 Okay. Got it. So I ordered more. What kind of masks are they? They are can 95s. So you're the ones that through that whole kind of state program that started out as a bit of a fiasco. So what they did is they sent an email to most directors but not all in Colorado, they actually sent one to me but it's an email address that I've never had so I don't know how they got that. And then they made a list of all the libraries in Colorado that supposedly had masks to hand out, even though half of them had never heard of it before. And then they published the list, both in a press release and they, you know, talked about it on Colorado public radio and etc. And most of us were like, uh, how nice we're supposed to have these masks that we don't have so we were actually lucky we weren't on the initial list because libraries that who were on the list really had people who were angry at them. Although most of them, if they didn't have masks, it's because they found out about it the same time as the public. So, luckily, I will say that the state regrouped really quickly, because within two days we had lots of masks. This is the original form, it looked like someone had just thrown this together because the original form really had no information on it. We filled out one of those form data things, and it even had like three lines for addresses and if you didn't have, if you didn't need all three lines it didn't matter you had to fill other stuff in so I filled out the whole library address and then put like have a nice day and then something else on the other one. So we did get a whole bunch of masks, they are very small, they are an adult standard size, they're coming in, they come in a 3M package, but they're made in China, and they are similar to other KN95s except that the straps are super short, like the ear straps, and not particularly stretchy. So, larger adults are not finding them to be really useful. So, they fit tweens and teens, great. So if we end up with extras, if it goes on for a while and we're ending up with extras, I will probably contact the schools and see if they are interested in them. Because we've found that older tweens and teens, they fit really well. So currently, because I teach at Indian Peaks, what we have are the disposable ones. Yeah, we have those too, but these are the KN95s. Those are the good ones, so I think that that. Yeah, so if we do have extras, I will make sure that I let some schools know because they do run small. And we had a couple of staff members that tried them on their upper elementary kids and the ear pieces fit the masks were too big. So, small adults and teens, they're really good for. Your basic average adult can wear them, but your ears hurt after a while. Oh, I know, because we use them at school, and so. Yeah, they're just really short. So, we've seen people sitting there, stretching them back and forth, but it's still nice to have them. And they did send us also some disposable masks that are much nicer than the ones we have now. The state sent them, they actually are a, they're not a surgical mask, but they're called a medical procedure mask. Okay, they're white, they're thicker and softer than those disposable blue ones. Okay, so we do have some of those if people need those as well. Good. It's been good. We haven't met all of our public services desk. We also have them in our computer lab for folks that often come in who often are not connected to the internet. So, we started out handing a couple at a time, except that people need more, we give them more people have larger families or some of our folks who are experiencing homelessness, etc, who ask for or we just give them more. Yeah, no, I went in, I believe it was Friday that was the day that the. Yeah, we got him like really late Thursday I think we put him out Friday. Okay, yeah, so I actually, there was a couple, their homebound and these. I just took some over because they had, oh yeah, the person that they had working had come over before but they were out, and then he had to. Yeah, had to leave and so he couldn't be there and so I'm like, you know, I'll just take him to you. That's a good idea though we should send some out with our home with our volunteers that deliver to the homebound. Yeah, and some with them. That's a good idea. Yeah. It was nice. We have been able to pick that practice back up, even though we didn't do it at the beginning of COVID but. Yeah, I dropped it in my Ziploc bag and yeah, it's on and. Yeah, we have we have quite a few patrons that deliver to that expect homebound deliveries and value them and we have some volunteers that who really missed delivering so they can quite sit down and chat like they used to. But yeah, yeah, but it's still. Do we have a vice president. I think we should get the meeting started. I agree. Okay, we're giving up. Well, we don't know if our can get it or not. I want to just confirm we're all good with that. Yeah, so ahead and kick it off. I figure it's worth waiting 15 minutes for somebody but that's what I was going to say. Let's get moving. All right, well, I'm calling the meeting to order then at 714 p.m. Everyone have that same time. Yep. Okay and Cynthia are you taking notes or. You are. All right, hold on I had the agenda pulled up. Have we did anybody have any changes to last month's agenda. We're not there yet. Oh, shoot. Okay. I'm pulling up as we speak then. Hold up. Yeah. Many windows to welcome Susie here. We do kickoff. I was not on my game here. I wasn't quite ready to take to step in. Sorry. So welcome Susie. We're very excited to have you. I think that last time we were in person, you were going to attend, but then something. Happened or. Like you were. Let me tell you, so it was a, one of our, we had to have a special meeting. Did not have, we canceled the meeting on Tuesday. So there were just some things that we had to get through. So we had a council meeting. Okay. Tonight is actually our legislative meeting with the state representatives. So I'm going to have to get, I'm like, no, I'm not missing the library. Log out at eight 30 so I can get on to that one. Okay. Started. Yes. But no, I'm going to be here. I don't have anything scripted or. But I'm Susie. They'll go faring representative for Ward three and are your new liaison. And we're really excited that you're an educator. That's awesome. Yeah. I also had a question for you. You, you chose this as your, this is the one you wanted more than any other. It was a high priority for me. I think the first one, the second one. Just because, you know, I teach at a title one school. I've been in the profession for 28 years. I've been in the profession for a long time. I've been in the profession for a long time. I've been in the profession for a long time. I've been in the profession for a long time. The work that we've done, you know, in our classrooms and the, you know, just my dependence on the library, our students dependence on the library has been essential throughout my entire career. So. So I just, I felt like I had some expertise to help bring to the table as well as, you know, hopefully to be a strong advocate for, for the library and. Yeah. We're happy to have you here. And I apologize for not seeing that. That was our first item on the agenda. I'm excited to meet you. Okay. So, um, public comments. Did we end up. That person ended up being Mark, right? So we have no public. That was Mark. We have no, we have no public. We have no market. I told him to choose another. I know he has more than one email. I told him to choose another login. So he should be able to get in. He should be able to get in. So he should be able to get in. If the other, if the other one is stuck. In cyberspace somewhere, he should. I've never had that happen. Okay. All right. Well now on to approval of the minutes from December 20th. Um, did anyone have any changes they wanted to see made? Once going twice. Yeah, these are very extensive meeting minutes. Nicely done. If we have no changes. That's impressive work. Okay. Okay. Do you want to move to approve the minutes? I didn't. Okay. Is there a second? You're going to have to second. Okay. Hi, second. What is there a rule? Oh, because I was, I wasn't there. You wrote them and so he wasn't there. Okay. There we go. You did that math really fast. Katie. Good job. All right. With it. Excellent. Okay. The minutes are approved and. Now I'm pulling it on. I'm going to go back between pictures. Okay. Reports