So Maybe next meeting, we can include some additional links in the in the agenda related. That's really from the department scope. We're Really?

Looking at our, yeah, our immediate requirements from the county scope. So I'm not familiar with all of the federal details.

Will the state be providing any technical assistance on this, do know?

I do not think so. I know that with, I mean, with any additional requirement, there's, you know, added processes, and our department is is not as, you know, document heavy as far as, you know, what we generate and, you know, may need to revise to to place, you know, items publicly on the on the on the web. But I think that, you know, certain other departments, it's been much more of a of a heavy lift for them to bring those materials up to that up to that requirement. So there's not a requirement to

do a technical report to anybody in the federal government. There's a federal requirement under ADA, but they're not saying document for us that you're meeting this. So basically, the enforcement is by lawsuit.

Is that a question?

Well, it's my assumption that that's the case.

We're, I mean, would assume meeting our county's requirements. So they're laying out the requirements. Maybe the federal government is going to the county for that because we're the department within the county, so they're telling us, You need to do this, this, and this, so we're doing this, this, and this kind of thing to meet their requirements.

That's Okay.

That's what I know.

Yeah. I'm I'm unaware of any structure that's in place where it'd say it would be like an audit from a federal level or, you know, checking certain certain pieces. I I haven't heard of anything like that. But as a department for compliance, Crystal's done a great job with preparing the the various PDFs that are that are part of this. And then we also have all of our social media.

There's been some additional trainings related to that. So as a department, we've been preparing for this for Months. Few few months at least. Mhmm.

We are in a somewhat different position, it seems to me, from other county departments or agencies in that the library is responsible for, meeting ADA requirements for a very large user base. Are possibly more people who interact with materials in the county library system than with any other department of the county. And so it's not just a matter of saying, Look, the documents that we have that outline our procedures have to be compliant, or the agendas for meetings like this have to be compliant, so on. But also ensuring access to all of that stuff for everybody.

Sure. Well, and that's why we're ahead of the curve because that's been a scope that we've been concerned with and mindful of as we offer I mean, everything from our from our website to our to our databases to ebooks. There's all sorts of functions built in that support accessibility. So if you'd rather listen to the documents than read it, if you'd rather magnify it, whatever it might be, the technology that we have in place and the vendors that we've worked with has historically had that in place, and now that even more so of a of a standard, we have not had to make many or any changes to to vendors or or websites or databases because a lot of it's it's been built in

just as a as a product. Okay. Thanks for taking the time to explain this. I think this issue really gets to our core mission. I'll talk as a commission over the county and says, What's the library for? We're talking really about access to everybody. I

agree. Let's see. 88. And one last item, online credit card payments. So we're we're very excited to offer this.

Everything aligned with as far as the county and some of the software that they use, and then our open source integrated library system, which, of course, supports all sorts of different modules and and APIs and different connection pieces. We wanted to offer patrons the ability to say say you lose a book or a book, your your dog gets to it and chews it up, and so you need to pay for the book to to have it replaced. We still accept cash at our service desk, so you can do that transaction in person. But we also now offer, an online option that just through your library account, you can pay for a lost or damaged item, and you can use, use a credit card. I think there's some other options too.

I wanna say that there's other options. I

won't listen because My you know, but PayPal does one. Cash card.

That's my understanding. There's a whole slew of

options. $5.

So this is intended to be a convenience for our patrons. We first looked into this at the library system probably ten years ago, but the software just didn't allow for all those connection pieces. So we're happy to offer it as a convenience for our patrons.

Does that have the capability to integrate with your friends in the library platform and offer folks a chance to give a donation on that same page while they're checking out? Out?

That is a great question.

Or maybe one day it could do that.

In theory, has technical functionality, but those different structures and rules are around that. So I don't think that I mean, as far as the donated funds and going to the friends, because this is through, ultimately, the county platform. Even though perhaps the technology is there, we keep those things The policy is set Yeah.

If the friends of the library have the ability to accept money's credit card, then rather than giving them money directly from the county site, It could simply be a button that says, this will take you to a different site. So it takes you to the county. So it's not it's not giving money through the county to the Crimson Library. Simply saying, okay. Now I'm done on this site, but here's a little button that reminds me I'm allowed to make donations by going there.

And I have a note.

And says, then you are being securely transferred to know?

Yeah. We'd

prefer that.

The yeah. We would have to check into a few things on that side. I'm not sure what might be possible on that scope. From a technical point of view, that's possible. From a policy point of view, we would have to do a little more data gap.

