Cultural Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. Today is Monday, 04/06/2026. This is the regular meeting of the Cultural Commission. This is a hybrid meeting. This meeting will be recorded. The Zoom application will notify you that this meeting is being recorded. Please press continue on the Zoom application to stay in the meeting. Use the raise your hand feature in Zoom when you're you would like to speak on item and to also lower your hand when you're finished speaking. Please unmute when called to speak and mute yourself when you are done speaking. If you're calling in by phone, identify yourself by name before speaking on an item.

Press 9 on your phone to raise and lower your hand. Press 6 if you're participating by phone to unmute. I now call to order the Cultural Commission regular meeting, 04/06/2026 at 07:02PM. We did receive a notice from commissioner Garg who just returned from a trip that she isn't feeling well. So I know that she is going to be absent, but let me take a roll call. Commissioner Diaz? Present.

Commissioner Das? Present. Tibroy? Present.

Pontius? Here. Samara? Here. And myself. Since commissioner Garg is absent, is there a motion to excuse her from the meeting? Commissioner Roy and commissioner Das will vote on that. Commissioner Diaz? Aye. Commissioner Das? Aye. Commissioner Roy? Aye. Pantes? Aye. Salaro? Aye. And myself. The motion passes. Welcome to the Cultural Commission meeting.

Our first item on the agenda is our consent calendar. There is one item on the consent calendar this evening, and that is action on the Cultural Commission regular meeting minutes from the 03/02/2026 meeting. Any comments or suggestions for edit? Wanna make sure everybody read read them. And, actually, you know, I was not present last month, and so I made sure that I went in and actually watched the Zoom recording so that I could hear the conversation because our meeting minutes tend to be very slim.

And I wanted to make sure that all of the new commissioners are aware of how to do that, how to go on to Legistar and find the recording so that even if you weren't present present, you're aware of the discussion. There were actually two things that came up last month that I thought had already been decided, and they were discussed as if they had not been decided. So I think that if we're if we're going to be approving the meeting minutes, we're responsible to be aware of what's in them. So having said that, are there any public comments on the consent calendar? Okay.

Then I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes from the March 2 meeting.

Motion to approve the minutes.

I second.

Take a vote.

Yes? Hi.

Us? Yes. Roy? Yes. Which is Hi. Tamara, and myself. So that passes. And just to make sure, you all do know how you slide a star, right, to go in and find the Zoom meeting and watch the meeting if you missed it?

This is the what it looks like. Yep. And then you just kind of go to the dates. And You can look at

past meetings and just filter by by the cultural commission.

Yep. And boards and commissions and filter what you want, and then just click on the tab to watch the video. So Yeah. This is on the home page. So if you go home page, meetings and agendas, it's right here.

Get you there.

Unfortunately, the last half hour of last month's meeting was cutting in and out because of Internet connectivity, but I think I got the gist of the conversation, although I might have missed a little bit. Yeah.

It happens within twenty four hours or almost ten?

It's usually up within twenty four hours. Yeah. Sometimes it's not, and then I'll just ask Robin, you know, if if we can make sure that gets done. But all of them are there. So if you, you know, wanna go back and say, I thought we talked about that in November, you know, you can go back and look.

Okay. We will now move to the public public presentation section of our meeting. This part of the meeting is reserved for the public to address the clinical commission on any matter not on the agenda that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission. The law does not permit action on or extended discussion of any item not on the agenda except under special circumstances. The commission or staff may briefly respond to statements made or questions posed, and the committee may request staff to report back at subsequent meeting.

As a reminder, comments can be emailed to clerk@santaclarica.gov. If any member of the public would like to make comments, please fill out a speaker's card or raise your hand in Zoom. To accommodate all speakers, we request that you complete your comments within one minute. Now do we have any members of the public that would like

to speak? We do not. Okay.

Then we will review and discuss joining the Make Music Alliance in 2027 and participating in Make Music Day on 06/21/2027. So there is a staff report. Is that correct?

Yep. Okay. So there's a report in your packet from if you're off the agenda, you can link through to it if you haven't had a chance to look at this. You'll remember that last month, the commission decided to move forward with make music day for 2026, and the date is 06/21/2026. The date is always the same date every year, and that passed five to zero to make a recommendation to city council.

So we were in the process of putting things forward to city council, and, we received some additional information. So we thought it was important to bring that before the commission to provide you the opportunity to review that information and also, you know, make an informed decision on how to move forward with Make Music Day alliance and the event. So it's two part act action is one is joining the alliance, which will take council, action. So that's fine. We can take that to them.

It also includes joining and signing an agreement. So the cities would sign an agreement with Make Music Alliance, and we've learned that they're a New York based nonprofit, which is fine. We thought they were a California based nonprofit, but we've missed that. So, again, it's fine. So we're learning things as we go through with them, and we also researched some other cities that have a similar program, to figure out what is involved in it.

And Long Beach and Big Bear came up in in the search. And so we're in contact with San Jose already, but we wanted to kind of research some other cities and figure out what goes into it. And, of course, with any new program, obviously, a lot of marketing, finding the venues, advertising to musicians. A lot of what we learned from other cities that have done this is making alliances and getting support from music schools, or regular schools, and getting the word out from all the kazoo players and ukulele players and and any type of music, how do you make connections with them to let them know that you're going to have this day and then those organic thing happens with matching the locations? Right?

