Park and Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, all, and we would like to welcome you to the Museum of Riverside Board Meeting. This meeting is called to order. And I would like to start by reading the land acknowledgment. The Museum of Riverside is grateful to stand on the traditional and ancestral lands of the Cahuilla, Gabrielino, Tomba, Luiseno, and Serrano continue to live and thrive in Southern California. Tony, would you please call Roe?

Yes. Paula Mae? Hey. Liz?

It's Vincent.

Jennifer? Yes. Cynthia? Here. Julie? Present. Anna?

Present.

Claudia? Here. Mary? Here. And Sharon is absent today, but we do have a quorum.

Well, now we have to read this stuff. We will move to

Yes. We need to have the rules of procedure in order read.

Okay. We have to listen to the prerecorded.

Yeah.

Pursuant to the City Council rules of procedure and order of business resolution, the members of all boards and commissions and the public are reminded that they must preserve order and decorum throughout the meeting. In that regard, members of the boards and commissions and the public are advised that any delay or disruption in the proceedings or a refusal to obey the orders of the board or commission where the presiding officer constitutes a violation of these rules. The city of Riverside is committed to fostering a workplace that provides dignity, respect, and civility to our employees, customers, and the public they serve.

This is the portion of the meeting specifically set aside to invite your comments regarding any matters within the Museum of Riverside Board jurisdiction. Individual audience participation is limited to three minutes. If you are in person, please complete and submit a speaker card to museum staff to comment via telephone call 951826868 to unmute by pressing number 6 when you are ready to speak. To comment via Zoom, use the link from the published agenda selected selected the raise hand function to request to speak. On a screen message, we'll prompt you to unmute and speak.

You can also comment using the e comment feature feature at ww.riversideca.gov-meeting. Do we have any public comment? Hello,

Luz. You We do have one in person speaker card. We have no online ecomments received at the 01:00 deadline, and we currently do not have any telephone callers. Would you like me to call forth our in person speaker card? We have Natalie Kamura

Uh-huh.

Regarding the Hirata House Foundation. Good

afternoon. I'm Natalie Komura with the Hirata House Foundation, I have some three minutes, yes. Just want to let you know at the last meeting I told you we have our Web site up and we sort of do. Like most people who have Web sites, We've had some delays, but you can see the new design of the website at theharatahousefoundation.org. It does have a link to our Instagram page and it has a link to our Give Butters should people want to make any donations without being asked.

And we'll be getting the rest of this up to date, I want to say, about three weeks. So really excited about that. The Board participated out in the community with the ICE Out of Riverside event a few weeks ago and had a display there. Mark DeCano, our congressman, was a speaker at that event, which concerned our concerns regarding the implementation of immigration laws in a way that is violating people's civil rights. We also attended the installation of the officers at the JACL recent annual meeting.

We saw Robin there as well. And then we have news regarding our Board. A long time Board member, Sarah Mundeoslin, has resigned from the Board. Those of you who know, she has

been on the Board for

a very long time and ushered us through a lot. So we wish her well, but we are also continuing to recruit additional Board members. Last night we approved our bylaws, so we now have an expanded board of 15 members and we have a process for doing our recruitment that if anyone is interested in board membership or how that works, you can send an email to us at infoheradahousefoundation dot org. It will come directly to me, but it will come through our Google Drive site. And then the pilgrimages are coming up.

And so Saturday, I will be going to the Manzanar pilgrimage and then in the following week or two, Naomi Herrada will be attending the pilgrimage to Topaz. So that's our latest update. We'll let you know when we have our ducks in a row and are ready to ask for more money to support the museum's efforts. And also I should mention, I do talk to Robin at least once a month to see how we can be supportive. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED you.

Ask if there are any comments or questions.

REPRESENTATIVE:] Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. We're going now to the Consent calendar. Consent calendar. And Items two, three, and four. Items two, three, and four. You entertain a motion. I will entertain a motion for these three items.

So moved.

Second. Okay. Is there any questions or discussion about this? No? Well, let's vote.

UNIDENTIFIED Paula May? Yes. Do do you approve? Yes. Okay. Perfect. Oh, I didn't hear you on your speaker. Luz? Yes. Jennifer?

Yes.

Cynthia? Yes. Julie? Yes. Anna?

Yes.

Claudia?

Well, I was gonna abstain because I wasn't here for the February 26 meeting. Is that

One big group. Or

twenty fifth. Okay.

Yes. So that's a yes? So that's

a yes then.

Perfect. Mary?

Yes.

Perfect. Motion carries unanimous. Okay.

We are moving to presentations, and we call for the presentation item number five by Steve Mandelbile Will. Can I can you correct me with the pronunciation? Mandel

Mandeville Gamble.

