Parks and Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting

Anybody want to volunteer to do the pledge of allegiance? Let's pick one. We'll do one for this time and one for next time. Should we start? All right, good evening. I call the July 16, 2026 special meeting to order. The public can access live meetings, HTTPS, Fullerton.Legistar.com, on Spectrum Cable Channel 3 and AT&T U-verse Channel 99. The public may address to our Library Board of Trustees in person or virtually. If you do it virtually, please join us by Zoom or by telephone. Those joining the Zoom meeting, please go to zoom.us slash join or call 1-669-900-9128. And please enter the Zoom meeting ID 160-707-9419. And please use the raise hand feature if you would like to participate in the discussion or make comments. For now, please let's have the roll call.

Not yet, not yet. President Su Ling Chen?

Present.

Vice President Megan Watson?

Present.

Corresponding Secretary Jennifer Sarvis? Here. Trustee Carrie Prelitz?

Here.

Trustee Lisa Wozab?

Present. All right. And one of you going to lead us to the Pledge of Allegiance? Thank you to trustee Lisa Well, I guess we are Does everybody know Lucinda Williams? I don't think you need introduction, but let's welcome Lucinda Williams

City Clerk of the Year, according to the North Orange County Chamber of Commerce.

North Orange County Chamber, yes. Amongst all five member cities, yes, but still. So in five years, I'll get it again. It is an honor, though. Thank you, North Orange County Chamber. I appreciate the recognition. Good evening. I always joke that I think I've told you this before. I always feel like I'm HR for the committees because I always come and tell you what you can and can't do and I never get to tell you the fun stuff. So I apologize. I've got some more rules to present to you tonight, but this is a good group. This is my first presentation of the rules to the committee. You're a good group to start with because you live rules like we do. I'm gonna talk about Senate bill SB 7 note in Senate bill and that was 7 0 7 became effective on July 1st It did some modernization of the Brown Act and I'm stalling while we get my PowerPoint. She's working out I see her staring at the screen. Thank you and it does a whole bunch of stuff most of it applies at the City Council level and

I got it.

I'm here and I'm tech support. Okay. So 707 is a new bill effective July 1st. It does all kinds of things, a lot at council. And I'll show you on the next slide. It works on the California Brown Act, which is the state's open meeting laws. In a nutshell, I think all of you have heard my speech already, but the California Brown Act says the business of the public has to occur at a public and noticed meetings. We're doing this here. We're legal and the public. which is you today you have a right to participate in the deliberations of the folks up here. So so you can't make any decisions until the public has a chance to tell you about what they think about what you're making a decision on. The next side the Brown Act I'll tell you applies to agendas They make sure that folks have public comment at your meetings and it also talks about what constitutes an illegal meeting I'm not here for the full Brown Act presentation but we've mentioned that an illegal meeting could be a serial meeting or where a majority of I almost called you council members just promoted you or I'm sorry I'm not sure which where a majority of a legislative body has a deliberation outside of a public notice meetings and the public did a chance to listen to the conversation or weigh in on what they thought about things so that would be an illegal meeting. You'll get another full Brown Act presentation usually at the beginning of the year, and I'll give you a refresher on all that later. But for Senate Bill 707, as you remember, those of you who were here during COVID and slightly after, the state quickly tried to adapt all of these Brown Act rules to accommodate remote participation so you could still meet and not have to meet in person because of COVID during the time. So there was a bill AB 361 that talked about how to do that and it's about either just did or is about to sunset and the state decided to take all of these rules about how and when you can log in remotely to a meeting and Put it in a different section of the code and kind of consolidate it It's much easier to read instead of trying to do choose your own adventure in the election or the government code and try to find the section you're looking for it Streamline a little bit of those those just cause an emergency scenario scenarios where if you were sick the day of the meeting and what you had process you had to do to be able to remote in if you were sick or if you're. out for just cause on agency business kind of thing. So that's all cleaned up in there. If you ever get to the point where you need to remote in and you're not doing it under traditional rules where you post your address on the agenda and it gets posted wherever you're remoting in from, call your staff or me and we'll walk you through it. I won't make you commit this to memory unless you really want to and then welcome to my world. So 707 unifies all those rules through the 2030 sunset. My guess is that'll either, like I always joke, let's do a pilot program. Eventually it'll become permanent anyway. By 2030, we may have a whole different set of technology we're working with, so we may have to update the rules anyway. So we'll see where it goes. I plan on winning the lotto before then so I may not care. It also expands public access to meetings mostly through remote participation. It modernizes the teleconferencing rules for all of you as we mentioned and there's a component of the bill that talks about language access I'm gonna touch on it but don't do too much with it because there's already another bill out there that's moving along very quickly that's going to strike all the language stuff from this bill and I'm hearing it'll come back in the next legislative session and maybe a even more comprehensive and expansive manner so we'll see so language stuff which requires we actually don't fall with any of the groups there's a provision of any language group speaks I can never say this without like triple negatives if any group speaks English less than well and it's less than 20% of that group that identifies as speaking that language then we'd have to provide agendas in those languages we don't have any of those surprisingly we're Like at 10 or 15 for some of those. We're not at 20. I don't even know if we're at 15. So it would have been either Spanish or Korean or our two highest. It applies to eligible legislative bodies. That would be council, would be the ELB, the eligible legislative body. And there's this whole... Government clerk calculus and crazy flowchart of who who qualifies and who doesn't we do we have a high enough population so some cities don't Small cities probably won't but if they're in a county with a large population they may still even though a small city we qualify then on the next slide it talks about eligible subsidiary bodies which is all of you so your subsidiary to the legislative body all the Commission's committees bodies that are subject to Brown Act so the rules some of the rules apply to you some of them don't and If you can remember January 1st, it feels like that was a very long time ago. We sent a copy of the Brown Act to all of our council and committee members as required by the law. We emailed the link to you. We sent, oh, we didn't send it to you, but the law at that time, those updated participation rules kicked in. And I've mentioned before there were social media rules about even if you're commenting A social media post that might have something to do with the business of your Commission and more than three three or more of you Actually even get a thumbs up that's considered an illegal meeting because you weighed in in some way on something that might be business before your committee and I don't know how you're going to go through every single comment and see if someone commented or even use your real name as your screen name. So maybe you don't even know. But anyway, those rules are permanent. So just stay off social media. It's probably a good advice all the way around. Starting July 1st, this two-way public access kicked in. So the law says now it's technically not required. Back up one step. I like this rule a little bit because I'm one of the few cities that's not panicking about it because we've been two-way remote since COVID and never stopped. So that part, that was the hardest part of the bill. I'm like, ah, no problem. We already do that. So this two-way remote access with the public calling in to make public comment is is now legally required. So before we were doing it because it was a good thing to do and we were fortunate to have the technology and the staff to make it run. But now... If there is a disruption in the ability to do the two-way remote, I'm pointing over here because that's a Zoom computer where it comes through. There is a disruption in the communication to be able to do the two-way remote participation. As soon as someone becomes aware of it, the chair will have to recess the meeting. I believe, did we get the copy of the procedure up there for you? That's... Yeah so keep that with you at your meetings or we'll bring it over for you. While staff has to try to fix the issue for at least an hour. But if it's less than an hour of course you can resume right away. But if after an hour the issue can't be resolved you have to make a finding and vote that the need to participate continue with the meeting outweighs the need to let the public participate. During that time the public can always come to the meeting in person if they're close enough that they want to also. So that's the little caveat that's new for us for the two-way access. And then again, there's a whole bunch of rules in there about language access and that I'm proceeding, I'm complying with, but I'm not going full blown, spending a lot of money on it yet till we say which way the bill goes that might strike that part out. But there's also a provision to make more outreach to underrepresented groups at the legislative body meeting. That one mostly applies to council, but. I feel if you've been to a council meeting, I feel like everybody shows up. So we're doing pretty well in that category, too. So this is just a recap of what I just told you. There also are some accommodations starting January 1 to allow ADA accommodations for remote participation. That kind of was, I thought, common sense already. But now they've codified it. So yes, if you have an ADA reason, you can participate remotely. There is a process where, I don't think you'll have it here, but just in case it does, you can't just let someone, well, this isn't part of the new regulations. There's a regulation right now that if you have disruptive people in chambers, you can't just say leave. There's a process. You have to give them a warning. I'll give you a write-up on that one, too, in case you need it for your procedure to follow. And then you can ask them to leave. So you have to give them a couple warnings first for the Brown Act. It kind of made sense that that also applied to the folks calling in but since it wasn't codified they put it in the bill that yes it applies to people calling in and in person. So there are some new reporting departments requirements for department head compensation that won't happen at this level. Also when those remote opportunities if you're sick or if you're using the just cause that the number of times you can do it changed. And you'll still have to make some disclosures like you're doing remote because you're under the weather or whatever reason. There's no one under the age of 18 here with me or you have to explain who's there with you under the age of 18. So again, if you need to use those processes, we will give you what you need to do as you need them. So again, we have stuff you won't have to commit to memory. So we are doing public, we've always done the two-way public access, which was required July 1st for council, optional for the legislative or subsidiary bodies. It was here full of table not let us take away, but that's fine. This is good for transparency There are several mandates for the web page that we will get online to explain how people can participate in this process We do not have to translate any link any agendas under that 20% language rule However, we do have a spot. This is only for council though And the public is welcome to post their own translations of the agendas. So but they only for council meetings. I But for you, just to know the just cause rules apply to you if you want to participate remotely. The public can continue to participate remotely. And if there's a technology disruption, you'll have to do that hour long, up to an hour long pause to try to fix things. So test all your equipment early and often. And so that's probably the biggest impact for you. So that's what the bill says. And that should be my last slide up there. I also gave you Council adopted new rules of procedure for you do you have those up there also. Oh it's on the end of the die is still sorry I didn't I got distracted and I left them there and walked away it's very simple though and I left this one in red line for you. We they updated it to just reference that these seven oh seven provisions are in effect for you. I had a council committee that had the chair and the vice chair absent and they weren't quite sure how to appoint someone to run the meeting. So we just added language in here and just says if your chair and vice chair is gone the majority of whoever does show up can elect among themselves someone to be the presiding officer for that meeting. Mentioned that there is a. person disruption process in addition to a technology disruption process that are both in the Brown Act. And like I said, sometimes I'm HR for the committees. You're going to have to do one more two-hour training. So there is a new bill that says it's SBAB. 827 that says anyone who deals with budgets and finance gets to take two hours of financial training too so we are acquiring a software the training to do that for you and they'll do all the tracking for me in the back end so as soon as I get through the selection campaign filing we'll get that online and you'll have two hours to sit in front of a computer and take yet another training so that'll be in addition to the ethics and the harassment prevention which I We probably need to get everybody caught up on, too. And then the last bit on there in the markup is just, again, more references to just say the 707 technology disruption policy is in effect. So I'm sorry I don't have anything fun, but... It's never fun until something happens, and then we'll care.

You mentioned that the public can post a translated agenda. You mean like translate on their own?

On their own, yeah.

Is there any, like, concern? Like, we don't know what it says. Like, we just go with it.

The bill says we are not liable for content.

Okay.

And so does the posting locations. I am taking bets on when we'll get our first Klingon agenda, of course now they announced it publicly Maybe I need to think of another language. We can guess we'll show up something something imaginary pig Latin something like that So if you have any questions, you know where to find me and any luck you won't need to worry about anything I just told you as far as the disruption goes because everything will go smoothly. So I Like the rest of your meeting.

Thank you so much, Lucinda, for the update. And we don't mind the fun stuff. So bring them on.

I will try to find more fun stuff for you guys.

Thank you, Lucinda. And I want to thank all our trustees for showing up, because it's like a last minute. Notice right it was like not 24 maybe 48 hours and and we got a hundred percent Attendance, you know a paying the back for yourself great job With that let's listen to our director Anita.

I was gonna say the same so I'll thank all of you and suing as well the email back and forth on the dates and the times and Really appreciate it. And you're all here. I just want to also, Ruth will be listening to this later to take the minute. So I just want to thank Ruth. When you have to do this without Ruth, you appreciate Ruth even more. We always appreciate Ruth, but it was like extra this time. And Melissa and Alec just helped so much with getting everything posted. There was a lot that was last minute. And Bethany, thank you for being available to do this part. Like it was such a team effort to make this happen. And we really think it was the right decision because we don't know if a budget will be adopted this coming Tuesday. We don't expect that it will be but we were you know proceeding as if it will. And so this had to be done because we want your input prior. So really appreciate it. I'm going to do a couple of reports then hand it over to Bethany and then do a couple more. First is reporting on the July 7th community budget meeting that took place at Main Library. The only mention that I heard regarding the library, other than within the presentation, is as department heads were mingling, and for those of you who were able to attend or hear about it, there was an interactive process where you put stickers on to show your... I don't want to say... They were trying to gauge support or... Just feedback on certain budget items. And there was a community member who actually asked about the Sunday hours. So I was able to explain to her what we all talked about back in May about putting those four hours in a more fiscally sort of. um, you know, um, uh, efficient way. And she was like, oh, that's a bummer, but that makes sense. And so it was my first opportunity to sort of pitch that idea to somebody on the fly and who I didn't know. And, uh, the reaction was similar to, I think how we all feel. It's kind of a bummer, but we get it. And that's probably how, you know, it's going to have to go. Um, at the July 9th community budget meeting at the hunt, um, same, uh, you know, same format, um, And the I think the takeaway from that and Trustee Wozab and President Chen you were both present. There was a lot of library support at that particular community budget session. So there was just like tons of greens for the library. So that was very exciting to see. At the July 14th budget study session just a couple of days ago there was no direct mention of the library other than what was within the presentation and also a couple of the public comments President Chen included but also a couple of members of the public who are not part of our committees or support groups just within the context of their comment did mention support for the library. So that was nice to hear as well. um i will move on to the hunt division report it's been a really busy it's been a busy summer overall but the hunt has just been like doing so much right now um they had fire safety story time with their guest reader sparky and the fire friend some of our firefighting crew from fire station six so it was a cool story time they handed out little hats and took a bunch of photos and learned about safety and had, you know, a story. Symphony on the go, so wonderful for anybody who was able to attend. That was the same night as community budget meeting number one. And to be able to go to the symphony, even though I only caught the last song, it took my blood pressure from like here, whatever that is bad to like here, which was like better. It was so lovely. It was perfect. The weather, the ambiance, it was so nice. So thank you to foundation and everybody who helped make that happen. Camp Hunt continues to the end of July. Summer class visits continue. Jaime mentioned that summer story times are averaging 170 people. So Ling, we're starting to track and actually include it in the statistics. It actually does show month to month. So we're able to look at like when school was in session, say January through April, the increase in usage and participation with May, June, July. So that's actually in here. Where else are we? K-pop night. For anybody who went or heard about, it was so, I don't know if that is now our most highly attended event after, what was the last one? The carnival, right? That was the one that had so many people. More than 500 participants, dance performances, photo ops, crafts, karaoke room, decorations, giveaways. And how am I going to say this? Nongshim K-pop demon hunters food truck. I hope I said that right. Um, I sadly was not able to go, but I heard it was just so amazing. There's a new July-August Hunt program flyer that includes a library and parks events. I left one at each of your tables. Upcoming events and programs on August 25th, we have Storytime XL. The theme is Bubbles. We were supposed to be doing something with the Orange County Soccer but just their schedule became untenable. And so we're rescheduling, which is fine, but we're still doing it. Also left on your desk are cookies from the flight event. Thank you to those of you who were able to attend as well. So that is the division report from Sherry in the local history room. This will also serve as our arts and culture report. report. It was a success. When we first talked about this, we were expecting maybe five people, including Ernie. We had around 40 visitors, which was really wonderful. Among them, the city manager Eddie Manfro, two library board members, Lisa and Su Ling, thank you. Judy Booth was here. Beatrice came out. We took a photo with all the director, interim director, community partners, support groups, Fullerton Heritage, other department heads, a couple of people from planning. It was really wonderful. Clerk's office was there. It was really lovely. Mapping Fullerton is the next project that's ongoing and continuing progress on digitizing the newspapers. I do want to mention, even though she's not part of the library department, for those of you who don't know, Amy All has announced her retirement. So she works for Parks and Rec. She will be retiring in September. And she has said that she will remain connected to us, but it will not be the same. That will affect our operations significantly. Most immediately is the upcoming gallery change out that you all just voted on. So the, what is it, Fullerton Unbound, the Unbound. So we're reworking that. She's setting us up for success by helping prepare us. But we need to make sure we will be able to make all of that happen. So more updates on that to follow. I'm going to hand it over to Bethany for the technical services, and then I'm going to hand it back to myself.

