Cultural Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, thank you, everybody. I'm gonna call this joint meeting of the Board of Library Trustees and the Board of the Santa Clara City Library Foundation Friends to Order. We'll start with a roll call for the Board of Library Trustees. Trustee Nguyen.

Here.

Trustee Ricosa. Present. Trustee Mohamed. Here. Vice Chair Troy Boros. Here. And Karen Sears. So we have the full board. I guess, for the record, it's probably good to also have each of the members of the Friends also introduce themselves and their names. So we'll start on the left here.

Kathy Betts, President of the Foundation.

Ken Young, Treasurer of the Foundation.

Joanne Davis, Executive Director of the Foundation.

Shannon Arsenault, Secretary of the Foundation.

Neil Sakajewski, Foundation Member. Okay, thank you.

Um, so yeah, we have an agenda item. I guess I'll turn it over the staff to read the I guess the first so much to Is it just the agenda right now is really just to pick it up later.

Okay.

Items. Oh. Oh, yeah. It just doesn't look the purpose. Yeah, it has the point.

Oh, okay. So. I'll come back. That's okay. Okay. I get it now. So this is, I think, the second time we've done it. The third time, maybe. And the goal is really for both boards to get to know one another better and also to spend a lot of time. You got it, Sammy? Yeah. to spend some time together talking and shaping the way that we can benefit both groups together in the pursuit of a stronger library. So with that, I will turn it back over to our chair.

Okay.

So I thought it would be helpful to give a brief introduction for the new Santa Clara Library board members, a little bit about the roles and responsibilities basically what the Board of Library Trustees does, and also like one of the responsibilities of the Santa Clara Foundation Library and Friends. I believe we had in the packet, if I recall, a presentation of the Board of Library Trustees handbook. Maybe we could pull that up or go through it real quick to answer some questions. As I recognize, we have a couple of new members, as I recall from our last meeting. Sorry, I'm really bad with names, but I believe. Two, two new people. The Port Library Trust does, so maybe we'll give a quick overview of that. And it'd be great to also have an overview back from the role of the foundation.

It's also recorded, so the members that aren't here can take a look at that.

Cool. So the Board of Library Trustees, basically, what is it we do? Well, we're an advisory body for the library system. We provide advice and recommendations to the city council and library staff regarding library services. uh for the day-to-day management of the library that is not our job that is the job of the city library um we have wonderful librarian long here who does the day-to-day for us um and we give it feedback and advice to uh library long and then she takes that to the city staff and the rest of the city about holiday policies and suggestions that we have as the board of library trustees Um, we don't provide direction library staff directly. Um, you know, we, you know, certainly interact with them, but you know, we give direction to the, to the city library and recommendations that provides all those. Um, we were appointed for four year terms by the city council, but you can get two terms in a row as I understand it. Um, and then you can come back, I think after some break, but that I don't remember. Um, yeah. see what is our responsibilities well this is a really interesting one so uh generally we do duties in public meetings um formally our responsibilities are outlined in the city charter which is to basically make policies. I don't know if we have that on here. We have charter language, which is make and enforce recommendations of bylaws and rules for the administration of library. We approve and disprove the appointment of city librarian. We currently accept donations to the library fund. And as we can, we have a power to contract with our governmental agencies for libraries to receive or render library services. Now, I do want to point out that this There's a charter review going on right now, so exactly how that affects and all the changes for the board of libraries you see is still in flux. We had some recommendations we made around maybe adjusting the wording on some of our responsibilities, but, you know, we did give recommendations to keep a lot of substantially the same functionality. There's some wording changes. And when that's more further along, I guess you could track that just as a heads up that that's going on right now with the Tribal Review Commission. Yeah. We also have five members. I don't think we explained that, but there's five of us. That's one of the things we're potentially reviewing for the charter review actually is to increase our membership to include, get more community involvement, but also makes it easier to hold meetings since you need a quorum of folks in person. But having more members, we are close to that. Go ahead, question.

Can you explain the library fund? It was on the previous slide.

Yeah, so that that is, uh, maybe it's, it's D, it's C, C, C. Yeah, it's that one.

That's donation into the library fund.

Yeah, so that is that is this within the city itself. There are some accounts as I understand it that are specific to the library. So if something is donated directly. To the library's funds that we. as written here, except the donation on behalf of the city council. They also then, I think it gets recommended from them.

Maybe Ed if I can say it too.

A clarification of the attorney. We're going to the foundation versus the body.

Does that happen often?

So remember, the board of library trustees is a charter body, which means the roles and the functions existed before the foundation existed.

Okay?

Okay. So there are, it still remains intact in the charter. Now we have another conveyance in terms of accepting funds and donations. There are some things though that have come directly to the city on behalf of the library directly. And so generally when that happens, current practice is that I would share that with Joanne. She would say, okay. And then, you know, we'd have it travel on this path through the foundation. But there are some things in the past that have not always gone that way. So, but normally, common practice is now, but remember, this pre-existed the foundation's existence. So there was no other way of receiving funds on behalf of the library, except through this process before.

I'm thinking of generally what happens if someone specifically says city library via like city as opposed to donating to the foundation.

And then what happens is we have a conversation, the money gets committed this way to the foundation and then, but it's received on behalf of the library for library services. Yeah.

Okay. Thanks. Let's see, that's... I think kind of a 30, you know, a quick overview as far as time management. There was also a section on here, it'd be great if we could talk a little bit more about like the roles of the Santa Clara Monation Friends.

I don't know if you have any content you'd like to share on. I don't have a slide. But when the foundation was founded, it was founded by a group of volunteers around the time the original Central Park The library was going to be torn down and rebuilt. And so the volunteers had been working selling books and doing all the things that the volunteer friends do for other libraries. And they got some space donated on El Camino Real so they could continue to sell books while the new library was being built. During that process, The volunteers were organized and started conversations with the city and with the current with the city librarian at that time. That says, like, how can we we're going to have a new library and there's going to be all of this stuff and how can we kind of formalize this arrangement? So they received. They started the process of becoming a 501c3. And so that was sort of the impetus behind creating the foundation to begin with, because they figured with the new building, there would be needs that maybe they didn't anticipate at the time. That's why we're just celebrating our 25th anniversary because it's been 25 years now. So what the library does really is it makes it easier for people to donate because we're a 501c3, they can donate directly to us. They get a tax letter, they get a letter, a thanking letter acknowledging their donation. And so they can write it off on their taxes if it's appropriate to do that. And it makes it very clean. We don't have to go through the city at all. And so we have our own charter, which is to support the programs of the library. So we do have some money in funds that have been set aside early on that were when Northside opened and when Mission was renovated for fit and fixtures. So we can do things like chairs. We've replaced chairs. We've had film put on the windows and things like that. But for the most part, the role of the foundation is to raise funds to support library programs. So like the Board of Trustees, we don't supervise staff. We don't come up with ideas for programs. But what we do is work together with staff to say, What's happening this year? What programs do you want? Are we expanding a program? Is there a new program? We raised money for the standing program. So Summer Adventure and Comic-Con being two of the largest programs that the library does on a regular basis. And so what the foundation does is talk to people in the community, send out emails, request money, request funding from individuals, from foundations, from corporations to get sponsorships for the big programs and also really like the Library Board of Trustees, work as advocates. So our board, the Foundation Board, really are, I would say they're our ambassadors to the community. So they're the ones out in the community that are talking about people and spreading the word about what the Foundation does and how great our library is and how we want it to stay great. And so that really is our focus. Now in the last, well, since Patty came, We've gotten a lot more government grants and part of that is that she knew more about it. Maybe previous librarians didn't have the same connection or didn't have the same information, I don't know. So then what happens is we're really acting as a fiscal agent. So the state library will give us a grant. They know that they're giving to the foundation and the foundation is going to be providing for things or paying for the programs that are actually being operated by the library. And so that's slightly different than, say, you know, Jane Doe writes us a check for $10,000 and says, I wanted to go to support children's programming or something where it's unrestricted. And then we could use it for whatever the donor says, either whatever we want, if they say use it where you need it, or if they give us some instruction. When we get a grant, we're legally, the foundation is legally bound to ensure that that money is used in the appropriate way, that it's fully expended, and that the reports are done. And so that way, in that case, we actually have a legal responsibility to make sure to track those funds, to report on those funds, and to make sure that that they are spent in the way that the grant lined up. If we ever have money left over, we actually have to go back to whoever gave us the money and say, you know, you gave us 30,000, we only spent 28, do you want the money back? Do you want the balance back? Most of the time they don't, but we have to, we're required to actually do that. We don't get to just say, well, you know, we asked for 30, we only spent 25 and now we've got five extra thousand dollars, you know? So that also gets reported on the tax form that the foundation has to fill out. which are the 990s, which actually go to the IRS and show all the grants we received. Also, any donations we received over $5,000 need to be listed on there. And we have to account for all of that. And we have to have the backup to show that that money, when it was received, how it was used, and how it was reported on.

Thank you. One other thing, I missed on kind of the introduction. Things that might be interesting was there's the SC, the Memorandum of Understanding, because I've heard about that a few times in conversation. I think it'd be helpful. What is that? What is that? I'm sorry.

M-I-U with the city. Oh, sorry. I was distracted by a bug. My brain went into, you know, fight or flight. Okay. We have a memorandum of understanding with the city of Santa Clara and what that does is currently is it says that the city will give us office space that includes some other things. So in other words, we get, it's about, we have to put it, there's a dollar amount that gets attached to that. So it's just shy of $5,000 a month and you'll see it on our financials and you'll see it on our 990. It comes in, it goes out, it offsets. And what that is, is the city is saying to the foundation, we understand that you exist to support the library. And so we're going to help you do that by providing you office space and space to receive donated books. The bookstore in the Central Park Library, we're going to give you space for that. And you can use our copy machine and you can use our paper and you can use our paper clips and things. What we cannot do is use city property for fundraising. That's why when we have an event or something, I bring our printing and our sign making and everything over here. You know, I outsource it to a vendor so that that is done because we are not allowed to because you were not allowed to use city property to fundraise or create fundraising materials. So some things we, you know, we go out in the community and get, but basically it says you can use the phones. We used to be on the city's. Email system, so we use their wifi right now. We are no longer on their email. And it actually is for very obvious reasons. We can go into more detail, but it's just better that way. But we do get Wi-Fi. We have the phone. So we don't pay anything extra for using lights or anything like that. So it really covers the square footage that the library staff and the library functions use within the library, along with the ancillary support. Is that renewed at some frequency?

Every three years. It's been every three years. Is it three years?

Every three years, or the last one might have been five years.

Five years, that is renewal over time, and then we were going to review it in another five years.

I know that as we did the Facilities Master's Plan, I'm not so sure how that impacted the foundation.

Do you want me to answer that right now?

I can.

So we actually included the foundation in the facilities master plan as part of the philanthropic arms of not that everything rests on them, but that we wanted to recognize that they are part of the support for the library in its current form. but perhaps in future forms as they have been in the past. So it was to make sure that I think the city, as a city codified document, was aware that the foundation has a role in that.

I think member, like board members have questions. Feel free to raise your hand.

You can ask it.

I actually wasn't aware of that level of relationship. So that's something I didn't even think to ask a question about when we did the Facilities Master Plan. So I'm glad that that was taken care of.

And we gave an overview of both the Strategic Plan and the Facilities Master Plan to the board already. Okay, so they sent those.

Awesome. Okay. I think we had some other topics. I think we wanted to talk a little bit about... Actually, it might be helpful to give a little recap about the 20th anniversary event.

