 Thank you so much for joining us today, September 23, 930 a.m. for the Arts and Historic Subcommittee Meeting City of Columbia. I want to say thank you to the clerk and her staff for bringing us all together virtually and our wonderful city staff planning department, our assistant city managers that are with us today. We're going to go ahead and get into the topic for today. A review of the Amplify Columbia study that has been done through Columbia Compass over several years' time. Lisa Nalgro with OneColumbia is here with us today to give us a brief summary of that study as it pertains to arts and culture and then bring forward some ideas for the arts community and the arts department could possibly look like as an official city of Columbia participant. So with that said, Lee, welcome today. Thank you for carving out some time for us today and all the work you've done with the Amplify group and our city staff at Columbia Compass. Thank you, Councilman. Thank you all for letting me join you today and talk about some of these items. I wanted to quickly introduce where I'm at. I'm joining you from our 1013 co-op which is a cultural space that OneColumbia now manages and has three partner organizations with in North Columbia. It's actually for some of those that you might be familiar, it's the house that the North Columbia Business Association was in for many years here in the Seminary Ridge neighborhood. So we've been in this space for about a year and working with our partner organizations to start developing a plan for really connecting with communities in this. And I say all that to just sort of preface some of the items that I'll talk about in my presentation about what OneColumbia has been doing and what we hope to be able to do and we can talk about what it'll take to be able to get to what we'd like to get to. So I'll go and share my presentation and dive right in. So I'm here to talk to you today about some of the recommendations that were made in the Amplify process, just as a quick refresher, Amplify was essentially a process that was run by OneColumbia and was a standalone process but was ultimately incorporated and thoroughly integrated into the Columbia Compass planning process that you all went through over the last several years. So most of what is in the cultural resources section of Compass is reflected in Amplify. And Amplify was specifically related to creating a cultural plan, sort of a standalone plan that we could use as a cultural community. So I'm going to talk a little bit about that relationship and what's similar in both and kind of how we got to this point. So we started off Amplify a few years ago and the biggest part of it was several years of research, talking to organizations, talking to individual artists, talking to many, many people that are not typically stakeholders in the cultural community or at least perceived as much. But certainly we feel like everyone in the city is a stakeholder in the cultural community. We did speak to a lot of social service organizations, people that were working in lots of different areas. We talked to lots of city staff members. So just a summary of the participation we had, we took in surveys. We had 72 different meeting locations across the city that we met at. They included 106 town hall meetings and conversations. And by our count, it was about just over 1,100 citizens that were directly involved in the process. And then we use eight artists facilitators and they met with neighborhood residents and other constituencies to really dig in on using an art project to really dig in on what their perception of the arts community was and how the arts community might better serve them. All of this was rooted in cultural equity, which is the idea that basically all of our citizens are entitled to cultural experiences and that they should be part of the cultural community and that they should have access to that cultural community. They should be able to attend cultural activities in their area or be able to participate in the city's cultural life. So we had lots of conversations and in Amplify, we provided a report of those conversations. Ones that are specifically relevant to what we're talking about today is that the arts community is very vibrant, but it is lacking in some leadership roles. Specifically, you know, the structure of it doesn't really allow for a lot of technical or management assistance, professional development, community engagement initiatives that really help bring all the organizations together and really connect to citizens of Columbia. Each organization does wonderful work. They're doing a great job. But you need that kind of connecting element to help everybody be working on the same page and certainly why we felt like it was important to have a cultural plan that involved everyone to give us the recommendations that would lead us over the next several years in a unified way. But we need some entity that does that role and serves in that role to kind of bring everybody together. And one Columbia, you know, I think we were created in early 2012. And I think we've really served in that role in the community thus far. I don't know why it's not changing slides. I apologize. There we go. So we have, by all accounts, and based on the research that was done in Amplify, served in the role of a local arts agency. But up to this date, we've never had that formal recognition by council. It wasn't. It just wasn't something. I think that when one Columbia was created that was made formal. We were, we've always had a contract with the city for services provided deliverables. And we'll talk about that in a minute. But we have never received any formal language that recognizes