Library Advisory Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. Well, good evening, everyone. Today is 08/18/2025. And we I'm sorry. This is the meeting of the library advisory commission, and I ask that we call this meeting to order. Would secretary call roll for determination of quorum, please?

Chair Golterra? Present. Vice chair Meeker?

Present.

Commissioner Gabbitt? Commissioner Laverne Davis is absent. Commissioner Nicole Davis? Present. Let the record reflect all commissioners present with the exception of commissioner Laverne Davis with an excused absence.

Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Ready. Begin. Okay. Commissioners, are there any changes to the agenda?

None from me.

No. Okay. Seeing none or hearing none, may I call for a motion and a second, please, to approve the agenda?

Motion to approve. Okay.

We have a motion and a second. Please vote at this time.

Motion carries unanimously four zero.

Okay. Good. Let's go ahead and move on to the administrative update. Mister Arcellus, are there any staff updates?

Yes. Good evening, library commission. I would like to first start off with our Teen Advisory Council. They will be giving an update on our, summary challenge that just, concluded, in July. So I'll pass it off to them.

Good evening, Commissioner Gulterra, other Chair Gulterra and other commissioners for the Library Advisory Council. Just in case you don't know me, name is Agnes Rideau, one is supervising librarian for our library. Unfortunately, Christine Bainie, our teen librarian, can't be here today, so I am representing our department and our teen advisory council members as well. So thank you again for allowing us to speak tonight. I would like to first introduce our Teen Advisory Council members.

Right here to my immediate left is Gabriela Alvarado of Marietta Valley High School. She's one of our longest standing members. To the further left, right beside Melvin, is our Vice President for Teen Advisory Council, Sophia Sam. She is from Marana Mesa High School. And they will be talking about our end of summer updates as well a little bit more about our Teen Advisory Council. So I will start off with Gabriela.

Okay. This year, our summer reading challenge theme was Level Up at Your Library. Designed for all ages, this initiative was not just about reading. It reminds us that libraries are not just a space for knowledge, they are a space for fun. We had 2,489 registered participants ranging from our youngest friends to longtime library users.

Children and teens got to spin prize wheels for hitting milestones, and adults got in on the fun by playing Plinko for prizes after returning their reviews. The bulk of our registrations at 1,909 is compromised of our 12 crowd. This year, rather than pledging to read a certain number of books like the teens and adults do, children measured their reading in completed books or time spent reading, meaning that we had thousands of hours in books read this summer just by one demographic. There were 608 kids that spun the prize wheel four times and then entered their logs to the grand prize drawing. Teens aged 13 to 18 pledged to read a total of 1,927 books and ended up returning 649 book review logs.

Teen reviews were picked weekly to earn main prizes with extra entries available if they participated in the Teen Library Dragon scavenger hunt. Our adults pledged to read 2,111 and returned 993 logs. People who had been longtime readers but never participated in the summer reading challenge signed up just for the chance to play Plinko.

Logs returned, wheel spins, and Plinko plays make up just some of our summer reading challenge. But what about the programs? The library hosted 93 programs this summer, totaling three thousand and and eighty participants. From children's musical concerts to family bingo and and teen dungeons and dragons, the library had a little bit of everything to remind our community that the library isn't just a place for knowledge, it's also a place for fun. But how does the teen advisory council fit in?

On top of covering daily shifts for our summer reading challenge, sign up prize table, creating take home kits for teens, and helping circulation, we planned, designed, and implemented the end of summer teen lock in escape rooms program. This after hours event was our highest attended program of the summer for teens. We spent weeks planning every detail of the program down to the snacks and messages written in invisible ink. Part of our teen advisory council mission is to make the library a destination for teens and from the feedback we had after the lock program. We are on the right track and plan to do another end of season lock in this fall.

Thank you, Sophia and Gabby or Gap. As we prepare to enter a new and exciting time with the library expansion for our library, as well as TAC officially growing and evolving with the library, when Christine started last year, she had about ten, fifteen members, but most of them graduated this past year. So now they ended up with four to five members. They did a mid year recruitment, made the membership go up all the way to 10, and they're adding 13 more this recruiting more Teen Advisory Council members. So they're going to have about a total of 23 active members for this coming school year.

