 I'll go ahead and start it just so that we can try and end on time. So we're starting here at 7.01 on November 20th, and who's taking the minutes tonight? You know everyone, right? It's always Tracy. It's always Tracy now, right? Okay, sorry. This is like throwback to when we used to have rotating minute takers. Excellent. Okay. So approval of the previous month's minutes. Did anybody catch anything that needs fixing? Ah, yeah. We just started. Glad to see you. Can you hear us okay? Alright. Cool. Did anybody have any problems with the previous month's minutes? No? Okay. Does anyone want to move to approve the minutes as written? Okay. Anyone want a second? One second. Excellent. Thank you. Okay. The next minutes have been approved. Alright. Do we have any members of the public that I don't see? We do not. Okay. Moving on. Monthly icebreaker. Jimmy. Okay. So today you get kind of an easy one, and you get a choice. So for those of you who- Hi, Suzy. Hi. Just in time for our icebreaker. Okay. Hi, Suzy. Hi. Okay. And it's a bit of a choose your own adventure. Okay. So. Suzy. Okay. Distractions. Yes. If you are somebody who celebrates Thanksgiving, what is the one food you most look forward to every year? Maybe you celebrate. Maybe you don't. Maybe you don't like food with Thanksgiving, traditional Thanksgiving foods. If you don't want to answer that question, you can tell me what your favorite condiment is that you would take with you to a deserted island. Oh. Oh, man. I like that it's a condiment, not a food. I know. Specifically a condiment. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Does anybody want to go first? I'm live. Well. So, can we answer both? If you want. Yeah. I mean, I have an answer for both. So, selfishly for food, it's bread, because I bake bread. So, I mean, I know what I'm getting, and that's what I look forward to. And I look forward to people enjoying it. Although I'm not making it this year. A condiment on a deserted island would be a jalapeno stuffed cocktail on it. Oh. Okay. That's very specific. Isn't it, though? Yeah. I don't have that answer other than what I mentioned there. I never had one. Just a cocktail on it. Okay. So, if that's a condiment, John, what do you think goes with it? Gin. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. And I'm just like, okay. Here, we can't cross the names. Condiment territory in my mind is a beverage territory. Is this in Garnish? Or is it the same- Garnish. It's a condiment. It's a condiment island in this grocery store. Okay. Expansive definition. I like it. That's good. So, now that this is a recorded meeting, I kind of wish I would have chosen so far. Yeah. It's okay. It's all right. That's right. A scandal. A scandal. I'm going to go with stuffy, I don't know, like cornbread, stuffy, okay, cornbread stuffy. Okay. Do you put it in the bird or whatever? What's that? Do you put it in the bird or is that too risky? No, actually I do put it in the bird, but I have, I put it with, what is that, the cheesecloth? Yeah, so I put it in there. And then, yeah, then I just like kind of heat it up, you know, kind of puff it up in the, just like a skillet. Give it a little more. So it's not so watery. Yeah, it's like a tip. Oh, tip. Yeah. Yeah. I just follow the directions on the box. Nothing fancy. That's good. Do we outdo it? Is it either or or was it just? It's supposed to be either or. Either or. Okay, okay. I'm getting a lot of food. I've already started, but I think my favorite is apple pie. Plastic, like a classic. And this year, I bought the apples like a month ago and I've been saving them in cold storage because I wanted to make sure that I got the varieties I wanted from the local orchard. And she wasn't sure she was going to still have any by last weekend. So. Wow. So which kind of, so good. It's here. I go to Yaya a lot. And although we were from Pennsylvania, my dad always brings apples back. My dad still helps manage a farm in Pennsylvania and he brings apples back and forth, but they're not my favorite. On the apples. And so this year, Yaya, there's the great burns and the John and Gold that I'm going to do a mix. Oh, that's good. Do you make the crust too? Yeah, gluten-free. So it's been a real learning curve over the years, but now the gluten-free crust is better than the regular anyway. So I finally found a recipe that's from American tips. That's Kitchen Gluten-Free Cookbook. Oh, yeah. That's a good tip. I love apple pie. Anybody else? So part of my family still reads Thanksgiving and part of it doesn't. So the years that I do view the Thanksgiving thing, cranberry sauces, what I use the most. From the jar? I'm not really sure how they make it. The true American way is to squeeze it out of a can. My dad brings a jar to my house because I don't make it. He brings his own jar and he just has it on a side plate. Right. Yeah, I always just do the travels. Okay, Jamie, you want to go or you want to go? Yeah, well, so I like a lot of the Thanksgiving sides. I don't eat turkey, but you know, most of the sides I eat throughout the year. But what I look forward to when Thanksgiving comes around is mashed potatoes, most of all, with, it's got to be like processed