us as the city folk arts agency. And I'll talk a little bit more about what a local arts agency is, but also what a local arts agency does in this presentation. So what they are is essentially organizations that promote, support and develop the arts at a local level. They're very common. They are made up of a lot of different types of organizations. Some cities have an organization that is a nonprofit that serves in that role. Some cities have an office of cultural affairs that is a department of their city government that serves in that role. Some have both. Some even have actual cultural organizations that provide programming that kind of serve in that role as well and help to re-grant or connect the arts community overall. And what we're here to talk about today is specifically a few of the recommendations in Amplify. So the first four recommendations were policy-related recommendations in Amplify Plan and specifically we'll talk today about the idea of creating an office of cultural affairs and more specifically another recommendation increasing investment in a local arts agency. Both of those are actually connected to the Columbia Compass recommendation, which is evaluate the city's organizational support for arts and culture and restructure where necessary, which kind of captured both of those recommendations together and suggested that we would need to do some sort of evaluation, which I think we have done as part of the Amplify plan. And that is what I'm presenting to you today, sort of our recommendations for how to proceed. So local arts agencies, the things they do are they might make grants to local arts organizations. Those grants could come from different sources. They could come from municipalities, but they could also come from larger grants from a state arts commission or the national endowment through the arts and sort of pass through a local entity like the local arts agency and then go to those organizations. They can present their own programming. They can manage cultural facilities. As I mentioned, I'm in 1013 Co-op, something that one Columbia has started in the past year. They can provide service to artists and arts organizations, including professional development or technical assistance, participate in community cultural planning, advocate on behalf of arts-friendly policies and be a liaison to government for partnerships with all different types of entities, business leaders, business development groups, economic development groups, anything goes. And they're a connecting point to then connect, further connect whatever needs are to arts organizations that may be able to respond to those needs or can and add new creative responses to those needs and manage a public art program. And so they really, these kind of organizations really leverage the investment in them to provide an even bigger benefit. By being not so much a middleman but a connecting point, they can really leverage what's available nationally from private foundations and they can bring the arts organizations together in a way that makes all of them more competitive for external funding, funding from private investments, from foundations and from the national endowments for the arts. These are our current deliverables that have been in the contract that you all have reviewed for the last several years. As you'll see, they match up pretty well with what a local arts agency does and how, and so we've essentially been serving in that role but have not received that form of designation. I'm going to talk a little bit about here, about case studies. So earlier I pointed out that we had two recommendations. We had a recommendation for the creation of an office of cultural fairs and an investment in a local arts agency. I want to clarify the distinction between the two and also explain why we have proposed the system for Columbia that we have proposed. Some cities have an office of cultural fairs within their government. Charleston has that system. Their government has a department that serves in the role to promote culture and a lot of the activities that one Columbia does very similarly to carry out events, to manage their city gallery, to handle permitting or ticket projects and they exist within the city government and they have that role in connecting different departments of the lots of city functions. These, like Greenville, have a local arts agency that is a non-profit separate from the city government. And in Greenville, it's called the Metropolitan Arts Council. They serve the Greenville area. They handle some processes on behalf of the city. They connect with their public art policies. They connect with all their arts organizations and they lead some activities as well and market Greenville on behalf of the whole arts community and they work closely with city government, but they are separate and then the third model, the third case study, and we provided all these case studies as part of COMPAS. So we were already looking at this structure when COMPAS was approved. A third case study is Houston, which has a sort of hybrid model. It both has an office of cultural fairs within the city that is just a couple of staff, in this case three staff members, and they are charged with leading essentially in implementing a cultural plan, cultural policy. And they are in the room and in meetings and they are looking for opportunities where the arts can be integrated to other city functions. And they also work closely with a group called the Houston Arts Alliance that is a separate non-profit that is their local arts agency in Houston. They are the implementation arm in the aspect of the arts community there. They are bringing together the arts community. They are