 Thanks so much for being here today on this really beautiful sunny day, maybe could have been a little warmer, but we have to have a little winter, right? So I'm so glad that you're here and again I want to welcome you on behalf of the Board of Trustees and our director, Camero Salazar. I know he very much wanted to be here, but he's in California today on a trip that he already had planned. So that's the reason you get me instead. So I just get to be lucky. That's the way I'm going to look at it. So I'm Dale McNeil. I'm one of two assistant directors here at the library and I'm very glad to be here today to welcome you and to welcome Mayor Ron Nirenberg and his family to join us to give some remarks to talk about the mayor's book club. In addition, I'd like to thank all the staff. Many of them are here who've been working hard for a few months to make this program come together. When we first heard the idea, we sort of took a deep breath and thought, is that going to be possible? But then we thought it'll not only be possible, it'll be fun. So and I think you'll see that that's going to be the result that it will be fun and something really interesting and engaging and really for the whole of this year. And in addition to the remarks today, I mean some of you probably came just for that, but there's also going to be activities that you can do after this press event or this program. I'd also like to thank the San Antonio Public Library Foundation who provided some of the funding for this unique book club. At this moment, I'd like to recognize Jean Brady from the Board of Trustees. Thank you, Jean, for being here. And Assistant City Manager, Laura Houston, who took time from her very busy schedule to join us. Thank you so much. Today we're going to share details about our family reads, the Mayor's Book Club, a community-wide reading campaign. Our family reads the Mayor's Book Club encourages families in the community to read along with the Mayor, his family, and members of the City Council and their families on some of their favorite topics and to cultivate a community experience through reading and discussion. This unique book club, we really don't know of another book club like this anywhere. Probably there is one because there's no new idea, but we don't know of another one. We'll focus on a different topic each month, a topic chosen in this first month by the Mayor and then in each succeeding month by a member of the City Council. Readers like yourselves are encouraged to check out books. We have books available here and books on displays and books at all of our branches and electronic books. You're encouraged to check out books for any member of your family. We have books chosen from picture books for the very youngest to books for adults as well on each topic. Some fiction, some just for fun, some pretty serious non-fiction books. This month Mayor Nuremberg is kicking off our Family Reads program. The topic he has chosen is Unity and at this moment I'd like to introduce our Board Chair, Mr. Paul Stahl, and invite him to make a few remarks. Thank you. Thank you Dale. I'm honored to be here this morning this afternoon to represent the Library Board of Trustees and Gene, thank you for joining us as well. Mayor Nuremberg, thank you so much for your leadership and for involving your family in this beautiful initiative. This is a real favorite of mine every year when we can really rally the city around you know really focusing on the library and books and specifically specifically this type of a program that can include the entire city. And the fact that you chose Unity this year is the first topic I thought was great. It allows us to reflect on inclusiveness, it allows us to reflect on so many of the important characteristics that make our city our city wonderful. You can get more information about this Mayor's Book Club events and all the things that are happening on our website on the mysapl.org website. So I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today. This is a great event, it's wonderful to see so many children here. Hopefully everyone's going to get an opportunity to share what they're doing with their friends, with their families, if the families do it together with their children. My son and daughter are both now in college and they're both avid readers and my son who's the most avid of the two as a reader always remembers the early days when I'd read to him from the Arabian Knights or read to him from from Tom Sawyer. So those are special moments and that that Mayor you take the time out of your schedule to elevate and participate in a program like this. I think it's just very very special and I certainly appreciate it. And Erica as well thank you so much for your participation. So without further delay I'd like to welcome Mayor Ron Nernberg to the podium, tell us more about the program and why he chose the topic of unity. Good afternoon thank you all for coming out today and Paul thank you for the introduction. Dale we'll take you any day, Dale. You guys do a great job here and I want to recognize all of the library staff. This is truly one of the remarkable gems of our city, the central library here, so I can't think of a better place to start off our family reads. If you know anything about what links my son Jonah and Erica there's lots of things but one thing in particular I get to notice every single day is that her nightstand and my son's nightstand are piled about this high with books that they're reading. Our family loves to read it's something that we enjoy doing together and so I'm really pleased that we're able to kick this off particularly during Dream Week and that's also an appropriate reason why we wanted to start with the with the theme of unity. That's what Dream Week is all about and really that's the kind of vision that we have for this city to be a compassionate place where we all work together and unity again by its definition is us working together for the common good. I want to thank the San Antonio Public Library who