Increasing the numbers means that it will give our library more opportunities to find and meet the needs of teens in our community. All that to say, Marietta Public is entering into a beautiful era of growth, and we cannot express enough what your help with that growth means to all of us at the library. Again, thank you for having us, and I hope that come back here again soon. Thank you.

Thank you very much. That was a great update.

Any questions or comments from commissioners?

Yeah. I do. How long is this, I'll start Gabby, I guess, I'll start over your situation first. How long has this been going on, this reading program?

The reading program?

Mhmm. It starts in June.

The reading challenge? But what year? Is this your first year?

I've been doing it since my freshman year.

Really? And I'm senior now? Junior. Junior. Okay. Because I I think that's awesome. I was I'm wondering, here I am, the data guy. But how many of these people are brand new to the challenge that came up this year that don't read a lot, but they took this on and just, yeah, I'll I'll get in for a challenge here.

A lot of people A lot of from,

like, young to, like, adults wanted to participate. Yeah.

And I guess this is the second question is for both of you, actually. We're I remember we talked about this a couple years ago, maybe two, three years ago. How to get teens into libraries? Back in my day, was easier to do. Like, the kids went there to study all the time, but I don't see it with your generation as much. Just what do you think? What's it gonna take for us to get high schoolers back in libraries again?

I think more fun events. Like, people wanna participate, and they really love the community. Like, I've seen people at my school, they love joining clubs and all that fun stuff and fun hobbies. And I think if we implement that at the library, we'd have a lot more kids.

Any ideas as to what kind of events? It sounds like a great idea.

Well, nowadays people are really competitive. So like game stuff

Oh, okay.

And like gaming.

Okay.

Really popular.

Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, I think that's what's missing is that youth department. And I don't it's not just Marietta. It's a lot of different places. Kids just don't go there anymore. And anything we can do to attract the community in at all age levels, that's kind of what we're shooting for.

And if I can add to that, I would say that definitely, we have we're, like, trying to add, like, studying, like, study halls at the library. We have a specific teen section within the Marietta library. Mhmm. And I definitely think students a lot like to come after school to study and take time just like doing their work. And I think they like the environment that the library brings.

Alright. Do you guys notice if there's kids after school in the library at Valley Inn Mesa? Are they really? Yeah. Like, how many? I'm trying to get an idea of obviously they're there because it's convenient because they're already there. So going to the lottery is easier. But how do we get them here? That's the big challenge for us is not one big challenge, but there's I'm just curious. It's hard nowadays to get kids out to a public library anymore.

I would just like to add, one of the challenges for most public libraries or even teen librarians is actually having to get teens into or inside the library. Once they get to high school, they get busy with academics, sports, band, all the extracurricular that their parents and also college would be college requiring them to do. So in a sense, what they said already, providing something fun, something unique or something that they need kind of like study hall is something that maybe to get them into the door. Christine visited actually one of the high schools. I'm not sure if it's Marina Mesa, Marietta Valley, or believe it was Vista.

I think she went to Vista and she was pleasantly surprised. She went on their time, and she had over three hundred three hundred students come up to her table. She was the most popular table there. And she said, so what brought them in? She said, I had all the food.

Had free sons, chips.

Oh,

yeah. And surprisingly, oh, so that's what you need is to get make sure because it

was during lunchtime. And if you've been to any of our high schools, lunch hour line is insane. Oh, yeah. No. It is.

So when she was there providing all these things and there's less line, she got, like, all of them. And then they started getting interesting. I said, oh, what's there? What's there? Oh, what do you have?

So and also a spinning wheel. Oh, yeah. We do outreach. Any free things?

We just did that at our school. We did a spinning thing for Otter Pops was on there, and free dress day, and stuff like that. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Remember that I spent three years at Mesa looking over the lunch lines and making sure everyone 's behaving themselves. So I know how long and crazy those lines are.