gravy, can't be like the real thing. No cranberries are harmed in my cranberry sauce. It's the canned stuff, I don't know how real that is. I'm coming out as unbeatable. Oh, yeah. And then like, kind of like what Joan was saying. It just has to go there. That comes like about now, you have to do more. So there's a book called Salt, Fat, Acid, Eat About, like a chef's take on life, and she has a whole section on Thanksgiving and 13 cranberry sauce and all the elements. I love that all the way, because I know what I'm going to get. Oh, I have her. Not water, that's all I need. My family's story about me. Have you seen that miniseries for that book? No, I haven't. Yeah, I just kind of listened to the audio book. Yeah, it's a four-part miniseries and she's so sweet and lovely, like just as a person. And then the food of course is amazing in all the different countries she visits. I really recommend it. I think it's on Netflix. I remember it. Well, that's fun. I love, and I actually really like Thanksgiving food. I like making it. I like having Thanksgiving, but this is really gross if you're a vegetarian. I'm sorry, but the only part I really like is the turkey skin, and only if it's real crispy. For years I was a vegetarian, doing my kids a vegetarian, so I totally get it that it's gross, but to be honest, it's the skin that I like. I don't care for stuffing or mashed potatoes or gravy. My husband absolutely loves all those things and makes it all, which is good. I make green bean salad, but the Martha Stewart version, because my grandma made the canned green bean soup version. So it's nostalgic for me. So I like making that and then I make a pumpkin pie and scratch, which I like to like actually cook the pumpkin and do all that ice. So I think I enjoy the process more than the product. And I don't know about a condiment, not a big condiment person, but I know a big bread person when you said that John, baguettes, the only true French baguettes in America as far as I'm concerned are from Baguettes Bakery. If you haven't been, it's just on the street here, unreal. I would take those any day over any condiment. Really good, over any condiment. The cheese and porter place, they bring them in from Canada somewhere, and you can get them baked or par baked, and they have French flour, that's why they bring it all the way from that far. They're good, I mean I don't know, as much as I've been a bread baker and do it. Have you been to Baguettes? No. Oh my gosh, seriously the best pastries, like the Cider Friends, unreal. I know, don't say that. Do you know the prospect they've ever been? That's where it is. Yeah, it's in there, it's tucked in there. This is the very kind of product of Trace's. Trace's lasts, I mean how can you beat everybody? Well, I guess that's traditional, but I've always loved pumpkin pie, so that's what I look forward to, sometimes I don't even wait for Thanksgiving to make it. And it's one of the things that's been easiest for us to adapt for our diet, so it's easier to figure out some other recipes, so that's one of the things I always look forward to. And then, I don't know if anyone else has heard of this, but there's a, basically like salsa sort of, but it's called Pickle Baguio, and it's made with like chunks of cucumber and kind of like brined, like red peppers, but it's basically like pico baguio, but pickles. Oh! I would use that, I love pickles, and it's really good, they have some spicy versions, which I didn't try, but the mild version was very good, it'd be like this and that kind of flavor, so. Where would one find this? It's a few different grocery stores, I normally buy it at natural groceries, and just in the deli, or through the other pickles and stuff, but it's very good. Yeah, it's not sweet, it doesn't, it's just basically like pickles, like kind of small chunks of pickles, but it has more like the texture and stuff of like pico baguio, it's kind of like that. It's not as like saucy, it's definitely more like, you know, cleaner, yeah, like chopped vegetables, more than just like a relish, but it's a real thing. Yeah, my favorite, yeah. Yeah, so many good tips here. It's been extremely beneficial. It's like a thing to eat after the dinner hour. Otherwise we'd all be starving. Alright, well thank you, that was fun to me, it was a good one. Are we going to move on, anybody? Any final thoughts on that? Okay, I can't really always tell. I mean, we've been like going forever. Yeah, that's true. Anyway, I was nodding, I think we're fine. Okay. Alright, so next item of new business is the post-election deep rooted thing. Cindy and I had a quick debrief when she and I spoke prior to the meeting. So I can share a few thoughts, but of course, I'm very curious to hear what you all think and Cindy, excuse me, Susie, your perspective, of course from the council and just personally, I'm curious about. So does anybody want to kick it off or do you want to hear what Cindy and I had talked about first? I don't mind just kicking that off a little bit, just pass it along. You know, I think it's obvious we're disappointed. I can honestly say that I was probably more surprised by how much the library ballot, really any of them, by how