Arts in Public Places Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

According to the clock on the wall, it's 5.30, so I'm going to bring this meeting to an open. First order of business is the introduction of a new board member.

Brian, Jerry, would you like to introduce yourself? Just got approved two nights ago, something like that. I've been in the community for 15 seconds late, 30 seconds late. Almost 40 years. worked at the lab, scientist, continue to work part-time. I'm a musician, and that's part of why I'm happy to leave it a little early, down to Santa Fe to a performing rehearsal down there, somewhere between five and six different groups. My wife is an artist, and be interested. That's sort of it in a nutshell.

Okay, next item on the agenda is the approval of minutes from July 26th. Public comment?

You have to ask for public comment on things that are not on the agenda.

All right, moving on. Approval of minutes for the July 23rd, 2026 meeting. I move that the board approve the minutes from the July 2026 meeting, 23rd, 2026 meeting, as published. I second that motion. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. On to the next meeting. On to the next item. Approval of minutes from the August 10, 2026 meeting. I move that the board approve the minutes from the August 10, 2026 meeting. I'll second again. OK. All those in favor? Aye. OK. Motion passes by unanimous vote. All right. Now, according to the agenda, we have a person, Meredith, who is here to discuss the state's art program. Is that right, Meredith? introduce you, and now the floor is yours.

Hi. I'm Meredith Daborski. I'm the public art director for the Department of Cultural Affairs at the state. And yeah, I want to talk to you guys about your current Art in Public Places funding that you have for the fire station, and then talk about that project. I don't know, Chelsea, if you want me to go right into it, or... Sure.

Like, whatever you want to share, that's, yeah, that would be great.

Let me just let Councilor Reeder know this. So, So Brian has to leave early, as you said, and when he leaves we won't have quorum. Oh, there's no one online at all. Not yet. And so that's why we just did a speed run through everything so that we could give Meredith as much time as possible before Brian has to go. She came up special from Santa Fe for this. I can maintain it for a while. Yeah.

Okay, so Los Alamos has $20,000 in Art in Public Places funds. There's two ways in which you can spend those funds through our program, one of which is the purchase program. So we put out calls every year looking for art. Each call is slightly different. We have a New Mexico-only call, a Southwest call that opens it up a little more, etc. So you would form a small committee, You would go through all those catalogs, you would select within your budget, $20,000 is your cap, and then we would just make it happen. So you fall in love with a few paintings, photographs, could be sculpture, and then we just install on site. The other path, which...

So let me just jump in and ask a question. You said you guys install on-site. Is that part of that budget, or is that in addition to the budget?

So the pricing you'll see in those catalogs, which I don't know if Chelsea's already shared those. Okay, great. So the pricing is all-inclusive pricing. So that includes the framing, the plexiglass, the plaque, the installation, delivery on-site. So when you buy a $20,000 piece, you get it all. And then the other portion, by the way, the timeline for that could be anywhere from three months to a year, depending. So you can get it fairly quickly. The other pathway is the site-specific commission. Typically, we do not do these commission projects unless the budget has at least 100,000. And so we talked about possibly combining funds, which is something we do. If we combine funds, so if the county and the state combines funding to make that 100K, then The contracting is pretty simple. We just sort of say this is the portion we're going to pay, this is the portion you're going to pay. And then whenever the artist hits those milestones in their contract, that's when those payments go out. That is a two- to three-year process, though. Now, we're early in terms of construction because the site, as we were looking at it today, has just got one front loader out there and an empty lot. So we definitely – That's very fast for a lot of people. It's good, though. I mean, it's good for us. So if you want something that's incorporated in the architecture, it's good to get in early so that we have enough time to put out a call for artists, narrow it down to five finalists, commission those five finalists to create a proposal, review those proposals. That all takes several months. And then select your winning artist.

So, it's another quick question. So, for the commissioning and all that stuff, that is, where does the funding for that commissioning come from? So, we... Does that come out of the $100,000 budget, that total? Or is that on top of, is that coming from the state? I guess, yeah.

Oh, okay. So, your total budget. So, a portion of it will pay for those proposals, because we always pay the artist to create a proposal. And then the rest goes to actually creating the artwork and installing.

Okay. So for that, then there is a commission that sits in that makes the determination as to how to down select, right? And there's a prescribed process for that, is that correct?

Right. So the process is there is a committee that needs to be formed. Five members are required. There is a specific job that each of those members needs to check the box, one of which has to be a local artist, one has to be an architect. Preferably the architect that's working on it, the current building. And then there's also owner agencies, so someone representing the county. Now you can exceed those five if the entire board wants to be a part of the process, they can. We just can't go, I think at 11's our max we can go as per our administrative code. So that committee has to go to three required meetings, so in that packet that Chelsea was flashing there. There's three required meetings. That first meeting is our prospectus development. So that's where you'll decide what the call for artists looks like. So what are you looking for? What kind of artists? What are the parameters of the project? What are the budget? Things like that. Then your second meeting, you'll actually have a meeting in between. It's a virtual meeting where you will review all the applications online, score them. That narrows that pool for meeting two. Meeting two is when you'll look at your top 10, 15 artists, and then you'll select the five that move on to do the proposal. Then we give them a few months to put their proposals together. They then all come out to Los Alamos and present in person their proposals along with any maquette or model or digital renders that they have. And then you select your winning artist. And then we usually give them a year to create the work.

