Arts Advisory Commission Monthly Meeting 2025 04 28

Welcome everyone, and roll call. I'll just go down the list here. Laura Walters? Present.

Myself, John Zimmerman, I'm here. John Erick is excused. Norman? Here. Okay.

Britt is also excused. She's in Cordova. Kim? I don't see Kim in the room yet, so we'll wait on her. Tamalitis?

Is here. Present. Young Kim?

I see a wave from Young Kim online, so welcome, Young. And Amanda Thompson is also not here just yet. So seeing as how the vice chair and our secretary are missing, do we have someone who's willing to take some notes to create minutes from the meeting? What that entails is just writing down any kind of motion that we have and the tally of the vote. And beyond that, you don't have to really take too many notes.

So I can do that for you. Okay, thank you. Appreciate that, Marie. All right, so Marie will be our stand-in secretary. If Amanda does come, then you can discuss passing the torch if you'd like to.

I just, yeah, have to claim I'm not good at multitasking, so good thing we're just doing it because I can't talk and listen and Take notes. And we'll go slow too. If there's a motion, we'll make sure—. Yeah, yeah, just—. —Everything's set before we do anything.

And just a motion, thank you. Slow me down if I'm going too fast. All right, thanks. Okay, all right, roll call's complete. On to finalizing and approving the agenda.

If you didn't see the agenda come out with the email, check back on that email and the link should give you the current agenda in its final form here for us to approve. And just as a note, the only thing that got added between when it first got sent out and now It's item A under 9 for announcements and next meeting. Item A is a disclosure of economic interest form, which also should be attached to an email. There's Amanda. There's Amanda.

Yes. Hello, Amanda. Hello. Sorry about that. No worries.

Glad you're here. All right. Welcome, Amanda. We were just discussing on the agenda, if you use the link on the email, it should give you the most current form. And the only change from when it was first sent out is the addition of the disclosure of economic, economic interests form that was attached to a message that came out from— and it's a two-sided form that we all need to make sure that we get filled out before we do any scoring on the applications.

We can take a minute and do that here for those of us present, for Norman and myself, and then those who are joining us via Teams can complete that form and send it back in to Ornella. Do you want to collect those? So those will go to Ornella. Just reply to that same message. Other than that, the agenda should be as it was before, so we can entertain a motion to approve the agenda or any kind of amendments after we do that.

Is there a motion to approve the agenda? Norman. Okay, Norman has moved to approve the agenda. Is there a second? I second.

Okay, who was that? Laura. Thank you. Any discussion?

I guess, let's see, just on the agenda, just as we disclose our economic interest forms, I would be interested in for the arts grants applications just to have that under new business that we also address that with the applicants, the pool of applicants, if there's any kind of, you know, just as we see that pool, since it's a new kind of grant cycle, that that same kind of disclosure of economic interest, we just apply that to also the grant possible grantees as we look at the merit of their work. Maybe, maybe my request will just come more as we go to that new business. A item.

Okay. Did you want to make an amendment, or do you feel like that can be covered under New Business A? I feel like it can be covered under New Business A. So, okay, thank you, Amanda. Any other discussion?

All right, well, let's put it to a vote. It has to be a roll call vote. And just to be clear, Marie was taking notes, Amanda, since we started Just a couple minutes before, do you want to pass the torch and take notes as Secretary while you're here on Teams, or do you want her to continue for now? Um, let's see, I'm trying to think how to do this here. Um, I should be able to— let me just pull up the minutes, and I do apologize, I didn't have those for review.

That's very not according to procedure. So So I will send those out shortly by tomorrow, the past minutes, and then these minutes here. So just give me 2 minutes and I can get the new one started. So I'll let you know. May just keep on taking minutes until I get—.

You're good. Okay. Marie's good with that. Okay. So the motion on the table is to approve the agenda as it stands.

There's no amendments on it. So a yay approves it or a nay does not. And we have to go roll call vote. So I can call. Okay.

I'm just going to go straight down the list this time, and then we'll vary the order next time. Laura? Yes.

And I am a yes, although I should go last. Um, John Erick is gone. Norman? Yes. Okay.

And Britt is gone. Kim is not here yet. And, uh, Temeliz? Yes. Young Kim?

I think I saw yes. Did you say yes? Yeah, we can't hear you, Young.

A thumbs up. Okay, there we go. Excellent. And Amanda? Yes.

Got it. Okay, motion passes unanimously with 6 voting yes.

All right, on to Public comment, and I put Amanda on there too, since typically the secretary runs the clock. If there's anyone— I don't see anyone on Teams, and there's no one here present, so we'll keep moving. Everyone's okay if someone does show up, we could give them time at the end of the meeting. Does that work for everyone? Okay, excellent.

All right, so next would be to approve minutes. As we just heard, those aren't quite finished yet. That's fine with me moving it to the next meeting. Is that okay with everybody? Yes.

Okay, excellent. See nods and agreement for those that I can see here. Let's keep moving then. So unfinished business, uh, commission bylaws. Did everyone get a chance to review those?

They were attached to the email that went out. They're, they're very basic. It's simply just a backbone of what bylaws need to contain and really no extra anything else. So it's essentially a blank canvas for us to build on. To create bylaws that meet the needs of our commission as we discover those.

And to my knowledge, previous commission's bylaws are lost in time. We don't have a most recent one, so it's incumbent upon us to adopt bylaws that work for us. And these are an idea, but by no means what we need to adopt. So we can put those out there for discussion If anyone wants to move to do a preliminary vote, the way that it works is we would make a preliminary vote at this meeting. We'd have an entire month to review them, and then we do a final vote at a subsequent meeting next month, or that one is only a few weeks away.

We might even wait until June just to give a full 30 days is usually kind of the standard way of doing that. So we could either do it in May in a couple of weeks, or if that's not enough, we can put it in June. But if anybody wants to move to approve those as a starting point, that can get our discussion going.

I approve them. I say we just grow from it. Thanks. We have a motion to adopt the bylaws from Norma. Is there a second?

I'll second. Hey, hey, we can hear you. Yay!

Was that young Kim? Okay. Yes. Oh, so I'm checking up here.

All right. Is there discussion on the bylaws as they stand? Amanda? So I really appreciate you, John, putting in the Muni code for this. So I'll put together, um, the excerpts of that.

As we go. I think that's really important for us to understand as we're kind of making this document, you know, what in the statute was this advisory intended to do or to advise on. So I just appreciate that, and if that sounds good to put together those documents as we review, I'll go ahead and do that. For the documents you're referencing, can you be more specific? I'm not clear on that.

So the municipal code where it talks about the Arts Advisory. Mm-hmm.

Okay, and that should be included in those bylaws. It's spelled out letter for letter at the beginning.