And so the agencies that we talked to really talked about the importance of having the the sort of solidarity and the excitement with the musicians to sort of make this thing happen and create this celebration across across the city. So as your the fee to join Make Music Alliance is $3.50. That allows you to build a platform. They basically give you the portal, and you create the venues, and you provide an opportunity for musicians to register, you also provide an opportunity for people who maybe it's we used to talk to Rivermark, and maybe the Rivermark business coalition wants to offer up the plaza for a venue. Right?

And so then this matchmaking would happen with the kazoo players going on there and saying, we want to pick RiverMark, and RiverMark saying, yes. Kazoos come. So that whole thing kind of takes a little bit of time to happen. And so developing the platform seems pretty straightforward from what we've seen, but having the content already kind of fully baked and and agreed upon and cooked and having the commissioner and subcommittee have an opportunity to have seen the venues, to go and make partnerships with the potential venues, that that hasn't happened yet. And so we learned that that was really important.

As you add budget to your, program, so you might want budget for marketing. You might want might want budget for venues. You might want budget for, you know, different different types of things. The fees to to make music alliance go up. So they actually have sort of a sliding scale b that the higher your budget into the program goes because they assume it's gonna be more robust, and therefore, the software support and the marketing support is a little bit more robust on their part.

And so they really do, partner with the agency. And it could be a local group like us doing this. It could be a school lead taking the charge of it. But what whoever it is that seemed like in our research partnership was the key of it for both identifying the venue and also obtaining and get spreading the word to musicians in a grass work grassroots effort. When we started to review those components, we developed a base budget, that had $5,000 in it, for a lot of marketing and for the platform design, staff time, that kind of thing.

And so we thought, okay. $5,000, a commission has that money. But we again, we weren't sure what level of interest the commission wanted to go into. And so that came up in our thinking. The agreement, I think I mentioned to the commission last month, was under review by the city attorney's office.

It came back actually last Wednesday, and I was actually working on the city council report, and then this is when this started to happen, and I quickly put this report together. And so it came back with a lot of comments. Those since have been sent to Make Music Alliance to see what they think of the comments that our city attorney asked. And I don't know. I've worked with them to know, like, is this easy to to accept the city attorney's changes, or do they they have a longer review?

We know on our side, it's about eight weeks for our attorney to review again. So if they come back with comments, then we know it's gonna be time for them to review. And it really we can't start a lot of the work on it until the agreement is in place. So then I'm, like, counting out the number of weeks we have until June 21 and wanting the event to be successful, really wanting the commission and subcommittee an opportunity to do some due diligence, go to San Jose events, take and what we heard from Erin is come and take some footage so you have some marketing pieces for next for next year. Learn from us.

Maybe send musicians down their way, and and so that next year, we can really kind of go out at this with we also won't have the distractions of 2026, and that that also might be advantageous in our in our mindset. So we bring this before you today to you don't have to make a budget decision tonight, but for your consideration to use 2026 as your research and support generating year. Go and see make make contacts in our community with with our, you know, music schools and and those kinds of things and musicians, and then give us time to get the the agreement ready, and we join for 2027. So that's what's before you don't know. Just open it up for discussion or any questions that the commission might have.

Question. Yep. I thought the venues I thought it was all self I thought the venues listed themselves, and then the musicians listed themselves, and there wasn't any active solicitation by it?

So that is that's part of the question into to Make Music Alliance, but there are the membership obligations that are in the agreement is the date. It has to always be May 21. There's seven things. You must feature live performers. You it must be free.

No tickets are sold. I don't know if that means no tips or not, but I don't know how that works. Must be participatory that's open to any musician at any level who wishes to participate, open to all ages, all genres without restriction, may take place at multiple venues, cannot solely exist as a concert or a single location, and then must take place at publicly accessible spaces. So the publicly accessible spaces is sort of what caused me to pause because I was thinking of, like, neighborhood block parties. Right?

And and That's an example that we heard. Right. And so but this is like, if I'm throwing a party in my neighborhood, like, am I gonna be open to my neighbors, or you're two blocks over and so you're not really my neighbors, so I'm not gonna tell you to come in? Like, I don't know how that all works. But in my mind, a park or city hall plaza or Franklin Square is a publicly accessible space, but that needs to be evaluated, looked at, talked about. Like

Yeah. I think we also heard it's, like, coffee shops. If they're you know, you might be educated about, you know, what the program is, and then they would volunteer their their retail space. Yeah. So so they wouldn't necessarily be solicited, but just by, you know, doing the PR and marketing kinda to get the word out Yeah. Then individual businesses or locations, yeah, would go into that system, the matchmaking system.

Yep. And that that was my understanding too. They can go in also, but we should also have prepopulated sites that we've identified. Oh, that makes sense. Okay. It are

we are we required to do some branding up? I mean so and somebody actually is, a webmaster of the site, has to load graphics and things like that.

So

it sounds like they give us, like, a graphic template. But, yeah, we need to pop you know, the subcommittee would need to populate the the and develop the match. Right? So so that's some some work. Right? They said it's probably four to six hours of concentrated effort to create to like, it's there, but you have to populate the data to make it So

they have the portal and the tools. You just have to go in and then start with the setting.

Customize it. And make sure probably they're 100% now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I mean, I I'm not sure mechanically if you can be in there, two people doing it at the same time, or or you can sit in the same room and do it together. Probably, maybe the subcommittee could do that. And, again, without knowing what people the subcommittee's already done, I just felt like it was important to bring it back to you for We have another conversation.

