City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay. Great.

Yep. Let's work on that.

Okay. Okay. Alright. So we'll get the, work session between the museum and council kicked off here. I think before we really dig in, let's just go around the table just to make sure everybody knows each other's names, and we'll just start with Nate over in the corner. Nate Duvall, city

manager. Lester Green, city council.

Troy Whiting, city council. Martha Barberio, economic development director and president of the board.

Joe Lowy, city council. Austin Love, city council.

April Vasherdean, executive director of the museum.

Dan Gilson, museum board. Jim Bischero, museum board.

Karen Mitchell, museum board.

Linda Guthrie, museum board.

Gary Minish, museum board. Great.

And I think online, Jimmy and Olivia, can you hear us?

Hi. Olivia Foster, counsel. Did you hear me?

Yes. Thanks. Thanks, Olivia. Jimmy, can you hear us there?

Sorry. I was muted. Yes. I can hear you just fine. Jimmy Devins.

Okay. Great. Well, thanks for being here. I'm looking forward to the work session and getting it going. Just going over the summary statement here, the bullet points of what we're supposed to talk about here tonight. I think number one is look for city council input and guidance on preferred directions and priorities. Number two is to ensure alignment between the BMHA strategic planning and city council goals and priorities. Number three is review the current state and limitations of existing museum facilities. Four is discuss long term needs for collections, programming, and visitor experience. And then the fifth one is evaluate potential facility options at a high level.

I think that was all the things we're supposed to be focused on tonight. And I did see that, you know, you guys shared your report regarding your recent strategic planning, and I saw your goals there. So I I figured we'd probably start there if you guys wanted to kinda summarize, you know, that strategic planning session and what your kind of top three goals were that you identified and maybe flush those things out a little bit. If did you wanna take the lead, Gary? I just

I wanted to say something before before we kinda got started here. I've been kind of the instigator of this meeting. And, one one of the things, that we've kinda struggled with in the past has been that, the museum media museum board goes off and kinda does their own their own thing to keep the museum functioning and and, you know, proceeding on target, hopefully, and and, within our budget. But it's always been a little bit of a guess as to, you know, what the council wants at the end of the year when we present budget and things like that. And part of the the problem is is not a full understanding, I don't think it was be between the relationship between the museum corporation members, which is what you guys are.

You're not really like in this meeting, you're not city council. You're you're museum, members of the corporation. They are owners. And well, the same thing as as owners. Yeah.

You you represent the the, the city is the owner, essentially the owner of the museum. You you resent that as a as a corporation member. And what we what I would have watched over the years is the difficulty in making sure we're all together at the end of the year and we're we got everybody's best interest in mind Since you're equivalent of if anybody who's worked in Alieska, you have owners and then you have the nonprofit corporation that runs and operates pipeline. For us, in in that matter, it was always important. Once or twice a year, we'd have owner meetings so that we could get in alignment with the owner get and so when it came time to present budgets and things, there was no surprises.

So we knew what to expect, and and the owners knew what to expect. And I kinda like to see the same thing here because it'll make it easier for us knowing where we're going. We can make better plans, and then you won't have any surprises at the end of the year when we present budgets and things like that because you'd have a better idea, you know, what our plan is and how we're getting there and so on. So that's kind of the purpose of developing this work session is so we can all get on the same page, collaborate together, and, in the best interest of the museum as a whole. Oh, great. Sure. Can understand what the goals were.

Yeah. Appreciate that, Jim.

It's been quite a bit of time for the in preparation. And and I think when we settled all this and rolled it out, our president, Martha, is, in essence, gonna to roll us all through this. So I'm putting you on the spot there.

Thank you. Sure. Go ahead. So we had a strategic work session with the board February. And we basically talked about cruise ships. We're we're an anchor tenant. We're an anchor on Eagan for everybody. We have and I, April, graciously put this together. You can see year over year how our not only the total of visitors have been increasing, the revenue that we've been generating, from that is substantially going up and up. Once the farther out we get from COVID, you We're doing well.

They have a whole new staff. We have a new executive director. I think originally, Karen I think Karen, the old well, the oldest that sound wrong.

