 I can't can you hear me yes yes oh terrific well in just looking at my numbers it looks like we do have a quorum at this time I do know that Meg Auburn said that she had a meeting and she will be joining us as soon as she can so she will be coming and William Bolson has shared that he's unable to make the meeting today so with that I will call our meeting to order and if this time if you could rise and join me in the Fledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all I have to tell you that the first time I've tried to do that from a you know hotel room in Ohio very different so at this time Kathy you will have to let me know if there is anyone in the room who would like to give public comments because I can only see my okay there we go oh magic whoever pushed that button well done so at this time would someone like to make a motion to approve our minutes I think that was Chris camp that made the motion is there a second and seconded any further discussion okay all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed motion carries thank you all right well for those of you who are relatively new to the library reward you will note that under this section of correspondence announcements and Common Council reports I rarely have anything to share but not today I have lots of good things to share so I'm going to take a moment here to go through a few key items number one I just wanted to make a personal point of how pleased I am with Josh Lin towards incredible big bright colorful banner that is on the fence that is protecting the Kohler generator and the banner is all about summer reading program so I know that Garrett is smiling right now because he has been hearing me talk about the need to really have our entrance be a celebration about what is happening in our incredible library so I am just pleased that fence can really be used almost as our personal billboard of some of the great programming that we do inside so a special shout out to Josh for hearing that plea and then delivering a really attractive way to get people excited about summer reading so thank you so that's my personal announcement and normally I don't have any so that's for the first one for today number two I just wanted to share that in the month of June we are going to be having a resolution in honor of the service of both Mary Lendonahue and Nancy mansion we will be honoring them in June it's been an absolute delight having both of them on our library board and we will have that opportunity to thank them and and I look forward to in the month of June or perhaps July but when our when Mayor Sorenson will have an opportunity to appoint two new people to our library board one of those people will be an older person and I know that he is has several thoughts on who that might be serving in that capacity for this next year the other thing that I wanted to share is the good news that Mayor Sorenson has reappointed our wonderful friend and colleague Kathy Norman and William Bolson so we get to have a continuation of two wonderful people who really adore our library and are such strong advocates and as William Bolson said he feels like he only got his toes dipped into the water and he was so amazed by the library and he only got a chance to really serve for one month so he is thrilled that he has been reappointed to be able to give back more to our library and he will be able to join us next month he is unable to join us at this time for the records it would be good to know that at this point William Bolson has not been officially sworn into office so our attendance in our minutes should probably reflect that so I'd like to mention that the other wonderful great announcement is that we have a brand new library board member and Barbara Alvarez I am just so delighted that you are joining us and I had reached out to her a little bit earlier just say if she could take a couple minutes now to maybe introduce herself and maybe talk about why she's you know excited about joining our library board thanks Nave and hi everybody I am so thrilled and honored to be here I am just excited to be part of the library board my name is Barbara Alvarez and I have been a librarian for about 10 years I received my master's in library and information science from University of Illinois and I've worked in libraries in Illinois and Wisconsin public libraries I've worked in a corporate archive corporate library most recently I was a manager at North Shore library in the Milwaukee area and then I moved to Madison in 2019 to pursue a PhD at UW Madison in library and information science and ultimately I decided it wasn't the best fit for me I ended up doing a certificate of advanced studies which I was really grateful for but I've decided to return to Shaboy again where I which I call home and I'm so excited to be back here my husband and I moved back in March and and so I let's see I published a book in 2016 about embedded business librarianship for public libraries I teach currently I am an instructor at the University of Illinois University of Wisconsin and Clarion University in Pennsylvania where I teach undergraduate and graduate classes in library and information science I teach classes on administration and management diversity equity and inclusion programming all that good stuff so anyway I am just beyond excited to be here and to learn from all of you and to contribute and me library has done some truly fantastic work over the years that I've been in Shaboy again which was in started in 2016 and I can't wait to see what the future has great well thank you so very warm welcome to you and we are thrilled that you're joining us and we were looking forward to learning with you and continuing to support our incredible library and all that they do so thank you Barbara we're delighted you're joining us next the final item that I just wanted to share is that it's a special recognition that me public library received from the United Way of Shaboy County our library was nominated for Community Non-profit Spirit Award category and this is the direct quote from the recognition sort of email it says that we are excited to let you know that me public library was nominated in the Community Non-profit Spirit Award category with over 46 nominations each submission was remarkable while you were not selected to receive this year's award we want to express our gratitude for your dedication to our community this year thank you for all that you do to help Shaboy County so I think as board members we could just sort of clap I know we're all in different places for our incredible library professionals and who made that happen so it's great news I don't think that's ever happened in our library's history to be considered in that category so super news all right unless Garrett Erickson has a surprise for me under correspondence announcements in Common Council reports I did not have anything else to add I don't