That's about the right timescale for this, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, it's still pretty fast. The project's just being built now. I mean, a year is a good time.

And the reason we talked about the whole board being on is because, again, the quorum situation where if, in order to prevent what might happen, if only two of you guys are on this selection committee, then... because of our ordinance, then whatever you guys select has to come back to the APP board to approve, to recommend to council. And so if the whole process with the artist and the art professional and the fire chief and whoever else is on this, if then any APP or council says no, then we've gone through this whole two to three, I mean, well, this year process of selecting and then have to start from square one. So the idea then would be that APP could be, and we were thinking, Meredith, at least the first two big meetings, could they be essentially APP meetings like this, just with the extra people involved? And that way, because you said they were all public meetings.

They are. They have to be public meetings. All of our meetings are required to be public meetings.

And so that way you could do that, and then you're already in a meeting. We might just have to pause to do a little bit of formality in that in the selection committee.

To be clear, if somebody is on the committee, they have to be at the meeting. Yes. So we can't, like, if 100%, right? 100% attendance.

As long as they are the five, though. Yes, so the five council members. Right. So if all five come to the first meeting, but then only one of the APP board, I mean, one of the APP members can't make the second meeting, we still have quorum, we still have all the five Positions represented that would be okay.

Yeah, and you can have like a rolling quorum Which is why I always recommend having backups so like Chelsea was saying having two people on the board Therefore if somebody if something happens you still have the other person who can fill in so we don't lose out on the five core members Always

But if you guys could all commit to being on it, but then it gives you the flexibility.

So there's three, so you have to have three APP, but how many of, so, I scanned it, but quickly. What you may have picked up is I'm new. But there's also state representatives, right?

No, actually, it's all local. The state actually has zero say in anything local. that we do. It's just we facilitate the process.

Okay. But you said there was a... We needed an architect?

Yes. Well, I've reached out to the project... project manager of the fire station who was working with the architect. The architect is a contracted firm, and that job, now that we have the designs, they no longer, I mean, their contract is over. And so in order to get the actual contractor, we'd have to probably pay more services for them. But the project manager that was part of that team could serve in that role, from my understanding. And so she is willing to be a part of that.

Let me maybe reduce the question a step. So what is the credentialing required to fill those roles? So an artist, an architect, do you need some sort of certification?

no and the architect could be a little loose so is really what it is is you need somebody on that committee who can answer to what are the load-bearing walls what are the sites that we can install things where is the electrical you know so it could be someone also with the county who's maybe assigned to you know that building who could answer those questions it's really for the proposal day when the artists are proposing, like, hey, we're going to do this, and we're going to mount, like, a solar panel on top of this, and somebody needs to say, you can't do that to the sovet, you know? It can't, you know, hold that.

Familiarity with the project, not necessarily a card-carrying architect.

Which I think we can find.

So you said there was a project lead person. Who owns that project lead person? Does the county own them?

That person works for the county.

Okay, fine.

The public works department, yes.

Often there's too many interfaces when you start building stuff and subcontractors, et cetera.

No, that would be a county employee. We could then also, the fire chief is interested in being part of this, I think. I feel obligated. Right. We would want that. And then you guys. And then Meredith was saying, because I asked your question, that Andy could possibly serve as the art professional. Yes. And Jasmine could possibly. She is online, by the way. Jasmine, as the film, could serve as the artist if we wanted that.

Good.

Yes.

And while you're. Doubling down. Double down on the fire chief and his deputy or representative. And what was the other set of folks? The project leader and the deputy project leader. So you increase the odds of getting five.

Can you put interest to the board to make that work? Absolutely. Oh, that's very good.

As long as it doesn't exceed 11.

I think it's 11 is our max, yeah.

11, I'm sorry. Members total. Oh. Everybody gets a duplicate. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And then I guess one final question would be for me. So the decision that that body makes is then binding. Is that correct?

Whatever needs to happen in Los Alamos, we can factor that into the process. So if it does have to go to council or things like that for approval, absolutely. And if they say no... We wasted a year, but, like, you know.

I would not say that it may, you know, if we get that far into the process, I would hope that council would have had some insight into what we're doing. And if there's something wrong, it would be trying to amend the project, not necessarily put it in the ground. I mean, if we get to a point where we have to kill the project, we've done something very vastly wrong, obviously. So I wouldn't say it would be killed. It would just be maybe some amendment, maybe cause, citing, something. But, yeah, we do have to have final approval from council. So that's the reason why I'm asking the question about would that be a binding decision, because that would be sort of incompatible with the way we have to operate. That was my last question.

Just for extra information, the recommendation language that is before you tonight is, I ran it through our attorneys. So you don't have to do this, and council could maybe not agree with this when we get there. But what this does, if it's this language, they helped me draft this language up. What that would do would be to ask, to have our APP recommend that council, what is the word?

Delegating council's artist selection authority.

Yeah, to delegate the authority to this selection committee. So what we could do for council is say, here are the members of the selection committee. Here is what the theme is that we're going for. Here is our process. And we are asking if you would be willing to delegate that authority for this particular project to the committee. And... See where we go with that.

I soon need to disappear. But I am online.

I had to download an app.

You always do. There's nothing to get away from that. So the only caveat I have when I read the proposed language, using the state's artist selection process. Is the state's artist selection process different than our artist selection process?