We just met with them. So have a question. So does this sounds like then that we would, I guess if there's work like that to be done or, like, the question I have is are are there resources for that type of collateral, like, you know, graphics, official, you know, seals, you know, the things that you need to make it look official. Is there somebody

Logo. Me?

And the logo and

Yeah. You will

use the city's palette. Right? Right. Is there some official

Yeah. Like, if you if the subcommittee were to say, you know, we want some sort of flyer to go and pass out to musicians and storefronts and Jaren Cafe and whatever other venues you think of, then, yeah, we can develop that for sure, using, and I'm sure they would be willing to help us, give us the templates earlier to to to do that Groundwork.

There was concern about permits or that part of this was somehow streamlining a permitting process or so can you did you discover anything about that?

No. That's on the city side. And, from the city's perspective is, permits are only needed when groups of over 50, are gathered. And so, I mean, to the extent the kazoo players show up and people gather in a public park, a public park is ready to do that. I think it depends of how much amplification that group wants and that kind of thing.

So the committee could think through, you you know, it's acoustic or it's this wattage, you know, is gonna be easy to grab and go, you know, generator rules, those things. Like, we need to define those kinds of things so that it doesn't have need to warrant a permit. When you start having to build a stage that is ginormous and has a full array of speakers and lighting and all that kind of stuff, that's when a permit is needed. But there has to be some criteria for the physicians to know, like, come this way, and you'll be fine. You know?

But we have to work through that. And it can be done, but it will take a few conversations and meetings and and probably exploring with, you know, going out on June 21 to see some of these venues and see how they did it.

So if I remember, it it's not just happening in San Jose. There are other small smaller cities in the area who are also doing make music

I haven't heard in any other communities unless somebody from his presentation were excited about it and starting it also. I I haven't heard that per se, but I could be uneducated in that area.

Finding out too. Because I remember San San Jose does something like, I don't know, 400 events. Yeah. Something like that. It's been wild. We do a lot. So maybe the first year, we would think of 25 and see if there's somebody local who, you know, smaller city that does something like that. Just a suggestion. No head numbers. So 15 to No head numbers.

Just to go back to the so we're, what, eight four weeks away from having an actual agreement that we can sign or and you submitted the feedback from our attorney to theirs. We're wait to see what they have to say. Right? So so today, we don't have an agreement. Right? So

Sounds like it.

So in fact, it guess, we don't have an agreement today where June can come and go very quickly without us finding anything now. So Yep. So everything we we plan needs to be for 2027.

I think that's that's the big learning here. Yeah. We skipped this year.

Any anything less than four months?

But we're not skipping. Like, we're learning this year. Right? No. No. Is this is critical part of program development is going to see what other people what other cities are how they're doing it and watch it unfold so that we can be informed when we bring it to our community and do it in a smart way. And you don't wanna put yourself out there and then it swaps. Right? It just

No. It just set the right expectations. Right? You can have 400 events, you know, overnight. Right.

I know. Right. I'm sure they've been doing this for a long time.

Yeah. And, you know, maybe if we if we start doing some PR in, you know, early next year and including utility bill inserts and things like that and just really get the work out and, you know, raise you a lot of excitement about it. I mean, the more people who are involved, obviously, the more successful it will be. And then we can start building on it in future years.

Yep. And maybe we can have a flyer for the San Jose event at our tables for concerts even. And and, you know, when you guys are talking to who come to the concerts, maybe ask them if they're musicians and create a list interest list somehow through a Google Sheet or something like that so that when we're ready, have interest list ready to go and send it out to them.

So so June 21 is the day. And are we limited to just subcommittee members to go out and do pictures and attend those events? I don't

think so. I mean, it's a public event, and it's not you know? But it's not a if you go separately, I think it's really easy to just, you know, to as many as you want and bounce around. I'm assuming they're all throughout the day. I'm assuming they're different times a day and different parts of town and different types of music, hopefully.

Yeah. I actually received an invite from San Jose personally. I'm not sure why. But it says so far

position.

Because they have informational they had an informational meeting on March 2, and they're having info sessions on the first Monday of each month. So that's something else that people do. Mhmm. So it's I guess I've raised the question. It's a lot of work for one day. You sure this is really worth it? I mean, do you all are we voted to do it? But, I mean, now looking into it, it's kinda like, is it worth it? That's my question. I mean, what do we hope to gain from it?

Yeah.

Just so it's an additional Cultural resource? Yeah. Cultural resource is something that kind of falls under our mission.

Yeah. I'd say they have 18 per six bases signed up so far. So

I think it would be, you know, up to the subcommittee who's gonna be committing to doing some of this research, you know, if they feel it's something they wanna participate in. And then it's just a a minor expense, it seems, to do it. But, yeah, we did agree or voted previously on going ahead with this. So should there be some discussion about well, the the city staff recommendation is to discuss and provide direction on the city of Santa Clara's participation in the Make Music Alliance and Make Music Day on 06/21/2027. So do we need to vote on that, or it's just a recommendation?

If you if you vote on that, then that's where we'll move forward. If you don't vote on that, then staff is supposed to proceed with 2026 and going to council. And Oh,

I see. You're proposing we table the meeting with council on the twenty first and wait till next year till we have more. Right. Okay. So I make a motion that we change our plans and pursuant to the Parks and Recs recommendation to pursue active participation and make it too long. I make a motion we do for

The staff recommendation. Oh, sorry.

All those staff are competing. Sorry.