and information items library director report. That's me. Okay. Several things and some, some things fall into other categories. I'll follow the minutes and follow the agenda status disorder purchase. We are purchasing a. Huge machine that large automated materials handler. We have made a decision on which vendor I'm not supposed to say it out loud because the contract is not finalized through purchasing yet. But we are very happy with our decision. We did call other. We really had a tight race between. Two vendors for this multi a hundred, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars products. So we did contact quite a few libraries for references just to see. You know, they looked, they looked equal on paper, but talking to folks who have actually used them makes, makes a big difference. And, and they did, they did have some different things to say about them in terms of the process, et cetera. So that's becoming. Shortly, actually it'll take about 12 weeks probably because of supply chain delays. But when that happens, we'll have a lot of. Growing efficiencies in the way that we process our materials. So I'm happy to say that we have newly hired a couple of staff members. We do finally. Have a new PR and marketing person was actually not new to the city. But how you write Meyer is going to come from, from the city's PR department and be part of our libraries PR and marketing efforts, which is awesome. And she'll be starting very shortly to replace Theresa Myers that's been gone since last April. So we have really missed having a dedicated PR and marketing person. Oh, is question, is she going to be full time? She's three quarter time, just the same way Teresa was. She's three quarters time with the library and a quarter of her time with the city manager's office. So she's still the one that'll be doing a city line, city talk. Some of those things, but 75% of her time will be in the library. Hmm. You know, if it comes down to you or Harold, who's going to win that one, right? No, I think I feel confident that that will be fine. So. All right. Can I go back to just a quick question about the store. I'm getting fast enough. I was unmuting. Okay. We have to actually shut down for some period of time. No, she happens. Okay. Continue to, because this is going to just automate the processes that we are now doing by hand, we will just do them by hand until it's up. So. No, we'll have, we'll have a little bit of inconvenience. There's a little construction that has to be done in the circulation area. We have to cut a few holes in the wall because they have these small holes that look kind of like a bank teller, et cetera. But we're so used to construction now that we, we don't plan to blink when that happens. So it'll be fine. It just takes a little while because of like, it's a supply chain things like everything else now. So hopefully, hopefully that'll get in sooner rather than later. So. We have another newly hired staff member. We have a computer lab coordinator that we had kind of created out of two other positions that were no longer being used. So. Hannah site SITES is her name. She's been working as a temp employee. She is finishing up her library degree. She has mad technical skills and has a great deal of compassion for the folks who are struggling who to use computers in our computer lab. So we're looking forward to have her coordinate things. Our computer lab is definitely moving. We are making progress in that area. If you go up on our second floor, you'll see an area as you go up to the top of the steps towards the reference desk and make a right. Toward the south end of the building. You'll see an area that looks like itself torn up because it is. We took out, we took some old so-called compact shelving out there. Compact shelving is actually that enormous shelving that moves on rails. All that we finally got all of it down except the rails, which apparently are embedded in the concrete. So the bad part about that is they have to be kind of sawn out of the concrete so we can carpet that area of the floor and use that as a lab. The good part is, if you can call it that, is that we just found out at, well, probably two weeks ago that our carpet project and repair project for our second floor is going to start happening pretty soon. So we didn't think, you know, according to the plan, we knew it could be anywhere between 2022 and 2020. We're happy to have it sooner rather than later. I feel that we're pretty, like I said, we're pretty used to, to construction projects. We do not expect the same level of infrastructure issues on the second floor that we experienced on the first floor. For those of you who are here, it was a six month long project that should have been a short, relatively short carpeting project. We don't expect it to be that bad. Once again, with supply chain issues, the carpet that we ordered is a little bit late coming in. We look at this project probably happening mostly in the month of March and it'll affect the upstairs of the library. So at different points, there will be different parts of the upstairs of the library blocked off. Some folks are going to have to put some things on hold. It won't affect anything downstairs, nothing in children's lobby, et cetera. But we will have some more grinding and crack repairs and things. We don't know the extent of the cracking upstairs until the carpet squares come off. We looked at a lot of them. Several of us on staff who have too much curiosity, pried up a lot of carpet squares with butter knives to see what was underneath to see if we had the same cracking. And there are quite a few cracks, but it don't appear to be, or they didn't appear to be at the time as severe as the ones downstairs. So I asked one of the construction guys that stopped in today. I said, you know, are we still winning? Do we still have the worst cracks or is safety and justice building worse than ours? They're in there now. And they said, no, we still win. Safety and justice building has quite a few cracks on the first floor, but they did not extend to the second floor. So construction crews, same carpet folks, same movers. So we will, the staff will be using carts from the professional movers, but doing a lot of the moving of the materials ourselves, we found that it's just easier in the long run because we know how to keep them in order. When we move them and not try and put it back together like a puzzle of his pieces have spilled on the floor. So it will be some work for staff, but you know, we still, we are, we are, we have a lot of increased traffic over what we had for quite a while, but we still aren't up to our full amount of traffic in the building. So it probably is a better time to do it. Then post COVID where we hope we'll have our full complement of folks back. So I feel that we've been able to take advantage of these construction projects to be able to move some things that, that are much nicer moved by professional movers, including a bunch of shelving, et cetera. So it's allowed us to do some rearranging. It's allowed us to create the team space downstairs. And now it'll allow us to create a computer lab, a very spacious computer lab area upstairs, which we are still planning to surround with those glass panels. So it will not be bricks and mortar walls, but we, but it will have a surround to it. And we're looking at some creative ways to handle the power and data for that area. And one of the products we're looking into that I've wanted to use for like five years is it looks like a roll of tape, but it's super, super way for thin power that you can put right under your private squares. So it's really cool. So looking at that, Mark says, not having any luck starting meeting without me. I'll see it later on YouTube. Okay. One second. Use a different computer. He doesn't need a different computer. He needs a different log in. Let's see. Other than that. So the same thing is that. Later, but it's still experiencing some issues with. Kind of goes up and down with folks who don't want to wear masks in the building. So that's still been something that's been plaguing staff a bit. We spend a lot of time. You know, telling people around telling them to put their masks on. One person asked to speak with the director last week and he said, there's some women that's following me around. And she's, she's just looking for people that don't have masks on. I said that that's her job. That's sort of