Okay, so this is the actual letter by letter one of it. Okay, correct. As far as, uh, As far as it stands, last I looked, I don't think it's changed by any of my knowledge. And welcome. I'm just sliding in here.

I'm Gideon Geralt, the curator of public art. Welcome, Gideon. Nice to have you here. Marie Jisa. Oh, hi, Marie.

Ornella. I was just telling Ornella, do you know we have a curator for public art? He knows everything about the 1% for art. Excellent. And that's why I bring up— yeah, and that's why I bring up the muni code, because I recall that there is a section where arts advisory is mentioned in relation to the 1% for Art program, that this hasn't been, um, visited in the past, or in the past few commissions, it sounds like.

But it would just be interesting to, um, circle wagons around that, or just you know, start that discussion again.

Excellent. Yeah, I think it's great. Was there— is there something you guys wanted to discuss, or is that just kind of the general—. Um, we, we could talk about adding something to our agenda, which would be wonderful to hear, or we could also give you a moment for public comment, which would be great. Right now we're talking about adopting bylaws because we don't have current commission bylaws, and we have a very skeleton frame of what that looks like that references the muni code that talks about us interfacing with Urban Design Commission.

And there's a couple other things in there. So there's a—. I'm okay with that. If everybody else in the commission is okay, I can give the floor to Gideon for a moment to discuss that. Yeah, should we call it— do the question first and then Uh, sure.

I mean, he's probably going to give us some information that relates to that, but we are, we are more specifically on a topic of bylaws, so maybe that is procedurally correct. And then we can, uh, we can go back to public comment if that works. Does that work for everybody? Yes. Okay, um, so let's, uh, let's vote on this, um, to adopt the bylaws preliminarily.

It's the first vote, and then we have time to amend and do a final adoption at a future meeting. So it's not written in stone at this point. It's just that we want to move forward with addressing these bylaws. Are we ready for a vote? Yes.

Okay. Yes. Let me go through here. I'll mix up the order a little bit. I'll just go backwards, which might make it easy.

So, Amanda? Yes. Okay. Young Kim? Yes.

Okay. Didn't hear you, but I see you nodding. Alright, Tamalibus? Yes. Okay, Kim's out, Britt's out.

Norman? Yes. Okay, John-Erik is out. Laura? Yes.

I'm also a yes, so it's a unanimous consent, 6 votes in favor for adopting the bylaws. Okay, let's circle back to public comment. I see a lot of nods saying that that's okay, so we'll put public comment in here too and give Gideon a moment to speak to how we interface with 1% in the arts and public arts in general. So thank you for coming. We've talked about you a lot over the last year and a half or 2 years.

You're finally here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd love to interface more. So, guys, so you'd like to hear more, have more connection, and, um, Marie, if you have, uh, pass my email along if there's any additional engagement you'd like to have, I'd be happy to, uh, contribute more, whether in person or online. Um, I guess just to start with those, uh, since you guys are discussing bylaws, um, I'm not as thoroughly familiar as I'm sure you guys are, but historically I am aware that there was an in-depth development of, um, both bylaws and process.

Particularly, uh, I know that there quite a bit of development to do with the process of reviewing grants and all that that entails. So again, I'm not on the commission, but I know just firsthand experience with those that were developing that, those materials. So if you, if there's, if you'd like, and if those materials are not presently available to you, I can, I can ask around and see if we can, I can locate what was developed. Is that I think you're going to point. Yeah, I'm happy to do that.

I'll— it was— and Zina Murari was the previous chair that I'm thinking of in particular. There were some retreats to Dirtwood to develop digital materials, so I'll see what I can dig up and pass along to you guys on that front. Uh, regarding the municipal code, um, this language that I'm seeing here on your agenda is the only information that— code language that I'm familiar with is AMC, was it, Order 60150, Arts Advisory Commission. I don't believe, or that I'm not familiar with anything specific to crossing over between the Public Art Program and the Arts Advisory Commission. The Public Art Program, I believe, falls into the category of here in Section A.1 where it's The commission shall advise the mayor and assembly concerning all matters pertaining to municipal involvement in the arts and the community, except those programs officially under the purview of other advisory bodies.

And that's that other advisory bodies, excuse me, other advisory bodies. The public art program has the oversight from the Public Art Committee, and so that Public Art Committee is written into the Municipal Code, and I'm wondering if maybe that's where the connection may have been, or that communication, or thinking that the Public Art Committee might have been the Public Art Advisory Commission. They're two separate bodies. Just, I guess, to ask, stop and ask, is that what the understanding was, or am I perhaps missing something? That sounds correct to me.

Okay. All right. Yeah, so that's what my understanding of the situation is in terms of the advisory body. The Public Art Program has a Public Art Committee who I consult with on a number of factors, and actually I've got, um, I need to convene that body here in the near future for a few different reviews. However, there is the, uh, the point at which the Arts Advisory Commission does overlap with the Public Art Program is this, uh, I'm going to pass these around, is the notices.

So there's a number of notices of selection. I'll just pass them down. Yeah, yeah, sure. Thank you. There's a number of notices of selection that I send out when an artwork is selected by the art selection juries, and the Arts Advisory Commission is one of those.

So I sent that out recently to— directed to Marie and the chair, because I'm not familiar with the current chair. Is that John? John. That's me, sir. So yeah, I'm happy update my materials there.

So whenever there's an artwork selection, I'll send that out to a number of people, uh, the advisory commission, uh, chair being one of them, and it's easy just to pass it through the municipal staff to the program. So what you're seeing here currently, um, and I am— hopefully, uh, those online were passed a digital PDF. I can— happy to forward that as well, but I just brought the printed copies with me. Is the selection of Rose Hendrickson. This is for Location 1 at the Port Administration Building.

So the port has been doing lots of construction, I'm sure you guys are all aware, but they built a brand new administration building. For that administration building, 1% of the funds were allocated to public art. And so there's 2 locations selected by the jury for that. The second location has already been completed. That artist painted a mural, actually two different murals.

It's the same piece for art's purpose, but it's one piece, which is two different murals, two different locations on the exterior facade. Really vibrant and bright, and it really pops out from the rest of the surrounding environment. And this second— sorry, this first location has now been awarded to Rose Hendrickson. She's a local artist based out of Palmer. And she's going to be doing an art installation for the railing of the observation deck.

So as you walk out to the observation deck, you'll have a much more beautiful, detailed, ornate artwork. And as well as from the exterior, a less detailed view because it's up on the third floor, which is— it's actually the— oh nice— perspective. Provide a great view of detail if you're viewing it from those ground levels. Um, yeah, it was a really great proposal, a really great concept. Um, at this point, just going through the, uh, the steps of approvals.