Mandel Will Gamble.

Madam chairperson and members of the board, it gives me pleasure to be able to address you today. My name is Steven Mandeville Gamble. As you heard, I am the new archivist at the Museum of Riverside. To give you a little bit about me, I was born in Bakersfield, California, so I am a Californian. Grew up here in California except for a four year stint in the outback of Australia.

So if my accent slips on occasion, that would be why. I attended Stanford as an undergraduate and graduated there with honors, then went on to University of Michigan for master's in anthropology followed by a master's in library and information science at UC Berkeley. My career has really been focused entirely on cultural heritage organizations. I was the local historian local history librarian at Redwood City Public Library right after I graduated from library school, moved on from that to become the principal manuscripts processing librarian for Stanford University, so I oversaw the processing of about 35,000 linear feet of archival and manuscript collections. After that, or towards the end of my time at Stanford, I eventually became the assistant head of special collections, and that led to an opportunity to become head of special collections at North Carolina State University Special Collections Research Center.

From there, I went on to George Washington University in Washington, DC in the same role, and then eventually became the associate university librarian at George Washington. I was delighted when I was at George Washington University to be recruited by the University of California. For those of you mhmm. Oh, thank you. Sorry.

Slides. Apologize about that. I was recruited by the University of California to be head of the library, and I did that for the last twelve and a half years, but finally decided that after twelve and a half years, it was time to step down and retire. And the reality, though, is I wasn't quite ready to end my my engagement with cultural heritage organizations, so I decided to, take the opportunity to apply for the position of archivist. So I don't have to manage a 100 and plus people.

I don't have to deal with an 18 and a half million dollar budget, but I do get to give back to the community and help make our history available. Just some career highlights just to kinda give my bona fides. I was the archivist in charge of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund records at Stanford. That was a collection of about 3,500 linear feet of boxes of the civil rights law firm's legal documents. So I was deeply involved in documenting and making available the history of civil rights files of MALDF.

I have had the opportunity to work with major figures such as Allen Ginsberg. I do have tales of having to duck underneath his drawing socks in his apartment when I went to go pack up his collection and prepare it to be brought back to Stanford. I've worked on the National Council of Raza records and the papers of William Saroyan. But not only have I had the opportunity to work with major political fig or cultural figures and significant individuals involved in civil rights work. I've also gotten the opportunity to interact with senators, congresspeople, etcetera.

I was the person who helped close the deal to acquire the senator Kent Conrad papers for George Washington University. And there's a little organization you might have heard of, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. I managed to close that deal for for George Washington University, and that included 7 and a half million dollars to support the library and the the history department. I what I managed to coordinate was a gift that included an endowed professorship, an endowed archivist position, and a $2,500,000 labor history research center at George Washington University. So currently What about Hathi?

Hathi? I was wondering about that.

About the

You had it on your previous slide. I just was curious about that. The bottom right, was that really

Oh, HathiTrust. I'm sorry. So HathiTrust is a it's a consortium of about now about three fifty academic and nonacademic libraries across The United States, in fact, the world. I ended up during my final years at UC Riverside as a member of the Board of Directors, a Board of Trust sorry, it's technically the Executive Board, but basically the Board of Directors of the HathiTrust Digital Library. And collectively, they have digitized and preserved something on the order of 19,000,000 books.

As those books come out of copyright, they're able to make those available. Right now, I think they have about 11,000,000 books that are currently available. And one of the amazing things about HathiTrust Digital Library was that during the pandemic, when all of the research libraries and public libraries around the country were having to shut down their libraries, due to the the pandemic. Hadi Trust immediately was able to activate the digital copies of those books. So at UCR, within a week of the pandemic starting, I was able to provide access to about 17,000,000 books.

It was incredible. So I really valued that opportunity to eventually serve serve on the board of Hathi Trust. By the way, Hathi is the Hindu word for elephants, which is why you see an elephant logo. Elephants never forget. Hathi, the goal is to never forget and never lose any of the content that they digitize or and they preserve.

Thanks for asking that question and catching that. So the current collections that I'm working on include approximately 4,000 linear feet of personal papers, family papers, and corporate records that make up the archives of the Museum of Riverside. It has an extensive photographic collection, about 20,000 images, and the the content ranges from the eighteen seventies to the present, so it is a a very, very rich resource. And I can tell you, we get requests for content from both the archive I mean, the personal papers, the family papers, corporate records, and the photographs on a daily basis.

So it does keep keep me busy.