One of ten year long

as far as

on your is

like three or four years. Andrea has been there for many years, but she's kind of a support staff. But anyways, we have a new marketing and communications director, Amber. And she has been doing a phenomenal job. We have a lot of new programs.

When I went to Alaska travel industry meeting in October, Premier Alaska said that the programs that are coming out of the museum in the last year are like heads above what has been coming out in the past. They're so easy to work with. Easy to work with. Amber and April have been wonderful. I think recently, as of this year, maybe they've increased their fees.

They've never really increased their fees before. So, you know, we're getting more cruise ships every year. So the programming is fresh and new, and they're introducing more things this year. And so I think that's a really positive thing. That came out of part of our strategic planning that we had with Karen, does the directors and the city council, strategic retreat or retreats.

So we did a SWOT analysis while we were there, which I attached. And I'm just gonna I kinda touched on some of those. When the cruise ships come to town, every cruise ship goes through the museum. They have that's their we are their anchor. Everybody gets a ticket to the museums, the three, the main museum, the old town museum, and the Maxine Jesse with Maxine Jesse Whitney or Whitney, museum.

So that's huge. And, also, tourists in general come to the museum. Everybody wants to know, you know, we thrive on, you know, from the the nineteen sixty four earthquake to the oil spill and just in general, the, gold rush and so on. So I think we are certainly an anchor, an economic driver for the city. You know, there's a lot of rainy days here.

So even our tourists who want to get out and enjoy the beautiful, our beautiful climate in general, we have a lot of rain. So they can go to the museum. So we just wanted to make sure that we're all going in the same direction when you have your retreat that you kind of you know, we are the the one of your priorities this year was aging infrastructure. We're leveraging our our outdoor our with Old Town Museum tours. We have new Old Town signs.

I'm working on a project right now with Karen in April and some of the board about doing storytelling of the Old Town, the earthquake, and doing a project down there that's really enhancing that, making it very educational, that sort of thing. So one of the other things is space. We've visited this before several years ago, and we are we were outgrowing the space then. We are really outgrowing the space. And so with all our tourists coming in more and more, we're going to have more cruise ships next year, and we're just really, and that it's not just all about cruise ships.

It's about tourism in general and people who visit our our community. So we need some direction. Are are you satisfied with what we're providing? Do you have any comments or suggestions? I mean, we're all in this together.

You as owners, us as the the board that's managing the collection for you. So we just wanted to kind of get your feedback, your thoughts. We do have we are rapidly having a space issue. And so, we need to know whether status quo, which is only going to last realistically for a couple more years because we're busting at the seams. And do we want to reimagine our existing building or build out from that?

Or do we want a new museum or to purchase and rehab an older building in town? But we just want to put it out there that it and somebody mentioned to me at one point, with all the people that are coming through our museums, it's now going to become a fire marshal problem.

I was going

to ask you that. Yes.

If that was going to be the limiting factor.

Yes. And that's why Nate and I and I think Gary and Jim were both on the board. Five or six years ago, we went through a whole process. Some of that information is still useful, but I Nate has agreed to come to the next board meeting, to kind of give a background because the rest of the board wasn't wasn't on. So so I'll be quiet and let you ask questions.

Thanks for that, Martha. So, yeah, so you went through the SWOT analysis. And then I also saw at the end of your the report here, the top three prioritized goals. And those I think you touched on most of these. So one of them was reimagine infrastructure facilities. I think that basically talks to the the space needed issue. Correct. And then I saw exhibits and programs update, provide new and improved access to programs, interpretive materials and exhibits by the by June 2027. And then the third one I saw, community partnerships, increase and maintain community partnerships by June 2026. Could could maybe somebody to kind of flush those three things out? Because it seemed like that was, you know, the bones of what came out of that. Was just that everybody was like, these are our top three.

Right, exactly. And so what happened with those top three is those two the bottom two that you just mentioned, exhibits and programs and then community partnerships, Those are, items that the museum has already begun to tackle, I guess, if you will. So, those are things we could do currently, and we had those in plan. And if you've been to the museum, we did shut down in January. We reopened with some refurbished exhibits.