And that is everything that I have for my report.

Are there any questions? There any other questions?

Other comments from the commission? Any comments from the public in the room? Nope. All that was number two. Item number two is closed.

George, would you like me to continue, or would you like to pick it up?

So did we formally convene at 03:00?

We did it at 03:02, I think, 03:03. But because there was no quorum, and there still wouldn't technically be a quorum, thank you, Constance, for telling me that, we couldn't approve the minutes because we don't have no commissioners.

I don't approve

the She can't approve the minutes.

Okay, so we don't have a quorum to approve the minutes. We have a forum to be officially in session.

Yes.

Okay. So I just wanted to make sure the record So reflected

We've done open forum. There was nobody here. So we're actually moved to item number three. I'm sorry. And that's I've got it up on the screen, but

I wasn't sure I'll need you to read it.

Okay. Perfect. So we are now looking at item agenda item number 326Dash0700. The commission will discuss potential topics slash items of interest to explore at upcoming meetings.

Thank you. So do either of you have something you'd like to bring up first?

I have something I'd like to know more about just generally, but I don't know that it has to be at a meeting. So I could ask for this education often as well, but just in terms of the policy about how patron information is shared with the friends at the library, like, how do we have that relationship? Reach out to somebody who has given the library their email address, for example? So in terms of, like, if we have a written policy that could just be sent to me, that's an interest.

So let's see. You're you were talking about information sharing between the department and the friends? Basically, patron information is housed.

I don't know if it's gonna be housed at Cameron Park Library or if it's housed at the county level. Do friends have access to that information?

Those are completely separate.

So there's no policy about how they connect because they don't connect at all? Correct. Okay, well that answers my question.

Yeah, no, that's a great question. With the friends and so if somebody wants to be part of their mailing list, then they would provide their contact and other info, but our systems aren't connected. They're completely separate. Mhmm. There's no sharing between between the system.

Okay. So one reason this is on the agenda is I felt for a while that we should have a timepiece when people could bring up topics that they were concerned about so we could all know to talk about the next item. But one that I am concerned about at this point is the relationship of the library to artificial intelligence. And prompted my thought about this was a couple of stories I've seen recently, reported in the New York Times, library note at NPR, about various groups in the library world that have been thinking about this and preparing reports and recommendations and so forth. And there's, I believe, there's several different aspects to it from how does the library assist patrons to interact with artificial intelligence, which is every place I would be.

Every time I pick up my phone and do a Google search, I get an AI summary of the information that's available. But we're also using AI to write reports, and high school students will be using AI to write the reports. And I think it would be good to to look at issues that others are identifying and what we have in place to address those issues and what we might need to think about doing. People say, well, there's ethics questions involved. And, again, there's access questions involved.

And so right now, I'll just put it there. And if no one has any thoughts they want to share right now, we will ask Bryce just, or Crystal rather, to have it on the agenda for next time.

Would it be helpful if we offered Bryce and Crystal kind of a thesis statement or put a little more parameters on what we're looking for. Otherwise, I fear that this would be like

a rabbit hole, like, Tell us about AI.

Could be interesting, but if we had a little bit more definition to it, that might get us more substantial answers faster.

Well, can say that the I mean, a lot of this is new to many environments. I mean, like, the county to the IT department, there's various AI trainings and a limited set of tools that are available to staff from the from the information literacy point of view and technical literacy point of view. I mean, that same support that libraries offer to the to the public, I mean, that is still true with access to computers and Wi Fi and and all of that where AI tools could be accessed. So I don't don't know if that helps, but there's a there's a chime in from the department and also a little bit about accounting.

Yeah. I think it's a really interesting question. I'm just trying trying to figure out, are we asking from a policy point of view what is the library policy on using AI in the building, or is it more what the patron's experience gonna be? Like, hey. Can the patron expect to come in and use Copilot, Gemini, ChatGPT? You know, basically just free for all. Do what you like.

George, do you have any specifics about the concerns being addressed in these reports that you've been reading? So there's a report called the Pulse of the Library 2025, which addresses, I think, maybe both of the questions that you just raised as far as what AI tools you give the library make available or how much education will the library provide to patrons as far as, well, what's the difference between using Gemini and ChatGPT? You know, which one might be more suitable for a business application? Which one might be more suitable for Interesting. Research project or So I think that that's a question.