As long as you get a second, Charlie, it's all good.

No. I don't They're not sure if they're second.

By now to to follow the San Jose one. That's Father's

Day as well, so I don't know if people have other plans.

It's a lot of it. Well,

I would suggest that maybe that if you're if you have any kind of link from San Jose

I do. I could share that.

Yeah. You could so that people could just decide, you know, independently which one or ones they want to go to, if at all. Okay. So we have a motion and a second to pursue make music day for 06/21/2027. Shall we take a vote on that? Okay. Commissioner Diaz, I have to look at you all in alphabetical order. Okay. Commissioner Diaz. Hi. Us. I see. Right? Oh, yes. Okay. Roy?

You can still vote against the.

Okay. I hate. And one human. So that passes. K. And I'll also add that just in in case you're not aware, the

June,

all subcommissions must dissolve, and they reform that could be with different members in the new fiscal year starting in July. So that could always change things. Who knows? That makes who's who's doing the work.

But we also have to

keep into account now a new $5,000 budget that we

would be putting in for this as well. Well, that's just because demand help. Could decide what they wanna do about it.

But that's definitely more money than any of us had thought about when we when

I I thought the 2 was it $2.50, $3.50?

Yeah. Like, that's that's minimal. Dollars. Not a big deal. But when you're talking about then $5,000, that's also going to impact other programs. So Agreed. Agreed. Okay. So in that vein, actually, I had asked for a recap of where we stand on the budget, although we're not gonna be doing budget planning until July. Is it or June? June or July?

June. Well, May will start next month next year's fiscal year activities, and then hopefully June or July, adopt them. Okay.

So I had asked for a budget report just because from what I was trying to track through our work plan, the priority months subcommittee was trying to figure out if there was any money we could ask for. And in truth, you know, we don't really get monthly reports about that. So I asked if staff could show us what our spending versus budget looks like for this year. Deborah?

Okay. Okay. I wasn't sure it was gonna go. Okay. So what you were looking at is all the way in the far left column was your adopted budget, the 50¢.

What's in the work plan.

The next $7 amount in the work plan. Encumbrances, 81,000 is what you expected to pay out. There's probably some cleanup in there, 2024, '25, and '25, '26. So some of our contracted dollars are in there. We're not as concerned about that one because of the year to date. We are at That's what actually has been spent? Yep. Yep. But it's a little wonky because you still have an available balance of 13,000. So you have some balances in here, and you can see where you've spent your monies.

Mhmm. So public arts has been high. Performing arts, low. Street dance is about on target. What's those bracketed numbers or those credits? Those are negatives. Negatives. Uh-huh. Those are negatives. You still and in a positive. Your open PO, your thousand dollars, you have one artist that hasn't finished yet, and so that's their money. So we can't wait for them. So So will this 13,000.

Will this carry into the next fiscal year? No. Oh. So we'll just reset to 57,000? I think

it's 59 next year. $58.50 50 high 50 eights, high 59, something like that.

So in the budget discussions, we'll have to decide how to distribute that through the work plan.

Yep. Okay. And between Excuse me. You know, now and then end of the fiscal year, I can I can true up that encumbrances column to give you a bigger idea?

So that's the What POs have been written for.

Yeah. And some of that year to date money, the reason why it's over is because some of your money from last fiscal year that was encumbered was paid in this fiscal year. And so once your money becomes encumbered, it's like we contracted with a vendor to do x. You're contracted, so your money is saved, but nobody else can touch it. So although you've got some available bal your available balance I can touch, I can't touch what's in that encumbered money until it's done.

And where do sponsors sponsorships factor in the in here?

They don't because they have not been allocated yet. So they are in in the bigger general fund right now.

So, like, we got some sponsorships for street dance and stuff like that for last year.

Yep. Yep. And they're not They we don't get to charge against them.

Yeah. Okay. Could you explain that a little bit more?

Well, the city's trying to figure out what to do how to how to let you charge against it, but they haven't figured it out yet.

So it's just sitting in a bucket somewhere?

Bucket. Okay. But then once the fifth school year is ended ended, then it just goes into

Well, just sponsorship, they're trying to put it it's about $24,000. They're trying to figure out It is. Put it in a holding account and then make sure to carry over it. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Because we're also gonna be looking at sponsorship money for this year.

Yeah. Those are already out. Sponsorships for this year are already out, and they're already starting to come in.

Yeah. Okay.

So does this mean that we budgeted 15,000 doll almost 16 for the street dance?

You budgeted we budgeted

Are those just for the available?

Yeah. We budgeted 15,000 per street. Yeah. Yep. Oh, my cursor isn't showing up right there. But, yeah, 15,900 and change is what's budgeted. We really use the numbers fluid. And so, obviously, because we're over 11,000 in the public art fund, and then we haven't spent anything in the performing arts bucket, Some of that is Jim's money that hasn't been paid out. So it's in the it's sitting in encumbrances.

But yeah. Is the concerts in the park out of performing arts?

It is. It is. It is. And that's part of why your $44,000 is so high over there.

So we spent more than the budget.

We have POs for more than the budget.

We have POs for more than the budget. You're okay. You haven't spent it yet. It's planned for.

Okay. Yeah. This is kinda different from corporate finance, which I'm used to, but trying to understand it because I have lots of questions.

Yeah. Yeah. Because, you

know, we're always asking, do we have money for this? Do we have money for that?

