Library Board of Trustees - Regular Meeting

Wow, I've never had to do that before. All right, we will call this meeting to order and start with a roll call. So, Anna, I'm so sorry, Jenny. Did you say something? No, you're good. Thanks. and here myself Jammy's here's here you're ready to go um we will start with approval of the minutes from our February meeting second. All in favor? I

I All right, those minutes pass. Um and any revisions to the agenda for today? No. Right. We will move on to citizen comments. Jamie, do we have anyone online? Um, I don't have anyone online. We'll have an opportunity for citizen comment at the beginning and the end of the meeting. So, three minutes to talk about any topic that you'd like to um in front of the board.

Thank you. Moving on to reports with our city administrator, Mark Pathway. Um, thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a quick update to provide to the board that is related to our um 2026 uh community satisfaction survey. We have um several questions that uh are related to the library or have library um related things in their answer options. And so I just wanted to provide you an update on the 2026 results as it relates to to those questions. Um, another thing to point out, and Ji's mentioned this before, and I don't know if we are prepared to brief you on the details here, but one of the things to keep in mind is we've talked about doing a library specific patron satisfaction survey to gauge more of a patron experience and satisfaction with the library. That would be uh more geared toward individual services and programs. um that would get to a more granular level to get you some more operating data. This is a very high level um sort of uh gross service kind of survey. And so keeping that in mind and and we would propose to do that kind of on an al alternating time schedule whereas this one is January that one would be like August July August kind of time frame. uh regardless. So the questions from top to bottom as they kind of cascade through the survey. The first one um that's important to set the kind of the tone that um gives context or or allows the other questions context for is number one overall how satisfied do you feel about your quality of life in Liberty Lake? The 2026 answer of those who are at least somewhat satisfied is

98.8%. That's a very high percentage and it's compar comparable with the 2025 number which was 98.7%. Then when you start looking at some of the questions downstream of that uh particularly number two the question uh number two is when determining your answer to number one right which was the overall quality of life satisfaction. How important is each of the things on this list? And there are about 25 things on that list. One of those things is uh the library, the 2026 answer. And so this is this is a question that's trying to get at why do you why do you rate your quality of life to be what it is? Um and and in 2026 the answer option that is the library that um that answer is 68.6% as compared to 2025 where it was 78.8%. So a pretty significant reduction from 255 to 26 in that what why is it important or what is important and how you determine your quality of life satisfaction. So we'll have to keep our eye on that. Um going down to question 21 overall how would you rate the quality of core city services? And then it lists all of our core services that we provide, including the library as a standalone service. And in 2026, that number of those folks who rated it at rated it by saying they were at least somewhat satisfied is 78.1%, which is up from 2025's number of 74.4%. And it's this specific question that um got Jandy and I talking about the need to have a library patron centered

survey. Um because when you look at 70 let's call it 75% on average um those are people in many cases who probably don't use the library and so they're answering uh with respect to a service that they may or may not use. And so we want to get users of the library to give us a much more relatable um relevant figure. And so that's what we'll be developing when we put that patron survey together. And then finally um the 22nd question is which three items uh from the list of core city services should receive the most attention from city leaders in 2026? And in 2026, uh 24 and a half percent said the library in their top three. Um overall, when you when you rate every answer, uh it came in sixth place of all of those 19 things, um which of those should be the top three? It was rated at number six. Um in 2025, it was rated at number four. So just outside of the top three. Um and so overall uh you know you we can say without reservation that the community believes that the library um is important for the quality of life and it rates its satisfaction with the service that the library provides at a fairly high level. We want to understand some more granular um information about particular uh services and programs and we'll get to that um with future patron surveys. But overall uh those are the results from 2026 that I wanted to share with you and find out if you have any questions about it. So Mark um