have anything it's made wonderful then we will go on to committee reports and this is sort of where we have an opportunity for to get an overview on how we're doing on our expenditures pay roll special revenues and gifts and donation Garrett Erickson would you like for Debbie D'Amico to give us an overview there correct thank you ma'am yep okay every Betty we look in really good shape for the time of year we're at at this point of time I did send out an analysis on the accounts Pables and the financial statement if you look in the financial statement the city has not transferred our levy over yet so it is distorting the financial statement because that you know it's quite a bit of the bulk of our funds I'm told that they will not put that figure in until August so if you want I can just put it in copies that I send out to the the board each month just so you can kind of get a real picture of where we will be once they post that levy supposedly that was part of the annual audit that the auditors now do not want them to post that until after the second half of the taxes are collected in July if anybody have any questions well Debbie that's like our cash flow is it I mean it's just more of like the way it looks on the box well it affects the city's cash flow because I'm using their money because right now all the money that I'm getting from the foundation for all of our projects I am paying out of my city budget and I won't be putting that check in until June when the foundation board member meeting is so that I can have the check sign so I'm technically using their money and I don't know how the city's paying for it if they're I would assume they have enough money in their general fund because they should have gotten the first part of the levy so so I'm thinking this this would be a very good topic for Garrett Erickson and I to add to our agenda for when we meet with our city administrator to just talk about you know our calendar timeline and the calendar timeline and just see if there can be a way that it just makes more sense for our our books with our with our monies so I will add that to the two Daniela is the one who told me and I don't understand why they're holding back we never have in the last seven years that I've had with the city because if the taxpayers do not pay their July half taxes it's the county that has to collect and it's the county that would have to foreclose the city what I'm aware of does not get penalized on those tax payments so I don't see why they could not transfer those funds over onto the budgets seeing as it is only a budget report. Very good point we will follow up to see if we can make it a little bit smoother for for you and for all of us. Thank you and just a message me my sister just got out of surgery and things went well. Oh thank goodness wonderful very good news. So with that are there any other questions or comments for that for Debbie in regards to our current expenditures payroll etc. All right with someone like to make a motion and Kathy you might be able to see better than I who would like to make the motion. What are we moving to approve the payroll and expenses. Yeah. Okay. I'll move to approve. I second second. All right. The move can second any further questions or comments. All those in favor please say aye. Any opposed. And the motion carries. Next up 2.2 received the 2021 budget status report to date and I'm turning this over to Library Director Garrett Erickson. So that will go to Debbie as well. We're doing reports. Financial report. Yeah that will be Debbie again. And we just we just discussed that with the other option. So we don't need to go any further on that one. So you mean that's what we just discussed that had to do with the timing where the city money didn't. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yes. Okay. And then just note that we had the donation from $4,000 from the friend and that is the first portion of what they are paying for on the wish list. That's wonderful news. Sydney if you could make a special note of our deep gratitude for their continued support. That's wonderful. All right. Moving on now to 3.1 covid service responses. Thank you. And so there's there's been several changes. Obviously the big news was the CDC changing the guidelines for individuals on I believe was the 13th of May. We just got the updated policy from the city yesterday in the morning which reflects those changes. And so the big change from the mask mandate is that masks are no longer required of the public and the staff if you've been vaccinated. Of course we cannot really ask anyone. So we're just going on the honor system. However we are we did change our signage and so on to reflect that it's not mandatory anymore. It's strongly suggested I believe is the language that we used. And so to this point most people coming into the building have still been wearing a mask. And I think staff quite honestly are pleased in the sense they don't have to enforce that policy anymore. Especially these the last few weeks here was getting pretty tough and staff were really burnt out on enforcing that. So that's been a welcome change from that perspective. And I guess I'll open that first part up to questions. I'm sure that's been pretty it's been a big deal for a lot of people for a long time. So any questions or comments on that. Okay. Hearing none a few other things that are coming up due to covid. So we're also slowly reopening up our services. So meeting spaces have all been opened up again to the public. They are limited capacity at this point. We're watching the numbers and opening those back up as we go. Our programming is not we still have not really begun a lot of programming. We have some limited smaller programs at this point. However we don't have any of the large programs planned at this point. But know that the meeting spaces are available for people. So that's also been nice to get that going again getting more people into the building. And then the last thing I want to report was that next week or traditionally after the Memorial Day weekend we switch to summer hours as well as after Labor Day we go back to our winter hours. And we are planning on going back to normal summer hours starting next week. So those would be 830 to 8 Monday through Thursday 830 to 5 on Friday and Saturday. And then we're still close Sundays. But right now for those of you that don't know we're really open an eight hour window at this point. So we're opening that back up to normal hours starting next week. So I think the public will be really pleased about that. And that's it on the covid response. Any questions on anything? I was just going to say I think that's great news that the summer hours starting up. I agree that people are really going to be appreciative of that opportunity. And I'm sorry someone else was trying to speak too. So it's Kathy I was going to ask since you were blindsided and