Sure. Take a breather, please. So the theme of the last month for technical services has been transition. As we had the end of the fiscal year, we had... Everything we'd ordered in the year finally come in. So that's about 2,000 more books that we are working our hardest to get on the shelves. And we had people from every library division come by and help us unpack boxes, break down boxes, sort, including these two right here. They came down and we spent quite... Most people think of libraries as you sit at a desk. That was not that week. We were all up and moving and definitely getting our workout in. So we are very excited that several of those will be getting up soon. We also had, unfortunately, one of our staff members, our library technology assistant, left us to take on a new position. We wish her all the best and certainly made a huge impact on us while she was here. The Mapping Fullerton project that was just mentioned was certainly one of the best projects that she got to work on. The other major transition for us at this time is we are working to onboard a new materials vendor for books and DVDs. And so we're very excited about being able to get more shelf ready items next year after the collapse of our previous vendor last fiscal year. So we have been hard at work keeping all of the plates spinning. Alright, we're almost through this.

I forgot to mention with the flight, those cookies, Sherry packaged those and put that information. So I thought it was a very cute marketing tool. So that was also left at your desk. Another thing left at your desk was the flyer for the America at 250 town and gown event that we're having. We're using a little bit of a format, a different format from what I understand. Previously, it was more of a panel discussion. We will have two professors there but it will also be watching part of a movie and giving some history. We received permission from Ken Burns' people to show part of the signing of the Declaration of Independence portion of that documentary so it should be a really neat movie moment to kind of form this panel around so I'll continue on with our adult programming update there we had the learn to grow herbs event we had a seasonal craft night all of these are around plants because the plant a seed read theme for the summer reading we let's see fly I already mentioned that we continue to have a very successful gaming community and our Super Mini Con is coming up on August 9th, so... That will be at the Hunt Library for anybody interested in attending that. I feel like I'm forgetting something on this. We also have another library staff, and this is from our adult section, who has resigned for, similar to Rhonda, a job that's closer to their home or comparably closer, but it's a promotion. So we're really excited for Roland, although Roland led our Dude, Where's My Yarn program. helped with our tech support among many things. So this is another sad loss for us, but it looks like these hourly positions we will be able to fill. But as you'll see, if you don't already know, part of the budget question is the Rhonda's position because that is a full time position. OK. Back to our teen update teen summer reading program as of July 14th has 76 registrations for teens. That is huge. I've mentioned this before but volunteers emily training volunteers and having them help her out because she's a a one woman machine um has been a help so she has 33 volunteers who have worked more than 100 hours um her teen video game nights continue and she's looking forward to the animal crossing in real life This Saturday, I don't know much about video games, so don't please ask me questions about that. Emily would have been here tonight. She was supposed to be here last meeting, and then tonight she's at the night market, so she plans to be here in August. Again, she's a one-woman show, so nailing down her calendar is a tough one, but she's really looking forward to joining a board meeting as soon as she can. All right, almost done. Circulation, short one. Alicia said, circulation and passports keeping busy, preparing patrons and passport customers for exciting future initiatives like expanded hours, working on displays and programs. And something of note is that she's talked to her display committee. And per board suggestion, they're going to create special displays such as books a character would like and short reads ideas. more on that to come. And then last one is children's. And the baggies you have with the crafts at your desk, those are from Keithley in response to a comment from the board about kits. This is definitely not a path to citizenship or a literacy kit or the kits that we were talking about, but it's the kit that we had available. And so we just wanted to share with you some of the takeaway things that we're giving out and these are steam kits they're different each week so I don't even know if the ones you all have are the same there's a variety there's also more in here if you want to look at these as of the date of July 13th, 1,116 children registered. So we crossed that 1,000 threshold, which is amazing. 519 steam kits have been given out. 370 children completed the fruits and veggies scavenger hunt. 47 junior librarian reading recommendations submitted. The thing that's important about those statistics is signing up is one thing, but participating in the program actively is another. So we look at that. those statistics as well. We had California Joe Magic Show, July 7th, 145 attendees. And the Pokemon Go, 463 attendees. When Keith Lee opened the doors to a conference center where the air conditioning was broken or had just been recently fixed, I can't remember, but it was not up to temp, I will tell you that. And there were many squirming, excited Pokemon Go kids in there, and not just kids. They had so much fun. They had treats. They made crafts. Ate so many snacks that we had to go out and get more. Lots of fun. And a lot of friends were made. I think the big takeaway from the Pokemon event is that, oh my gosh, I was just saying that, and she put Keith Lee made 25 new Pokemon Go friends. I'm just reading this right now. There were a lot of connections made, and those are really big takeaways for me from library events because it's community. Night Market, they're there right now. Upcoming, end of summer celebration, July 30th. Snacks, crafts, a movie, cake from Costco. I don't know if we're supposed to say Costco because they're sponsoring it, but she has it, so I'm going to say it. Children's is taking the month of August off from programming to get everything ready for starting back up in September in the newly renovated Osborne. We don't have that on here, but do you have a quick update about Osborne?

Yeah, so I spoke to the engineer, Nick, who is overseeing the project on the public works side this morning. It seems like everything is going according to schedule. I think the plan is still, we're looking at six to seven weeks total. We may be about three weeks in now. IT sounds like they're on the same page with the construction crew, which was one of my big concerns. So that was a good sign from me. Um, I don't know if I have any, uh, concrete details to report apart from the concrete that's been poured. Um, no, it looks great. Um, and it's coming together. I, I don't know if photos were shared with you guys in the packet or not. I can't.

Last, last meeting. Okay.

I, I, everything happened so fast. No, no. Anyway, it's coming together and, uh, yeah, I think by the next time we see you guys, it should be ready. Hopefully if all goes to plan.

Could be. I mean, the biggest complaint we've had so far, besides a tiny bit of noise when they were doing the demo that first week, is they've been working so late, close to our closing, because they said they were going to finish at four. I find that to be a delightful problem. We're here most days until seven. And if all we have to do is to remember as a staff of 40 plus to make sure that door is closed and they're out, I think that's, I mean, they're just, they're really making rapid progress in there. So it's really wonderful.

Thank you, Alec.

And then the last thing I forgot to report on was the restricted account update. Balances as of now, friends, $76,960.51. Foundation, $81,128.74. I'm done. Thank you.

You already included the Han Library update with all the programmings, right?

Yeah, the K-pop, the fire fight, yeah.

That was it, okay. And with arts and culture update, that was also, okay. Okay, all right, right. Just want to make sure that we hit every bullet point. Thank you. No worry, no worry. Thank you. Well, could we see our friends? I see Judy here.

And while she's approaching, I do know that Sean is on the Zoom to speak for the foundation.

Great.

Well, I won't be very long. At our last board meeting, we discussed the June book and art sale. We always like to do a recap, talk about what went well, what we need to improve on. And everything went really well, and we have a couple little things to improve upon. And it was interesting. People really seemed to enjoy the fact that we had the art sale as well. So that was all good news. And then the second thing I'd like to address is our signage update. It was installed at the end of June. It was very exciting. I was there that day. I don't know if you've seen it or not. For whatever reason, I thought they were going to put an F up there and then an R. And I was saying, how are they going to get it lined up? I was all worried. It was fascinating to watch how they did that. It was on one big sheet, kind of like wallpaper. And they put it up there and brought it down and then heated it up with a blowtorch, a tiny one. Anyway, it turned out great. We call that, like I do in particular, a legacy wall. To the friends, the current, the ones that have been here before, it's so nice to have that signage. And then with all the arrows and the protruding sign, we're seeing, it makes it look like we have a larger presence too. And in talking to people coming into the bookstore, several of us have noticed people we haven't seen before. So the signage is working. If we ask them, you know, why are you here today? Oh, I saw that. I had to come and see what it was. As many times as I've been at the library, I did not know this was here. So the signage has been great. We wound up having, at the meeting we talked about, of course, our balance with the successful book sale. We also had a great month in the bookstore and our internet presence. So it's wonderful, wonderful having all this recognition and arrows pointing our direction now. So that's essentially everything I have. Any questions on anything? Okay, thank you.

Thank you so much, Judy. I think it's just wonderful to hear all the great news really, you know, bring the happiness and smiles to everybody.

Well, I'd like to thank the library staff, too, because different publications have already gone up with the signing. I think it was the newsletter and on the website. So right away, I mean, it was barely on the wall before you started working on all of it. So that helped as well. A new look.

Oh, absolutely. Great teamwork. Thank you. Now, can we ask if Sean from the foundation? You should be here. Hi.

How are you guys doing?

Wonderful. Great to hear from you.

I apologize for calling remote. I just could not get out of work. And nothing to report, but I did want to call in and listen in on the meeting so that I could report to the foundation on the library.

Was there anything to share from the meeting? last foundation meeting?

No, I unfortunately had the same issue with you, with the foundation. I was very sick that week, I apologize.

But we'll be able to, our next meeting is next Tuesday.

But Anita, you and I were there. You were at the meeting? Yeah, we both, Anita and I, were at the foundation meeting.

The big item there was the implementation of a fundraising platform, Bonterra. I feel like I mentioned this already, but maybe not. We're out of our rhythm of this meeting, so I feel like I've said this already, but I think that was the big item. I don't want to speak too much to it on behalf of the foundation, but that is what they mentioned, right? Their fundraising platform. Were you aware of that, Sean?

We've had several tech seminars, including the software program for our newsletter. So I will get an update to the foundation, to the trustees on the platform at your next meeting.

Thank you. And I think foundation also decided to change the employee position, part-time employee position to full-time. Independent contractor position with ability to be able to do events raise money as it's 501 C organization Yes, that is correct, okay So we may look forward to more Events to help the foundation to raise money and I'm sure they will invite us as well, too. I But great to hear from you, Sean. Thank you for joining us. Could we see any public comments?

We do have a member of the public on Zoom. So Analan, if you'd like to speak to anything, please raise your hand now. You'll also get another opportunity on the agenda item. Seeing no hand raised, I believe we're good to go.

All right. Any Board of Trustees would like to make any comments, questions?

Just really briefly, the Animal Crossing event, I have had several adult members of my life who've been like, why is that only for teens? So if it is a success, I highly recommend making it for because I have lots of friends who are very big Animal Crossing. It was huge during the pandemic. And I think the real life version with like you were saying community, I think would be really cute for the larger community.

Emily has, thank you for mentioning that. Emily has noted that response as well. And she did, yeah, she did say that depending on how this goes, she probably will, they will turn it into a program for adults.

Great. Anyone else?

I do. Just wanted to thank Ruth for providing me with the poster for the promoting of the passport services. One poster is already posted as of last week at the main post office. And then I'm awaiting approval for another location. And if that happens, I'll continue to move to the other post office locations throughout the city. But they've posted it, spoke with the postmaster, and they said that they were happy to because they only have one attendant. And that really helps them out as well. And they like to promote the library. So it's actually right on the front door, posted right on the front glass door. The main post office on Chapman. The main, yeah.

Yes.

Oh, great. So it should be. They post it right on the front door. And also, too, I did want to mention August 22nd, the Rotary will be hosting the Uncorked event, and it is going to be taking place at the Hunt Library. So we would love to have a lot of community support, and we are very excited that it's going to be hosted at the Hunt Library. Oh, and also, too, I actually did talk to Ruth about I do have a poster for that event. What is the process to be able to post that in the community events?

I don't think it should be a problem. Is it a poster poster or a flyer?

About the same size that you made for me for the password services.

I don't think it should be a problem. Do you have it?

I have it with me. So actually, I have two. So one code to the hunt. It seems like it.

I mean, I don't see why not. Okay, perfect.

So I have two copies, so I will give those to you.

Actually, the only thing I'm thinking is we usually don't post things where there's a charge. So I don't want to say yes immediately. Okay. There's so much of this that's a yes, and then I just remembered. Okay.

There is just a QR code on there if they want to buy tickets. But if that's not okay, just let me know, and then I will come and retrieve the posters.

Yeah, I think that actually might be. So don't quote me on that, but probably.

Perfect. Thank you.

I have something else really quickly. This Saturday, I know The Hunt has, like, a million things going on, and my silent book club is also going to be at The Hunt. And I, like, turned it into a, like, hey, come read and then go to the game day or go to the craft, like, the fiber arts. So hopefully we'll drive more people to The Hunt for that. But I didn't realize that so many things were happening at The Hunt. I was like, oh, okay, well, we'll also be there hanging out.

And I saw that on Instagram, and full disclosure, I liked it. So...

oh no the brown yeah we're just silent so i said that if the noise inside is too much like they can sit we usually when we do it at the hunt it's usually after four o'clock so it's usually closed we just sit on the lawn on like picnic style have you guys done silent disco yet No, I was just in Portland, and I saw a silent disco in real life, and that is not for me.

I was like, oh, no. I feel self-conscious enough dancing. Well, great. We have different personalities and interesting hobbies, and that's why we need all of us to be here. So it's excellent. I actually find myself to be very busy after vacation coming back. There's some fun events and some serious meetings. And so I, you know, appreciate Anita sharing because the Pacific Undergo that was actually funded by our foundation and was so well attended. You feel like everybody just enjoy being there and there are different generations as well, too. So it's really nice to see. I especially appreciate, and I'm sad that Emmy's gonna retire because Emmy also did the instruments before the symphony started because she got a few instruments out there and anybody can go there and she will teach you how to play those instruments and those engagement. I think it's incredible. So I'm very sorry to hear that she's gonna retire hopefully there will be a big shoes for someone to feel that also has a good qualification. And so it's interesting because the K-pop is actually a very different participants. So I'm thinking the Midsummer Dreams, the K-pop, the Pacific Symphony, and it just, it's so nice that we are able to provide different activities to attract different segments of our community. in consideration of everybody's interests and hobbies, like what we talk about. So I think it's just incredible. It's really nice. And I had the opportunity to attend our budget study sessions. And the one at Hong Library, and I told Anita, we're so proud because if you come, our library has the most representation among all the departments. And that shows clearly when we put all the green dots. I don't know what impact it makes. But it definitely hopefully not just make us that you know care about the library feel good but hopefully all our staff the librarian can see all the volunteers that really care about our library although we don't have the power to decide the budget but we truly try our best in advocating the importance of our library and The role it plays in our quality of life. And so hopefully there's some way We're able to put in there as well, too And then I thought was very nice to have that fly statue was really well attended and truly seeing our three directors library directors there You know, sometimes you feel like people retire you never see them again and You don't know them. They're welcome, but they don't have to. They don't have the obligation, right? And so seeing Judy and Beatrice were there, they obviously didn't come because they have to. They came because of the love of the library, the people, and that's just very evident. And I'm just so proud, so proud to be in this community that people truly care about literature, care about literacy, care about community, care about preserving our history. So I just thought that I want to put that on the record to share my thoughts. So thank you for allowing me to share. Then I think next one, we would move on to our consent calendar. Question, comments? Motion.

I move to accept the consent calendar as is.

I'll second.

All right. Carrie Prelitz? Yes. Jennifer Sarvis?

Yes.

Megan Watson?

Yes.

Lisa Wozab?

Yes.

And Su Ling Chen?

Yes.

And then just so I have clarifying, who seconded that?

Lisa.

Okay, perfect. Thank you.

All right, so move forward with our regular business. Our crucial one, which is our fiscal year, 2026-2027 proposed library budget. So could we hear from our director? And I want to say that I sincerely feel so sorry that you came on board in March, and now we are in July. So many days has gone by and it has taken so many people's energy and time to work on this. We're truly hoping there will be positive results.

I also just echo what President Chen said, but also, too, I truly appreciate your positive attitude and thinking out of the box and looking for solutions and just rolling with it. I truly appreciate it. Such a great attitude. I really, really appreciate it.