Oh, and I'm getting duplicated somehow. We some of the areas of collection strength of the archives include the Japanese American experience. Of course, we have the Harada family papers, and that is an enormous percentage of the the I mean, a significant percentage of the collections. We have biographical information for thousands of individuals throughout the history of Riverside. We document the cultural life of Riverside.

And as I've said, we've got extensive photographic resources. We also document the photo or the economical life of the city. So there are records in in the archives that document early businesses and and the photographic content to match that so you can actually see downtown as businesses came and went, as businesses changed names, as they moved locations. So we we have both textual and visual documentation of of the economic life of the city. So my role as archivist, just to give you a sense if you've never worked with an archivist, is, you know, first and foremost, to arrange, scribe, and preserve the records that are held by the museum, provide research support for scholars and members of the public, help interpret the collections, help people understand what these records mean, and I'm sorry, there's a typo in this next thing, identify potential gaps, not caps, in our archival holdings.

So one of the things that we're constantly trying to do is identify ways in which we can grow the collections to better document the multiplicity of voices that make up, the city of Riverside and its history. As part of that role is to identify, assess, and evaluate potential collections to help determine whether they are rich enough in information content to really warrant being acquired by the museum. Because once we acquire the records or papers of a family or organization, we're making a firm commitment once we accession them to ensure their preservation, and so we take it quite seriously. As you know, the city has some very distinct process that we have to follow in order to acquire content. And not surprisingly, one of the roles that I engage in begin engaging in is making presentations like this to community.

So my immediate priorities, given the the competing demands, are really to work on the Hirata family archives. We have so much activity going on around the Hirata family home, the history of the Hirata family and their role in American civil rights history that there really is a need to get that collection fully processed and arranged. I have I started six months ago. Just had my six month anniversary, and I've already processed about 30% 35 of the collection. Just finished processing or arranging the the photographic portion of that collection.

It's about 24 linear feet of boxes. Nothing with photographs in that portion, and I started cataloging those today. So I'm hoping in the next couple weeks, at least the photographs will be fully described. I've also cataloged about 1,400 of the approximately 20,000 photographs in our other photographic collections. So that's 1,400 photographs cataloged, 18,600 to go, so that will keep me busy for quite some time.

And another of my immediate priorities is to work on processing and describing the extensive holdings that we have on the citrus industry. As we all know, citrus has been the lifeblood of this community. It's how this community came to be what it is today, and we wanna ensure that that content is made available. To do all this, I need to make sure that I managed to master our collection management software the museum uses, which is called TMS. The museum system is what TMS stands for.

It's a quite complex system, and a big part of what I've been focusing on is to get my arms around that. And then finally, in terms of my immediate priorities, it's very focused on digitizing our extensive photographic collection that I've been talking about to make sure that we can provide quick and easy access, and eventually online access to a huge portion of our collection. Longer term priorities is to finish processing the rest of the collections. It's I see this as about a seven year project based on the size and and extent of our collections. So my goal is in the next six and a half years to make sure that all of our collections are fully described and when I say fully described, I mean described at the point where they meet professional standards, both national and international standards for article description.

That includes creating online guides to all those collections and making those guides available through platforms like the Online Archive of California, which is hosted by the University of California, but it's also available to all California cultural heritage organizations. And in addition to that, focus on digitizing the rest of our collections. So, ultimately, the longer term priorities is, as I said, one of the things that I'm responsible for is identifying gaps in our collections where we might be able to acquire or fill out or flesh out, holes in in what our collection is able to tell about the history of this area. Part of my longer term goals is to develop a comprehensive documentation strategy to help identify organizations, individuals, and cultural moments that we could could identify, historic documents that from those individuals, organizations, or those cultural moments that we might be able to acquire. So that is essentially, my talk.

I'm really delighted to have been able to meet with you. I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have, and, I do recommend that this presentation regarding the archival collections and the the role that archivists be received and filed. Okay.

Any question for mister Steeve? Any questions? Yes, sir. Comments?

Yeah. I have a question. Yeah. Well, a couple. One, please tell me how I can get a copy of that Riverside High School baseball photo. That would be very helpful.

It's already digitized. Feel free to send me an email. I've got my business card on me. I'm happy to share that with you. Great.

Yeah. Thank you. Is there anything at all catalog cataloged now with respect to the categories of things you have? If I'm a person I went to the Museum of Riverside website, did it say here's the things we have, even though obviously it's not digitized yet?

Sure. Short answer is that is actually one of the things that I've got on my agenda of things to do in the next month or two is to actually start running up descriptions of the areas of strength in holdings. We're trying to figure out how to balance demand and our ability to deliver. In other words, if I listed all the collections that we had but they're not processed, it can create a demand that we're that's difficult to deliver upon. So we're trying to figure out how to square that circle, and and, though, I think the way to to do it is to write up narrative descriptions of our various areas of strength in the collections as a kind of a teaser and then let that drive people's interest, and then that will help also help us figure out where to put our our energy and effort in terms of processing the collections.

