Arts Commission - Regular Meeting

Liaison Bridget would you please do roll call Chair West Present Vice Chair Steiner Here Commissioner Wright Here Commissioner Tabak Bank Here Commissioner Wagner I'll rise

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you very much. How's the agenda look to everybody? Anything? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Is that okay?

Thank you all right we welcome our city manager Ben Harvey so nice to see you sir Thank You chair thank you for having me just wanted to give a very brief update I don't know if it's so much an update it's more just a acknowledgement some of the things that we've been doing thank you for your your interest and your contributions The start of the meeting informally we were talking about the quarterly newsletter that we send out and you know some may say well you know there it is the the Ojai Outlook who cares well I get that but as the chair said it's all about communication and we are rotating through our commissions and this past edition featured Chair West and his comments on what the commission is doing and why it's important to the residents and why it matters and we thank you for that we think it's super important. Commissioner Steiner pointed out that we might need to consider acknowledging images of artwork that we're using in a publication that are not acknowledged or we that we have permission for and I totally agree with that and so we're going to print in our next edition work with the Commissioner on how that should read and acknowledgment of who that was created by and if and so forth so thank you for that What do I want to say about the commissions? I think this is a unique commission in our community. Nobody else has the type of immediate and tangible impact that you guys have. You're able to change people's lives quite literally and their work and their impact through the grants and the education that you do. It's a really important thing. It's very unique. I think as you pointed out in your article, Chair, that pound for pound, there's no other city like this that has this type of contribution in the community. So that's cool, that's unique. I've worked in six different cities. I've never seen anything like this. So pretty cool. And you'll apologize. It's hot outside and I'm still sweating from my run. It's gonna happen for a while. Housekeeping type matters. For all commissions, we're really trying to be super annoying, and I know we do a good job of this. We're trying to steer everybody to using the city email addresses. And we're not trying to do that to be annoying. We're trying to do that mostly to save you some super annoyance for public records requests that may come in. Because if you're using your personal email address, then we have to dive into your personal account and ferret out emails that may be city related. So if you could, if you're not already, I've asked Bridget to really just kind of be strict and just start communicating to you solely through your email address. The other thing I like about it is when the public is communicating to you, believe it or not, we do have some people that say like, hey, I'm sending a message to this commissioner and this is like some weird at AOL.com address, is this legit? Well yes it is legit but they also have a city account and we're trying to move in that direction. Thank you for adhering to our boards and commission handbook that makes things easy. Thank you for working so well with Bridget. I get a download of every meeting and I was supposed to be here last month but unfortunately I know we couldn't meet. So but she keeps me very well informed and she takes us very seriously and thank you for treating her so well. I appreciate that. That's really just a nice great thing. I don't really have a whole lot else I just am glad to be here and I'm glad for all your contributions and I'm happy for any questions but I just mostly wanted to show my face I've not been around and I'm sorry for that I'm trying to be more diligent and making it around more frequently. That's all. Freely go ahead if you have something.

I want to thank you for being here, Ben, and say that I've been trying to personally kind of make a point in the community and my communications in my life that, you know, working for participating in a democratic government by the people is a noble thing, but also recognizing the real importance of the professionals of government who have made a career of it and lives depend on the support of that. So it's an interesting interplay between the volunteers that are elected and the people that are professionals, the staff that are actually doing the job. And we will try, we'll continue to try our best to thank you guys every time that we.

I do have two more things I just remembered, Chair, if I could, if that's okay.

Please.

One other annoying thing, or you might not find it annoying, I think it's important. This is an advisory body to the city council. You guys make all types of recommendations. I'll note that tonight you're making recommendations to change ever so slightly called improve the grant application process I would like for when you're making these type of recommendations if they're something that you know needs to go beyond staff that one or two of you might come to the council meeting and say hey here's what we've done here's why it matters you know here you go we want I think it's better and if you could swallowed that you know inconvenience of coming down on a Tuesday night I've told the mayor that we need to I would like to see commissioners coming before the council saying here's here's what we'd like you to consider it's way more powerful than it coming from Bridget or me you know and it originated here so that's the other thing I wanted to say thank you

Absolutely that's both in our plan and what we yell at each other for not doing and it's talking to our real boss and it's talking to the people because that's that's that's the elected representative so yeah thank you for that reminder

Mr. Chair, if I may? Yes, you may. So Mr. City Manager, thank you for acknowledging, well, thank you for being here and thank you for acknowledging Bridget. We went through, as you know, we rotated through a lot of staff people who didn't give us nearly the assistance and capability that Bridget has. So I think we're all very happy and thank you for that acknowledgement, which we will continue to return to you. and thank you also for the letters you got out to the holders of public art on private property it's great that you are doing that Bridget sort of teed it up for you but you got it out so it had all of the gravitas of the city and and we are staying on those kinds of updates with our public art so thanks for coordinating with us absolutely thank you

Nothing else? Let's move on to public comments if we have any. Thank you.

There is no one online right now and no one in the audience so we can move forward.

We do have some minutes. I missed those. April 16. I got a July 16. That's today right? Is it just a error on the agenda? Hang on a second.

Are the minutes not included in here? No, that's the last. Do we have some? We have no minutes. Not in the printed back? Are they online? Let's just check really quick, Bridget. Let's look. The record exists online, so let's just check that really quickly. We've moved to a new agenda management system and it's been good but every now and then we've noticed that we inadvertently leave something off so this is we're gonna check the posted record just to see what's on there I'm seeing the minutes are reflected on the posted record so they're just not in the printed packet before you so if you want to hit print on those Bridget I'll print them out for you really quick no I'll do it you print and I'll grab them has anybody not had a chance to look at them Perfect, that's fine. I want to give you the comfort that they were posted appropriately. We just don't have them here in the written, but you can certainly approve them at the next meeting. There's no problem with that.

Thank you. Thank you Secretary Corrina for providing them. Did you write them? Yes. That's what I thought. I thank you for your brevity. There's nothing here. All right. We'll defer that. All right. Discussion items. We're going to look at the grant application today, too. And I'd like to turn this over to Commissioner Karina. Commissioner Karina.

Thank you Chair West I hope you've all had a chance to read the recommendation from the city I worked with Bridget on this to address just a few issues to streamline the application process itself and I don't even know if you would notice those changes but there I made some changes for clarity reasons in the application checklist. Oddly, people would get confused about how many copies of this, et cetera. So we've made it very clear here, especially with information regarding fiscal receivers. That's always the biggest challenge. If an arts organization is not a not-for-profit, they can use a fiscal receiver or an artist has to use a fiscal receiver so you'll see the last few bullet points under the application checklist for arts organizations this being reinforced And then again under the individual artists Excuse me are we going to interrupt in all two if we have any questions as we go along Oh sure let me just give you a quick overview of what we changed and then you can then you can give questions And then what you have printed out, the City of Arts grant application, page 10, this is the printout of what it sort of looks like when you're putting in the information to the workable PDF on the website, known as the online application. which people could also use to fill out and then print out when they were submitting hard copies. And so part of this evening's work is to determine that we are no longer going to have hard copy submissions, it's all going to be online. So we can discuss that. And I added a few more requirements throughout this application process that filled some holes that my ad hoc committee and I have seen the last two grant cycles. For instance, I added under supporting documents for organizations, your organization's mission statement. that was not included and then the schedule of organizations annual performances exhibitions workshops in the past three years we added that mostly we would just do this research ourselves or organizations include their calendar and other promotional materials but this will put it all into one place for a better streamlined review and then I also am asking for the resumes of the key persons involved in the project for obvious reasons we don't know these people and of course they're we assume they have expertise but it'll be great to have that amongst their application and then for the individual artist applications I've asked for an artist statement something that we did not require before as well as a resume and exhibition history you know a lot of this stuff is covered in essays and in the proposal but just having these additional opportunities from the upload the information will be great for us to understand what better what their projects are and their credentials and then going ahead I really just tweaked the essay questions a little bit you would have to maybe have the previous ones in front of you to to see the actual difference but on SAD for instance It used to say, what are long and short term impacts on the city of Ojai of your project? Who will benefit from the project? How does this project engage diverse communities? So that is a direct question to one of the elements of the scoring rubric that we've been using. So the scoring rubric implied that we were looking for this, but we didn't have a direct question about it. so there it is and I just condensed one and that's all that and then just some housekeeping like if you want to pick up your check do you want it mailed to you things like that some things that Yes and some very basic formatting like separating the email and website boxes into two different boxes sometimes we would just get the website and no email and then so much for our communications with people so if you have any questions at this juncture let me know I have some other things to add but did you have a question Chair West A couple things

Once you start this can you save and come back?