As I said, there's, uh, notifications of the selection as one, um, step in that. And then the other one that I'm going through now is to be maintenance and safety reviews. I already heard back from actually a member of the Public Art Committee, who's actually an architect, who pointed out the, uh, uh, risk of galvanic corrosion between the aluminum and the railing. The railing itself is actually galvanized, and so it's fine, and it didn't occur to me. Yes, I really appreciate having his attention on it because it's not that the galvanized railing is fine or an issue.

However, when you drill through it, it can penetrate the galvanization. It's a very small layer. So anyway, that fastener itself has to have a Could be stainless steel, it's ideal to actually have both a rubber and/or plastic gasket on there as well. So, good call, good catch. So, that's exactly the kind of detail we're looking for that maintenance and safety review in the next catch, but we'll try to remember to add it on there, so I'll make sure that we include that.

Anyway, so that's the selection here. The total is what, $36,920?

The award was originally going to be $32,500. However, there's some contingency funds that were remaining. And because, uh, just the, uh, you guys are probably also aware the cost of materials are going up exponentially as we speak, so, um, rolled the extra contingency funds into that commission. Is there any, uh, any thoughts or comments? Or I want to say apologies for that aside.

I was trying to see if I had this by email. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem. Is that—. Were you able to find it? No, yeah, sorry.

They'll have it later. Actually, that's a great point for those online. Did you— has everybody been forwarded a PDF? You guys have it? Oh, yeah.

Did you send that to me by email? I did. Oh, okay. I'll look for it. I didn't know that the chair, so I didn't.

Yeah, got it. It's brand new. It's just as of the last meeting. Okay. Yeah, I can leave after almost a year off.

Yeah. They put me in the hot seat. Welcome, welcome. Yeah. Thanks.

No, happy to be able to lead it to work. Um, I don't know. Oh, here we go. Where'd you get that camera? Oh, I found it.

You can always stand up and put it in the front. Yeah, it's 4:25. Yeah, I found the thread, but I'm looking for the— I'll forward it. Might be easier to— Well, Gideon, while we're looking, are you— oh, there is a chair. Can you talk about just briefly of like the 1% like it's from CIP, which I can't think, and then 1% is required for art, and then you have a jury for all of the art.

Just briefly on that, we have new commissioners and maybe the older ones too would benefit from that. A quick background. Yeah, yeah. Let's say real quick on here for you, and I'm sorry, what was your name again? Or no, not— down at the bottom of this I have a link to the Dropbox.

All the way at the bottom. Yeah. Okay, if it's not actually linked, you can copy and paste that, but that will take you to the page and then you can find the, um, I think it's revised proposals, mockups. Oh, nice. Uh, so yeah, just general background on public art program and how, what that entails, the process and everything.

Uh, so it's 1% for art That's the, um, that everything is derived from. So whenever there's municipal construction and the construction cost exceeds $250,000, that will essentially kick off a review. There's more, uh, that's really the kind of the first step. I like to think of it as sweeping things off the table that don't meet the requirement in terms of that review. And so 250 projects that exceed $250,000, that's the first Essentially passes.

Beyond that, if it's the construction, I mean, there's a number of criteria. I'd have to pull up NC 7.40 is the code to go through all the details. And I guess I'm more than happy to go through greater detail if there's interest in that at another time. But essentially, I go through this checklist to see whether or not the 1% is appropriate for this project. Or the respective project qualifies for a contribution to the public art.

After determination that it does, I work with the project manager for that construction project to allocate the funds, and then we, yeah, we set up a department selection jury. The jury by code is no less than 7 members. Those members are determined to be the project designer, Those, you know, that by contract they have an architect or engineer designer on the projects, that person is allocated a seat on the art selection jury. There is the facility representative, so whichever facility is doing construction, they have a representative on the art selection jury. There are two municipal representatives, and that is just broadly speaking municipality.

I do my best to ensure that there's an overlap, you know, You know, there's already a facility representative, but depending on what facility is doing the construction, there's a number of other departments within the municipality that would have a great overlap. So we can look for—. No, that's okay. I think I just wonder, Chair, if with the time that we have for the meeting tonight, and maybe if we have for Gideon a timeframe. Just to give him an idea.

This is all great information, but I'm just wondering, since it wasn't on the agenda and we have the things below, just as you see, Chair, what we should— how much time we should have for this. Yes, well noted. Point taken. And if everyone's okay, can we give them another maybe 3 minutes here? If that's— I know that's not much time.

This is such great information. We love every bit of it, but we want to make sure to stay on time. And that's an excellent point. Thank you, Amanda, for that.

Every time I give this talk, it's like you kind of give me a clock that I can go from 5 minutes to an hour and a half or so. Yeah, we're all arts lovers too, so thank you for that. Great. Yeah, and then so on that note, if there's interest, I do have a presentation, a PowerPoint presentation that I'd be happy to give, you know, illustrates all the points and pulls out all the details. So happy to provide that at another time.

Just, yeah, if we can do that at a future meeting, that would be brilliant. Absolutely, absolutely. Let me know. Happy to provide that presentation. So I guess the nutshell here, so our selection jury, minimum 7 members, municipal members, we also have 3 community members.

Of those 3 community members, there's an artist, and always looking part of the curatorial umbrella, I'm looking to get overlap of all the project criteria to get a good jury in place for that. The jury is really responsible for all the components in deciding what the art is going to be, where it'll how it's going to be installed, what the budget is going to be. You know, as part of this, um, the current, uh, notice of selection, there's, there's one, uh, funding pot essentially, right? The total funds being— was it $70-some thousand? But the jury decided to allocate it to two locations, right?

So it was the jury that decided we want to split this into two locations and how we want to divide up that budget and what kind of art we want for both of those locations. Uh, in addition to the jury that's making those decisions, I— there's— I myself and the project manager for the construction project are, um, non-voting members. So the project manager really kind of, uh, in addition to the architect, provide a lot of details and insight to the project itself. And I really went through the process, the art selection. And, um, yeah, I can go off into a lot of weeds after that as to like what kind of art is suitable to the facility and all the contract mechanisms and purchasing and procurement.

But I'll leave it at that for now, unless there's any other questions. Thank you. Yeah, it's gonna be a long—. I know. I think you are—.

I'm sorry, with that presentation, I can put it down into about 15 to 20 minutes. It's the shortest I've got it, and I've actually had much longer. Okay, nice. Did I answer your question? Yeah, I know I would love even like a lunch and learn or something like that.

That'd be fabulous. So this is really great to hear. Just the two follow-up questions I have is that I saw that the MUNI code was updated, I believe, in October 2024. So I would be interested in any research, you know, what was changed in that code, in that arts, just when I looked it up on the site and it said the last revision, I would be interested in what it was before that revision. And then this, I don't recall getting information on the public arts the past couple years or since I've been on the commission.