will be curating selections for all families throughout the year as each of the themes goes on and I also want to recognize our council colleagues who have participated in helping us select some really important topics topics like social justice, animal welfare, sustainability, military, and so many more that will bring people together and that's ultimately what the vision of our family reads is. It's creating opportunities for families to read together. So today we get to kick it off and don't forget it's about opportunities to be together so there's a lot of programs and activities that are happening upstairs and that will happen throughout the year and all of the branch libraries as well. So now it gives me great honor to introduce my family to you. This is uh when I mentioned this to Erica her mind just went just uh and it was amazing to watch the imagination from Jonah and Erica really take off and ultimately land with the work of Sarah from our staff Sarah McLauren to what you're you're seeing today so without further ado my two loves of life Jonah and Erica. Thank you everybody I do want to start off by thanking the library staff this is an amazing thing and it is unique in many ways because I think as a city we want to believe and we are spread out the truth of the matter is you know we are 10 districts and spread out and so this is a beautiful way to thread what each person cares about even if they are spread out what your representatives think is important and I think the library staff is such an amazing job of coordinating and working with Sarah McLauren and making sure that what we have here is the start of unity that is why we kick it off with unity because to really ensure unity you have to know a little bit about each other right you can't just automatically say hi nice to meet you we're united we've got to start to learn about what makes us take and this wonderful new program that our family reads what it's going to allow for our entire city to do is get to know each other it starts by understanding what each of your council members cares about or thinks is interesting gives you a little insight into them right and then it starts with you taking your family to the library and with all the array of books that they have with different ages and even Spanish titles allows for you as a family then to figure out what unites you at least this month but believe it or not even though unity is the theme for january we're hoping that what it does is throughout the year allows all of us to stay united as a city and understand what makes us take and Ron is is correct in saying that one of the most precious things that you can do is teach your child to read teach your sister your nephew your niece your grandmother whomever in your life seeks knowledge because knowledge isn't just about knowing things it is about quite frankly understanding another person's point of view and that is at the essence the start of what unites us is compassion and understanding and more than anything else what i think is wonderful about what the city is about to embark in doing and what we're hoping all of your families do is reading is something that does not take any money maybe some to get to a library but even then we can walk if we have to it is one of the most accessible forms of activity and quite frankly for those parents that feel like what what do i have to give to my child i'm not highly educated i didn't go to college reading you can give them reading if not because you teach it to them then you can give it a love of reading and you can ensure that that that seed that you plant becomes a love of learning and a little learning opens your child up to a love of understanding and a love of understanding snowballs into well into unity and so i want to thank you for being here i want to thank the entire city for believing in each other and throughout this year really embracing all the different topics they're varied i see council michelle shaw here and i know that she put a lot of passion and thought into the topic that you'll see next month as well and so she's a great example of of the council district that really thought through and said what matters to us so that our council district understands what's important in my heart and i want to share that that's a start so thank you for being here as well now to end it i do want to give it over to jonah because quite frankly as he's gotten older we've learned we have to give him the mic but i think it also will help him explain to you why this is such an important thing for our family would you like to say something to all the kids here yes okay go ahead all the way down so you should read because it okay oops okay no one you should read because it gives you imagination and imagination well you have to use it a lot in your life um how can i get down from here okay thank you all thank you so much obviously i can't top that so i just want to have a couple of small other things to say one is i want to recognize a couple people who joined us during the program one of course um the former secretary of housing and urban development and mayor Julian Castro is here and also from the library board of trustees judy cruz is here as well and with her family thank you so much for joining us then i'll just also mention really quickly that we do have some really fun activities planned for children teens and adults all on the third floor so you can walk around and take the escalator take the elevator and i'll also just mention a couple things you can do from the tihuli here to all the art on the first floor there's just a lot of things you can walk around and experience including in the gallery we have going on this month our holocaust learn and remember program and the exhibit in the gallery is the heart of that of looking at the experience of the holocaust through art and i think that that might be something you'd find interesting as well so take advantage of being here at the library today and again we're so glad that you're here thank you so much