much they didn't pass. But I cannot honestly say that by the time the results were coming in, I was completely in shock that it didn't pass. I just felt there were a lot of uphill battles to get this or any of them passed, even though you remain helpful. I just feel like there were a lot of things up against it. I mean, the timing of it, you know, it wasn't referred to the ballot until the last minute legally allowed, which left no time to really form any sense of the campaign. It was just going to be hard as much as I wanted it to. So it's where we're at and we have to kind of just take a gulp and move forward and see what we can do next. I also, you know, this is a board meeting. I can't help but at least publicly acknowledge the friends of the library and the board, but the friends actually financially contributed to a campaign and tried to help with some of that with some digital campaigning and signage and, you know, other aspects to try and make and some letters to the editor that some here wrote and some other friends wrote. So I do want to express my appreciation for that publicly because that means a lot. You know, it didn't hit the result we wanted. It was a whole lot. We got advocacy and support there. Thanks. Any other reactions? Probably echo John's disappointment. I also echo the gratitude for the friends and other community members who did speak out, who talked to people. It was absolutely a group effort, even if it wasn't an enormous one, by campaign standards. I wasn't shocked. I was disappointed. The most surprising thing to me was actually the numbers. You know, this is the first local election that I've been this closely following. And to see the turnout in terms of numbers was pretty surprising. So by my rough calculations, you know, we had about 650-ish people who voted yes for the library, you know, which relative to the population of Longmont isn't that much. But, you know, it's a lot more residents than I know personally. So I'm grateful for those 600. And it also seemed like the all three initiatives came in about the same, you know, within a point or two, percentage point or two, of one another. So that was also information for me in that there wasn't clear preference by the voters for one versus the other, which would, I think, help you to really make that interpretation that this was just a bad year for asking anyone to spend more. That, for me, is my takeaway. I felt like, you know, John talked about the timing of the late timing of getting it on the ballot. And I think just the timing of where we are, where we're kind of in a period of contraption right now and let's go conservative as the, as folks are still coming out of the pandemic. And it just felt like this is not, it just feels like lean years. And so it was, again, interesting to see by how much all new taxes were structured. Like any new tax basically was like, not interesting to people right now. And so I really think it's a real timing thing. I'm kind of where we are financially right now. Well, I can just add, I think, Cynthia, I talked about many of the things you did. I think we felt, or we talked about at least a little bit of just confusion or frustration that maybe, Susie, you could shed some light on too, of just kind of like, why did anybody think it was a good idea to run three tax questions at the same time? Like, how was that ever going to work out in anybody's favor in a purple, slash so I libertarian type state and city? So I guess just in terms of like how that all ended up being that way, Cynthia and I were feeling a little sense of frustration or just confusion around why that was the choice that was made when it seems like there might have been other ways for that to happen. And I think my big concern is just like, I'm worried this is going to send a message to the city council that they don't need to fully fund the library because the voters didn't choose to show a lot of support for that. And kind of to Jamie's point, I don't necessarily think that's a good interpretation of these results because I really think it was more of an anti-tax kind of to Jamie as well. It was an anti-tax reaction as far as I can tell and this was a regressive tax. So as much as I promoted it and wanted it to pass because that's our only hope, I still don't think it was a good tax. I don't think we should fund a public service with a regressive tax like that. So personally, so anyway, I just have questions about that and I'm worried about the repercussions of the messaging that made the interpretation that one could draw from it that people don't really want the library to be fully funded. And I don't think that's something that I'm comfortable with people taking away from this. Cheyenne, did everybody on the board get to, I don't know if everyone had a chance to talk about it. One of the things, so we are going to have a council debrief, so we're going to discuss this as a council. One of the things that I noticed because I was running for re-election was that in each one of our races we had candidates who were aggressively against. Like they were very vocal and against and one of them even used it as the reason to run is because so there was, I think, I