I was just wondering if you could speak quickly to that, whether or not awards given out, and so that's why nothing got sent out, or—. Uh, the first one there was the Code revision, I think you're referring to Title 7 code revisions. Just broadly speaking, to my knowledge, um, uh, 7.40 for arts, for funding for public art, wasn't revised, um, to my knowledge. I was looking on it recently. Are you seeing something else, or—.

Yeah, it just said on the specific code page that there was a revision, so I don't know if that was for the whole, right, the whole Muni code, that the whole updated then, or if it was just that, that section. You know which section you were looking at? Um, I believe it was the 7.0. Um, I'd have to go back and see. The 4.6.

Yeah, sorry. And the 7.4.

You're looking at 7.40? Um, so the first one with the Arts Advisory So that one, the 4.60. 150. Yeah, let me just double check. It will take some time, but I just said as a start for a conversation, um, so I would just be— if those are getting updated, I would be interested in that notice from the Assembly, or however we get notified.

Um, there's all items. It was 4.60 regarding the Arts Advisory Commission. So which one was this? Let's see.

So that was— yeah, you know how it goes, like all the assembly, you know, little lines and what's going on when and when. So if you want to take a moment and look up the reference for us to discuss later, we can keep going because we're already past the Yeah, so I can give you a little update of what I'm familiar with there. So there, there's always code changes that are happening. Uh, recently Title VII, what, there was a major Title VII overhaul, largely to do with purchasing. Largely it's why like public art fits in there in terms of purchasing processes.

Um, and I'm actually, I think it's tomorrow morning or afternoon, Tuesday or Wednesday, I think it's tomorrow, is a, uh, there's, we have a web, a web meeting, um, to discuss the, the major overhaul Those are largely to do with purchasing processes. I'm not sure if you guys are familiar, but the last couple years there were, um, purchasing thresholds, there were changes, uh, so there's additional changes that have happened. So, uh, for those of us that deal with purchasing and procurement, there are federal legal requirements that you have to adhere to, um, and of course, uh, state and local. Uh, so those are predominantly the changes that we're focused on. I'm not from— I don't believe, uh, the public art had changed, and I can't say that I'm specifically familiar as to where whether or not the Arts Advisory Commission language had been changed.

I wouldn't think that there would be need for that, but if there was, I'd be— yeah, I'll see what I can find out as well and dig into that. Um, we just have a cross-reference under our code that references works of art in public facilities in Chapter 7.40. So that's, as far as I know, that's our only code reference that in any way kind of—. When you say that's the fingers and Jake's hand, there's a cross-reference from Arts Advisory Commission, is that— yeah, you know, the—. It has 4.60.150 Arts Advisory Commission, all of our stuff that's at the top of our agenda here.

If you have one of those, all the references for all the extensions of it, and then a cross-reference that mentions funds for works of art. So it's not so much a direct connection, but it is about time. So that's just qualifications, um, and terms. So 3-year terms for—. Oh, 7-point— yeah, that's—.

I wonder if perhaps maybe in the past, and this is something that's a remnant. So I was going to— what I was going to direct you to, uh, in addition for looking things up, do you look at the, um, these materials over here? I think it's more Or put— oh, they don't know. Just below that, compare previous version. Is it this one?

This one? Yeah, compare versions. So in there, and that's a great tool for everybody online. So if you have Unicode pulled up under this section of the code where it's 4605, whatever it is, that's the major black bolded text. There's— you're going to see little icons that have, you know, the mail, this, and linking and all that.

The far right one has two page icons. That's where you can find more information and see previous versions. So Amanda, to your question about what the previous version— versions or recent updates, you can compare and contrast, you know, updates to previous code versions. And from there, I think you should be able to actually see when the most recent update was. Well, that strikes true, it gives dates too.

Yeah. Yeah, so that should help you with a little bit of digging. Excellent. Yeah, anything else quickly before we move on? We are— I do want to be mindful of everyone's time here and keep our meeting going.

Okay, thank you, Gideon. Yeah, that's a lot of great information. I think that I've done for all of us, though. Like, I'm trying to fit everything into it. Yeah, excellent.

Hopefully it's not too much. Well, thank you for all you do to support art too. This is huge in our community. It's a beautiful display wherever your, your work touches our community. So thank you.

Thanks. Enjoy it. Okay, thanks again. Moving on for new business, I'd like to turn the floor over to Ornella to discuss the current grant cycle, the applications we've received, and draw your attention to that and several other matters that the Commission has historically discussed which may be different with the current composite of membership, but that we should also have in mind as we move forward. So with that, Ornella.

Yeah, happy to. As you all know, maybe if you realize, I love a presentation, so I brought some materials for us to look at. And again, this was created quite recently, and I'm happy to share this with you all after the meeting as well. So speaking on the broader term of timeline, just so far the applications closed April 14th, and I sent the all the received applications for both the general applications as well as the Beyond the Beige applications to you all on April 16th. So hoping you all had to have had a chance to either just click through or make sure you have access at the very least so I can troubleshoot from there.

So that was about, um, what, like 12 days or so ago. Um, but of course there's this meeting on the calendar to really iron out criterias. Um, I'm going to touch on the suggested ones we built into the criteria worksheet, but again, as John has pointed out previously, as Gideon just pointed out, there's a lot of history around this Commission just already doing that kind of work, so we want to leave room for conversation as you all see fit for what you all as this year's Commissioners feel is, you know, the best way to review the 30 applications that came in for the general applications and then the 12 Beyond the Beige applications that came in. Um, so yes, everyone has access to those materials. Just want to double check.

Yeah, Amanda, you said you, you don't? No, it's wanting me to sign into a Microsoft Office account. Okay, I am happy to double check. Um, if you wouldn't mind maybe emailing me with your email just so I can double check that it has— that it's the right one. I'm going to speak to that.

So it wants you to sign in, just use the email that you received the message at. So, uh, Little Blue Art, I believe this is yours, Amanda. So you type that in for the exchange and then it will send a like 6-digit code or 7-digit code to your email to verify that you are the one who holds the email account, and then it'll let you in. Okay, seems strange, but that— it worked for me. So that's right, because we—.

IT specifically created one for your set of emails, so you should have access. But thank you so much for doing that. But right, so in terms of the timeline, uh, we have this meeting date where hopefully you all finalize the criteria, and then you have a tentative May 13th meeting date that I believe is maybe on the agenda to confirm, where our goal would be to have them finalized by then. So the reason for this timeline being the next kind of 2 weeks or so is that the grants, if they are to be dispersed in June, helps applicants get as much time as they can to spend the awards by 2025, which is a requirement for the general applications. And we do, you know, want to take note of that's, I believe, 9 business days.

Let me see if I can still do math. Yeah, 9, 10 business days. So we took some time As individuals who have just reviewed 92 community grant applications, like, what are some recommendations for making that manageable within that time frame? Or obviously to create room for conversation if that is, you know, if however you all see fit. But we, in reviewing the MCGs, we set a maximum per application review time, a first pass, based on, you know, admissions review data and data from other institutions.

