City Council - workshop

Thank you. And thank you to our library directors for all the work you guys do. I appreciate you all being here. and joining our director for the update. It's really helpful and nice to see you all. I was wondering, I guess I had one question, and then just some comments, is I'm wondering why the air handler wasn't handled in the big main library update. You can speak to that.

And that all happened, I think, mostly before I was on council. So it was a genuine, like, how did that happen? Because I wasn't here right now. And I think I got to be here for the grand opening, right? I got to be here for the fun stuff. But not where those decisions were made and handled. So I was just curious.

Okay, let's get to know I actually really appreciate I appreciate the whole update But really having that examples of our deferred maintenance. I think is really critical It's gross to have to share some a bucket of nasty water for people to sort of see that we are Libraries are in a state, but I think it's also really impactful and helpful that y'all do that. I It's always nice to have a compliment sandwich, but it is important to know where we're at. I think of it a lot from the mind frame of not just the public going there, but all the workers who are there working, the library staff who's

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for all of this information. There's so many things I look forward to hearing more, learning more in the future. I want to focus a little bit on slides 15 and 16, the buildings. First of all, the graphics are awesome to the individuals. And really appreciate knowing the timeline of all of those buildings. And, you know, what a joy to have historic buildings in this city. And I know they are beautiful and they cost a lot of money. And we have a lot of pride in them, so we want to keep them going. Absolutely. appreciate those timelines. I have a couple comments. I

So maybe we can pull you in when we have our legislative agenda meeting. I don't know what that is, but just thinking out loud. And I think that somebody will correct me if I'm wrong. We just got a big grant for the number one carbon emitter. So we're ready to fund the next one.

Yeah, I think some of those leveraging the different departments we have with the library I think is the way we get some of these things done anyway. And then also just a note for our government Advocacy team and our federal agenda on those digital costs and I would be really curious. I mean the offline We don't talk about it now But just what the efforts are at a national level to figure out how we bring those down because as you said This is not just a Tacoma problem and it's not a year. That's not sustainable Yeah, so figuring out how we can add that into our federal agenda as well as you k

And then the last thing, this is definitely a question for you, Allison, is when are we talking about the facilities plan overall? We did all that work and that study two years ago, and then are we getting, is that coming back to us at some point? Because this is a piece of that, but I feel like a very substantial piece of it.

Great. Well, thank you so much for all the information and all the things that you're doing. I always learn more and it makes me excited to get more involved.

Council Member Hines. Thank you, Mayor Ibsen. It's great to see the trustees here today. It takes me back to a few years ago when I was on the board myself. I just wanted to say a couple, I'll take a couple comments and have questions. I'm really excited about all the partnerships you all have established. I think that was something when I was on the board of trustees years ago, we had talked about, you know, what does it look, you know, We have these spaces. People want to use the spaces. They want access to low-cost or free spaces. And how are we being a good community partner on that beyond

I mean, I don't know if you've done this, but a broader question as we start talking to the public about how important the library is is not just what you all do, but how much you're able to leverage the community. Because I think if you could probably do some math on how much is the Tree Foundation, Right 253, the Tool Library, and Remakery saving in rent costs, right? Because they're not paying you the full what they pay for a commercial space. Sure. So there's those benefits. There's the benefits you're providing to the, social work program. So that might be something to be thinking about t

No, I think it's a really good example and definitely a place of growth since when I was on the board till now that your trustees and you all have done a wonderful job with. Great to see the collection and the amount of circulation going up. Hoopla was always an issue, even when I was on the board where we have, it was Overdrive, now it's Libby. We had where we bought a certain number of materials that then had to be rotated through. And then you had overdrive, which was a pay per subscription. And I was always concerned about that taking off, right? Because we had no control over how much tha

I mean, you kind of take a guess, but if... While a valuable service to the public, I do see that was a real challenge and something we think about investing in kind of liberty and digital resources.

Something you didn't talk about, but I know this is a recent policy change, at least since I left the trustees board, was we got rid of late fees and fines for books. We sure did. Do you want to talk a little bit about, Are people still returning their materials? Do we see a big loss? I mean, how has that worked out for us?

I have some overdue books in my house right now that I need to get back to the library. So I do understand that part.

It's not quite as valuable as it was in 1975. That's right. No, I mean, I think that probably is another piece of the overall budgeting conversation we can't neglect here, which there used to be a revenue stream that was from fees and fines. While it was small, it was there. And now that is not there anymore. So I mean, it's another way we're it's impacting kind of your overall budget.

Two last questions, and I'll stop dragging this on, though I'm always happy to talk about libraries. The first question for me was just around something probably more fun that's not on the list. What was the top circulated book in the library this last year?

I'd like a written response to the top 10 books that were issued.

That's a joke. You don't have to do that in writing. But I was curious to see. I will email you and let you know. Just what was the number one book. I see that.