We had a 50th anniversary event on May 16th. I think everyone had a really good time. Thank you to staff and Bolt members who were able to come. We really appreciated that support. It was at the Trite Museum of Art. One of the reasons that we use that as a venue is if you've been around for a while, you know that that event used to be held at the Central Park Library. One year it was held at the Northside Library. And people love being in the library at night. But that kind of a large scale event really put a lot of extra work on library staff because they actually had to physically move things to make space. And so we started having it at the Triton Museum. We're able to do that because the Triton is also on city property. And so we don't have to pay anything. the venue fee that we would have to pay if we had it somewhere else. So I look at it as kind of a win-win because it brings inevitably People walk into the Triton and they say one or two things. I've never been here. I did not know there was a museum here. Or they say, oh, you know, I came here when my kids were in school on a field trip and I haven't been here in 20 years. So, you know, it really is beneficial, I think, for the Triton as well to have people come in and see it's a beautiful little museum. They have really nice exhibits. So that's been a really great partnership. It's kind of a friend racer slash fundraiser. So, you know, we... And it's not the kind of event at this point where we can say we made $150,000. I mean, we're limited by space. I will say that this year we are back to pre-pandemic levels. We grossed over $50,000 on the event. We had to raise a paddle. We had a silent auction. We raised our ticket prices a little bit. Now, the net, I don't have final numbers on that yet, but I expect that we will net over $30,000, probably $33,000, $34,000 once all the bills are in and everything is paid. So in that respect, it was a success. Our speaker came, and he was wonderful, and we didn't pay him a huge fee. And then our auctioneers discount their fee for us, and we have people who support us in other ways. I think it's a great way for the community to see us. It also was the first thing that the 49ers sponsored in all the years. So it was the first thing. I mean, early on, before the stadium was built and they had a lot of things going on in the community. But from the foundation standpoint, we hadn't had regular support from the 49ers. So their support has continued over the last few years. So it's been a great outreach to them. 49ers were responsible. Sutter Health was a sponsor, which is another great community partner that If you've been reading the news, they're really investing a lot in the city of Santa Clara, including building a new medical school in partnership with Santa Clara University. So that is a relationship that's already growing into how else they're going to be supporting the Santa Clara libraries. And then we had some individual donors as well.

It's been a good time. It was fun. I was there, so I enjoyed the talking about it.

Yeah, I think it had, I felt like it had more energy and it was like more lively than people were having, were more engaged than in past years. So I thought that was really good.

The topics we had queued up. One thing that might be helpful to do is discuss a little bit on what both the Santa Clara Foundation's priorities are for this next upcoming year, and I guess our priorities as far as it applies to library funding. From our side, we could talk maybe through a little bit of, we have a draft board plan that we could share, like kind of setting the board's thoughts and things that we put together on generally what we Like, you know, planning to do for the next year. I think there's a draft in here. And I don't know if you've been thinking about some foundation, like things that you're thinking about for the next year or four.

You know, we have not done yet, but we will be looking at it. As you probably know, you know, we did receive a large bequest earlier this year. So the board will be putting together sort of an ad hoc committee that's going to look at strategies around what does that mean? You know, what does that mean for us? You know, some people that I've talked to who've heard about it, it's like, wow, you could spend all this money. And I was like, no. You know, so, you know, we don't we will be looking at that and we will be probably looking looking at our overall strategic plan and making adjustments where necessary. I mean, I'm just speaking just for myself. I think when I first was made aware of that, what I thought is that's going to secure the foundation for the next 25 years. Because I think if we're smart about it and we plan and we're able to invest wisely and the investments pay off, that really could continue to fund the foundation for years. In the short term, I think that's It does give us more opportunity to provide more funding to the library for programs. What that is will be decided by our board of directors. But once we kind of come up with what that strategy is and how it may or may not affect our strategic plan moving forward, then I'm sure we'd be happy to share that with the library board of trustees. But I would suspect it's going to be next year at this time before we actually have something like that more formalized.

Yeah, so from our side, we have our four planets draft. There's a lighter topic later to go in more detail about this, but this is where it stood as of our previous meetings where like from our perspective, things we want to look at as our board, right, was collection funding. How do we help make sure we keep having a collection funded? The city's been doing its budgeting so great. want to make sure that we have and continue to have the right funding for providing the collection. We generally, I think, see that as a city role, but I'm not sure if that's advocated for. One thing we're also looking at is sources of alternative funding for the library. This is something we've asked to explore, stats to explore, which is like ways to get money beyond just the general fund. Right now, the library, I'm not sure if the conditions were, but we're all funded by general funds, which means it's whatever the city approves every year. There's no like guaranteed or other funding from the library. And so this is explaining how all their library systems are funded. Some of them are funded through like property tax assessment. Some are get capital improvements through developer fees and various things and we want to try and understand like are there things that we can do that other libraries do to make sure that we ensure consistent and in some sense consistent funding it's not just you know based on whatever the budget um for a given year it turns into because that's because we're a general fund you know it comes and goes a lot of things that's never lost a lot of its part-time staff for example but

Is it a multi-year plan or a button, or is it every year they revisit and it could change year to year?

So what I'm saying... The library month probably answer.

The city operates on a biennial budget. So we do an operating budget for two fiscal years in a row. And then the next year we work on a capital budget for the next year. So currently the budget for the next two years that's being developed is for the capital budget. And there's just minor operational changes that are necessary. And the next year we'll work on two years worth of an operating budget.

there's some stability built into patty long city library but the work plan that the board comes up with is annual yeah okay yeah so this is this work plan is things that we as a board think are important to make sure for the next year next 12 months the library or things that we think should be looked at and is it a calendar year or this or a different

It's fiscal year from July 1st through June 1st. Okay, so it is half year or starting.

But we will need a topic tonight to go discuss and revise this for June 1st.

When we're looking at how we get funding from other sources, I mean, that's really where our foundation board and the library board of trustees can really work together. Because if we are advocates for the library, not just with the city, but with the community. So when things like the Measure I bill, you know, bond came up and people voted for that because they saw the need to support, you know, provide funds for infrastructure. And, you know, like you brought up property taxes, you know, there are you know, other libraries that do get money because they get a certain percentage of property taxes every year, you know, and so those are avenues that, I mean, they're difficult to do because when you ask the voters, do you want your property taxes to go up? They pretty much say no. But if we're, it's just like with the Measure I, if we can make a compelling case, if we can show them specific things, and if we can say, for your extra $27 a year, this is what we can do, or this is what the libraries can do with that, then... You know, we have a better shot if we if we don't have that kind of collaborative effort to advocate for things like that, then it's really hard to get any kind of taxes or anything like that or bonds passed. But but they did do measure I, which you just don't know, you know.

One of the other items on our plan is, you know, continue. We recently did a strategic plan. I think we've been briefed on that, but it's just continue executing on that. That's something that's on our list. And then we also have facilities master plan and we measure by continuing the feedback and that stuff on the facilities designs and things that are coming into that. And then we have, last but not least, we have A couple other things, policy work, which is just continuing the review of policies. We've been doing like a review of some of our policies. I know we have some that are in progress. That's something we'll continue to do this year, which is updating some of those. We also have various members serve as liaisons with different groups. And this is one we actually, like we're all talking about now, is we usually want a liaison to come to your meetings.

I believe Trustee Hester and her fellows have been Stephanie's our liaison at the moment.

I'm done now. But unfortunately, our wonderful trustee Will will be, I guess, turning out. So we'll have to find another person to act as a liaison to the library foundation. Yeah, and then the last thing we do is just general board development. Better support the library and having conversations such like this with other boards about what we Yeah, that's kind of a quick overview of these. What we're looking at for. Priorities right now for 2020 says that there'll be more discussion. We may change them up in.

We've done similar things, you know, we have committees and ad hoc committees that look at things. So we have a governance committee that reviews all of our policies and reviews them every year. You know, we have a finance committee. We have, you know, we can form like a nominating committee, you know, when we're out looking for board members and strategic plan committee when we're reviewing our strategic plan. So in that respect, we're very similar in how we approach things. But just looking at things and making sure that things are up to date, that they're correct, and that we're also operating under the policies that we've actually set out to do.

Chair, do you want to bring up maybe the topic of a liaison in the other direction now?

Or you could do it later.

Yeah, so we have a liaison to your board, but I don't know if we'd be interested in having somebody attend our meetings regularly and, you know, welcome that they don't join in as often.

I try and come and give updates and have public presentations. But, you know, having... I don't, I don't think it's a bad idea. I mean, I, the, the order library trustees are open meetings and so our board is always encouraged to go and there are things to to discuss, but I don't, I think we'd have to have a discussion and see if we have. If we have someone available, you know, part of it is we have 3. People. Right here who are turning off of our board at the end of June. So we have 2 new people coming on. So it may take us a little time to rebuild and get to a point where. You know, we have, I have 2 other people, potential board members in the pipeline, but to ask someone who's brand new to our board. You know, to take on a responsibility like that, probably we need more time, but I certainly. Think that we can have a discussion about that, but I. Realistically, I think it's going to take us some time to get our word built back up and get our new board members. You know, sort of up to speed and and and give them a good base so that they can. You know, if they're interested in doing it, that they have the information and the knowledge to. To do, you know, to do it and build well.

I was really impressed with your two new board members. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. I think they're going to be really great additions. But we still, they've only been on the board a month. I was very impressed by the background. Background is really good.

Yeah. Yeah.

I know between one and the other, they've been out of the country like five times in the last month. But I think they will be really great additions. And I think once they get up to speed, but you know, like I said, you know, let's, let's give them, you know, six or eight months, you know, till next spring to kind of, and then see where their, see where their interests are and they have, they have different backgrounds and see where their talents lie. So we want to make sure that, that we're also keeping them engaged by having them help us in a way that they're excited about doing, you know, so.

Yeah, we certainly encourage, though, any of you, if you're interested in attending any of our meetings, we do set the agendas out, so if there's topics you see that are interesting to you, you can always talk.

And these are streamed, so you can actually, you don't have to physically... You can watch online, you can ask questions, you can, you know, listen to the whole thing, and...

the comfort of your home. I have a question. So you guys meet monthly, right? And then what's the interface to the city council? Is that all of you or some of you or just Patty? Or how does that work with city council meetings? I'm asking the chair if you want me to address that or if you want to address it in that.

So... Well, I'll let you answer your answer, and I'll get my answer.

All right. Patty Wong, City Librarian. So the board has a regular agendized... now back in circuit, uh, meeting with council once a year, um, at dinner. Um, but one of the things that the library would often does is celebrate things like national library week, or maybe adult services month, whatever. Um, and actually ask the board to represent us there. So often the chair and I will go to present national library week in a proclamation together. It puts, it gives council an audience of a different kind. It's not, it's formal, but it's, the proclamation often states where our priorities are, what our outcomes have been for the year, et cetera. And then that gives the council a little bit of a taste of, but that's, those are the two areas, you know, whenever we come for proclamations. And then the second one is the, the dinner.

Those are the two formal. Those are the two formal. And with that, when I mentioned that work plan, we submit that work plan to the city council. So they actually have a list of like what we as a board want to see done. And all the boards and commissions do a work plan. They do. So that's kind of a formal feedback the boards and commissions give to the city council as to like, here's what we're doing for the year. They also get all of our meeting minutes. Like when we approve a meeting minute, that goes up and they read those as well. Maybe less formal. Yeah. for what they do read. And honestly, our minutes are pretty good. So I think some of the boards and commissions are very sparse. I know some of the council members do read the board minutes because I have gotten questions. And that's the other case. It's like sometimes people, council and stuff will talk to us offline, right? And we can advocate just like any other member of the public. So when there's issues that affect the library that are not one of the formal things, I have come out to city council meetings, I spoke to a lot of young people. I think the dinner is just something that has restarted.