working with different partners and they're doing lots of different things including managing an arts calendar and trying to work with neighborhoods directly. And they have a slightly bigger stuff because they are the more implementation arm, but you can see the difference in budget sizes and how they're able to leverage the funds and the investment from the city government. And that's what we are proposing in Amplify. In lots of conversations that our consultant Margie Rees had with different entities, thinking through what gains have been made through OneColumbia or other organizations over the years in Columbia, thinking about our civic structure, she felt strongly and I think ultimately persuaded OneColumbia as well that the best suited direction for Columbia would be a similar hybrid model. If we were to switch to one or the other, we could potentially lose some ground. We are essentially working under the non-profit model such as Greenville, but what we lack is some person in the city government structure that has some cultural background that can be in the right spaces to think about what opportunities are available and as a way to kind of speak for the city's cultural community within city government. And so what we're proposing is a hybrid model. Now, I don't want to focus too much today on the specifics of an office of cultural affairs because we have sort of set that a little bit on the back burner. It is part of what we're discussing today, but I know that the city has been under a high increase due to the pandemic. And so it's not something I think what we need to act on immediately. It is something we should discuss again in the future. What we're specifically talking about today is recognizing OneColumbia as its local arts agency and sort of clarifying that relationship so that we can be serving this city better. The reason for that is because there are grant opportunities specific for, specifically for local arts agencies and a lot of them are regranting opportunities. So there are opportunities for Columbia to receive funds that then gets distributed to many of its arts organizations. We have missed one because we don't have a local arts agency that was designated from the NEA in the American Rescue Plan. And so there were funds available. I think grants were up to $150,000 that would come to local arts agencies specifically for subgranting and going to arts organizations. And no organization currently has the recognition needed in Columbia to be able to apply for this. And so Columbia was therefore ineligible. And there are other similar opportunities that Columbia should avail of certainly with the quality, the breadth and the size of our arts community that we should be taking advantage of. And so if we were to be able to move forward and have one Columbia serve in the role of an office of cultural fair, or sorry, I apologize for my language, a local arts agency, then we would be able to avail of these opportunities. We'd have an organization in that position to be able to take advantage of it and then work with all the collaborating organizations that we've worked with over the years here in Columbia and bring in new funds to the community and help strengthen everything. As it stated in Amplify, we have made great grounds under one Columbia's model, but we are still limited in being able to take on a larger role because we're not listed as the official local arts agency. And that prevents us from really availing of opportunities like I just described. So what we're ultimately here to ask today and specifically discuss any further, if you have questions is getting recognition by city council for one Columbia for arts and culture to be the official city of Columbia local arts agency in order to open us up for funding opportunities and to begin to act on the city's behalf in a more formal way. And then through that define more in our contract about our role as one Columbia and what we can be offering the city. So that we're really working closely with your vision for the city of Columbia. Mr. Chairman. Yes, Lee, thank you for that presentation. Councilman Devault. Lee, that was a very good summary of where we, the discussions we've had about one Columbia and a local arts agency. And I think that it's incumbent on us to immediately ask the city council to adopt a resolution at our next meeting to designate one Columbia as a local arts agency. Coming with that will be some support that we need to be able to give one Columbia for an enhanced role. I know that we have in our current budget a position for grants writer. And I think that we need to see if we can procure somebody that could be that grant writer to assist Lee and other departments in the city, not only one Columbia but others. I think a talented person coming in could help Lee keep his eye out for opportunities like the American Rescue Plan and other things and that some of those could be used as additional revenue for one Columbia to further staff up. When I had a conversation with Lee a few weeks back, I think if we could get that grants person hired, designate one Columbia as a local arts agency and start looking in our city of resources either this year or for next year's budget for around another hundred thousand dollars worth of support for one Columbia to staff up a little bit more for doing the roles that a local arts agency does. Lee is basically a one person shop. And if we are going to expect them to do the things that amplify, suggests can be done by a local arts agency, we do need to give them further support. But until we could get that support, I think that if we designate that local arts agency, it will give one Columbia the opportunity to look for