Yes or no Yes you can yeah until you submit it it's it's open There's a submit button at the end You have to log in There's some engine running behind this that's an application engine?

Yes Are there like required fields like you can't get past if you don't enter them?

I'm not sure of the technicalities of it I know that it could be very much updated in terms of you know a polished There are required fields when you're online you can see them you can't really see them in this printout but you'll see that there's a star an asterisk next to it that must be filled out

The fiscal receiver question I had and this is maybe more of a discussion item but I've been doing grants and I see how strict that can be I know we want to support individual artists and the objective of having fiscal receivers already kind of an accommodation to allow that but I think in the past our fiscal receiver responsibility is pretty much that's who we send the check to and I know sometimes that doesn't even happen too but you know legally and the reason that we use 501 is because there's a lot of vetting that's one of the reasons that's already been done through federal law and that sort of thing that allows them to even reach that point and registration and Department of Justice and everything in California as well but the fiscal receiver is supposed to actually receive the money and actually disperse the money according to some plan and some I'm just I know we're not doing that right now excuse me

To my knowledge that is exactly what we're doing these checks go to the fiscal receiver payable to the fiscal receiver to their address and it is their responsibility to distribute the funds per the agreement

I've seen where sometimes you have to actually get a letter and see a board action from that 501c3 and that sort of thing yeah we're not doing that but I just I know that we have in our long-term plan to one day try to find a way to offer grants directly to artists to individuals Without using a fiscal receiver Yeah we talk about that and it keeps coming up here but I know we need to probably have our guns in a row on actually doing the fiscal receiver type thing on the way there Okay well we can bring that up at a later date So okay so let's just make sure because I can remember in the past when I used would personally before I was on the council and received grants and used a fiscal receiver and I just get a check from the city Right well things are things things are much more streamlined now

And I mean, if we're going to really dive deep into this entire fiscal receiver thing, yes. we can but that I think that that's part of the discussion that I brought up at the beginning of the year which was are we going to separate out funds for individual artists versus nonprofit organizations are we going to fund individual artists at all etc so for now this seems to be working at least for the past two grant cycles that I've overseen where they have noted in the application the fiscal receiver I have all the fiscal receivers tax information and as you know I review all of those and the money goes to them and sometimes that money goes all the way to New York City before it comes back to Ojai so it would be nice to know if we could if we did have some leeway on that like okay they have a fiscal receiver but is that necessary okay I see what you're

I'm just trying not to be picky it's to plan for the future when we can do individual largest thing and before I get to Commissioner Steiner because new commissioners you're going to get questions from people in the community that want to apply for a grant and what I always tell people is wow that's a great idea apply for a grant you know they always say

can the commission do this on there wow that's a great idea no you do it apply for a grant and you can do it too but then you'll get these questions about but i'm not a 501c3 so you just need i think you guys know this stuff but yeah commissioner signer ah so karina i wanted to say i know how much work you do during the year on the grants and to to do that much more work sort of off-grant cycle to get this together is quite impressive and i know that you have rightly been irritated at how clunky and and at times both under inclusive and over inclusive the other application was so um thank you for doing this i do have one thing and that is on the i certify the following because those are you know the sort of things i look at want the lawyers stepping forward right exactly your second bullet I would like it to read, this project will comply with all federal, state, and local government statutes, including prohibiting discrimination. So that way, it's not that they can be a crook, but as long as they don't discriminate.

Yes I love it thank you That's my only that's my only comment and thanks again A couple did Bradley or Carolyn The mural thing I'm sorry let me just the mural thing and what's the idea there

The mural application is here Do we accept mural applications? Yes and again it's all thrown into this one application it's check this box if it's a mural and then you need to You need to first include with them with the mural statute remember that that's the predicate to then going forward I didn't know if that kicked you out of there ideally you know I would love to see on the website I'm applying for an arts grant I'm an individual I just press the individual button and I go through the same with mural same with you know arts organizations but we don't have that so yet so for now this is what we have it's all on one application which makes it confusing for some people when they're applying but for the most part people figure it out On the website version there's a link to the mural application if you're applying for that Right when you check that box it'll Well since I worked on this with Bridget I had two other thoughts that I wanted to add to it that are I want your opinion on one was should we put on this I certified to the following two additional things one that they will complete the required grant summary at the end we we asked them to do this when we send the checks out it's part of the letter there where and they get a copy of the grant summary report that's required but I thought is it worth it do we have the room to just put another bullet point here and just have in the event that you get it you're gonna be required to fill this thing out the other thing is the city of Ohio will be credited in all publicity for grant funded projects and some information here or keep it for when they get the check on exactly how they're going to because that's also a question mark for people is funded in part by a grant from the city of Ojai what's the logo that we use etc so I don't know if it's best to put it here or

I think that's if I could jump in I think that's great and we did have some questions about this this year I recall so I would love it if we had a little stamp or a little seal because we you know we were placed organizations were placing the city seal you know just trying to comply with this and then we get people calling oh is this is this a city well in a way yes but I love the idea that you're talking about you know funded through

the Arts Commission and the City of Ojai something like that that's a great idea and maybe you guys not maybe you guys I'm sure could help us with what that would look like The question I have is why wouldn't we instead of sending the check and saying please fill out the summary why wouldn't we say please fill out the summary and then we'll give you a check

it's a summary this the summary is how the project went and we're always chasing these down and they're sent with the check we also follow up but I was just thinking if we if we had it in their contract they're actually signing it right here that that's a part of the requirement we might have a little bit more

Well I'm gonna jump in here because we did do a little we looked at this this year and we were wondering what if someone what was it didn't spend the money or didn't spend it the right way or didn't report back we were actually calling an audit at that point if I remember liaison Brigitte dug up some I mean there's actually law on this that goes beyond what we ask for. I mean like it's fraud if you don't, and it's not us getting mad at you, it's like in Sacramento or Washington D.C. or something. So there may be some boilerplate I know I've gotten questions from grant recipients toward the end of the year saying oh I was gonna do that but do you think it'd be okay if I do this you know

Perhaps a little more alert Yeah, so I think I think I would Work with Bridget just to to add a line. We also could put that grant summary PDF on the website because by the time they get their checks, it's a hard copy and six, nine months, 12 months later, that grant summary report might be gone.

You could also have a payment plan and hold back a portion. That might be far more complicated than you want to engage in. But if these are organizations with ongoing life, and those are presumably the ones we want to fund anyway, then that is the hammer.