I don't think there was a dinner for the last three years, right? There was a dinner two years ago. And then they restarted. But they have had those dinners for a long time before that.

So there had been years and years of dinners. And then there was conversation, I think, amongst the council and the city that that might not be the best way of getting information to the council. So they dropped it. But I will say that our current mayor is very interested in restarting the dinner. So we are. And so our next one, and they are actually open meetings, is June 23rd. I don't know that everybody's invited to eat, but you are certainly invited to attend. It is a good way, I think, of... You know, when you break bread with a group and you share ideas and that kind of thing, it is a good idea to get across the value of the library and also our supporters. And so I do want to say that Council pays very close attention to what happens at the library through our board also. So, for instance, I know for a fact that the board members that were able to come to STEM zone talked a lot with council that day because everybody came. And so as a result, if you follow any of the council members in their newsletters, both Kelly Cox and Mayor Gilmore put it front and center, the STEM zone. in their last newsletters. And I think that has a lot to do with the advocacy that we have on the team. Right?

Yeah, so a lot of interactions outside of just the two. The formal ones.

Yeah.

Questions? If for that topic, are there questions about the

Just so you know, we did like those library strategic plan and the facilities master plan, both in full, the full documents were provided at a board meeting a couple of months ago. So our board has access to those. We didn't, Patty did a great sort of time limited presentation at the board meeting, but our board does have the full documents. Okay.

So I thought it might be helpful to have some conversation about maybe collaboration, like how, what both of our board or your board or what we can do together to help on various upcoming topics or things going on. I don't know if there's any feedback on how we can support any of your events. I know we just had the 25th anniversary. Some of us in the board attended.

I don't know if there's anything else where you're looking for support from the library trustees for events that... Well, I mean, I think that when we do have programs, of course, you're always welcome to come. But, you know, I think... The same thing that Patty would say is it's great to see your faces at library programs. You know, we have Summer Adventure that started today that's going to go on for the next two months. There's programs and there's programming and vendors and performances and things for the next two months. Those are sponsored. Mission City Community Fund sponsors that. Key Point Credit Union sponsors that. The Sereno Group sponsors that. So it's also a way... You know, I don't, I don't think I can stress enough how important it is when. I'm asking some of the sponsor is I can tell them 2 things. Our board support set right? The community loves it. And it's great exposure for you. And so. when they come to the events and they see that our board members are in attendance or volunteering at a table or the vault members are in attendance and they see the city, they see the mayor there, they see a city council person there, it has an impact. So I think that that's something that it's hard to sort of like, you know, like really formalized, like say, oh, this person came and because they came and they met this person, this is what happened. But it's one of those things that they note that. And so the people who support Comic-Con last time, they know now, oh, Comic-Con's coming up again. Last time I was there, I met this person, you know, and it has kind of a trickle down effect. in the community when you hear that. And so I talked to someone today who called us, someone who has not donated to the foundation since 2017 and called and just asked me a question. Well, we spent half an hour on the phone. Then I found out that His daughter is a librarian. She loves Comic-Con, you know, and then, you know, like something else happened and then this happened and then that happened. And he's like, I think I have to renew my membership. I haven't been a member in a long time and I'm going to tell my daughter about Comic-Con and I have a bunch of books I want to donate. And so things like that. that bring those programs, even though the foundation isn't creating them, it's the library staff who's like super creative people who are coming up with these things. But that connection And when I talk to people, I have, you know, I try something else. And when I find just like today, all of a sudden we hit on Comic-Con and that was like a 20 minute conversation. So those are the kinds of things that I hope all of you do, you know, when you're talking to people out in the community, because you never really know what is going to be that one thing. that connects people. So the more that you understand about the programs or you come to one thing, you know, I always tell people go to Northside or somewhere where one of the branches, when they have story time and you see a hundred little kids in a room dancing and standing up and singing and listening to stories and stuff, you can't You can't just explain that. We want people to experience it. So if we have everybody saying, hey, there's this great program. Oh, hey, we're going to have lunch somewhere. You want to stop by and see this program on the way? Is this really cool? Things like that, I think, are really important. They're just really critical to not just getting the word out about what the library does, but also getting the word out about what the foundation does and what the library board of trustees do, which we're all working together to do this one thing, to support the libraries. And so people remember, people still will say, oh, do kids still read books? It's like, well, do you want to come and see the face of the kid that we just said? The book is free. Just pick one and take what you want. You know, so those are the things that we really need help doing and getting that experience out to other people in the community whenever we can. Once a year, twice a year, whenever. But it's super, super important because when people see it, then it affects them in a way different than me telling them about it or you telling them about it, you know, or they read about it somewhere. That's always my goal. Come to story time. Just one. Just come to one story time.

Chair Gibbons, can I?

I wanted to, you know, and we don't do enough of this, but I think Joanne and I do this mutual appreciation thing all the time, which is when Joanne met Katie Cousy from Sutter Health, she called me. And she said, Patty, have you met the Sutter Health people yet? And I said, no, but we would love to meet them. And so we set up something for the staff and Katie talked to us for a little bit. And then Sutter's a big organization, so they have lots of little tendrils and lots of arms and they're not necessarily all going through Katie. But Katie came to the 25th anniversary and, you know, Sutter now has become sort of a second name in terms of support for the foundation, but also the library. We've met two times now with the center people at different stages of where it's most impactful for us. Whether it's joint programming that we're going to be doing or they're going to be doing something for our community. They know about Kaiser. We're not afraid of talking about Kaiser at the same time. But they understand they want to do something else. They want to fill in the gap. They want to create more synergy with us. And so I wanted to thank Joanne because that is helping to create more programming. Even though maybe it doesn't start with the foundation, it's a springboard for other things to do. The last anonymous foundation donation, it was after the bequest, but a sizable amount was due to, and I think I've mentioned it to you folks before, a lunch, right? And I just happened to meet with the former mayor and somebody that she invited to lunch. And then we started talking and all of a sudden, we get a nice donation, which is great. It didn't come from her. It came from the person we had lunch with. I think those little happenstance relationships, the ways that we can share how important what the library is trying to do, how impactful we are, and then maybe where our gaps are. because that was really important to that particular person.

When I said, you know, we're losing our ESL funding.

And I, you know, it's not so much, I was complaining. I was just saying, the real fact is that we're short. And, and, you know, they said, what do you mean you're short? And I said, well, we don't have it at the state library because the state is not, is following the lead of the current administration and they are not allowed to do anything that's EDI related. And that just broke their heart. So we, you know, I didn't necessarily know that that's what that person was interested in, but by golly, did it make an impact? So that's why Shanti says, comes to you and says, Hey, you know, in real life, this is actually what's happening. And, and it's not so much that we're pleading or anything, but this is kind of the world we live in right now. And so shout out to Joanne and, Because she's actually always brought those. We do this together. Right. It's a real partnership. And so I think part of our thinking with all of you is how do we deepen that relationship? So it's just not us. Right. So it's all of you working together in whatever form that looks like. So.

Thank you. And it's interesting, the person that I was talking to today also brought up ESL. And I said, well, you know, we're losing all our ESL funding as of June 30th. And he was like, what? So we think that people know because it's all in the news. So we make an assumption that people know that this is happening and this is what the effect is. But they hear it, but they don't say, well, wait a minute, are libraries losing money? You know, so this is a person who lives in Santa Clara and was a librarian. He and his wife were both librarians. And he was like, what do you mean you're losing money? You know, so it's like things like that that are just, like you say, you know, you just, as they come up.

That makes me kind of wonder, like, are there ways that we can better publish where we think there already, like the CSL one is one that was like, you know, like we discussed a couple times now. But I don't think the wider community, to your point, has any idea of a lot that we lost money, but they may not even know about all the great things Read Santa Clara does. I've attended a few of their programs and it's amazing to go and see like how big of an impact these things have on people's lives. And I don't think most people know that. Like it's just something that, you know, they maybe get an email later, don't read.

Yeah, I think it's true. And I think too that, well, my friends are tired of hearing me say this, but you probably are too. When I say where I work and what I do, the first response always is I love libraries. Really? When was the last time you were at a library? I used to go all the time when I was in college or when my kids were little or something like that. And they say, oh, you know, do kids still read books? Doesn't everyone have a Kindle? You know, or something. And so that's my opening. And that's what I say. You know, it's like libraries are more than quiet places where you go to read. Libraries are community centers. They may not call themselves community centers, but if you walk through any of our branches at any time, you will see people using computers, getting a hell with their iPhone because there's a tech person there doing it, the repair cafe, the lawyers at the library, the tenant, you know, landlord issues. It's a little microcosm of everything that's going on in our community that happens inside our libraries. And trying to, you know, just... We can do a better job of informing you of all the things that are happening, but I think that the more information that we have, the more we are able to then feel comfortable. So I always say too, you don't have to ask for money. You just sell them on the program and on the idea, and then put them in touch with me. And I don't have any problem asking them for money. I will tell them exactly how much money we need for what program. And so it's not that we need the connections and we need to know the... be introduced to the right people or the people who you all think might have a special interest. And then Patty and I'll have lunch with them, you know, or they'll get a tour of the library. They want a behind the scenes tour of the library. I could sit and watch the book sorting thing all day long. It's fascinating, you know. So, I mean, everybody's going to have a little different thing that they connect to. And so, You know, if you meet someone and they're interested, just let us know, you know, and we'll take it from there. And they can come and they can have lunch with Patty without having to pay for it, like do the event.

And there's probably more, I mean, on this train of thought that we could do to mine that people who know are regular donors. And, you know, when Patty was telling our board about this lunch and how she just, you know, it was natural in the conversation that they were saying, you know, where, where's the biggest needs where, you know, where are the risks in the programs and things like that. She talked about it. It wasn't like a, we really need you to fund this. But that's a natural conclusion that happens. And I do think that, and we've kind of touched on this group, that there's more opportunity for us to go into the people who are donating now and set up some sort of small group or one-on-one kinds of things that we're not doing it at all. And I think it will turn into more donations if we do that.

Yeah, it's just like our board. One of the things our boards started again this year is calling people who donated the last effort. Just call them, you know, and it makes, you know, I mean, no one likes cold calling people, you know, no one likes it. But I always say, you know, I can give you a script. And most people don't answer the phone. So you're leaving a message. So take from the heart. Why? You've been a board member now for one year or two years or five years. Why? Why are you supporting this organization? So I'm going to say thank you. You know, you know, we appreciate it. You know, I've been a board member for three years, you know, and we appreciate your support. And I got so much feedback from people who got phone calls. Yeah.

We could also have a little event too, like we did last year. Jonathan, were you starting to go down the path of asking the group about, is there more that could be done to get exposure to certain key programs that it might, you know, either like a profile of someone who's benefited from the Read Santa Clara. I don't know Patty and others, because I don't always read all the emails I get either, but I don't know if there's a way to do it beyond... something that's just in writing in the newsletters or how much we're doing that right now that really showcases the difference that some of these programs that, you know, that people will pay attention to.

Because I know one thing is like, I know the staff is going to give us presentations about like, What are the things that have gone well, programs that people like? But unless you came to one of our meetings, you may not know that we offer this program or the Read Santa Clara. Shanti gave some very...

Right. Well, I'm talking about the public. And how does the general public see it? Santa Clara residents, how do they find out that they're actually quite impactful? It's not just reading. It's not just, you know, it's really things that change lives. Yeah.