other resources that are also that are already available that could help help them with staffing also. Councilor McDowell, please leave. You want to take it off share screen so we could see see everybody. I can't see who's raising hands. It is now on visibly. There he is. Are you going to? Hey, right. How's everybody? Lee, let me ask you this. Conceptually, yes, I agree with that. And I think the specifics of what we need. Can we get that? I think how to correct that grant writer would help in our resources and our funding capabilities. It would seem to me that that would be the first step. The specifics and all of this, of course, would sort of help us look at where the funding sources we could perhaps use to make this whole thing happen. So I think that's the first. Wonderful. Miss Wilson, thank you. And Lee, thanks so much. And I really appreciate the fact that we've gotten to this point today to have the discussion because Lee has been really patient on with our city staff trying to work through the amplify recommendations already have presented those to us and given us some things to think about. You know, I don't disagree with Lee's a focused approach on the two top things that need to occur, which is definitely the designation as a local arts agency. And a focus on the grant dollars. I guess what I would caution everyone about is where do we really want to end up? And if it's something transformational, as far as our approach to a hybrid model or either one or an expanded version of what one Columbia is already going into pulling it totally internal to the city with hopefully Lee's guidance along the way as we do that and possible ultimate participation as a city staff or whatever that would look like. If we can focus on arts agency, but I think what I'm hearing, if we designate one Columbia as such, then that sort of means that we're saying that one Columbia is going to continue to exist as it currently does. If we if we go to that immediately. And so if that's what the council committee's recommendation is to the full council, then, you know, I'm good with that. If the council committee is wanting to still explore some other possibilities about these models, I think we need to get maybe a little bit more information on what it would look like and how we would fund the hybrid model and or an office of cultural affairs for the city. So I know Mr. Brennan has done some research as well about other cities like Raleigh, for example, and I've talked to the staff about beginning that research on if there was a portion very small of hospitality tax dollars that was designated every year towards this effort to help fund an office and or a hybrid model, what would that look like? And and if so, with the designation still be with Columbia would be with the city's office of cultural affairs or what I said, I'm good with either way. I just think we need to think about before we say for certain where the designations going to go because that makes it does. Thank you, Miss Wilson. Councilman DeWall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. City Manager, I think that we are not setting in stone the future. We are saying that we need to get up and running quickly and that the quickest way to do that is to designate one Colombian existing non-profit as our local arts agency. I think that would give us time to look at what I think a hybrid model, I think a small office of cultural affairs in the City Manager's office would somebody that could be the out front person for promoting the arts and culture in Colombia on your staff, attending staff meetings, listening to projects that are coming up to look for connections between the arts and culture with all the projects that the City of Colombia has on the drawing board and will have on the drawing board. But I think that could be re-evaluated on a yearly basis. But I think that what we're trying to do now is just get up and running because I think we're missing out on opportunities for funding that are coming down from the federal government and through the state agencies of the Arts Commission that designating the local arts agency being the first step but not the last step. Well, and I appreciate us getting up and running Councilman DeVall for sure. And I hope there is a way for us to do that. I guess because this discussion has been ongoing for so long and we continue to kind of kick the can down the curb. I'm advocating why we get up and running and before the next budget cycle that I have some more clear direction about what we really wanted to ultimately look like. And I don't want us to box ourselves into something that I can't give you all some recommendations on how to fund in the next budget cycle so that we can then begin to know with certainty what this is ultimately going to look like. If it's internal to the city type thing, then I want to try to take that on sooner than later so that the grants writer that we are in the process of hiring for the city can certainly get up and run in with helping with some of that. I don't think that that is the grants writer who would ultimately staff office of cultural affairs solely when that person already is attending to grants across the city. If this is to be what I'm thinking you all want it to be and what Lee is is asking for, that is a whole another probably staff person or a part of a staff person's responsibility just for that effort. And we have someone now we're contracting with the parts of recreation and Henry Simons is on as well, which has been working nicely for the parts and rent foundation. I think there's a lot of interconnectivity here with some things that we really need to kind of look at and see if there is an office of