Great. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Any Any other questions?

Yes. Hi, Cynthia Zidler. Being on the collections committee, we just had the opportunity to tour your area that you've been working on at the warehouse. And I will say on behalf of the Board, we'd like to thank you for all of the work that you've It done so is so impressive, and we thank you for all that, and we look forward to the completing of that task in the years to come. So thank you so much.

I very much appreciate it. Yes.

I just have a I'm Luz, Luz Negron. I just have a suggestion. Before that, thank you for your great presentation. And I participate for tons of years in many different events. And I know about several local artists that they take photographs.

And everyday people also take pictures. So I was wondering if one of these days, the museum can it will be a lot of work, but it can have an event that will serve two purposes. To ask the community, bring your pictures to the museum so we can photograph them for our archives. And also, that will be like a kind of giving some energy that pretty soon the museum will be open. And we're working to make this available for everyone.

So you're full with work right now, but maybe in the future bring your pictures to the museum. Mhmm. Will be it will be maybe a good idea.

I I appreciate the the suggestion. I I know that one of the things that we're a little concerned about is that there was a similar initiative a number of years ago before, I think, any of us who are currently at the museum were hired. People did bring their photographs. They were scanned. They were not returned as intended, and so that created concern in the community.

And so we're we're just a little we we know that we need to be really thoughtful on how we organize anything along those lines so that we don't create an opportunity for the same situation to happen again. So it's something that we've definitely been talking about, we've talked about recently.

The scribing actually was not us. Right. But it has been associated with us. And so there's understandably a bit of wariness among people who remember that they lent scrapbooks and family photos to an organization that was not us, but they thought was affiliated with us because it was a history organization and did not get their materials returned. So we would have to position that very carefully.

It's commonly done in museums to do these kinds of events called post custodial collecting, where you don't keep the materials, you just keep the scans. And we do have a provision for that in our collection policies. We would just have to stage an event like that very carefully and clearly as to what our intent is.

Thank you, Robin. Okay. Any other questions or comments? Okay. Well, thank you so much for We your truly appreciate it. So we will receive on file the presentation from the Museum of Riverside Archivist. And now we're calling for a presentation number six item number six by Anne Lavelle.

Thank you, Luz. This is the preliminary general fund museum budget overview. You have the slides in your packet, but you'll see them on the screen. Next slide, please. All right.

Brief intro. The museum was established in 1924, so we just had our 100 in 2024. You can see our mission statement there that as a center for learning, the Museum of Riverside interacts with to collect, preserve, explore, and interpret the cultural and natural history of Riverside and its region. And the way we do that is by preserving Riverside's history through collection stewardship, public exhibitions, and educational programs and special events. And we also maintain seven sites, four of which are historic sites.

Next slide, please. Here you'll see a comparison of the museum's general fund operating budget for the last biennium and the upcoming biennium. So the museum not the museum the city does a two year budget. And so these amounts include what it takes to run the museum department, from the staffing cost to utilities and exhibitions, public programs. And it includes city services like IT, the city attorney, HR, and the museum's share of general fund debt service.

So you'll see there's an increase between 2026, 'twenty seven, and 'twenty seven, 'twenty eight. And that accounts for the reopening of the downtown museum site. So the site's been closed for many years, and this is what it's going to be operationally going forward. So this second year of the biennium includes an open downtown museum site. And as we go through this, if when you're driving home you think, Oh, I want to know about this, just give me a call or send me an email and I'm happy to go into more detail or we can set up a meeting and walk through some things.

So don't think this is your only chance to ask a question if you think of something later. Next slide, please. So something that's notable from the numbers you just saw is what is not in there. So the city has consultants that give economic forecasts and predictions. And as a result of those predictions, departments were asked to develop some cost reductions. And we identified options that would allow us to maintain our public programs and our current staffing levels. So listed

on

this slide are the reductions. So one of them is a museum assistant. This is a position that hadn't been filled, and it would act as a historic site interpreter for the Heritage House and the Jurata campus. So we're still looking to fill that position probably closer to when the Jurata House opens and to the public, and the financial situation is a little different for the city. The second item is a collections assistant position that would have been dedicated to the natural history collections.

We currently have ramped up some volunteers that are working on collections, so it doesn't mean that that work is not going to get done. It just means it's going to take a little bit longer, and we're still looking to fill that position when the financial picture allows us to do that. The third item is our exhibition designer, and this position has been vacant for a while now. So we still get exhibition design and design services done. We just have a few different contractors and freelancers that we use, and we'll continue to do that to make sure that we meet those needs until we can hire that position full time.