It is slightly different in the sense of the particular roles. Typically, the APP, the county's selection process is the members of this board, and then they recommend to council. So the difference is that it's these particular people on this selection committee and that the process is public. that it's specific, that there's three meetings that Meredith was talking about. The first one to create the call for art, the second one to down select, and the third one to listen to proposals and select. We do that a little, we still do all those pieces, just not as formally, and it's usually done with a working group, and it's offline that then gets brought back to the full APP to make the decision. So this is a little bit more formalized, but all the steps are very similar. There's nothing that the state is asking us to do. And in fact, we do one step further where we put out, we get community input. And Meredith has said we can insert that piece that we do into their process. That wouldn't be a problem.

In addition to what we've already done on this

Yes. Yeah, so we've brought the theme to the community and can bring now that kind of... Made by the opinion. Oh, yeah, thank you. We can bring all of that to the first meeting.

Don't worry. If it's on the Internet, it's there forever.

But what will happen is when the... the artists have been down selected to what is it usually five okay so it's five those five would go back out for public input before then the proposals come in so when you guys are at your last meeting you would have the artists come to give a proposal you would also have the community survey results and based off of those five semi-finals.

And that would be our community survey or the state? Ours. We would do that. There's too many. As a former boss of mine, who some of us know, the question was, what was the antecedent of he? In other words, who is that referring? Okay. Okay.

You also asked last month if there was a tie, what would happen?

I've never had that happen. Not to say knock on wood.

Challenge accepted.

No, no.

Yeah, I'm just kidding.

If we have five that are required, it's sort of hard to get a tie. Yeah, that's true. It's usually majority wins. Five and a half.

That's why there's probably five and not four or six.

Two or six.

It could be two to one, yeah. I would like to point out that we do have the option to go to six. We could go to an even number. I do not want to do this. Let me just be clear. I'm trying to set this up. Jasmine, can you hear us?

We cannot hear you. Can you hear me?

Yes. Yes. Jasmine, do you have any questions for our guests?

No, I don't. I think I need to think it over, too, because there was a lot of information all at once.

So...

So think it over, do you mean like postpone the vote to next month?

I couldn't hear you.

Would you like to postpone the vote till next month?

No, I think I kind of get the gist of what was presented at the same time. There's a lot of moving pieces and like what if scenarios. but I think it's kind of a trial and error. Like, we won't know until we go through it.

I can live either way. I can make an argument. Yeah, that's where I'm... And I don't... Tell me, is this time critical that we need to make this decision?

We're looking at over a year. I feel like a month is not... So that was sort of where I'm... Yeah. As I've said before, I'd rather make the right decision than make a decision right now. If the answer is we wait a month and can contemplate what we're asking to decide on, we wait a month until everybody sort of gets to that place. That would make me more comfortable.

I don't know about you guys. I just want to. and make sure I haven't forgotten something in the details.

That's good. I also, I think this process is much, much clearer now. I appreciate you coming out here. Absolutely. Than it was even last month. But I think I'd want to... Oh, yeah. Thanks, Ryan. I would actually... Yeah, well, you'll be online.

Yeah, we can make fun of you.

I'm connected.

All right.

And thank you, Brian. And, yeah, this one's a hard one for you to be, like... Everybody else on the board has been through a couple of acquisitions now, and so this one might be difficult for you. This is your first one, so we'll work on it.

We'll read all the stuff.

We'll get you on a working group soon, and it'll be clear as mud after that. That'll really clarify it. Yeah. No, I'm good.

Yeah, thank you so much. No worries.

I'm still on, but... Go make art.

Mary, would you be willing to share a story of a previous project you've done and how that's gone and what kind of they did and what it felt like? Sure. I don't know.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I've currently got, I don't know, five, six, seven, maybe eight site-specific commission projects going on. at any given time, just me personally on my team of three, including myself, anywhere in the state. We've got a few, I think I sent some references to you. We've got a few going on right now with New Mexico Tech, UNM Hospital, UNM Main Campus, New Mexico State, E&MU, CNM, City of Albuquerque, Um, program's been in existence for 40 years. Um, we have a good track record. Um, I will say that, you know, even if we go through this whole process, um, you know, we definitely don't want to force anybody to get art that they don't want or they're not totally in love with. And we'll work with the community as much as possible. You make all the decisions. We just are here to facilitate, um, and do all the, the labor of, making the contracts and getting them through the state procurement and all that jazz. But other than that, really, it's totally up to the community. I mean, you know, and we have had instances, I mean, luckily none of my projects, but where they didn't fall in love with one of the final proposals, and that's okay. You know, NMSU Devastale Hall that I currently am contracting with, that was an instance where we had to come back four or five years later, and start all over, which was okay. I mean, it's a drag, but, you know, it happens. But we don't want you to get art you don't want.

We have some art we don't want, right?

Lots of art to maintain. Getting old and too many pieces.

So here's what I would propose. Given the... Let me just put this out there. So at a minimum, there's a blank here in

to come up with a budget amount.

With a budget number. But what I was going to say was that there's a minimum in of $80,000 to put us into this space. And so that's, I guess, something that I would ask everybody that's on the board to think about. If we don't do anything tonight, let's come back with a number that we can put down on this that is at or above $80,000 that we're comfortable with. We'll say that that is pretty much what we're spending on the fees for the fire department, correct? I'm sorry, the police department.

Our budget for the police department is $75,000 total for everything with the installation.