our utility attendance. So. Still battling that a little bit. So. Other than that, I think things are going as well as could be expected. We've had a lot of staff out. We've had a lot of staff out. We've had a lot of staff out. We've had a lot of staff who either have COVID or. Had been exposed. So at one point. I don't know about a week and a half ago. I think we have 12 people out. So. That was my question because my school has just been on a skeleton crew. As you've, I'm sure you've heard. And I was just wondering how you manage like what. You know, We've been, we've been so careful that, you know, we've had only, we've had a lot of folks that have contracted COVID over this almost two years. We've had a lot of folks that have contracted COVID over this year. But they got it. Everyone else got it somewhere else other than the library. So we have been really rigid since the beginning on. The sanitizing the hand washing, the distancing, the masks, et cetera. And I think. You know, we take so many precautions. I think it's for the most part, it's paid off. So we've still had to have some people isolate. We've been. Next to people. But. We've really tried to take a lot of, take as many precautions as we can, you know, with. You know, just, you know, you know, We just keep, we keep encouraging people if you so much as sniffle, please stay home. Yeah. What is your contingency plan? If you get down to just too few staff, like what's, you know, we've, we've had that, we had that brief. We had that briefly in children's about a week and a half ago. And we did some juggling with. With who's at the desk. We went down to. One person in the back. One person only at the desk. You know, we have contingent. We had backups from other departments if it really got to that. And there were a few days when we, when we were down by two hours a day in the children's department. So we just, we're just doing the best we can. Luckily, we've not, you know, knock on wood. We've not been out. Some of the people that we can't cover. So we're just a little thinly covered sometimes. So. Yeah, I'm glad for you though. We did have to have, we had to have some custodial help. Cause one of our custodians without for a few weeks. And so we've had, we've had some issues like everybody else. But luckily our frontline staff has done knock on wood once again, has done extremely well. So. And I know that the, you know, they have new studies saying Plexiglas doesn't help. I think it helps. I think it helps actually both probably the common cold blue stuff. If not coded. So. Doing the best we can. And we're, we're all, I feel like, you know, one of our employees held up her hands and she said, she felt like she, you know, she had to go to the doctor. I think that's probably true. I think she's got a lot of things going on. And the support she has as full of Lysol and sanitizer. So. I think that's probably true. It's a great team effort. Yep. Nancy. I have a question going back up. One security issues. I also want to give a caveat of a sick baby crying in the background. I think she's little now. So if I'm making faces. It's fine. Not at what anyone's saying. masking. Last meeting, we talked more about other security incidences, just an uptick overall. Are you still seeing that overall uptick? We have as far as probably the amount of incidents, although I will say since last month, the incidents have been a lot more minor on their scale. So it's just, you know, a lot of it this month has just been that we do have still a continued winter influx of folks experiencing homelessness and mental illness. And I guess the difference between now and between a couple years ago is that we used to have more kind of a bevy of regulars that we would get to know and that would that would make things go more smoothly as we got to know them and they got to know us and what the rules were, et cetera. And now it seems like we just have new folks every day. So I would say that this month we've had far fewer incidents that are really combative. We've had more just I get this past week, it's been more folks that are carrying a lot of stuff, as in multiple suitcases, bags, et cetera, and having to find places to to stash them. So still lots of incidents, but I would say this month it's been more normal incidents that that sometimes just usually just require a conversation. That's better than last month. And is the Hope Center, right? Hope, am I getting that right? Hope Shelter is open. Is it open, like overlapping hours, or are they staggered? Like are people kind of not, you know, it's well, I mean, there are there are folks who will go use the shelter. I will say that, you know, we have a lot of contact with the good folks at the Hope Shelter and the folks that we see currently are not the same crowd that they're getting at the shelter and that the shelters crowd has been more predictable and stable than has ours. So they've had they've had more of the regulars and more of the regulars that we used to see. Okay, we just we just have a lot of new people. But that's not at all unusual in January for public libraries where it's cold either. So and luckily, we you know, we do have this is something we you know, we do have a full-time campus supervisor, we did not have that when I got here, we just had one part-time one. So we are covered not every hour the library is open, we are covered more hours. So it is really helpful. It's not that the staff don't handle incidents on their own, they do. But it is really helpful to have someone who really maintains our database of our incidents and is, Jake is fabulous. He's really amazing at, you know, he can recognize people. It's you think it's hard with masks, he can recognize people just by the way they walk. So he sees someone walk up with like a mask and a hat pulled down, you know, in a black hoodie and sweatpants. And he's like, Oh, I know who that is from their walk. So so just just keeping an eye on things and developing and he's developed some really good relationships with most of our patrons. So that's helpful. I remember reading about some libraries actually having like social workers on I would love it if we had the space I've actually offered to sacrifice one of our study rooms I would love to what most of them, but most libraries do have this they don't necessarily hire a social worker using library funds but they offer to house a social worker from an area agency or social workers. So it is a wonderful thing. Many libraries do it large and small now. And it's, it's a wonderful resource for folks who come in who may not be comfortable necessarily, you know, being sent from place to place to receive information on social services. So it really is something that, you know, if we are able to use an expansion in the future, I would love to include that. Is it something that would be like, we just need to put the word out and then people could like, just apply to use that space or no, we don't really have, we just don't have a space at the moment. I would, I would try to do it, but, you know, all we have, we have almost, we have two study rooms that are, you know, glass, you know, glass all the way around, which gives people no, no privacy whatsoever, etc. And you really need an office area. It would be the type of thing that we have to, you know, basically give up our, like our conference room to be able to set somebody up in an area where at least someone could have, you know, a dignified and private conversation with them, instead of being in a fishbowl. So definitely something we've looked at though, libraries large and small really do use these. I had, I was able to attract some folks when I was in Kern County, because we had a huge main library building, and we had space and social services needed space. We were able to basically trade some space for services. And that was, that was a nice thing. Okay. Well, we'll bookmark it. There you go. On the wishlist. Okay. Anything else, Nancy? Are you good? Not yet. Nope. Okay. Friends of the library. Who went? Did we have a meeting? Did they meet between last time? I can't. Katie, was that Katie, was that you? On the sign up sheet, we have it as January 26th. Yeah, we don't have one. Yeah, I guess we didn't have one since last time. It's Wednesday then, right? It would that be one. Is there meeting virtual? Yes, it is. I don't have that information. I don't know. I don't know who is going this month. Is it too soon? It's