opened it up or made it optional quickly like what the CDC did. Are you getting any push back from your own staff about not making the masks mandatory? What I have heard I guess that'll be a good question for Melissa. I've only heard positive so far on the response. Staff will continue to have for those that are working at desks have plexi plexiglass up. We are also still requesting that staff wear their masks on the floor. And so there is some protection there. And we as we've talked about the staff have all had the opportunity to get immunized. We made sure of that as well. So there's precautions in place. But so far I've heard nothing negative. Melissa you might be better to situated to hear about that since that's your staff. Yeah, sure. And Garrett is right that by and large the response has been positive. In fact, the reduction in stress and anxiety is palpable in the building. Staff are in better mood. They're a bit lighter on their feet. They're enjoying they're actually enjoying desk time again. And that's just after 2 weeks. So it actually is a huge improvement. And as Garrett mentioned, the vast vast majority of our patrons are still wearing a mask in the building. We really we really created a culture of masking in the library that maybe was the only place in the community where not only did we say masks are required, but we actually enforced it. So people are just accustomed to that coming in. And that's why we are continue staff are continuing to wear masks when they're out at the desk or out on the floor doing anything to kind of keep that culture in place and keep that sort of normalized. Certainly, at least until all age groups have ready access to the vaccine. We will will continue to do that. So thank you, Melissa. Any other comments? Any final points? Garrett that you wanted to add? I think those are the major ones. You know, like I said, the precautions, the plexiglass and so on will stay in place for the time being. We're still going to offer masks. We will still have the signs up that encourage people to wear their masks and so on. So not much else has changed just a little bit of the language and a little bit of the enforcement. I just wanted to share anecdotally when I was last in there, I overheard a mother explaining to her two children as she was putting masks on them because we got them provided that she said that the library wants to keep it safe and they're giving us masks and she's putting them on and the kids were just smiling. So I mean, not very often you see people smiling, getting a mask being put on, but it was just kind of like, yep, here's the rule and they're providing us with what we need and in we go into the library. So I really appreciate the effort of the staff to just make that tool available for everybody whether, you know, it's just right there. There's no question they don't have to talk with anyone. You just provide them and you provide them in both sizes for children and adults and that leadership has been quite wonderful. It feels like we should do something to acknowledge the staff for, I mean, they've had to be police for the last, you know, 16 months or whatever. And so I'm glad they're feeling palpable sense of relief, but is there anything you, Garrett, think that would be appropriate? We've had some little like pizza party type things we made may do some more of those, I think is the best thing for staff. Just enjoying our new lounge. Yeah, right. Yeah. The other nice thing that happened in the last year and Kathy, you're aware of this too, is that the foundation has made some monies available to really, you know, support our staff with some unique ways of just saying, you know, thank you. So I think that'll continue, you know, in this coming year. Anything else? All right. Moving on then to the director's report and I will again turn this over to Garrett Erickson. Thank you, Maeve. 4.1 I'll turn this over to Melissa to talk about the services and programming aspect. Hi, everyone, and welcome Barbara. So excited to have you on the board. So I'll talk a little bit about programs. We are still doing mostly virtual programs, although looking ahead to summer, we are starting to do some outdoor stuff. So we have the Maker Faire coming up on June 19th that started as a really a library program and has become a community event, which is exactly what we wanted it to do. So we are still a partner in that event. We're still providing some of the programming and support for it, but it's not solely our program anymore, which is great. So that will be primarily outdoors and they'll be making activities and makers from all over the region participating in that. Also on the same day, we will be participating in the Juneteenth event that's happening in the community. The library will be there in an official capacity with activities for kids, book handouts and just general outreach about library services. And then looking ahead to some of our other summer programs, we're doing a Tai Chi series on the City Green on Saturdays in June. And we'll also be doing a storytime, stories, songs and stretches out on the City Green as well. And Lil Rev is going to be doing some of his ukulele lessons and a concert on the City Green as well. So those are all of course weather dependent. We didn't do a rain backup for them because we are not doing large indoor programs yet. But we're hoping for good weather for all of that stuff so we can move forward with them. But our virtual program still continue to get really good participation. Our virtual story times in particular, we consistently have 30 and 40 participants for that. So pretty good numbers there. And of course, Lil Rev's virtual ukulele classes are just, you know, everybody loves them. So that's programming stuff. I did want to mention to, I think at our last meeting, I gave you guys some information about this new statewide group, the City Library Collective. It was formed by Wills, and it is all of the municipal libraries in Wisconsin that serve populations between 30 and 100 thousand people. So basically, not Milwaukee, not Madison, and not the two county systems in Brown and Marathon, but all the other larger libraries in the state. And it was started really as a way for us to information share and kind of problem solve together because we're often, we are the resource libraries in our systems. And with the way that, you know, there's a lot of state is very rural, we are often the largest by a significant margin in our systems. So we don't have a lot of peers close by. So this group was formed to kind of have that peer connection with comparable libraries. The first project that we're taking on is going after some ARPA money. And it looks like DPI has kind of earmarked us for this community recovery center project. And I think I did, I might have mentioned this at the last meeting, but it's taken a little more shape. So I just wanted to update you