I don't think it's that I think another easy solution if I could jump in is it's not as clean as that but you could just be prohibited from a future grant and just make that very clear

Because I know that we have we have a number of recipients who have received a number you know grants each year for the good work that they do and they're motivated to do that And the majority of them turn in this grant summary which is great I only had to reach out to maybe three of them to remind them It might be a nice reminder for them they can't oh I got a better idea now I'm gonna do this And you agreed to it I don't know how adding the required summary report and directions on how to acknowledge the city in more depth how we've is that something we come we work on then we have to come back we'll bring it back to the next meeting for approval on that

I could jump in like if you want to do that that's fine I mean if you you know I think I'm hearing seeing head nods I mean you could I think if this body wanted to you can Bridget could work on that if you but if you want to bring it back that's fine too okay no we don't want to bring it back right we just I think there's consensus I don't see anybody saying don't be like City Council yeah so

Yeah, that is it for the updates on the application. Something separate also on the application is on the website, we did not have this for the for the online version we did not have this robust checklist spelled out in the way that it was for the hard copy so now that will be that will be there so we should maybe have even fewer questions this grant cycle and I'm gonna miss you on the ad hoc committee

How many applications do we get annually?

Last year we got 26 How many do we grant?

We gave 25 grants That was 25 up from 15 from the year before and last year was over $400,000 in requests for money

And it was arranged, yeah.

But was 26 a total number? I mean, there were some that fell off because they didn't even meet the requirements.

Right.

We granted 26 there I might have eliminated a couple We only eliminated the Mandala because it was they're getting paid by the city now the the city put it in the budget last year to pay them to do it so we decided that we weren't gonna give them any funds because they're getting paid by the city They were being serviced elsewhere And there were two others that didn't complete the application process properly So we expect, do we have an update on the budget?

The grants budget yet?

I think we're good I'm sorry, I hope we're good Is that vague enough for you?

So let me know anything else you guys see on this if you have a chance to look at it more in depth in the next next month Did the city manager say we could sort of approve this?

So the wording how to acknowledge the city we didn't you didn't have to bring it back we can just make that decision But we had some other stuff too

Correct that was the accept all revisions of the arts grant online application second is to approve that it's going to be only an online arts grant application and now the third one and I don't know if these are separate votes and the third one is to finally clarify whether or not we want to place limits on whether awardees can receive grants two or three consecutive years.

Right.

It's my recommendation that we break these out because they're very, very different kinds of questions.

So anybody want to make a motion to accept the revisions to the arts grants with those two additions? And approve the online arts grant application.

I move that we accept all revisions to the arts grant online application, application instructions, and sample fiscal agent letter.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

All opposed? Thank you. What else you got? Okay. Second motion is.

So the third one.

Second one. online but the other one is whether it would be online only or whether online would also be print Shall we discuss that?

Let's get a second on that. What's the motion?

I don't think it's been moved. We'll have a discussion. The motion is to only accept grant applications via online submission.

Second? I won't second it. Discussion. There we go. No discussion. No discussion. I have a discussion. No, we can't discuss.

Make sure your microphone's on, Mr. Chabot. It's gone.

Discussion.

So I think that means that it will be print and online. Brad, is your microphone on? That it will remain print and online.

It'll be as it is now.

Yeah, which is print and online.

Are you going to tell us how many we got by hand this year?

We actually got more online than we did by hand. I think we had.

But it wasn't 99%.

But even if we got one print application, call me old fashioned but there are people who prefer to do things by paper and so I think it's not our place to limit those potential applicants.

I think it's important to point out that there needs to be some clarification here the application is online whether you you are actually submitting it online by pressing submit or printing it out what you just create online and bringing it into City Hall correct we are asking people to not for the meeting there was a motion made by Commissioner Wright to go online only and a second by there was no second I thought you second it it's a failed motion

Okay I will make a motion. I move that we allow applications to be submitted both online and handwritten. Is there a second?

I second.

Discussion?

Okay discussion. Now as I was saying the The application is online. The application is only available online. The only way to fill out the application is on a computer. We're not going to accept handwritten filled in boxes. Absolutely not.

Why not?

For the sake of ease of reviewing and reading, I'm not going to decipher people's handwriting on a grants application. These essays are 400 words each, especially typing. You can keep count of your word count. There's a box there that cuts you off if your essay is getting too long. want you to know maybe you didn't have a chance to look at this but if you are submitting your actual application which is your all these essay questions you can still submit hardcopy supporting documents in person to City Hall so then why not when you finish your application print out the application and also submit it along with your hardcopy documents you know they will

So then why not allow, as Brad's motion suggests, that it be both print and online?

How many do you actually get that are handwritten?

When you say handwritten, are you literally talking about?

Somebody fills in the blanks with a pen.

None. It's not accepted.

Oh, then what are we talking about? I thought we, well, wait. But then you print it out. Yeah. And you bring the number and you attach it. Oh, you're talking about it being submitted online versus walking it into City Hall and giving it to some, well. I don't see what the problem is with somebody walking it into City Hall.

The problem is all of that has to be scanned now, uploaded, distributed. It's more time for the staff. It's not the same formatting. So people who are reviewing these grants, you will be in September. It's not in the same format. It's much more streamlined to ask everybody to do it one way.

I now understand why I get it And has that proven to be a problem like Carolyn when you were on the ad hoc committee everything was uniform or it was difficult Everything for the most part was uniform but there was some that were not uniform and was that difficult for the ad hoc committee because I don't remember that it was difficult for us the commissioners and looking at it but Right because it's all been

all been prepared, correlated by me, copied by me. I'm making 400 pages of copies at the business center to facilitate this unnecessary procedure. If somebody... Now it makes sense, yeah. It makes sense.

It makes sense I withdraw my motion we'll make a new motion the new motion is that all submissions will be online Discussion I'm gonna discuss

First I'm going to ask just sort of poll you guys like do you have a sense that there's some old handwriting important artists that's we're gonna leave in the dust I think anybody who has a problem is going to call or email us and say I don't have a computer is there any way I can apply for this grant and you can say you're gonna go to the library and access it or etc It says right here in the instructions if you prefer to deliver your supporting documents because I do think that a hurdle for somebody who is computer challenged would be exactly that uploading PDFs uploading JPEGs things like that condensing files like that's You're saying they're still allowed to do that

Just the application part and the answers to the questions are online. Okay. All right.

I would just like to add that there now are some programs for application management and I just participated in a review process for for proposals via one of these programs. And also, not only do you evaluate the proposal, but you can also rank them according to the metrics that are established. And it's really quite effective. So something to consider in the future.

Cool any more discussion on that?

Just to let you know the program that we use for our application process is used across citywide it's not just in the Arts Commission Is that what I see at the bottom here?

Cognito forms Cognito forms yeah In this day and age are you being serious that we should be able to you know think that people cannot submit an application online

I'm telling you, I print out stuff I work on and I write on it and then I scan it to my secretary. So what I am saying is yes, there are lots of people who don't do stuff online. I am one. But don't worry, I'm not applying for a grant.

Do you want to take a vote? Let's roll call this one.

Maybe we should make another motion. I think we can vote on this one.

I think you have your votes.

If we wanted to add if you prefer right here in the application instructions or if you I don't know what the word would be are computer challenged or no access please contact City Hall They can fill it out by hand and could they then go to the Business Center and have it scanned and then that would work no they need to do the application The application is only available whether they were filling it out by hand or which I have not seen, it's only available on the website. So you would have to print it out. And that application looks completely different than the online application when it's printed out. So we have reviewing the 25 grants, some applications looking one way and another application looking the other way. It'll be more streamlined for everybody, less work, time and money if it's online. Are we ready for a vote?

All in favor? Aye. Motion passes. Passes unanimously.

Thank you for bringing us into the 1990s The third recommendation from Ben Harvey and Bridget Mora to our Honorable Arts Commission is to vote to determine whether to limit grant awards to two or three consecutive years so

Are those choices or is that like a hyphen?