supposed to be me. Okay, Katie. I should be able to make it. Okay. Virtual. Let me send, let me send you all of the stuff then for the virtual meeting. And then you can let me know if there's some reason, if for some reason you can't do it. Okay. We can also talk about the future meetings right now. Yes, we can. Because we do have a virtual sign up sheet and I'm realizing there's no trap function in this Zoom. So I can't like, throw it in. You go to. But you sent it recently. I have sent it before. So everyone has access. I guess I can email it out, right? Just none of you all can respond. Yeah, you can email it right now to the minute. And just, just so you know, scheduling is not something that's usually considered an issue for Open Meetings Act. It, you're not talking about anything else, but when to have a meeting or when to put something under schedule, that's usually okay. Great. Wait, I just make sure I got the right link. Sorry, just one second. Are they going to have their meetings on Zoom indefinitely? Do we know? No, they really love to meet in person, but we were, we've been encouraging everyone, you know, during this period of rampant COVID Omicron to meet virtually when possible. Yeah. So it will not be forever. Well, I was wondering just because I'm more able to do it if it's Zoom. So if there was one, I'm kind of like the sub or whatever. But if they were on Zoom, I could tap in for a month. If that was helpful. OK, I mean, just because it's I'm assuming I'm assuming that at least their February meeting will be on Zoom. OK, but I don't want to, if it's also easier for other people, I don't want to like step on any toes. I'm just trying to pitch in a little extra if I can. I'm signed up right now and I just emailed everyone the link. OK, so hopefully everyone has it. I'm sending for February. I'm fairly flexible. Can she email everyone? She can email everyone. They just can't all reply. All gotcha. And it's just informational. Normally that normally information concerning things like schedules are not an issue. Good. All right. So I think you can even reply all if it's scheduling a meeting. There's some kind of loophole, but most of the time just info. If you just send info out and just remind people, don't reply all you're fine, especially concerning. So basically, I mean, I always receive because I always attend all the meetings, I always receive all of the friends info. So I just need to make sure I have access to the schedule in advance of who's who's signed up. So I know who to send the info to. Yeah, I think you're on here, Nancy. Oh, you do. Yeah, you have access. Yeah. Cool. I'm sending up for February. Catherine, I'm happy to. We could just play that one right here too. I can keep it out in my calendar for right now. And if I need to, I'll let you know. OK, yeah, you want to I'll just put myself on. You know, if on Zoom. What's your mark? Is that cool? Yeah, I'm. Great. And then you can see just email whoever's on it or you know, just continue to use them around it for the to go. All right. Hey, it looks like we're still I can sign up. I can do May. I think we're still missing March and June. It's not urgent, obviously, but it's the spots are open right now. OK. When time comes, can you hear me? Yeah, because I skipped last month, so I am whenever you need me, I'm available. I bought March 30th. That's fine. OK, March 30th, OK. I would keep the pattern alive as well. All right, I will let the friends know then. All right, thank you. OK, anything else on that front? Are we good? Yeah, all right. We get back to the agenda. Sorry. So, Susie, I'm not sure where you're at. I think you're you're listed as next, but I don't know if you have any updates for us at this point. I mean, you know, I guess what. So I do have some some things that are, you know, the council is working on that, you know, if you all would like to hear, you know, we do have the Costco project. We had we had to approve some allocation change, just because of cost of materials for the housing component of the development. The other one. And I've recently, so I've been working with a subcommittee, and I don't know if there was somebody from the library who attended, but for the sugar beet mill redevelopment. There's a group that we're working with a growing up boulder. I don't know if you're familiar with them, but they do connect, collaborate with students schools for redesign projects, design, design thinking. And so one of the things that we're going to work on is with my school or, you know, St. Rain and, you know, I'm kind of pushing my school, but and the project is actually having students work on contributing to, you know, something that they envision that they would see that they would hold is value that value to have in that, whether it be a community space, sometime, you know, gardening or playground. I mean, really, it'll be up to what what the group decides. So there, you know, so we have kind of that going on on the side. I don't think I haven't seen any actually, I think there was an email that came out today or yesterday. I'll have to look through. So I'll have more information the next time around. But I think, you know, things are starting to to take shape in that in that project. Something you notice is here at Claire Statholme, our head of Children and Teens did attend that meeting. Who did? Claire, our children there attended the meeting. Yes, that's right. I knew there was somebody with connection to the library that was that was there. Couple of other things, something that is going to be coming down the pike in a couple of weeks that we'll be discussing for anyone who's passionate about this or has some some opinions or concerns about this are the smart meters, the AMI. You know, folks that I've heard that are very favorable to it are very, very favorable. And then some that, you know, are really, you know, who've had mental or had health impacts because of the the exposure. So, you know, we're hearing both sides of of the whole AMI discussion and and debate. But that will be coming down. So for any folks who have, you know, who want to share some concerns or support, you know, definitely express your your ideas during our public invited to be heard, you know, either tomorrow or we'll be discussing it on the in the calendar in two weeks or not this week next week. Other things, you know, we have the Rivertown annexation that we recently approved. And, you know, looking, we're working with the developer. We shared ideas of really kind of creating that buffer between natural space and the actual development. And so, you know, I guess, you know, really, if anybody has any questions on any of those projects or that have come forward, you know, I'd be happy to answer anything. Does the metering the new metering system apply only to private homes or is it also to public buildings? Like, would the library be impacted in any way? I don't I don't know. I don't think so. Is that Nancy? Is that I don't think so? Yeah, so she's nodding as well. So. Yeah, I thought it was just private. We were just looking at housing. So we were we're going to be discussing an opt out program as well for folks who don't want to have the the smart meter on their on their property. So and we were discussing housing, right? What's that? I read I'm on the sustainable resilient Longmont committee to and yes, we were talking about it. And I think what I read was there is right now there at least as proposed, there's a fee. There is that you choose the opt out, right? So yes. Yeah, that's just for people to consider. OK, as long as it doesn't impact the library, I guess. Yeah. So I mean, I think, you know, these projects is how, you know, impact to the library in the future, you know, we would have more with Costco, we'd have more, you know, just people kind of coming through the housing, we're expanding the housing. So we'll be seeing a surge of the population. After some of these projects are completed. So. An estimated number of like increased folks that would literally like come to the community anew as opposed to just move within the community. Is that influential in terms of our. Yeah, so I know that the for the Rivertown, I saw I heard of three hundred and fifteen units that would be expanded to. I don't know the exact number for the Costco, but there is a whole affordable housing component that goes with it. So. So we would see increase because as people are moving from one's area