on that. So I think the official title now is public libraries as sites of community recovery and resilience. And what we're starting to do is kind of work through the scope and the scale of it, and then do a little bit of community needs assessment. We're going to have a very, very short window to get all of our stuff together and apply for this money. But basically the questions we're going to be asking of our community is how are people suffering post pandemic and how can the library help. And so we've got whites. A list pulled together in this framework that we've been working on. But it addresses things like gaps in education and learning support workforce development, racial equity, housing equity, food assistance, civic engagement. It's pretty broad. But we want it to be scalable to individual communities as well. And there will not be money for staff from this funding. Oh, I'm sorry. No, there will be money for staff, which is kind of exciting. So one of the things there won't be money for building construction. So one of the things we're considering is building in some resource sharing and community partnerships where we do like county health services at the library so we can fund a certain number of hours for a social worker to be in the library or a jobs navigator or just general social services navigator. So there's lots of ideas there and I will continue to keep you all updated as it takes shape. We're expecting the due date for the grant to be sometime in July. So it's going to happen pretty quick here. But I'm really excited about it. I think it's really can have a huge impact statewide and certainly here in Sheboygan. Any questions? I guess I don't really have a question other than this is this is exactly what many of us were, you know, envisioning for how we think communities can really make a difference even in a non pandemic year. But I think the pandemic is just really underscored just how challenging our communities our community can be for so many individuals and families. And so I think having libraries really sort of answered that question of how are people suffering in your community and how a library can help is really, really empowering. So very exciting. And Melissa, I know I'm speaking for all of us. We're just thrilled that you are and your colleagues are really focusing on this and really because I know you will beat the deadline of July whenever the proposal needs to be turned in. So thank you for that update. And we look forward to hearing the impact of getting that application in so that Sheboygan can really make a difference for more people. Thanks, ma'am. So Melissa, I do have one one just commentary, I guess about it. So I now work with the food bank and they they started to go down this avenue where they were thinking about when all the people that come in and use their services are coming in to get food. They've got all sorts of other issues, you know, homelessness and mental health issues. And so the food bank thought, well, we could be a repository of gathering all the information of what people's other needs are and trying to treat them more holistically. So they were trying to figure out who would be a good sort of clearinghouse to put together like a consortium of all the people that are would address these different needs. And they went to the United Way. And at first they sounded interested. And then they said, no, this is way too complicated. We can't, you know, we've got too many other things we're dealing with. We can't help you with this. So it just made me think that there's a lot of organizations out there that kind of want to be the central, you know, referral source almost. And so I think that might be your challenge is figuring out how to get all these different groups together. And you know, because I would sounds like what you're trying to do is ascertain needs and then help people connect with the way they could get their needs met. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. So sounds like I need to talk to the food bank. Yeah, yeah, I think you should. Well, I think it's wonderful that there is money for having, you know, some additional people in charge of these new tasks, because we can come up with all the greatest programs and in the world to make a difference. But if we don't have the people who have the time to dedicate to it, you know, we've talked over the years having the human health and human services spent spend some time in our library to be able to do outreach. And they were overworked that they couldn't have envisioned coming over and, you know, donating that time. So since we're such a central location to be able to have someone to help with job navigation or social work services, to be actually actually have a person who has the time to delve into that is, I think, critical because we, as we well know, our library staff has been shrinking over the years. And so, you know, we can't add on more projects unless there are more people who can really truly take ownership and make those new things happen. So pretty exciting. Thank you, Melissa. Moving on then to 4.2. So for Barbara's sake, this would be Cheryl Nessman's team, the support services team. And what that encompasses is like the the shelvers as well as the catalogers, Interlibrary Loan, sort of all the backroom functions. And so Cheryl, I'm not sure if you have a report this month. Sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes she does. So Cheryl, are you there? I am. And hi, Barbara. Nice to meet you. Um, just a couple of things. Just to let you know, the emergency and disaster planning committee that we have at the library, we're officially moving beyond the emergency planning phase of our work, which focus mostly on how to immediately deal with emergencies in the library, whether it is first aid, fire, tornado drills, things like that. We are now officially moving on to the disaster planning phase of our work. Just starting to read up on it. Disaster plans for libraries include how to report things accurately to insurance. So we'll be bringing Debbie into that. It also deals with how to deal with any damage to materials and the building, things like that. But the other component that we're hoping to bring into that is kind of piggybacking off of what Melissa was talking about, you know, being one of the locations within the city. If there is a disaster like a tornado where the community knows they can come to us for, you know, whatever it is, power, we have generators, Wi-Fi, you know, things like that, and helping connect with the EPA or whatever they have to do. So that will be trying to incorporate and hopefully we'll be connecting with the city at some point so that we can share our plan and hopefully be incorporated into their own disaster plan. There was that. The other thing that I wanted to mention was I was able to to present at the Wisconsin Association of Public Libraries