So saying Maximum 5 minutes for applications spread, that's about 3.5 hours for the 42 applications. Some are quite short. I don't know if you all had a chance to click through, for some provided like a sentence per, so you, you really won't even get anywhere near the 5 minutes. But let's say you do spend 5 minutes per, um, that would be about an hour a day over the course of 4 days, or 30 minutes a day over the course of 7 days. So we just wanted to say like, of course The timeline looks like what the timeline looks like, but it feels doable, manageable within the time.

This is our suggested approach. Again, everything is up for discussion, change, adjustments, as you all know your schedules better than we do. I have one quick extra note too. Going through a couple of cycles of this too, it really does help to skim through everything once before so you have a context for what— how everything compares with other applicants. So the first pass through can be a very quick pass just to kind of have an idea of what's there.

So your scoring is consistent throughout that way. You don't have to dig in on every single one of them twice to have an accurate score. So just for what it's worth. Yeah. I honestly, the 5 minutes max, that's you really digging in.

So you could have 2 minutes per and even less, you know, just tell yourself, look through, find key details, jot down discussion notes. You will inevitably have to revisit these as a larger group anyways when you do meet, so it might be good not to be too set on your own set of recommendations. Um, other kind of things that we just wanted to review— I know I sent it in the email— but the priorities, uh, that we have for both grant types. Um, really this year a big focus is this idea of How is the public going to interact with these programs, with this art? How accessible is it?

So the idea of accessibility, excuse me. For general art grants, really, you know, general goals of promoting creative expression, foster local talent, produce exciting local events that are accessible and will impact the community, with priorities being, you know, Actually, I don't want to reread these because obviously they're— they were in that email, but I wanted to tie this idea of the priorities with this document that we found online as to how previous iterations of this group has made sense of that and written it out in terms of guidelines. So very quickly, these were also in the materials that we sent by email, the suggested criteria, perhaps thinking along the lines of how clear is the proposal How feasible, how impactful, you know, who's, who's being reached, is it accessible, or is it only for the people who pay a fee to have access to this institution? And then novelty, you know, some of these, but these, again, these words don't come from nowhere. We are connecting it to— apologies, I'm trying to click through this.

It's too small, so I'm trying to get out of the presentation. We would like to connect to this to what the 2012 Arts Advisory Commission kind of wrote out application guidelines for the public, as well as just provided information on, you know, what they consider to be eligibility for these grants, limitations, as as well as how they're going to be doing, you know, the review process. So I'm going to take a second to— for us to look through this because it ties into those suggested criteria for review for this year. In general, I know, John, you had asked over email, like, what organizations qualify as being able to apply for this? Is it only arts and culture organizations or can it be a political organization that's saying, "We have this really nifty art event that we'd like to put on," right?

Based on code, there's nothing that really removes any specific organizations and as well, it's not something that was written into the application. However, eligibility here that was written out by previous members is for us only community arts organizations within the Municipality of Anchorage are eligible for funding. So there's this sense of anything within the MOA, and as long as they're producing art events, projects, and services within the MOA. So you all can interpret that as you will, again with code as your biggest constraint backer, to go forth from. Some of the other things that they said as, you know, recommended not for funding is organizations incorporated for less than 1 year, food or entertainment expenses other than per diem for travelers to Anchorage, labor or material costs for renovation, remodeling, restoration, purchase of equipment, deficits of completed projects.

So again, you all have kind of room as commissioners for how you want to conceptualize all of this, as we've seen in previous years in the documents that were shared.

Other things that they incorporated that I wanted to call out on— Yes, review guidelines. So, Amanda, I will get you in one second. I'll just speak to the review guidelines a little bit because that ties into those categories. So they have, you know, quality of project, demonstrated ability to successfully manage arts program, which for us ties into this concept of both clarity and then feasibility.

All right, to jump back and forth. Evidence of community need, you know, here it's again, maybe for us it's a little bit more of evidence of access to community and how this program will, or event, will actually impact those that it intends to, or the public, I guess, is what it should be. Financial support of projects by non-municipal sources. I know you mentioned this a little bit as well in email, like if they're getting separate funding. If they're the Anchorage School District, if they're, you know, like an organization that already has other streams of revenues, that might be something that you all at least take note of or have as points of discussion before choosing to direct more funds towards them.

But again, we're not going to say none of these organizations, it's just for you all to consider. Number of audience and participants, again, I can't emphasize this enough, like really, if this is going to be for an organization that's kind of closed doors in some way, maybe they charge a fee for the event and then they're asking for additional money to buy food. What does it mean for us to support them when we could be supporting an event or program that will be truly open to anybody within the community? So just, just some, some thoughts for you all. And then again, this is kind of like what previous years have taken from code to write out.

So going to send this document, the link to this document, out to everybody so you all have it. I actually will put it in the chat right now, but I'll pause here. Amanda, I saw your question. What? Uh, yes, yeah, and I love how, you know, you're helping us see really the, the longstandingness of this and going back to that 2012 document.

I was just curious, um, about your inclusion of our most recent advisory commission's work on these guidelines and criteria. Can I speak to that for just a second? Because that's exactly what I was going to mention too. I just sent you a screenshot of what we used for scoring criteria last year. It's very basic, partly because the application information we've received, at least in my time on the commission for the last 2 cycles, has not necessarily given us all the detail we need to come up with a score.

So we simplified things a little bit and we came up with two main criteria. One was vision, which we detailed in three different ways, and the other was value, which we detailed in three different ways. So for the vision part, we said the three parts were programmatic detail, so an understanding of what we, what we're working on, we're working with based on the application. Two was innovation, something that was going to bring something new to the area of art arts, and then 3, uh, cultural relevance. And those 3 subcategories were held in equal comparison and scored on a 0 to 5 scale, which 0 is— it's outlined on the top there— 0 is doesn't produce or teach any arts in Anchorage, 1 would be minimal, 2 limited, 3 moderate, 4 high, and 5 exceptional.

And so there's a total of 15 points for each side, being 30 is the maximum score for all 3. And then on the value side would be production or performance, which I think it also, I mean, production allows for things like static art display. It doesn't necessarily have to be performance art, even though that has historically been a focus for the Arts Commission, whereas there's a lot of static art presentations that are other organizations. So not that we don't wanna do that, but just, you know, there's other avenues for that. And then B being training, teaching, and mentoring.

So how are we raising up the next generation of artists of all different varieties? And then C, to your point about audience reach, and participation, how apt is the community to participate in what's going on. And again, same rubric, 0 through 5, to try and come up with an idea. It's really basic, but it's partly because we have such a wide range of information that comes in with these applicants, because we haven't really narrowed it down to a specific criteria that we're looking for. And we don't necessarily let them know from the outset what our scoring is.