So for this, it would be $5,000 more, but then we would get the additional $20,000 and the state taking in a lot of other benefits.

like writing, like doing the whole contracting process, the whole stipend, all of that, which saves a lot of county time.

County time, which means county money. So I think there are clear benefits to doing this process. I think what I would like to hear from the board, at least next time, is their views on that, those board members who are, you know, e-land. Just come ready to discuss the budget, or if you don't feel comfortable with the $80,000 buy-in on this, then just prepare to defend that, I guess, to discuss that. Maybe not defend it. Discuss it. Is that okay with everybody online? Fine with me. Jasmine?

Yeah, that's fine with me, too. Okay.

with that.

Tim, while we have Meredith here, can I ask a couple more questions?

Absolutely, ask as many as you'd like.

Can you, you were talking to me about I shared with Meredith the renderings for where the art should be in the fire station and we had talked kind of about like a local artist versus a New Mexico artist or a national artist coming in and maybe like for the what is being depicted now for the location, the size of it. Can you, in your experience, talk a little bit about the capacity of artists around, what might come of that, and local versus, and budget?

Yeah, so that first meeting, that prospectus development meeting is really key. That's kind of how we get into the whole nitty-gritty of what you're looking for. And typically, we dictate budget based on that meeting. Um, because if you want, you know, a 40 foot sculpture that's, you know, lit up and made of steel and also is interactive and, you know, somehow channels into some random foreign land, um, that that's going to just exceed your budget. Right. And so talking about what we can do in the space, um, one of the parts of that meeting that's really critical is what are all of the sites within that space that we could, give to artists to possibly propose an artwork. So that render is tricky because it's very much looking for a very particular type of artwork that very few artists can pull off if you're looking for something that is going to be suspended and also, you know.

I would not take what the architect had provided as prescriptive.

Yeah.

I think that was what they had envisioned. But I think for the pieces that we're going to be looking at, I think the theme is going to be developed by the community, and then we look for the artist to sort of fill out what that piece looks like.

Right.

We do have some requirements, like it has to last 20 years, so no permission. But, you know, beyond that, I think we're okay. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, whatever you decide as possible sites for installation, that would also dictate sort of, and what you're looking for will dictate sort of how far the net goes when we're looking for artists. I know everybody wants local artists, and that is always great. But we do, you know, have a limit to what people's capabilities are. So if you are looking for somebody local, I always recommend that you go at least New Mexico wide. in the search. So maybe they're not born and raised Los Alamos, but at least, you know, somebody who's familiar with the area, maybe they're Northern New Mexican, you know, somebody who at least can pull off the project you're looking for, you know, and it lasts 20 years.

And is a hundred thousand dollar budget,

for this space or do you think yeah i mean that's a little bit i mean that's yeah i mean it's subjective it's depending i will say this past year has been very brutal with um tariffs and things that have really created some issues in terms of the public art world and getting materials um and access to materials not to mention shipping materials and getting them here But I've had a few instances in the last six months where I've had to increase budgets just to account for the fact that steel has gone up or even concrete went up like 30% in the last month and things like that. So there's been all these weird things that have been happening thanks to all the wars and things happening in the world. And so I would say 100,000 is the bare minimum, but I would, in that first meeting, show you what, a hundred thousand dollars gets you in 2026 and set expectations from day one, because it won't go as far as I think most people think because it is all inclusive. It's not just the artwork it's installing it. It's getting it here. You know, unless the artist lives in behind the building and is working in their studio right next door, you know, all those costs are a factor.

So just to be clear, so that $100,000 then goes to pay for that. So installation for the installation comes out of that $100,000. So if it's a really complex piece to install, even if it's a simple piece, all of a sudden that eats a lot of the budget.

And I mean, wherever, like NMSU Devon Stelly Hall is a good example of the artwork is actually going to go into this existing planter that's got about four feet of river rock in it. One of my artists pulled a quote on what it would take to just remove the rock so they can put in the supports for their sculpture. And it's $40,000 just to remove rock and then put it back.

So for 35.

That was our conversation about painting the mural. We all could get out there. So all those things are factors, but it just depends on what you're looking for. You know, if you want exterior sculpture, you know, there's limits to how big, how wide, made of what. Yeah.

Okay. And then I guess one other question would be, so if we get into a situation where, you know, you get a quote for, let's say we want to put on a rock base. You come back and you're like, it's X number of dollars. And we ask our folks, hey, can you do it? Would you be allowed to do those sorts of subs in? Okay.

Yeah. Okay. Absolutely. And we have instances of that for sure. Okay.

For me, I'm always wary of committing and being tied into something. It's a new process for us.

I mean, everything is amenable to a certain extent. The only thing we can't do is get five proposals and say, hey, we really like this artist, but can they do something completely different? Then we start getting into territory of artists doing work for free, and that's not... We never want to do that.

I guess one thing that we've struggled with on that topic is, like, what's a bridge too far, right? So we had a piece recently we commissioned where it was like, well, there was a roadrunner in the piece, and, you know, it was supposed to be native flora and fauna. We don't have... I mean, how you ask. We don't have road drivers here. It's a divisive topic. Yeah, very divisive topic. So we had to ask to have that change. So that would be, I mean, I guess we would have to have a conversation on that. What is a bridge too far? If we're looking at a piece and we want what we consider to be a minor operation, what

Typically in the public art biz, it's not to exceed 25 to 30% of the original design. So if it's small elements like that, like switch out the roadrunner, put in, you know, whatever, another element, or change the finish, or, you know, orient it differently, add something. But when you get into, can you scrap 80% of that and come up with something new? That's too far.