I've seen it. We've heard feedback from actual teens.

Oh yeah, I don't eat anymore because the line is so long. I bring my own back.

Yeah, it's so much easier. Yeah, for sure. Alright. Well, go Hawks, go Rams.

Go Hawks for sure. Think it'd cool to do I think it'd

be cool to

do a check-in, like a viral challenge that they would do on like social media where they would have to like check-in to the library and maybe use like, I don't know, like find a certain book or like if they check-in, like, they'll be entered to, like, win some kind of, like, contest, like, some kind of prize just to get them in the door. And once they're in, maybe they'll be like, oh, wow. This is a lot cooler than I even thought it was. But maybe just getting them in on some kind of prize would at least get them through the door, and then we could we'd probably get some retention from that too.

I know for summer reading it does help when we have better prizes for summer. We have had baseball tickets. Angel's Baseball always donates to the library. Six Flags tickets, Hurricane Harbor tickets. We'd had aquarium tickets, USS, one of the warships tickets.

We've had a lot of prizes. And of course, the support of the friends of the Marietta Library has always been very helpful for us in terms of giving away substantial prizes. And that's one of the things that get them to continue and finish the challenge. I will take note of that suggestion and give it to Christine. Thank you.

Okay. If there's no further comments, I just wanted to really commend them and the efforts that they've done. I mean, the teen programming, is so amazing. It makes me wish I was a teen. So hats off to Christine, Agnes, and the whole tech crew, really. It's phenomenal, and they're the most active right now that I've seen them in my entire tenure here that since I've been here since 2022. And granted that's not that long, but that still says a lot, you know, coming out of COVID and getting back to everything. So really thank you, you girls, and and and the rest of the tech crew. Please please extend our thanks to them. Okay.

So I'll continue with my administrative update. And and and girls, you don't have to stay that for for this if you don't want to, but you're more than welcome to stay. It is a public meeting. So let's go ahead and go on to the administrative update here. So firstly, on the library expansion project, we did go out to bid for construction.

We received eight bids back on July 21, and we are going to city council tomorrow with the selected bid for the approval of the contract tomorrow night at the city council meeting. And if approved, we anticipate breaking ground in September. So this is really a huge milestone for us. Really a long time coming. So many so many long hours of planning and and and strategizing and fundraising and we are at this point.

So this is a crucial juncture for for the project. So we really thank all of you for your continued support over the years and and we continue on and moving forward. Terms of fundraising, over the past year, we have gone to several outreach events. We've we've staffed 13 booths. We've done we've done 10 community presentations to different groups like the rotary and so on and so forth.

We've been doing social media blasts. We've we've had a project newsletter. We've done direct solicitations with private individuals, different companies, we've also partnered with the schools. In fact, right now the MVSU is doing a coin drive at each of the offices so parents can bring their coins and drop them off into a bucket at each of the offices at all the schools. So really thank the the school district for their their continued support.

So that with that being said, at the August, the the status is this. The foundation the Murrieta Public Library Foundation has committed to to a $135,000 in funds, and that's just the minimum. So if they raise more later on, that that will be added to the the total. The Friends of the Library have committed a minimum of a $103,400 103,400. And then plus, they're also committing an additional 12,500 for our opening day collection.

Right? Because we're gonna expand the library. We're gonna have more shelves, and so this will help supplement our collection. Additional commitments, include a $110,000 from the various water districts, and including 40,000 in pending private sector commitments. So this brings the total, fundraising commitments at this particular junction juncture to 388,400.

So we've made significant inroads with fundraising, but but it doesn't stop here. So we will still continue to to to to fundraise in in coordination with those two support groups that I just mentioned. So so exciting times for the library. Continuing on, I'm happy to share that our library for all program was recently featured on the California State Library's photos of public library programs webpage. So on this page they show all of the the impactful programs that are going on on the state and our our program was was featured on that.

And and Agnes is actually our the coordinator for that program and the really impetus for it all. And so we we're really proud of her and the work that she's doing with Library for All. On the staffing side, Katie Calametti was promoted to administrative assistant and she's actually sitting right over there. And so eventually, she will be the staff liaison after she gets trained trained up by Gretchen. So Gretchen will be moving on to, I guess, greener pastures.