We thought it would be very general. But this is what we came up with as a commission last year. And I can say I think it worked better than the previous year, which had some really specific things that didn't always apply to every organization, which might affect the score one way or another. So if this fits, that could be a way to springboard to at least work toward what did 2012 do, what are we doing, and how can we have the best path forward using the best of both. Totally agree.

I mean, the nice thing too is this Commission has a good amount of members that were there previously that can guide the group group through. So rather than introduce a brand new one for everyone to learn, and especially if this worked really well, we're hap— like, Maria. Yeah, yeah. Oh, for us. And I don't know the way to perfection either.

Hold this. Yeah, my question is just— my question is just why it wasn't, um, brought up as a document in this research too.

I'm not sure all of our information from the previous year has been codified in any kind of resource that's available to our municipal staff. And so that's, that's kind of on me and us as previous commissioners to communicate all this, because I don't even know what they don't know, and they don't have any idea what we did because I don't think it's written down anywhere. So we're, we're a work in progress trying to figure out how to move forward with this. So yeah, a little patience. So, yeah, just having, just knowing that we do, because we did work for a long, a lot.

It was really hard, like going through the applications, like we were in the, um, right in the thick of the battle, like trying to figure out— it took a long time for us to kind of grasp what that was. I would be interested to hear Laura's, um, Laura, your comments too on just that process, and that we did do a lot of work on this, and it's available as a resource, you know, for all municipal, right, people working on this. Yeah, I mean, that was one of my—. I've had 3 questions, and that was one of them as well. Our work that we had put into the past 2 cycles, the first cycle that had all those really weird specific questions that again were were aimed towards like one or two things and there wasn't actually a question about them in the application versus all of this that we took over multiple meetings to codify.

So I'm glad that it's been brought up and hopefully some of it can be useful in the future, but I know, you know, this is a relatively new thing that we did, those of us who were on the commission previously, so. This isn't super old. Is everybody okay with Gideon adding a comment on this? Okay, I see nods. Yes, go ahead.

Thank you. I was curious, the, um, I think actually the 2022 version is the one that I was referring to, and they, um, there are several sessions taken, um, this one in sessions. Yeah, uh, the 22. Yeah. 22.

I don't think the one that you had the first place, or is this 2012? This is 2012. I vote this is the one, and maybe there's a 2022 version somewhere out there that's similar to this. I think the commission wasn't functioning that year, so we came back '23, '24, and this is our third go around. And then, uh, um, Laura, when did you start on the commission?

Um, I started at the same time John did. Oh, so 2 years just Okay, 23. Yep. And then, uh, start asking a couple questions to try and figure things out. Arnella, are you, uh, you work with the municipality and, uh, just grants or the mayor's office or grants?

So that's what I was going to point out. This, uh, super excited to see, you know, the pair up with, um, the version you all created. This we adopted from the mayor's community grants review scoring, and that worked really well for us there. So it was just truly as said in the email, a recommendation, but don't want to influence anything that was already working. So feel free to approach the scoring.

I don't know if that was going to be—. Yeah, that's perfect. Thank you. I was just trying to get a feel from where things were coming from and what the history was there, kind of putting all the parts together myself from my past observations at 2012, 2022, '21 circa. Currently, you know, there's obviously been several iterations of the review package and what the criteria are.

I know that I've actually participated in one during COVID and that was completely different criteria. So, I mean, I think the— this kind of best practice would be to just essentially going forward reviewing all the existing materials and kind of coming up with what you think is best. And because, again, as you all point out, you put a lot of time into it. And if you apply that, I'm sure that the previous members put a lot of time into it. So I'm sure in all instances there's a great deal of thought that's been involved.

So that's all I have. Thank you. And if I can add to keeping in mind how the terms stagger and there's different ones come in. So when I hear codify, I hear code permanent. So I think it's meant to be static.

To get, uh, to get the voices, the new members to voice, to add their voice into it, with the expectation that with new members coming in after October this year, so for next year, there might be new voices. It could be changed. And also, it depends on administration's focus as well. Um, so I think having this is a great starting point, and then maybe getting moving forward is just getting the new members to chime in on what, as you read through it and reading what the administration's criteria was that was put out there, how do you blend those two together? If I could recommend to everyone here, just for the sake of time, because we are nearing our power point here as well, and just the elephant in the room, I think, is that this process got started before we were regularly meeting again as a commission, so we're really behind on— Right.

—Forward in a lot a lot of these are details we need to take care of in between grant cycles, not as we're in the middle of it. And my recommendation would be to just adopt what we did last year because there are a lot of us here that created that. It was a very labor-intensive process. It is general. I don't think any of us think it's perfect by any stretch, but I think that we could spend several meetings trying to come up with a criteria or even merge these two together in a sensible way, and it might just make more sense since we're down to the next meeting, we need to have this ready, and we need to have the time to review it according to a criteria between now and then, which is only 2 weeks from now.

So my recommendation would be to just adopt what we had going last year as an imperfect way forward, knowing that time is of the essence, and then keep in mind as we are scoring what needs to be amended on that so that we can change it between now and the next cycle. So because I, I think we could spend hours, um, from this point forward and not necessarily move the rock very far. Yeah, um, so that would be again my recommendation if someone wants to make a motion as such. Uh, no, I, I second that. Um, is there like— should we like have our ideas kind of mapped out at least on a document and then we have like a Dropbox to put them all in?

That way people are there, if they're not going to be actually in body, at least it's already in the public Good question. So what we did in the past is we had a— it was like a Google Sheet. We could do it through Microsoft if we need to do that through the municipality. I'm not sure what the issue is with that or not, but we had a Google Sheet that everyone got, and then you would amend the name of it. You'd rename it to your name and the scoring sheet, and you'd fill in all of your data, and then it has a total at the beginning that totals it all up.

And then all of that data was processed together into one presentation that we could review as a group. Group, and we didn't necessarily go off of whether we thought an organization was eligible for funding. We just did raw scoring, and then we'd look at the graph of the scores, and there's usually a drop-off point at some place. Like, these organizations meet our criteria in general, and these less so. And then we divide the line as a group, decide which— where we want to draw the line, who's going to receive grants and who's not.

And then we try and figure out how to proportion the grants appropriately with the funding that we had. It's not— it sounds like a lot, but it's really not big of a process. It's probably a 30-minute discussion of where do we draw the line on who gets a grant and who doesn't based on the scoring criteria, and then where do we, um, how do we spread that around the groups in some kind of proportionate way based on scoring. Yeah, I see it through Chicago and Oakland and Southport. I understand it.

I just didn't want— I just wanted to figure out how we wanted to make sure before we just jump off it. It was kind of cool as coming in for the next two weeks, myself included, right? Okay, if you all share anything with me, I'm happy to put it in that Dropbox so that we have all of it in one place. But yeah, okay, sure, you don't have to create a different Google Drive. Okay, and then let's see, so was that a, um, motion, Norman, to adopt the scoring criteria from 2024?