So if you haven't been by, come by to see those. And then we've started reaching out to different communities to get different community, other nonprofits and things to get those community partnerships that we needed. So when this board met in February, it was basically to talk about that facilities because that was the sort of the one that we can't really get a hold of as staff. We need the board for that and you.

Got it. Did anybody else want to comment on the priorities before maybe the council just shares what our priorities were going to this year so we're all on the same page on that? Go ahead, Gary.

Of those three goals that we came up with, we have kind of limited opportunities, you know, with all of us have lots of meetings and everything. So what we've you know, I can see focusing on for us is that third goal, which is the infrastructure goal because that's where you guys are gonna have the the most impact on what we do and, you know, as far as what's available for money and help and things like that. So if we can kinda maintain a focus on that level, then the rest of it is mostly the staff is going to take care of that. And they're going to modify that those lower levels to fit whatever our infrastructure is. Okay. So that'll

be hopefully the main outcome of this Okay.

Anybody else? Jim? Yeah. And it isn't on our priorities, but I think it needs to be discussed by you folks. And that is, on one hand, as you can see, our revenues are rising. And they're going to rise more because we've got more cruise ships coming. The next year, it's more than this year. But what we also are facing, as the city is facing, is the high cost of insurance. Health care is going to kill us. And also in our other insurance policies.

But that is a very real and so balancing. Yeah. We're raising revenue, but are we raising revenue fast enough to be able to, in essence, our costs that we don't control? So I guess what I would suggest is and hopefully, we don't have to come with our tin cup and ask for a little more money. But that's a very real, possibility given what health care is doing to us. And I'll leave it at that. Yeah.

I appreciate that, Jim. Yeah. We'll table that for tonight. But I did actually have a discussion even with the city manager yesterday when we going over the agenda on that very topic. So I think we all are aware of it. It's something in the background. Katie, could you just pull up the council priorities that we developed for 2026 just so we can quickly go over those just so the museum board? And I did we did print these out. If you guys wanna take these, you can have these as well just so you can see that. If we could zoom in just on the top four priorities that we came up with.

So

you already be aware of these ones. So in last June or July, was council had our strategic planning retreat too. And our biggest top four goals that the most people could agree on are listed up here on these four bullet points. So the top four goals were housing, and more specifically, increase housing stock by fall twenty twenty seven, utilizing the housing needs survey, which we just got back. Child care, complete and operating active licensed child care facility by twelve point six.

And if you're not aware, we're converting the old school admin building into a facility hopefully for child care and working with the Head Start people to hopefully help us operate that place. So we've already been making investments in that. Maintenance was our number three. Annually appropriate funds towards deferred maintenance and critical infrastructure. So, you know, keeping everything going, keeping the facilities we already have up and operating at the snuff.

And then expand outdoor recreation, tourism, maritime, and community. So annually modernize aging infrastructure while leveraging natural transportation assets to expand outdoor recreation, tourism, and maritime community, in maritime and community. So that those were kind of our top four goals that we came out with. The rest of this memo is worth reading because it sets the table for the bigger kind of budget picture and our constraints and what we're thinking overall for the city. You know, these priorities are really important, but this budget memo really sets the table for how city administration develops the budget for us.

Because part of that part of that meeting in June and July too is is us coming up with the parameters in this memo, and that drives city staff to do what they do. And ultimately, affects everybody, the hospital, the museum, all the departments. So I do encourage you to read that as well just to get kind of a fuller background of where our priorities are right now too. So I just wanted to put that out there so that, you know, like, to Gary's point, like, we're all aware of the bigger picture as well as, like, what, you know, what we're trying to talk about here tonight, which is mostly the space issue with the museum. Before I ask maybe the museum to kind of get into the space issue, kind of talk about the problems and the needs, counsel, did you guys have any questions before we have them kind of jump into that?

A couple.

Go

ahead. So I was curious that you guys talked about how you have the increase of people coming in. Are they spaced out when people come off the cruise ships and they all have their tickets? Are they like, half the group is given a time frame to go visit at the blue building and then the other half is supposed to go to the actual museum and then they flip flop to try to help with the congestion issues

or anything like that? No. They are given a ticket. And this is Viking specifically. So when Viking cruise cruisers come, they're given a red ticket. And that red ticket, it has three museums. And they have buses that travel around and stop at those three museums every fifteen minutes. So, there's no time attendance. It's just whenever they want to come. And then when the, I think it's Holland America, there's yellow tickets.