in looking at that decline overall from 78 to 68% um I'm thinking that a lot of that is the result of the um the vote that was taken in November. Refresh my memory. When were these uh surveys sent out? They were sent out uh January 12th, I believe, and uh the response period was open through February 27th, right? So fairly close to after that vote was taken, a lot of discussion was held at the city council uh in regards to the library and funding and and it so they got a lot of u what I would say not the best um I won't call publicity because it's not publicity but I would well I'll call it support at the at the council level and I a lot of people um may have responded uh in regards to that um those discussions that occurred around the library during that time. That's my opinion. Um could be totally off base, but I I I'm trying to in my mind trying to try to figure out why there was a 10% drop over a year over a year. Um, and the only thing that I can think of that really would could affect that would be all the the discussion and the the u not so much uh support for the library during that during that time at the council discussions and and that kind of thing. But I would agree with you on one thing. I do think our library formatic I know that that our library is

definitely valued by uh the people in our our community and there's a lot of young people with families that are I mean they definitely are dependent on the on the library for their programming uh for their activities that they provide for children. So I see that as a as a plus. Um this is an unrelated question. Um but um I still have concerns about where the library has been placed on the uh capital facilities planning because uh I still see I mean um it makes it very difficult for any forward looking uh in terms of grants and applying for grants for um for um capital um capital improvements. So, um I guess I'm asking if there's any process to move that in a place on the city future planning that would put the library, excuse me, in a place where um we could again consider I mean there's a lot of grants out there but I and some we may already apply in the position that it's already in on the capital facility plan, but I think we miss out on important ones just based on replacement capital facilities. I don't know if you have an answer to that or not. Um, I'll work from beginning to end. Um it's it's hard to say what caused the dip with any um degree of specificity because we don't ask contextual questions around

that. However, even though there was a reduction in the answer to the question, how important is this thing in determining your quality of life? It's still important to point out that over twothirds of the people rate the library being important in their in their consideration of quality of life. The other thing to also uh re-emphasize is that the quality of the library itself went up um over four or four points which that's that's to over three quarters of the people. Um and so that's that's a positive direction on that. With respect to the capital facilities plan, we're we're we've completed the work through portion of the 20-year capital facility planning. The next step is to present those uh findings to the planning commission and then to the city council. And so the library project is on the 20-y year capital facilities plan. I don't remember specifically which year it is programmed uh but it corresponds with the action that the council took during the budget development process uh to move it out beyond 2030 I believe and so it's probably somewhere in the 2032 2033 time frame so the answer would be uh the council will need to take some kind of action to reslot that if they desire to do that um and that could come as early as the discussion uh on the 20-year capital facilities plan. I'm not saying that they are going to take that action, but that would be the first opportunity for them to to reconsider that timing. And then from a grants perspective, um a lot of a lot of infrastructure grants, a lot of facility grants um are not

necessarily full facility kinds of grants, although there's some out there. uh you know as as we've come to learn the uh the recommendation for the Department of Commerce grant that Jandy secured a couple of years ago is one of those. Um but there are all kinds of systems type grants that allow you to um you know come zoom out from the full facility. But regardless, uh the fact that it is on our capital facilities plan would put us in contention for some um of those grants. And like we were talking about before the meeting started, there are some channels that we've not yet explored that could be available resources for us to explore for getting some grant funding that we've previously not sought. So I I think there's more to be determined on that.

Thank you. One last question. What was the percentage of return on the number of surveys that you guys sent? When you say percentage meaning uh well the total number uh and I know this year it was not sent to individuals households. So the total number of household return and and so to clarify uh this is the third year that we have conducted this survey. it it has always been a household survey. It has never been an individual survey. Thank you for clarifying.

Yeah, it's always gone to households. Um but this year, uh somewhat slight change to the methodology. Um and some of this was related to cost and trying to maximize the return on investment. We we sent an invitation to every residential address or every household in the city, which is approximately 5,100 households, a little bit less than. Um, and we got uh about 420 households uh answered at least one question and I want to say 30 I want to say the number was 396 answered every question. And so somewhere in the neighborhood of um 8% if you want to look at it that way responded in some way of of households.

Yeah,

that's definitely more than last year, wasn't it? Yeah, it's about 227 I think it was last year. And so whatever whatever that delta is, I can't do math that quickly.

Man, I just wish that more people would um engage and and provide when the city actively sends out something. asking people to engage and give them input. I wish more people would actually do that because that's how good good decisions are made about where they so that that's a little disappointing to I know it's up from last year, which is good, but that's, you know, that that few actually.