Thank you. You all make it easy on me because when you feel supported, it helps you do all of those things you just mentioned. So, I mean, I'm just doing my job literally. I'm not saying that as like, you know, but thank you and really just it's a group effort. I'm scrolling on my phone right now because I realized that I didn't print myself out the full agenda that has the report on it.

But I do have – oh, thank you, Alec.

Alec is really, thank you so much. This was all just like kind of on the, Ruth is on vacation right now, a much deserved planned vacation. So she set us up for success. This meeting is unplanned. Yeah, this was the anomaly. OK, so as part of a citywide budget reduction effort for fiscal year 26-27, two budget reduction scenarios were presented from the library department at the budget study session held this past Tuesday, July 14th. Final budgets are not yet confirmed. City Council is expected to discuss and vote. Vote, we're actually not sure anymore. at what is being called the budget adoption meeting this coming Tuesday, July 21st. I will provide updates to you as we have them. A couple of things to note. The reason why we have two reduction scenarios is that our A and B are the same. I also want to mention, thank you, Trustee Sarvis, for your email earlier. As part of us all trying to be Ruth and failing in some ways, I had a typo that was not caught. So under fiscal impact, where it says scenario A and scenario B, all of this is correct. But the second sentence that says scenario B, all of the above, that should say C. So I do apologize for that. So our recommendation today is to ask you to approve us bringing these to the council. Now, how much of that is a formality? A large part. These are going to be brought to the council. But we can also discuss, because it's not a done deal. So that's where we're at. And on our discussion, We are the only department, I believe, that do not have unfilled vacancy holds for our scenario A and B, because we were all filled. And so the departments that had vacancies, they were being asked not to fill them. The one that is in question for scenario C is Rhonda. So that's where that question will be. Other than that it is for items that we previously discussed which is our book budget our entire book budget and our electronic resources. The part that is funded by the general fund part of that is already funded by support groups. I want to say and I did say this at the presentation on Tuesday. We would not be able to survive this if it were not for our support groups.

Thank you, Judy, and all.

That buffer, that whatever you're going to call it, is what's helping us survive this, is what is making it possible to survive this. But thankfully to that, we're going to survive this. So I am here to answer any questions or just hear discussion on these items. And you should have the attachment that has the, OK.

I guess my question was, when did scenario A and B become the same? It used to be where A was, when did A and B become the same?

So that is a good question. The difference is that B used to be A plus electronic resources. It became this after, I'm trying to remember because there's been so many stages to this, and in some ways I feel like we've been also talking about the same thing for a very long time.

There was a point at which- I guess my question's not really when, but do we have an A, B, and C, or we just have an A and a C, basically?

We basically have an A and a C, but we're following the format that the other departments did. Got it. I will also, I mean, you can decide that you want, you know, electronic resources or something to B and B, and I can ask that. That would create more of like a tiered. Yeah, exactly. So that's what this discussion is for. None of this is finalized. It's what's going to be brought to council. They could just turn it right back around, of course. This would just be your recommendation.

Got it. I feel like, in my opinion, I'd love, A, to have some sort of book collection budget remain. Any... 10%, 20%, any sort of – so that we do have that tiered approach and we do show the impact kind of in each one. But that's just my – I know you've done a lot of research and work, so maybe that's not possible. But that's my – why not have three? If we're getting so many green stickers, why not have three? Yeah.

Do you want me to respond, or I can also just hear other comments?

Well, probably let's hear everybody.

Yeah, yeah.

So my question was kind of going to be about that. And maybe I'm missing my memory from the June meeting, because I'm looking at what we had presented for the 5% reduction, the 10% reduction. 5% is gone. Like that's not on the table anymore. So it's gotta be more. Um, but things like the getting rid of the library vehicle, getting rid of the internet costs at the hunt so that it's just reducing the book budget. Like I, I guess when did that, when did those go away or how did that change? Cause that was what the, the five and then even the 10% had those two on there. It didn't, I mean, it didn't account for the idea of getting rid of a position. It was, or not filling a position. It, had getting rid of reduced professional and contractual fees. So there was other stuff that was being reduced. So I guess I just want to know the process, because I don't remember in June being presented like, oh, we're not going to do that anymore. And it's these things that are getting cut.

Any more comments, questions from Carrie or Lisa?

Did I miss it? Why? So the difference between A and B was just the electronic resources. And now, if I'm misunderstanding, let me know. So it was like electronic resources were being eliminated from B, but not in A. And now they're being eliminated from both so that they're the same. Is that correct?

Yeah, I think, yeah.

So the difference between the a slash B then going to see on This the hunt security we talked about that before and did you get any more? Further details on what that would look like. I know one of the things that we talked about was the the lighting and the cameras. And so with the A and B, is that a partial security, physical security presence with a camera? And then is that absolutely no physical presence in C? Is that absolutely no physical presence, total reliance on cameras? Is that what makes the difference between A slash B and the C? Because we talked about a presence of one camera versus the odd configuration and so many blind spots within the property. I mean, just the lot itself has so many different nooks and crannies that I just feel it's very difficult to supervise all of that with that technology. Just wanted to see if they gave you any more insight into that, because I know that it was kind of a working thing with the security. So I didn't know if you had any additional feedback from them.

Yeah, I don't have any questions. I mean, although I did not start working in budgeting March, but I feel like I have been involved in understanding what's going on. I just want to verify that we are not cutting any personnel from my understanding. I want to make sure that all the staff Still feel home Understanding that it's a challenging time and sometimes challenging can be opportunity of You know working more creatively working more closely together I think my concern is always the emotions of the staff member and I think I want to make sure we have that message get across to the staff that we're probably the best position department in the city. Obviously, our friends, our foundations, they're just incredible. If we are able to give the reductions, but holding on to all the staff that we have, and at the same time have the support in helping us with the books purchase, I don't have questions.

Thank you for all of those comments and questions. I talk so much that I just wanted you all to be able to get out what you were initially wondering. And this will probably be a discussion. So starting with Trustee Watson, your questions about when did this change and what. I've lost a bit of perspective on the when because we have these meetings once per month and then we have council meetings once or twice per month, but the department heads and staff have meetings all the time. So it's like a constantly evolving situation. At one point, the departments looked at each other's And we sort of made some hard conversations and decisions together about each other's cuts. And I think that... Because we were in a unique position to have this support, it was decided that we would have a bigger percentage burden, maybe. But on the upside ceiling, as you mentioned, we weren't losing any personnel. So nobody who is employed is losing their job. When we talk about people, it's just not filling vacancies anymore. And that's really a major win. A month ago, we were still talking about privatization. Now we're not. That's a major win. And so those changes, I think, should be mentioned also, just because that would have been our worst case scenario. And those things are not happening. The library vehicle, I actually don't know why it's not on here. These slides are sort of worked on collectively. That is around a $9,000 item. I need to make sure that it... Because every amount counts. That it's not somehow accounted in here in some way that I don't understand. There are some things that we pay for that come through internal service funds. They're like a collective... shared pool of resources we use and each department is billed against that. I don't believe our vehicle was part of that.

No. So there is an ISF for the city vehicles. My suspicion is that's why they didn't make it on here is because while it won't be on our budget, it will exist in the shared budget. Um, So I'm wondering if they just didn't want to count that as a part of this whole grand scheme reductions discussion.

That that's my, that's what I suspect as well. So we said that we would give it up. So it will come up, it will come off of our budget in a way that is not apparent in this way. It is, it's helping, but just in a more vague way. Um, so these are actual line items. Um, what, did you have another question in there? I said I was going to hold.

In looking at what the original 10%, it was things like reduced professional and contractual fees. And then through grants, the internet costs will drop 90%.

It's a small compared to the other things but it's but they're there and you're thank you so much You're very very on top of those changes. Those are other items that I think get absorbed in different ways. So we have IT Internal service funds so things like the savings with the hunt when we had them on there We needed to make the city like finance department aware of these but sometimes they'll go into a revenue category and which do not appear here. And sometimes they'll go into being reabsorbed back into the shared, the internal service funds, which are those shared resources. So the savings for Hunt, that was probably that as well. And the contractual fees.

So that's just, I think, that's the Hunt security. So that was just, that's how it...

The Hunt security eliminated entirely was on here, and then there was another...

I think we really have no interest in changing our security at the main library, but that is the line item that the security bills are paid out of. And we do piano tuning out of there, anything kind of extra when we kind of bring someone in to do something for us, it would get paid out of there.

Okay.

That's somewhere, again, we were, you know, we run thin. So we were, that's somewhere we thought, okay, we can trim a little bit as long as we're keeping Ben around. Because, I mean, that's.

And that's something we hadn't mentioned. So thank you. I had actually forgotten about that. And you're exactly right. Thank you so much, Alec. That line item, as Alec mentioned, there's several contracts that are paid out of there. The idea when we had that as an option was our library security. We would fight as hard for our library security, not just the role, but the person, because Ben is excellent at his job. I have many examples, even in just the short time I've been here, as recently as yesterday, to why he is such a valued member of our team. When we presented that, we did not want to say It was for security and we didn't have to because the line item was very vague and we did not believe that it would make it to the final. So that is what it was and that was the why and that's why it's no longer there. It's really an almost non-negotiable item. We need to have him here. But very perceptive, so thank you. So Trustee Prelitz, your question about, and I said, oh, I'm going to remember all of these, and of course I didn't. Your question was about, oh, the A, B, and C, right? So the only difference between what for us is really just two scenarios, A, B, and C, is not filling that position. So there should be, let's see. Oh, that was a slide from the presentation. So the library technology assistant position is actually, Bethany, nobody can speak better to this than you.

Absolutely. So my division for technical services was three people for all of the library's acquisitions, technology, vendor communications, IT communications. When Rhonda left, her list of duties was 10 pages long. So that is a one of one position. There's very little overlap between that position and any other. I am grateful that our library staff members have volunteered to cover some of the list of duties of Rhonda, but that won't replace a full time staff member, especially as everyone who will be helping still has their own jobs to do. I mean, together we can do almost anything, but we cannot do everything. Previously, this position was vacant for an extended period of time and several projects, including basic maintenance, were delayed or canceled. The day-to-day troubleshooting that makes up many of the positions duties took significantly longer, taking up more staff time and disrupting patron service. The library had procured software that would have allowed patrons to contact librarians through an online chat platform that would have included automatic translation but it had to be canceled because we didn't have any staff member focused on implementing it. The now popular among our preservation community digital archive was always planned for the library website. But during the years of vacancy, it was not able to be even begun and now will be significantly reduced in how we can expand it. During the years of the vacancy the position was listed as funded on the budget but left unfilled so this unfunding will leave the already understaffed division permanently so. A primary responsibility of this role is serving as the library's IT frontline and liaison to our city IT. The city just onboarded a new IT service provider, so I've been planning our communication structure and coordination from scratch, as every system and almost every person has also changed. We have several projects on hold for this transition, which will now be even more difficult without a dedicated coordinator. Some new projects, no matter how promising, will not be pursued due to this vacancy. However, we do not have the luxury of simply maintaining the status quo, even though maintenance takes quite a bit of effort and attention. Last year, the city's changing technology needs necessitated upgrading three major systems all in one month, including setup, testing, and training. Federal government guidelines have changed regarding digital content, and so we'll have to have significant website changes within the next year. Excitingly, we're setting up a new service vendor for our books, but that's quite a bit of work on the back end to do all the technological setup and communication with that new vendor. And also excitingly, while we appreciate the State Library offering a fantastic new electronic resource for free, implementing it takes time, effort, and attention. I'm reminded of an analogy from one of our library's most popular authors. When asked how to balance many competing responsibilities, the author said that the key to juggling is to know that some balls you have in the air are made of plastic and some are made of glass. And if you drop a plastic ball, it bounces, no harm done. If you drop a glass ball, it shatters, so you have to know which balls are glass and which are plastic. and prioritize catching the glass ones. The technical services division in this role juggle many balls, especially many of the glass balls that run the library systems. These balls are usually unseen by the public unless they're dropped. But not filling this position means that glass balls will be dropped. We just don't know which ones yet.

I am not surprised, but I did not know that you had something prepared. That was not planned. I was just, like, thinking, oh, Bethany can, and then, of course, and she's a very prepared.

Well, she can do a very good job instantly, so now we know.

Were you reading off something, or was it from your own remarks?

Yeah, I wrote it while we were setting up the Zoom. Okay.

Okay.

Thank you for that. Genuinely, I did not know that existed. But that is the why. We don't want to get to scenario C. But back to the question of the differences. So that's the only difference in all of this. Scenario C involves a position. Scenarios A and B are the same. And so just to – and I remember about the security thing – I hear what you're saying, Trustee Sarvis, about maybe asking for a percentage of the collection development. That might be more complicated than asking for the $30,000 to not exist in scenario A, if that makes sense, because it's one line item.

Yeah. Whatever it is, I'd love a difference.

Yeah. Yeah.

you know here's one and they're like we don't want one here's two and you're like well we kind of got to go with two right before we get to three as opposed to like here's one and here's two so i agree i got kids i know you got to give them three things and then you got to be like yeah ice cream can come first whatever it is but like yeah there has to be a choice so um it will come to a vote and and the vote will not be what's going to be passed it's going to be what's going to be submitted to council

That sounds perfectly reasonable to me rather than taking a percentage, you know, moving that over to B. So it would basically make scenario A around $330,000, B $360,000, and then C $508,000. and then so Trustee Wozab the question about the hunt security so the difference on that and this is a little complicated so we're talking about Do you want to explain that? And this is a kind of a code decision between library and park. So it's, it's a little complicated.

I'll also throw out before I talk security that some departments, all three of their scenarios were the same amount. And then some departments, it was like you said, kind of a gradual increase. And then we just happen to have two of the same one difference. So it really comes down to the admin services team and kind of how they split it up. That's kind of how the process went. We kind of gave them our full menu of what we can give away. And then it seems like the department heads kind of decided what hurts the most, what hurts the least. And that's kind of how it got organized. Again, when we started this process, we didn't know we were losing Rhonda. And I think that is how that ended on scenario C, as we kind of made it clear to whoever would listen that we need this position replaced. Otherwise, you heard Bethany's whole speech there. A lot of functionality will fall apart. So that's kind of, some departments, again, it's just going to be one number across the board. I think, you know, I think we're lucky it's not scenario C as all three of ours because, again, we had to really make our pitch for that. For the security, so for A and B, what would remain is funding for overnight security, seven days a week. And in scenario C, that would leave an amount of $30,000 for security to be assigned when we see fit. So... Neither totally eliminates hunt security, right? As the other two are listed as eliminate, that's just reduce. But obviously, yes, scenario C would be the least funded and would be a little bit more involved in making sure we have them there when we want them there.

The reason why I did ask that is because the shared responsibility and the shared relationship that we have with Parks and Rec. So I was wondering how that kind of. I can speak to that part. Yes.