The reason it's two or three consecutive years is that it's been a question mark whether or not it was two or three consecutive years. When I came in, I was told that grant recipients could not receive grants more than three years consecutively. And then it was, or is it two? And then trying to actually find the rules in the handbook or any other follow-up produced nothing. So there's currently no limit.

Or it's vague is what you're saying.

It's vague.

I think the community understands that it's either two years or three years, but it's vague.

Do we have a motion? I think we're having a discussion on this if we haven't.

Shall I make a motion? Yes, please. I make a motion that we limit grant awards to three consecutive years.

I second on that.

Can I tell you why I won't second it? I think it is such an important matter of public policy that we want to hear from our constituents, from our present, our future, our past grantees and see what they think. communicate this it should be an article that's widely distributed and let people come in and tell us what they think do they want to be limited There's no second do you want to make another motion then I move that we do that we solicit the opinions that that we solicit the input and advice from the community as to whether or not there should be a limit on grant applications or a limit on what are we saying consecutive yeah consecutive year applications may i ask you to consider a slight adjustment to that please change the motion to i move there's no limit no no I would would not no I would never go there I think again that we what we want input because maybe there should be a limit isn't this been posted and any input that anybody wanted to give us they had the opportunity to come We don't have a communications chair this hasn't been widely distributed it's not like everybody is paying attention I think we need an article about this question in the Ojai Valley News I think we need to talk to grantees I think we should it is of such major importance Okay just to clean this up let's make it

No but I want to clean it up here so I'll make a motion that there is no limit to applicants is there a second on that and then we could discuss it What happened to my motion? There was no second We didn't get a second Did you second in mine? I did So we have a discussion on that There is no limit to the number of years you can apply Here's my discussion. We already, our town has some of our beloved

That's all right. It's a public meeting.

Our town has this beautiful spectrum of artists from organizations that have been around for 75 years all the way to budding artists that just moved up here in the fire. Furthermore, we're now using the asset that we have of volunteer Ad Hoc Committee members to review this thing and I would hate to kind of put limitations on that you know there may be beloved organizations that deserve support and they continue to prove themselves and that are just stellar in this community and i would hate to turn them off just because we because the summit decision was made tonight and and furthermore there may be a reason to cut someone off after one year or something like that and i would trust our processes to kind of make that decision rather than us kind of unilaterally after Roosevelt gets elected four times to put term limits on the president. So that's just sort of my statement and the way I feel about it.

I agree with you entirely, but for your characterization of American history. What did I do? No, I'm kidding. It was Lincoln. I agree. FDR. I agree. I don't think we should have limits.

I think one consideration is if we are receiving so many applications that we're having to turn down a lot of organizations. And if that's the case, that would be a reason to establish limits to give more people the opportunity.

But then we could always come back and re-examine the question and institute limits.

I would trust the ad hoc committee or our own judgment to say, you know what, they've been here a bunch of times, and this year we're going to do it this way, and judge it in the basis of maybe how the economy is working, it may be how the real estate market is working, it may be how other grants are being awarded in our communities. Commissioner Wright.

I've put a lot of thought into this first of all I agree with you in terms of the reason not to limit consecutive years but one of the reasons to limit the consecutive years is to say you are an arts organization in this town you should be, after three years of us funding you, should be at a level where you are getting grants and funding outside of the city. The three years being something that jettisoned them into much bigger grant forum. That's one reason, argument against the consecutive years. But since we are such a small operation, we could, on each grant cycle, consider how many times this person or organization has applied, and I thought we could work it into the scoring rubric that if your new grantee and you've reached all these maybe we give you a plus points so you get boosted to the top of the scoring rubric whereas somebody who's been here for three consecutive years you're not going to get that boost but I think you know, maybe it's five years. You know, I think that unlimited is just very gray, which is why we're here discussing this tonight, to have limitations on consecutive years.

Mr. Stoddard?

Yeah, I mean, your logic Your logic makes sense, and if we were in a robust philanthropic environment, which we know we're not, what we know is that grant funding is shrinking in most places, so the likelihood of people being able to sort of jump from our grant world into a larger universe of granting might not make might not be possible but I do like the idea that you would include that within the scoring I think that makes a great deal of sense and then that way that will give you the judgment I like that

I have a problem with limitations in general a new arts organization may just be hitting its stride in the third year or even in the fourth year and I wouldn't want to say oh I'm sorry we have a three-year limitation just when they're about to do their big thing um i think it should be left up to the discretion of the members of this uh council and and i think that commission rather i think that we we would decide what we want to fund based upon the values that we have and what we think is worthwhile um and what would be best for the community i don't think we should limit ourselves in in any way i don't believe in limitations on our to begin with so I just although I seconded the motion I will vote against it well no I will vote for it yes I've got lost in all the motions anyone else want to weigh in on this

Let's vote on it The motion was just no limit on consecutive years that was it That's all he said no limit on consecutive years he didn't say okay shall I make a motion then We need to take a vote on this one because there was a second

But so Smitty what we the motion isn't no limitation we have to say.

We are not imposing a limitation on applicants returning to apply for the arts grants.

Okay that feels like a motion to me.

whether or not to limit grant awards. So we are voting to not limit grant awards. Correct.

To limit. That is the motion.

There is no limit on the number of consecutive times a grant can be given to an applicant.

Yeah, that's the motion. So can you say it again?

That's what I said. That's what he said. I said what Brad said.

Say it from the top, Smitty.

There is no limitation. On the number of consecutive times an applicant can be awarded a grant

Okay, are we ready now for a vote?

Maybe a dangling participle there, but we'll go on.

I wrote it how he, no limit on number of.

No limit, no, I like limit.

No limit on number of consecutive years an applicant can be awarded a grant.

Let's say can apply for a grant. Isn't that the really? No, it can't be awarded. It's awarded.

Because anybody can apply.

Oh, that's a good point. Okay.

Yeah, it is awards. Okay, yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Are we ready?

Vice Chair Steiner. Yes. Yes. Commissioner Wagner? Yes. Chair West?

Yes.

Commissioner Wright? Yes. Commissioner Tabak?

Yes.

Motion passes.

All right. Do you have anything else for us, Commissioner Wright?

That is it. Thank you so much.

Well, I just wanted to extend my- Probably want to use the restroom.

Okay.

There's a compliment coming. There's a movement for a compliment. Again, we recognize you a lot, but I'm gonna just do it one more time. For the expertise, first of all, We recognize the trust that the city and the council and staff has put to let us be the judges over this $100,000 in grant money and we have to be very prudent and fiscally responsible to continue that trust and under your leadership, We've put in place things that will long outlast you. Not that you're gonna die. But you're putting processes in place rather than exercising authority or personal authority or something like that. And I like that. I recognize that and I hope it's an example for the future. There's organizations that could do this for us. VCCF would gladly take $100,000 and give 92,000 out to the community. But we give every penny out and it's because of the trust that they put in us and I want to thank you for honoring us with your- I just wanted to put underneath, the bullet point underneath number three is if the vote is no,

placing limits that the Commission discuss and decide whether to prioritize new grant applicants. So did you want to discuss that?

Oh we have another one.

It's under number three it says if the vote is no do not put limits.

That sounds like a change to the rubric sort of right?

Well I think that was implied in Karina's explanation that that will yeah be a part of the rubric. I think that's I think we addressed it in a cleaner way.