If it's okay. So Patty Wong, City Librarian. I'm learning how to do this. It's late in my career, but I'm still learning. So definitely, there's a couple of things. One is, yes, we can get the word out. Sammy and the admin team is working on an annual report. So hopefully that will generate some good things about it. We need to do it all the time, though. The other thing I think that might be helpful is that we get calls from Silicon Valley Voice all the time. For quotes or a story or whatever. And I've been avoiding Carolyn a little bit because I said, I don't want to just do it. I don't want you to just interview me. I'd rather interview some of you, some of you. So if we actually had that kind of set up, we could have regular stories in there all the time. All the time. So she's looking for op ed. She's looking for ways in which the library that she can promote the library. And it's not just an event because that's good news. But she has to kind of hunt for that. If we could just feed her stuff, it would just it would just go in there. And so I think if you even if she actually did ask the other day if there could be a joint op ed between the board and your and the foundation board. And that would be kind of interesting, I think. I mean, it's a little bit of work, but I would say that it would come from the bodies that care that much more about the library, but not the staff. See, it's a different perspective when it's just the staff. I mean, yes, I can talk to her until, you know, but it's not as impactful. It's more impactful when it comes from you folks or if it comes from the community itself. But you are a community. So I would suggest, you know, if we wanted to do that, that we would have maybe even on the parking lot is every other month having something come that way. If it works. If it works for you. But I know you're all busy and you have a lot of things going on. But that would be one way of getting the word out. And it gets, you know, they have a lot of readership. People read that thing. Yeah.

Anyway, just a thought.

We are planning a regular annual report. Probably it'll be like a biannual one at this point because we wanted to keep the Sunday hours in there. But if we can do that on this end, on the city's end, the library's end, we've never had an annual report before, ever. And so that's kind of a lost opportunity for us. And so we need to kind of make that happen. But there's lots of other ways of pulling, because the annual report's not going to be 15 pages long. We can't do that. People will get very tired. So the issue, though, is that we just talked about 15 pages worth of stuff. So how can we actually manage that and get it out to the right people and then have them promote it? That's one way of answering your question. We're also looking for a communications coordinator. So that is really kind of the one thing that we need that we really don't have. It's just we're doing so many good things. We're sort of falling all over ourselves. And that's one of the reasons why we can't get the word out. Right. We're producing so many good. But there's no one cohesive, coordinated way of getting the word out.

Well, that is one of our report members, actually. That's her change management indications. She worked for Google for a number of years. And so, you know, that's something that she's interested in. And so also, you know, sort of we're in the same boat. There are only a couple of us, you know. And so to try and maximize the effort and get the news out, I do think that... We don't get as much response from social media that people think that we do, even though we actually have Kate, our former employee and current consultant, who really is doing that all the time. When she was an employee, she didn't have time to do that. So we never really had a huge social media presence. And I don't know what the... I don't know why that is, I guess, you know, and so maybe again, a couple of our new board members have some more experience in that, but. it's one thing to do, and Kate does a really good job of posting pictures of events as they're happening, you know, and go here, this is happening right now, you know, and things, but it's hard for us to kind of quantify how things like that work when you're trying to get real-time, you know, exposure to things, but I think certainly There is more that can be done. I'm just not quite sure how to do that, get that real-time thing. Because even if we have someone talking or we have a short video of someone talking about the impact of a program on their lives, what do we do with it? You know, so yet we can put it on our website, but then someone's got to know to go, you know what I mean? So we can do that, but there's more to it than that. And that's the capacity that we don't have right now is what is that next step? We can get the videos. What do we do with them that will have an impact?

I think there's two challenges. There's showing that there's things going on, right? And then here's what it is. And then there's also coming back to your contributions or the books. I'll make some respondents. Those are kind of, the library, I think, can help show what's happening, right? But then I don't know that we can say, you know, their contribution. I don't know what the rules are around. Maybe we have things that we can put out that they can take.

Is that coordinator position, is it a funding issue or you just haven't found a person yet?

No, it's a funding issue.

It's a funding issue.

But that's a really good point, Jonathan, because people like to know what their money's going to. Absolutely. And so people who know us really well will send in a donation and they'll just be like, wherever you need it. Other people say, well, what if I want to, what if my interest is in children's programming? What if my interest is in this? And they like to know what, you know, what they need. not just where their dollars are going, what the impact is. So some years ago, I worked for the Los Altos Hills, the educational farm. And one of the things we started doing is $10 a month, we'll feed our chickens. X number of dollars, we'll feed the pigs for a year. People love that because then they want to come and see the pigs that their money helped feed. I mean, that connection is something that... you know, that's harder to do with the library. But I think, but it can be done. I think it's just, it's breaking that down and saying like your dollars will provide books for X number of children, or we'll add to the collection, or we'll provide this for our teen room or, you know, our teens. I don't know if you all saw it, you know, they had the contest. The teens came up with their own design for teen library cards. Super creative. and the idea came from these three young men who were the committee or I don't know what their committee was called but to talk about what they can do for teens in the library and they thought well this is a good idea and it was a fabulous idea every single design should be a library card because they were all really really good and then they had you know the top three winners and stuff like that so when Those are things that you'd like to be able to capture and use that. Because I don't know that people realize how invested teens are in the library. And they're very invested in the library. you know, do, you know, how many people in the community actually understand that these teens really are taking this seriously. And it's showing there, it's giving them the opportunity to come up with an idea and leadership skills and put together a program and do all this stuff and get up and speak in front of people and really like be very precise in what they wanted to say, you know, and, you know, so it's all of that stuff that's happening for them. Yeah. So can we put a price on that? Some of it is priceless. Some of it really is that it happens kind of holistically, but there is money that's needed to support those kinds of programs.

I do know in the past when there were some fundraising events, like when this was remodeled, for example, there was like a sponsor, you know, a bookshelf or something, and that got some one-time funding, but is there some way to put like a similar price on your reoccurring donations? Because I know I've seen that a lot with the public media and stuff. They're all like, you know, they want the reoccurring members, right? That gives you a little more, they give you more touch points, right? As opposed to just, oh, something spontaneous for a single capital improvement. like sponsor summer readings, this is the summer reading program, and your donations are made.

I think that's something that we should comment on. Because you can sponsor story time. At the 3 branches, you know, or something, but we haven't, we haven't for me. We haven't. Formalize that, but I think that is something that. And the other thing that that tell people, like, your, your monthly donation, let's just, you know, this much per month.

Let's just do a story time or feed so many kids some of that in our newsletter.

I mean, you did. Joanne and our marketing person did kind of quantify a little bit. I don't know if it has made a difference or not. I don't. I think I'm personally skeptical when I see that. I'm like, yeah, they're just, you know. They're just putting it.

Well, I think, well, there's a couple of things with newsletters. One is the newsletters mail to people who are already on our mailing list. Yeah. So the only other way to get the newsletter out is to actually bring it out at events. And then they take it and do they read it? I don't know. I think there is, there's always more. There's always more to do, you know, and there's always a better way to do it. And there's always a more efficient way to do it. And so part of it is, you know, I think the pandemic slowed us down a little bit, but I really feel like we've made a lot of progress over the last couple of years and kind of tightening up those things and getting better. And we're always focused on improving. And we're always looking at what we're doing, how is it working, and what can we do to make it better? That's a constant conversation that I have with staff on a weekly basis. That didn't work. Let's try this. Well, this worked. This library is doing this, and they were really successful.

Maybe we could try that. So one thing that's come up with, like I've run into a few times, and maybe I'm asking some advice from you, is people find out I'm on the library board and we'll talk about library services and things that are going on. They'll tell me how much they love the library. And eventually, you know, sometimes they might even ask about funding. And I often just say, oh, go to library.org or whatever, and that'll be your place to go for more information. But I'm not sure how many of those people ever actually go do that? Is there some other approach? Like, should I be putting them directly in contact with you and say, hey, go give them your contact info? Or is there some contact info? Well, sure.

I mean, if they really find someone who's really interested, you can say, one, I'll go with you. I'll take you there and introduce you. Or two, if you'd like more information on this, you know, Call Joanne or email Joanne, and then she'll be able to send you more detailed information or something like that. The other important thing is tell them I sent you. So when they contact me, they say, oh, I had lunch with Jonathan. And he said he was telling me about this program and suggested I talk to you and get more information. And so that way I know. You know, and we can go from there. I know it's not always easy, you know, because when you're having lunch with a work colleague or you're having lunch with friends, you don't want to say, oh, and by the way, you know, we have this big fundraiser coming up. That's not the approach that we want. What we just want is just what you said. You know, this is what I do and this is why I do it. And this is why it's important to me. And if they say, wow, I didn't realize that, then maybe it's important to them. And then figure out what that is. What that connector is. Would you like to come to an event? Invite them to an event. I invite people to our events all the time. I don't charge them. Don't tell the board. Not only a couple of people. Because if I'm talking to someone and they're super interested, or if they just told me, like one person did earlier this year, that they set up a trust and they put the foundation in the trust and they wanted to make sure that I knew, I was like, come to the event. You know, come and meet your old friends. They've been disconnected for a while. Come, come as my guests. Come and talk, you know, and she did. And she had a great time because she met all the people that she used to know 10 and 12 years ago that she'd lost contact with. So it's like things like that, just any kind of whatever the connector is.

I apologize for having this idea after your event. I can't believe I didn't think of this ahead of time. With the My So Optimist Club, we raise money for women's education. At our fundraiser, if we have one of the women we get up and talk about what ARC is, Our help is done for her, what her background was, what she's been able to do now that she has an education. We get a lot of money because the people say, here's a young woman who came from a terrible home. She's got three children, no other income. You know, she's now gone back. We have one that just got into Berkeley. So we have some really good success stories. And we did a, what is it, fund a need after that? We got $17,000. It just, it was amazing. So if there was a way we could get an ESL person or something to...

Yeah, we discussed that too. Now, this year, we focused on the video that we had made because we had not had a video that promoted the foundation as a separate entity from the library in the past. And so but part of it was to kind of address that, like really show like this is the impact. that this is having. But I absolutely agree. There is nothing that will open a purse faster or a wallet faster than hearing a real story from a real person whose life was changed. It just isn't.

so many of us can't relate to the ESL issue or the, you know, the women in Bombay so much. I think a lot of us are sheltered from a lot of that, and when you actually see it in front of you, it's like, oh, geez, I should be doing something to help this. And it really, it's a, it was a big thing for us, so.

Yeah, yeah, totally agree. I know, you know, I don't know when this actually started, so Dina, you jump in and correct me, but Not long after the war with Russia and Ukraine started, what happened here? A Ukrainian book club giving people that place When, you know, they probably have, you know, family still there or whatever. But part of it is also being nimble enough to react to whatever's happening in the world. So the ESL will have to raise more money and we'll have to be able to to help more than 100 people, you know, a year because. Nobody else, the county's not having money. Other nonprofits I know have just have been notified by the county over the last month that their contracts aren't reduced, are ending. They're not renewing contracts. The impact of what's happening is across the board. And so to be able to not just sit for us to recognize it, but to also be able to say, did you know that when this happened, this is where the library filled that void? This is where the staff came up with the new program to help that situation or that person. But I totally agree. There is nothing that has a better impact than an actual resource.

Well, maybe we can talk about some sort of event, live event, that showcases one or two people who have benefited from the program, but also has another aspect to it. So because... it could get that information across, but it may not be a good thing to bring them in the door to come to our event. So maybe we have something that is more enticing, but we have that as well. And the result could be that we get a lot of funding. So I think we should brainstorm on that because if it really is a big gap in the programming funding, I think we should, yeah, there needs to be more focus on it. And I know we wanted to do that in the event and it didn't happen, but I think there's a way to combine a couple of things to make it happen in a small event.

Well, have we ever thought about leveraging the ESL event every year to have a small, short pitch at the end? I mean, that would be excellent.