Yes, I want to adopt the current one that you guys have. I just wanted to get that streamlined out since you were very adamant about 2 weeks. It's just coming up quick. Yep. And we're running out of time.

100%. Okay. So Norman moves to adopt advisory scoring guidelines as presented by the chair. Is that okay, John? I'm trying to do that.

It's not really good. You could just say adopt the 2024 scoring criteria.

For the 2025 grants or something along those lines. Does that work okay for you? Yes. Simple is better. All right.

I second. You said you second that? Yes. Okay. All right.

We've kind of been discussing it. Is there further discussion in favor? Norman, you get to speak first if you'd like to, since you made the motion. You don't have to, but you can. Okay, he's going to pass.

And any objections or any Any discussion otherwise? Okay, hearing none, let's vote. I'm going to start in the middle of the pack here. I'll start with Norman.

The vote is to adopt the 2024 scoring criteria for our grant cycle. Yes. Okay.

All right. Kim is out. She sent me an email saying she was going to be out. Tama Lewis?

Yes.

Young?

Kim? Kim? Kim? Oh, yes. Okay, good.

Amanda? Yes.

Laura? Yes. And I am a yes. So motion passes unanimously with 6 votes. To adopt the 2024 scoring criteria for 2025.

Okay. So we'll use that. I'll make sure that gets out to everybody between me and the staff. We'll work it out so that you get that in the next 24 hours, so you have that as a template to use as you're reviewing grants. So thank you.

Can I ask a question really quickly? Um, okay, so, um, I was looking at this Excel sheet with the details on it, and with everything entered into Excel fields, it is almost impossible to read in an, like, an expeditious way. Is there any way that that data— by organization, organization— you can format it differently? You can, um, select, select the text box that it's in, and under the Home tab, there's gonna be a I did that and it's still really difficult to read.

If you go inside of the folders, the SharePoint, in each one of the organization's little folder, um, there's a submission PDF and that has it all written out in text in a PDF. So I can— yeah, of course. So all of the information that's on the Excel or inside of the is the same as what's inside of the— those folders, and feel free to just look at the folders. We just transferred to Excel for that scoring, but since you all are adopting the 2024 scoring, we don't have to use that Excel sheet at all. I'll make sure there's an updated sheet that has it like we did the previous year.

It's pretty self-explanatory. Tabs at the bottom, I put the initials for the organization, so I'm happy to do all of that. I'll get it done tonight.

And Chair, maybe we need to do a motion to extend another 5 minutes because we're over time, just to finish. Yes. Is there any objection to us extending? I think we're probably going to need 10 to get what we need done. Any objection to extending to 7:15?

Okay, seeing none, we'll continue to 7:15 and reevaluate.

Okay, everybody clear on the deadline for scoring? Okay. And part of that might be moved one way or the other based on our next meeting and then what the needs are for getting the grant cycle done as well. So is there an absolute final, we need to have this done to coordinate with the other organizations so that our meeting can be informed by that? Do you have a date for that?

For the Beyond the Beige, so those 12 applications, if you all want to prioritize those The goal is to meet with the mayor and ACDA the week of May 19th. Okay, so if, if there's a way to maybe slot those out first, that would be great, versus the general applications, it's just you all as reviewers and then it goes directly to the mayor. So there could be a spacing thing there. And again, like, the, the, our hope is June to disburse the funds, but if it turns out it's a little bit later, as you said, that this is the learning year. Have the future years be much more streamlined.

Thanks for understanding. We presented this as like, we hope, but we understand. Building the airplane in flight, as they say. Absolutely. Okay, are there any other questions before we move on from this topic?

It's a lot of information, a lot of details. Want to make sure if anybody has questions after the meeting, feel free to email. We can't do business by email, but if it's if it's just details on how do we do this or what's the deadline, that's completely acceptable. We're not going to interfere with Open Meetings Act to have details like that shared by email.

Okay, hearing none, let's move on. I apologize, there's an extra public comment in there. We've already— we had a really good public comment earlier from Gideon. Thank you again. This is important.

So under number 9 here, announcements and next meeting dates, the disclosure of economic interest form. Which was attached to an email from Ornella, so you should have a copy of that by email. Definitely read through and fill that out. We fall under the board member section. We're not employees or elected officials, but board members, and then it covers any kind of entity that would be in contract with the municipality.

So essentially anyone who would receive an arts grant would then fall in that category. So of any of the organizations that applied, if you have a special connection to them of any way, it's important to disclose that. That's a, it's a really important liability issue that we all have to have. It doesn't mean you can't vote or participate, but if you do have a strong connection with an organization, I would recommend abstaining from scoring that organization. Or if you have several, it might be best to even sit out entirely.

That's up to you. To determine, but this is a good and very important form to have. We need to have this before our results are tallied. So take a moment, fill it out, turn it back in. I'll send you a reminder by email.

That works. Everybody got that? Before next meeting on May 12th? Before we can tabulate results. So really earlier is even better because if I— if somebody doesn't have it in, we can't necessarily use your scoring results.

And that's going to change how we tabulate everything. Yeah.

Okay, past that, this is important and we missed this last time, so thank you all for understanding about this meeting being kind of unconventional on Monday. We had a team that couldn't make it because of that, actually 3, all 3 couldn't make it because of a Monday conflict. So, so for the next meeting, we tentatively have it slated for Tuesday, May 13th at 6 PM. I know that John Eric Thompson reached out and said he is out of town that week. I don't know if there's anyone else that has a conflict or would need to move it, but it's best to have as many of us as possible, especially for scoring.

It's important to have your voice in the discussion as we go forward. Any thoughts on May 13th at 6 PM? That works for me. Yeah. Okay.

All right. I see Thumbs up. Yes. Okay. All right.

Okay. So we'll plan on keeping that one May 13th. Let's discuss June and July. That may be a bit far out for everyone's schedule, so we can pencil those in and reevaluate in future meetings. But it's nice to have a point on the calendar for reference as we're building all of our schedules moving forward.

Can we cross-reference those months with the Assembly meetings to make sure? Yes.

So for Tuesdays, because my understanding is Tuesdays work better than Mondays, there's a couple people that have persistent Monday conflicts. It's not easy for me either, so Tuesdays work better. That would be the 10th or 17th of June to meet the second or third Tuesday. That's good. The assemblies is the 6th and the 20th.

Yeah, that's in June. Oh, okay. Oh, oh, I'm in May. Give me—. No, yeah, 10th and the 24th, I think.

Yeah, the 10th and the 24th. So, okay, so they meet the 10th and 24th, so we should probably look at 17th for June. Yeah, does that work for everyone? Okay, I'm seeing thumbs up. We can do informal straw polls on this, doesn't have to be a Business roll call.