Well, and and just sort of editorially, right, you're you're always looking for more responses. You always want more responses, but just to set it into sort of some context, we talk a lot about statistical significance. And the reason that that's important is because of predictability. It allows you to have a higher degree of predictability. The amount of responses that we got this year um puts us into a position where from a predictability standpoint, we have a very high degree of predictability. We didn't reach that, you know, you're looking for that 95% mark. That's what you're people call that a confidence interval, right? Um a level of confidence. That's what you're looking for. That's the gold standard. We didn't reach that, but we reached a very high degree of um confidence in the 86th percentile. And so what that means is if you had 100 people standing out on the street, uh actually if if you randomly selected somebody out on the street, you you could say with 86% confidence that their answers would be represented in the synthetic. And so that that's a very high degree of confidence. Not what we ultimately want. We want to get to that 95%. But but it's we'll take it at this point. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions?

Right. Moving on to our friends report. Um before it's pretty short. Um just wanted to thank Mark and the other people on staff. Dandy did a great job. Um it was so educational for me to be a part of kind of 20 year facilities planning process. I learned so much and was really impressed with um the amount of data that we had to make some of the decisions and um in the future maybe we could have a little more data about the libraries. I thought it was um really good to have information about other similarsized communities and their policing and their streets and the amount of parks and what what programs are available for people. It was very informative for me. I I really enjoyed the process. Uh and it seemed everybody had an opportunity to give input. Um I'm glad the library was still on the list. I wasn't going to leave him last and and this is just editorial. Um Ais me thinks it's good to have a little break in here where people aren't talking about the library. It seemed to be some I don't know negative things because the library was maybe competing with the swimming pool or something else that people felt we needed and sort of we have a new council mostly and um I think we let things calm down for a little bit make sure council members are are very informed about the library and and how the library stacks up against other communities. ities our size. Um that if it's calmed down a little bit, we have a a good chance of

making sure that we do get a new library in the future or at least figuring out how we can partner with somebody um to expand the library. In terms of the friends you met the end of February, we have pretty short meeting. Um it's a really inclusive group which is nice. We have a few new members. Um no big events uh this month for the friends. The friends continue to support programming in the library. Um and the big fundraisers that we have coming up are our semianual book sale which will be July 15th and 16th. Um, St. Land does the Kanas.

No, that's the June. Sorry, June 15th and 16th. Stand the Kanas garage sales. So, there's a lot of people in the area. That's a a really good time. Um, we really need a new library so we can have a bigger book sale. That room gets Well, I want to throw this out there. the new uh the new city hall will have space. Maybe they'll notice, you know, they'll have some space that might be available. I'm just just with a little bit.

So, Virginia and I if we can arrange a staff Nerf gun thing in a library, we can use city hall in the time that deal. And then um fun is started for this summer which is also a big fundraiser for for the friends. And as an aside um I was at an event at the Doris Morrison Learning Center which is over by Sop and they're g gearing up to have a lot of kids out. They're looking to start a Friends of the Doris Morris and Learning Center that can help train volunteers and do similar things to lead hikes and provide a little bit of funding for additional programming. Um, so I invited the person who's trying to start friends of Doris Morrison Center to come to a Friends of the Liberty Lake Library meeting just to meet some of the people that are there that help start that that program because it's so successful and I think um there's always room to grow. I don't think having another friends of something that's close by will take anything away from the library. I think Rising tides raise all ships is sort of my philosophy. And so we may have some people that come to our next friends meeting who are interested in starting friends with Doris more mostly just to learn about how we run our meetings and how how did the organization get started and what kinds of things to support more about learning. It's great. Any questions? Well, it's a very cool facility. All this is