So then they come. I don't think there's buses with the yellow tickets. But, it's just, you know, they get off the boat when they get off the boat, and they spend how much time here they want. And then, you know, they're back on the boats. And then there's also the overland coach tours. So, those sometimes are specific. So like a Friday night, we'll get we know that a bus of 50 is coming. Mhmm. And so they'll all come in. And that's usually around five when we're closed.

So that's not as much of an issue. And then Sunday mornings, we also have overland coach tours that we take out to Old Town and then bring back to the museum. And those, again, are at times that we're not particularly crowded. And we have we know those in advance. But, just anyone driving over can come at any point.

And, I don't know how familiar you are with our museum space, but I remember this. When I started last January, Faith was telling me, oh, there will be times when you can't get out of your office door. And, I didn't believe her. But she was right. There were there are times in the summer when there are, you know, two fifty people in our space. And they're going at their own pace throughout the facilities. So there are times I'm glad there's a fire door right outside my office door.

So at peak times, you're looking at maybe two fifty people, essentially.

Yeah. Like, 200 to 400, we'll just say, because we don't

And what does spiral marshal code?

Well, under 400.

400. Okay.

And different spaces have different. Like, if you come into the building, the Eagan Commons can hold the most. Right? So that's like, what did we say yesterday, Nate? I think it was a 100 and something, maybe a 120 maybe.

A 130 or something like that.

Yeah. And then as you move through the space, those numbers go down because that's the, sort of the largest space that we have. Sure. And one of the things you might wanna consider or you probably don't know, I was doing the cruise ship in my calendar last night freaking out because we have this year, like, three or four double ship days. Mhmm. So that's the and next year, it's gonna be more double ship days.

Yeah. That's the

reason I was wondering if

you alternated.

So they get That would even realistic

of doing where Right. You know, you could have them go to one versus the other. Right.

And time did And the bet would create so much chaos Yeah. With the cruisers that I think that the negativity that then might get associated with us wouldn't be worth it. Yeah.

So what the additional space that you guys are talking about, I think I talked to Karen a little bit about how you have some larger exhibits that you guys that's really the key of what it is that you need that additional space for. Am I kind of on point? I don't know. I don't

know what Karen told you, and I don't know what you interpreted as larger exhibits. Sorry.

So she talked about some vehicles and motors and

Okay. Things Yes. Like that. Yes.

Okay. So it's it's really much larger things that you guys are really needing, that additional space for. Do you do you have, like, a square footage in mind that is ideal of what it is that you guys really what would be baseline? Just curiosity.

We have it on some of those old Yeah. Can I can I kind of stop that? Because I think that might be getting down into the weeds. Mate might shoot me on this. I mean, I I really There have been studies done in the past. Right. And I a lot of that has changed. And so I just me in general, wanna kind of stay up here because I think there are other conversations that our board needs to get on board with before we come to you and say, hey, we need 50,000 square feet.

Yeah. Guess, yeah, I could Okay. You have anything? Nope. Joe, go ahead.

Just a question with regards so you mentioned double ship days, and that could present I mean, they're all going to go to the first museum that they hit kind of thing, you know what I mean, which is going to be sort of the annex or as they step.

So

won't that present an equal amount of chaos and problems if they hit fire marshal capacity or Yes.

That one's even smaller. Yes. Yeah. The space within the annex is much smaller than the main.

Just wonder what the, you know

Well, and I mean without getting way down in the weeds, we'd like to have everything in one building.

Yep. Yep.

Right. That would totally I don't think that's too

far in

the weeds to this project. Right. Okay.

Olivia and Jimmy, did you guys have anything before maybe just they're having more that, you know, the needs and where we're at on on the building wise? Jimmy and Olivia?

No. No. I like where the conversation's going. I appreciate the candor. Continue on from my perspective.

Okay. You have nothing additional for me.

Thanks, Jimmy. Thanks, Olivia. Jim?