How do we decide which of those tools we should have available? Or we, again, say, It's free for all. You can in and do whatever you want. Yeah, you got the web too, too well. But then if you're looking at people who are not currently in the workforce, and maybe really anybody over the age of 21, they're not going to have the background.

I mean, they're not, in a sense, digital natives. So are we saying you're on your own and find your way around? Or are we saying maybe we'll offer seminars, you know, or maybe we'll have a tutorial online in the library? Maybe we'll just say we need to make sure that the library staff has a certain level of knowledge so that they can assist patrons who come in and go to the help desk. And then there are the ethics questions, which are related or maybe separate.

Does the hybrid library caution people don't print out stuff and put your name on it? So if it would be helpful for Sue and Bryce, I volunteered to get a couple of documents that I think might be a starting point. But the idea isn't for us to ask the IT department, tell us all the things that artificial intelligence might do and what anybody might do about those things. It's got to be much narrower in terms of what's the role of the library in assisting people to use AI both in generating and in understanding materials.

Well, there's that element of information literacy, which vibrates always, you know, help the community navigate aspects of that. And then we empower people to choose through diverse collections and offerings and access. So talk about a or use the term free for all. Well, that's what, that's a result of access and having ultimate diversification with resources. So some of this might even be philosophical.

But there's also a very real practical concern in terms of what is the cost to the library of doing anything. If you say, We're gonna buy a collection of children's books, say, Okay, we know what other libraries spend. We think a reasonable budget for us, given our potential user base, is so many dollars per student in the county or simply so many dollars to create a base collection. When we say we're going to have tools available, some of those tools are licensed, and so there's a cost to the library in purchasing license. And I don't know what the pricing model is, but some of those could be one time or some of them could be peruse or whatever.

So there might have to be some investigation of what can we do to provide a base level of service at a price that we can afford. Or if it goes beyond the price we can afford, then we have to be in a position to talk to the county's board supervisors and say, This is what we believe is needed for the library over the next few years. So anyway, I believe that the thoughts that you've already shared are good starting points, and maybe we have a little bit of time so we can ask the staff to come in and say, Here's what we see. It's being done or it should be done or could be done, and then we can be philosophical, but we can also be practical, parents would say. What are the steps that can be taken in the next year, two years?

I don't think we can plan in detail further out than that because AI is growing in power so fast that what's gonna happen three years from now is not foreseeable by somebody who's not involved in developing it right now.

I've got a lot of notes. I'll make sure I'll touch base with you again, George. I've got a lot of notes about what you said, so I might kind of reach back out to you to see what he is this what you're looking

for? All right. What else do we have on our agenda?

Do we wanna continue on with the topics items of interest, or are we looking to close this one out?

I'm satisfied.

Okay. Me too. Okay. If there's no comment from the room from the public? Nope. Nope. Public online. So item number three is closed. That brings us to item number four, twenty six-seven zero one, a review of the 2025 Board of Supervisors presentation and discussion of the 2026 presentation changes. That's this next topic.

Do

we have the text to the Yeah.

Let me try to make this as small as I possibly can.

And there might be a presentation in October.

Yeah. September. I think it's September.

September. It's we have one more meeting before the presentation. So if it's in October, it's before the October Library Commission meeting. So it's either September or October. But the idea behind this would be there is gonna be a presentation of the board. You guys can't talk to each other together outside of this meeting. So the idea is to kind of maybe see what we said before, see what you agree with, see what you wanna change moving forward, and then if somebody wants to put it together for the next meeting, then you have, This is our intended final product.

They could create a working group, though, for the They

can, yes. Of a max of two. So two of the commissioners would like to form group. You guys can actually talk to each other, not in public setting.

That's what the museum commission did. So but it's not required. It's just an option. And with this template that was used last time, I'm happy to create a new template because this will need to be simplified because of ADA requirements and the fact that we want it to be as accessible as possible. Of course, it's a little it's a little busy with graphics, with some of those kind of detailed graphics.

We could still, of course, we'll have pictures, but there's areas for improvement.

Yes, I had to make this ADA accessible, and it was a lot of, That's a decorative item. That's a decorative item. All those swirls were decorative, so there were like 101 decorative items on here, so

Okay. Whereas you could use artificial intelligence to describe the photograph.

Do, I mean, so alt text can be generated by AI. However, for the photographs, some of the AI generated text hasn't been great, and so it has as long as we don't have 101 pictures on here, it was much easier for me to go in and explain what these pictures were, though, as an alt text.