And it's like, I don't know. It's hard to get the numbers out. Yeah. So because of this wonky thing they do with it, I'm like, I just want real things.

Yeah. So this is We could have done more marketing. We could have done you know, well, it'll come up later, the question about sending commissioners to the Americans for the Arts Conference. And, you know, I think we've been constantly working under the understanding that we didn't have any money. But maybe we could if we were looking at this more closely, we could have made some other decisions. Okay. I agree. So thank you. Thank you. I know it took some effort to pull this together, but Yep. It's really good, especially to see analysts now. Great. Great. It's really good to see us before we enter budget discussions for next year also. Mhmm. So thank you. Get

a copy of it? Or

It will be it will be part of your meeting. But not not not necessarily.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Mhmm. Any other questions before we move on? K. So then let's dive into the work plan. Goal number one, post and enhance multicultural events that encourage to any point Santa Clara office with cultural diversity.

Excuse me. Summer concerts are completed for 2025. And for 2026, you've got some of the bands named here assigned to dates, and Kim told me that all the bands are also on the city web page. So they're they've been assigned. Mhmm. Pop Rocks is going to be performing rather than at Central Park. They're going to be at the night market, which is at 900 Lafayette where the There you go.

Oh, where is that going?

Oh, you have to take it out of slideshow mode, I think. Wait. There's also an opportunity to participate in a Juneteenth concert with the library in Central Park. So I think more information is going to come up on that. There it is.

So the Juneteenth is not on here because it's gonna be actually hosted by the library. And we have a note here to put concert info into a bill insert, and that will be a $3,000 expense. Is that planned for, like, the May or June?

It hasn't been actualized yet, but we can definitely do that.

Okay. Yeah. It should be by the by the June. Don't insert at least. Or the I guess that was about late May. It's been about too many.

So should we vote on that expense?

Did you stop Is it

here, or is it saying maybe?

It just says put concert info in bill insert under notes.

Yeah. That was the research. And then Scott came back saying the It'd be $3,000. Free, and now it's $3,000.

Yeah. Did you guys say you wanted to do it?

It's in it's in

the work plan. I think it's I think you already voted on it, so I think we're okay.

K. Let's do it.

We just need to make sure it happens in time. Yeah. Yeah.

As opposed to.

Yeah. So so the bills come out or my bill, I get, like, by the first of the month. I assume everybody's on the same billing cycle, so you'd have to have it in the bill that you get at the June. Like, July might be too late.

No. It's too late. Yeah. Well, it's never too late to

Yeah. Reach There are still gonna several concerts in July, but yeah. Okay. And street dance is planned for August 7, and the band is

not booked or okay. Yeah.

I'm nervous. Usually, that's the

one that the one that we get first, and

I get we learn the best. Okay. You know, Robin sent this email early on. And

So I guess those conversations are continuing? Yeah. Okay. I'm sure Robin's working on it. Friday night lives. Robin did mention that she has some dates reserved for September and October, but we looks like we don't have a subcommittee yet for Friday night lives. I thought we did.

We did. We have

Is it the same?

It was me too? Yes. Okay. When was I on that one?

So we'll we'll give you an answer by the end of the week.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. No. This is not on here on the work plan.

You need to get better.

So who's working on that? Sorry.

Me too, Candy, and and anyone else? Lewis until he resigned or he

He's forgot to retire.

Yeah. So, yeah, he retires.

Yeah. Did I? He can't work on it in September. K. Okay. And then we had a group wedding that we've had on hold, and and now we have it on hold until, like, 2627. But let me ask, Lewis. That was kind of Yeah. Yeah. Wanted to just kind of postponing it. And

That yeah. That that's sentiment that people behind it didn't wanna do it anymore because of the current

So should we should we just strike that?

We can strike it. You can keep it for future

If somebody else approaches the mission and and wants to do it. You you said there was a group of people who wanted to do it?

Or Yeah. Yeah. They're yeah. But, you know, that you find that that this is not that that they can do.

Okay. Alright. So So we'll just strike that. And then secure sponsors for cultural commission special events. We have 2025 on here, but not probably don't have anything for 2026 yet. It's just coming in. Yep. Okay. Okay. Anything else under goal number one?

Goal number two, develop and encourage interactive art opportunities to provide temporary performing, cultural, and public arts in the city. Objective one, advise and recommend public art to city council for public benefit. Excuse me. Nebula riser rider, the last day or the de installation is sometime May 22? Mhmm.

Okay. And there's not gonna be any kind of event surrounding that. Right?

No. We'll do a little bit of a push social. Right? Yeah. Or Perfect. You know, for the last couple of weeks.

Yeah. Yeah. That's it. And I would like to go just say hello and thank you to the artist on that day. Okay.

Traffic box program. Do you have an update on that, miss Nindians? I can share some pictures if you wanna promote me on the panel.

Outsourcing. Which is taking a little bit back. Oh, there it is. Super. Yeah.

Okay. So we had another utility box completed two weeks ago. Nicole Morales, this is on the corner of Prudridge and Gosh. Cypress. Prudenridge and Cypress. And so here is her picture here. So here's the front.

It's supposed to be NVIDIA in the back.

It is NVIDIA. Yeah. And

then oh, let me swipe. Okay.

I've never done this on my iPad before. Thanks. Very difficult.

Do I have to stop sharing? Mhmm. Thanks. Oh my god. I think you have to go out and go back in unless you share your window screen.

There you go. Now we can see it all.