Just put another row in the rubric So yes we've discussed that we have to prioritize new grant applicants via the rubric And I assume I will be presenting the rubric in September again

as we do every year just so people are aware of it even though they're never aware of it I'm thinking of the mandala and how that eventually worked its way into the actual city budget you know from being just a grant item that had to be like

Reviewed and discussed every year, you know, so if something's important, you know, I think the law will find a way All right Chair West before we leave this topic if I may is it possible that we can have Someone write an article about this. So the public is aware because this is a momentous decision it does

make a difference to many people it will be a good opportunity to take it to the City Council as well like the city manager mentioned I want to know who's going to write it

I'll do it unless someone else wants to Would this be a press release that the city puts out or are we trying to get it like in the newspaper I think it'll be part of our celebration of a new grant season when the new grant season that will definitely be part of the we've opened the grants and I'm kind of taking the communication thing because no one else did okay okay I have a sub stack but yeah okay great So I look forward to that.

Great, thank you.

And to pulling it into a broader sort of celebration rather than a sort of an act of, you know, traffic law or something. All right, we're going to do a little bit of a strategic planning stuff here, and I'm going to just sort of introduce it by saying that NUSA has presented us with a kind of a look back there were some questions when we talked about the strategic planning in our last meeting where we had it which was three months ago and since then we've been going back and looking at the looking at the statutes and look at our plan and you have a little you guys have this one the visionary thing You guys have that, right? Okay, good. So just either Noosa or myself have met with the new members or the members that haven't, were not part of this. Except for.

Sorry, Chair. What is it that you're, I didn't. Visionary five-year plan check. That is not.

I'll just use it as my notes as I go. Would you like me to make copies of it? As we go through the plan then.

I didn't get it. Would you like me to make copies of it?

We don't need it. You're just hearing me speak, and I have notes to help me. When we did our planning initially, okay, we met and we first took note of who are our stakeholders, who are the people that affect the decisions and the studies that our commission does. We took a look back. We had a little bit of institutional memory at that time. I'm the longest person here and I was a COVID commissioner. But still we end up being some of the most long-lived, commissioners end up being the most long-lived parts of government in this city. We're looking at how councils come and go and staff comes and goes. but ends up commissioners who are the volunteers and end up being kind of informally responsible for carrying on institutional memory as well. We did a little look back. We took a look at what our current mission was. We had a little team building thing in the afternoon. And then we talked individually about what I bring, gifts and needs. We talked about each commissioner and what they like and what they don't like. And I've met with each of the new commissioners. Was that three? To just sort of understand what they love and what they're good at. On the second day, we looked at the city and the state of the arts in the city, both in terms of public art, performing art. I think since then we understand there's a bigger creative economy as well. And then we had a brainstorming dream of what could be, what could be. And that's where sort of ideas of... this beautiful IT system that pulls everything together in this beautiful center where all the arts congregate in a central part, a physical thing in the middle of the city or a beautiful piece of important public art in a prominent place in the city. So we sort of dreamed about what things could be And then we were kind of just sort of set up for how a plan looks, you know. And so we came up with like a hundred step sort of ideas and I was very happy to report as I took an inventory of it as I spoke to some of you how much we've accomplished. And I'm sure we're gonna run through them and just kind of put out to them and then just sort of take from you some comments on what we've gone through and then also sort of things that are missing which some of you have already brought to me and can be included in the here's mine from Commissioner Steiner So under grants, we talked about improving the application process, and we've done a little work on that, haven't we? We talked about merit-based selection processes, and the marketing of it, that's where we should have press releases when we have things. We should have workshops, and we did have some workshops on grants. I'm not going to go down a lot of these, but there's a lot of communications things here on events, press releases for it. There's a whole online application section that I'm going to be able to mark met, met, met, especially this year. Matching grant sponsors. There's some other things we haven't looked at. Let me just sort of mention one that came up the other day in the discussion is whether we could apply for grants and what is the responsibility of the Arts Commission in terms of receiving money as well that might then go out or be invested in the art economy. We were hoping to increase city grants funds by 10% per year. met thanks to the tides and the sun and the stars and Mayor Andy, thank you. The council. It was majority vote. There was a discussion about micro grants, which hasn't really kind of been solved. There was a talk about capping grants as well. Website reports, presentations, follow up. I think we've done a great job on that and we'll be able to check that. under our education section, mostly under the leadership of Pamela Grau, so we'll acknowledge what she has done and she has also indicated that she's interested and willing and eager to move forward on the mentor program. But certainly she put those enrichment seminars in place and we'll have a number of those that we can put down in our goals met. And we hope to continue those. There was, city arts tour curation that's something that fell is just one of the things we haven't met but there are some we have some art tours I mean art tours what do we call tours yeah downtown tour East City tour I don't recall that anyone wanted those tours as a part of our five-year plan Well it's not met that's for sure yeah we were not going to discuss all these most of these we find half of these have not been I'm just saying I don't recall that that was that was a prong I believe Freeman well we didn't vote on these individually these are these are kind of flexible too Arts vocation programs, you know, we used to do, participate in a career day at Nordhoff. This is before even I was on the thing, though, but there was, what we're doing now with our, the main plan is the mentorship program, which we used to have before COVID. It just sort of went away, and there's no institutional Sort of a memory of that. I just remember because I was a mentor one year, but that's that's something that that's available for us to Keep on the plan take off the plan or someone to take interest in as well Arts Center. I'm not sure what that was. I don't know public and private school partnerships I don't know that we've done anything there, but I remember the discussion just being around we have to work with the schools, you know, that sort of thing. Artist and institution inventory, and I think that Commissioner Carolin may actually report on some of her advancing on that inventory check. technology very interesting and I tried to pour myself into it my first year or the first year after this and we every time we got warm we discovered that it was so exciting to to the city or to the county that needed to be bigger and encompass us, rather than us drive it. And I continue to believe that we need to try to create on the ground a healthy connection, spoken hub thing for the arts in our community, but that has to be mirrored in technology so that people know what's going on. And it happened not just, where do I go to see a show this weekend? It's like, who is winning awards, or what artists live in our town, or what is the city doing for us, what is the county doing for us? That continues to be an important and, you know, a project that may be bigger than us, but we sure want to have a voice in it as well. On public art, this year we've been, since this we've successfully implemented a good CAPA. We've done inventory of our public art and maintenance needs. We've updated our hospital contract. I had collections inventory. I think we're kind of doing that now. Birch and I are working on something, and that includes the city collection. Well, it's not an assessment, but it's just an inventory at this port. And then the major installation is the big dream down the line as well. under communications this is where you know one of the most important things you know it because when we when we were doing this plan the Commission sort of had a different sort of reputation than I think it does now not good or bad but it was it was some it was doing some things and doing some projects But if we were going to actually become an important way of the way government intersects with the art community out there, we needed to be able to control, well control, to communicate both directions as well. Because if you can't communicate your successes or take criticism or respond, then that's the typical complaint about government and we didn't want to be that. So if we're gonna all take our volunteership seriously in the way we try to act as commissioners, we have to be prepared to communicate that. I'm just gonna run down this real fast, but there's a lot there. Everything sort of began with an inventory. Until we know who we need to communicate with, So there was an inventory of the stakeholders there. City council attend meetings, give regular reports as the manager was talking to us tonight. Be present at community events, make our website work. This is under website revamp and maintenance. Then there's the media. We talked about newspaper columns, having reports. here and then strategic alliances with schools service clubs other commissions parks and rec we've done we've done some of this Planning Commission impacts some of the actual sort of things we're required to do as well Chamber of Commerce, I've been taking that under, and all of you have come to events here, but there's a new revamped Chamber of Commerce. I did not realize the Chamber of Commerce was completely funded by the city. I didn't even, I didn't, I just learned that this week. So they better snap too, huh? Okay, other cities, you know, we made some connections with other cities. This is not, we don't need to reinvent the wheel every time something's done. And it's surprising how there's some big cities that do art well, and there's some big cities that do it bad, you know, commission-driven art. And then there's little cities. Some of them are amazing in what they do, and some do nothing at all, you know. But, you know, we can find the Stocktons and the Santa Monicas, you know, and the Avalons that do interesting things, and we've done a lot of that. The museum. Thank you. and we're active in that right now. That is the city-owned venue for fine art, if you will, other than wherever we have walls in the city hall. Presentations, we talked about, if we're present at important art events, or actual commissioners, that was it, actual commissioners being able to give presentations or lead seminars. proclamations you know it's easy for us to show up at some important gallery opening or something and present of perfectly when there are rights to present a Commission proclamation you know that we recognize you and here it is on pretty blue paper or something we haven't done a single one you know but it sure sounds good doesn't it all right economic impact report we have council members taken great interest in that Leslie rule thank you for that we're hoping that we get a budget item in the council for doing an arts or creative economy economic impact report and here to kind of aid in the future for when we need to quantize things for for an appeal of some type too. Our tour videos, there were two. I don't think we did any more since then. And then Commission Health was just in general, it was something I learned from a Rotary organization is that your organization can only be as healthy as it is or can only work, I should say can only do its work if it's healthy as well. so visioning which was what we were doing there too we talked about fellowship things and we have Commissioner Bradley is just this week offered to host a dinner party or something like that I believe you did but I remember Pam used to do these things too the budgeting process is part of you know Commission Health Brown Act training which we did featured guests at meetings almost all our meetings we had a featured guest from the community. We talked about, at that time, dividing tasks among the members, and at that time, in each of these areas we assigned, we don't have to do that, but that was, that was an idea we've talked about going from five to seven we're allowed to go to seven commissioners and all these are kind of the discussions that all affect the Commission health you know going going larger creates more of the ability to group up and do things without violating the Brown Act going smaller makes it a little more nimble and able to move going larger If you have good people, bring some more people into government. We've done a good job with using committees for that too. Web designer, youth commissioner are things that the council, I'm sorry, at least youth commissioner that the mayor is trying to get commissions to do. Web designer, we had a commissioner that was a web designer for a little while and I remember that fit in there too. So I just wanted to kind of give you that overview. Smitty? Once again, yes, Bradley.