And the last item is we did a reduction in our travel and meeting expense. So this just means that we won't be going to faraway conferences. We'll just keep our travel and meeting expenses to more local things. So those are the way we met our cost reduction targets. Next slide, please. All right. These two graphs, they show you the pie charts. They show you the comparison between twenty sixtwenty seven and twenty seventwenty eight. They're a different representation of the chart that you saw. So the majority of the pie is what it takes to run the museum.

The little teeny slice is the museum's portion of the debt service. And these are from some projects part of the Riverside Renaissance. If any of you lived here back in 2008, there were a bunch of capital projects. I think the Main Street Mall was one of those. So they're kind of large scale capital projects to improve the city from infrastructure and capital standpoint, parks, those kinds of things. Next slide, please. All right. Here is where we get into it. So if you take nothing else home from this presentation, I hope it's this slide. So what you see on the left is the 'twenty six, 'twenty seven budget breakdown into kind of our major categories of expense.

And you'll see that the big portion is for personnel, and this is aligned with the city as a whole, about 70% for the museum, which, as I said, correlates with the city's personnel expenses overall. Then you'll see the next highest category is facilities after that development. And then if you look to twenty seventwenty eight, you'll see that the facilities portion of the pie, that kind of pink magenta color, is much bigger. And that's because we are going to have the main museum open, and that has increased facilities costs, right? That includes things we didn't need before, like solar panel cleaning.

We have a lot more glass. We'll need to do window washing. We're going to have a 20 guard, those kinds of things. And then you'll see the second piece of the pie that's gotten bigger is exhibitions. And this is accounted for by two things.

One, we have a lot more space to program with exhibitions, and we've committed to changing exhibitions more frequently than we did when the museum was open previously. The next slice of the pie that gets bigger is development marketing, and that makes sense. So we're going to have opportunities for things like naming rights. We'll have more programs and exhibitions that have opportunities for sponsorships. So we'll be doing more of those activities.

Activities. Next slide, please. Something else that will be new for fiscal year 'twenty seven-'twenty eight when the main museum reopens is we're looking to introduce an admission fee. We'll have a gift shop at the main museum. And then we're looking into other fees for events. So these are projections for fees that will go to City Council as part of the update at the mid cycle of the budget, so to be implemented in fiscal year 'twenty seven-'twenty

please.

And I'm happy to take your questions. I recommend that you receive and file this budget presentation. And if you have questions, I can take them now or, like I said, if you think of something later, feel free to give me a call and we can walk through anything that you like. Thank you.

I'm just wondering, the reductions that are listed in here, are they already deducted from the operational budget? Budget? Yes. Okay.

I'm looking at the slide six, the one that is the one we should focus on, if nothing else. I'm getting a little bit confused about the color coding because they I don't I guess, like, education is orange on the left side and events is orange on the right side. I'm just trying to

Oh, that's a strange artifact over there.

I thought

they were the same.

Okay. Yeah. Because I'm having a hard I guess I just assumed that the color coding on the left is the same on the right.

I did too because it looks like it's the same when you first glanced at it.

It's approximately the same proportion for both in both Yeah,

what I was assuming, just the assignments seemed like they got mixed up. It does, doesn't it? What are some opportunities that we're missing out on? You said you can't if there's a conference, for instance, and you're not able to go to a farther away place, are there certain things, certain events you know we won't be able to participate in, the staff? Or is there anything that you're you're going to sorely miss due to these cuts?

We don't actually plan ahead for specific attendance at specific conferences. We have an allocation for staff development and travel for each employee. And when opportunities arise that seem especially promising, then I will approve or not approve them to participate. So it's not like we have made a commitment, for instance, to present at a conference in Philadelphia that we now can't do. We will be this will be one of the less painful reductions for us to make.

Thank you.

Any other comments? I have a question.

So on the revenue piece, whether it's from sponsorships for people putting their name on the wall in whatever room or the gift shop, are those guaranteed to go 100% back to the museum, or do they go to the general fund? Or how will that

work?

So that's certainly two parts to this answer. It's certainly the intention, and it is still open for discussion exactly how that will happen. So, for instance, if someone should wish to make a gift to endowment, that negotiation may wind up encouraging the gift to go to one of our affiliated nonprofits, where endowments can be better managed. If someone is negotiating to name a space, and it's a potentially large gift, that also may come with certain demands on the part of the donor that we would have to negotiate on a case by case basis. And so we will not be proceeding on any of these larger discussions without full consent and knowledge of our grants managers.