That would be that. Or the career online high school is the same thing. You know, Jonathan and I were there. It was like more than just the family. Right. It's just, you know, it's the same. It's the same idea because you're hearing you're actually hearing from the people who are benefiting. And so. Here's a question about those events. Well, yeah.

But I also don't want to like put people on. So I just want one thing. We have about 10 minutes left. I just want to, before we have to move on to the next part of the meeting as well. So don't want to cut off conversation too much, but I just want to give a quick time check. As we go, we want to have another meeting like this in a few months, or is it? I mean, just that you find it valuable. Because we could schedule another.

Well, I hope our board members find it useful to come and have this conversation. You know, I think it's important.

Also, because we have informers that are on board, it's very critical to know what that relationship is between the trustees and also the foundation. And because they are new people, we've probably... hopefully a wealth of talent. I think that would be to utilize that more. The branding out of the foundation with our video, and I think that we could probably do something joint as the trustees and the foundation, maybe expand on that video, expand on some other cultural needs in the community, because I think that libraries will probably need more cultural centers where people who are not getting the ESL support or not getting what they need out of the community. I think the libraries are going to probably be that center. And hopefully the foundation will be able to support that going forward with anything. Maybe in about three to four months' time. I've not been there, so I can't really speak to them. But for the board members that are remaining, it would be nice to have the new board members come. It would be really nice.

Not wait until December, because there's just too many things going on.

Because the oral library trustees meets in December, but not in January. Is that forever? Yes. And our board doesn't meet in December, but meets in January. So that we've always had that kind of thing at the end of the year, but maybe October, late October.

We can bring up that probably at our next board meeting and they'll discuss. Might be a possibility.

Sounds good. I think from our side, we could discuss more topics. I know we have a lot of stuff going on there. your agenda with people.

Yeah, go ahead. Justin Mahoman here. I think in the next meeting, it would really be helpful if we can coalesce something. I mean, I think something concrete because we've been talking a lot and listening and that's all fantastic. This is my second meeting with joint meeting, but I think we For me, having something concrete to work around and collaborate and work outside of the meeting through the right channels and all of that, just something, even if it's a small step, would be great.

I agree. The natural plan.

Maybe one of the things that we could do, in addition to watching Flynn's acrobatics, is actually, Sammy's taking good notes. If we promise to each other to take those notes and you take it back to your board, we take it here, and then you prioritize. You sort of itemize which ones you want to work on and then come back together and everybody share that information. Then I think you'll have your action plan in terms of ideas anyway. And then we can kind of come together in working towards October or whenever the next meeting is. No worries, it might still work. Does that sound like a good idea?

There's nothing else on that. The next item would be to actually adjourn this first part of the meeting.

Yeah, unless you have a suggestion, unless you have a motion to meet again sometime in October.

That's what I would suggest. Actually, should we make a motion that we'd like to meet again in the fall?

Yes, fall is fine.

I think we have to hear back from the rest of the boards. Is there a motion to meet again with the Foundation of Friends?

I make the motion to be linked together in the fall.

I second. Okay, that's a good motion. I guess all in favor, say aye. Aye. We've got past the answers. We've got inspiration. Okay, and then to adjourn, do we need a motion to adjourn that adjourn meeting? If we adjourn, we can adjourn.

Second.

All in favor of the adjourn? Thank you. We'll be moving on to the regular meetings early. Do we have to? Let's take a, we have about four minutes. And then this way, we can eat dessert. I'll start then. Okay.

Do you want...

There's food. There's no other food. And there's lots to drink. And there's desserts. I'm not going to eat it before.

I'm also.

There you go.

I love that. Because it is a little. We don't have conversations. I come to these times.

I was like. But there were too many. Obstacles that came up. So it's like. More challenging than I anticipated. Yeah.

No, no, no, I'm good. Thank you.

It all smells really good.

Bye. I can smell the dessert for sure.

Mike reached out to me a minute ago.

I felt far less of a, I'm sure we need to have this. So I, so I asked him to make that. Okay.

But I said it was, Hey, I have no idea. No, it's a county sponsor. It's not like a weird connection or something, but it's just, it was an obvious friend who's kind of like a tearing ball.

Either.

Everybody expects like me. So that there was some, well, they said that they had enough. that's what i like walking around the whole building and um

pictures. Oh, yeah. So I think, I think that my husband and I, whatever, something else.

There's no way to start a million people. And they were holding down about a thing. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

We have public, uh, you want it after me?

She knew it was here. No, no, no. Yeah. Oh, maybe she wasn't. I think. I think it's good. Okay. I think it sounds great. I think it sounds great. I think it sounds great. I think it sounds great. I think it sounds great. It's like, I don't know. I'm a little concerned about that. So it's like, you can't really wear things for warm weather. the most we thought i think in the market you had 400 actually it's nice to meet you i don't know Oh, my God. That's just stupid. It's a sugar that goes with the chocolate. You're right.

That is so much more dedication than I have to work. I can't even like every day. No, it is not today, but yes.

Oh, I was just watching him work out over there.

He brought his own rowing machine.

We're all motivated. But not enough.

I'm just going to eat chocolate cake.

If you want to say something, I want to go down there. All right.

I'm just going to stand here. Hello. My name is Adina Aguirre. I'm the program coordinator here at the Mifflin Branch. What I'm saying, though, is as me, Adina, a mom and not as a worker. So as I think many of you know, and if you don't, I have two children. My younger child, Simon, will be turning 11 on Wednesday. My older child, Alex, died a year ago in May from leukemia. One of the chemotherapies Alex had to go through involved getting an injection every day. And he would ice their arm and use this little thing that would vibrate to try to make the injection less bad. And each time for two weeks straight, they said, okay, mom, it's time. And I would say, okay, we're walking into the library. It's this one. Where are we going first? We're gonna go to the new book section. Okay, do you see anything there? No, there's no good fantasies. And at this point, the nurse would have cleaned their arm and started pinching it, and they would say, okay, then we're going to go over to the YA section, see if there's any new manga or any new twisted tales for me to check out. And not long after that, Alex would have gotten the injection. But they did that. This was their happy place. And I want to thank each of you for helping to keep alive the things that my child found the most precious in the world. So thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Thank you. Thanks, it helped me.

I guess now we can move forward. We have to redo everything. We just didn't call order that you don't need to redo the recording.

I understand the recording is continuing.

But I'm going to call the order this regular meeting of the Board of Library Trustees at 7.34pm. We'll do roll call. Trustee Ricosa? Here. Trustee Muhammad?

Here.

Trustee Lee? Here. Vice Chair Taboros? Here. Chair Evans is also here. So we have the full in-person attendance. First item today is the consent calendar. That is a motion of the consent calendar approved in one single motion. Do we have a motion to approve the new consent calendar?

Motion to approve.

I second. All in favor of approving the consent calendar, say aye. Aye. We'll move on to public presentations then. Does anybody would like to address the board-leveraged item otherwise on the agenda? Okay, I see Joanna Davis. Go ahead.

Joanna Davis, Executive Director of the Library Foundation, Santa Clara City Library Foundation and Friends. We did not have a book sale, our big book sale in May because we had our big 25th anniversary event, but our book sales are back in June. It'll be Friday, June 19th from 3.30 to 5.30. Saturday, June 20th, from 10 to 2, and Sunday, the 21st, from 12 to 2. And so that schedule will continue third weekend of the month throughout the rest of the year. So we're hoping to get the word out that the book sales are back. Other than that, that's all I have, unless someone has any questions.

We just had a good conversation. Okay. Thank you very much, Joanne. Thank you. Okay. We'll move on to our first item of journal business, which is action to appoint trustees to participate in the recruitment of a new city librarian. And I will return this over to your staff. So I guess city librarian.

Yeah. So before we get into the meat of this, I wanted to introduce you to Ash Lancaster, who is our acting director. um deputy director did i get it right is it director assistant director i'm so sorry um of human resources and so um anytime we're going to be talking about the process um ashley will be here uh to to guide us in that process and to let us give updates and all kinds of things um so i think what we're going to do is you want to just i'll just turn it over to you when you start on the process and then we'll get into the art of this action

Right, so... My first board meeting, so I'm super happy to be here.

And we're excited to have her here.

Right, so... Right. So just as a quick overview. So the board for the city charter does participate in the recruitment for the city librarian. So as Patty mentioned, I'm going to be doing an overview of the recruitment process for you. And tonight, you know, essentially the discussion will be to elect board members to help participate in the recruitment process for city librarian. And so you can go ahead and go to the next slide. So the city has retained an executive consultant firm, Terry Black and Company. They actually assisted in our last recruitment process for City Librarian, which was very successful. Of course, we have Patty, who was a selected candidate. And so we will be retaining them to assist us in the recruitment process again. It's pretty common for us to use executive recruiters, especially when we're recruiting at this level of position within the city. So this is our tentative recruitment timeline. So I just want to note, you know, it could shift slightly just depending on components of the recruitment process. But we did, we have met with the executive recruiting firm to essentially start the process for kickoff. What we will be doing is posting the recruitment and likely either this month or early next month, the recruitment will intend to be posted for four weeks. So we'll be working with the recruitment firm on all of the advertisements and getting the brochure ready. So you'll all receive a copy of the brochure. So, you know, we'll encourage you to share and outreach. The benefit of using the executive recruitment firm is they will do a nationwide search for us. So really, so that way we can get the most competitive candidate to fill the position. And they do a lot of advertising for us. So, you know, we will be pleasantly happy with the advertisement, you know, that they'll do for the recruitment process. Then once the recruitment closes, the recruitment firm again will screen all the candidates. So they are looking at the minimum qualifications of the position. So they will be completing that screening process. They will also screen on desirable qualifications that the city has determined for the position. And they will also do an initial screening interview. So that's not something the city does. The recruitment firm will actually do. and take on that component of the process for us. From there, they're essentially gonna recommend to the city the most competitive candidates to move forward to the interview process. So that is the next step in the interviewing process we're anticipating will be held around August. And that's where we'll especially need some assistance from the board. In the last recruitment round, we ran two interview panels. So one consisted of city executives and then the other was a community panel. So we would appreciate the selected person to assist us with the recruitment process. We'll be serving on the interview panel. So you'll get to provide feedback and recommendations back to the city. So again, we are anticipating that to occur around August timeframe. Once the interviews have concluded, it's my understanding in the last recruitment process, the selected trustee to help us with the recruitment process did come back and present to the board. So it's likely that that will occur again in this recruitment round as well. And we are are anticipating because I know that there is a meeting in August. I'm assuming that that's the meeting. Maybe August, we'll probably target to bring that information back. Then in September, we're anticipating that we'll have the final candidate selection. We will go through the conditional offer process. The city does have a somewhat extensive backgrounding process, which includes the live scan. There's a few forms that the candidates have to complete. We do reference checks. And then there's an executive process. firm who does a little bit more backgrounding process for us for these positions. So that will all occur during that timeframe. That takes a couple of weeks for us to complete. Once the candidate has cleared all of those conditional offer steps, we would then move into the formal offer component. So we are anticipating this to be sometime around October, November timeframe. The intent is, obviously with Patty's retirement, we really would like there to be overlap and cross-training. So that way Patty can essentially help transition the candidates just to be the most effective and smooth process, you know, just for the, as they're starting to onboard. So that will really occur between October, December timeframe, just depending on when the selected candidate starts. So there is often, you know, once they have their offer letter, assuming they're working elsewhere, they, you know, they're going to want to give notice to their current employer. So that way there may be a little delay there, but we'll coordinate those details as we have, obviously, as we get around that timeframe. So that is pretty much an overview of the recruitment process. Yes, yes. Is the job description the same as last time? Yes, it is. So the job, the class specification, there's no revisions to it. I do know in terms of like the minimum qualifications, we're heavily putting emphasis on the MLS is strongly preferred. So just know that that will be in all of the advertising materials. We do anticipate that... The most competitive candidates will likely have that. But just that it is the same as the last time.