And It's real intelligence. With the the county and the IT department and a lot of the AI offerings are are new, so there's some acceptable tools for staff and activities, but it's still still pretty narrow. So it's not something that we it's not something that we use in our department at this point in time. So I looked on my calendar, and the report to the board of supervisors is the September 25, which is before the October 15 library commission.

Thank you, George.

So the first thing here is to state the purpose. And looking at this and the upcoming one, purpose of the commission has not changed. Is that true?

That is correct. It has not changed.

And the only thing that could change the purpose of the commission would be an action of the board to say, we want a commission to do this instead of that.

They the board would would need to be in yes. I believe that you are correct because we you I assume we would need conceptual approval from them to even work on that piece. That is my understanding.

Sorry. I'm I'll move it because we take some notes. Historically, is this, a ten

minute overview?

Ten, fifteen minute. Mhmm. There's flexibility there. We we reserve time slot. I believe we have fifteen minutes, and it's fine if it doesn't go the full fifteen minutes. We just wanna make sure that it doesn't go over fifteen minutes because then it impacts the rest of the day and other presentations and meeting in general. You become hated by

all the people after you.

Oh, yeah, I know that. Do we remember what questions they asked after our last presentation? Were they interested in anything particular? They wanted more information? They were confused by anything?

I don't think they they had any questions.

No questions. It was a great presentation. To educate it.

They said positive things, of course, I don't think there was any questions. Sometimes they do have questions. They had, or, historically, they they had a question or two with the commission, I think, for that presentation, just out of curiosity. But, of course, I'll be right there as well, so I'm happy to to answer questions if it's more appropriate for the department to answer the question.

I was just thinking it would inform our content. Mm-mm.

Obviously, the next slide is who's on commission.

And we actually introduced each commissioner.

Oh, great.

Did everybody attend?

We did. If someone if there were a vacancy or if someone were absent, we'd say there's a vacancy. But all the commissioners who were in it, we all sat together, each one stood to be introduced. And

we will know the outcome of the measures since this occurs in September, and so that will be

a a topic.

Mission report. It can be a good one. We've also currently, library funding and sustainability committee identified county service area part of the county service area and from my understanding. But Zone H, which is Placerville and expands out, and it's a huge zone. It goes all the way to the desolation wilderness.

So if, something was to be placed in the in the future on the, say, a measure supporting library services in Zone H first, that area for discussion from that sustainability committee, we would wanna shrink it. And that's done, that can be done by the department through various paperwork, but that can be shrunk in the board of supervisors, and it would be an official, you know, item on the agenda. But it is possible to shrink that zone. What's the purpose of that? Because last time when we went, I think this was maybe twenty five years ago.

We went in 2005, and then we further renewal, and then we tried a couple more times after that. So it's probably the last time was probably fifteen years ago.

So the Placerville Library, the Paul Pines Library, there's no additional funding stream from any type of, tax to support those libraries. It's purely funded by the county general fund. So unlike Georgetown and well, the other locations. We we also have a is it a benefit assessment? Cameron Park. So, anyways, there's different revenue streams that are supported by the tax base for library services in those areas. But Placerville and Pollock Pines do not have anything in place. Believe

2005, they voted by 14 votes.

Yeah. Because voted But part of the reason that likely, perhaps, it was voted against because there's a lot of people in that zone that likely never make it to Placerville or Compromise in person and likely don't even have the option of digital services because they're so remote. So the fact that it's such a large zone, doesn't quite doesn't quite make sense from you're gonna propose, you know, some type of of measures, some type of funding.

So the definition of the zone includes who would be able to vote. And so if the zone is smaller, only the people in that zone are voting on what presumably is a more direct impact on them. But then those also would they be the only people who need to be taxed. So somebody who's outside of zone eight doesn't get to vote on that tax, they don't get to pay that tax either. Correct.

Is there a reason why you brought that up for this next slide? I'm just not sure if I missed

Oh, because I was was attempting to elaborate a bit more just with with measures and then, you know, mentioning that we have two that are upcoming for possible renewal. And then, of course, we have two libraries that are part of that very, very law large zone. And so those discussions were had with the funding and sustainability committee that ultimately helped provide direction to move forward with the measures for Georgetown and Tahoe. So the zone h topic will come back for discussion in the future.

And might wanna be on the presentation for 2026? Perhaps. Okay. I'm just trying to go back to this and figure

out what works. I would say a slide about the measures, of course, would make sense because we will know.