We've got sponsorship templates to work with. We have city president. We have the finance department. So all of this will factor into how those large discussions wind up. Of course, the intent is that if someone makes a gift to the museum, it supports the museum.

Thank you.

Okay. So if there is no more comments or questions, we give the sense to Anne Novelle for your presentation on the Museum Riverside proposed budget for the fiscal year 2026 to 2027 and 2027 to 2028. Thank you. Okay. Now I'm going to call for Robin Peterson, Museum Director Presentation, and that is item number seven.

Thank you, Luis. And this is another request for your approval to move a recommendation forward to city council for deaccession of indigenous resources in compliance with federal and state repatriation legislation. The report explains it quite fully. As has been our precedent, we don't illustrate any of these materials out of respect for the indigenous peoples in the report, so I have no presentation for you. But, this is a group of material that does include human remains that's been requested by the Agua Caliente Bend of Coia Indians.

How did that arise?

The report explains how some of that material came to us, came in various ways from various, over the decades, you know, people going out and digging in the desert or people buying things in various kinds of estate sale or auction contexts. But the group of material did not come all from one source, and it's not from an approved archaeological context.

Yes.

Thank you. I had a question. I'm obviously new to this, so hopefully, this will be informative. I did look in a little bit to the the the national laws about this, and I'm curious if we have any other items in inventory that are native funerary objects or remains or sacred objects that might be subject to those laws? And if so, what prevents them being expeditiously returned?

The museum has been working since the passage of this federal legislation in 1990 to repatriate. We have made over 400 repatriations. So we're really kind of at the tail end of this process, and it has partly to do with the way the material has been stored and documented, such that we're improving our processes so that we don't lose things in storage and then recover them suddenly and realize, oh, we didn't do this when we should have. We're also working with tribes in the wake of updates to the federal legislation and passage of the state legislation, nicknamed CALNAGPRA, which broadens the scope of what can be requested for return. The federal legislation applies only to federally recognized tribes, whereas the state legislation applies to any self identifying tribal entity.

So we work willingly and quickly with any entity that requests the material, and you will see a couple more of these coming forward in the next few months.

Thank you

for that. REPRESENTATIVE:]

Any other comments, questions, no?

I move that we approve deaccession from the permanent collection these of these items.

I'll second. Okay.

Would you please call the Second. Second? Yes. Okay. Okay. Roll call, please.

Just one moment. I'm waiting to hear if there's any callers for this item. There are currently no public callers for this item. So I have Cynthia for the first, the motion. The second, Paula. Perfect. Okay. Luz? Yes.

Uh-huh.

Paula Mae? Yes. Jennifer?

Yes.

Cynthia? Yes. Julie? Yes. Anna? Yes. Claudia? Yes. Mary? Yes. Motion carries unanimous. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Now we call for the presentation of item number eight by Robin Peterson.

So you have probably the fattest board packet you've had in a long time because there are two documents in it that look very similar. One of them is the quarterly report, which you regularly receive on the current strategic plan, and that's the one we're talking about right now. So I've done my best to provide accurate status reports on all these items in the report, and I'll be happy to take any questions about them. I don't have any updates, or changes to them. They're reported through the March year.

Any comments about the strategic plan of the museum or Recommendations. I will say that I do love that you include the in terms of reaching out, you include a lot the community, reaching out to the community. Also, you include several times reaching out to the public libraries, which is very important. Thank you.

I have a question also probably related to the fact that this is new to me. I'm seeing, you know, basically, the the purpose of this body would be for public input. And I'm wondering with items like this, like, you can see the outside advisory partners in some cases it says the board, which I'm assuming is this board.

Which item are you talking about?

Well, in the action plans, in the third column it outside advisory partners. They vary from each action item.

Right. And there are a number of advisory teams that the museum has formed, which they're not public meeting entities. And then we also have two affiliate nonprofits that have boards, and any number of them may be named as supporting organizations that help us with the action, depending on what the action is. Sometimes it is this board. It will say so, museum board, if it is.

Okay. So I'm wondering if there's anywhere that someone like myself that's not familiar with all of this can find some documentation about what that structure is and what things will be publicly

Yes. And absolutely, now that you are sworn in, we will be contacting both you and Jennifer for our own orientation to the Board, which we provide to every new Board member.

Thank you so much. Sure.

Thank you. Any other comments? Okay. We received and filed the strategic plan status report for the quarter ending in 03/31/2026. Yeah. Now we are going to Item nine. It's a presentation by Robin Peterson.