Um, let's look at July. What are the assembly dates in July? 1St and 15th. 1St and 15th. So we would be 8th, or if we needed later, the 22nd.

Um, I guess I would say 8th. Okay, we have a vote for the 8th. Yeah, that works. 2 Votes for the 8th, 3— okay, let's, let's put it in as the 8th, and if we need to reevaluate, we can discuss that future meetings. I'd love for us to look at least 3 months out like that and have an idea.

And again, we could move things, that's easier to, to move and reschedule, but to not have any idea at all is That's tough going forward. Okay, any other announcements that I am missing? Can you think of anything, Marie, Ornella?

Nope. Amanda? There are, yeah, as far as applications for new commissioners, I— there have been some community members that have reached out to me and have sent in their applications but have not heard much back. So what should we be advising people who are looking to apply for open commissions? Oh, great question.

Yes, their application is active in the system indefinitely, but if the commission is filled, they won't really hear anything back unless there's a vacancy to fill, which is now just maybe due to resignations or when terms expire in October. So we'll start with that process around September.

Do we have open seats right now? Right now, no. Your commission is all filled, and there's 3 seats whose terms expire this, this year in October. So that's the only time vacancies will be considered. Otherwise, uh, yeah, they won't hear unless there's a vacancy.

The 3 expiring are, um Yours, yours, and John Eric Thompson. And those can be renewed. So if you're interested, yeah, they can renew. Yeah. And during the, the vacancy period, we're allowed— is it 120 days or 90 days?

120. 120 Days to continue participation after the expiration of a term without a reappointment. Yeah, actually 180, I believe. Yeah. February.

It takes you to February. Okay, it's longer than I thought. Or maybe not. Yeah, okay. Hey, well, that's helpful.

Maybe 120. Yeah, though, 180 is just like 6 months, isn't it? I don't know. Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, so it's 120.

3 Months. Yes, you're right. Yeah, it's, uh, it's 4 months. Yeah, yeah, 4. Um, you're right, that's mostly just to make sure the commission can still function while there's a new appointment being correct, because it takes time to get it through the assembly and the discussion and the phone calls.

Yeah. Yes, especially for newer members, you probably remember talking to Assembly members and whatnot. So, okay, well, quickly here at the end, we have a couple of minutes left. Are there specific commissioner comments at the end of the meeting? This is something we've historically done just for a few moments to wrap up any lingering thoughts, ideas you have on the meeting or anything else related to what we talked about today.

Essentially your form of public comment. I'll go down the list here. Let's go backwards order. So, Amanda.

Sure. And this is always hard when I watch the clock and see that we don't have a lot of time. I'm one of those artists, right, the slow painter, the slow talker. But I, as a third-generation Alaskan, I'm very encouraged to see Gideon here in the room. That's really a team effort.

And I appreciate, you know, having someone, a fellow with us, but the core of what we're trying to do, right, this art by Alaskans for Alaskans supporting the Alaskan art and specifically in Anchorage, it's continually on my mind how it's really hard to get support and community as an artist in Anchorage. And I have a really strong value to not have politics politics create divisions among artists. And so anything that, you know, we can do as commissioners to really focus on just the joy of art making, you know, outside of politics, the quality work, right, supporting that. I am a displaced arts teacher now with ASD. There's been about, as far as I know, last count, about 10 secondary arts teachers, music and visual arts who are not offered positions in the arts next year.

So all of that is really going to trickle, trickle into our, our municipality, right? Arts education, and then what kind of support for the arts is there. So I just have that view as an educator that to really buffer arts support from politics as much as possible. And I'm, you know, It's really great to see our work here as a public board being able to be part of that. I wish the school district could do that more often too, but yeah, that's where, that's where I'm at.

Just to have that, any support you can give arts teachers who are looking at displacements and not being placed again is appreciated.

Thank you, Amanda. Young Kim.

Um, I don't really have much to say. I'm glad to be here. Very good, glad to have you here. We're glad you're here. Welcome.

All right, thank you. Uh, Tamalevis?

Um, no comment, just, uh, you know, keep on keeping on, everyone. I know like times are dire and it seems like everything's like an absolute, it's either this or that, but we can still take a break and every day is just like one foot in front of the other. Progress doesn't always have to be something monumental, it could just be that one foot forward, so that's still progress. And yeah, I'm happy to be here here as well. Thank you, Norman.

Uh, no, it's great. Uh, good conversation today. Just keep it rolling, stay laid back, so keep it jazzy. Thank you. All right, Norman.

Thank you, thank you. That's a good comment. Keep it jazzy, like it. Okay, um, let's see. I'll skip me for now.

Um, Laura, do you have anything Anything? No, nothing from me. Okay, thank you.

All right, and for me, basically similar thing to Amanda. I think that it's easy to look at an organization and see that it's a really valuable organization to our community, that it's supporting a really important cause, but it may or may not be related to the arts. And so I just say really divide your your, your mind and your heart on these to make sure that we're really just looking for what is going to make the arts grow in our community, because that's our focus, that's our function. And, uh, you know, don't necessarily, uh, get swayed by it's a great organization but it's just not really doing the arts. Just try to read through all that and make sure that we're trying to get the— we're stewards here of the funding for our, our municipality that we're recommending to our mayor.

So that we can have those funds have maximum impact to promote arts in our community and to help raise up a new generation of artists and encourage those who are currently involved in the arts too. So that's a good kind of compass for me to look at is how is this encouraging the arts on some level in our community. So it's an honor to be able to work with each and every one of you. I'm grateful for all the different backgrounds we represent here and And I'm looking forward to next week when we get to piece all this together and make our recommendations. So thank you for all the time you put into this in advance.

Yeah, that's all I have. Do you, do you have anything you'd like to add, Anna? Just real quickly, as you work through this, I'm excited to do it kind of in a more organized way this year with your input. So any thoughts you have from evaluating this year that could help us as we design next year, 2026 arts grants. Grants.

Please keep that in mind and just email me quickly your thoughts and comments, whether this would be a good criteria for next year, a focus that we can recommend, whatever feedback that comes up for you that can be improved, please let us know. Thank you, Marie. Thank you. Thank you for all your support. Yeah, I don't have anything else on the agenda for the meeting, so we entertain a motion to adjourn.

Adjourn. Norman moves to adjourn. Is there a second?

I second. I don't think there's going to be any disagreement. We're going to call it adjourned here at 7:30. Thanks for a good meeting. It was quick.

We ran a little long, and that's partly for the good information we got from Gideon. So thank you to everybody, and have a good couple of weeks. For you too. Yeah. Oh no, we can't wait Bye, thank you all.

See you again on May 13th. Bye, yes, May 13th. Peace out. You guys have a lot of homework.