And I will also mention that blue light cameras are something that have not been discussed further. It is not included in a cost of this. So this is reduction. So there was an incident at Hunt where there was a window broken about two weeks ago. And somebody threw a rock and it broke the window, one of the windows. The last time that happened, our facilities team made a really smart decision to purchase extra glass. Because the replacement of glass, particularly on buildings such as those, isn't so much the process of the replacement, it's the procurement of the glass. So they were able to replace that very quickly. In most situations, you want to be proactive. We may only be able to afford reactivity at this point, which is fixing something if it becomes broken at Hunt. The numbers have become so tight, and so when we did propose our 5% and 10% back in April, It what we didn't know we were gonna be here now things sort of got worse The partnership with parks the things that have changed in that is Parks is also cutting and one of the things parks is probably going to need to cut severely is their presence at hunt so if you I didn't feel like it was my place to present the park slides at the library board meeting and But I can send them along or they're readily available. They have something that looks identical to this, except there's about three times, twice or three times as many lines. And some of those lines say hunt. As Alec mentioned, we didn't know that Rhonda, which it was like a two weeks notice, right? one thing that was encouraging at the, um, budget study session, there were some things that were encouraging. A lot of it was the attitude of everyone. Um, I, there was a lot of little nuanced talking up there, but one of the things that was mentioned at the end and I heard was somebody mentioning, let's look at the vacancies that have been on there for a while. And some that are new, um, new vacancies mean you're not used to living without that position. So I plan to advocate for that using that as an additional tool. There is one of these positions in our department, and it's crucial for the reasons that Bethany mentioned. And again, also, we're not used to operating without that role filled. That's not to say that people have had a vacancy for four years and have been waiting for four years. They have absorbed that process and it's really sad to start making those decisions, but this is where we are. Amy's retirement is a similar thing. She announced it very recently, probably around the same time Rhonda did two weeks ago. The difference is she's giving a more notice till September, but her position is included. And I don't recall the park slide as vividly, but many of their positions were not C. It was A and B. So we don't know if those vacancies will be filled because Amy was full-time. The hourly positions will be more easy to fill or less difficult. I think there's a subtle difference there. They'll be less difficult to fill. But I don't think that they will plan to place them at Hunt. There's so much to talk about how that will look moving forward, the capacity that we'll have to program that space, any concerns about security. Frankly, I'm more concerned about people being in there, just two people, than I am sometimes about an empty building. Because the building's amazing, but it's in many ways replaceable where the people are not. So I have additional concerns because there's so much that's outside of our control and that interconnected. I don't know where this is going to land.

I, we sat together at the budget study session and some other meetings. I do have to say we had more green dots than, than the potholes. That was really, that was really, I know really surprising, really encouraging. And, and I do commend city staff for really wanting to be collaborative on this. It's not, they, they truly, and, and, you know, there was probably what, um, between online and the people that attended the meetings, maybe 100 individuals out of 100-plus thousand residents. And sadly, what people don't realize is that's a really good turnout. I've attended meetings that, in chambers, they've said, you need to have a public meeting and all of that. And then I'm the eighth person they're attending. So I do have to say, it's been very not This hurts everyone. No one is taking this, you know, it's very serious. But I do, having looked at it from the perspective of also being on the Fiscal Sustainability Committee, I've looked at it from a lot of different perspectives. And one of the things that I really love about the library being such a community is the fact that I do think that there's possibly a And we are not a 501c3. We are blessed to be able to have some through the friends and through the foundation. But I also, one of the things that I mentioned to you is we haven't done any big capital campaigns. I mean, I don't know what that might look like. I don't know that, you know, hey, look, for $100,000 capital campaign, possibly it would all be in the way that it's worded, but... to be able to serve the community, it could be an option. That's one of the things that I really respect and appreciate of the fact that you have taken in the staff. And I believe as trustees, we've really said like, hey, how can we be proactive? How could we think out of the box? How can we come and positively have solutions? And I think even with C, I think that we look so much better and we're in a better place than so many other of these departments. But I just want to throw out there that I think that there might possibly be some opportunities to go to the community and to get some support. I don't know what that would look like. I don't know how. But I think that that might possibly be. either through events or through a capital campaign. Could I ask, is Sean still online? Yes, that would be good.

He is. Sean, if you'd like to make a comment, please raise your hand.

I just want to make sure that you hear Lisa's comment about capital campaign, because obviously the trustees would not be able to represent the board to do anything. But we could participate with the library friends or the foundations.

I'm not seeing Sean indicating that he'd like to speak to that, but hopefully he heard.

That's fine. That's fine. We could definitely pass the message. And you're welcome, so we can pass the message as well, too. I do want to say that because Rhonda left in such a short situation, And obviously the director knows our organization much better than I do as far as the resource that is needed. But hearing Bethany's glass ball makes perfect sense that obviously they cannot be dropped. I don't know where are the glass balls in every department that we have. I would suggest that you would look into the whole situation and probably consider if Tuesday the decision is going to see that's not what we would like to have. However, if that is the answer situation, I would like to request that you take a look of our whole department as a whole and do necessary adjustment so that the glass ball does not fall from any department, obviously. I mean, what Bethany shared makes sense to us, but we did not get to hear every division, and I'm sure it's difficult, and I'm sure every division has glass balls. So the challenge is on you, but we trust in you that you will do what is necessary so that Bethany is happy about the support that she has, and we're going to move forward regardless of the challenges.

Yes, I'm going to take still an order because Trustee Wozab had, I just want to address about the capital campaign. I don't have enough experience in that area to speak to it at this moment. I also know, as Su Ling mentioned, there are limitations as city staff that we're able to um, do that ourselves. Um, but even at the most recent friends meeting, uh, Judy can probably attest to one of the topics that was brought up was, um, ideas for different ways to fundraise. And one of the ideas I had, um, sort of brought up was sponsoring certain things. So for the book sales, is it okay if I mentioned this? Okay. So for the book sales and correct me if I'm saying this incorrectly, um, Very fortunate. Very fortunate. It's really fortunate. And the reason why it's better than just dumping them is that this company either tries to repurpose them, sometimes they'll go to other countries, sometimes they'll pulp into something that's a different use. It's better than trashing them. He has let us know that he's at the point where he can only do this on certain days of the week that happen to be Thursday. The book sale ends on Sunday, Saturday, and these very large containers would have to sit in the conference center until Thursday. And he would still do it for free. Or if he needs to make a special trip out because the conference center is booked, it would cost, say, a few hundred dollars. We're not sure exactly how much. At other libraries, we've done fundraising through our support groups where they're supporting a particular thing. So you can say, oh, I sponsored this book. very specific, rather than just, oh, here's $300, and I trust it's going to get used on something beneficial. We're starting to use those creative approaches, so the timing on this is very good. And I'm very open to what that process looks like, even when I don't know exactly how it works. We are committed as staff to help the support groups help us so we understand that we're asking for a lot and one of the things we can do besides maximizing every dollar and showing our thanks and uh all of the wonderful you know community response is to also come up with those ideas for how we can bring more funds into this support group so it's you know it's like a symbiotic thing so um yeah i think this is a perfect time for those conversations

And there's a lot of different ways. I actually have a background in nonprofit fundraising. I used to work. That was what I did before my company. So there's ways to structure like fund needs and things like that. To be able to expand some of our reading community, ideas like books and brews, and then being able to have different you know, pop-up events and being able to really bring in different groups that specifically follows different genres and things like that. There's so many different things online, like silent book clubs and meetups where there's either food involved or something like that, or we partner with, you know, say, like, you know, a nearby brewery or something like that. A lot of different options. I mean, obviously, we're not a fundraising entity, It would all depend on what but there's so many different potential opportunities, but even utilizing like just just putting it out there for a fund a need where I mean I know that there's different plaques and things that are on the display Within the library some of those projects are so long ago. What were they for specifically? We have you know the renovation of Our Osborne, you know, maybe potential actually that we were looking for art or something through that new to renovate the little breezeway right there to the entry. A lot of different things that we've done at Golden Hill Education Foundation. We did different things with fused glass and partnership with all the arts and And I just did want to say also, too, I did meet with Amy and spoke with her. One of the things she said, I'm not going anywhere. And she said now it actually frees her up to be more of a volunteer. And she's not in different capacities. One of the things that is difficult when we lose someone like Amy is the institutional knowledge and the history. But she assured me that she's not going to be. She's near and dear to her heart. And she actually is excited. to be able to get back to doing some of the things that she truly loved to do with the library in the past. But I'm here to help however I can.

I mean, it's the start, or I guess the restart, of some really good conversations. So yeah, all of those can be possibilities. Yeah, thank you for all of the ideas. Some of these things are going to work better than others. Some will be more difficult to implement, but we're open to anything right now. And then Su Ling, I just want to go back to one of the things you mentioned when everyone was going around that first pass and you said the feelings and trying to gauge how the staff is feeling. There's a lot of different personalities and there's a lot of, everybody has also their own situation and their own level of maybe risk and security and there's so much that comes into play, people that have families, you know, whatever the situation is. When this whole budget cycle situation started back in March, one of the first things I did was making sure staff was informed because what I was hearing is that they generally were not informed. And they wanted to be. So I started doing that. Then I reached the point where I thought, okay, I don't want the level of information or the severity of the information to be counterproductive to where not everybody is used to or comfortable in the space of it's this one day and then this the next day and then there's like a panic, like some personality types and some roles can bear that and, and some can't and shouldn't have to. When I realized that everybody sufficiently understood, it was serious because there was some level of that. In my opinion, there was some level of thinking it's always been okay and it's going to be okay. And that's a good attitude to have, you know, to get you through the day, but there was some reality checks that needed to happen. So we're all very well aware now. And I think we're all in a very much place of gratitude. And now we need to get back to like not being afraid, like you said, and making sure we feel secure because I believe we are. Like you said, I think the library, interestingly, is one of the best positioned departments right now security-wise, you know, with continuity. And so we're very lucky. So my job now and the managers and just even all of you, if we talk to people on staff in the community, is to say, you know, we're okay. We're going to get through this.

We have a plan.

but I do appreciate you bringing that up because sometimes when you're in the headspace of all the numbers and the logistics, it's easy to not remember like the feelings part of it. So I'm really glad you brought that up.

And also people read people too. If you feel that you have anxiety, right. That anxiety can spray, right. If they read that you are confident that, you know, we are going to be okay. Then I feel they will also, you know, have that sentiment as well too, that, you know, Times will get by and we're going to be okay.

Yeah. If there are people who, I believe the people that have resigned recently genuinely found opportunities that were either closer to them, they were promotions or things like that. So the timing seems a little suspicious. Maybe they wouldn't have looked if it wasn't for what's going on. But I also feel like people should have the right to be able to make those decisions because as recently as a month ago, we didn't know how this was going to go. And if I would have said we're going to get through this and it turned out something went sideways, we would also have to own that. like that they stuck with us. So it's such a fine line. So I think we're okay with that. And so that's our messaging now is one of more like confidence and assuredness. And then the other thing you mentioned recently about getting to the work of if C does go through, which we have been told is very highly likely. As Bethany mentioned, we have already started doing that. So Rhonda's duties have been reallocated Bethany is probably taking the brunt of them as she's her direct supervisor, most aware of the day-to-day operations and what that division does. But it really has been all hands on deck. And one of the things Rhonda did to set us up for success in her last week or so was to create that 10-page document. And I need to keep saying, it's not 10 pages of duties. It also includes the instructions for those duties. So it's not as alarming as it sounds, although, you know, alarming. That's actually not accurate.

It is 10 pages of tasks. Yeah.

Well, we understand the elaborate of the responsibilities regardless of how many pages.

Yeah, and so those duties, many of them are daily tasks. And so Rhonda has been, you know, it's been a week at least, or I don't know, maybe more. So that reallocation has begun. So if it turns out that... we aren't able to fill the position. We have, we will figure it out. Uh, and one of the things we're looking at is, you know, as Bethany said, she went from three people to two. We have other areas that have maybe 12. Do we need to do some internal shifting? So all of that is being looked at. We're just try not to also make any big changes because maybe we just have to wait a few more weeks to find out. So, um, I think we talked about all of those things. So I don't know if you want to discuss more or if you want to advise or recommend what we should bring back.

Should we be time to listen to public comments or anyone? Should we see any more comments?

I was just going to say this is going back 12 million years in our conversation, but I pulled up the – budget proposals from all the other departments. And scenario A, B, and C from Parks reduces the same amount from Hunt. So regardless of what goes through, it's $40,000 that they're cutting, which I don't know how much that's a reduction of what they're already, but regardless of which scenario gets adopted.

So that is going through, OK. Yeah, it's the same.

And then I was going to say, in looking at what was presented to council, I mean, it's it looks well. No, it's not that it looks different. It's that scenario C is clearly the one that they should choose the way that it's being presented of like it's the only one that balances the budget without using reserves for multiple years. So I'm just wondering if we're going to advocate to try and not cut that position. It doesn't seem likely that that's. gonna happen like that's the scenario C wouldn't be the option so I just wonder what that looks like for you in front of council or if that's already been a conversation that's happened if that's a conversation we should be having I just I don't see anything other than scenario C being what would be picked based on how this is being presented

I did have a conversation saying that where my green dot went was actually in between, which would have been a hybrid between B and C. And we discussed it at that meeting. And I pointed out to our city manager, that's my green dot in a spot that looks like somebody didn't know what they were doing. And it is a working document. So I think that even as we go back, it's constantly being re-evaluated and looked at. And one of the things that I think is so important for people to understand, too, is the fact that the vital need to have reserves, other than just the rainy day, it's for like, we have to have matching funding for measure M2 funding for our roads and other programs we have to have all that matching we have to have some matching funding so I do believe that you know The probability is probably between B and C as it's being worked through Yes, I guess our conversations of like wanting to save that position is

Probably not gonna happen just because it doesn't really make sense that they would go with anything other than C with Roland's position being vacated. Is there any way that that position could take over some of those responsibilities if we were to fill that one? since we're not filling this one, but that one's still on the table?

So one thing I want to mention about the A, B, and C, so every department submitted their A, B, and C, or their A, B, C, or any variation of that. What council will be discussing is the overall. So it doesn't, I don't think, literally mean that they'll go down in every department, they're going to choose an A, B, or C scenario for that department. Um, I think they're looking at a certain number and it will just be determined how we get there. So, um, maybe it's our AB and somebody else's, you know what I mean? It doesn't mean literally like every department's ABC. Um, to your second question, um, this is something that I'm getting used to because I'm learning the internal structure. I'm learning all the structures at this location. Um, the way the money is divided within our department is allocated to different divisions. I haven't experienced that in a while to where there's not just one, like we're a pretty small department with a modest budget. For me, usually what I'm used to is that's like our general fund for our department. And then we decide how to allocate it. But I'm learning that that's not the way it's done here. So operating within that is restrictive. Um, I understand why it started that way. It's probably one of those things that makes less sense now than it did, uh, when that, you know, I mean, that format was, it probably made more sense years back. Um, but as I'm discussing with the management team, I, uh, uh, It's to mixed results. And I don't yet know if it's because the majority of people are used to that process. So it's just like what makes sense. Or if what I'm sort of trying to push toward, which is a more like pool that we can all more easily share, if that doesn't make sense for this place. So we're kind of like working through that right now. In my mind, it should work like that. we should be able to say, oh, this division, maybe they'll have to be on the public desk a few more hours, or the program has to be run by somebody else. But what we really need is someone helping Bethany. So maybe we hire somebody for this role that's not a full-time library technology assistant, but it's somebody who is going to be assigned to whatever. I, unless there's something I'm not understanding through many, many, many conversations and meetings, it doesn't work like that right now. So I will have another meeting with our managers and have them either listen to this or explain it to me again, but that's what I'm working toward because I feel like we should have more flexibility. And even the city manager is sort of working towards ways that we can be flexible like are we being asked to get to this particular number but then we can kind of move things around or do we have to come back

know every time and and and ask for the how we get there so i think that's still being worked out um i don't i hopefully that made sense so an additional thing that um is worth mentioning is that each position in the library has that's a separate position classification has different duties that are part of their classification and we It's really problematic if we were people outside of their classification. Additionally, there are some other things that truly only certain members of the staff are even qualified to do. I'm not a passport agent. I'm not qualified to cover a passport shift. Most of the staff would not have the capacity to interface with the self-checkout machines in a way to reset them should they go haywire. There just are a number of things that we literally cannot ask other staff to cover to some extent. And so that is something that we're being very conscious of as we have to ask So that's also part of why when we ask for coverage we have to be very careful who we ask to cover what responsibilities and if it fits within the classifications and is something that we would have to take more significant action to get clearance to do so.

There are multiple factors to be considered when you pull someone. So take on what you say earlier. The people, the position that was already vacant four months ago versus the vacancy just happened at this time, I think that should be treated differently. And we may not be the only department to have that issue. I don't know. But I think it's worth bringing this up to somewhere you have to have a line to draw, right?

Like I said, it's going to be one of my points to pitch saving this position. We're all in a difficult place, though, because everything Bethany is saying about the importance of Rhonda's position is true. And yet, also, every department thinks that about their own positions. And that is also true. So it's hard all the way around.

I understand there's not a lot of library science programs around. Is that correct? There's not a lot of library science programs?