Yes. Trustee Mahon. So can you potentially give a little more detail about when the Board of Trustee member or members interface with the candidate in this timeline? I mean, does it happen during all his candidate interviews? Is there one?

interview with let's just say there are three candidates i mean a little more detail about when the the board uh actually interfaces and certainly yes so um what we will plan to do is we'll run two interview panels so one interview panel will consist of city executive staff um and then the other panel will be so this is where um the board of trustees will sit in on that interview panel You know, there will be the executive recruiter will work with the city to develop interview questions. And so, you know, there will be interview questions that will be essentially predetermined for all the candidates. Of course, at that stage in the process, you know, you definitely can ask additional follow up questions as needed. But that will be the primary interaction, I would say, that you will have with the candidates.

So in terms of timeline, when would that be?

And so we're anticipating August, around August.

Around August. So essentially being, let's just say for argument's sake, there are three final candidates. There'll be three interviews. The community panel, which we would be part of, whoever represents, is going to get questions in advance. Or at least the questions are already formulated.

Correct. Yeah, the questions, we likely won't send them in advance of the interviews, but you'll get them the day of the interview.

Right, right. So what I'm saying is the questions are already predetermined. Correct. But there is a chance for follow-up.

Yes, yes, yes. So our executive recruiter, essentially, that's what they're hired for too. And they do a lot of actually city librarian recruitments as well. So they do have a pretty... I would say, extensive network of candidates to select from. So, you know, we anticipate you'll have a strong candidate pool for this recruitment. But they will help essentially put together and prepare the interview questions and all the interview materials that you need for the day of. So all whoever selected really just needs to show up and be prepared to interview. So it's a panel all in one day then? Yes, most likely.

I think that's what you're getting at. It's not a protracted question.

No, no. I mean, it would really depend on the number of candidates that's selected to interview, but most likely it'll be within one day. I would say maximum two days, but most likely just one.

And each interview is an hour?

That detail has not been determined yet, so we'll probably determine that a little bit closer once we actually know the number of candidates interviewing and then once we finalize the questions from the recruiter.

But some of the process is more, it's all kind of like an interview panel in a day, all candidates kind of come, you have a discussion, and then that's all. Yes. It's not like one a day.

No, not one a day. No. And we are planning for the interviews to occur in person as well, too.

Mm-hmm.

I know last time it was COVID time, so some of them were for the people on the East Coast or whatever. We did Zoom interviews.

Yes, yes. The preference really for the city is where we're trying. Most departments are moving back to in-person interviews, so it's likely at this level they'll be in-person.

I do know last time after the, I think the final candidate was chosen, there was a, we did have a session where we went into closed session and then we, as a board, got to speak to the candidate before we sent the candidate away and then voted officially on him. We got to vote, so. Is that also planned within this timeframe? Will that be like the September timeframe?

You know, if we didn't anticipate that would probably occur in August. So, but we can coordinate those details as well.

So I know that- You may have that special meeting.

So we might have to, you might have to have a special meeting.

Which is fine. I just wanted to present that.

Yes, yes.

I don't want to, I don't, I didn't want us to be constrained by our board meeting. No, no, no. Timeline. Right. So we have the, I want to maximize overlap. Oh, the meeting. Okay. So yeah, probably a special meeting if we have to.

Yes.

Okay, cool. I just wanted to check and make sure, cause I want to see, I want to make sure we maximize our overlap with the existing library.

We're starting plenty early, so we definitely have plenty of time to go through the recruitment process. And like I said, the timelines, they could change slightly, but this is pretty much what we're targeting to stick to. So that way we have ample time for any cross-training and onboarding, you know, to occur at the end of the year. Are there any other questions?

Did you have something? Oh, you had the other, the selection.

Oh, just, oh yeah.

Okay.

Um, One question I did have, what is the current, do we have a copy of the current job description that we're putting out?

And so the class specification, which is the formal class specification on record, is posted on the city website. However, the brochure for the posting, that is currently going to be developed. So once it's finalized, we can send it to you. We just met with a recruiter to do the kickoff, so they're going to start the development of that brochure. But we'll definitely make sure you get a copy of it.

And the classification, though, as I think Vice Chair Dabrowski does not require it unless, does that even say strongly preferred in there?

It does say it's desirable in the classification, but in all of the advertising, we're going to say it's strongly preferred.

Well, I think we need to move on and actually appoint two trustees.

So goal-wise, Patty Wong, city librarian, goal-wise, you would want to appoint two people, not, I don't think two people are going to be on the panel. I think there's going to be one representative and then an alternate.

Yeah.

Yeah. Just to kind of make that really clear. Yeah. No, I know.

So, I mean, it has to be somebody who's still on the board. One thing I really wanted to be involved in too.

Oh, well, bad timing.

I'm happy to be considered for the ultimate.

Yeah, I would certainly be interested in participating in the recruitment process. I mean,

So just... And Steve done this already.

Last time.

I mean, if you want to do that.

Yeah, I don't prefer that somebody else enjoy it.

Thank you for that. So what's the best process? I guess we don't really have a process for... So it's your interest in the alternate.

Yes, I have bandwidth to do the alternate.

You have time for the alternate or for the primary position? I'm up for either, but I'm definitely up for the primary position. It's a tip to trustees, so I'm in.

Yeah, I think then I guess the process is we vote on like, I guess, for each position, I guess. Yeah, sure. I'd like to do that. I think we're both interested.

I think when you're a deputy city attorney, what I would recommend is for a motion that states the name of the primary, name of the secondary, and then see how that vote turns out. And if that motion fails, then perhaps another redo with different names. Yeah. So someone would need to make a motion.

I'll do the easy one. I move that Trustee Muhammad be appointed the alternate.

It would be probably better, Steve, if you had both.

Or at the same time.

Yeah, I think so. If you're up for it.

I think that's what the RCA recommended. And then if that fails, then you try again, right? Correct. And I think

It kind of appears to me that there might be further discussion needed before motion is made. So maybe, I guess, if... Okay.

Well, as I was going to say, maybe the candidates want to spend a minute and explain why they feel they do the better candidate.

Yeah, that's a strong point. So I guess I'll just go first. So I'm certainly interested in pursuing the process. I think the city librarian position is, you know, one of the, from our perspective, the most important position that we interact with as much as, because that is really our liaison to the rest of the city. And I think that being able to help them out is gonna be important for making sure we select somebody that meets the needs of the board and the city as a whole. What I can say is I have experience doing interviews. I do that as part of my day job. Of course, my interviews are a little more on the tech side, but I do interview people quite frequently for work in my position. I have experience doing interviews, but yeah, once again, I'm usually looking for someone on the technical side, for like technical computer stuff in my field. But I have gone through those possibilities.

Good, yeah, on a similar note, you know, I have also had experience with these things, although they are a bit more political in nature for endorsements, but which is why I'm concerned with the importance and gravity of the City Library position. I'm extremely interested in filling the other position of one of the primary trustees to participate in the recruitment of our new City Library.

Oh, yes. So I am interested in being the alternate because I know I don't have the bandwidth to be the priority appointee given the things that I have to do this summer in September. I think this position is really important. It's about legacy, it's about making sure there's continuity through the current librarian. I also feel like as a librarian in my day job, I bring in a unique perspective about how libraries run and I'm also a big user of the library. I have two kids. We use two of the libraries all the time. I think this is a very personal stake, and that's why I'm interested.

I was going to say, I don't have to say anything. I'm not running for office.

Sorry.

That's OK. All right. I move that the accept the helmet for alternate and Jonathan Evans for reinforcing.

Is there a second? Cool. Does anybody have any other discussion they want on that topic? Okay. I guess we'll take a vote. All in favor of the motion on the table, I guess say aye.

Aye.

All opposed, say nay. Oh, because I passed the nomination. Thank you. I appreciate that nomination. And thank you, Justin Muhammad, for also coming and volunteering to be the elder. And thank you, Trustee Nguyen, for volunteering for both.

We don't need anything else at this point, but as we get closer, we'll definitely be in touch on the next steps and essentially timing and what we'll need from you and the interview dates as well. Yeah. So thank you very much. Okay. Thanks, Ashley.

So Ashley's going to run. She's had a long day too. That's it.

Someone's smoking outside.

We appreciate that.

Yeah. Yeah, we can be close. That was her. Yeah.

My new in-deputy city is her media pod.

Oh, okay. Wait, Ashley, sorry. One more, one more.

Is there anybody, anybody you want to comment? I can see everybody on the line now.

I'll use other than. Okay.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Then we'll move on to the next item. Action review and improve the work plan. Okay.

Okay. So in front of you, we actually did a little bit of double duty today. So we do have the work plan in front of you, which is part of RTC 2616, 618 rather. So we have the draft of the work plan that we probably want to review today. And it's in front of you. And we just went through it. So it should be fairly easy to kind of go forward. It does still have you know, the current membership of the current team that is part of the board. We did not hear back from the city clerk who was selected. I know they had the interviews, but I don't know who they selected. So I apologize that we don't have that information at this time. But we will let you know soon because we have to induct them probably in August. But at any rate, I think one of the things that we might do is quickly go through this to see if you have any additions or edits. And OK, so do we want to take I guess I'll just take her notes and we'll we'll go from there. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so as we've reviewed collection funding last time as we spoke, we only have the collection funded for two years, not for an extended period of time. So the goal here as we've, bless you, as we've kind of identified is to bring that up, that we would like the funding to continue. Question, concerns?

Yes. I think we should continue both. No disputes on that one, I think.

All right. Alternative funding. We heard loud and clear what the board would like. And so the staff and I have to kind of come back to this one and update the information that we shared with you quite a while ago, though. I mean, I think it's been a year and a half to almost two years. So we need to make sure that we update it because things have changed for our sister agencies around. San Jose took a big hit, another big hit. And so we need to kind of let you know, because that has impact on us all the time. Like, for instance, they got rid of their 6,000 hotspots. They don't have any hotspots at all. So that means... us poor little chickens this tour have to make up the difference. And we do. We actually get a fair number of San Jose residents who come over and want a hotspot.

Also, the laptop lending program. Correct.

That's right. They have gone through a lot of change over there. But it's not just San Jose. I mean, all of our sister agencies have different pressures that have impacted their delivery of service. And some of them have brand new buildings coming online. So, you know, all of those are both opportunities and also challenges for us, too. So we'll keep you all apprised of that. But get an update on what kind of alternative funding is available. That will also help the foundation, I think, in terms of sharing with them what's available, what's not available. I know we currently all the time ask about developer impact fees. I don't think anybody's going to give on that ever in the city. But, you know, the foundation has the same question because, of course, they come from that community. atmosphere where developer impact fees are used for library services in other cities. But we'll keep them reprised so that you can kind of coordinate on what that advocacy might look like. Good?

All right.