cultural affairs that could possibly encompass some of these various things. That's my thoughts and no way am I saying I don't want us to get up and running with the designation, but I would hate for us to make a designation and then have to, you know, somehow change that. I don't think it would be a big deal change this evening Mr. Chairman, but I don't think it'd be a big deal to change the local arts agency in the future if we had to do that if we thought that was the way to go. I don't see that in the next two or three years being the way we need to go because I don't think we can we'll find enough funding to do that. Councilman Dow, you had some comments. Yes, let me ask this Lee. I need more if we if we look at this in its hybrid model. I need some more specifics as relates to that. I think the implication of how it would relate to the city. It has to it has to be a sort of like a two-edged sword. I need I need more clarification and I know you can't give specifics right now. But that hybrid model, talk to me a little bit about that. Yes, sir, I'm happy to and that will respond to some of city managers comments as well. There are a couple reasons we identify the hybrid model as right for Columbia. One was that moving a one Columbia like organization into the city structure would probably. Change how arts organizations are are currently functioning in a in a way that might be disrupted. They would have to become used to a different structure and how they're working. There would also be a loss of some of the momentum we've gained. So one Columbia currently is doing lots of work on the city's behalf in terms of public art. In terms of some of the city planning actions like cultural planning or working on different parklet projects and working as a consultant for the public art process that you all ran with the parks foundation for those murals. So there are functions that one Columbia has been providing that would have to change pretty dramatically and could cause some significant disruption if that office becomes fully part of the city of Columbia. And what we're really recommending is it's sort of the idea that the city of Columbia would hire maybe one or two people in an office of cultural affairs that just generally kept carried out the work on the city's behalf in culture mostly responsible for defining and carrying out and enforcing the city's cultural policy. And yet we don't currently have a cultural policy that is one of the recommendations may amplify is to more firmly create a cultural policy that then that office would be responsible for. They would also be in some ways grant seeking. They would be building projects. They would be a person who sees the connection when the parks on the parks department or the parks foundation are making, you know, coming up with new projects to seek grants for or even work with public works or work with the planning department in lots of different ways and be a connector of city agencies in order to better integrate cultural activities. But we're not talking about an outsized office or, you know, carrying out huge significant functions of the city in terms of culture. Well, and then the high the local arts agency portion, the one Columbia aspect that we're suggesting would be more of the implementation. There would be the boots on the ground working with arts organizations, working with neighborhoods, working with all the citizens to implement those projects that come up that could be working with artists to provide services to neighborhoods to serve in the role of residencies and be active in the neighborhood setting. Or it could mean that, you know, one Columbia would likely and it would make sense based on what we're doing to be responsible for the city's collection of public art and creating and commissioning new ones like we already are, but also, you know, maintaining and being responsible for the existing pieces that are that city already has. Um, this is, uh, I think, you know, for so for Columbia, something, you know, not trying to emulate another city. This would seem like the right approach because it both allowed us to not lose any momentum that has been built up over the last several years and still create new infrastructure that would then serve the arts community for many years to come and would help serve the city in integrating cultural activity into what's already a vibrant community. And so that's what we're saying. And I don't think that if you were to debt tomorrow to recognize one club is a local arts agency that if you change that model in the future and you were able to maybe during a cultural policy creation process, determine that Columbia is better suited. There's no reason that that couldn't be shifted or changed and adjusted because ultimately, I think our Indian goals are the same. You know, one Columbia was designed to work on the city's behalf and really serve the city. And so we take direction for many of the visions and policies that you're already creating in terms of how we operate and engage citizens in cultural activity and bring together the cultural community. So I don't think that there would be any issues in the future if if a structure was determined that it needed to be adjusted. But I think what we've seen and what our research has shown through the amplify process is that this sort of hybrid model would prevent disruption and keep us moving on the path we've been on, while also improving the communication and and clearly defining responsibilities among the different partners in the cultural community. Great. Thank you so much, Lee. Any other comments? City staff, Ed, Howard? No. Wonderful. Go ahead. Well, I think I think we got the ball rolling. No question