And I think it might be on here for goals for the next year, if I remember correctly. So these next couple of slides I'm sorry. Let's go back to the presentation from last year. So we have the slide where we talk about who's supporting the commission, and then this seems to be a slide, the next couple slides seem to be about what the bylaws are, your duties are, as a commission. Probably that doesn't change.

Yeah, and some of this is pulled from the original committee template for all committees, so some of it is required, like the piece that Crystal just mentioned. Yeah.

But then you've got, so the achievement, I think the measures for B and C are on here for goals for next year, for, well, this year, eventually, 2026. But, so maybe under achievements, you'd be able to say E and C passed, because by then you wouldn't know.

Well, I think we can probably do the preliminary draft of achievements by looking at the written reports that Bryce has in our last several meetings. And so when he says, Well, this exists or accomplished, we can say, That's the kind of thing we should at least think

about putting on the report.

Got it.

And it did say that we reviewed the budget. Like, meeting the meeting.

I think it was supposed to be at the July meeting, but then the July meeting never happened.

Yeah. So annually, July is usually the target.

So our our budget Sorry. I should have little slower. Okay. So that process, the department submitted the budget request, and then the budget memo is being finalized. We met our net county cost requirements, which is very important for the county as a as a whole, so looking at all the departments, because that was the request.

We submitted a net county cost model. We for county direction, and this is true for all departments. So in that county cost model, staying at the same amount as the previous fiscal cycle, and then a 5% reduction. And this was all this was all driven by a board of supervisors request. 5% reduction and then a 10% reduction. So we were able to meet that net counting cost piece, and it it looks pretty positive that that will be the model that is accepted.

Bryce, I I think the question is about how that relates to the report that this commission does this coming fall. And so the answer, what I hear you saying is, we'll go through a process such as you're describing at the July meeting. We'll be talking about. Okay.

Or view the budget of July. I can provide more details in a few graphics.

That would help us be able to accomplish that goal.

And that did seem to be, that was on the agenda for the last July meeting, and if I recall, that seemed to be the best meeting for it to fall into based on when it's all put together. So I will make a note of that.

There's a few exciting pieces within that as well, things that we are able to allocate funds towards beautiful projects, but I'll save that for next.

Sorry. So achievement.

Refrigerant pad.

Mhmm.

Oh, can't do that.

So there's an achievements page. Want me to move on to the next slide? Okay.

And then that's, I oh,

have to go slow. So upcoming goals is your next page.

What did we do against these goals?

Anyway? Did we

Future bowel measures seems like I'm get a big thumbs up. Did we review the upcoming collection development policy revisions?

And there's committees attached to measure B, measure C, and they're both very active. Of course, with any staff involvement with with those committees. That happens completely outside of work time. That's all I'm They have very active committees. You can continue to see them ramp up their effort as we get closer.

And let's see. Continue to okay. Support by private individuals and groups. So that falls within at least the well, I don't know. If we're talking about the department or with

So this is supposed to be the commission's goals.

Okay. Well, and it would be not all of our commissioners are here. So, I mean, with the the or the South Lake Tahoe piece in particular, perhaps the next meeting, Jen. No. When's our next meeting?

The next commission meeting? That'll Jill. Jill. Yeah.

Yes. Okay.

And then I don't recall. Did you guys did we do the collection development policy within the commission? I don't remember.

We had a discussion about collection development, which includes both accession and deaccession. How do you respond to the complaint? Someone says, oh, this book shouldn't be in the library. Or these students or people of a certain age or whoever shouldn't be able to access.

Do you have data policy that's fully compliance via the state library through, I guess it was a state bill. I think that's what we were doing. And we're the department's employee compliance. I think

in a very condensed nutshell, I think the outcome of that discussion was there's a good state law that the county is complying with.

Yeah. Freedom to Read Act, I think. Okay. So those were the goals. Constance had some questions about whether we met them. And then isn't that cute? I I didn't know what these kids were doing, so I had to get somebody to tell me what they were doing. So I gotta put the alt text. They're making homemade bubbles. That sounds alright. That's so because AI couldn't figure out what they were doing. It was like, they're kids on the grass. Anyway. Can I move on? Oh, and there you go.

So under the libraries or big mothers, don't know. Again, there's where we draw the line between the library and the library commission network, but if there's any information in terms of circulation or number of individuals who utilize the library, we could consider including that in the report.