Oh, it's right if you go past ridge line and make a left on Henry. Okay. And then make you just go a few blocks down and you make a right and

um it's associated with the Salt Wetlands and it's an educational facility and they run kids programs through there. in April and May almost every single day they have different classes. They have binoculars for kids. They have put waiters on them. Uh they let them wait out into the wetlands and collect water samples and look for bugs and look for fish and do birding and um it's really an opportunity. It's about water resources and good stewardship of the land, all those kinds of things. So that's awesome. Yeah, it's great

to uh just piggy back off Barb on the friends group. So, when I was at my director meeting in Tacoma, one of our sessions was on friends groups and foundations and we kind of went around the room and we're talking about, you know, there's like 30 of us directors there talking about our friends groups and we are very lucky to have the friends group that we have. We have a lot of friends and they are eager and they're involved and they're constantly raising money for us. There are so many libraries out there who don't have an active friends group or they kind of do and they just get maybe a couple hundred dollars a year if that. We have a very active friends group. They meet every single month. They run multiple fundraising opportunities and you know right now they're donating like $8,500 a year and supporting so many programs. So it was just something that I knew but then being able to hear from you know 30 other libraries on what they're struggling with. We are we are in a really really amazing spot with our friends group.

That's great to hear. That's cool. Okay, Jackie, it's your turn for your report. So, to continue talking about the friends, um, one of the things that Michaela Aranian is working on right now is the Central Valley School District poetry slime. I think I've talked to you guys about this before, um, but it usually goes on around this time of year. We've been partnering with the um school district and the Spokane County Library District on the poetry slam I think for like three years now. Um so the friends um donate the money to help with the program and then Michaela um is involved and she's usually one of the judges for the poetry slam and then she also hosts like some practices um for the kids to practice their poems. Um, so that's something that she's been working on um, this month and next month. Um, the next thing I had is outreach. Um, so with Jordan back as our children's librarian, we've started doing our monthly outreach. Um, we started it back up again in January. So right now, Miss Aaron and Miss Jordan are going to um, the Liberty Lake Children's Academy. Um, as you know, they have two schools here in town. One that's over kind of behind Yolks and by Home Depot and then the other one that's over by Orchard Park. So, basically Jordan goes one day a week um, sorry, one day a month and she does a morning and an afternoon story time and then Miss Aaron goes to the other facility and does a morning and afternoon story time once a month um, for the preschool. The other two places that we have been going is the Stepping Stone Christian School, which has kind of zero to five age group kids. We go there once a month. And then we also,

um, have started going again to the Liberty Lake Launch Academy, the private school up the road. Um, and we've been doing their kindergarten classes and their preschool classes. Um, so we kind of put that on hold last February, March, so it's been about a year. Um but we have it up and going again. Um so that's going really well. Along with that, the Liberty Lake Children's Academy students come um usually around this time of year to the library for a field trip.

So all the classes are coming during March. They have seven classes coming total. Um, so Miss Jordan and Miss Aaron are taking turns um and they are doing a story time for the kids and then they do a tour around the library and then they're able to check out one book and take it back to school or they take it to home, whatever the teacher chooses. Um, so they're able to check out a book that month and then those that have turned five are able to with their parent get a library card at the library.

So we had a group there just this morning. Um, and we'll have that going on all month long. Um, along with that, um, we are also partnering with the Liberty Creek Elementary. Um, they want to bring all of their first grade classes and also do a similar thing with a tour and a field trip and a story time. So, that's something that we're working with them to do between, you know, April and May closer and closer to when school gets out. They have 120 kids, so we're going to have to break it up into smaller chunks than that. But that's something that we're really excited about doing and not something that we have done um I think since before co we used to do that. Um sorry I feel like my whole thing is about kind of partnerships today. Um the last thing I had is we are going to be participating in the play unplugged again this year with the hubs sports center. Um so the friends that's something the friends sponsor for us as well. They p they get provide the money for us to get the tags and the plan encourages kids to get off screens, do things outside, um reading, art, math, whatever. Um they partner with lots of local businesses around the area. Some are here in Liberty Lake, some are, you know, in the valley. Um but this will be our third year participating in that. And um because our summer reading theme is dinosaurs and paleontology this year um our our tag our badge will be something to do with that as our theme. We try to have a different theme each year. Some years it's a reading challenge and other years it's just something else that has to do with our theme. So like last year the theme was art and so we had an art project that the kids did to earn their badge. Um so we're excited about that as well. Um, oh, and then my last thing was on the friends group, which I already mentioned. So, that's everything that I had for you guys today.