That's somewhat misleading. There are only two that are ALA accredited in the state of California. There may be three now that are physically located. However, a lot of library science programs are virtually online.

Have we... Have we offered internships or seeked interns? We have. Okay. I'm just wondering if there's a response with that.

That was our first solution for the digital archive, and we got no takers because we weren't able, as an internship, we weren't able to offer any funding for it, and no one was willing to accept an unfunded internship.

Yeah, it would be great if we had some type of partnership with a library science school where part of their units would be basically lab hours that they could possibly be served here.

That's a standard practice at many libraries. Bethany can speak to more historical attempts at that. I cannot speak to attempts at that. Currently, so that is something I was at the Fullerton collaborative a couple of months ago. There was a representative there from Cal State Fullerton. who doesn't usually attend the collaborative and was there for their internship program. So they were trying to do matches. So I did take her card and I gave it to one of our librarians who I thought is really open to those kind of partnerships. Like with anything, there's some roles that are a better match or not. there and uh so that that's something that we're we are looking into because there's a way that maybe is your ideal way of doing things and then there's the way that you find to make something happen because you need it to get done um and so you get creative so we're looking at we are looking at those solutions i think internship is a good opportunity but if i was short

I think it's difficult because if I have an intern, I would want to help the intern, train the intern, teach the intern. But I'm already short. So I think it's a challenge. If I'm not short, I would love to be able to help to teach. Because in the long run, it does benefit the person and the institution. But in a day-to-day situation, You know, it's like I'm just dying for someone to help me. I don't know if I am capable of helping you with my own limited energy and, you know, time.

For sure. I mean, the training is such an investment in time. And when you're hiring somebody for what you hope is long term, um, you invest that because at some point, you know, they're going to go off on their own and hopefully stay for a while. With the interns, it's sort of implied that they can only get short-term projects. But as far as, like, intern funding, the person that we have in the local history room scanning the newspapers, that person is getting paid through a trust, through a family trust that is being... They're donating to the foundation, and then the foundation in turn is funding that position. So there's also some ideas we're looking into there. The foundation is going through a period of transition right now, as was mentioned. I don't have all of that information, so I didn't feel comfortable speaking to it. at any length. But I think like we're going to get through this budget season, they will get through that transition time. And I think when they come out on the other end of that, we'll have even more options. Because one of the difficult things with a lot of things like grants is it'll fund things or projects, but not people. The foundation has a unique opportunity and we've seen a precedent for that to fund a person if it's like maybe a contracted project. So We're looking at all of these options right now in case this, you know, scenario C for us goes through.

So for today's scenario, is this our only options is to adopt or not adopt or can we ditch option C that we are not interested because we only have one vacancy that is not really a vacancy?

I think it's up to you. I mean, it can be any version of it. Again, whatever you direct us to propose, I will first propose to my boss and put that into the overall proposed budget. It doesn't mean that that's going to happen.

Well, because in our view, this is not a real vacancy.

Just so we're clear, This was already presented to council on Tuesday, right?

This was what council got for the session adjustments made to this slide because there were, I felt like it was like confusing. We cleaned it up a bit, but the numbers are the same. Yeah. Um, it was, um, but it wasn't, it was presented to them. Yes.

Okay. So we're not changing. Like we can't change. I'm pretty sure.

No, we can because... And you think it's possible. And also it...

Throw it all out and start over. Well, so if it's like scenario B... We do our job, right? Like you were saying, like having a gradient. Okay, so if we were to say, hey, in scenario B, we would like half of $94,797 available to us to partially fund...

I think we want it to be simple because the position happens in the last two weeks because of the chaos that the leadership created. So because of that situation, that doesn't come into our vacancy. So that it's not a vacancy, and that's what we would like to propose to move forward, at least that's my opinion.

So to answer your question, Trustee Watson, That was the budget study session, not the proposed budget as will be presented on Tuesday. So we called the special meeting so that your group would actually have the opportunity to provide your input and submit an alternate recommendation if you wanted to. We're not at the point of no return by any means. I mean, it looks like next month. So yeah, no, you can. I just want to be realistic about the expectation, but you certainly can recommend something else.

If we don't try, it will never be possible.

And I had a question about, so I know you talked about not a percentage. It'd be easier if we just did the 30K as a step. But what about the overdrive collection specifically from the eliminate book collection budget? It is one budget category. It's one budget category. You can't separate them into the audio book or to e-book collection. Okay.

So Alec will be able to correct me on this if I'm wrong, but from what I understand, Overdrive, meaning e-books and e-audio books, are included in our collection budget. Got it. Is that right? Yes.

Go ahead.

Okay.

I was just going to say our collection development budget is basically that $209,000 split into two different pots, one for adult, one for children's.

It's print and election. It's all together. Yes, it is.

I was just trying to think of something else that we could, because I know that, yeah.

So the children's, like could we say children's is funded if they're two separate categories?

We could.

So A would be? reduce the library collection budget for adults or eliminate the adult budget but save the kids budget? And then B would be everything's gone?

So I'm going to mention the electronic resources because our electronic resources budget is actually larger than 30,000. But the rest of it is already funded by our support groups. Is that correct? Yeah. Yes. Okay. So this would be having them fund the entirety of it. From just a number standpoint, it would be cleaner. It also removes, for me, questions about equity. I understand the importance of children's literacy. I just know that there are people who would ask why we, them, not us. So as long as we would be prepared to answer that question, I would say, sure. I mean, you can propose whatever you'd like, but I would just prepare as a board. And I would also myself, we will get that question. Not that there's going to be people like against kids, but it does kind of bring that up because there's teens and there's foreign language and, you know, things like that. So, It just kind of categorizes out a group.

I guess, and I know that I think this was the conversation that was last time of like the idea of, hey, the library book budget is gone. Feels weirder than saying we're only going to have half of it funded by the city. Like the city is no longer funding books is basically what this says, which I think is harder sell than the city is going to fund children's literacy versus no books.

So I feel like that's an easier conversation to have. Or even the percentage feels like an easier because you can take a percentage, you know.

And just so you all know, that already happened years ago with the program budget. The Friends completely covers the program budget. Yeah, yeah.

So I understand books are a core service. But the books library combo is kind of, yeah.

We can reduce programming and events. So the other thing that could be done potentially in this case is reducing our book budget. So $200,000 is what we currently spend on print and electronic collections. We can ask that it remain city funded, but that we reduce our spend. there would, you know, be the implications of that are, are, um, we, we would have less of everything. Um, in some ways that might help Bethany's staff in that they're processing these items. Now they have less to process. So something that I've been bringing up with staff and it's a very, uh, I am not popular with I will say that by bringing this up. But it's also my job to bring up ideas and gauge, you know, to explore the options. It has been mentioned many times in all departments. At what point do we stop trying to do more with less or maintain with less and say, maybe we can't do that program where 500 people are showing up and we have two staff members there who are going to have a nervous breakdown at the end of it. Maybe we just are a library that cannot afford $200,000 in books because that's where our city's at. I don't know. It's not the decision for me to make myself. But what is my job is to say that, even if it's not going to make me popular. I mean, Jaime does not want to hear That we can't do these programs. Keith Lee doesn't want to hear that. Bethany doesn't want to hear that she's not getting her position funded. Nobody wants to hear that we're reducing our, but at what point do we keep getting money taken from us and still trying to maintain the same thing? That is really a question that I would want to hear others' opinion on because I come recently from a city that had that happen to them. And, you know, I mean, it was bad until a year and a half later, the voters just turned it back because they saw the effects of it. So I don't know. I don't live here. I take direction from you. I give my professional opinion, but I take direction from what you think.

But I also think where we have these programs like the K-pop, if we also had QR codes posted where, you know, you love this event, you want to support more events like this at the library, Either it's a direct donation to the Friends of the Library, to the foundation, or something like that that's earmarked specifically for an events budget. That's one of the things it's like when we would fund things for like the Fullerton Education Foundation, owning it. Like, hey, this was brought to you by. And so people can see tangibly how the Friends is supporting, how the foundation is supporting. and growing their membership and the support for the community to have an opportunity to just click on a QR code and, you know, send $5, $10, something like that, where there's a direct link because they want to continue to see Animal Crossing and MiniCon and these amazing events and the carnival and K-pop.

So long term, I can't speak to the financial position of the support groups. But speaking in the terms that we're looking at, which is to fiscal year 28, 29, if things remain largely the same, they will be able to fund this. So those funds, I don't think are what trustee watch Watson is saying. What she's saying is that the city should be funding this. So we could channel all of this support to the support groups and they can go from 7 million to eight, nine, whatever. And we could ask them to fund our whole budget. I think what she's asking is the risk that we're bearing, which I did mention in my presentation on Tuesday was the, We are in the unique and very fortunate position that we will be, it will look like we are unaffected. But if something went sideways, the city is not funding our core service, which is books. And I think that's your question.

so sorry. I feel like if community members, I mean, like you said, very few people attended, but if community members heard the library books are no longer funded by our city, I think that would be a, yeah, it would be a huge. And so that's why I'm on Tuesday. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that's why I'm like, and, I'm going to be honest. I think C is going to be what passes, which is going to cut the book budget no matter what. I'm just saying if we could present a version that the city is still helping with books, if we wanted to do that delineation of A, B, and C, that would be my suggestion of can we make it to where books are still included as opposed to that electronic resources part. That was why I brought it up.

I would love to find a way to do that as well. And I know that it will probably go with C as well, but I would love to. show a as being a reduction as opposed to an elimination just as just so they can see that there's an impact you are eliminating like the word eliminate versus reduced eliminate for everything you're like okay i see it but reduce is an option and eliminate is an option like i like to see the two options in those two words side by side

I hear you. I mean, and that's part of my question also. Sometimes that scary language makes it real. So I don't know how long we keep making people feel comfortable. That's not up for me to decide either. So, and really, I mean, genuinely. I will take what your recommendation is. The only area of concern I already expressed, which is to identify a certain group. So maybe if it's a percentage across the board and not say, oh, we're going to only fund children, that's going to

Even if it's just that $30,000 or whatever the percent works out to be to be approximately that much so we can show that step down. I think that that's fine enough, whatever it ends up being. But I'd love to see that.

I just want to mention that Right. It's an easy decision for us to put the entire book collection up in the budget to buy new books on the line here. But looking through the budget, we really don't have anything else before people. That's the reason it's here. Right. This is probably the last thing we wanted to touch outside of people. We you know, our hands are kind of tied on that front. My concern is if we wanted to do a step like that, they would want something in return to fill in that gap. And I don't know if we have anything.

We don't. And yeah, but we can ask, but we are putting ourselves like, okay, at the budget study session on Tuesday, anyone who watched or attended Su Ling and Lisa can attest to this. The library wasn't even questioned. Sometimes that's a good thing. So there is some hesitancy in sort of like bringing attention to ourselves, kind of like with the privatization where I didn't really want to, because I thought, okay, maybe we'll just kind of stick it by. But we were asked to produce 5% to 10% reductions in April, May. So right now, we're at 7.4% to 10.4%. So it's higher. But like Alex said, we're the only department that isn't off the bat going to not fund a person. They're going to get this percent. So we can make a statement for sure. there's just a risk involved. There's a risk involved in anything. So I would just say that if you make a motion to preserve some of the book budget of the collection development budget in scenario A, that it's just a percentage across the top. And then how that would look. So we're keeping the electronic resources there in scenario A and just moving a percentage of the collection development.

I think it's an emotional response. It's something about emotions. And it's really like you say, reduce books, the thing that the library does. Eliminate books, the thing that the library does. And eliminate books and a person. It just becomes like stacking. And it's a different emotion to me as a human being, not me as a person who's looking at numbers. And I think that the city council is made of human beings. So appealing to their emotions is important.

Who knows? Who knows? I feel like I understand both Megan and Jennifer said, but I feel it's not going to go well in understanding the council that we have there because they also understand that we are in an incredible position that our support group will be helping us with the books. So if you look at the results, we will have books. We don't like that the city is not funding us the books, that we are a library. But again, the end result is we will have books. It's just not funded by the city. I want to know what would be the possibility that we would be able to preserve the vacant position, or it shouldn't be called a vacant position, that the original position so that we don't have to kind of mess around with everybody's ability, this situation, how can that be on the table at all? Because, again, as much as I enjoy the K-pop, and I forgot to say that, yes, their performance, they are It was incredible. But inside the library, it's equally incredible. There are people that there go to watch the performance. But if you go inside, there's the decorations. They were just like real events that There's so much effort was putting inside the library. So in addition to outside, the inside, I feel like it's hard to comprehend until you're able to go in there. And you see the people there that are really doing everything they can to give you the K-pop experience. But that's not just one event. It's all the events. It's like that. The librarians are spending so much time and effort and really trying to help out with events. But if I have to choose between event and the staff, I would choose staff. I mean, ideally, if I don't have to choose, obviously. But if I will have to choose situation, you know, we're in a cutting situation, we don't have to have this event or that event. But we need to have staff that can do the work so the basic cake as a library is there. Even we don't have funding for the books, we will have books. But we still need people to be able to work so that people can get all the resources that we need. And that's my take.

I just want to say, as a collection development librarian, I know all too well that the only place to cut is collections. If you're not going to cut people, everything else is fixed. You literally can't cut anywhere else. So I know that all too well. My question is, if we were to ask for a reduction, like a percentage reduction for the books budget, Is there a fear that that reduction will stay permanently or versus like if we just say, okay, this year, no books budget, it'll get restored again. Or I'm trying to understand, um, you know, set a precedent.

Yeah, absolutely. And I just want to, the emotion that I feel and that's on your face and everything, that's all here. I mean, I'm a librarian. Like I chose to make this my every day. Um, I just have to, you know, um, so I totally get what you're saying. And again, on Tuesday I made a point to say, because the slide, we changed it a little bit. So if you see the slide that was presented on Tuesday, it said like, I forget what exactly it was. It said adult and teen. And I, and I made a point to say it's eliminating our entire book budget. I don't want to make it sound any better than what it is. It's unheard of. I've never been in this situation before. I've never even been close to this situation before. I can't believe it's happening. But this is where we are, and we have to make it work. So yeah, I mean, it's awful. That's a very good question. Thank you, Trustee Prelitz. There's so many unknowns right now, but we are working, I would say, as far forward as 27, 28. 26, 27. maybe, yeah, I would say 27, 28 is far out as we're kind of looking because 20, 28, from what I understand is the next opportunity we would have to generate some other revenue potentially in a sales tax or whatever the other options are. Um, these solutions are to get us through the next couple of years. Um, by eliminating the book budget, we're not eliminating the line items. So maybe that's a change in wording that we can make. I will look at other slides from other departments where they're doing something similar. It's not through a support group, but maybe it's a different fund, for example, where we're saying supplemented by or replaced temporarily by. That language, I mean, words matter. I should know that more than anybody. So what I think as an immediate fix is we can change some of that wording to make it sound temporary. Temporarily subsidized by? Correct. Temporarily subsidized by. That is exactly what... That was a better way of saying what I'm trying to express. So that it's understood that we don't expect this to go on forever. With the position... this word here where it says unfunding, that's not a vacancy hold that is taking that away. So it would have to be a council action to bring that back. That is very difficult to do. If you're just holding a vacancy, that's one thing, but if you're unfunding a position, so, and so that is what I think Alec was trying to express and Bethany was trying to express also. Um, the, the book budget line items, it's always going to be there, like as long as we actually have a library, but that the positions may not. And that's the risk.

I guess I was thinking like from a sustainability, if you were to look into the future that council members might think it's more sustainable to eliminate the position and keep some books budget because obviously you can't work without a books budget forever and so If we're thinking that they are gonna eliminate that then eliminate that position Anyway, do we want to do a scenario that keeps the books budget but eliminates that position?