And Katie will be taking over interested, but she but but Gretchen will will still train her until Katie feels comfortable in the role. So oh, I'd also like to say that Katie has been with us for fifteen years, so the this promotion is is well deserved, and we're really happy to to have her in this new role. In addition, Vanessa Cruz was promoted to office assistant two from library assistant two, so we're really happy about that promotion. So now we are fully staffed in library administration, which is great news for me and Gretchen. And we are we've just conducted interviews for part time library assistant two in youth services, and we have two open recruitments that that you can apply for on the city website for full time library system two in circulation services and also a part time library system two in adult and teen services.

If you know any qualified candidates, we highly suggest that they apply now. In regards to programming, you heard all about our amazing summer reading challenge which was great because we've actually shortened it this year in anticipation that the construction would start a little bit earlier. But as you know, with projects things kind of get delayed and you know but we wanted to make sure that we planned accordingly just in case that happened. But we we did have nearly 2,500 participants by by cutting the program, I think, by three weeks about two to three weeks. And so that if if we kept it going on longer, we would most likely have broken the the number from last year.

We we partnered with the Murrieta Valley School District in in regards to lunch at the library, which ended on July 25, and that was the them providing free summer lunches at Murrieta Elementary, and we would provide programming and free books to provide for their their personal collections throughout the summer, and that that they served over 1,600 attendees throughout the summer every every single day. And we were able to provide more than 1,100 books for the children to build their home collections for libraries at home. And lastly, each each month or each each each time we meet, we provide you some statistics. I just wanted to highlight some some things in the month of July. We welcomed over 19,000 visitors.

We checked out 20,000 items, and we received 37,000 items. And I always like this to highlight this discrepancy in the statistics. Like, how how are you checking out 20,000 items and and getting in 37,000 way more than you check out. That tells us that, because we we accept returns for other Riverside County library locations that they come to us for the amazing program programming that we do, and then they return the books here at this this library. So so we're really proud of that statistic.

And then we had over a thousand, in program attendance and, a little over 360 new library cards issued. So I just wanted to highlight some of the statistics, at this time. So, that's the end of my report. I'd be happy to to answer any questions. Okay. Great. Thank you.

Sorry. Do have

one Yeah.

Sorry. To the fundraising? Yes. What's the goal again?

The goal well, I mean, if we wanted to get the whole shebang right now with the the construction costs now we know the actual construction costs. So we are short $900,000. So that would be the the ultimate goal. But if if if if we don't reach that, you know, we're trying to pursue other potential funding avenues and then trying to look at what we can do with with, fringes, fixtures, and equipment, FF and E.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Alright. So, mister Roussallis, may we have your update? Or was that

Oh, that was my update. Yeah. That was all of yours.

Okay. Yes. So let's go ahead and

move on to public comments since we have some public here, it looks like, today. At this time, we will take public comments. Any person may address the Library Advisory Commission on any subject pertaining to city business, which is which does not relate to any item listed on the agenda. Normally, no action will be considered or taken by the library advisory commission on any matter not listed on the agenda. Speakers are limited to three minutes. Madam secretary, do we have any non agenda public comments?

Thank you, chair. We do not have any non agenda public comments.

Okay. So let's go ahead and move on to cons the consent calendar approval of items number one and number two. All matters listed on the consent calendar are to be considered routine by the governing body and will be enacted by one motion in the form listed. There will be no discussion of the items unless before the governing body votes on the motion to adopt specific items are removed from the consent calendar for separate motions. May I call for a motion and a second, please, to approve items one and two on the consent calendar?

Okay.

Feel like humming the theme to jeopardy now. Sorry. You guys don't know what jeopardy is. It's sorry. It's it's not allowing us to make the motions here.

No, ma'am.

It says awaiting next.

Yeah. It says awaiting next item.

Okay. Let's go ahead with a verbal. Can I have a motion, please, and a second?