Conference that was earlier this month. And my presentation was was on our materials handling room, the room where we are cooking our materials to heat treat them. I went over that, had called action for other libraries to help fight the stigma associated with that issue, educate the community, hopefully stopping to deny services as a mitigation tool for that. And I just wanted to let you know that then Miller from DPI sat in on my presentation and did reach out to me afterward. And he said he was very interested in seeing if there's some sort of role that DPI can play in a statewide project to deal with that. And I have submitted a presentation to the the American Association of Public Libraries Conference in 2022 as well. So we are hoping to get some traction on that. Thank you, Cheryl. And piggyback on the first part, the fire, the new fire chief, chief Monty, as we call him, just hired an assistant position. He had a retirement of his former assistant and the new person is going to be charged with updating that disaster plan for the city. And I know that the library will be included in on that. So Chief Monty was very interested in getting us at the table and just get informing us how the library will play a part in any sort of plan. So that was good news. We've been asking about that for several years, how the library would play into that. So I'm excited to get some information back. Thank you, Cheryl. And then I'll go into four point three update on building projects. So as far as facilities, I do have a written report that's attached in board docs, two things that I'll point out. One is as far as the very first one listed under in process HVAC control. So those are your thermostats within the building. That was just approved by the city through there. The council processes that they need to get through. And so that money will be checked will be basically we can get a vendor in here in probably this summer is what it looks like for a timeline. And we'll finish up all the digital thermostat conversions in the second and third floor this summer. So that's really nice. We've got all new appliances in the back room. So the basically the whole HVAC system is within a couple of years old. It's not too old when I started in 2013. The whole system was pretty much needed to be redone. And we were scrambling to make sure it ran during the winter because the boilers were dying out. And so we're really in good shape now. So that's that's a wonderful thing to be done with. And then the other thing I wanted to mention was under recently completed just in the last week or so we did complete countertop seating along the first floor windows as well as one of the second floor windows. So if you think of going to a coffee shop where you have the elevated seating along with cafe chairs, we have that sort of seating in the Jerry Black Cafe as well as if you walk around the other parts of the first floor and part of the second floor. So patrons seem to really like that. They can plug in there or use USB connection and charge the devices and they can look outside at the same time. So it's pretty cool. So people really like that. So that is my update on building projects. And I can just add in Mrs. Maeve again, I just think it's brilliant that we have those, you know, countertop with those chairs. Because when you think of just with the pandemic that we're still in, we are literally putting people in a lovely place to get the look out of window and they are breathing towards the window. You know, so we are actually, you know, changing the way people are utilizing our space. And it's actually a safer way for people to be, you know, in our library. So I think that is absolutely brilliant. The other thing is with the time that I've been on this library board, I cannot tell you how wonderful it is, Cheryl, to actually see a list where you say recently completed on projects. So that just made me smile when I saw the report. Just, you know, how much has been done and even under a pandemic, utilizing that time to get some long-term projects completed is quite wonderful. And then the final piece I would just like to say is that, Cheryl, I'm so pleased that your presentation that you did has garnered new interests for it to be shared even more, you know, nationally because the motivation was not so much in protecting our materials, but the motivation was we wanted to make sure that all citizens continue to have access to our materials and not be denied materials because of a condition in their home that was having an impact on the materials that they were borrowing. So, you know, your leadership and the leadership of your whole team trying to come up with a creative solution to make sure that everyone is allowed to borrow our materials and no one would be denied because of a situation in their home that was adding some mystery gas to our materials is quite wonderful. So thank you, you know, for your leadership in that and really sharing the creative solution with others because it, like you said, may spark a whole new way of looking at things throughout our nation. And our library services. So thank you. Thank you, Maeve. And then the last piece of the director's report is the monthly statistics. It's still trusted to use these at this point. If you look from last year in April, we were actually closed down, I think the whole month of April or close to it. We don't have a lot of good stats, but you can see we're building up. And so as this year goes on now, we should start to see our stats build up quite a bit. And as we add new services on. So I think next month, statistics should be a little bit better and more usable to sort of see what's really going on. I did sort of do a quick crunch of the library visits, the gate count. And we're just under 400. I think it was for April. We're at at least a little bit over 400 for March. And that's pretty standard for the springtime. So we've got a good number of people coming in, even though we're not really doing any programming at this point. So still quite a few people using the library. So, Garrett, I just wanted to jump in. I forgot to mention in my report that summer library program has officially started and we have as of today over 600 people registered. And last year, we got, I think for the entire summer, we were right around 700. It was very sad. So it's really exciting that school isn't even out yet. And we already have over 600 registered for the program. So that's great. It's fantastic. It is. It's great. In looking at the stats, I do feel like we almost need to kind of highlight and gold that children's materials were up 5,488 percent. It just made me laugh. I mean, you know, so I know knowing Garrett and how competitive he is, still going to want to see us like over 6,000 percent next year at this time, you know, because, you know, it's all about, you know, let's do better. Let's keep going. So I think I'm