was very angry in the sense that we had people coming in and using this for political gain. And I'm just going to, I'm just going to say it, I don't know. Because, you know, I was really angry because in the sense it hurt us all. When I've spoken, I had a chance to chat with people at the NGLA and they were the groups leadership association. And, you know, one of the things that I said, and it's funny because a couple of people were like, they acted like they hadn't heard this before. I've been saying it every month, every month. And it gets to the point where I wonder if people were just hearing what they want to hear. But we have staff who are working above and beyond to give us the services that our community is accustomed to and, you know, and meeting the needs of the community. And so then if we came, well, you know, we have everything. It's like, well, if we, you know, pull that, you know, just pull people so tight, we're going to lose good people. So that was very frustrating to hear that. You know, as we were looking at some, you know, we have the capital part, but then we also have the sales tax portion to cover ongoing. And, and then, you know, just having that conversation with, you know, and I've had conversations with people afterwards. And I think it was, what was it, what was it, $67. Is that correct for the library one? There was one fine for the property tax and then it was like 15 cents on 100 dollars. So it was, okay, yeah. So it was like a lot, and then I think there was a direct center that was 100 or 500,000. You know, so we're talking about, you know, what were the impacts to the individual person? People were, well, you know, it's not that bad. Why did you go for it? And I think people got caught up in a lot of the anti-message. And so that was something that made me very frustrating seeing that from a candidate because as I'm going to the doors and talking with residents, I didn't really notice that in the 2019. I mean, maybe I wasn't paying attention. I didn't see it as prominent as I did in this election. So, and the fact that it came at the same time as age to age. So that was the other thing. And I think, well, I would really recommend in the future that if we pass a local measure that it is not at the same time that we have the municipal city council running. Because I noticed that there were people who wanted to see this fail so they could come up with a better solution. So that was some of it. I mean, it was it was very petty and it was hurt our community that that was my take. So I haven't had a chance to really chat with other council members yet. We'll get it on the agenda and I'll find out the next time we need when that will be. So that one, I think, you know, lining with age-age, I think that that I wanted to see if the percentage of, you know, how much age-age failed. You know, it would have been I would have liked to see what the numbers did people just go straight down the ballot. No, no, no, no. And you know, we had the, I remember in the early stages when we were talking about having the equity or, you know, it was a culture and equity tax. I can't remember what we called it then. But it was something that was going to be all together as one. And then as we were talking with, you know, the Parks and Rec Board and, you know, other, I think, you know, looking at wanting it to be separate, you know, to having it not all come together because they were afraid that it would be a sticker shop. Not just that, but then you would have people who were in favor of one, but maybe not. Yes, yes. Picking choose. Picking choose. So the benefit to having it this way would have been had people just picked and choose which ones were their priority. But it really looked like everybody just went no all the way down. And yes, so that was, I would really recommend that we do not do a local measure at the same time we have city council races. So that can't be used based on what I saw this past election. I mean, I had other thoughts. I can't remember. But there was a lot of things going. You know, and the thing is we were writing these measures based on what our constraints with Tabor are. I mean, it's, and you look at any kind of measure that we have to put on the ballot, it is confusing. You know, I don't know how how we can make it any easier. The piece with having the property tax along with the sales tax was so that the burden wouldn't be just on one, you know, on one party. So, you know, we tried, but it'll be interesting to hear, you know, the input from everybody else on council. Thank you. Does anyone want to follow up on anything that's been said so far? Just that I was sad to how much ugliness I saw online. I'm not super naive. But, you know, again, with the being new to local elections, and, you know, we're talking about things here that really should be these supercharged, emotional, provocative things, right? You're out of form and you're against them, but, you know, I'm not going to completely insult and diminish your humanity because you're in favor of like a local tax measure, right? And the types of things that I was seeing online, it's like, I was telling myself like, you silly, like, of course, you know