Strategic plan. Two of the things I think that we talked about tonight, one was the communications coordinator. And we definitely need that, as you know, in order for us to proceed. The second thing, though, that we have in the strategic plan that is important for us anyway that we brought up to you last time is the need for a mobile app that really works like a mobile app, which means anyone that's looked up on our website knows that it's not compatible with a smart device. It cannot be read easily on one of these. And so it's fairly, it's not useless, but it's, it's not user friendly. And, and in a, in a day and age when everybody is using their cell phone, we need to make the emphasis and take the energy to make that happen. Now, it is part of the strategic planning process. We are working currently in terms of looking forward to implementing that. We do have the funding. It's just a matter of implementation. It'll just be a matter of time. So we're working on getting to yes. But the other part of that is also library outreach, as we mentioned earlier, with the community to increase community connection. And that's where you come in, in terms of the advocacy and outreach that we just talked about with the foundation earlier and whatever coordination that could look like. Okay. I think we're good on that one. Okay, so we're on number four. Facilities, master plan, measure I. Our job and our goal with you is actually wherever we have measure I, you know, improvements, updates, et cetera, and anything having to do with the facilities master plan is that we apprise you and we'll, you know, make sure that you're aware of all of the different things that are happening. It is serendipity, you know, as... As Ashley and Terry Black, as we were talking this morning, they remarked at actually how prepared this library is for a new person. So the strategic plan is in place. The facilities master plan is in place. I don't think you could have asked for a number of things. I mean, that was the intent for us to do it this way. But I wanted to let you know that it's a good syncing of plans. Okay, four is okay. All right, number five, policies, reviewing library policies and providing advisory support for policy updates. So we have a few coming up and working with our wonderful colleague at the CAO's office. Policy for posting and distribution of community information. Policy regarding privacy and confidentiality. Use of electronic resources policy and arts exhibit policies.

at the Santa Clara City Library policy.

Those are the major ones that are coming up. There may be some other ones, but those are the major ones that are coming up this particular year.

Do we think this is the list we'll get to in the next year or so?

It'll be a year. I mean, I think the goal is to try to get almost all of them done. Some of them are in good spots right now. We just haven't finessed them enough to bring them back here.

Okay.

In fact, staff are working on a number of them already. And then we're working in collaboration with them. Yeah, I think four is a good number. I don't know that we can get too much more than that in the next year.

But anyway. Do we have a full list somewhere of all the policies?

Mm-hmm. We do. We can get them to you. Why don't we just maybe hopefully. Because you've gone through about half of them already. Liaison work, engage with and strengthen a cooperative relationship with the Santa Clara City Library. foundation and friends we've already started in on that process um we talked about a foundation and friends liaison they're going to think about it for a little bit which is i think good good news um conduct joint meeting we've already done that and then approximately every six months you may do it more often it sounds like they want to meet a teeny bit more often um but they're not sure that they have everything all together yet right so we'll have to give them some space um Ooh, I see a little mat. Sorry. I'm just, I keep on trying to tap it. Okay. We still have the liaison program that you initiated with the various city boards and commissions and task force. So Parks and Rec, Trustee Vercozza. Is that still all true?

Yeah, it hasn't gone in a while, but we can go back. Okay.

The one question I had about this part, we want this to reflect the current positions that we should go through, but do we want to go have a discussion about this and update the document again once we get the new members on board?

Probably. I think that would be wise in August to go over it again. This is the way it is at this moment. If you'd like to change it before you meet with council, So that's 623. We can do that. And it's not a big deal. Or you can share with council that it'll be subject to change depending on the needs integrated in the August introduction of the new boardroom.

But this is what it looks like right now.

Okay. Santa Clara Stationary Task Force. Good. Okay. Historical and Landmarks Commission. We don't have anybody in there yet, but don't worry. Downtown Community Task Force. Good. Youth Advisory Commission. Daniel, you've been going, you're, you're good with that.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Um, and then the following have been identified as potential future liaison opportunities, senior advisory commission, bike and pedestrian advisory committee and cultural commission. And of course I wouldn't wait on any of that until August wait, wait until you get the new person on board. Cause they may be dying to do BPAC, right. You know, which is great. Um, Okay, and then number seven, board development, explore strategic board development opportunities, including information and reports and funded conferences and training, budget permitting. I do have an update on that. The city has identified the planning commission and the library as the two organizations that need funding for conference attendance for the board. It doesn't, I don't know where that money's coming from right now. They are fine with us using city money that we have for that. And so, but Kenley, our, our CFO and now he's our, one of our ACMs, he's fun with advocating for this. And so they're talking about it in finance to see what they can do. So for instance, when Chair Evans talked about serving with a purpose, for instance, and we were able to do it that one year, and then it came kind of back that we might've made a booboo or made a mistake. They are fine with us moving forward with having a regular line item. as conference attendants. They just didn't know where the money's gonna come from quite yet. Anyway, so that's good news, I think. And then become better educated on the role and context of public libraries in the United States. I know we try to do that as much as we can. We can always do more. And then become better informed on library operations. We'll come back, I think, in August or shortly after that to identify the areas that you wanted instruction and education on already. so that the new board member will know kind of we've had that. Doesn't mean that we can't give it to them later. It just means, and then we'll have a list that you've already come up with, but you might change up that list in terms of priorities. So we'll come back to it in August. Okay. Are we good with those seven? Anything else you want to add?

The only question or comment I had is that Foundation Friends in the Eyes Zone, that's TBD because unfortunately somebody is, we are currently as I'm tuning out. Correct. Is there somebody who would be interested at all in stepping into that role for until this August to the new members? Because we could do that.

You could do that now.

That would be fine. I don't know if any of you are interested in attending. I unfortunately cannot.

It's kind of hard to do in the middle of the day.

I think just when you're in deputy city attorney, I think it's fine to potentially recommend staff agendize a discussion for future meeting, but since it's not technically a job, it's not for the, uh, for, to discuss specifically who will be the liaison for, for that.

So maybe in August.

And generally in August, that's when we have this happen. You know, you, um, induct the new, um, appointee for the board. And then at the same time in that same convening, you select who's going to be your liaison for the board, the foundation board. Okay. So as I mentioned, current membership's going to remain just like this because this is what it is right now. And then we'll identify who the new board members. I think... We will probably know before the August meeting. In the past, just to kind of pique everyone's memory on this, the chair, the current chair and Patty, spent a little bit of time onboarding that new board member because it's really hard to come in in August when you don't know anybody and you don't know how it works and you don't know what the handbook is and you don't know any of that stuff. So that's what we did last time. just to kind of give you an update. And I think our two board members remember that. Okay. And then this is exactly the purpose, role, and duties of the board as is written in the charter. That's what you folks agreed to last time. So we haven't changed anything because the charter hasn't changed yet. So, okay. Any questions about that? We good?

Well, in the context of the meeting on the 23rd, are we going to go over this line by line with the city council?

No, they will have it already.

Right.

And so what you're going to be seeing next is the PowerPoint.

Sure.

So.

Yeah, I assume we'll send this to them as part of their meeting material so they can review offline for it. Yeah.

And we're up first. So we are the first board to go have the dinner. Okay.

But we're the only ones that didn't.

Correct.

Yeah.

All right. So Sammy has the template for that. And so we took the liberty of actually putting things in there and then to get your input tonight so that we could prepare for the 23rd. Okay. All right. So the agenda reads, so Mayor Gilmore welcomes everyone, and then everybody introduces themselves. You know, this is a dinner meeting, so everybody's eating at the same time. You're going to go over your accomplishments. So what we did was we took the accomplishments from that long list that we came up with and sort of, I think, made them a little more concise. So, well, let's go through them now.

But we have seen these before.

You have. You have. Everything is the same. Everything is the same. But now it's in just a different format. So 2526 Accomplishments, Advisory and Advocacy Supportive Library Strategic Plan and Library Facilities Master Plan. That was a really big thing that you had come across the... The finish line, it's got your picture right there. The Board of Library Trustees participated in the development and approval of these planning efforts, which were approved by Council on February 10, 2026. The Board will continue to receive updates and collaborate with library staff and the Santa Clara City Library Foundation and Friends to support plan initiatives and priorities. I know it sounds like A lot of work got encapsulated into two sentences because it took a lot of time and a lot of good work on your end. But, you know, we didn't feel it was as easy to put, you know, the board met 16 times to talk about, you know, I mean, that kind of doesn't make any sense. This looks pretty good to me. Yeah. Okay. Anybody else? Comments? All right. There's more on the accomplishments, though. Okay. So... Next slide. Thank you. Policy updates. The Board of Library Trustees provided review and support to key library policy updates, one of the initiatives listed in this library strategic plan. So everything kind of points back to that, right? Collection development policy updated to meet requirements of AB 1825, California Freedom to Read Act, public rules of conduct policy, policy for youth visiting the library, including new support for lost children, and then food and drink policy. So that's all you did last year. And then we highlight different photos that sort of evoke the approach that we have to service. All right, okay, next one. So we're only allowed three to five slides, just let's do that. That's it. Okay, next one. The board has assigned trustees to serve as liaisons to other city boards and commissions to further collaboration and partnerships with key city allies. Liaisons have been assigned to the following with more plans in the new year. So even don't worry about if you've gone, if you haven't gone, the issue is that there's a connection. So Parks and Rec Commission, Santa Clara Station Area Task Force, Downtown Community Task Force, Youth Advisory Commission, and the board of the Santa Clara City Library Foundation and Friends. Okay. Okay. All right, next one. The board has pursued board development opportunities to be better informed on library programs and operations and to better advocate for and represent the library within the community. Key topics reviewed this year include information on the life cycle of materials at the library, library grants. We also did e-resources, didn't we? Oh, that was last year, okay. And then read Santa Clara and its services. Is there anything we're missing? I thought we did, but it was the year before.

Okay. Something came to mind when I reviewed this earlier, but I also didn't look through all my notes.

Okay. And then the board advocated for restoration of the library's collection budget, which council approved through fiscal year 26-27, which is another reminder to them It's only going to last a couple of years. So and actually, so we are only allowed to talk about accomplishments in the PowerPoint. That doesn't preclude anything that you might want to share with them about the work or the work ahead.

OSBT-Karen Hollweg- Yes, okay, so I want to ask about the kind of the formal presentation who's going to present these slides or like we've done in the past we've alternated each each trustee could select one slide and maybe interject some of their own things so. I think we need to understand, unless we're going to meet again.

No, you're not meeting again.

We need to prepare for this.

No, this is why we have it for you ready tonight. Right. And I know it's getting critical time-wise, but this is your opportunity to edit and refine and then adjust who's going to present or how many are going to present.

Right. So, Chair Evans, I suggest we have a discussion on how we want to present this. Yes.

We should. So I think the first thing question is, did anybody have any comments on the presentation? I thought it looked pretty good. I went over it before the meeting.

It's at a high enough level that you can't nitpick on any little thing. It's generically high enough level to be correct the way it is.

And I think my one question was the answer, which was I was going to ask, where do we have a spot for future things? But it sounds like that's not this presentation. That's more of a conversation.

That is in this presentation, but. You can add anything you would like. I mean, so if you refer back to the library work plan that they will get, but I will tell you they're not accepting it that day. Do you understand what I mean? So they're going to get all the work plans separately as a body later. And they're going to, your work plan plus everybody else.

But they're not going to get this before our meeting? No, but they're going to get this material.

Are they getting the work plan before? I think they're only getting this PowerPoint.

Let me confirm just to make sure.

So we are prepared to give Nora the city clerk the work plan already because we're ready. You know, we were just going to verify with you that everything in there is correct. Right. And so we can give it to her tomorrow. But all she asked for was the template filled out. Yeah.

I think it would be great.

So I think if you could talk about your work plan, that is perfectly reasonable.

How much time do we have allocated to all this?

You have an hour. It starts at 5.30 on 6.23, and you have to be done before council begins at 7. You are the only thing on the agenda.

Going through the slides can only take 10 or 15 minutes, so we have a lot of time in that hour to go through the work plan in detail if we want to. And maybe we want to. We want to get into some, in my opinion, get into some of the nitty-gritty and show some of the detail of what we're doing.