Motion to approve. I'll second.

Okay. We have a motion and a second. Please vote at this time.

Motion carries unanimously. Four zero.

Okay. Let's go ahead and move on to discussion items. Mr. Arcellus, may we have your report on the privacy policy, please?

Sure. Good evening again, commissioners. So this next item is the review and the recommendation of the Murrieta Public Library privacy policy. So this policy was developed after our partner, the Riverside County Library System, was required to create a privacy policy in order to comply with federal 10 DLC messaging messaging regulations. Those rules apply to the use to their use of messenger message b.

This is a text message service that is used to notify patrons about holds, due dates, overdue items, other basically all account information. Since Murrieta contracts with the Riverside County Library System for automated services, this includes the use of of messenger b. So they also recommended us to adopt our own privacy policy to reflect our local practices and expand coverage on on any relevant key issues. So the draft policy that you see before you today covers several important areas. Basically, it covers retention, security, and disclosure of patron records, privacy rights of minors, which is in line with California law, use of video surveillance in and around the library, photographing photography and filming guidelines for staff, public, and the media, and procedures for handling handling law enforcement's requests with confirmations that patron records are exempt from from public records requests under California law.

So this policy is based on best practices from the American Library Association and aligns with state and federal law. And I just wanted to bring to note that this this policy that you see before this draft you see before you has been reviewed by your city attorney's office as well. So the goal is to ensure that our patrons can use our library services with confidence knowing that their information and privacy is is protected. So I just wanted to note that there is no fiscal impact with associating adopting this policy. So at this time, I'd like to open the floor to your feedback, questions, or discussion.

Or if the commission is comfortable with the policy as it stands, we staff would like to recommend that you recommend the adoption of privacy policy? Opening it up to you, the floor.

We don't I mean, I personally don't have any comments about this because this is something we've talked about before. So, if we're comfortable and our city attorneys have looked it over, not perfectly comfortable with way it is.

100%. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I I've read it a couple of times. There's nothing in there that strikes weird quarter with me Okay. Yeah.

That's good. Good to know. So I think then we you can call it for a vote and then, a motion and a second.

Do we have to call for public comments?

Oh, that's right. Yes.

Thank you. We have to do that first. Okay. So, do we have any public comments concerning the privacy policy only?

Thank you, chair. We do not have any public comments.

Okay. So commissioners, does anyone have any more comments? Chances okay. So may I call for a motion and a second to recommend the adoption of the Marietta Public Library privacy policy?

Verbally? Okay. Either that or we're doing something wrong.

Not out of the realm of possibility. Yeah, for sure.

I make a motion to adopt.

I'll second.

Okay,

so we have a motion and a second. It's nice to all be on the same page, isn't

it? Sure.

Okay. Let's, let's go ahead and move on to the commissioner member announcements. Commissioner member announcements is the opportunity for commissioners to provide miscellaneous reports and announcements. Let's see. Okay. Vice chair Meeker, do you have any public comments?

I do not. Thank you. Mhmm. Commissioner Gabbitt?

I do not.

Okay. Commissioner Laverne Davis was absent. Commissioner Nicole Davis?

I do not.

And to round out the do nots, I will be in that same boat. And lastly, could it be the fastest commission meeting we've ever done? So let's go ahead and continue with commissioner member request to add items. Does anyone from the chair or the commission here have any future agenda items they'd like to see for next month?

I do not. Wait. For next month or for

So the next meeting. Excuse me. Our next meeting next month. October. Sorry. I was gonna blow it at one point. Yeah. October. Okay. Everyone know? Or No. I sense a theme here tonight. So we're gonna we'll go with we're just we we just love the way you do things. Let's just be honest. It just make it so easy for us that there really isn't many questions to ask or to be very honest with you. I love the fact that everything's going forward so so quickly and so just focused, completely focused. I love it. So with no further business, may I have a consensus to adjourn the meeting?

Yes.

Yes, ma'am? Yep. Alright. Still staying with it togetherness theme here. Meeting is now adjourned.

Wow. Thank you.