going to save this sheet and just kind of put it up on my bulletin board with a smile. So thank you for that update. Moving on into the liaison reports, 5.1, the Monarch Library System. Before our meeting began, Nancy Manchin actually jumped on for a few minutes because she wanted to share her report, even though she is no longer on our library board because she attended the most recent meeting. They did not have their minutes ready. So she was not able to share that. But she just wanted me to share with all of you that the board is in the process and she shared last time of searching for a new executive director. And at this point in time, they have now closed the window for applications to be submitted. And she is going to make sure that all of those future minutes are going to be sent on to Garrett Erickson and myself and then on to the new appointee from our board for their next meeting. So that is the update from her. And with that, I will turn it over to Kathy Norman, who can give us an update from the Meade Library Foundation. Sure. So we just met yesterday. One of the exciting things, you talked about the huge increase of children's literature. One of the main things the foundation does is manage the money that has been bequested and gifted to the library. And our most recent financial report showed that our investments were up 35% this year. And that's largely because last year, they went down a bunch and then we just did a big recovery. So the investments are doing really well. And that's important because the, you know, it has library money, it has foundation money, and Denison does the investing for us. And it's just doing really well. One of the big issues that we dealt with was a new website that the foundation is updating. And it's since the foundation is the vehicle for people to give money to the library, it would be nice if people could see it. But what we've learned when Garrett and the staff did an analysis is that the Meade Library website gets like what, 15,000 hits, what is that, per month? Per month. Per month. And the foundation website was getting like 50, 50 a month. So the issue is how closely we tie the foundation website to the library board website. You know, it should it be clickable and linkable. And we spent a lot of time in the meeting discussing the pros and cons of that. Another issue is whether we want our investments to be environmentally, socially responsible. So the finance committee spent some time looking into that and reached the determination that we owe a fiduciary duty to our donors and to the library to maximize return as opposed to our main goal being to be socially and responsibly invested. So there was a little bit of a debate about that. And I think the board was satisfied with some, you know, minor discomfort. I think that's about it. Yeah, I think so. That's my report. Any questions or comments for Kathy Norman? Oh, and then one final thing, we did decide not to have our fall events just because it's been such a weird year, the idea of having like our donor or alum, we have an alumni reception where we would keep all passport members apprised of what's going on. Well, there hasn't been much going on this year other than talking about the mask policies and the closures and the reopenings and the what we did. Oh, the Academy. So Fred Tishka is responsible for getting a couple of speakers a year from the Wisconsin Academy of Arts and Sciences. And they're not even responding to him. I think they've been sort of shut down. So he's reached out three or four times and isn't getting a response so that we won't do that series this year. And we're going to decide on the Renaissance Society Gala later in the fall. We should have a better idea whether that makes sense to have a, you know, a hundred and hundred fifty people gathered on the second floor of the library. Great. Any other questions or comments for Kathy? All right, Kathy, thank you for your report. Next up, five point three friends of me and Sydney, would you be able to give us a quick update? Sure can. So it was a very light friends meeting this past month, not a ton going on. But they are planning to hold a second book sale this year, which is not normal. Normally they only have one. However, it's normally in the fall and because they weren't able to have one last fall, they had one this spring and they'd like to get back on track. Plus the sale that they had this spring was very successful. So they're going to try and do another one in fall. The dates for that are November 11th, 12th and 13th. Additionally, they're going to be doing their starting sort of like what the Renaissance Society has with a well of plaques. However, theirs is not going to be nearly as robust, but they're going to be doing a new type of recognition system for past and present friend members who either went above and beyond with their service or maybe in memory of. So they're working on that and some protocols surrounding that. They will not have a June meeting. They're hoping to meet again in July. So that's really kind of it for the friends at the time being. Wonderful. Any other questions or comments for Sydney? Well, in light of the sale that I, you know, actually stopped in on, I think having another one this fall is a brilliant idea. I think people in the community really appreciated having a safe event for them to come to and pick up incredible books for 25 cents. So I think it's just with a win win for the community and for the friends. So thank them for already planning yet another big event again this year. I will do that. Wonderful. Well, next on the agenda is something that only happens at the May meeting. Sydney very nicely has printed out this script for me that I read every year. So the first thing that we are going to do is we have nominations from the floor for both president and for vice president. And I'm going to start with the procedure for elections for officers with the president's role. And so at this time, I am opening the nominations from the floor for president. Someone like to make a motion for the office of president. I'd like to make a motion to have Maeve continue as president. Second and can just for Sydney's ability to take good notes. Who was the person that seconded? Kathy. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Kathy. I should have recognized the voice, but I'm not. So in in the process that we have, I am now going to call. Well, first, I'm supposed to say, you know, I thank you very much. I I'm honored by that, but I'm going to call for additional nominations. And then I need to say that two more times. So are there any further nominations? Are there any further nominations? There are being no further nominations. Would someone make a motion to close nomination? I'll close to I'll move to close nominations. All right. Thank you, Kathy. Is there someone who can second second? All right. And seconded all those in favor of Maeve Quinn as president, say aye. Anyone opposed? I'm going to have to tell my husband that like nobody said no. He was just like, come on, there'll be somebody. So thank you very much. I'm very honored. Next up, the office of vice president open nominations from the floor for vice president. And I'd like to make a nomination to nominate Kathy Norman as vice president. I'll second this. This is Marcos. Here we go. And then I'm going to say it again twice. Are there any further nominations? Are there any further nominations? There are being no further nominations. Would someone make a motion to close nominations? I make a motion to close the nomination for vice president. Thank you, Sherry. Is there someone who would like to second that? That was seconded. That was Chris first. Oh, sorry. I'm guessing. Thank you for clarifying. All right. It's been moved and seconded. Okay. All those in favor of Kathy Norman as vice president, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. Thank you very much. At this point in time, it's an opportunity for the new new president, new vice president to have any remarks. Kathy Norman, is there anything that you would like to share? At this time? No. Okay. I would just like to share a few words. And for those of you who have not been at a May meeting, usually this is a meeting where I extoll all of the numbers of how many people have checked out books and how many visits and how many programs. I mean, I just love just talking about how our community really utilizes our library services. But in light of this year, I have a little bit of a different twist and you'll all be pleased that inside that we're doing this virtually. It's much shorter, but it's good stuff. So I just have a few words to say. I just wanted to say that again, it's just a wonderful honor to continue as president of the Board of Trustees of the Public Library. So thank you very much. I really believe that each one of you on the board has an extraordinary wealth of knowledge and skills that you bring to our board. And we are so grateful of your willingness to invest your talents with our library. As all of you are quite aware, we've had a very unusual and extraordinary year. This pandemic has really underscored the importance of our library services in our community. I would like to say that all of us here on the board owe such a huge debt of gratitude to our visionary library director Garrett Erickson and his whole creative team of library professionals and all of our wonderful library employees for just trying to think of even the best words for just really your courageous leadership during this pandemic. I really think that your dedication and your creativity to provide library services really made a positive difference for so many people in our community. We actually stayed open for most of the month during the pandemic. And unlike many other libraries in our state and in our nation, we stayed open because it was the deep belief of our library staff and our library leaders that it was essential for these services to be available for people during this really trying time. So really, I think my main point for speaking is that we are just also grateful for all of you and it has just been an honor just witnessing your acts of courage and heroism every single day. So thank you so much. You actually took what our mission is in our library and I feel like we almost need to change it because you just really provided certainly the quality services, the resources and even in a pandemic, you provided lifelong learning opportunities to meet the needs of so many members of our diverse community. So those words that I still smile every time I think of them because I think of Bernie Markovits. So I know he's like in the back of my head saying it and try to imagine saying it and each word glitter pops up in the universe and sprinkles down in you because that's how Bernie always did things with huge hurrah and pizzazz but all of our library staff and you have really truly done everything to really enrich, educate, connect, create and inspire our community. So bravo to all of you. And I think we can not, we should be clapping so we can all pretend to clap. You can't even really hear me clapping but thank you, thank you. So with that and moving on to, we have a schedule of our meetings for 2021. And I just wanted to let you know that at our future library meeting we are gonna talk a little bit more about the timing of our library meeting being at three, whether that truly is the best time and whether or not we are gonna continue to have our library meeting in the common household room is our way for us to be accessible to the public in a way that can actually be at our library. But those topics will come later in June. At this point, if you could take a look at the calendar, the schedule for 2021 to 2022 with someone like to make a motion to adopt that new schedule. Well, it's not attached to the board docs. I think Sydney must have sent it out in an email but not attached it in board docs. So we got it through one of the two methods. I apologize. And for those of you who are just looking for it our tendency is always meet on the fourth Thursday at three o'clock. And we tend to move it to a different week like the third week when it's the month of December or the month of March or so there's different to try to avoid any potential holidays. We're just looking, Maeve to see if we can find it. And if we're unable to locate it in a quick time we can certainly put this topic on the agenda for next month. Why don't we just table it? It really should have been attached to board docs anyway. So we'll just do six, three next month. Yep, all right, we will table that. But it does not mean we have any last meeting. They're still there even if they're not on a one page event. So, all right. Moving on to five, excuse me, 6.4. I am going to be appointing Sherry Seth for the finance officer for 2021 to 2022. She has been on the finance committee and she will continue on that committee as their chair and also as the finance officer. You'll all be glad to know that I talked to Sherry ahead of time. I'm not surprising her with this news but I'm very grateful that she is willing to continue in this role. So thank you, Sherry. Moving on then to 6.5. And this is where I always kind of smile because this is a unique arrangement between our board of trustees and the meet public library foundation board. The library board is allowed to have up to two seats on the foundation board and I can appoint but then the foundation board then gets to approve. So I am putting forth the two names of Kathy Norman who is currently their president. So I'm hoping they'll approve her appointment and myself may point. So those names will move forward to the foundation and we will update you next month if that has been a smooth acceptance. Then moving on to 6.6. I would like to