about that. And I think that there's some additional conversations that perhaps as we seek to clarify what model and my position is trying to clarify what model that's going to look like and how it's going to be rolled out again. I think that grant writers position is critical. But that's just our first step right now. I tend to think that the model that hybrid model looks good. And I think it provides us with an opportunity to not only keep this ball rolling, but to at least keep that ball in par. Great. Thanks. Howard, any final thoughts? Mr. Chairman, I think we all would you like a motion? I'll make a motion that we ask the city staff to come up with a resolution that our next meeting designating one to one. Yeah, no motion. So we're kidding if you don't mind. Howard, what I would like to do is work work with. That's a that's a better question. That's great. This person is great. I'm sure about that. Howard, Mr. Meenask and Ms. Fowley, you were wrong about some. All right. What do they say? They said we don't make motions in so committee. One, I would like to look short term conversation with city staff immediately about the up and running aspects. I know time is to the essence when it comes to the federal grants that are coming through the pipeline with the American rescue items. So, you know, in the next couple of days, we'd like to catch up Ms. Wilson with you and staff and get feedback on the near term. I guess path forward the hybrid model, the need for for that structure, I think is a longer range discussion. I would also love to get feedback from other arts communities or participants in the communities about, you know, what these offerings bring bring for them, you know, the ultimate goal for one Columbia in a position like this is to, you know, at the end of the day, answer what what kind of support can we bring to the arts community in Columbia? That is that should be the goal and I want to work towards that. So with that said, is there any other comments, questions for Lee? Lee, I just want to say I thank you for your excuse me, I thank you for conceptually rolling this out. It has the opportunity to provide a real atmosphere in our city to not only expand the cultural arts in our city, but also to look at this thing holistically and say this is the good thing for our city. My my my thinking right now is to look at this to have I think all of us are going to be looking at this now and looking at how this hybrid model is going to fit in the parameters of what we want to do as a cultural center. Great point that this was thank you Councilman. I just had two quick clarifying questions for Lee. One, the 10 is a 1013 co-op Lee? Yes, ma'am. The space you're in. Is that where your offices are? No, we're still retaining our office downtown right now. We've been able to do that despite the sort of financial challenges with pandemic. This partnership at the 1013 co-op is funded by the partners. Each of us contributes a small amount to be able to make sure that this place stays open and we all contribute in kind effort to keep this activity going. So we have not moved our offices here. It is primarily for the three partner organizations we have. We do have a presence here. We're you know, I'm here now and I work here periodically. But really it was to retain some cultural space in the North Columbia area that had been created by Indie grits and also to really start building out some networks. We've already been in talks with the various neighborhoods up here, Hyde Park, Winter Springs and Seminary Ridge. And then and and we hope to, you know, have this space really serve the communities in this area with programming that is maybe derived from things that they're already doing in this area. But we have not moved our offices officially here. So operational support for your office space is still part of the contractual arrangement and funds you might get. Correct. I mean, you know, we'd be open to research and other options on that. But we we think that our office downtown provides plenty of resources for arts organizations as well. We have many organizations on pre pandemic when people could actually meet in person. People are using our office regularly for those meetings. We had individual artists use that space. It was a available space for people to come and learn about the cultural community, what was going on and also to, you know, carry out their own professional development activities, connect with us in lots of different ways. So that office, the board determined that that office was still vital to the work that one can be. And then my second question, do you currently have staff or and or yourself who work on grants and will be able to work on any hypothetically the grants that you would be able to apply for through the designation? It is essentially my responsibility. So we we are a staff of two people, a director, position and an office manager. And the office manager is kind of the assistant. They're doing marketing. They're doing day to day budget record keeping, financial record keeping. They're doing some artist services working to identify opportunities for individual artists in some program management, but largely sort of keeping track of the day to day, making sure that artists and arts organizations have access to our resources, be they easels or our conference room or whatever. Neither of us is specifically focused on grants, but it would fall to me. And we have been able to get some over the years. We were fortunate enough at the beginning of the pandemic, we were in a position to be able to quickly respond and roll out artists emergency grants from the Knight Foundation through the Central Carolina Community Foundation