And we're working on so we have a tool called Metabase that we can pull data from our integrated library system and funnel it through Metabase and then generate interactive charts. And we're very close to putting some of these charts on our website. And then we can create a script that will run and update these, you know, once a week or whatever it might be. So, one of the ideas is to have some of, most popular checkouts and other stats, library cardholders, and it's very it's very robust. So some of this is built.

It's just it's not polished to to be put on the website just yet, but a lot of progress has been made, so we're getting close.

So we had a discussion. Maybe it was six months ago or nine months ago, but you first brought to the commission what was happening in terms of the elimination of fines for overdue books. And I think, in fact, to what you asked earlier, I believe there might have been a question from one of the supervisors at our last report about that policy. In the past, when people had over reviewed books, they fines, and that's no longer the case. And we had evidence to the effect that we were getting better circulation and better return over your books by not having clients.

Right. So the policy was paying for itself.

Yeah. So strategically, we moved to an open source integrated library system and online public access catalog, because it's a better product, but also it's it's, it's not proprietary, so we have full flexibility to modify it if we choose. But there's a substantial annual cost savings in that. So with that annual cost savings after the migration, then we use that as leverage to become a find free library system because it balanced it all out. So we could remove that systematic barrier of finds that tend to affect some of our most vulnerable populations the most.

So kids goes on fixed income. And also, you know, the rural nature of a lot of our county, people don't have the option of, you know, streaming services. So if they want to watch something, a lot of folks go to the library. And, unfortunately, our model was there was a cost associated with borrowing a DVD. So there was a dollar charge.

And so part of this, we're changing our buying and fees schedule, is we removed that. So there's no no charge to check out media. And, of course, right when we did that, and in particular, the Georgetown library, the circulation statistics for DVDs and some of the other items just shot up in an exponential fashion. A lot of happy customers, and when you mentioned access, I mean, that is one of the main directives or one of the main things that we wanna offer. And so that's how those components came together, and us being able to become.

And then we also did a discharge accountability for I think, about $270,000, and those are fines from, thing or fines that there was a very, very, very or it was very unlikely that any of those fines would be paid by those individuals. So looking at the timeline, some of these things were over a decade old. And so we the the county discharged those, so it cleared the record. And, typically, when that's done, you see people returning to the library, and you see additional cards then, being created. And so with these changes, we did see spikes in in in our stats related to cardholders and and other elements.

But that's that's how it all came together in those days.

George, to your point, we don't know before an update on that. They were just interested in that.

They were interested. No. They did not ask us to come back with more information. If we had follow on information, they might be interested again. Sound like a

really big success story. Well

and the board approved the changes in the final fee schedule. They voted it was all of them voted yes. Supervisor Ferrero with the discharge of accountability wasn't in favor of that idea, so he voted no on that and had some great questions during that session. And the rest of the supervisors voted yes.

To your point, I think the the big story is kind of the through line is the attempt to improve accessibility, and the evidence of that is different ways in which public is being served or more members of the public are being served. So if we can look at some of the different things that have happened and frame them in terms of that's the overall goal that the commission has shared and that the library staff has shared. So we can say, that's where we've been going and where I believe we can intend to continue going.

That was your presentation.

Thank you, Crystal, because I know we're running longer today than we have, and I see it's the researchers looking at. There we go. Are we ready for a journaling?

Does anybody have any I mean, my question would be, are you guys hello. No. You have quorum. Are you interested in perhaps two of you forming a was it a work group to create the next presentation? That way you guys can communicate outside of this meeting. Or no? Do you think I mean sorry. Was my question.

I'm going to unless there was information available, I'm going to suggest that perhaps I could talk to her because she did a great job in last time. Any written material could be done.

K.

Perfect. Yeah.

So with permission, I will talk to and Yeah. I'm sorry. It's just all this my head is full of names. I'll talk to Heather and see if we can get from Crystal the notes that she's made so that we can do a draft. The idea will be to have a draft here at our next meeting that people can modify if necessary or or adopt it, assign roles, who gets to read the report or parts of the report, When do people stand up to be recognized?

That sounds excellent. Thank you for the operator.

Okay. If there's no other comments from the commission, no comments from inside the room or the online, go ahead. George, you wanna do your adjournment? Yeah. This is a gap. Oh, that's your gap. Look at it. Make sure that was everything. Right? Yep. Okay, and we are adjourned, but I can't see the clock. Our nineteenth. Thank

you. I apologize for arriving so late. I've

had