appoint Barbara Alvarez to our Monarch Library Board System Board. I think since she did such a lovely job giving us a clear sense of her passion and her background with libraries that is a fitting appointment. And so we're thrilled that Barbara will really strongly represent meet public library on that Monarch Board. And again, you'll be pleased to know I did not surprise Barbara with this. I did talk with her ahead of time and she said that she would be honored to serve on that board on behalf of meet public library. So that's great news for us. And then moving on to 6.7. We have our standing committees and members and I just wanted to share that I will be sending a document with the sheet that has all of the committees as well as the ad hoc committees and who is on them. But I want to let all of you know who are past who are not new on the library board that all of you are remaining in the same committees that you have been in the past. I just wanted to sort of highlight and share that the human resources committee that Kathy Norman will continue on as chair of that committee. As per our bylaws, the vice president of our meet public library board is also chair of the human resources committee. And then for our marketing and services committee, Chris Camp will be the chair of that committee. So our three standing committees all have chairs and a little bit probably within an hour of this meeting you'll get the list of what committees members there are. But as I said, those of you who have been on committees you have remained on that same committee. There's been no changes. So that is where our committees are. Under 6.8, we actually have ad hoc committees and these are committees that are not standing. We just each year determine what needs to be the focus of this board or there's some additional meetings that committees that may only meet once a year. We do have three of them. One of them is the bylaws and policies. One of them is our arts and I've sort of combined that with facility committee. And then our new one is going to be our ad hoc equity committee. And that was the one in our last board meeting we talked about how that would be a great benefit for our library to add that committee. You'll be pleased to know that I have talked Margaret's quivera and ahead of time. Oh, he's trying to look surprised but he will be chair of that committee. And several of you had expressed interest to me prior to this meeting that you would like to serve on that committee. So we've got a great committee going forward for our ad hoc committee. Again, look for the document that I'll be sharing within an hour of all those committees and all the members. The good news is practically all of them are not monthly meetings, they meet as needed. So it really depends on the agenda at hand what committee needs to meet during the year. For those of you who want to be on every committee because you are just so interested in everything that we do as a board member you are allowed to attend all of the meeting. You just need to let the chair know just in case we might be over our board quorum which point we need to specify that in our agenda posting. So if you are someone who really wants to attend every single meeting just let me know and I'll make sure that I work with Sydney to make sure we post it accordingly because it's a special language that we have to use for that. So I think that's it for everything under the election of officers section under number seven our next library board meeting will be June 24th at 3 p.m. And at this time would someone like to make a motion to adjourn? Well, just one more question Maeve are we thinking about meeting in person anytime soon or are we gonna continue with this format? I think at this point we are going to provide both options until we know what our next plan is. I'm hoping in this next month that we determine not only in person virtual because we're still in a pandemic so I think we're still gonna provide that but that's one of the conversations we need to have. And then more importantly talking about is it gonna be at 3 p.m. Or should it be more at 5 p.m. When more the public would have an opportunity to participate if they would like to. And then furthermore whether or not with the technology that we have can we have this meeting in our library which is a little more accessible to our public and the format of how we can perverse as a group is a little more positive experience. It's challenging when we're all in a row in that room to really talk with each other which is how we tend to do our work on this library board. So does that make sense Kathy? Cause I'm kind of anxious for us to get back together in person but we may not have everyone ready to be in a room. I mean we have a room big enough that we can spread out to do that but I think we need to have that discussion next month. Yeah I mean just so you know like the foundation board everybody showed up yesterday other than one person and we had almost everybody had their own little table spread apart from everyone else but there were probably what maybe 15 people in the Roka room. And one person did call in and it was kind of hard cause you're right the camera focus is just at this like this long table. So the person furthest from the table you really can't even see. Yeah it's doable it's just not great but this isn't great either. And I would mention may have Chuck Adams the city attorney did talk about potentially allowing some committees to move out of this venue going forward he said he's reconsidering that policy that they put in place during the pandemic so that everything was recorded. So he's looking at that he didn't give us a deadline when he'd be done with that but he is reevaluating that right now. Wonderful. No it would be very nice. And it's one I'm talking about which one of you mentioned it to me but someone mentioned it not only that they enjoy seeing everyone in person but they really missed the cookies I brought every month. So you know there we go. It's really hard to share cookies through the screen. But all right well thank you for your patience. This is the first time I've had to try to conduct a meeting from a hotel room in Ohio. So I'm really looking forward to actually being in Sheboygan for the next meeting. And with that is there someone who would like to make a motion to adjourn our meeting. So move. Sherry. Been moved and it sounds like it's been seconded. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Sounds like there's nobody saying no to this. So thank you all for taking time today and it's been a lot of positive news for meet public library. So here please express to the entire staff just how grateful we are for all that they have done during this very difficult year. And may have coming from the staff too. We appreciate the support of the board. We really do. Thank you all. Have a great rest of the day everyone. Bye bye.