because of the structure of OneColumbia being a similar umbrella organization, we were able to distribute those funds within a month. So receive them, identify artists that applied for them and quickly turn around and distribute them. So we've had success in sub granting quickly and efficiently and in a transparent way. And we've been able to do that with the staff we have. What we're kind of recommending at this stage is not necessarily overly focusing on a specific grants person because there, you know, I have some background in grants and we have if I could be freed up from doing some of the activities I'm doing with neighborhoods or with public art, then I think we could have, you know, the director position take a little bit more responsibility for building that relationship and working with those granting organizations. While then what we'd like to see is some step member that is directly working with neighborhoods One of the recommendations of Amplify is to develop neighborhood cultural plans and work directly with neighborhoods to identify what assets they have, what kind of cultural activities are happening there. And I think we could build a lot of really great relationships with the neighborhood organizations to then connect them to arts organizations so that there's a greater delivery of cultural everyone in Columbia in all parts of the city. And that's going to take some time. And then we also think that, you know, there's so much public art happening in the city of Columbia that we think we we could use an extra set of hand to carry out those public art projects and really manage the city's collection of public art and make sure it's still a prominent part of how the city of Columbia is recognized for tourism aspects and other things. Thank you. That was very comprehensive and I appreciate that. Mr. Simons. Good morning, everyone. Awesome presentation, Lee. I just wanted to add a comment that through the work of the Art Center with Brenda Oliver, you know, we do have an established relationship with the Saigon Arts Commission and we have received several grants. There will be more than one to work with you as well. Yeah. And I think the Art Center has done a great job. It serves a lot of roles in terms of workshops for citizens. I don't have some instruction, but it doesn't serve the role that I'm talking about a Office of Cultural Affairs or more specifically, a local arts agency does in terms of providing more blanket resources for individual artists. It's limited in its capacity, but it does a great job in terms of, you know, citizen connection to arts activities. And it's a necessary part. And yes, and what we're proposing is not to take away any opportunities that the Art Center or other agencies of the city would be able to avail of from the Arts Commission and all that. We're just adding to the pile and being a conduit for additional support and seeking additional funds and not trying to disrupt anything that might be already in existence. I think we're missing opportunities and we can expand on some of those opportunities that already exist. Well, so I do understand there's a difference in what you are. You are proposing versus what's actually going on. But I just wanted to share that there is a lot of UV around grant writing about in the arts center. So anything that we can do to help collaborate and work with you, we would want to do that. And just to clarify, we've had some key relationships with the Arts Commission thus far. We are the statewide organization that serves the Poetry Out Loud program. So we distribute funds from the Arts Commission to statewide partners to conduct activities that where students can participate in a poetry recitation competition. And then we also have recently built a relationship with them around professional development for artists and seeking to help artists that want to become entrepreneurs and build a business. That program just started. We had our first workshop this week about general business opportunities. We even connected, even though it's a statewide program, we're able to connect with the Office of Business Opportunities and they presented as part of that program. So we have a good, strong, established relationship with the Arts Commission. And I've already talked to them that they certainly could see opportunity in working with one Columbia as a local arts agency to help redistribute grant funds from the NEA that they already have in place. They would actually serve artists to expand the pot of resources that would be available to them that they were to apply for grants if we were to be able to create that stronger relationship. So I think there are opportunities that we have in hand if we're able to be recognized as a local arts agency. Great, thanks so much, Lee. Thank you, Mr. Simons. Erica, do we have any public comment, any public input? Anybody on the phone lines or anything? No, sir, we don't typically connect the phone lines during committee. Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, for residents that might be watching this now, if you have any questions, please feel free to email us as we as we learn more about this wonderful public presentation that Lee made today. I think it is important that we put this out to our residents in the form of this presentation to consider these proposals. Exciting, exciting stuff could come from this. So if there's no other comments or questions, I'd like to say thank you to everyone for participating today and look forward to more conversations very soon with city staff on the up and running approach for OneColumbia. All right. Thank you, Mike. Thanks, everybody. Have a good day. Thank you, Mr. Brenna. Thank you, Lee.