So now we're moving on to the second document that looks very similar, which is the proposed new strategic plan for the five year period beginning July 1. Those of you who are not new to the board will recall having a fairly lengthy workshop session on this in February. And I took your comments and other stakeholder comments to heart and made a few revisions to this document, so I hope you've had a chance to go through and look for the items that matter to you. So at this point, we're coming to you for the recommendation to take this new five year strategic plan forward to the city council. The American Alliance of Museums, which is our accrediting body, identifies a strategic plan as a core document that we have to have to maintain our accreditation.

And as we'll be going through a renewal of our accreditation status within the next year or so, it's going be important for us to have current core documents, and we wanted to get a little bit of a jump on this one, which hasn't expired yet, so that we have a current document throughout the entire reaccreditation process. And further, because the museum's going to be reopening the main site and potentially not long after opening the Broadhouse Campus, there are some transitional, some transformational changes that are going to occur that have rendered the former plan a little bit obsolete. So the new five year plan takes into account that the centerpiece of our activity for the next five years is going to be opening these sites and learning to operate them effectively.

Any other comments? No? So we recommend that the City Council approve a five year strategic plan for the Museum of Riverside operation for the fiscal year 2026 to 2027 through 2030 and 2031. Thank you. And the public is invited to participate by calling 95182668688.

Do we have any comment from our audience?

We do not have any public comments for item number nine.

Okay. Do we have a motion for for the item number nine. Do we have a second? Second. Okay. Rob, a call, please.

Who is the second? I'm sorry. Anna. Thank you. You. Paula Mae? Yes. Luz? Yes. Jennifer?

Yes.

Cynthia? Yes. Julie? Yes. Anna?

Yes.

Claudia? Yes. Mary?

Yes.

Motion carries unanimous. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We have communications to report on for item number 10. That will be director's update regarding

Maymys So I just have a few updates since I wrote the plan or wrote the report. We continue, of course, the main item of news is continuing work on the main museum. Discoveries underground and other matters have more or less officially delayed the project, and we are now aiming to reopen to the public in the 2028. We're not happy about this development, but, of course, we have to deal with all the things that are discovered underground that we had no way of knowing about, short of ground penetrating radar investigations. So we're we're responding to those discoveries as they arise.

Some of them involve having hazardous materials specialists come in and do testing, and then delays are associated with that as well. Harada House has been a little bit delayed also because of some changes in code requirements around soils engineering. So we had a soils engineer do some new, analysis and have sent that on to our architects and are waiting to hear if it satisfies their needs so they can complete the construction drawing set and get back on track, or if we've lost perhaps two months on that project due to that new code requirement. Of course, the other big news is that Insert Fair is on Saturday. Saturday.

I hope you will all be there. And the ice cream social is planned for May 17 and is coming along very well with sponsorship from Thrifty Ice Cream. We'll have some enhancements to the event for the country's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. Your photographs, to go circle back to the main museum, we are also continuing to work on the reopening exhibitions. One of them, of course, as you know, is about immigration and how immigrants formed and created this community.

And there's a wall projected for this exhibition of portraits, portraits of people who have come to Riverside by any means. And we hope that you will be willing to share a portrait, either of yourself or your forebearer who came to the Riverside area, to be part of that wall, and I can I will send more information about that, but we're going to be starting to amp up our efforts to put out a call for that, as we need about 200 individuals to fill that out? Finally, we did receive a grant from the JA Community Foundation Foundation in the amount of $25,000 to help support the balance that we need for the Harada family documentary. As you know, that's being largely well, entirely at this point funded privately through donations and grants that have gone through the Riverside Museum Associates. So we're pleased about that.

Thank you. Do we have any Board Chair or Vice Chair communications to to report report for for Item Item eleven eleven? Or any other members of the Board? What I meant with that is any participations in community events or outreach events where you were involved?

I will be going to Ian's talk tomorrow at from six to 07:30, Riverside's Butterflies and Natural History. So I'm excited about that. Wonderful. Yeah.

Any other person? Okay. I just want to to share that I've been around a little bit. I was able to participate at the Japanese American Citizen League as well the director. That is the annual membership luncheon, and I used to attend that every year.

I also participated at the Boards and Commission training, and I brought some of the information. So if for any reason you don't have this, this is for you. Okay? So they are here. Also, I was able to participate at the Earth Day celebration at the Sherman Indian Museum.

I have two events that are coming up that I hope that you can attend. And this event is sponsored by the Save Our Chinatown Committee and the Museum of Riverside. And it's a celebration of the Asian American Pacific Islanders month, which is May. And that will happen, excuse me, at Heritage House on Friday, May 8 at 7PM. There might be there will be a flyer or more greeting information, but just put it in your calendar.

And, also, on Friday, May 22 is the UCR AWAW. Thank you. Okay. Let's go to the now to the item number 12. Are there any item for future consideration for our next meeting?