So here she is. There's from this side. Valley of the Heart's Delight.

That's somebody with a VR?

Yeah. Yeah. A little child with the v with the VR set. Then here it is on the other side. And then here's the back. And, unfortunately, it's covered by the bushes, the homeowner bushes, but there's the mission.

Yeah. It's so beautiful.

Yeah. I like this. Mhmm. So it stands out on the corner. She is very, very sweet lady. And so and she did her clear coat last Saturday, And so now we're just we're proceeding along. They're still in the works, so we'll see how it goes here shortly. But we probably won't have the last one done before the end of the summer, so it'll still be a while.

That's where we're going. Okay. So we have

four greater than five done? Two or Five or six done? Four. Let's see.

How many of them? No. Four. Four. Four done.

Okay. Yeah. And then last work plan we said last month, two are complete, three in process. I want to get started by summer.

K.

So indoor sculpture exhibition, that is on hold until next fiscal year.

This one more thing I meant. Mhmm. The one that was destroyed or the one that was still there but was hit. Right. And you said that he he wasn't interested in redoing it?

I think not right now.

No. So what will happen to that one then? Just stay the way it is there, Darren, now are there?

And they're replacing that traffic box. Right? But I don't know what the schedule is for that one.

Yeah. They usually it's usually a long lead item to get those replaced, and so the plan is they would just put a new box over it, and then the commission could decide maybe that enough time's gone by for the artist. Maybe you wanna open it up to an artist you've already done a call for. Maybe you wanna

Oh, we have people we didn't pick. Right?

We have people we didn't pick. You could do that. You could talk about it. You could talk about another location. I mean, it's just sort of a I'm hoping to convince somebody to

come back and do that one, but we won't be doing traffic boxes for another two years. So

or every other year because of budget, but we have $13,000.

Right. Things.

So you could have been making these decisions. Every year. I know. Good. Good.

Process is really involved, and it I'm sure it's been vetted. Have you looked into, like, just doing a vinyl wrap on any of them? Is that even feasible?

Robin saw that at a conference recently. I wish she was here to talk about it. Did you see it, the vinyl wrap? It was in the exhibit hall. The ones

that I saw in Idaho were all vinyl wrapped. They look really nice. Yeah.

Because in Portland, I was just in Portland, and all their waste receptacles are I said, I started taking pictures. Wait. That's exactly like the other one. It's like, well, they're all the same, so they must all be Yeah. Because then you only have to have the artist do it once. Right? And if it was destroyed, you get to three rat feathers.

I don't know. Yeah. You could look into that.

Great idea.

Wait. What?

Five? Mhmm.

Wait. What about that?

Okay. So, yes, and our sculpture exhibition would normally have its turn in the next fiscal year. And in the past, we've had, I would say, a larger variety of success and number of participants. In 2018, we had over 40 items, if I recall, in City Hall and both the Central Park Library oh, and in in both both wings of City Hall and in the Central Park Library. And then we had we were in the middle of planning an exhibition in 2020, which COVID caused us to pivot, and we ended up doing something virtually.

And then the last one that we did in 2024 Oh, wait. I think we didn't do a $100 in 2020. 2022, we did more or less virtually in association with the Triton Museum, which created a nice video for us and everything. And then 2024, we only had six entries or something.

I think

only two went on display, though. Yeah.

And only two went on display. So part of that could be just oversaturation, could be that we didn't give enough notice. Anyway, so that would be coming up. Usually, the process would be we would start talking about it in the new fiscal year, and then exhibition would be in the 2027. So that's still to come. You might wanna look at what we had budgeted for that in prior prior years when we start talking about budgeting.

And as you guys as the commission starts thinking about next, you know, work plan cycle, right, like, things are on the table for the commission to decide what you wanna do. You like that Beelowrider? Do you wanna do a big one? Do you wanna do a little one? Do you wanna do more utility boxes? Do you wanna what do you wanna do? Mhmm. So

Add something completely new? Add something completely new. Replace things with something else.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So That's all the discussion.

Mhmm. Okay.

And then the Halloween and holiday home decorating contests for 2025 are finished. I believe the subcommittee from this past year will not carry over to the 2026, so you can consider whether or not you had so much fun this last time that you wanna do it again. And then update and maintain Citi Interactive web based public art map. I think we consider that complete or it's ongoing. It's ongoing.

Yeah. Make music daily already discussed. Goal number three, raise the visibility of things in the news. Identify a space to curate and facilitate the celebration of commemorative months and which cultural holidays to celebrate and by what medium. So this the plan was actually approved in the November meeting, so that should be available to everyone about what we wanted to do in which month.

Some of it, we will, you know, obviously didn't wanna do things that were redundant. In March, we did put items in the East Wing Of City Hall in a display case by city clerk's office. Did anybody see photographs of that or they were put on Facebook and our social media. And we need to have a subcommittee meeting to understand what we wanna do for May. And now that N2 is back, we can do that.

And I think I saw that tomorrow, the city council is issuing a proclamation for Muslim Awareness Month. So that was on our list, but that's already happening. So k. Goal number four, enhance communication and media strategy to increase community awareness of the official permission. Is that accomplishments to city council annually? Do we have a date for that?

We don't. We can work offline if you wanna determine why. Is it

March or April last year? Think this was an eighth. Oh, May. Sorry. Okay. K. And then develop, maintain, and grow partnerships and collaborations with external organizations. We haven't talked to Mission College yet, or we don't have the dates of that.