On the paperwork that is in the agenda, I mean, there's 117 pages there, Okay? And the last probably 100 represents the work that was done in trying to assess really what the community, in fact, would like to see in its museum as well as we have a number of segments. I mean, there's schools. There's, Since then, the world has moved on. I mean, we've had COVID.

We've had hit, hit, hit it. But that might be an interesting piece.

It's a good starting point.

Yeah. Yeah.

And we've exponentially increased our admissions. Yeah. We've only doubled the admission. Yeah. Ten Ten

years. Yeah.

Well, that was ten years ago.

Right. So Yeah. And it seemed like that problem existed, you know, the the space problem existed well before these these numbers have been So going it's already been an issue. So like, just, like, tell tell the story of the space issue. Like, tell us the story of, like, how it's grown over the years and where we're at now, why it's at, you know, the the kind of that breaking point. We're only gonna we're bursting at the scene. Like, just maybe just, like, see that know, tell that story to us so that we could kinda get a grasp. I saw I mean, as you could see it, you know, over here, and you've had the studies. You know, there was one study that showed a pretty pretty large building, and that wasn't you know, there was no appetite for that. Then it got scaled down a little bit, but then But there's obviously a need for some space. So what's that story for that need?

Right. So I obviously was not here for any of the prior discussion, any of those prior building plans, anything like that. Some of the board could maybe address that. But as museum here representing the museum staff, we would love to all be in the same building. We would love all of our collections to be in the same building just because we may get some elusive building, different building, whatever.

If in some point, we have what we would consider enough space, I just want everyone to know that that doesn't mean that all of the collections are going to be visible all the time. Right. Right? That's that's not how museums function. We still need proper museum storage so that we can rotate collections so we can take care of collections.

We would love to have a space dedicated to classroom so that we can provide that education that we, like to offer that what are we saying now? I think six to 106 or eight to which Rich was just one of our programs the other day. And so, yeah, like a dedicated classroom space, dedicated potential lecture type space so that we can have our Tuesday night talks or you know, the different things that we can provide the community as well as just being safe for fire issues and, everything like that. So there's a lot that goes into it. There's a lot of different thoughts.

There's you know? But offices, sure. We would all like to have sufficient office space as well, which we don't have currently. And I might add that as part of your because I in our well, the agenda statement, I I did. We and it talks about, modernizing aging infrastructure. The old town where the old town museum is, I believe that the ventilation system is failing. It's like either It's on laser in there or it's 150 degrees.

The annex building.

Yes. And I guess the h two years ago or two years ago, the HVAC system got replaced in the main museum. But and it's it's things like that. Some of the infrastructure parts of it are hanging on. Yep.

And it's just kind of you fix it to get by sort of thing because, you know, that's part of the reason why. Now with that being said, some of the the plans and the the building that was done, replicated, or the the plans, I can't think of the word, but, was the executive director the two people who were may who were main pushers for that, some a big glass looking building, which could be a reverse eyesore, if you will. But we need a I'll just say it. It was like a big glass building of some sort. And there were a lot of people that were for it and a lot of people against it.

And so, you know, I don't think that necessarily reflects the current board. But most of the elements in that building were reflective of what the needs are. And the boxes that are the building remain.

But for

us For the spaces that were outlined in those Yep.

Yeah. The

process to get there to that space in that new building and the desire for a single building and all and all that was very thoroughly covered, very in-depth studies done for everything from location to the layout of the building and the, you know, the the type of space we needed and the amount of people we're gonna go through. All of that was considered in that study. So I think if we get to talking about the possibility of relocating or things like that, we we definitely need to take a deeper look at that study and not waste all that effort that was put into that. Right. There's lots of useful information.

It it was you know, we talked about the town and who need you know, where it had to be in town to to be the best benefit to the local population, especially businesses. All that went into that study and

was very, very

thorough. Mhmm. We we had an accurate determination of the space that was needed at least at that particular year Mhmm. Looking toward the future from that particular year. Mhmm. So I I think rather than hashing through all that right now

Yeah. Right.

That would be like a separate meeting where you start with that.