Well, you did make a comment about my fixation on literacy. And so it continues to be something that I'm fired up about. I just think the last thing, the last question, probably a more serious note, is I mean, look at your facilities. And this is something that's been ongoing for decades, that we've had a lot of facility needs for the library. And you all are doing the best you can with what you've got. And I've always been deeply impressed with the staff and what people are able to accomplish. I think as we're looking forward to the kind of future potential funding opportunities, I would be r

Which was more than they'd ever asked for in their history. Again, not doing really amazing things for the library. It's about maintaining services, some expanses, some facilities. So I mean, again, the need is so great. But I mean, hopefully those are some of the conversations we're having about how we can best kind of think about setting up a library for the future. Absolutely. And what it looks like, because it has such value here in our community. And also very much thinking about how there are a lot of organizations in our city that are looking at expanding facilities, expanding options,

But I guess I get to have that. That's where I'm thinking about it. But thank you. Thank you for inviting me to dream of abundance. Well, we should all dream of abundance. But I think those are all my questions, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Hines. Council Member Palmer.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you all for being here. I always love a visit from our library family. All the questions I had have already been answered, so I just want to say thank you for being here and just share my support of looking at a levy because I think, just as you said, there's a lot of things that are going on that are going to be more costly if we keep putting them off, and then some things like whether it's a bookmobile or something else that We just know what the expanding needs and access issues in the community that something like a levy is just really going to put us in a better po

Thank you. And thanks for all your work, Jacques and team, on this. While I think the incorporation of our new umbrella, our 2035 goals, is really important and probably, I think, the most important thing that needed to be updated in the CCR form and the CAM form, I have some questions about some of these other pieces, and particularly, I think, around what the staff impact is going to be. I guess logistically I'll look at recommendations 9 and 10. I'm not seeing, and I only have the CCR in front of me that was printed for today about the CIC program, but I'm not sure I understand how the reco

The one I have in front of me seems to be a good example, but there are bad examples. And I have seen other templates come through that are like an old template or something weird or wrong. So maybe this will help us streamline that.

Heard. OK. And then the other question I have, I think, where my concerns are around how this is going to impact staff is the alternative section. Currently, we've got this little diagram box where staff will plug in different options. We'll talk about them, and we'll get to a final draft version. I am a little concerned that if they have to go down the rabbit hole of listing every alternative recommendation, that is a whole separate project than the project that I've been working on. Particularly, I have in mind my really complicated community workforce agreements document that we've been wor

Okay. Also, now that I'm looking at this one, I think this one's different than what we normally have. We normally have like action, no action, something else. So this one even is probably a bad example for me to be looking at for this conversation. But that's helpful. And then I guess my other sort of question is, sounds silly, but enforcement, is that going to be ultimately what? gets the mayor's office to sign on or not on traditionally this submitted for council by consideration just the mayor signs on to everything so is this going to be a whether or not all of these parameters are met is

Great, that's helpful, just to know where folks are coming from. And then the last question I had is, we've got this cool example that doesn't actually have the dropdowns on it. No critique there of that. That's the static nature of printing out a thing. I'm curious, is this a PDF that is going to be fill-outable? Is this an online form? What am I looking at here?

And then will this online form spit out a Word document?

So therein, I think, lies my concern and problem. I can't edit a PDF readily. I mean, I think I can technically on my city computer, because I have Adobe. But a way that I typically work on these with my staff is they will send me a Word version of this document, and we can write comments, and we can edit in the document. So this online form to me poses a serious barrier to doing that. I also do it a lot on my phone because I'm often in transit. I don't always have my city laptop out. So having to pull that out to go and try to edit a PDF sounds annoying, for lack of a better word, onerous. An

And also on the staff side, I don't want them to have to fill out a form every time I make one edit. That seems really counterproductive also.

Thank you for all those really thoughtful edits, Councilmember Diaz. Because I've been involved in this, I feel good about it. I feel like we're headed in the right direction. I feel like so many of these things are just things that maybe we're naturally doing anyway, so they feel easy. the one thing I was just gonna add was And and I think I will circle back with my staff on this because I know you did interviews with all the staff It's just understanding if this feels good to them because as I remember you said they're the ones that fill it out But I do feel like it's getting at the right th

Thank you. Council Member Hines. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, Jacques. I thought a great teaching moment of walking through it with all of us. That was great. A concept attainment lesson is what we would probably call it way back in the day. I thought just two things I would recommend. I think this is good. Lining up with 2035 makes a lot of sense. I have similar questions to what customer ideas brought up, which is usually I get a Word document. I edit on the Word document, put comments on there. I could do the same thing on a PDF, but then I just don't know if that captures. I think

Thank you, Mayor. Just wondering, and you might have said it, but I got a little distracted when we were making sure we had the right coffee. But as far as this, what is our... What is our commitment to this? Is this just like kind of a values statement of like go team go in a sense? Or is it like we're committing dollars and staff or something else to that?

Thank you, Mayor, and excited about the work that is represented in here and happy to sign on. I think one of the things that I have understood in the process of this, and this is sort of to address Council Member Scott's comments, is that this is not taking any steps backwards on any of our goals because a lot of the pieces in here we already had, but is reinforcing them, saying we're going to continue to do that, and making sure that we are not investing in something that's going to cost us a lot of money in terms of tracking something new, but we're committing to being in community and conv

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Thank you for that. That helps a bit. Are we... So it says requested for September 15th. That's when we're going to be voting on this. Is there, like... I'm going to take a closer look at this, but is there any other information that you guys can all send that just kind of helps me get to the point of understanding that you all have

Can I just interrupt for a second? We all know you, but the public doesn't. Will you introduce yourself?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And so, I mean, one good thing, it seems like in some cases we're exceeding the goals that were established already. It looks like we're already exceeding some of these, correct? And so I guess my question would be, by signing on to this, will we be reporting across three organizations, the percentages, will the numbers be pushed together, or will we still be disaggregated? Because I, so I come out of an education background, right, where when you take all the numbers of an entire school, and you push them together, you can sometimes lose sight of maybe subsets of the data. So I mean, it's going to be aggregated and disaggregated at the same time?

So you will be able to see across the three organizations how they're doing, but then we'll also see how Tacoma, Parks, and School District are doing separately from each other? Correct. All right, great.