A question about could uh could you explain how the outreach program works? How do you do Jordan and and Aaron? Did they go do they read stories? Oh, yes. when they go there, are they uh are they I'm expecting to read my mind. So, what they do is they go once a month to the school and they do a story time.

So, they'll bring two or three books and do songs, rhymes, they'll bring their shaker eggs, they'll bring their sticks, um all of our different musical instruments, and they'll do a story time for that age group. So, it's a great partnership with the school to get, you know, books and read books and reading into the school, which I mean, they already have, but, you know, just something different. Um, get the kids excited about the library. Um, we'll talk to them about getting library cards when they turn five. We'll talk to them about the summer reading program. Um, sometimes the teachers will reach out and say, "Hey, we're talking about Groundhogs this month. Can you bring a Groundhog book?" Other times it's just whatever you know Jordan or Eron want to do. Um but it's something we um have been focusing on with like the younger age groups.

Got it. Yes. One of the questions. Sorry, don't feel like I'm drilling down on you, but um but so with the hub and the play on Yes. Um could you give a few more specifics about how that um partnership works?

Yes. So, the hub reached out to us about it. On their website, they have um a whole page devoted to plans for and it has a bunch of different badges. They look like keychains and they basically have just reached out to different local businesses and said, "Can you come up with a challenge for the kids to do?" Um, so the kids are able to see on the website what the challenge is or if they go into the business, the businesses will usually have it posted and they'll say, "If you do this challenge, whatever it may be, you can earn a badge." And then throughout the summer, the kids can collect a bunch of different badges. And then they'll usually host a couple I don't remember what they call it, but nights at the hub where you can go to the hub and many of those local businesses will be there and you can kind of like go down the line and earn several badges in one night. Um, but we've participated in it. City Hall has participated in it as well as the police department.

So, so those are a couple like really local ones that have like a challenge, right? So, so how does our badge fit into I mean it do you provide what is what do they have to do to get a badge from our library?

So the first year it was a camping adventure theme. So we said come get a book from the library or use a book at your house and go outside and read that book outside and then you can come to the library tell us about your book and you can get a batch. And then last year I think it was an art theme. And so I can't remember. I think it maybe was like go outside in nature, draw something that you see, and then bring your picture and show it to us at the library. And then you print your badge. And then this year we want to make it something with dinosaurs and paleontology since that's where our theme is for summer reading. Cool.

Maybe something like a scientist badge where they do some kind of challenge. Yeah. And once they get the badges, is there like you earn 10 badges, you get ice cream cone or does the hub provide something for like Barb said, a number of badges that they did? That's a good question. I don't know that piece of it if there's a reward for a certain number of badges received or if it's just the the fun of it. But yes, we have had some kids that come in and they have like a whole keychain and they're like, "Look, I have 15 badges so far, you know." So, it's probably some kids get more into it than others.

That's a great idea that they have. Who is the contact person? So, it's last year it was a different the last couple years it's been a certain woman and then this year it's a new woman. Her name is Shaylin. Um, but she's reached out to us about it in the past. The last thing she said in her email to me recently because she was reaching out about this year was that last year we were amongst the top three badges collected. That's cool. So I thought that was pretty cool. That we were top three. Yeah. Have your parents do the survey take a screenshot of their get back.

Yes. That's cool. As part that's a great partnership. Yes, for sure. What's the name of the program called again? It's called Play Unplugged. Unplugged. Love it. Yes. Unplugged from screw. That's kind of the idea with it. Yeah.

I say we go look for dinosaurs.

I know. Find a dinosaur in your backyard. All right. So, we're moving on to our business for the meeting and uh Jenn is going to share the March quarterly report so we can review it. Yes. So, this is something that Jen and I have been working on together for the March 17th council meeting. You can do it. Okay, there it goes. Um, so I wanted to walk through it with you guys and get your feedback on what you think and if there's anything we may have missed or need to add. So first page obviously just the quarterly report board of trustees. Um, our first slide is focusing on those top um, statistics that I shared with you from our um, end of year stats. We'll go into this much more in depth with them at the June council meeting when we go through our annual report. So, um I do have notes with comparison numbers on here if they ask. Um but I just have our top four statistics. How many checkouts for the year, how many visitors for the year, how many card holders we have total, and then our meeting room usage for the year. Next slide is focusing on the friends of the library. We had talked about that in our last meeting. Wanted to highlight the friends. And so I went through here and came up with some of my biggest things that I wanted to touch on. Um how the friends of the library support our library programming. Um some of the big ones are our summer reading program, the poetry slam that we have going on right now, play unplugged, which we will have um later this summer, and then all of our classes and presenters. So normally if we have Lobius come in, we have an artist come in, radical Rick come in,