To give you an example, that kind of happened with our lion sculpture and the artist. And asking him to redesign it to be not aggressive, he said, well, that's typically, I mean, typically that's not, I mean, that's a lot of redesign, which is why then he went from having a maquette to sketches. That was sort of our, and he really, really wanted to do a lion sculpture. So he was kind of, it was like a, like a heartfelt project too, so we kind of met in the middle, but it was a conversation because of what Meredith's saying is like that wasn't really fair of us to ask.

I understand. I feel bad about that. Anything else that you wanted to...

I mean, gosh, we have her right here in the same room.

You want to ask ten questions?

I want to soak her up, but I don't have any more questions.

Yeah, did you, so if we didn't do the commissioning and it was the catalog, she had kind of started with that. Do you guys have any questions about that practice?

That's fairly straightforward. Yeah, you just pick. I haven't grown up with a Sears and Roebuck catalog. I kind of get that.

Yeah, it's pretty straightforward. I did look before I came up here to see if there was any Los Alamos artists or White Rock artists, and there wasn't, but there were a lot of surrounding areas, so Jemez and Joaquin and... uh, to Suki artists, uh, Santa Fe, obviously. Um, so, you know, you could still get something very regional.

And if, so the, so the state, so we have 20,000 to spend. If we didn't go to the commission route and we did it through the catalog, we'd have 20,000. If we did, I'm not saying that this will happen. Just hypothetically, if then you guys said, you know what, let's just do that project and not the bigger one that you guys are envisioning now. But could we add another $20,000 to that to buy a bigger piece?

Yeah, absolutely. And also we could dip into, if we have funding, we have an auxiliary fund. That's sort of like our slush fund fund. It's kind of where all the pennies go that are left over from other projects. So we could also dip into that. So if you fall in love with an exterior sculpture that's $25,000, then I could probably pull an extra $5,000. Within reason.

So I guess that's one of the options on the table. If you did go that way, you could just do that and not do a bigger... It would be us. The state processes, once it gets into our, so right now, Meredith's interns this summer helped identify, there are, I think there's four pieces that have been selected from the catalog process in the past, back in the 90s. And they're all at the Betty E. Hartz facility. And this was before Meredith's time there, of course. But she identified that that is it. So those pieces are in our collection still. They're over there. And if anything happens to them, then it's our responsibility. But we also, if we do deaccession them or move them or do something major to them, we do have to notify the state. of that so it's our it's the county's responsibility to maintain it but it will forever be connected a little bit to the state where we just have to notify them to let them in on what is happening you'll always have an asterisk associated with it that's good to know because i don't know that we knew that for the other pieces And it's interesting because Betty Ehart is under renovation, and so they've taken everything out, and so they had to pull out all the art. And so I was able, I mean, within a week of getting it, I was able to use that information to say to the contractors, okay, these are all the pieces in the collection, and be able to know which ones then... If they were to choose that they wanted something different done with that, I now know which ones we need to have Meredith about.

Okay. Very cool. Nothing else. We've got that. All right. Well, I would also, I guess, ask the board, the folks that can hear me, that we go through and make sure that you take a look at the catalog so that we can be prepared to discuss that as an option as well. And then also, if there are pieces that are of interest, that we look at those and be that as well. I will be. Well, we would like your opinion. I mean, you're on the board for a reason. I'm not on the board.

I don't get to vote.

You don't get to vote, but you can certainly tell us your opinion. I'm just an observer. I can't interfere. I would not consider it interference. Okay. Is there anybody else who would like to talk about this? We'll move on to the next topic.

Okay.

Thank you very much, Meredith. You're welcome to speak. You're also welcome to leave if you'd like. Because this is going to be, you know. Okay. So the next item on the agenda is the working group updates. So let me flip to that to find out who is first. Home Setters Art Project.

Jasmine. Jasmine.

Would you like to update us on that project?

I have no updates. Anna and I need to meet and discuss more.

Okay, that's fine. No update is an update. The next is the Strategic Plan Working Group. That's myself, Stephanie, Hauser, and Kelsey. We met three weeks ago now and had a discussion on the topic. Chelsea, if you'd like to...

update so we are working on updating the deaccession policy like we did with the session the acquisition process and so now we're doing that we've got a pretty good draft and I gave it to Stephanie and Tim to kind of review and And so I think we will be ready to present it to the full board in September. And then you guys can take a look at that and make any edits. And then it also has two templates. The one that was for, like, when you guys want to review a piece for the session or something. removal of some sort. That's the form that you guys have been practicing with and you've filled that out. So based off of the changes in the policy, I've updated some of that template. And then there is another one. So in the policy, you guys, once you've decided it's time to deaccession something, you then have to make a decision about what you'd like to do with it. It's possible that when it comes up for review, you guys say, you know what, we just don't want to deal with it right now. We just want to leave it as is. Kind of like historically what happened to the aquatic figures. The board, what, seven years ago, that one came up, it was damaged, and they didn't really have good policies. They didn't know what to do with that. So they said, you know what, that's a future board problem. We're just going to let that sit. which you guys were the future board that dealt with that. But so now what's happening is if that is something you're deciding and it has deteriorated so much that now there might be some VARA violations or it's just not safe or something, there's a process for you to review. If you're going to decide to just let it be for a while, and it's damaged, you have to do an additional review and that template. You can fill that out. It just steps you through it. So the old policy was just, hey, once you decide you want to deaccession it, here are the options for deaccession. These are the criteria for deaccession. If it's damaged, if it's damaged, not being displayed, you know, there's a whole list of them. Once you decide that, the policy, the current policy just says, and then the staff liaison and the chair and the council liaison gets to figure out what to do next. That wasn't enough, so now there's a whole step-by-step process. If this, then this, then this. And Tim, you were going to, in the process, give us, create a flowchart. Flowchart, yes. You said you wanted to do a flowchart.