to another, there'll be other people coming in and taking those homes as well. So. Susie, is the Rivertown the one next to Rogers Grove? Is that a project? It is. Yeah, it's right behind Airborne, like over, I think there's a there's another business just to the west of there. And so it's it's it'll sit behind there. Airborne and that other calibration, I think I can't remember what the name of the business was. Yeah, that's that's that's all I have for now. And then I think, you know, if there's something that you want me to to make sure I have background on or, you know, want just, you know, let me know, shoot me an email. You know, hey, can you find out more about such and such and then I can be happy to bring it forward. Yeah. Nancy, I just wonder if any of those things would be something to bring to the attention of the I forget her name, the woman who's doing the feasibility study just in terms of any. Yeah. Yeah, it might be already factored it in or if she's factoring in so many things right now. Right. Well, that and I was also thinking with the social worker, just if that's kind of on her radar to wanting some space for that. So we've talked about space. Well, I'll do that in a second. That's feasibility study. Just came to mind. OK, well, let's see, we're transitioning or segueing into update on feasibility study as long as we feel complete. I feel like we're making a lot of progress now on the feasibility study. It may not seem like it to put to you guys out there, but it is behind the scenes anyway. So so basically. She had started any who's our consultant had started with the previous consultants work and had analyzed all of that. But some of that we had to basically toss out and start over. There were some things that that we just didn't feel kind of accurately portrayed the situation here. And part of it is that library stats like nationwide there are there are online portals for nationwide library stats. But the previous consultant was not using those. They were using different individual stats, which is kind of apples to oranges because they were comparing some, you know, twenty seventeen numbers, twenty eighteen numbers to twenty nineteen numbers, etc. So I guess the good part about about having to use twenty nineteen numbers, which is what we're doing now because those are the last probably the most accurate numbers we have because twenty twenty and twenty twenty one stats do not resemble anything before the pandemic. So luckily it's been long enough so that the national portal of the Institute for Museum and Library Services has everybody's twenty nineteen stats up in the same format in the same place. So so that was really helpful going to those. So the previous study kind of started to come up with some what we call LOS standards, which are level of service standards. And what those mean are, you know, what are the what is a library standard? What is a good standard for square footage per person, for circulation per person, for collection per person, for the amount of dollars spent in a library budget per person, et cetera? I guess the thing that's hard to sometimes make people understand is that there is no national standard for these things at all. There are some states that have their own standards. Wisconsin, I know, was one for a long time that that had its own standard standards established, especially for things like, you know, square footage you should have per person, et cetera. Most states have nothing. So what you end up doing is looking at an awful lot of peer libraries first determining what makes them a peer library, not looking, you know, for example, we wouldn't necessarily compare ourselves to another library that has a similar budget or a similar demographic, but is a county library system with 15 branches. So you're trying to get two peer libraries that have several parameters in common, if not all. So we ended up totally redoing the chart of peer libraries and looking at libraries to establish level of service standards, first in the category of population, just looking at, you know, who has approximately 95,000 to 110,000 people in their area is a district library or a city or a municipal library? And what do their stats look like consequently? Then looking at libraries that have between 110 and 130,000 people, which is supposedly what long months build out looks like. So what does it look like at least in 2019 dollars to to finance a library that is for a larger that is intended for a larger population? And then taking a look at kind of, you know, our bang for the buck, which is looking at other libraries with the same budget and looking at what we are doing with that amount of money as compared to what they are doing. So you've got all three of those things going. So instead of looking at like like many libraries do at these level of service standards and then figuring out, you know, you establish these level of service standards and then you figure out what governance and service delivery model might match those. We're going the opposite direction. What that means is instead any seeker, the consultant, she's just she's evaluating each governance, governance and service delivery model on its options and understanding what the funding capacity is of each of these, for example, a district or a regional or municipal library. And then, you know, looking at that range and then looking at those options based on that level of service that's attainable with each one. So in other words, if you're asking voters for a library district or a cultural district or a levy, they know what they're buying with these new dollars. So that's kind of confusing, but I don't think it'll be when the report is out. So that's what we're looking at doing. We have some some big charts. I can't share it all with you yet without agendizing a meeting. But we're looking to have the financial modeling finished up as soon as this week, we will have several meetings with our core committee coming up in the next month. We do expect to be putting something on a city council agenda in the month of March for the consultant to present findings at that point. So it's taking a while to do this. It is very complex. I know it doesn't seem like it is. But, you know, for example, usage like circulation in the library isn't just driven by spending. So you look at circulation dollars, but you say, OK, but that also depends not just on dollars, but on your collection size, by how many hours you're open, by how many facilities you have, etc. So also when you're doing kind of benchmarking analysis and you're looking at other at libraries that are pure libraries in other states, you have to look at people's spending power for per dollar. So, you know, you look at the expenses, you know, what what a hundred thousand dollars buys in Boulder is different than what a hundred thousand buys in Kentucky. So you have to definitely make those extrapolations, too. So the national analysis, like I said, it's taking a while. But I think we've been going back and forth very frequently. And I think we're we're getting there. So takes a while to come up with. I know it's taking a long time. Covid has has presented some delays as well. But I think it's really important to get it right and really get get it right as in, you know, present an honest picture of of what it is that we need and how much it costs and how much it will cost to not just finance a library that we need right now, but a library moving forward. The last thing you want to do is is present something that says, OK, you know, in order to be up there with our peers, we need to have the same amount that we have that they have right now and then not looking at what happens five years down the road. So so we should have more shortly, like I said, we've had a couple committee meetings coming up in this next month. And then I expect something to be on the council agenda and see it. Two questions. Yeah. So a financial modeling this week, then meeting for committee to see Council in March. When will this group do you have a date for when this group will see the report? And do you have? Well, I mean, we can't we can't just give you a report and discuss it without having an agenda board meeting. So we have to we have to get that sandwiched in between between or some, you know, sometime before the city council, but after the meetings, after the other meetings that finalize as much as possible, the report. But if we're if we're