But essentially, you're saying all those LEGO pieces that were included in that study would be desirable, you know, in terms of the exhibit galleries, the admin space, the archive space, the lobby entry, the makerspace classroom, you know, etcetera, retail, like all those little Lego pieces that were there. Hopefully, would be part of whatever Yes. You know, facility would be

there. May I?

Go ahead.

Just a little history. I came on the heritage board in 1992. I'd been volunteering with the museum prior to that, prior to the building of the Commons area. Correct? And our collection, your collection, was stored everywhere in this town. It was in warehouses. It was at the airport. It was in closets at the airport.

It was in the

the space where your office is now. We moved all that once we got the annex. But that was in in 1992.

We we

had transitioned from the during that period from the heritage board to what we are now, the existing DMHA. And at that time, a space needs as assessed was done by Donna. Can't remember. And that space needs was typically designed or specially designed for a single building at that time. Right?

And that's still available somewhere in our yep. Wherever you find your data. And that layout and those space needs have not changed that much Mhmm. But still have changed. And we definitely do need a single space for it to protect the artifacts, to protect these, to expand, to

Be operationally efficient. To generate

more, you know, income for the community. And that's about it for me. Single space requires It's fewer been a long ongoing process.

It fewer people to operate, basically. Because right now, you don't have a choice. You've to have one over there to manage people coming in there and one over at the other museum to manage

the Don't be getting rid of my staff, Gary.

Wouldn't have been better use.

But so so then, I mean, in terms of this conversation, you know, you guys here in the agenda statement, you basically put forth, like, three kind of big ideas, which were construction of a new museum facility, renovation and expansion of the existing museums, or potential purchase and redevelopment of the Royal Center for museum use. So to me, that kinda seems like those are kind of the menu options for the owners right

now to really be considering,

like the big picture, like, you know, because for any of those things to happen, you know, there's probably gonna be monies expended to have a feasibility study on one of those options. So, like, in terms of the nuts and bolts, like, that's where I see council say, okay. We'll we'll spend a 100 k on this feasibility study on one of these options. So do you guys wanna speak to those three things, kind of the the pros and cons of those three scenarios, you you know, just as it stands now?

I think Dan and Martha were they're gonna You know, you've been quiet. Let's see.

The the the Royal Center

thing, interchangeable. It's a maybe an existing space that's available. I don't know if the center is anymore, but it could be maybe Wells Fargo building. It could be anything that we might

be seeing that Rehabbing a space.

Could be a third option.

Yeah. I

mean, my my big idea was possibly, you know, finding a new home for the library and just taking over the library as a museum.

But that wasn't the most popular.

But just reimagining existing facilities somewhere.

Well, you're really good at that. And in all those years that I've been on the board and involved with the museum, all those options have been looked at, including Annie's, which is now Prospector. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you know, I've got

some concern. I'm sure what a lot of people do with Main Street and the future of Main Street. It's not looking

Well, that's in the comp plan. To go

to it.

And that would be something if we did something on Eagan. That would and we are an anchor. That would really make us an anchor. And I might put Nate on the spot for a minute. And because we've done some of this work already. So he and, you know, I like I said, I don't wanna necessarily get into the weeds because he has information that hasn't necessarily been shared with the board. But some of this stuff has already

Are you just talking about general

information of the Royal Center? Or what I mean, that that

I think to to to Gary, if I could jump in. Gary's opening comment was, you know, sounds to me like the museum and the council won't be on the same page. And so I guess to Austen's point is there's three ish menu options. And and if if council wants the museum to explore one, two, or three, it it might be worthwhile to just say, hey, let's let's look at these two or we like this one. Let's go down that path for a while. I I think it gives direction and it gives some focus on getting to an outcome that everybody's at least targeting. Mhmm. So it's not some surprise where you guys think, well, I really like this, but the museum really likes something else and they come present it. And you're like, no. No. That's not what I was expecting. Sure.

Yeah. And Go ahead, Gary.

Well, I should say I think from a at this point in the stage of the game, what would be most advantageous for us I mean, we have your priority list here. Okay? Mhmm. The city has a lot of different things that it's gonna meet, and we just we're gonna be one of those that has to be dealt with. And so what we need mostly at a starting point anyway is some idea of where might we get put in that list of things that get to be done and what are the possibilities.