I did say that.

Now you have a month to do it because we're going to put that on your agenda next week, right?

Note to myself, flowchart. Okay.

And that way it'll step us through. So I think we're doing really, I mean, we're working on that quite a bit. We also have had a conversation about... Possibly changing some ordinance language to make it more clear. And then help creating some more policy around how the APP funds are decided. So right now it's specific projects that 1% comes out of those projects. And then if it's road projects, it's half percent. How to decide if this project gets the 1% or not, it's really complicated. A lot of other municipalities do it based off of their bonds. And one bond goes to a project, like the fire station, and then 1% would come out of that. We don't often fund projects with bond money. It's usually capital project money from the general fund. So it makes it a lot more complex. So we're trying to simplify that. And one of the options is possibly just having a set budget. But in order to have a set budget, you guys would need to request that budget. And that would require more of a strategic plan so that you know five years out what kind of projects are you doing and what kind of maintenance are you doing. And so what kind of a budget will you need for each year? And so... As part of that, kind of the idea of placemaking comes into, and how does our art fit with what is happening in the community? And so I'm hoping in the next few months that I can bring in the county manager and the economic development director and possibly the public works director and the community services director to kind of share with you what is on the horizon for all the projects that are being planned for the community. So you kind of understand how you could fit art within that, which would give us a better direction, I think, so that then everything is flowing nicely, and then that would help you be able to create good budgets. So all of that is coming down the pike.

All right. Next on the agenda was the Fire Station Working Group. Jasmine, do you have anything you'd like to add beyond the discussion we just had a few moments ago?

No, I have nothing to add beyond what was presented.

Okay, thank you. Dino World Working Group. Andy, I'm going to let you take this one. Give Jasmine a break. Yeah.

What? Dino World, in some ways progress, in some ways not. We tried... So I'll step back to the... Uh, we have been still unable to successfully contact the artist. Um, I tried to, uh, do this on LinkedIn as well, was one of the new avenues this month, but then discovered that I needed LinkedIn premium to actually contact him since we're not connected. Uh, so that ended up being a dead end. I reached out to Chelsea about this and, um, I think Jasmine had another contact that might have known him at some point, but it's still the same very much clutch-nest draws we've been doing for the past... several months here. I saw the Facebook post went out recently saying to the public, hey, if anybody knows this artist, please let us know. That was Tuesday, correct?

How old is this work of art?

It's definitely outlived the 20-year lifespan. I believe it's... Original width of... No, it's late 90s, mid 90s. I thought it was 89.

I think it's 90s.

Yeah, let me see. So 1998 is what we got. Oh, yeah. It's still, yeah, it's not new. It's not in great shape. I bought it. I don't know when we call it on trying to contact the original artist to figure out what recourse we have with that. And what we do from there is kind of still at an unknown point for us. So in some ways progress, but mainly a lot of work and no progress, which is the most fun. Jasmine, do you have anything to add? add to that, or I guess next steps are kind of...

I think that pretty much covers it. We did find out he lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, and so we've been trying to reach out to people in Flagstaff to see if anyone knew him. Their arts and public places said they knew of him, like they recognized his name, but I haven't heard back yet.

Could do. Could do. APP will pay for it, I guess.

Rolling quorum. No, no. This is a working group.

Take your van.

Okay. Thanks, guys.

Next month, when the policy comes, when you guys get to review the policy, it might help you then, like, using Dino World sort of as an example to kind of see what else needs to be put into the policy. And so that might help you get to the next step. Like at some point you've done your due diligence, try to reach out to the artist. And if you guys, once you decide, yeah, we've, we've worked really hard. We've done everything we can. We've waited X amount of time. Let's move on. Um, the policy will show you how to move on. Okay.

No, I think that'll be helpful. Like having that clear direction and, um, Yeah, I think finding out what we can do with that and whether we want to even start a discussion of what to put in place if we do remove it, whether that be a wall or whether that be something more.

The library wants a mosaic.

I was going to say, I think the library has ideas for that space. If they have ideas for the space, that would be a perfect... You might be off the hook. You don't have to replace it. No, I'd love to talk to them about that, yeah. Because, again, it'd be a shame to remove art and just have a blank wall.

Well, the next item of business is Nexus Working Group, and I'm the representative here. We have made zero progress on this. So I will get with Anna this month, and we will start to work on this.

If you want to, you can include me. I got some information. So our conservators are here this week, and I got a chance to talk to her earlier. Tuesday, and I had some new information. Not new, but more information on her suggestions. I can share those with you.

We'll take you up on that. Okay. Does anyone have anything they'd like to say about Nexus? Otherwise, we'll move on to the next item on the agenda. Okay. The next is staff pending items list.