able to do that, the report is ready to go for us. What's that? The report is not ready yet. OK. But when the report is ready, yes, you can see it. OK, which will be before March. Yes, it should be. OK, and then do you know when it will be more widely available this night? OK, yeah. What's the rollout process? Are we like we're the first group and then how do you have to present to City Council? Or how does it get there? There are several there are several different things that have to happen. First, let me see. We'll get from my notes. There are several different meetings that have to have they have to happen to discuss these and some of, you know, some of them, you know, I'm in there. Karen Roni is in there. Jim Golden from the city representing the financial aspects, Mark. We have kind of a smaller group first that's going to review the whole situation assessment and how this the governance and service models that go along with these these numbers. And then at that point, you know, I am not at all opposed to either dedicate or if you're up for it, either dedicating a regular board meeting or having a special board meeting. And the thing is if we are going to, you know, discuss it as a group, we have to have an agenda and it has to be published. So I don't see any reason we can't do that after the initial committee goes through everything. I think it'd be a good idea actually to get some extra input. I can send out anytime if you if any of you are interested in seeing kind of our spreadsheet of pure libraries with some of the stats and how we compare ahead of time, I can certainly send that out. If you I find it interesting. Yeah, I'd be curious. So once again, I can send it to you. We can discuss it in a future meeting. You just can't reply all when I send it out. But if you'd like to see what some of what at least what some of those stats look like that we're using in part to establish the levels of service standards on, then I can forward them to you. Yes, please. OK. Susie, have you been given a whole background on this process at all? Or is this the first year here? I think you and I need to have a conversation about this. No, so I did speak with Annie to offer input. I was one of the stakeholders. And so she gave me a lot of background, not but from her, from her perspective, moving forward. I think, you know, you have historical contents that she didn't have. You know, I'd love to get down and chat about that. But and then I did have coffee with Mark. So he also kind of gave me some. So no, this is not the first time I'm I'm hearing of it. So OK, good. I was thinking that was a lot if you hadn't been brought up. No, no, no, I've got it. Thanks. It is a lot. It's just it's hard to like I said, it's hard. You want to make sure when you're looking at at level of service standards, which are dependent on you choosing true peer libraries that that you get exactly that. And, you know, I wish there were standards. I wish we could look something up and say, look, the state of Colorado says, you know, one square foot per person. We should have a thousand square feet of library, but it does not. So so that's where we have to do all this background work and try to establish those those numbers ourselves. So and obviously just like any other statistical thing, you know, you look at, you know, there are the libraries that have the Shangri-La funding and then there are the libraries that have, you know, part of a low average. So you really try to throw out the lowest and the highest and look for look for a medium to look what really is a number that you can that you can face some some decisions upon. For example, the first library I worked at was in Illinois. It's the town has about 42,000 people. The library is a 90,000 square foot building. The budget's eight million dollars. So, you know, our budget is half that we have more than twice as many people. So but I would not include that as a peer library and, you know, because it's just not. Not in the I would like the funding to be pure. But it's just, you know, we're not we're not trying to compare libraries that are completely different. But libraries that are of communities that have some similar some similarities, at least in population or in demographics, or in both. You know, often we're choosing libraries as peers who are in a suburban metropolitan area, for example, instead of a rural library that may have have a very tiny budget and a very small circulation. So I will say our stats are really good when you look at the bang for the buck is really good. But, you know, I think we're what what Annie is looking at and what we've been talking about for the last few years is that there is that tipping point that you reach where you can do more with less for a long time and then you just do less and and it looks like from the numbers that that in some areas we're starting to do less. So as as our costs go up, as our costs for personnel and insurance and and materials etc go up, if all things remain equal, we will be doing less moving forward. That's what the impetus for the study is. More soon, I will I will be happy to send those stats out Scott, you wanted them. Does everyone want them? I would. OK, I would. I'd also like to as soon as possible or as soon as the timing works with the report to vote a meeting and this is I guess it's Scott and Catherine Katie agree and really if Mark agrees. I'm sure Mark does. Yeah, if we can give the next if we can about the February meeting because that will be late February if it's going to council. Let me see what's going on and I will I will let you know as soon as I have the report in hand. Great. Anything else on that front? No, there's plenty. All right, I don't know if this is Katie or you but Mosher and Empson funds policy update. We don't have an update because we don't have anything back from city attorney yet. OK, moving on Boulder Library District updates. Same thing I was not there and Mark would be the one giving the update. If you have I do have a bit of their PowerPoint from this from the December meeting. Is that the meeting you're talking about Scott? Library the advisory committee meeting December 16th. Now we had what we have one every other week. So now this is now this is not that this is the Boulder meeting meeting. This is Boulder. Oh, sorry, I jumped ahead. OK, so it looks like on December 16th they did have a meeting of the the Boulder's District Committee. So they had a staff presentation on looking at transitioning. They are contracting the city for contracting with the city for grounds and parking maintenance. But it says the city is interested to transition library specific support services as efficiently, practically and quickly as possible. So they're trying to transition employees, IT and finance. So those are just the basics of what you would do trans if what you would transition to a district. So they presented a recommendation document to the city. They talk about some specifics about about transitioning IT services and talking about employees and employment contracts that the city's library employees at the beginning of the second year become library district employees. The first year after a successful election, the city employees would continue to receive support from city HR, IT, payroll and finance. So some of those transitions for the employees wouldn't take place in a district until the second year. So they talk about a lot of details about accrued vacations and things like that transferring to the district. They talk about loan servicing. So it looks like they're they're making some progress. They talk about area. No, we did get some information on that. OK, so the the the the info that I had from this past meeting was mostly just about some of the technicalities of, you know, transferring insurance, including cybersecurity and and employee insurance. Payback by the library district for services and operations will be a phased approach to the library district may build reserves. Let's see. You know, it's going to be April of 2024. By the time the library district collects property tax revenues for a full year. So just logistics like the funding logistics, they didn't talk about area or at least not in the notes by hand. So a couple of our members from the library district committee went and talked to your equivalent at David. Yeah, to David. And his he said that they are not going to try to annex anything out in the county that's