That would not be my recommendation but again, I would take your advisement Because okay none of this is sustainable if we're honest a is not sustainable and that's probably I I mean I don't want to this is not an opinion we can look at the slides from Tuesday and see what the overall city budget is not even a library thing a is not sustainable it has us going into reserves immediately B has us going into reserves a little later. C is the only one that doesn't. So that's that. We are all in a less than ideal situation, but the support groups can't fund a person. So that's the only thing. I absolutely think like and this is this is a flaw on my part. The language could have been better. And that's something that with your you know approval I will change. What was that. What was it again. Temporarily subsidized by. Correct. OK. That that is it's doing the same thing but it's it's putting in writing that we understand that this is not permanent and it's holding that amount. If we reduce the amount, then we're also now saying we're telling you to reduce our budget rather than replacing it temporarily. So... I hesitate to say much more because I can give my professional recommendation, but I don't want it to appear that I'm trying to sway your decision.

You've done amazing research, and I trust that you have the library's best interest at heart. And I hear what you say, and even though the emotional resonance of it is astounding to me, I do believe that what you have here, plus the wording to make it clearer, would be... I would move to do that, but I don't know if we're at that point yet. Could we see public comments at this time? Any public comments?

Sean, shut up. They hadn't called for public comments.

I kept hitting unmute.

Right, right. But until they call for public comments, I can't bring people in.

Okay. We love seeing you. We'll take the dramatic entrance, though. So what I wanted to just kind of weigh in on what you guys have been talking about, and I've been listening to the whole conversation. What I think you need to be thinking, one thing you need to take into account is that... Yes, there are. There's the friends. There's the foundation. They provide a lot of money. But they provide money because we get money from donors. And I think you need to think about what any actions you make today. And I can't speak for the board because I got to report this to them, obviously, on Tuesday, but I can't speak on their behalf. But I do know, and this was a big issue when we fought with city council several years ago, regarding the property next to the cemetery that was given to the city by the foundation and the library was never built. One of the things I thought about then, one of the things I pushed for then when I was on this board was that you need to think about what impact the decisions you make have on the motivation of donors to donate going forward. a little worried if you're cutting a book budget completely what impact that's going to have on donors you know the foundation and the friends want to help the library we want to provide a better experience but I think there's an expectation there could be I can't say there could be an expectation among donors that there should be some baseline level of support from the city and that they're offering more on top of that And if the city, if the donors get the feeling, I'll just say feeling, because whether it's real or not, or it's accurate or not, isn't what's important. What's important is the effect it has on donations. And if donors get the feeling that the money that they're being given, they're giving to the library, rather than going to improve the library, is going as a stopgap for the kind of services that people took for granted the city was going to fund in the first place, that could have a negative impact on future donations. And I can't say it will. I do know, and I think you've seen this, after the issue with the property was resolved in favor of the city, and the property was returned, and the property was sold, donations went up considerably through the foundations. There was an increase in donations. And so I think there is a causation. I cannot quantify it right now, but it does exist. And whatever decisions you guys make, please keep that in mind because it could impact things going forward. Obviously, there's good money in the foundation account right now, but...

We need we need that money to continue to come in to continue to fund these type of programs I Completely agree because if you you keep tapping the same well, and if there's donor exhaustion I get that I do think this is an amazing opportunity to really highlight both the foundation and the friends and I think that the community needs to know that I mean, we know their impact and the importance, but I also think this is an opportunity to market both the foundation and the friends and for the community to know that they are coming to the rescue of this to maintain the services that we have. Join them. Support them. You can directly impact the library by supporting them because they are the ones that are the true heroes right now. I don't want to, you know, we don't want to make a hero and a bad guy type situation, but I do think this is, from a PR standpoint, it's an amazing opportunity and an outreach opportunity to really communicate to the community what the Friends and the Foundation does, and I think it's an opportunity to bring on more support and donations to them to help and communicate that it is a stopgap. And what would our library programming and materials look like if we didn't have both of you? We wouldn't have it. We wouldn't have anything. And I understand. We don't want to give an opportunity to set a precedent where the city never goes back to funding those. line items but I also think it's an opportunity really it could be an opportunity to grow the foundation and their friends as well but I think it's really important that we communicate out to the community what they are doing if that's in fact what they end up doing I think Sean I think what you say makes sense but the other reason

is the foundation will not pay for the staff, but the foundation is happy to support the books and the programs. And as a library, we need all, right? I mean, to have a functioning library, we need people, we need program, we need books. We need it all. But I'm thinking, as a donor, if library needs books, or the foundation needs money to buy the books, they'll be very happy to donate. Now, if you think about people, you think it's the city's responsibility, right? The foundation will not support the staff.

I understand the decision to donate is a personal one, and there's lots of personal decisions. But big picture, big picture, I can say, if the public sees the donations going to improving the library, improving then you're going to see more services and more donations. If they're not seeing that and they're seeing it more as a kind of turn to them so that the services that people took for granted are no longer being provided by the city, that could have a negative impact.

And how will you define improved library, right? Because the staff, the program, the books, they all are part of the improvement of the library and we all support. Yeah.

First of all, thank you for, that was like amazing interest. The timing could not have been like.

Like I said, I don't even have my belt on.

No, we're not even noticing that. I understand donor fatigue and donor motivation. I don't have enough historical context to know, has the foundation provided in this particular way before to where it would be some sort of like, you know, a negative recall or anything like that.

Well, I will say this. The donation of books is very recent. That really started after the, it was two things that happened. It was the sale of the property on Bass and Cherry. And then right at the time that happened, the pandemic happened. And there was a huge round of budget cuts as a result of the pandemic. And that was when the library, at that point, the foundation started donating for books. Does the Friends donate books?

Wait, so the foundation has funded collections prior to this request?

Yes. Like I said, we don't fund collections. There is a donation. I think it's $60,000. Does that number sound right?

But those are for like, like this year we used it for shelving. I am not. So I I've familiarized myself with, I would say six years of budget. I wasn't aware that books were part of that purchase. Alec, do you recall that?

It's not, it's not something that the foundation buys, but there is a, there is an allocation that's made and there has been some allocation, but it's only been since the since the, since the pandemic was when it started.

Okay.

I got this. The foundation allocates a pledge and it gets used for an amount of things that are the most critical needs that are not covered as part of the city budget, such as the websites. the newsletter, the shelving this year, the book drops, the things that are large line items that are needs but not part of the budget. Historically, the um durable long-term solutions have been funded by the foundation however to my knowledge books and collection development and i'm the one who signs all those invoices um have been sponsored by the friends they've they've focused on more the programming the consumables that kind of thing right yeah so it's it's it's kind of creeping

A mission creep to some extent, if you're relying on the foundation for that. But, I mean, obviously that's – I can't – this is an important meeting and important for the foundation to discuss. I can't say how the board feels as a whole until everyone talks about it.

I also do understand the foundation needed to increase their donations after the sale of the property because they had additional holdings so also their giving had to increase?

Well, obviously the revenue increased once the property was sold. The property was quite valuable. It sold in the millions. But even apart from that, there was an increase in year-to-year donations when that happened. Over and above what was collected from the sale. And I interpret that, personally, I interpret that as a sign that donors saw the foundation as working for the community and providing service to the community and motivated people to donate.

I will. I will. You will be the expert on this more than I will. I will look at having had meeting meetings with Duncan, the treasurer. I thought I understood it a little bit differently. I am probably mistaken. It might be.

I mean, but I do know that there was a it's a fairly nominal amount of money that was allocated the last year. But this came up because of the issues with the budget cuts resulting from the pandemic lockdown, which was another round of cuts, which were very difficult. It's the reason why the library is, I wouldn't say barely open, but why the hours are substantially reduced.

Okay.

To the point where I think it was, we went years without operating on Sundays, despite the fact that we had a, a passport program that was bringing in decent revenue. And it still wasn't enough to get the libraries open on Sundays for years.

I can speak a little more on that. Part of that was hiring. We didn't have the positions funded and we can't be open with no people that are there. But yeah, we went from 63 or 64 hours a week. 35, I think. Possibly. But we were open seven days a week, yes. And then when the pandemic happened, we closed to the public entirely other than curbside service for about a year. And then we reopened with these hours. And we slightly shifted the Friday and Saturday hours, but the same total hours since then. When we got the extra funds for Sunday, it was to hire specifically passport agents. They didn't get hired until March.

No, I was just wondering, since I see you as not just a foundation, but also a public speaker right here, do you have any suggestions for scenario A, B, or C on the agenda for the proposal?

Well, I think it's... I think I share the concerns for several of you there. I heard it expressed. Is your mic on? Particularly, I think, from you, Megan, about...

Your mic is on, but it needs to be a little closer to you. Sorry.

Too much. Not funding any book services at all. I would be concerned about that. If there's a budget cut, then there's a budget cut, and it's out of your control, and I get that. And it's up to the, you know, but I do wonder what the reaction would be if there was no books being provided by the library at all. It just seems kind of incongruous.

Has this, because I know, I mean, we were presented with this potential in May. Has this been talked about at board meetings as far as?

No, but I think it will, I'll definitely be bringing it up at Tuesday's meeting.

Okay. Because we. I've had lengthy discussions with them.

As far as closing, you know, ceasing all meetings. book purchases by the library yeah that was not discussed in any meeting I was in although I did miss the last meeting I do know that I was sick but any of the meetings I went to the idea of specific remedies for the budget shortfall this specific remedy was not something I heard okay I do agree with the idea of like

the friends in the foundation are in support of not the only funding source. I mean, obviously not the only funding source, but I hear what you're saying.

Aside, I'm just trying, I know that you guys are having some structural, you're changing the structure of the foundation, but I just want to understand, aside from events or how do you guys solicit donations directly to the foundation? Is it mostly... A DONATING BOARD OR DO YOU SEEK DONATIONS FROM THE COMMUNITY? HOW? I HAVEN'T SEEN ANYTHING. SO I'M CURIOUS HOW IT'S STRUCTURED.

I'M JUST TRYING TO FAMILIARIZE MYSELF. THE MACHINATIONS ARE NOT REALLY WHAT ARE DISCUSSED IN THE BOARD MEETINGS. THE BOARD MEETINGS ARE REALLY MORE WHAT TO DO ABOUT THEM. HERE'S WHAT WE'VE COLLECTED AND HOW TO SPEND IT. So how the money is collected, I think it's really a combination of just the existing website, the people who've been on the board. It tends to be larger donations rather than a lot of small ones. And so that's –

Are you receiving, like, bequeathed donations? Do you solicit bequeathed donations, or they just happen, or?

I should take that question and follow up on it, because I'm not involved in the donation side as a board member. That's not really been something that we've been...

Okay.

We're not all equally... versed on that issue.

OK. Thank you. I was just trying to understand. I will say, I looked earlier on the library's website. The direct donation link does go to the foundation. If you want to make a direct donation to the library, it sends you to the foundation. And there's a Venmo link. I was wondering, is that a QR code? Because I know we have the boxes at the entrance to the library. Is there a digital? Because it's like, no one carries cash anymore.

We, the timing on this is, I wouldn't say coincidental. It's all intentional. So, um, Bethany and Alec both know that we have been having, um, we're revamping our donation options. Um, I was surprised to find, you know, certain, there were certain barriers, what I felt like to donation. So at, Also, the friends meeting this week, we discussed ways to increase opportunities for people to donate. And we also receive a lot of direct emails. I will say I'm a little bit confused. So Su Ling does attend the meetings. I don't know that I've seen Mr. Payne in many of the recent meetings, but I could be thinking about maybe the executive team meetings, but I've met directly so many times with the treasurer and the president and vice president. They're very well aware. I just want to make sure that you all know they are well aware and we're actually excited at, and this is, this is not to swear, but as trustee was, I've had mentioned, um, they were excited at the opportunity to market in a way of putting book plates in the books to say that they had sponsored. And I know I had mentioned that before. Um, whether or not that's the right or wrong you know correct route is not for me to say but the support and their um the opportunities that they saw as a result uh they were very much in favor of and i i speak with them very frequently um Again, that doesn't mean it's the correct decision, but that is the...

But this could be marketing gold. And the thing is that in regards to utilizing either social media or the messaging, obviously that's something you guys would do as the team. I do think that it's an opportunity for the community to come together. How that is communicated out is something you guys will discuss, but I also think that there is an opportunity to bring more people on to the, you know, for support of the foundations, for support of the friends, direct donations, letting people know, letting people know during story time that, you know, in a positive way.

I'm going to try to answer your question. I do not represent the foundation, but I was at a foundation meeting. So I want to say that the foundation had not actively market or solicit donations, but that was the past. Now with the change of the directions, I see that it's going to be coming. And I feel that they even have more reasons in this time and will appreciate everyone's help. So I feel like your experience, your passion can be very helpful at this time. And so I think that I answered your questions, right? OK.

Are we ready for a motion or not.

I think that we'd like to see more public.

There is another member of the public on Zoom and also we should extend the invitation of the friends to also speak to this issue.

Yeah I think we'll let the public have an opportunity to speak before we take any action.

I do not see a hand raise. Now would be the time Anon if you'd like to raise your hand and speak to this issue. Seeing no hand raised.

Judy, are you interested in chiming on this budget situation for? Do you want to come to the podium with the mic?

It won't pick up on the recording otherwise.

And we appreciate your support.

Well, thank you. I'm not real versed in what the foundation does, but I do know on, I don't know, on a personal basis, when we're in the bookstore and we're talking to our customers, and I try to do this often. In fact, we did a poster not too long ago to let them know what happens with the money that they're spending in the bookstore and the book sales. And that makes them really happy to think that they are supporting the electronic programs, the children's programs, some of the basics. pen and pencil needs, whatever you need the money for, it makes them happy. So I do think maybe we need to do a little bit better job. And I do feel recently we've had a little bit more publicity supporting that. And we feel good about that, by the way, that we can continue to get that information out to the patrons of the library to understand they can become members and their money's going to go here. And where would we be? No children's programs? I think we can bring in some more money that way. And also from my former life, Bethany, I thought your plea was very impassioned, and I absolutely understand it. There are critical people in an organization, critical people. And you described one of what happens without this person. all these things that are going to fall apart or be done piecemeal, or you're going to spend extra time training somebody to do it, and you're not going to get the job that you need, and they're going to take away from the job that you do. So I think it's imperative that we keep this critical position, and however we come up with the funds or how we say the money is being spent, You know I think if the public finds out yeah, we're in a huge budget crunch everybody knows it and We don't have money for books this year You can help us with that by becoming a donor or making a donation To the friends. I think we just have to get that information out there, but those are those are my feelings on it But I feel very strongly about this position you described I've worked in situations where we've had those critical people disappear and And you can't go very long without them. And I hope you find one, by the way. So yes, that's what I have to say. Let's let people know what we're doing with their money. They love to hear about it. They feel good. I said, whether you're donating a book or you're buying a book or I'm volunteering, we're all doing the same thing. We're helping to support the library. And we just need to let them know the many ways that we do it. And those are my thoughts.

Thank you, Judy. Thank you very much. I don't know if I have the support, but with that, I never make motions. I'm going to try to see if we can actually ditch scenario C and propose with either A or B. If I have any second at all, or if someone else want to make a different motion.

Just for clarification, do you mean so all three scenarios would be the same A?

Well, because we are presented with standard A, B, or C, right? So my motion is ditch scenario C and propose either A or B.

If we ditched C, we would have to find that $95,000, because aren't we supposed to be presenting up to a 10% reduction?

We weren't tasked with a percentage at this point. We had presented what we felt that we were able to give up. And this was sort of given back to us. So the whole city will have A, B, and C. We have to have an A, B, and C. It's just what's there. So if you're asking to remove defunding that position from the table, that would be it. The column will have to be there. It would just be Like, yeah, the same, like you were saying.

Well, it would still have the difference with the hunt funding security, because that's different between A, B, and C. Yes. So it would still be a different number. It would just not include the personnel loss.

Right. Could you request partial funding for that position, a 50% funding?

I'm thinking this through because like turning it into a part-time position.

Yeah, or a three-quarter position if you could somehow. I mean, we can ask.

That would be the budget and like the way the positions go, sometimes you can't modify that. So I don't know. I can ask. Is there a reason we don't present basically one scenario for all three in that we are presenting C. I think that if we don't provide options options will be provided for us.

Even though other departments have A B and C being the same.

My impression is that those – so just because I don't have it in front of me, are you – So like HR, A, B, and C are all the same number.

Fire is all the same.