Pending items. We listed four. The White Rock Pottery relocation, same status as last month. I don't think the project starts until October. And we've done everything we can. So hopefully, I've been told they will notify me when the contractor is moving it. I could go down there, but I don't know what I'm going to do except, yay, move it nicely, be gentle. But if there's something, if there's a problem with it, then I'll report it to you guys and figure out the solution.

Are there three of those or are there two?

There is actually six.

Six?

So there's five big pots and one plate. The plate is at the White Rock Visitor Center.

At the Visitor Center, okay.

And the one that is being relocated is, so they're all a series of different generations. And this is the one that's prehistoric. So it's the one that's like just black and white.

Oh, okay. Archaeology, that's nice.

Yeah, it's a really great project. The Los Alamos Heritage Gate plaque. Um, hasn't, uh, it was on Park's agenda to do this month, but things went awry and other things took precedent over the plaque, but they have the plaque, they know where to put it. They have everything planned out. It's just, it's going to get put up on the left side of the gate. Everything will be fine. Also, while we're speaking of that, if you remember, the artist left when it got, he got it shipped here and we had it installed. The artist said that it needed within six months to have a UV coating based off of the recommendation from our conservators. And so when I coordinated it so that they did that today, actually. And so that's been put on that. It's the same UV coating that they're putting on Lumisphere, which is the colorful benches in front of the teen center. It's the same. And she said it would probably hold up even better on our gate because, one, it's being applied new, whereas it was already faded when they put the UV coating on Lumisphere. And it's also the gate is not in direct sunlight as often as the Lumisphere is.

Nobody should be sitting on the gate as well.

And nobody should be sitting on the gate as well. Although I did see a footprint at the top of the gate.

Those teens. Scrolling over it already?

Already it's happening. That was the point of the gate and it's already...

Isn't it eight feet tall?

I don't know that it's eight. It's pretty close. It's pretty high up. The Justice Center wall mosaic plaque is ordered. The police station art project, the lion sculpture, went to council at the beginning of the month for, I think it was your meeting, and they approved it. So we are, so I took that and I put it into our procurement Sausage maker. And procurement told me on Monday that there should be a draft for the contract coming soon that we can review. Or I can review. We'll get that. That's not administrative stuff. You guys don't have to worry about that.

Council's done.

Your work is done. Mine has just begun. And that's all I have for the...

Next is the staff liaison report.

Chelsea? You guys had the special meeting so that we could correct the ongoing mistake of the no approval from the last contract for Creative West, which is the archive software. So you guys did that. The following week we got it to council, so on August the 18th. was on consent and they passed that so that was so that mistake has been corrected and now we can and we also then were able to pay year one on the new contract and were approved for all 15 years so we not only got it going good we cleaned it up from the past everything was nice on contract we appropriate the money that's the way

Stakes get made.

But now we have some good things in place that should not happen again. We have three contracts that we have to pay attention to that are ongoing, and we just have to do a better job. But now procurement has a process in their contract drafts that actually names APP, and it asks, is this a contract for APP? And so, did you get council approval? And so... That should take care of it. And then I've put some reminders in when the software notifies us that the contract is ready to be renewed. It will remind us at that time too. It should not happen again. Thank you for your understanding and your patience. The sculpture, like I said, passed on 8-4. Pacific Coast is here. There is a board and commission luncheon that happens every quarter, and it is happening September the 10th. So Tim or Jasmine, anybody, I mean, more than one are welcome if you want. It's a really nice opportunity. It's usually from 11, I think it's from 11 to 12.30, but I will get you the times specifically.

11.30 to 1.

Okay, thank you. That's 11.30 to 1, right. and we get served lunch, and it's a really nice opportunity because at least one or two representatives from every board is around the table, and everybody just goes around and shares what their boards are doing, and oftentimes that's a time when you guys can connect with each other and possibly help each other out.

And where is that?

It's here. It'll be in council chambers. Okay.

They have a good lunch, too, so it's a reward for all of your labors.

Although Jackie is usually the one that plans it for us, and she's retiring tomorrow. So we'll have a new lunch planner. We'll see how well that happens. So just let me know if you want to come, and I'll RSVP for you. And then what happens? Oh, you did it. You went to the last one?

I was supposed to, but then I was on travel. This one I will make every attempt, but let me go check my work calendar.

You have to do an update.

I can attend too if Tim can't make it.

That would be much appreciated, Jasmine. You can still come, even if I can't make it.

Yeah, of course.

Oh, great. I'll be there then.

We'd love for you to come. As I said, I'm working on, in addition to working on helping you guys with the deaccession policy, I'm also working with finance on improving the ordinance for APP, the funding part of the ordinance. And we were so close, and then we sort of just... What we were trying to solve, solved it, but then it created some new problems that isn't going to simplify anything. So there's no point in doing that path. So we're still working on it. So as soon as we get a better draft that finance likes and attorneys like, they want it to come to you guys to make sure you're all good with that before it then gets... But that'll be, I thought we could do that this month, but the earliest will be September.

That's all I have. Okay. Chelsea. Now it's time for the chairman's report. I have nothing of importance to report. So then council communications.

Chelsea reported everything the council did. He passed a couple of things. The line is finally through. And then... I didn't follow this ordinance issue. Is this something I should be planning for with council?

Somebody's... We're not close enough yet.

And it's the... What is it going to address? Because... That's already part of our county.