going to be the city alone. And I think that's new. That's new to me. Yeah, that's what I heard too. But I don't know if I buy that if because I don't know if that's what the district in the city have said. I think that's what the library director is saying. I'm going to go back to the district. There are complete district notes now that are online from December. So I'm going to go back to the rest of the notes. And if that's true, I'm going to see David on Thursday. Ask him. But, you know, I think the reason is that two things. One is that their council is unanimously approving doing a library district. So they, you know, it's for them, it's a shoe in. As long as they don't leave Boulder City limits. Yeah. And if they go out of sight of city limits, then they have to get the commissioners involved. And I think they may. I think they did some math and figured out, you know, we're not going to get a whole lot more money compared to this huge revenue they're going to get from Boulder real estate, which is very, very high price. And they're fine just saying, you know, it's not worth the extra money we get for Naila. It's just not worth it. Well, and you also have the responsibility, you know, when you are moving into those other areas and expectations of building a library and staffing building and staffing and stocking. Yep. Library branches. So I think that's probably what the calculation was, if it's true. And if it is true, it does a couple of things. One is it makes it much easier for us for a second. It also takes the pressure off from a time perspective. So we may not have to try to get this onto the ballot this year, which was really sort of the push we had. And if it's true, so that if you could find out whether or not they're really going to do that, that would that would mean that we would have a lot. Well, I do want I do want to find out and I want to find out, you know, I can have any find out too, because it definitely affects any of her calculations. Yes, if we look if we look at potentially serving a larger area than Longmont. So because most of her projections are right now based on Longmont growth. So, you know, that would have some change in the financials. Coney group growth is going to be pretty minimal that it basically unless you're in Iowa or hygiene, you are limited to a 35 acre plot of land. It does affect the amount. It does obviously affect our level of service standards for staffing levels, technology collections and space. So so if we were to think about about that, and we might want to make the same calculation, it's entirely possible. But that is something that should be included in her calculations, if they are not thinking of annexing those but I mean, if we can get the council behind this, Susie, because I know that right now we don't have all of you behind this, you like Joan, I know is reserving judgment. She equates us with Metro districts. Well, we don't have this yet either. So I mean that the feasibility study is not saying go forth and do a library district. It's saying this is one of the possibilities that there's a committee, but there's a library district committee group that does that. So, you know, there is very much an effort to make that happen, whether the study believes it should happen or not. The study is going to give us information, but, you know, we truly believe that a district is going to give us a much better library. And that's been the case. And if the if the report doesn't say that, I'll have a lot of questions about the report, because every other report I've seen like this pretty much says that. So, but we'll see. We'll find out, right? So anyway, that's all for that. OK, and Susie, just you are up to speed on this whole thing. You feel good. Any questions? No, OK. Awesome. Well, thank you, Nancy, for all your work on that. We look forward to more info. Me too. I guess did we did we bridge into the Longmont piece? Or do you want to say more, Scott, the Longmont Library District Committee? I'm done. OK, OK. OK. OK. All right. Is that maybe we'll leave to E until until Mark's back with us, because I think he had some ideas on that. Right. Yeah, that makes sense. And he may want to just follow up with you or something after he watches the YouTube, I guess. So OK. OK. All right. So then the next thing actually was on my plate. The thank you to Tim Waters. I, you know, we talked about trying to get the book from a local library. And I did put in an order in December, but Barbara Books hasn't gotten back to me yet. So I called him again today and I guess we it's kind of up to you all if you want me to just get it from Amazon at this point. I can, but I feel bad because, you know, I put in the order and I guess I can buy the book for myself if, you know, it comes in. I just don't want to stiff them the money since I already ordered it through them. They told me they were having supply chain issues with the holidays, but this is obviously extended longer maybe than they anticipated. That is not atypical with publishers. We've had we've had a lot of things that we ordered months ago coming in now. So OK. Well, what do you think? Should I hang tight with with Barbara Books? Just wait it out. OK. Under the rate and do local. I would do. Yeah, I just feel bad. I feel bad being like we're moving on. So Susie, just so you know, this was we were going to get a book to thank Tim. So OK. Well, I'll let you know if I hear back from them and then I'll come up with a card that we could circulate. Would the easiest thing be to do a virtual card or would you rather I leave one at the library that everybody could swing by and sign actually by hand? What's what's the preference for folks? Whatever you like. Tim's an old guy. He'll want paper. Paper is nice. I think it's more. I'll deny saying that, by the way. I hope he's not watching. He'll laugh at that. He's at the legislative legislative meeting right now. Yeah, he'll laugh. He'll laugh. Yes, no. OK, well, I'll pick some. I'll I'll choose a card at Barbara. I think they have some too or whatever somewhere downtown and I'll just Nancy, is there a good spot I can leave it in the library for folks to swing by and sign? Yeah, just in the administrative office, just on the top of the desk, there's almost always a card for something there. So we'll make sure that something is right on top of the admin assistance desk right when you walk in. Right on your. OK, all right. Sounds good. Well, I'm hoping I'll hear back from them soon. So all right. And then next up, we have library board comments. Anyone have comments? OK. Mark is texting me. Oh, maybe he has a comment. Good timing. Oh, he said he said he was calling it. He just told me he was calling it at night. He can't get in. I can get into other people's meetings, but I can't get into this. I want to know. I want to know who else's meetings he's getting into. He's that guy. He's that guy. Oh, dear. OK, tell him to stop. Stop crashing. Stop crying. Yeah, or whatever it's called. OK, let's see. Well, new wish list items then for the Mosier Empson Fund. Maybe we'll wait till some marks here for that, too. But this is something that we had just started about. I don't have all the responses back home staff. So far, some things that we would have put on the wish list, we've been able to get in from other areas, other grants, other pots of money. So the Sorter was voted through by council. I don't know if the amount that they set aside for the Sorter will cover all of it or not. So that may be something we need to come back for for. Additional funds and. We were able to find a fund that will pay for the glass panels surrounding the computer lab. That was another thing that we had talked about. So we're going to have to look for a new wish list. So we don't have a concrete item yet right now that we're just chomping at the bit for for Mosier Empson, but we will be making a wish list and. And. Having it, you know, I'm glad that we've been able to through some through some savings in other areas, be able to accomplish some of those things ourselves. But. I do agree with what the board talked about earlier, which is trying to to look for a really large ticket things on which to spend those funds. So we'll see what those are. Sounds like a good plan. Any other thoughts? Truly nice to be talking about these funds in way of a wish list or to be hearing about them in terms of a wish list rather than procedures. Yeah. Right. All right. Let's