Fire is all the same number. So the different – the reasons behind those – HR is such a small department. I don't know that they – they only had people to cut. I think from what I understand. So they're underfilling a position. And fire, they receive funds from, so they hired 18 new, don't quote me on this, but I think they hired 18 new firefighters recently, but it's being funded through some kind of, what is that?

That was grant funded.

Yeah.

But they have to maintain a certain amount of matching funds along with a rating. And if they dip below that rating, they're going to lose it all.

Exactly. So the reason why they didn't have to cut those positions is because we're not paying for it at this point. So there's so many micro reasons behind all of this. I think that when we all looked at each other's departments and said, This is what we could give and why. Like, for example, parks, if you look at their line items, some of them will say the portion from the general fund because there's different funds that pay for that particular position or program or whatever it is. So, for example, right now, part of the reason why we're able to have these really big events at Hunt is because we still have that grant money. that grant money will go away as of June, 2027, we need to have expended the rest of it. So there are certain things that look a certain way, but it's just the money's coming. So we're only speaking of the general funds things right now. Um, so yes, we could do an A, B and C, but it's, it's not as apples to apples as it might seem.

Well, but we would still be providing two separate options, right? Because of the, the difference in the hunt funding, it's not a huge difference, but

would at least be not the same across the board if that's what you wanted to propose you you can do anything you want to make a motion but you think it would be possibly worse than the scenario see if we were to do that that's a possibility yeah I I feel like I trust your instincts and especially having been in these meetings and seeing what's going on and so I

While I want so strongly to second your motion, I move that we keep it as is with the notation about the temporarily subsidized by. That wording change, yes.

The other thing that I would say would be completely easy to justify, although I don't know if it would fly or even matter because as Trustee Wozab said, we might be at a C for everybody. Um, I would move something into the B column just so that there's that tiered.

Yeah. Okay. Then I go ahead.

Well, I was going to say, could you find out if that tiered, the B column could be a reduction in that position? Like if that could be what moves over there.

So what are your thoughts on that? I, I, I, if it's the person who works directly with it, I try to like, not, you know, so, um,

For me and for the library, one of the greatest assets of that position is the coordination aspect of it. Currently, we have probably about 15 ongoing IT issues that need attention at various levels of urgency and that are impacting one to everyone. And for example, the new IT ticketing system doesn't allow for us to tag multiple people. So realistically, I'm going to have to do all of those IT tickets myself, or it needs to be somebody who's full-time just to manage. Realistically, it would, yes, it would help, but I don't know that it would help. It wouldn't be... a 50% of that position wouldn't be able to cover that to the 50% extent because a lot of what we do is systems-focused or immediate firefighting versus desk coverage. It's just not the same the way that a lot of the other more public-facing divisions function. And then there's just one other thing. You had mentioned underfilling. We're already... at a fairly high percentage underfilling some of our positions. We used to have library division managers. Now we have senior librarians. We used to have a library circulation manager. We have a library services supervisor. We have... A lot of positions that we have library technical assistance covering hours so that the librarians can focus on desk coverage hours so the librarians can focus on programming and planning. So we're already kind of stretched to the point on that.

Well I know that there's other departments that are under filled and it is more cost effective for them to be paying some overtime than to be filling a full position. I'm just if it was a half time to a three quarter time versus no one at all.

Yeah I.

I mean, with the temporary, this is a three quarter time or a half time now with the intent to go full time as soon as we could secure funding and through possibly a capital campaign or something, we might be able to fill a gap. It might be an option.

We can ask for that. My plan for advocating for keeping this position funded is it's a recent vacancy. It is a position that is directly related to IT and the city just trans as Bethany mentioned, is in transitioning to a new IT system. There's direct, not just library related implications, but there's implications to the whole city and this position helps set up the conference center for meetings, events that are not just library. This position helps with everything from citywide events like the community budget to all of the things that are um even booked you know on time that have nothing to do with us they help with the av tech the osborne is going to be reopening soon this position will be primarily so there there are so many um reasons that are not just library focus because the reality of it is when you're just saying it hurts me um it doesn't hit as hard as when you're saying it's also going to affect you. So if we're saying, so one of the results will be if this position goes away, we still have the room to book, but you have to do all of the setup yourself, for example. I think you see what I'm saying. There's a strategy I have in mind that involves those things. As Bethany also mentioned, we can fill in the gaps, but we won't do them as well. We're not as proficient as tech as somebody who is hired for that. Um, but you know, we can fill in the gaps, but we are being pulled away from other things. Passports being one of them. So Alicia is one of the people who gets pulled away most often because her team often helps with the event setups. Um, if she is not available to, we will have to close the passport office. So it, it's hard to understand how that trickle down effect would, one thing would, but we all, it all affects each other and, uh, that would affect our revenues. It would affect our public facing bookings, all of those things. So I think, yeah, if, if, if I will ask for a reduced position, my plan is just really to advocate for, for it as is.

Can you put that all in an appeal? Can you put that all in a document as an appeal?

So the way it's presented is I imagine, I mean, they usually have us put it on a slide and then we speak to it. Um, we are like one little dot in this whole thing. So, um, it's kind of like with the Sunday hours, we got through this whole budget studies of, you know, um, study session, nobody even asked about it. So I'm actually having to remind them, like, we need to move forward with something. We need to either start closing later. I mean, staying open later. Um, but it, I like Alec knows I, we, we keep reaching out saying, Oh, just remember, we have to put that on there. Like you all voted like, Oh, it's a bummer, but okay. Instead of Sundays, we'll do this other thing. We haven't even yet had the opportunity to move that forward because there's just so much going on. So I will put any of these recommendations on there. Sometimes you just don't know what happens with them. So yeah, I don't know.

Can I recommend, I mean, I'm not making a motion, but something else that would potentially, I like what you said earlier of like, You don't want A and B to be the same because then it's just A versus C. Like you need a middle. So what if that hunt funding that also was on B, that takes another 50 grand. So then it's like four, what did I did the math? Then the middle option is 414. So then we've got a three, a four, and a five option as far as like how much we're cutting. So it would just be the 175 on B and C as opposed to just on C. And that still saves the position. So your middle option is the position stays. We cut over 400. I feel like that is maybe to sweeten the pot of like, we don't need to go to C. We'll just go to B. But I don't know if there was a reason why that only showed up on C.

That was not our decision.

I'm under the impression that they're not going to be looking at this department by department and saying C for fire, B for library. They're just going to go. I think they're going to pick – I don't know. Yeah, well, that's how it's presented to them. I think it's going to be a mess. But I think this is going to be a very piecemeal decision, though, where they're going to go – I think everything that's being said tonight would go – I mean, I guess depending on how under the radar we're trying to fly, I don't know if that's really, you know, if we're really trying to be strategic about this or really just kind of trying to lead with how we feel. I feel like letting them know all of this would help our case, and I mean, the reality is, right, like, it's bleak, but the city's financial situation is bleak, and, you know, I think part of this is not showing that, but, like, we don't really have an option, and In a perfect world, everybody feels the same way we all do. And yeah, it sucks to lose our funding for books. And we can't lose this position. And the reality is the city needs more money. And we, I think, need to present that. And if this is our way of doing that, because at the end of the day, we're 2% of the city's budget, right? This is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the financial issue that the city's having. But if we can kind of – it's one of those things where it's like, okay, if you're tight on money personally and it sucks, you can't go out for dinner. But, okay, maybe that's a motivator to be – to one of your kids to get a job or something. I don't know. Speaking hypothetically. I think – I don't know. I think making it clear what the situation is and kind of being real about it I think is – will work in our favor I think, I don't know, in the long run maybe because – I don't know. You brought it up maybe an hour ago now about how the book budget kind of maybe does move. In the past, I think last fiscal year, we got an extra $30K for the book budget. So there, I think, is a want to fund it from the city. But I think it is a very much, it's bleak. We don't really have, it's this or people. And I mean, I was the one going through the budget. I wasn't going to pick people. I don't know. That's my two cents.

I guess also, thank you for clarifying, because the way it is presented to the council, it does look like it's like choose A, B, or C across the board. So our discussion of what does A, B, and C look like, when I think they're going with C no matter what, it doesn't really matter what we say for A or B. I truly do think this is, I mean, obviously you have to present some type of structure.

There has to be some type of different scenario so you have a place to have conversation. I do think that it is going to be hybrid of maybe this and maybe that the fact that privatization is completely off the board I am thrilled I was happy to have a conversation and impassioned conversation and but the fact that that's a win and and I mean I do think that the right now public trust is It's a huge issue. And I think that everyone, when we know how much it's costing to buy eggs and gas and taking your kids out to dinner and everything, everybody's budget is suffering right now. And I think that without showing the residents... that there's going to be some type of structural changes across the board to live within our means. I would love to have filet mignon every night, but I can't. And I think that just being able to do that, but then also think, I'm an optimist. I think this is a great opportunity for us to reach out to the community and say, We love our library. Like, hey, everybody, we're in it together. We can sell merch, and we can have shirts, and save the life. We can do all kinds of things. And I think it's an opportunity for us to actually get out into the community a little bit more and plead our case. And I think it's a great way to bring people in. And everybody kind of, it's a gut check. Like, wow. We have been able to be doing these all these years. And what would it be like without story time? I mean, how many times, what is it, bedtime bears? Haven't had bedtime bears in a long time. But also too, I really like what you were saying, because it's going to be, we've talked about this too, bringing on Osborne and even discussing it with the clerk. That's going to be another meeting space where there's going to be the AV and an opportunity that sometimes when you cannot schedule a meeting in here, that's going to be another viable space. And you're going to have tech issues. So you're going to need to be able to have someone that can utilize that. And we want to really highlight that and bring more people in. You know, like being able to have, there's so many people that are using hybrid workspaces now. They need being able to have meeting spaces. Maybe we look at other ways to market our spaces because they could have, you know, you could have the tech to be able to have your your people across the country, but then have a group that's there. But being able to also market our spaces a little bit more too. But I think it is an opportunity. But I do think that across the board, the residents are going to have to see some type of structural changes. And I know that you've met and had a lot of meetings about this. And you guys have put a lot of time and effort into this. But I don't know that this is the be all, end all end of the conversation. I think we will see how it goes.

Another thing that I want to make sure we all remember, because sometimes we forget, because again, this is a really unique situation. Other departments are not doing this. Other departments do not have an administrative board. Other departments are just making these decisions on their own. The library board as it stands in this city is... you are, you have the ability to even be able to do this. So nobody else is like having this discussion about it's whatever their department head says. So I just want to highlight that because that can be perceived away as well. So if we get too far off of what has already, you know, been kind of, softly agreed upon um and then we again you absolutely have the ability to do this you are absolutely the only board that has the ability to do this so i just want to make sure that that would and like what trustee wozab was saying um they were very excited to call us in and tell us privatization is off the table i just don't want it to be like OK, awesome. And then now what? And then I want to make sure that we're not just looking at this, but we're looking at what used to be here and just making sure that we're, I don't know, that we're just making the decision with all of those things in mind.

Do you have a recommendation for separating out scenario A, B, and C? Or do you think that that would be a poor decision

to make i think separating out a b and c would be a good idea is there is there a recommendation you have for making that be different um i think that is actually a good idea about moving the um um The hunt security? The hunt security.

I mean, I like how you mapped it out. Technical term, mapping it out.

So... the very brief reasoning behind that is, um, we were going to eliminate hunt security entirely, but, um, there was a recommendation internally, like through the department heads that there should be fun, some fun set aside in case we needed it. Like say we're having an event like, you know, K-pop or something and we're out there and there's no security guard, for example. Um, what if we needed it? We, we would just be able to use those funds. Maybe they don't get used. Maybe, like, which just turns out to be something that end of the year we didn't have to use. There is some room to play with that. The other thing that I keep forgetting about is that some of these decisions were made with the idea that the departments might merge. We don't know now whether and or when that's happening. So that is another layer of complication. At this stage, there are some things we can't undo because this was all baked in with so many what-ifs that it is a very multi-layered, confusing thing. Originally, the merger was going to be part of this proposal. A decision was made very recently for it not to be because it's so complicated on its own that it was like, that probably needs to be its own thing. So some of the things in here kind of have to do with if. And so it's kind of like the parks decisions that are happening. So we still have to kind of hold those just in case. So that's not going to make it any easier.

Then I move to go with Trustee Watson. Can I ask one more question?

Please, please. If unfortunately the council decided to go with scenario C how are we going to operate with the situation that the position is unfunded? I mean how is the library going to operate?

How we operated in the past involved an awful lot of we do not get paid for overtime because we're exempt but it involved covering 10 to 20 hours a week sometimes. So, and that's just not sustainable again. I mean, I took work home and continued to work or I would stay extra hours.

That wouldn't happen in this current, in this current, yeah.

Do you have a, A solution in case scenario C is the choice.

I mean, our solution is what we're doing now because Rhonda is already gone and we're still functioning. It will just get worse because there's like Osborne is going to open, you know, things like that. So like right now on Monday, Bethany was training me on how to supervise the cleaning of our materials handler, our automated materials handler. I should not be doing that, not because I think it's that I'm being paid to do these other things, so it just is not efficient for that. But thankfully, I'm able to just do some other work, and it's like a safety thing. There's not many people there on Monday. The person doing it just needs to make sure that in case a dangerous situation arises, somebody is there. But those are the kinds of things we're doing. Taking work home for 20 hours per week, I can't speak to that. I wasn't here at this time, and that's not something that I would support. What would have to happen is that we would just have to pull back on things. So Bethany mentioned earlier that we're starting with a vendor where the books can arrive pre-processed, which is how it used to be, and how it stopped last year because the vendor that everybody used went suddenly bankrupt. We need to get back to that place. That will hopefully take some burden off of that division. I've not seen it function in that way, so I'm not going to speak to what I don't know. But I think as civil servants and particularly as library staff that are so community and service-oriented, we have a very difficult time saying no. So I think there's going to have to be some no's. And that's hard to hear, and that's hard to say. It doesn't come natural to any of us. But I can't have Bethany saying that she's going home doing 20 hours of work. Right. It's not sustainable. It's not sustainable. It's not even possibly legal. I don't even know what the details of that were. But if it's because somebody's asking us that they need to use this room and we can't do it because this position – It might be a no. I don't know how that's going to be received.

So is it possible that we can put out on the motion that we would support, again, scenario A or B, and the reason that we ditch C is because it's not only affecting the library, it's going to be affecting all the department because the technical person is not just support the library, it's support the city. I don't know if that will go away.

I spent about two hours of last week supporting, because Rhonda was leaving, supporting the event for the budget meeting that was on that Tuesday of getting there to help to coordinate the technology and help make sure that got set up. it very much does impact other city departments. This role and our other people involved in event setup more than most.

Right. So we not only take our share, we are requesting our partner supporting group to support us and help us We are also supporting other department as well, too. So, I mean, I don't have the language ability if, you know, I mean, all those of you who have good language, please, you understand what I'm hoping for.

Right. What you were saying is putting, I guess, the impact in an appeal for support for the critical nature of that position and what it entails and who it supports and why it's a shared issue.

Expense basically go go hey charming microphone The conference center in the Osborne the conference center in the Osborne room do they generate revenue Depend on who is using it. Okay, so the rooms need to be set up so that this revenue opportunity can take place and

Not all events generate revenue. Like when we have city department events and there are some other small special categories that don't. But if it's a piano recital, that would. But there's also an offset to that in that we have to have the staff do the setup and tear down. So there is some revenue generation, but it's something that it would be great if it was increased, but does need the staff to support it.

And possibly could to have two conference centers now. Because I'm sure there's been times when you've had to not have availability for things. So to me, that's also another argument that this is a possibility for revenue, not a possibility, a probability.

Right. Judy has a very good point because not only are you going to be losing revenue because you cannot provide the support, But also at the same time, we would not be able to support other department as well, too. So it's not a library position. It is a city position.

And this is something that we can build up to the public, too, that we have this opportunity for them. I mean, with state-of-the-art equipment.

Right, we welcome people to come and rent.

Yes, so anyway, that would be a comment maybe if you could work a little revenue in there. Wonderful, thank you, Judy.