The ordinance right now, it talks about having 1% funding from particular capital projects. But how that is now that some of the projects are being bond funded or partially bond funded, that complicates how the funding gets taken into the APP fund.

So it's an internal county accounting and legal issue that you're worried about?

Yes, so we're just trying to...

I don't remember this for some reason, I guess.

For the last few years, we are struggling, I guess, with finances struggling with identifying the right projects that are applicable because the ordinance is slightly unclear on that. So we were hoping...

If it goes into a fund, you don't even have to put it at that site, right? Correct. You could put it at Ashley Pond. The capital funds for some project in...

I think part of it is the timing of when the funds get moved out of the budget for the project and into the fund for this, whether it's at the beginning, the middle, the end, how they track where the dollars come from, when they come in. I think it's to clarify that. I don't think it changes the fundamentals. I think it's just more like when do we track them?

The ordinance just has some language that's not as clear as it could be in order to make the decisions behind the scenes of what to pull, when to pull it, and to dump it into the fund. Once it gets into the fund, it's easy to spend it because you're right, it's not attached right now to any particular fund. project, like the fire station.

This might be a staff policy thing and we never even vote on it?

It's possible. We kind of have to do both at the same time and so we're reviewing that.

We're just not close enough yet to bring it to council. It's always the lawyers.

So nothing to worry about yet. When it's something to worry about, I'll bring it to you guys to make sure it's You understand it, and it makes sense to you all, and there's justification as to why there's any changes.

So my intent for this, at least, was once we get to a place where we start to consider this, that we would have somebody from the county come in and explain to the board exactly what the implications are for whatever it is that's being discussed. I don't fully understand it now, but at the end of the day, if we don't fully understand it, we say yes, or we could vote on it, or... I sort of have a vague understanding of this, but at the same time, I would like to have a more concrete understanding. Anything else you'd like to share, Councilor Reeder? Nope, that's it. Okay. Fantastic. All right. Chelsea, back to you. Preview of September.

Well, it's up to you guys. What do you want to talk about next month?

Well, definitely the fire station art.

Okay. Do you want the recommended vote back?

Are you ready to vote? Yeah, let's bring that. Let's bring it back with the same language, and then we'll talk. We'll walk through it, and hopefully we'll have everybody here in person.

Do you want to decide a budget?

I think we'll discuss it at that time, yeah. So if you leave this blank here, I think we sort of have gone over what the minimum requirement is, and so we'll have time to sort of mull that over. I feel like this is significant enough that I don't want to rush it. Okay.

And I'm hopeful to get the session policy in front of you. Is that okay? Yeah. Do you want Nexus or Dino World to be its own agenda item, or do you just want to keep them in the update? It only needs an agenda item if you're wanting, I think, to make motions. To make a vote, yeah.

Next time.

Jasmine, what do you think on Dino World? We're probably not to the point where we can do a vote yet.

I don't know if we're at the point for a vote, but I do think we're pretty close just because we've exhausted all the options we have to contact the artist.

That's the only sticking point right now?

Yeah, well, so whether the point of contacting the artist is if we can, that's the clearest path of action of getting out of this. Right. How long can we keep trying to contact?

I mean, to me it sounds like you guys have exercised due diligence. Yes. I mean, you've done more than what a reasonable person might do to contact the artist. I agree with that assessment. And so I think that if that was the only thing that's a sticking point for a vote... Hey, go for it.

I think the other thing is going to do what?

I should take it out of the collection.

Would you like what we could do? Kelsey's got a handy-dandy worksheet.

This is the one in the library?

Has anybody talked to the library yet? Librarians are pretty... Librarians would like it. Not there. Get rid of it. Yes. Fairly universally. They never liked it.

No, I think it's just because... Not in its current state is the biggest... If you look at the picture from a distance, it looks fine. If you get up close to the piece, you can see that it's sort of...

I saw it the other day. Did you?

Yeah, unfortunately, I would say that I do think a lot of people in the community, like children who've grown up with it, like my own son, he's like, oh, that's a great piece, but, you know.

Anna really likes it.

She wants to take it home, so.

Why don't we, I could put it on the agenda after we, if, if, if you guys decide that. I'm happy to meet with you within, before it has to go to publish, and I can show you the tentative policy and the procedures so that you guys would know what the next steps are. And then once we talk about that, then you guys can determine if you're ready to do a vote or not.

No, I think it's, and Jasmine, you know, feel free to jump in here as well. If we know what the next step would be, I think it is ready for a vote. I think the

there is the only thing holding me up at this point there's some documentation that you will need to do and and fill out those two reports that I talked about because we're practicing remember we talked about this I know we're practicing this new updated policy so I can share all that with you if you want and then you might feel better and then at that point you can tell me whether you want it as an agenda item or not yeah I think I would be yeah Jasmine do you

go the same way on that one.

Yeah, I agree with Andy.

I'll reach out to you to set up a meeting time.

Jasmine, is there anything you'd like to see on the agenda for next month?

Not really. I don't really know what we have outstanding. Okay.

Not much. Brian, is there anything you'd like? Brian, if you can hear us, is there anything you'd like on the agenda for next month? No, I'm good.

By the way, I was connected almost all the time. There's a glitch at airport road that kicked me off, but other than that, I was on. Oh, wow. I would have thought about that by the river.

All right. Well, in that light, I call the time 6.40. Okay. And adjourn this meeting. Thank you, everyone, for attending.

Bye, Jasmine. Bye, Brian.