And if we can get an idea of what might be possible in the future for the city as a whole and the museum in particular, then, then we can start looking at, okay, where do we what do we gotta do to fit into that space? And, but to start talking real early about all this and then throwing things out, then we're kinda back to where we were before. We think of a bunch of things and throw them at you and you see if you can fund them or not. I'd rather do it the other way around is you think if you can kinda give us an idea of what the the likely future funding for the city is. And then how can we fit into that?

And what's the likelihood of us getting enough money to make significant changes in our in our infrastructure and so on? So kinda especially with only an hour to go here, just a high level kind of idea of that is what we really need from you guys.

Yeah. So, I mean, I think the biggest sorry. I appreciate that perspective because, you know, in terms of the nuts and bolts, you know, 2026 is already taken care of. That ship is sale.

Right? Yeah.

So now we're all at the point where council's gonna be rolling into our next strategic planning. And, you know, now this meeting's gonna inform that. Right? This is gonna be in our our mind. But we're we're actually at a really big crossroads for the city because we just got a big increase in the tax evaluation, like the the tax money. So we're basically gonna be seeing at least 15,000,000 more dollars per year from oil and gas revenue, which is a big jump over our current was it $42,000,000

from oil and gas? Yeah.

So 33% jump. So we have a big

chunk of

money as counsel that we have to decide what we're gonna be doing that now and forever.

So it's a it's a

pivotal

time for counsel to be coming in. You you like, you hit on the net. You're you're part of a larger picture of, like, figuring out where you're gonna fit in. So in terms of having final answers, we probably won't have final answers till

Oh, we won't

have final answers after the meeting and all that. But at the same time, this has been an issue that has been going on for a while, it's not going go away. I guess the question I had too was kind of what Martha said. Like, in terms of your needs, like, when is it, like, needed for this space? Like, you're already, you know, getting stuff by fire marshals. Like, from like, if you needed a building done, like, what would that ideally look like for the museum starting from today?

I think real. Well, there's realistically and then there's ideally. Right? So they could meet at three to five years. It would be a tight next two years. Yep. But Okay. Ahead, Joe.

Does the Royal Center facility, does that fit the needs that, you know, would you be able to house everything Or in that would it need additional expansion?

I honestly don't know. I have no idea how large. I've never seen plans

of the Royal

Center just or about space. That's a very old building with an ancient old HVAC system, an ancient old electrical system. You know, it would require some structural improvements and some major changes. And when you take a building and do that, Nate can speak to this, is sometimes the cost can almost exceed a new building. Right.

Before we choose that.

Right. And I guess what

I would Let's be careful here. Getting a bunch of people. Let Jim talk.

One second.

We're getting a lot of opinions right now on the table without the facts. And I think Nate really, in fact, has started to look at this. And I do think that it that is a very viable option addressing some of these issues. It's an old building, so it would need improvements. There's no doubt.

There's the potential then of also creating a new revenue strike, stream using that building with apartments upstairs. You know, there's a lot of what if and maybe. And we don't wanna get down in the weeds on this, but here's something to think about. We just spent, I don't know, what is it, 2 and a half, $3,000,000 in basically HVAC for the existing building. We're going to be facing to have to do that with the annex.

And that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. And so we could find ourselves three years down the road, pump $3,000,000 into that for HVAC to protect basically the collection. And gee whiz, we're gonna move. So, there's a bunch of pieces here that need to be looked at. And the challenge is twofold. One, let this maid in the city work with us around it. The other is how much you this is an awful phrase, but how much are you willing to give us? And I mean, that's just kind of cold.

But I mean, it's

the reality.

So I mean, so one way to think about this too, I think, is, you know, like getting back to the menu. We have three menu options. And like one way I think about it is like it's kinda easy to maybe remove one as opposed as opposed to choosing one right now for us to consider. And the one that jumps out to me to like remove from the table moving forward is the construction of a new museum facility. The reason for that is we already have plans for a new museum facility.

Whether or not this board likes it or not, we do have that to reference in the space. But the things that jumped out to me of two avenues to start looking at and for council to consider, trying to put some monies towards or maybe even administration putting some effort towards is the renovation and expansion of the existing museum. If that's really economically viable. Or is it in line with the master plan? Is it in line with our maintenance and expanding tourism goals?