We also, yes, thank you, Judy. The Osborne rental fee was increased significantly as of last year, which most of you know because you did approve that. We are also looking at increasing our passport photo fee. It's nominal from $12 to $15, but with the volume of passport photos that we do, it will make a difference. So revenue is part of our pitch also. That it doesn't directly have to do with that position, but the next person in line oftentimes and particularly on Saturdays, is Alicia. And that's one of the days when our passport office is open. So it does all tie in. So I think I hear all of this. Oh, sorry. Did you?

You do have to speak at the microphone, sorry. And I hope it doesn't squeak for you again.

I was on the board. And what I was told when I was on the board was that the revenue from passports is not something that shows up in the line item. So it's something you really would have to explain to the city council why. Like, you basically would have to say, look, this is the revenue that it brings in. please allow us more money in the budget, and here's why. But you would need to explain it that way because it's not something that you can count on as a, you know, if your budget is X, you can't say, well, that's okay because we'll make money from the passports. We're raising the fees from the passports, and then that'll cover it because it doesn't. That money goes into the, I think it goes into the general fund.

All of our revenue goes into the general fund. We don't keep any revenue for our department, just to be clear.

So it's an argument for explaining to the city why the cut needs to be less, and it's really a, it's in your best interest in the long term. Just wanted to mention that.

No, thank you. That's another, you know, the brain works, yeah. Yeah, another point that, you know, we are, you know, helping generate revenue.

Right. And again, just to be clear, we are a general fund department. We are primarily funded, supposed to be by the general fund. All of our revenues go back to the general fund, correct? They don't directly fund. It's not like, oh, we make more money here, so now we have more books. And we don't have a problem with that.

We just don't want that position to get cut when it's a library position. But the general fund, it's going to be affected.

Any revenue generation helps our case. So the passports and the success of the passports and the room bookings and raising that fee and raising the photo fee doesn't come back to us directly, but it goes into the shared resources. So it just, again, helps us, helps justify these requests.

Right. Cutting the personnel will affect the revenue generation.

Correct. And again, and that's my point in that will be my pitch and to make it, to explain why we aren't just trying to save this position for ourself. It's kind of like, why you need somebody, a code enforcer. Well, yeah, it's somebody in your department, but it also helps everybody.

Anybody want to make a motion? Well, my motion was just DGC, but it's not very good in language, right? So all of you are better with the language, English language. Help me out to package it. So that, you know, because we have lots of great ideas talking about the revenue generation, you know, the impact of hurting other departments.

I think we need to keep scenario C, but explain it as you would. And I hate that we have to keep scenario C. But it sounds like that's what everyone has.

So if the C is chosen, then libraries are going to be exempted.

Well, I think that you probably move that within the structure of the A, B, and C, that additional funds are moved into scenario B, such as the hunt security funding. Yeah. in order to create a three-tiered scenario.

Where it makes C look less nice. But because every department is giving up people, I don't think we can be the one that doesn't. I think that would look poorly on us to not play the game and join everyone.

But we're also giving, I think, the most non-people money.

Interesting.

from a percentage wise, we've pulled our weight. Okay. So, I mean, we did that with the thought of, we don't want to give people because we don't really have people to give, right. We're already, we're already a skeleton crew.

And we, and I mean, we wouldn't, the timing is bad. Yeah. We wouldn't, if, if this resignation happened next month, this wouldn't even be on here.

So. We already have many, um, positions not get filled. remember all the management position, right? Like under director, you're supposed to be managers. We don't have any managers. We go from director to senior librarian.

Like Bethany was mentioning, there's so many are being underfilled. Alec and Bethany I think are both underfilled position. The majority are.

So would we move to do scenario A as, well, scenario A without the electronic resources, scenario B with the electronic resources, and scenario three without the library technology assistant on there to give us a three-tiered, and that would remove that barrier That would not include that person as even an option, and they'd have to ask for it separately. Like, it's not something we're presenting. It's something that they would have to come back and...

So A would be... A would be... Hunt Collection...

Hunt collection, yeah.

B would be hunt collection and electronic resources.

Yeah, and C would be increased hunt.

And the first two.

I have a question because we've talked a lot tonight about how it will look or how would we explain this. If this has already been presented to council and then we come back with, here's three options. One B is the same. And then a is 30,000 less. And C is now $94,000 less. I feel like that's going to raise a lot of questions of like, it's hard to say whether they noticed.

The trustee has proposed to the council, right? Because we,

have this opportunity to discuss because right yeah there's a special meeting before we didn't have this opening to really discuss okay I was just saying yeah no I mean it it it's a it is a risk but the also I'm going to be presenting this first to the city manager's office so this will be my first experience with an administrative board during a budget season because this is a unique board structure. Again, it's usually like other departments where you can weigh in, but you're not voting on anything. You're just giving your recommendations. So for us to even have the opportunity to do this, with great power comes great responsibility. So that will be who sees it first and who will tell me quite plainly

Yeah. Well, I was going to ask, so I know you mentioned like the, we don't want to rock the boat because we don't want to lose more than what we're already offering. Is the potential that they say, no, we're sticking with what you already showed us? Is it the potential that you think that they might go beyond what we've offered with scenario C here?

I don't think that they'll go beyond, but I mean, we may receive direction that it's like, this is what's going to stand.

So I phrased, well-

Can it become scenario D that you keep in your back pocket?

Well, Trustee Wozab put her dot in between B and C, so she's like B plus. There is that.

And like Alec and many of us have said. That's why I brought up, do we call it a three-quarter time position? Do we call it a half-time position and say, hey, we're going to see what we can do on our end to meet you halfway instead of... hey, no, you're not touching this position whatsoever. I don't necessarily know that that's negotiable. It may be a recommendation. And yes, it's a valuable, it's a vital position. But I also think at least coming halfway and saying, look, and here is the appeal as to why it needs to be a full-time position. Because X, Y, Z. It is shared by this. You're reliant on this. We're going to be opening Osborne online. this is revenue generating, this is revenue generating, this is revenue generating. If, you know, instead of saying, you know, no, we won't even meet you halfway.

And this is a time we have to focus on revenue generating.

So I'd like to move that we adjust A to be the reducing the hunt security, eliminating the book collection. B to be as is. And C, to be taking off library technology assistant and leaving that as your back pocket thing to deal with the city manager as you know our opinions, you know our feelings, you know yours very well, and you can speak to them wonderfully. And then adding that temporarily subsidized by wording in there. So I'm supporting.

Your scenario C is still the same as currently.

No, scenario C doesn't have the 94. We're taking that out. I'm saying yours.

All right. I'm saying what you said. Okay, thank you. No, I love your language to help me out.

No, I just got a feeling. I trust you, and I feel like you were saying C needs to stay, and that's where I'm hesitant to vote for that.

I'm wondering if the board would be okay with Instead of saying that this is being submitted to council for consideration, it can say we're submitting this to come back to city management for consideration because I think that we will receive a candid answer. And I think that our city management wants us to succeed and will probably have not probably will absolutely have more of an understanding than any of us do because if you're all in the meetings that are public meetings and then I'm in department head meetings they're in the meeting meetings. So if he tells me you're going to kind of shoot yourself in the foot on this one I trust that. So I would almost say. Ask for your asks, but maybe make the motion that I'm bringing this to them first for a recommendation. But that means that you're going to be hearing that result.

Well I think I would like to have our discussion to say all the reasons. Yeah.

And this allow I feel like this allows you to do that because this is me saying we had this meeting and this is what the board they're concerned their wants their this. And then again I can have that candid conversation and then we can do. And I appreciate your trust and, you know, that whole thing. And I feel like I get what you're saying and I get we're all wanting the same thing. We're just trying to get as close to that as possible without like having everything pulled away. So it might be that you're hearing the final result after and not getting to vote on it. That said, if the if the budget adoption is in August, maybe we have another special meeting in August instead of a regularly scheduled meeting. I don't know how it's timing out.

Do you know if our board meeting would fall before?

August 14th would be the, I'm probably saying that wrong.

For the city council, there's a meeting the next week on Tuesday. The first August city council meeting is currently canceled.

So it would only be the third Tuesday. So we would have to have another special meeting. Because as Bethany just said, the city council meeting August 18th, our board meeting would be August 27th. So I don't know what everybody's calendar look like, but if you would want to see in writing what that, it would be another special meeting, which is fine.

I guess I move that we do scenario A, B, and C as previously stated with the moving around of the funds. You bring that to the city manager and You make the best decision that you are able to do after that discussion, and we trust your judgment implicitly.

Because you're in conversations and you're in meetings that we are not in. That you need to do what you need to do.

I feel that kind of put a spot on her, although she is a director. However, we are the advisory board, so I would like to take the responsibility to say that this is, the trustees motion in the decision making and the reasons for decision making. And that it's public meeting anyway. So all this can be presented as what our discussion and our motion. So that take the pressure off you, not that I don't trust you. I feel.

I appreciate that. You're trying to own it here.

Right. I feel the weight will be different.

I mean, that's very kind. I appreciate that. Because I would do my best to speak on behalf of all of you, but yeah.

Right, so it's our decision that we would like to see it happen.

And, you know, Alec made a good point, too, that $30,000 was added to the collection development budget last year. So this time last year, well, maybe this time a month ago last year, it was actually $30,000 under. So if we don't... If we need to find the $94,000 somewhere, that could be another thing too. If they're saying, we just want you to get to this number, is that another option that you want me to present, which is reduce somewhere else?

If you're able to, I'm okay with that.

And it may not be like $94,000 fully burdened.

If you can find money, it comes from anywhere. That's why I think that if we were to say, I mean, I don't feel like the all or nothing pitch is going to... Because in the spirit of collaboration and respect of other departments as well, I mean, I think everyone is having to have cuts. But I also, if we were to say that we, you know, somehow this is a vital position, but we would like to look at some creative solutions. Is it that you meet us halfway or it's a three-quarter and then we somehow find that the other piece? I just think it You've spoken to that before.

I'd like to keep the position whole. And I feel like, I don't know. I mean, for the last few years, we haven't gone to 100% spend on our collection development budget. Is that where there's a bit of a reduction to bridge that gap? That could be an option, too, also. So I don't know how to phrase this.

Maybe it's making the appeal of this position is so vital, we may need to look at other places. But then also, too, we don't want to lose staff, too.

Yeah, and I don't think we will. But I mean, $200,000 per year is not a lot for a library's collection development budget, especially now that you understand that that also includes e-books and e-audiobooks. But we offer more than books, and we can get a lot of that supplemented. So I don't know, maybe, well, but it's already planned to be fund elsewhere.

Why don't we go make the motion and take the vote that you can take that to report to the city manager.

Maybe you can list your maybe the motion can be your priorities that staff takes to the city manager the priorities of the board which are this this and this with the understanding that best efforts will be made.

Just write that one to get there. I move that.

And then you would just need to say what the priorities are. Yeah, the this, this, and this can't be the priorities.

Yeah. I move that the A, B, and C, as previously discussed, with best efforts.

Here's what I have written down. To be taken to the city manager by the director adjusting option A to remove the electronic resources keeping option B as is and option C taking off the LTA position. Then from there leaving the director to her best judgment with the knowledge that this is how the board is choosing to advise her.

I second that.

That's my motion. That's it. You did it. I second that.

And okay, Carrie Prelitz.

Can you repeat it one more time?

That's fair.

Yes. So the motion is to adjust option A in removing the electronic resources, keeping option B as is, and taking off the LTA position from option C with the intention of this to be taken to the city manager and then leaving the director to make a judgment from there with the knowledge that this is how the board is choosing to advise her.

And also the reasons, right? The reasons to keep that.

Right. Okay, with the protection of the LTA position as the priority. Right.

Just to clarify, this is that you're taking it to the city manager, not that it's going to council because you will come and report back about what city manager says. Right.

I don't think she can. Or you won't do that. No, she won't report back. She'll take our.

But whatever city manager says. So if we're able to make a special meeting. If the budget doesn't adopt this coming Tuesday and you all and the chambers are available and you're all available on a date like what happened today and that happens before August 14th. So there's a lot of variables. So we'll make best efforts to formally bring this back. But we can also, I think, inform you of, you'll also see it on Tuesday. Because that's when it'll be presented.

I'm okay with everything that was said. And then giving you the ability to, if you need to, based on what the manager says, keep C as is. I'm okay with that. So I don't need you to come back to me either.

Okay.

So we're moving 30,000 from A.

We're here. Let me read the motion again because I think I need, I don't think technically I'll need to anyway. The board is establishing that their priority is protecting the LTA position and requesting that electronic resources be removed from option A, option B being left as is, and option C having the LTA position removed from it entirely, with the intention of this request being taken to the city manager by the director, who will then be left to make her judgment from there with the knowledge that this is how the board is choosing to advise her. How do we feel about that?

I think the reasons, it's important, though. So the reasons being, you know, it's. I think that's to the directors.

Yeah, her appeal. I don't think in our motion we need to list the reasons. We're directing her to give those reasons in talking to the manager.

Yes. All right. Do we need to put in the language about temporarily subsidized by?

Yes.

Thank you.

And, you know, listening to what Trustee Prelate said, we realize that just Overall, not every department, but just the A, B, and C that were presented at the first slides for the whole city, the ones that's multi-millions of dollars, it might be C. I don't know how we get there because there's, like, so much more than these things, right? Do we need to say in there an option, like... I just am very concerned that I'm going to come back to you and say that option C is still there, but we don't know how it's going to be voted on.

We understand. Yeah. We get it. Okay. It's okay.

I really like and respect your idea to go in and ask for advisement and to discuss. And I think that you will get as clear at the time, not knowing where everything is going to fall, but based on internal information we are not privy to, having more insight into the fact that, yes, I think this will fly, or no, I think we need to stay hard and fast with this.

Like what's realistic. What's realistic.

Okay here's how they got the motion written out. The board motions to establish the priority of protecting the library technology assistant position add language to say that collection development will be temporarily subsidized by the foundation and adjust the three scenarios as follows removing the electronic resources from scenario a keeping scenario B as is and taking the LTA position off of scenario C with the intention of these three requests being taken to the city manager by the director, who will then be left to her judgment to decide with the knowledge that this is how the board is choosing to advise her.

I don't like that judgment part. Sorry.

No, no, that's OK. No, let's fix it.

I'm an English learner, but that judgment bothered me. Instead of judgment, I would say explain, right? We authorized her to explain our reasons.

I feel like the reason, yeah, her judgment is coming in with whatever the manager says back to her. She needs to be able to then decide what to do. As opposed to, oh, I can't do anything, so I have to wait to talk to the board. We're trusting her because she knows our wishes to make a judgment. I like discernment. I think that maybe is a better choice. Use her discernment. I don't know. I feel like that's just a fancier word. I feel like we've gone up in vocab there. Yeah, but I feel like it has to say that because we're on such a time crunch that she needs to be able to use her judgment.

I just don't want to throw the responsibility to her. Yes, she's responsible, but I would like to share the responsibility.

Yeah, well, because I think that in the language, it says that it's based on our recommendations. So it's not she's making this choice. Yeah.

Yeah.

OK, let's try this one. The board motions to have the director bring the following to the city manager. One, establishing the priority of protecting the LTA position. Two, adding language to say that collection development will be temporarily subsidized by the foundation. And three, adjusting the scenarios as following, removing the electronic resources from scenario A, keeping scenario B as is, and taking the LTA off of scenario C entirely. The director will then use her discernment from there with the knowledge that this is how the board is choosing to advise her.

That you can then present option C if you have to or not.

I think that's part of the discernment. That's what I'm hoping for. Yeah, it looks good to me. Thank you.

Okay, and I have the motion made by Jennifer, seconded by Lisa. Yes. Okay, we're going to vote now. Carrie Prelitz.

Yes.

Jennifer Sarvis.

Yes.

Megan Watson.

Yes.

Lisa Wozab.

Yes.

Su Ling Chen.

Yes. And with that, we are going to dismiss tonight's meeting. And I'm sorry, I mean, we're so serious, right? We never have meetings lasted so long and so late. It just shows how passionate we are with this. Yes. Thank you thank you all for being here. Have a great night.

Yes yes.

Yeah I think we need an official meeting adjournment. Oh OK OK.