all of those um special classes and presenters are funded by the library. Um and then I wanted to focus on our past programs that we have. Um the Mobius Discovery Center pass family pass, we have three of those. The Mac Museum family pass that we have, it's very popular right now with the Lego exhibit. And then the Spokane Symphony tickets. I broke this into its own slide since we have the symphony going on right now. Um we have two dates in March and then we have one date the end of April. So we'll still have tickets to two shows um when we present this at the council meeting. Um you're able to sign up for four tickets per family. Um they give us 40 tickets total per show for a total of 120 tickets. J just kind of interrupt. So how how many of those tickets for the first per the first performance the last performance I guess that they did but how many of those were used?

All of them were used. Yes. So people we opened it two weeks prior and it was full within like two days. That's great. Um we do have a software that allows people to cancel registration. So Michaela is watching that up until the day of um so that we do have a waiting list where if someone backs out at the last minute, it's able to go to the next person on the list. So do they have to come to the library to pick the tickets up?

No. So they sign up for it online using our calendar. Um and then Michaela will send them their tickets into their email inbox. Um, and then they're able to, if they want, they can go to the Fox and pick up physical tickets if they choose. Otherwise, they can show them on their phone the ticket confirmation. Um, and they're able to get four tickets. The thing that I added this year was you told me, Brad, about how they do an hour before presentation with the conductor that talks all about the symphony and what you're going to be seeing that night. I added that to the confirmation so people know about that because that's not something I knew about but I would think was really interesting. Um yes, so total we have tickets to three shows, 40 tickets to each of those shows and it goes over really well each year. Um the last two years we've bumped the tickets back from we used to get tickets for like January 8th or something very early January and it was really hard to get get that turned around because we would pay for them like January 1 and it was just it was really tight timeline. So we've moved it back now to like March, April, May for our shows and it's so funny how many people in January are calling us like where's the tickets? Why aren't they on the on the website?

Are you guys doing that again this year? I I hope people take advantage of that hour beforehand. Our conductor is he's very entertaining. Yes. And I I love his British humor. Yes. He does things at the MA, too. Yes. So, if you aren't doing this, but you're interested in the what's going on, he often does a program. It's a week ahead. It's not great for families because I think it's like during the day, but is it about the symphony? Is that what you're saying? Oh, yeah. About the music.

Yeah. He previews the music, the coming music for that weekend. That's usually a Thursday afternoon at the moment. That's very cool. I Oh, go for it, Anna. Sorry.

I have a question. is since all the tickets are being purchased at one time cuz the prince paid for half and then um the symphony gives us the other half is what I heard. Um is there a way where they could all be delivered to the library because it is quite a fiasco um for everyone to make it to downtown? I'm I'm speaking from personal experience. um you have to pick it up 2 hours before at the very least or a week or two. Is there a way we can kind of keep them at the library and and allocate them that way? I don't know. I would have to ask Joshua. He's the consultant.

Do you do it on your phone? Yes. You can't do it on your phone. You have to pick up an actual You have to pick up an actual ticket two hours before. You can't show anything. Oh, okay. So the showing is the confirmation. So you show them a confir you print it or show it on your phone, but then you have to get the actual tickets two hours before the event because they close it down. Oh, that's annoying.