To them. Yeah. We just haven't got the dates from them yet. Yeah.

I'm actually going to a meeting this Friday to talk about the Lunar New Year event for 2027. So that was considered quite successful. Korean Federation contacts and collaboration, we also want to continue to pursue pursue. And things happening with the library, we want to continue in partnership with that, like the Martin Luther King choral reading. Commissioner Doss and I were able to participate in that, and it just helps to to be a part of city cultural events that we might not plan ourselves.

Okay. Goal number five, participate oh, I'm sorry. Prepare for citywide arts master plan process and staff. Do you have an update for us?

Yes. So the, I just reviewed the RFP today in its final state, and sent it off to so it'll be released by the end of the month or end of the week. Hopefully, we will get solicitations back in, by mid month next month.

So this is for consultants? Or this

is for a consultant. The scope of work is, you know, using the tools that the committee, developed, informed the scope of work as long as well as collecting regional, final products, a bunch of cities in our area, Watsonville and Palo Alto and Mountain View and Redwood City. We have recently completed them, and so we kinda gathered those ones and looked at our scope of work. So that will get released. We'll hire a consultant, and then they'll first hopefully, issue their plan to come and present to the commission what their plan is. And then we'll kick it

off. So we were originally thinking that it might be something that would happen this spring or early this year. Is it looking like it might be this fall or next year? So we're hoping that they're

in contract before the end of the fiscal year so we can save the money and cover the money that's already allocated for it. It's not coming out of the cultural commission budget. Oh, that

was gonna be my next question.

It is not coming out of the cultural commission budget. No. In the city's budget, a 100 a little bit over a $100,000 got allocated for it in this current fiscal year budget. And so that's where the budget's coming from. And then, you know, I throughout the process, you know, we'll figure out what the plan is for outreach and all that kind of stuff. But, hopefully, we'll be able to start some of it this week this summer.

Great. Yeah. Last time, commissioner Pontius and I met with Damon. He said that, you know, we were welcome to take a look at it and to recommend and, you know, cut and paste kind of any other things that we saw that we we might want to be included. So is it still premature for that? Because we need to get the contractor

or the consultant first. Right? I I can send you the draft if you wanna see it. It's you know, it's gonna go hopefully go out this week. So but, yeah, if you wanna look at it.

Yeah. Yeah. I would like that. Thank you. Mhmm. And you? Yes. Okay. Let's see. That is the end of our first item.

Don't need to vote on anything from the work plan. But the next agenda item is city staff report.

Do you have anything to The only thing that I didn't get a chance to talk about yet, the city is under going under a charter review, and they gonna propose some things in the with the election. And so if you have been paying attention to that, you're interested in the laws that bind the city and how the city operates, and we encourage you to get informed and up to speed on that. And then the night market series is going forward. There's three events, May, June, and July event. The July event is our July 17 concert will be the headliner for the Friday night.

There are Friday nights and Saturday nights. So Friday, four to nine and Saturday, two to nine. And so the dates, I don't know if they're publicized yet on the website, but they should be soon. You should start seeing marketing soon. They've started soliciting for vendors and artists and everybody to be part of it.

The May 1 will, I think it's going to be a car show theme. The June will be a soccer theme, and then the July will be, like, a parks and recreation, physical activity, community building theme. They'll all have an art component to them. They'll all have food components, music, entertainment, and, like, retail and merchant merchant shopping, kinda like did. Now there

are a separate event producer for these night markets, and then if it's coming out of our budget No. No. Is there gonna be a cultural commission booth there? Gonna be. Do we need to participate in the same way that we do for street dance?

You you can. Yeah. There will definitely be an info booth there. There'll definitely be an opportune it's just it's a two day event, and so it's a little bit different. But to the extent that we wanna have a booth, especially at the July 1 where your concert is Yeah. Then we could schedule shifts over the two days.

Or at least for the one day.

Or at least for the Friday night. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fosted Saturday, two to nine. That's a long window.

That was, like, the the lunar New Year was that long. Yeah.

It's posted on the website.

Okay.

They're gonna have DJs and live entertainment. It pulls the car corps vendors too. So It's good. Yeah. Hopefully, they're trying to have wrestling at one of them. Yep. Wrestling. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay.

Yep. Not stage Friday.

No. No. So that those are my those are my updates other than the fact that I talked a lot tonight. So thanks, you guys. Right?

Yeah. We've been we have been doing that. Is that something you're interested in? Yeah. I just log in. Okay. But then kind of listening to you more than that. Okay. So for the subcommittee on developing develop, maintain, and grow partnerships and collaborations with external organizations, Commissioner Doss would like to join that subcommittee. The next time we have a meeting, it will be three

of us. Thanks.

Okay. Anything else from city staff? Right. Then commission reports. Anybody anything they'd like to share with the cultural commission?

I'm going to invite all of you to the twenty sixth annual event of my organization. It it will be in San Mateo performing arts San Mateo College performing arts center this Sunday, and it's from eleven to seven. But anytime you can come and have a look, we'll have 200 more than 250 artists from all different culture are coming over there. So it will be

a pleasure to see you. So can commissioner Don send that invitation to you, Kim, for distribution?

What's the name of that then?

It's I I Gurukul. I is for international and Gurukul Foundation. That's a nonprofit organization. We do every year an annual cultural extravaganza, we call it. So if we unite all the cultural group from different country,

this is common, but it's an admin.

Sure.

Commissioner Sanchez?