Yeah. So that's one thing I'd like to see if we can maybe put in a motion later, but I think I'd like to make sure our word plan gets submitted to the council as part of the pre-meeting material for this as part of the write-up so they have it in hand.

That's not the same thing as 7-0.

And then 7-0. Sorry. We had a sidebar. Sorry. So I guess from my perspective, I think I'd like to make sure that we recommend or say that we'd like the work plan to be submitted, including for the City Council.

By discussing the work plan, in my opinion, it shows the level of detail of what we've been doing the last year.

It shows the level of detail. And I think that's why we want to make sure they get it.

They get it and we discuss it. One of us brings it up during that hour. Yeah.

Because that way they have, because otherwise it's going to be weird. Like, I think it would be helpful to have them have it so we can reference it as part of the procession. Okay. So at least we can get that right. I think we should make sure we make a motion later to include the work plan and pre-meeting.

So I mean, has the action specified that they will get it?

I have an action to verify the timing. Deputy City Attorney, when is it okay to email the board to let them know once we can confirm the timing? I know we have to be careful.

What's the timing about?

The timing when City Council receives a work plan compared to...

Okay, so the only insight I have is on this. It is not agendized for 6-23, even though Nora wants to do it that day. So the city clerk has informed us that she would like to have the presentation of the work plans on 6-23, which is exactly the same day that we're going to have dinner. However, it is not on the legislature yet. So I'm almost positive the answer is no, because she'd have to have all of them together. She's not going to do it six or seven times. She's only going to do it once for everybody, for all the boards. She has not asked. We're the only board that's ready.

I'm just telling you the truth. We're the only board that has our dinner meeting.

Yeah, but okay. Is there going to be one big meeting for all the commissions? No. There is going to be one for the outgoing commissioners.

That's different.

That's different from this. They're not going to be one big dinner for everybody and everybody talks about their work plan. I think I wondered about that. No, it's only the individuals for different.

I'm aware of other commissions being scheduled.

Yeah, but we're the first one to go.

One point being since it's only us, why is it a big deal to get all the work plans together?

Our city attorney advises that there's really technically nothing legally wrong with it, including it in there, except that we were directed not to do that. So the reason why I say that is because Sammy and I asked that question. I said, oh, since we're going first and we're already ready with the work plan, Nora, there's no reason not to include it because they don't get another audience with them about this work. They only learn about all the stuff they've done before. So I said, can't we do this? And she said, that's not in the cards. And I said, okay, well, how about if... So, but that's why I'm saying to you, there's nothing, I think, prohibiting you from bringing it up. I just can't have a slide about it. Because this is the format we were instructed to use.

I think the question is not about, is there a slide for the work plan? We could go have that conversation. I just was checking if we can make sure that they have it as pre-media material in their packet so they can refer back to a new program.

So I think when you're a deputy city attorney, so... What the board has the authority to do is to make a motion to request staff to send the work plan to an OR requesting that it be attached as pre-meeting material. But she also, as the city clerk, the one handling the agenda, also has the discretion to opt not to include it. So it's ultimately kind of a policy slash kind of city staff decision, but I'm saying that's the current authority.

So we can give a recommendation and that's included.

And I think this, of course, doesn't preclude you from bringing it up during the dinner, even if it's not ultimately attached. It would be convenient, I imagine. The preference would be for it to be attached, but it doesn't preclude you from discussing it.

I think we're going to bring it based on what you just said.

Yeah. So, okay. That's something to consider. Could they print it out and just add it right now? Or would that be pushing it?

I'm asking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Thank you. So if you want to move so, we can do that.

Yeah. Okay. Well, let's continue our other discussion and we'll come back and do the motion at the end for... That's it. That's it. No, I was curious. I think we want to talk about, did anybody want to talk about like dividing? Oh, dividing. Dividing the presentation. I think that's the only thing. So I think it's fine. Does everybody want to take a slide or something to present? Or should we just... How do you want me to like run through it with them first? And then everybody, there's comments. Cause I think part of the whole point of the dinner is to have a conversation with the city council. So nothing saying, Hey, we're going to lecture them. It's more of a, I see this as a guiding guideline.

There's four sides of real information. Five of us. Yeah.

Does she have scheduled it?

I already have something. It's not going to be there anymore. So there's four of you and four slides. Okay.

That'd be great if everybody wants to take one. Does anybody interested?

Well, the chair should probably lead off.

I can do the first overview slide. There's a choosing plan, maybe? Okay. Only two sides. There's four sides. Yeah, four sides of content. Then there's one that topics that interest you the most. We're going to do something like that.

Is the strategic plan the first slide?

The strategic plan is the first. I think you should lead off with that. I mean, kind of a big part of that.

Yeah, that probably flows the best with me to kick it off.

Yeah.

Danny, would you be interested in doing the policies? We have this policy one. It talks about all the policy updates we did.

Oh, yeah. Policy updates.

Yeah. Yeah. The collection development model. Yeah. And so Daniel, you'll do this one. You'll have a copy of this, right? And then Steve, which are you interested in?

Steve, since you're on one of them. Yeah, okay. So I'll do the liaison slide.

That's good. And then I can do the last one.

Finish up strong. Coming up in the anchor position.

Okay. Sounds good. I think we have a plan then. Everybody go study your slide. That's right. That's important. Okay, so I think the question then was, do we have a motion to approve the... the work plan as written and the slides for the presentation, and then request that the slides, that the work plan also be included as pre-meeting material for the dinner with the city council.

Sorry, when you're in deputy city attorney, just one moment, so I catch it in time this time. There's no member of the public in the room, but just wanted to, for the record, see if there's anyone online who wants to comment.

There is no attention.

Perfect. Thank you.

I guess I was asking, does somebody have a motion, want to do a motion to approve the slides, approve the work plan as written, and submit the work plan as pre-meeting material for the dinner?

I'm sorry, who is the primary?

I'm sorry, who is the primary?

And you got any other comment on the question before we. comment, I don't see anybody in the public, so all in favor say aye. Aye. Cast unanimously. Okay, that was our last item.

staff report, right? So, chair Evans, before we leave this item, did you want to talk how you're going to discuss the work plan? Because if you actually just share the work plan with them, that's not discussing it. I'm just kind of, I don't want to direct you, but I think that you might have a conversation about how you want to introduce that.

Okay.

to the chair and to the council.

What slide is it mentioned on?

It's not mentioned on any of the slides because we cannot, we're not. Oh, facilities master plan.

Yeah, I think the best thing they do would be during the overview of the facility when we mention the work strategic plan, facility master plan, also mention we have a work plan. If it's been included, we can reference to it. If it's not in the pre-meeting material, I'm not sure there's anything wrong with us bringing your printed copy and handing it out. I don't think our city attorney would differ. It is publicly posted materials to a public meeting.

Well, I think going to a deputy city attorney, it would be if it was posted, if the clerk, you know, the choice. But for that meeting. But it's a draft. For proper notice. Just for reference.

Okay. But we can reference that we have one, I think, at that point. And then I think it would be helpful since there is a different section in there. Actually, those sections correspond to some things on our slides. Maybe we divide up, talk about the work plan a little bit in each of the slides. yeah i'm just going to say that um if we could find in our slides the connection to the work plan and mention it well just just say something like it's already mentioned our work plan or something like there's a section about policy so like daniel when he talks about the policy slide i can go talk about the policies that we're going to update because it's in the work because then they'll want to talk a little bit about that as well maybe uh we're going to have a copy of this right

Hopefully, it might not be. So we can see our own copy.

You also have it here. It's in the agenda. And it was emailed to all of you as well. So you can even cut and paste if you wanted.

To make notes for ourselves.

Yeah, because you have a digital version of this.

I think for me, it'd be helpful just to mention this. We're continuing to support the strategic agent plan and the master plan. Maybe talk a little bit about the funding because we have those two items. I think we have policies, right? There's a policy update. We can talk about the policies we're updating in your section. You said the ones we finished and the ones we're going to do in the future. That's a good way to make it feel very dynamic.

No, you said not to. Yeah, because we thought it was going to be a long period.

Yeah, and then Steve, like, you know, take on something after that. Yeah, he's on and maybe the board development. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Yeah, so just just review the I'll see the book back. This part here, I think, would be good to talk about. That sounds reasonable. You just bring up a little part of it as we go. Am I good? Okay, cool. Okay, then let's move on then to the next. Okay, we can move on to the next item.

We've done a lot of talking and the hour is getting late. The only thing that I wanted to bring up is thank you again to Adina for hosting us tonight. It is and for her grace and candor and love for all of us. I did want to, and I saw this in the bathroom, so this is great, in your picture. So I did want to mention that We have a really outstanding young woman who's doing some fantastic work with teens. She's sort of the genesis of the teen library card design, you know, that's coming about. But she's also working with the Youth Advisory Commission and they are bringing for the first time that sanctioned by the city attorney and the city manager's office, a program on the opioid crisis. and the distribution of Narcan. So that's tomorrow between 4.30 and 6, right? 4.30 and 6 at Central Park Library. I will tell you that this is a milestone for us because we tried this a few years ago when I first got here. And because the whole county was doing it and a lot of school districts were doing it and we were not doing it because there was fear. And I get it that there was fear. But now it's a little bit more commonplace. But more importantly, we are working with our Youth Advisory Commission as partners because they specifically. asked for this training. They've all had people in their lives who have all unfortunately passed away from fentanyl and other kinds of other things. And so they really did want to do something a little different and proactive so that we are giving away fentanyl test strips and we are giving away Narcan tomorrow at the library at Central Park. From 430 to six. So I'm letting you know, because this is for us. This is a big milestone. And, you know, and I know that we may have differed with the city attorney, the city manager on this in the past. You know, things take time. And things take time to percolate. But ultimately, whatever's going to better. I think it's going to be good.

So is that who I should talk to about trafficking? I really want to do something on that. And the teenagers really know about it.

You can approach the youth advisory commission. Um, so, um, Mimi Nguyen is her name and she, um, she regularly goes to their meetings. Um, she wasn't able to come to the city council meeting where they had in going and outgoing members. Uh, but Rachel Schmidt, our youth, uh, Our youth services coordinator was there. There's a lot of good collaboration that's happening throughout the city between the library and a number of other departments. I just wanted to kind of mention that. We're also working with Water and Sewer to do a series of workshops. We have a number three there that's doing, or number four, that's doing some, Brendan McCarthy, who brings in the water truck all the time. So whenever you see the water truck, that's Brendan. And he's part of a national leadership program. And he asked permission, can we do some advocacy at the library? You see so many people who are users of our water and sewer program. So he's asking community that walks through the door what they would like to see in a water series. Anyway, we have some good collaborations going on. I won't talk anything more because I think we're all tired and it's time to go home.

Thank you. Do you have any trustees reports?

Is this my last meeting? I believe that is true. Well, thanks, everybody.

You will be missed.

Absolutely.

Have you ordered. Thank you. Come back in two years. I don't think so.

I have other things in mind. I don't.

Good for you.

Good for you.

Cool.

I also want to say, I want to thank the library for, oh, good.

Well, I was going to make a motion to adjourn.

Yeah. So I want to thank the library for hosting us. And once again, plug all the great events that go on here. You should come to one of their book clubs. The unbooked clubs are great. And so is the crafting club. So come on down sometime. I intend at least a couple of those events. Yeah.

I'll make a motion to adjourn in appreciation of Debbie Karprow's service to the board.

Okay.

Serious, too. Yes, it needs to be entered into the record.

All in favor? Aye. Okay, that passes. 8.37 p.m. And they're still returning ballots. I have to go home and vote. I have to finish. You're inviting me to my job. Thank you, everyone.