Can I suggest that some of those things I feel are very important and some of them less so. Would it be possible for you to put together a list and maybe we could prioritize the things since we can't accomplish everything on that list it's way too large but we can accomplish some of those things and if we had a road map of what we want to do and that we can do i think we'll be more successful than just bringing it up and saying these are the things we have to do and then waiting for the next meeting and nothing happens so if we could get a list of what you think is important and then we can prioritize it and people can say I really want to do that or I really want to do this and we can go from there. I think we'd be much more active and successful if we had targets.

Sure, and that's, thank you, and that's the idea of a plan. I guess what I'm trying to do here is address that two years ago we did this, and then when we started talking about it, oh, is this updating the plan, or is this doing a new one, or that sort of thing. I'm trying to kind of gather us right around here right now.

I don't think anybody's paying attention. Okay. I think we're here doing our thing. Okay. And we're doing it well. And as long as we do it well and nobody objects, we're gonna be just fine. So let's figure out what we do well and what we can do and expand out from that.

Well, what I'm gonna do is, mark everything on here that we have done. Whether it's an ongoing thing or not. And I've started with my little X's and stuff like that.

And jettison things that are.

I want to make sure we don't jettison something that's important and I'm trying not to do it with.

That's why we're going to prioritize.

Right, but I wanted to just check in with each of you and I think I got your check just now. About did you hear something? that's a big no-no or something that's wow, that's important and we make sure we don't lose that without us having a real discussion on it. And I wanted also the opportunity right now for things that are missing from that list. So some of the things I saw were missing Something I see missing is that we recognized soon after we started this is without there being a when I talk to other cities I found the ones that had arts commissions or had some sort of civic commission that was really not part of the government, and some people that had staff on arts department, if you will, or arts and culture departments that would be in the cities or counties or that sort of thing too. And when we had our joint meeting with council, that you guys will recall, We talked a lot about how if there was actually somebody's, we have a liaison, but if there was someone who's actually on staff who was responsible for this plan that was moving that along. Because it had created, and it was mostly prior to Bridger, but it created sometimes this, everything moving so slow because there was no one on staff who,

committee what you mean is essentially is an arts and culture department and I agree with you I think we I think that should be our priority to to push for

Well at this point I'm going to put it on the plan. I think that's a good idea.

I suggested a couple of meetings ago that the name of it should be arts and culture.

Yeah and I've been pushing for years.

Yeah and there's some ideas we're not going to discuss now but there are some ideas that council has on that even if it's just part of a person or something. But I wanted to get that on there. How we get grants, I sort of mentioned that. No, no, I took that from, Christine suggested what is our ability to receive money from outside. And I had the bowl on here as something. What's OVM versus, oh no, oh yeah, yeah. And the museum has done, I think it was under Commissioner Weirich or something, Council, Councilman Weirich a few years ago, somehow they moved the museum from having to every year come and do the budget request and it became a part of the budget process that continued every year until it stopped. I forget what they call that, but maybe grants or something that the Arts Commission does or public art maintenance can become incorporated into that. Yeah, okay, and that's it. So I just sort of asking for input, offering my best from Noosa, who could not be here, but she did prepare the notes that I opened this meeting with for us, and she does plan to be talking to each one of you individually in the coming months. Yes, Commissioner Wright.

If I may, thank you for that. One of the, a few of the repeating themes of how we want to expand this commission in my view has been more participation in Ojai Day.

Thank you.

As in during the Ojai Day poster. I'm just gonna put Ojai Day that'll cover that Specifically the poster you know because and some collaboration in terms of Libby Bowl right so I want to make sure that yeah I want you to know that I think that is definitely a priority and Working with this is a new theme just came up this spring Working more with the Chamber of Commerce. So I don't know where you would work work that in this idea of the trademark made no high and the Ojai Day Gallery so Those can go wherever you want them to go and

But thank you for the trademark.

And in terms of grants.

Made in Ohio, you call that, right?

I mean, if it would be helpful to you, if this Excel spreadsheet is our roadmap for our strategic plan, if it would be helpful, I could send you an edited version how I would see this like let's cross off extended extend calendar for application availability page 22 right we don't extended well I'm ready for you if you you can write that whole thing or this was all written by so I can just sit here and put lines through them that would be great okay and I love this idea it's completely new to me have never explored it but additional funding and matching grant sponsors where is this coming from and how does it work Well there's there are there are

I think the overarching question is whether we as a commission can accept grants and I think it's an interesting

question and I think it's one that would be might be interesting for you to look into Brad it's kind of an interesting legal research question because if we could wouldn't that be really great so I think that's what Smitty was getting at

And is that in the capacity that those would be matching funds to the grant awards or for something else?

I don't want to get too deep in it but I recently

the manager's office helped me get on their, what's called a workspace on their NEA application. So I'm now like able to fill out an application for an NEA national, an NEA grant or any, Grants.gov, there's much more than NEA in there. I can't submit it, but I can fill it out. I've been made part of their workspace. There was a particular grant I was really pushing for, but it expired by the time I got in, but now I'm in, and they're going to leave me in, so me is us. But yeah, I'd be it'd be curious if it has has to be go to the city or or has to be licensed by the committee You know, but that's some legals that we'd like to definitely apply for and get grants Who's we the city being the city and the Commission? I don't know. I'm sure but that's We have an answer Why did I ever have all these books

So just to sum up from the grants perspective, I will update this list for you and get it to you. So according to this report, it will come back for approval at another meeting.

Yes, exactly. Beautiful. Any other comments or exclamation points?