Any suggestion for our agenda in the May? Well, I have an item for your consideration, and you tell me it is a yes or it is a no or maybe or you want to add something. I would like to request that for each board members to bring ideas from your different wards because you see, we're in a different community and we have all these pockets that are the words. And because of the diversity of our community, the way to reach out to specific populations sometimes might be different. So if you can come with some ideas of how the museum can reach out to your communities.

And I would like to talk about that. And if you can just provide each one of you some awareness of how we can reach out, how the museum could be proactive and not necessarily everything in the downtown area. Comments?

For this item, since it's item for future consideration, consideration, it's not actually open to have you all discussed, but, the museum staff will take your ideas down and bring it back so that you have an opportunity to discuss it. So we can't actually have people, discuss

the new

idea, but they can bring

it back as an item to the board.

Okay. So that that will be for discussion, not to bring in back the homework. Okay. No?

As long as they have what they need, they might need to follow-up with you what the item is. Okay. But today, we can't discuss it because it's not an agenda.

It's for discussion. Okay. But it will be for next meeting?

Yeah. That's well, that's what they'll have to

talk to. If all of you agree that you would like to discuss that item next time.

No.

Whether you want it agendized.

It is.

That's what's up for discussion, whether you want it agendized.

Do we need to vote to have it agendaized? No. Just shake our head.

I thought I'd ask you. So is that a yes?

No. No. For me. Okay.

I guess we're agendizing just the discussion, right, not the homework, not the ways or anything like that. So

Well, the purpose is to have an item that is important in the agenda so we don't have to cancel a meeting because we don't have agenda items, unless you have

a

better suggestion. I just want to keep going. You see?

Again, I'm not interested unless the museum staff has an agenda with items on it that they feel are necessary for us to be here and meet, I'm not interested in coming down for a meeting to discuss our the museum participation in our wards.

Just for clarification, it's not necessarily the museum participation in our wards. What it is about is finding events or activities that are happening in our communities and not all of us are aware of. Like, for example, UCR is having a powwow on May. You see? So maybe in the future that will be a good idea to reach out with that student community by having a booth or something in the event.

But maybe there are events happening in La Sierra that I don't know anything. And if you bring your events or activities in your communities, then the museum could be able by their staff and with us to reach out and make our museum great again. My

perspective is that item number 12 might be a good moment to if if it's not just what you've been to a conference, but something you're going to or that you know about, maybe we could consider what's been done and what you're going to under 12 maybe, but I I second Cynthia's perspective.

Yeah.

There's nothing that really happens in my ward. And And we already we are we have Camp Anza. They don't put on anything because it's they've turned it into a housing comp apartments. So there's really not much going on in my ward, and I don't wanna go look for nothing.

I'm just curious if that's even our purview.

Yeah. With So I think here is a good point to kinda put a pin in it and stop. So the the intent of the items for future consideration item is to kinda just state what you'd like to see and give the staff museum staff directions so they can come back. So I think based on we don't actually have the ability under the Brown Act to engage in a lengthy discussion about the item because that's what we would see on a future report. So I think at this point, we probably have enough so that the museum staff could collaborate on how we're potentially putting this back to you, and they'll often look at work this out offline from here. So I hate to be a downer stop your discussion, but we're getting a little far outside the ground and curvy on this item.

Okay. For clarification, that means that it will be in our next agenda?

Perhaps.

Okay. Because then I don't want to see a meeting canceled because we don't have agenda items. That is just a suggestion that I brought, but is open to anyone to bring their creative ideas and suggestion to keep ourselves moving because that is our purpose, to be the eyes and the ears of the museum in our communities. Thank you. Before we adjourn the meeting, I will ask to welcome our new Board members.

And we would like to know which ward are you representing and if you can share a little bit about yourself.

I guess I'll go first. My name is Jennifer Gamble, and I'm Ward 3. My I sat on Cultured Heritage Board. I was the chair there last, and I sit on Riverside Historical Society Board along with the Friends of the State of Historic Citrus Park and then also the Mission Inn Foundation I'm the president of. So really involved in my community, really love Riverside a lot, and love to participate.

Welcome. Thank you.

Hi, everybody. I'm Paula Horacek. I've also previously served on the cultural heritage board, and I'm on the board of directors for Sunshine Haven Wildlife Rescue. So I do a lot of work with squirrels. And I'm really happy and honored to be here. Thank you for having me. Oh, I'm sorry. Ward 5.

Welcome. Welcome, Paula and Jennifer. Okay. Well, since everyone, especially the city staff, the director and the audience and the amazing board members for this museum. Thank you.