I was thinking about commissioner Diaz's comment about Spokane. He went there on a college trip. I was went to Portland, Oregon last month, and I was struck by the amount of just random building painting that there is. You know? And and and and and Oh.

Those sort of things. But it seems that that they've gone out of their way to solicit or encourage people to any blank wall as some sort of a mural or an artist or anything. And I would didn't you see something some wasn't I I wonder if this is just a a Northwest small town kind of thing, but it would be really cool to have that here in Santa Clara.

So as part of our public art at a program. Mhmm. So that could be a decision that we make rather than indoor sculpture, pursue a mural program. But I think that kind of thing might need to involve the sponsorship of businesses or building owners. So that would have to be investigated. It's interesting, though, because it looks really nice. It stands out.

Well, the question I have is, like, is there anything prohibiting people from doing that? And I know that, you know, it just seems that that it would also be a

way to engage young people. Mhmm.

You know? So there's so many talented people painting the road with road signs and things. Yeah. Nice if they had some other venue to demonstrate their talents. You know? That was

Yeah. Yes. So I'm not quite sure how to go about starting that

No idea. I just I brought it up because I I didn't know if it's something you've already discussed or if it's something that we've already looked into or anything like that. But how does one get in a city like that where Yeah.

There's art everywhere you look. Yeah. Pretty much it. So I know that there are some murals that we have on our public art map, and I'm aware when I mentioned building owners, I'm aware of a couple of those as they were being painted. Was, like, some press about how the building owner and the artist talked to each other and, you know, had some kind of agreement. And I don't know if the city, you know, city attorney would need to be involved like they are on the traffic boxes or I'm I'm not sure how we would go about just sponsoring that or fostering that. Interesting interesting puzzles to solve.

Well, I may look into that on the side, not as an official, but, you know Mhmm. Do a little research into how you get get that to happen.

Yeah. And then bring it back, and we can figure out how to do it. Love that. I forgot when because it's not on the work plan, but and I also didn't hear this conversation at the end of last week's meeting I mean, last month's meeting. Sorry.

But the AFTICAN, June, that's the American for the Arts Conference. I have attended three of those, and it's, you know, a couple days worth of conference of American cities who have cultural commissions or, you know, or whatever they call it, their arts and cultural commission or something like that. And they have keynote speakers. They have all kinds of breakout workshops. And I've always come back really inspired by what other cities are doing, and it's an opportunity to talk to them and find out how they do it, things like that.

So I think there there was a question about whether or not we can budget for that. I personally can't attend, but I I think it it's a great learning experience, if not this year, just to keep in mind. And maybe we put it in the work plan or budget for next year that, you know, maybe two commissioners can go wherever it is. It's a different city every year. But I think that's a valuable general resource for commissioners. So I I don't know if anybody was available then or what the discussion was. Anybody wanna go? June in Albuquerque. Yes. I mean, I know I grew up there, but I'm gonna be at a family reunion, so I can't go.

Okay. We have budget for this year. Well, we have money $13,000. 13,000. It's hard to spend that much money in Albuquerque. But

Santa Fe. True.

We had we had calculated how much it was gonna be. Wasn't it gonna be, like, $7.50 or something per person?

I think we It was 1,500? I think the flight Mhmm. Was around 5. Yeah. Then hotel for three nights or four nights was hotels, like, $2.50 a night. So and then plus the per diem. So I think it was around $1,500 per person. Per Yeah.

Per diem.

And they sent Robin sent out the policy, the travel policy. So if you think you're interested in going and you've looked at the policy and you feel comfortable with it, then just reach out.

Yep. And then I think did that did

the link go out for registration? No. No. You can't register yourself. I've gotta do it for you, and I have to book your book everything for you.

Okay. Well, I'll just leave it to you then to decide. Okay. Let's see. I was singing in a concert in March.

The Santa Clara Chorale did a concert called Stardust where every song had either Stardust in the title or in the lyrics, and it was kind of cosmic, but very fun. Lots of good contemporary music, which we don't usually do. And then on May, which is a Saturday, we're doing the Heiden creation with the full orchestra and some some guest soloists. So it should be pretty special if you like that kind of thing. I think it's gonna be really a fantastic concert and very moving. Anyway, you're all invited.

Where is that?

It's at the Santa Clara Mission. It's Saturday, the sixteenth at 07:30. Okay. So we all have a copy here of the proclamations for the Cultural Commission. This one is for Nebula Rider, which was distributed or presented, I should say, at the dedication ceremony. And this one is regarding human rights month in December. And a couple of us were there, but everybody should have a copy of that confirmation as well. They can frame it or put it into a folder. I'm honored that they are all signed by the the mayor and.

Yes. Hold on. We'll hold on to me too. Extras? But

why do I have two?

I don't know why you have two. Maybe we may need extra topics to see things.

Okay. And maybe one for you and Robin?

Or Does everybody have his phone copies?

Yep. Okay. There you go. Always like extra copies just in case. Good. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, commissioners, for your reports. Our meeting has now come to an end. I would like to entertain the motion to adjourn our meeting, 08:14PM.

I motion for. Second.

Okay. Commissioner Diaz. Aye. Commissioner Das. Aye. Roy?

Aye.

Samara?

Aye.

Sanchez? I'm. The motion passes. I wanna thank everyone for joining tonight's meeting. Our next cultural commission meeting will be on Monday, 05/04/2026 at 7PM here at the senior center in 205. Thank you.