Or so keeping that one on the table. And then also having that potential purchase and redevelopment of the Royal Center or some other building in town that might make sense. Those two avenues seem to me like a direction I would be comfortable exploring so that we can at least start going in that

direction

and have that in mind as we start strategic planning? What does council think about at least that direction?

I would agree with that because just looking at this, say, from a project perspective, first look at renovating your existing facility. Right? Then look at the potential purchase or redevelopment of another center. Your last option would be a new capital facility.

Jimmy Okay. Or Olivia, do you what do you think about kind of focusing in on those two options and keeping the new one off

the table for now? Yeah.

I'm I'm open minded to that. Also, I would be interested in getting a copy of the full study that they had done on the facility needs. If if I could get the full copy and review it, that would help me to make a more informed decision, down the road a little ways.

Is that the one that Rich was referencing? Right? No.

No. No. Was Okay. One from '19? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

We can probably get that original one too.

Sure. Dig up them out of their case.

Think of a lot of that.

Do all that what space do we need? What types you know, what's gonna be the most cost effective manner method to get what we needed for space and everything else? And that was the result of that study was a new building, surprisingly.

That was the first or top option out of that study?

It was the top option. And we actually went towards starting to try to finance. We were looking for grants. And the city had promised money to a certain Okay. 50% of it. We were not. So we went a long ways with that study and with that option. And and it was a huge effort put into getting the information together and coming up with that. So I think the starting point is when you really want to get down to what's possible and what the costs are going to be, a thorough look at that study.

So we we would use that as a filter for looking at those two options. So whatever we if we move forward, that that would help inform those two things whether or not they made sense or not.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think you have a copy of that. I think it's part of that on some pages.

That that wasn't no. That

that's the master

The master intermittent plan wasn't about those kinds of nuts and bolts.

The only

thing we got was a slideshow of the new facility.

So what you're likely to get is is the attachment prior to that, The VHMA new museum areas, those square footages are the result of those interviews and

Okay. It's it's all those tables showing all the different space types. Yeah.

And then that then leads to the concept that's attached as well. So the new museum concepts, those correlate to those areas. I'll have to look back. I don't know if there there may be a written report on some of that process, but the deliverables for those two things.

We might have some of that information. There's some other studies that we included in that. One was a survey of the townsfolk as to what they preferred, what they wanted. And and that's where we we kinda got the feeling it was all maybe maybe about fifty fifty as far as the the glass building. What there's some benefits to that as far as lighting and and electric cost in the future and so on. But the most disliked comments we got were in the middle of town, a big glass building didn't fit the reality structure.

Well, we only have six we only have six minutes left. I think, you know, count it seems like there's council support to move ahead on some kind of, you know, just having a single space, like Keith said, you know, and and what, you know, April said, know, it's same building, all staff in the same place, collections in the same building, you know, having those things that were, you know, those spaces that were outlined in those studies. And then whether or not, you know, square footage, we'll see. But expansion, one building, all staff, I think council's on board with that. And then we're on board with looking at either rehab of the existing or maybe a rehab of another building for now.

And that's what we'll try to move forward with. Does that give us things to work on? If you guys are good

at home.

It gives us a direction. It gives us some idea of where we need to be headed so that we can start the process.

So could we have another work after you folks have your strategic meeting? And hopefully, we get on the table. You talk about it. Can we have another work session after that? And that will enable us to put together our, let's call it, plan of work for the year and for the next few years looking at it. And from that work plan, it'll build budgets.

And

so if we could get a work session that comes out of where you all nodded and said, yeah, we got $26,000,000 we're willing to give you. What? I'm being facetious, obviously. And so Slip that in.

Yeah. Couldn't tell, Jim. But yeah. I think, yeah, I think that's totally reasonable, and that makes sense because after we, you know, circle our wagons, we get back with you.

Yeah. This is part of our strategic planning process. And, hopefully, it will be part of your ongoing plan. So it's not just one meeting a year or just one meeting.

Thank you so much.

Yeah. Thank you, everybody.

Thank you all.