Yes, it's it's quite an order. Like I make my husband go all the way to downtown on like a random weekday to pick him up and they close it by like five o'clock. So it's it is quite it it's very inconvenient. Okay, that's something I can ask them about for next year if there's a way we can have physical tickets that people can pick up at the library. Yeah. Okay, that's that's good feedback to know for sure because yeah, I thought they just like show them the little confirmation at the door and then they're good. So yeah, that is irritating. I mean, we still do it, but Yeah,

we do it. It's just a hassle. Yes,

okay. So, let's see. Next slide is Oh, friends fundraisers. So, here I'm going to highlight the June and November book sales. Um the dates for the June book sale that are coming up the 19th and the 20th. Um the summer summer is another way that we earn money for the friends. And then they have been a grant recipient last year. I know they were a recipient of the humanities Washington award and they have um received other monies for like STEM grants um throughout the years for the library which is wonderful. Um the past couple years they've donated um about $8,500 a year to the library which is incredible. And we're able to do so so so much with the money that they give us. Um, the last thing I wanted to highlight is our um, storytime schedule. Um, and letting the council know that we've now expanded our story times to Fridays. So, that we do have story time um, every single weekday at the library from 10:30 to 11:30. So, they do story time from 10:30 to 11 and then playtime from 11 to 11:30. Um, Jen's going to talk about the meeting room. um policy. The one thing I added, Jen, right before the meeting is um I just wanted to show them that we do have on the website um they can go here onto our main page where it says reserve a room and they're able to reserve online the meeting room and the study room. Um so we average anywhere from one to six reservations in our study room each day. So it is heavily used. Um and then the meeting room is heavily used mostly in the evenings um after hours at the library as well. So they're able to just let letting the council know they're able to make a reservation online, you know, like everything else in the modern day. They

can just go on their phone or their laptop and make a reservation. And it does allow them to see like what dates and times are available throughout the month. So it'll give them a whole month view of our calendar. So will we be asking for their approval of the of the of this during this presentation? Yes. Got it.

So um Jen packed up her slide that she will go through. The thing I wanted to add is um I put into the agenda packet and then also sent a separate email to the council members. Um I gave them a packet. It had the original 2023 policy and then it had the red line and all of the changes to the new policy. I just wanted to give them like a hard copy of the old one and not just the red lines but the new one because we made significant changes to it. So I think they might be a little bit confused. So I had the old policy and then the red lines and then kind of where we all ended up. So they were able to see the whole journey. And then I also did give them a YouTube link to the section in the meeting where we were talking about the policy last month. So if they wanted to watch and get any, you know, more context, they could hear like our discussion on the policy.

Available on the last line of this slide is missing a Thank you. Okay. So my plan was um because they'll have that whole packet was really just to talk through some of the substantive changes that we made to align the policy to the website and just kind of give them the

Yes. So which are those those things there? Yes. So kind of why we were making the changes to make sure that the website and the policy were in alignment. Changed the language for the large meeting room and the study room. and then kind of the use and expectations and the criteria for use. So Jandy question when we make these kind of changes for policies uh are any of these I don't know if all of our policies have to be reviewed by by our attorney but does this one have to be reviewed by agenda?

Yeah. So basically when I upload something into the agenda packet um he will go through and read through and if he has any concerns he will reach out to me and let me know what they are. If he had significant concerns we would just take it off the agenda and bring it back to us and we would make those changes before we took it to the council. But yeah, he'll approve everything before Friday which is when the agenda goes live. um in the past I think we've done two policies or no Barb did one so it's just September he didn't have any concerns about it so

I was just the only thing I was just curious that when it's a policy and it's a pro that the library is a public library policy if it's reviewed by our attorney yeah so he will review any policy changes or like any contracts and all that stuff gets by him. And then I assume this is in a separate section of the city council agenda, but but just to let them know that um what we were asking for was recommending approval of that policy. Yes. By the council.

And then our last slide is just any questions that they might ask. I like your slides. I do. They're very colorful. Keep your attention. Too many of them are not, you know, but I like this color. Every time I just go into Canva and I search like book club, education, school, and see what things come up. Okay. Any questions, revisions, changes?