So thank you for that. I think it was great, by the way. The only things I planned to add we've already discussed, but I just want to underscore those. And that is the Ojai Day poster, which has been mentioned. I do think we want to stay on it. And the other is our pushing for an arts and culture department. I know you addressed it earlier. I'm just comments just underscoring it. Yeah, yeah. Thank you.

Those are the kind of things that will float to 2026 seven instead of eight nine, you know in a plan that kind of thing Great. One other thing we did turn up is that the actual wording of the law Where the statute for the Arts Commission and the five it's a five-year art plan as well so I'm working with I think he's trying to make a public comment and I'm not sure. But I'll let our staff handle that. All right, beautiful, beautiful. I apologize, but I kind of like the way it's coming together. I think this addresses everyone's sort of like, well, is it an update or a new plan or why is it so formal and that sort of thing. I think it's pretty clear that a lot of thought went into this. Noosa would just applaud us if she was here for recognizing that some things fall off, some things get pushed ahead, some things we celebrate, some things we cry about, and that's just how plans work. And this has been very valuable for me personally. Thank you.

Do we have a comprehensive list of all stakeholders? because I was thinking that maybe just to project out who we are and what we do that we might want to hold a seminar for all stakeholders in in the city who want to apply for the grant a grant saying how you do it what we have available you have to do it online you have to pull all of these things together and um and like a discussion but invite all of the stakeholders that we have um that we know exist and um i i think it would um speak highly of who we are and what we want to do and how important we think it is to go out into the community and Get it all these people together Offer them something beautiful.

I think we're gonna hear from Commissioner Carolyn a little bit some of the work she's done there I can report that I Talked to the Ojai Valley Inn and they're interested in hosting and a gathering where something like that might take place. But I'll also say educational seminars. We had one on grant writing, and one of the feedbacks we got from that is, hey, we should have one just on applying for our grants as well. So the seminars may be exactly where, because the artists are already used to coming to those as well. But if the Inn's going to pay for a party, let's do it.

Well, separate. I mean, the Inn's networking event was really, really great.

It was well attended. It was...

Your microphone's off.

Oh, microphone. Thank you. It was at a time when it was very hot, but it was well attended. And yeah, I think Smitty's been working on another networking event. That'll be great.

That'll be great. Let's make sure that's captured in the strategic plan as well. It's an important thing to do. I'm going to stick it on the education area, too. So in the future, we're gonna have commissioner reports just by name here because we're no longer sort of assigned particular areas as well. And I feel like I've said enough. I'm sorry did you just say we're no longer assigned particular areas No well not strictly like one-to-one well you're public art for sure but I guess I'm tired of being asked to report on technology I just thought we would have Commissioner report no I'm not saying we're not assigned I just said that the the Commissioner reports part of our meetings will just list us by name in the future rather than telling us what to talk to talk about right I understand and now you're up and you want to talk about strategic planning or public art we're just on Commissioner reports anything you have to report and I've just given mine It's usually separate. Let me see if it's here. Comments is at the end.

So what you're saying, Chair West, is that you merged five and six together, and you, in your presentation, included bullet one of section six, and now I am bullet two.

Well, I'm just saying I had no, I'm saying six has started, and I had no report.

Ah, okay. Thank you. I have a few things on public art. The first is that, as you know, there was a mural jury that was called for the mural that is between Pixie's General Store and Forage the Florist. The jury was held. The work was undertaken the work was then graffiti covered and the the pixies people notified the city that the work was completed we inspected it which is a requirement under the statute the we being myself as chair of public art and Barbara Hirsch who was the chair of the mural jury We reviewed it in terms of its original presentation to the city, how it looked, how it came together, all of the criteria under the statute and determined that it looked just great and so it is now fully and finally approved. I'm just reporting that out.

Nothing else for us to do.

No, there's nothing to do. The mural jury went very well. So as you know, this is our second mural jury, and they just seem to be going very well. The first was for summer camp. Well, it's the third, actually, since the mural ordinance has been in effect. The first was for the auto station. We did have El Roblar but it didn't That was under COPPA that wasn't a mural that was a public art application which they withdrew so they're separate tracks but both public art related So that's it for the mural. On conservation, next up, we hope, is conservation of the Matilla Hop Hoppy Fountain, which is in need of conservation. We are seeking to find the artist, both to sort of inform her that this is what we want to do, see whether she wants to do it, or whether we would use our regular conservators. That process is ongoing. Bridget, I'm wondering if there's been an update on the letters that were sent out to the private holders of public art under the percent for art program. I mentioned it at the top of the hour that the city manager sent those letters out.

Right I've gotten two responses so far and I need to go back and reach out to the other ones but both one has already he had already done the maintenance on it and sent photos letting me know that he had already done that before he'd gotten the letter and that was the table Oh great okay and then Sunido was had some questions about their responsibilities but they are going to make sure that they take care of any maintenance that we've suggested on our That's great And I just need to reach out to the other ones I would stay on it with the others that would be great I have nothing else to report thank you Mr.

Chair

As you guys know we sort of roll into grant season and the meetings one after the other all have to do with grants basically from now through December and it's our attempt to to let the public know how the process works you know we outline it I don't know what else we can do in terms well I do know what else we can do more PR somehow articles in the paper I present exactly how it's going to happen, the process, the timeline. As you know, I present a calendar that we all will approve in September. People come and present in October. People still have questions, so I would like to propose that we maybe divide that October presentation by artists into two, starting September. and invite in August invite people to sign up and we can limit the slots because as you know it's super rushed in October and I would love for it to start in August. Hey, if you know what your grant application is gonna be, don't wait, come in and let us know what it is. It's unfortunate that there's only one person here to hear about what's going on and a lot of people ask me questions throughout the fall and it's like, go to the tape like this is all spelled out loud and clear so we'll keep doing that and i'm going to be a broken record about it but i would i would like us to consider um this is i guess future agenda item sorry um that we could invite people to come in september um as well as october just as a way to break this up

Commissioner Bradley do you have anything to talk to us about No How about Commissioner Carolin I want to hear about my gallbladder I'm just glad you're back with us

I've been in conversation with Chair Smitty and Bridget about various aspects of communications, and it seems that there is no comprehensive list of stakeholders, including visual artists, galleries, musicians, singers. filmmakers, et cetera, et cetera. And then the presenting organizations, arts organizations. Does anyone know of such a list? And I'm just not aware of it. The Ojai Valley Museum has its registry of visual artists. And then the Ojai Studio Artists has a list. And then there are other artists who are not listed in either of those areas. And so I've been working on a spreadsheet, and of visual artists, there are 145 so far. That's a very significant amount. There's a lot of overlap between Ojai Valley Museum's registry artists and Ojai Studio artists, but then I'm finding more and more. And it's pretty impressive, I must say. And we have galleries. We have a couple of new galleries in town. And so I'm working on a list of galleries. And then I'm going to be meeting with various people to share with them the list that I have so far so they can add to it. So I have a couple of meetings coming up. Also, I've been in communication with Bridget and Smitty about our current website because as a city that is so rich in the arts, it seems that we should have a website that represents who we are in that regard. So I'm exploring with Bridget and Smitty just what's possible on our city website. Currently, there are four categories, public art tours, art grants, city collection, and art events. and unfortunately the art events section is not complete to put it mildly. Two of the listings are, one was in July 23, one was in April 24, the Ojai Day poster competition is current. It was posted on June 12. So it's a shame that we're not able to share with the public all that is happening here. Now, Bridget informed me of the City of Ojai online calendar which is on the website. But a lot of people don't know to look there and also it's not complete either. The categories that I saw include public meetings, kids activities, music and holiday. Now there are a number of music activities that are current that are happening here at Libby Bowl but