see. Next on the list is annual report to counsel. Oh, this is something that was on our board bylaws that it used to be that pretty much every department did an annual report to counsel. That hasn't always been the case in the last few years because the council agendas have become so large as to be unwieldy. But we are going to start again, doing at least a published and printed and disseminated short annual report from the library. So we'll be compiling. We'll be using some of the stats that we do every spring for the state report. And many libraries published. I have done this in other libraries published at least a you know, you can hand it out the library with like a front and back kind of a colorful, colorful, fun way to present, you know, how many masks did you hand out? How many computers were used? How many, you know, you know, different, different, interesting kind of fun facts and stats about the library. And then we will be publishing that obviously online as well as paper. So it kind of a lieu of a formal, you know, stand stand up there and give a report. We're trying to think of a little bit more interesting way to disseminate that information just to just to make sure that we put that out at least once a year to let the community as a whole or at least those who pay attention to things that come out of the library and what we do. So then how much of it in the past Nancy, we've actually seen that before you did it. And so then we could say like what about this? What about, you know, there were a few things on there that like we really wanted to remind the council of or like keep front of mind for them. So I don't know that's a possibility, but it is. I think there just been less fewer folks doing just a general, you know, unless there's a specific issue doing general presentations just because of the time that it takes and the amount on the agendas. So yeah, we have. Yeah, I remember the one for most recently was it was nice. It was colorful. It was Lee was like a state of the union kind of thing. We'll go back exactly. That's exactly it, Katie. So we'll go back to doing those. Most of my time here has been COVID. So we have not done a you know, state of the COVID live report. But this year we decided we don't know how long this is going to last. So darn it. We're going to do a report anyway and highlight some of the more interesting things. You know, how many online programs do we have? How many, you know, how many new, how many texts? Oh, my gosh, our texting, our text to librarian program has gone crazy. So I mean, how many, how many people text the library on a daily basis? Ask questions. It's a lot. So my phone, my phone, my phone came. Yeah. So my phone came every time we were in the library. The things that are most important to the library that we want to keep around or, you know, like make sure a council knows that they were implemented and they're great and we don't want them to go away. Things like that. I think also highlighting things like our new team space and our new computer lab and how we're able to expand those, et cetera. So. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll be back to doing that COVID or no COVID. OK. All right. Feel good on that. Right. Future meeting status virtual or in person. I'm not sure if we want to have this discussion without Mark. I feel like he may have some feelings now that he got blocked. But so I don't know how to handle that because we have to probably make a decision and we can't have an online conversation. Well, you can have you can have an online conversation about scheduling meetings. That is OK. About the nature of the meeting. Is that count? I'm not sure. But the actual schedule probably because scheduling meetings does. Well, the question is going to point out that next February 21st is President's Day. Oh, oh, good catch. So I don't know when we want to have our February meeting, but it's another holiday. That's right. They felt they felt like right on that last time, too. I guess so. So for me, that's kind of an issue because I had to cut short of Tinker Mill board meeting tonight that I was on because this movie this got moved on top of it. So and Susie is like cutting you know, she's supposed to be somewhere else, too. So we need to plan that for a second of all virtual meetings right now. I think make more sense. They do just because Omicron until that is passed. I don't see any reason. Nothing against you guys, but I just don't want to be in a room with other people. I absolutely am. I personally I personally agree to an in person meeting. You know, we just just to let you know, we have not been scheduled. We don't even have staff meetings in person right now. I mean, we have those two little spaces we have the boardroom and the conference room are the most airless rooms you've ever been in. So we just don't. And also our boardroom is full of boxes of masks right now and the conference room is is going to be shortly full of other stuff from upstairs. We have to move. We have to just place a whole bunch of upstairs stuff for the carpet project. So it's going to be in the conference room. The computer lab is going to be in the meeting room. So I would say we'll probably be virtual for at least the next two meetings. Just because I don't really have a space unless I stick you in the middle of the room. No. Plus, you know, this is the first time I think I've ever actually seen Catherine's face. Oh, my God, you joined during during COVID time. That's nice to see you. I really feel like I should have tried a little harder here. I wear a mask all the time at school. So I don't even think about the bottom half of my face anymore. You know, it doesn't exist. It's absolutely true of all of the school area. So I would I would say count on at least February and March is being virtual meetings because we literally probably have no place to put you if we wanted to. And I don't think it's smart to stuff you in one of those tiny little stuffy rooms. Yes, we just table this then and yes, let's focus on a online conversation about the date, which seems more. Yes, okay. Yes, I think well that the present is the 21st, right? So is that the third? I have to look at the calendar as normal. Shoot, it is the third Monday. It is. The 28th would be the fourth. Yeah. Which I know some folks do have a conflict to the 20th on the fourth, which is why we moved it to the third. So. I mean, I don't I personally have I personally don't care if I have a meeting on President's Day when I'm off or not, but some people might. I'm indifferent if it's on holiday or not, so I don't care. I can go either way, but I guess I wonder about the precedent. I feel like if it's a federal holiday, we shouldn't probably meet just because the public, you know, part of that. I don't know. Well, I'll send something around. Is there another kind of strong in the past? We've been in the past. We've done it on like a Thursday. Oh, a different day. You like the 24th. Well, do you want me to send out like a doodle poll? You guys. That's a good idea. I will send out a doodle poll with some alternate dates. Yeah, because I know Tuesdays are bad, but we we have done it on another day of the week. I think the doodle polls are the easiest way to go, though, because then everybody can weigh in on what when they're available, so I don't have a problem doing that. Good, good call. OK. OK, is there any other comments or anything anyone wants to add before we adjourn? Well, good. OK, happy to see you here, Susie. Thank you for joining us. Yes, I'm happy to be here. We'll have to bug Mark about coming in and his costume and then disappearing. Seriously, somebody give somebody give Mark a Zoom tutorial before next meeting. Just tell him, please, please use something resembling a real name so we don't think you're, you know, I feel like there's a story behind a story behind that nickname we need. I want to know that story. I feel like we had some weirdo coming in into jammies. So. All right, well, if there are no objections, I'll adjourn the meeting. It has to move to do that, right? Yes, I would like to move to adjourn the meeting at eight twenty one PM. I will second that. OK, excellent. Thank you so much. Thank you all. You got you out in time for your meeting, Susie. Thanks, Susie. Nice to meet you. Nine minute break. Woo. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Nancy. Great care, everybody. Stay healthy. Yeah, take care.