No. You might laugh. Do Do the people on the council know who we all are? There's new council members and they may not have a clue who the library board of trustees are. You might just put our name small at the end or something. It's just a suggestion. I don't know. I don't know if they even have I think that's true. The last couple um times up here on the first slide I've put everyone's name, but I didn't do that today. So I will definitely do that and then if any of you guys are there when we give our presentation you don't have to be but if you are we'll be like this is Brad put it small at the end but I was just wondering if

I don't know there are some new because there are some new on there and we have some new yes you know yeah I had been thinking about that because it's you guys have been in your place for a year but they're all new yes so I I think that's a good idea. I think because this is they may not have an idea of how the whole thing works because it's a little different than many other places. Yes. No, I think that's a great idea and I will um and I think I'll put it on this slide just because it's a little bit more empty down here on the bottom. Yes.

Put everyone's name so that they know. Yes. Yeah. We can say this is Jen. She's the president. This is Anna. secretary. Um, and that we kind of talk about how we kind of rotate who does the presentation. So, they should see each of you guys throughout the year. Yeah, I think that's helpful. Yeah, I like the decision made to do that. Yeah, see the different faces on the board.

Okay, final item on our agenda today. Oh, we have some comments last, but um action items. Jandy, you have a a need to address. Yes. So, let me find it really quick. So, um we don't do this very often. So, I don't remember if you guys have all done this before. Maybe one. Okay.

So, basically, um any items that get lost over $50 and don't ever get paid are sent to a collection agency. um the collection agency has like five years to try and recoup the costs and if they aren't able to recoup it, you know, it'll reach the statute of limitations and then we just have to stop and just cut our losses. Um so if the fine is over $100, it's something that you guys have to approve that we wave. Um let me stop here. What would happen if we didn't approve since you can't do anything about it anyway? I don't know because we can't do anything about it. Yeah. So I don't formality. I'm just curious.

I think it's just Look, Brad, we just need to feel important. Okay. I'm just curious. So if it's if it's $100 or less, I can wave that it, you know, reach the statute of limitations. If it's over $100, you guys are extra important and you have to approve the date. Um, so this is a um one patron. Um, they had 18 items that were never returned. Wow.

And the total dollar amount is $269.99. So, it has been six years. It's reached its statute of limitations. So, I need you guys' approval to wave it. Um, you can make a motion. We need a motion and a second. Um, I wrote one on the agenda if you want to use my language. If you want to use your own language, that's totally fine. I don't see yours, but I'll just I'll move that we approve the waiver of the outstanding fine of $269.99. Second. All in favor? I say hi. Hi.

Okay, perfect. Sorry, I'm just putting the date in the board meeting on here. So, how much does it cost us to engage with the collection agency? I don't know the amount, but does that get added in? Yes, it is. So, that whatever the fee is, it's tacked on to that um amount. So, Yes. I think it's just since it's a government agency, we have to do everything that we can to the funds. Okay.

Jandy, how many times have you had over the course of the time that you've been the director? How many times have you had to send things to a collection? Um, I would say I do maybe three or four a year. So, not very many. Okay. Yes. So, Yeah, very very few get back to collection a year. How many of those are successful do you think or would you always correct?

I would say probably in my Georgia would know for sure. From my point of view, I would say we probably get one or two checks a year. Um but if you think about it, we could be getting a check today from 2023 because it's over. We do get a couple checks a year, so it might But I mean, I think I've probably given you guys three or four, so there's probably one a year that we have to end up waving. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, it doesn't look like we have anyone for citizen comments. Um yeah, I don't have anyone online besides I think if there's nothing else then we will Oh, can we talk about the

Yes, I just saw that as I was starting to say that one more item. So, um, the next board meeting is supposed to be on April 8th, which is the week of spring break, and I'm going to be out of town, and so I was hoping, you guys can check your calendars and get back to me. Um, but I was hoping we could reschedule next month for April 15th instead of April 8th. Yes. I don't think I could do it that day. We the 13th for Australia, but you lose a day.

Yes. So, I get there the 15th and the timing will be a little dicey. I'll be in the airport probably sitting on a jury.

I don't know. So, I don't know whe Okay. Do you guys mind if I send out an email um with maybe the 5th or the sorry the 1st or the 15th or the 22nd? If we can't make an agreement, maybe we'll just push it to May. But let me send you guys some email text options. Does that sound okay? Sure. Okay. Um because if if we can at least get three or four of us, even if not everyone's here, right? Yeah. So, okay. To be determined. TBD. Yes, we'll close that. Okay.