There's so much happening right now in Ojai and I wanted to just mention a few of those activities I did make the suggestion to add the community calendar to the arts page so that more artists when they visit that page can see that that that community calendar is there and they can add to it

Can we take time for me to mention a few activities that are happening in just the next few days because it's There's so much happening and I don't know that I can there's some they're happening at the same time. Okay, there's a Commissioner comments section at the end, but if you think this is related to what you're talking about do it quickly Friday tomorrow night 5 to 7 there will be a exhibition opening featuring the work of Louise Sandhouse Celebrated American graphic designer, author, and educator, the title of the exhibition is Fluorescence, Riso Prince of Ojai Flora. And that will be at the Mega Gallery, one of the newest galleries. On Monday, July 20th, at the Ojai Story Exchange, which is a short storytelling showcase for local voices is having an event. featuring storyteller Robin Gerber, and that's going to be at the Ojai Art Center Gallery on Tuesday. There'll be an art talk at 6 p.m. at the new gallery, Blanche and Sylvia, featuring Caroline Allen, Lisa Skyhart Marshall, and Ann Ward in conversation with Joel Fox. And at the very same time, there's going to be a playwrights preview event at Bart's Books. Ojai has one of the few remaining new play development programs in the country. And the program will feature the artistic director of the Ojai Playwrights Conference, Jeremy B. Cohen. And as I mentioned, there are all sorts of events taking place at Libby Bowl offered by the Ojai Film Society and the Ojai Valley Music. So I would just like to find a way that the Arts Commission could maintain a vibrant and current calendar of these activities. As I mentioned, Bridget told me about the city's calendar. There also is a really good calendar, Ojai Now Live, which is extremely, it's well designed and user friendly. And then Ojai Vortex also promotes events in town. So I'd like to explore with all of you ways in which we can move forward in this regard.

Chair may I make a comment Great Carolyn thank you this has come up time and time again not-for-profits scheduling their fundraisers on the same weekend and Ojai Live Now will certainly fill that gap but it would be great to have some kind of master calendar for not-for-profits especially the ones that we support that they can look at it and say hey okay I'm not going to do September 15th right because that's taken We're not going to have discussion now but you come to us for help and we're saying thank you for your help

So we are nothing but cheers for you there I'm gonna move on to Bridget's report Oh future agenda items all right you're carrying some do you have them in front of you Bridget so we don't just sort of repeat again so you guys know what Bridget and I look at every month before these meetings

Currently I have copyright questions for the city attorney Libby bowl events Chamber to return for a formal presentation just like what you were saying on that made no high thing honoraria fees I don't I don't think we ever did I don't know I don't know what it's on here. It's on you that you were doing, but I don't know. We could cross it off. Arts and culture department what you're just talking about a public works maintenance crew to shadow the consultants maintenance consultants the audit of the public art fund balance which I'm kind of report out on tonight made no high updating the grant application which we've already done I can take this off yay and public art maintenance which we've already been discussing so Isn't that nice now we can add more just so you know we're listening I assume we will have to do as required last year requested by city management

Rolling out the grants application schedule for approval and a vote by the Commission to create an ad hoc Committee, so those two things should be the next meeting The timeline for the arts grants calendar calendar calendar and creation of ad hoc committee, permission to create ad hoc committee. And probably the same report, more or less, from last fall.

Okay. Yeah, we'll do the next one. Nice. Okay. Do we have a staff liaison?

I just wanted to let you know that I have been working, it took a minute to get everybody on the same page but thanks to the city manager we are now on the same page and I am working really hard with finance right now to get the public art fund balance report proper with all the information on it finance is working with me and we are making a lot of progress so I was hoping to have it for you tonight but they have a couple of things that they want to make sure of before we finalize the report so I'm hoping that in August I'll have this for you for sure My other suggestion I wanted to make was, I know you guys got it at the end of every meeting previously, like before, in 2023, but I wanted to see if it would be okay if we just put this report on the website and update it, and if something changes, we get new information, new funds or funds come out, then I bring it to the meeting, but if it's gonna be the same report until things change, and then I do get public records requests for this report so if it's on the Arts Commission webpage it's a report that's ready for anybody to look at What do you think? Let's get it done and then we'll see Something I just wanted to touch on with Commissioner Wagner was requesting about Instagram and Facebook there is a social media policy i did ask for it it's recently been revised so before i answer that question i want to make sure i understand it so i'm working on that i don't want you to think that i forgot about it but um i am waiting for the report i keep asking for it and i will keep asking for it i don't know if you know this about me i don't stop till i get what i want because i don't think facebook has been updated since 2021. yeah I feel like the policy when I look back in history in 2022 there was an actual social media policy put out and I don't know if that's the reason why so that's what answers I want to get before we talk about it I don't know who set up that Facebook but I do know that that social media policy came out in 2022 and the last update was in 2021 so we'll we'll see if those are correlated I'm not sure and then I don't even know what this note is going forward I will like I had mentioned previously only be using the Commissioner emails like so if you're missing something double-check there I'm not going to continue to copy your personal emails just like he said public records requests if somebody was to come in and ask for that it would start to dig into your private personal information and we don't want that okay that's all I got

Thank you and I will add I'm active on social media I think I'm the only one here that really is but I try I we're we're not limited what our personal sort of social media stuff is too and every time I see someone we've given a grant to is doing it whatever that with something with their money I make a big point of it and cross post it and all to so you know and I pushing grants all the time and right now I'm pushing we're heading into I'll save it for my comments it may be time for that anyways it is no city council liaison yes great so I'll just make my comments yeah I think I just did so Commissioner comments let's I brought my six so the wives of Henry the eighth are gonna try to set the record straight with six great youth from our from our Valley some of which I just have to mention Kira who's 19 and we've been working with her since she's four years old and she's playing Catherine of the other Catherine there was another Catherine who was beheaded at 19 but that's sort of funny so I'm proud of our people in this town and I just wanted to send a special thanks this is our first meeting without Pamela Growl if it's not I want to thank her for her for her service and for her interest in continuing on and I'm done. Commissioner comments? I don't care what order. You don't even have to say anything.

I'll go. Go. Thank you. So the music festival happened and it was great. The Playwrights Festival will be happening. It will no doubt be great. It is great. The summer series of the Ojai Film Society is ongoing and these are all our grantees and they're all doing great work. So I just wanted to note that we are in the middle of summer.

Anybody else have something to say?

I would like to say thank you to Bridget especially I cannot tell you how easy it was to update this application I thought it was going to be you know two years of back and forth but it was like nope let's just get it done I did my edits we sat down Bridget made the changes it was so refreshing and appreciated thank you

I wanted to mention this earlier and we kept going but we did notice that the 400 words these boxes weren't even allowing someone to add those 400 words so we fixed that and we tested it to make sure that it works I went online and found a 400 word essay and I stuck it in there to make sure it works so it does work Okay. We got a fix.

Thank you for that. And with these changes to the commission and you're saying now commissioner reports are not necessarily tied to this list. I mean, do we have a division of responsibilities that you can share with us at this point? I think you heard what everyone's working on here I don't want to force our new commissioners into a cubbyhole that's mainly respect for them Just taking words away that's all I would love to see you know maybe with this you know robust communication department that we have maybe we could just do a summary of our meetings and it's sent to OVN whether they do something with it or not I don't know or you know send them our minutes or you know something I know the SPLOST page on the the city has like news but again it's never updated so I just would love to see us Thank you

Any more Commissioner comments? Well, with that, I'm going to thank everybody. I'm sorry, sir. Public comments were earlier in the meeting. I'm so glad you're here, but I'll be happy to talk to you after I adjourn the meeting, which I will do right now. We'll see you guys next month.