how people are in these spaces. And, you know, it was just kind of a little, I don't know, deflating that there were there were both residents and candidates who were taking the opportunity. To get in there and say, you know, would you vote for this, you are one of these types of people. And I think, you know, one of the other contributors is the type of national political party. And so there were a lot of folks who are already riled up and ready to make judgments against people's entire being. Because of what they supported it. Yeah. And I don't think it's going to impact or how counsel use the library. I think, like for me, I really want to look at the budget as a whole. And, you know, what are what are these things that we're prioritizing? Let's look in and kind of reevaluate things. I don't know anybody. I mean, that's just me. I don't know anybody else. I'm just looking at you like you're crazy. But I really, I want to take a deeper look and see what we can do, you know, from the inside. But it was, it was very sad to see all that good girl. And these are just, so now we're waiting for, you know, these free market people. So start writing your checks, free market people. So we're funding our library. Once you hear that you think that counsel will be able to sit down and look at priorities and figure out how to support the library, you know, in other ways. Because the other thing, other than obviously the volatile nature of some people's opinion, I think that there wasn't a lot of people in the middle who didn't vote for it because they look at the library as the London Library is great with money, more money. And so, and I think it's like when you watch the Olympics and you're like, oh, that looks easy. I can do that. And so I think in some ways, too, we have to remember that I think for a lot of people who do fall in the middle, they voted no on this because the London Library doing a great job. And so then we need to continue to support in as many ways as possible. Because in some ways, this is also people not understanding what more there could be and seeing what is available. It's great. And look, we have this wonderful service and not, again, not seeing staff for now, not seeing that there's services that our library doesn't have that other libraries do, but seeing what is available and what is here and seeing the passionate and lovely people. And so, yeah, just to kind of keep in mind, too, that there are those who just, it's like the Olympics, they're experts doing expert things and it makes, you all make it look easy. A lot of messages that went out. I know we didn't spend tens of thousands of dollars on campaigns, but, you know, there was messaging from various citizens that hoped that specifically hoped that issue. And the staff does such a tremendous job that the whole system always show. And, yeah, you know, it is reassuring. One thing I'll say that's reassuring to me is that council, as opposed to the general public, I do believe council understands the need. I don't think the general public as a whole really understands or sees the importance of that. So, you know, I was writing right up to the last minute, I was still talking to people who thought that the money was purely for a word and did not include operational costs. Although it was a pretty big risk. I think it was. Well, if you guys are okay with it, Cindy and I, Cynthia, after we talked, she drafted a letter that we wanted to bring to you all to see how you felt about sharing with council to kind of reiterate the point of our, I feel like I hope this too, like light of a word, like expectation, demand. I don't know. I want to say demand because I'm pretty frustrated at this point. And I realize that Susie, you and Tim have really done what you have given it your best, you know, to advocate the library, but it's not happened yet. So just to make it very clear to council, Cindy and I were hoping to do perhaps share a letter reminding council about, you know, all the things we just talked about and not to let the poor showing at the ballot undermine any commitment to fully funding the library. So can you all see my screen at this point? Yeah. Is it big enough? I could zoom if you maybe a little bit. I think we're fine. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. I'll zoom for my old eyes. So I'll just read it out and then we could talk about it a little bit. And if anybody has strong reservations, we can, you know, reconsider the whole idea, but if you're open to the idea, then we could work some of it, you know, based on what Cynthia put down here. So it reads in light of the failure about measure three C in the November 2023 elections, Longmont library board urges the city council to work towards fulfilling the Longmont public library priority budget requests. And the need for outreach staff and outreach budget to be as high as important currently importance. Currently there's a single staff member serving in the capacity of what should be a department and hence outreach capacity would lead to more residents as car holders and greater involvement in the library is especially important for underserved populations within the city. Second important is the need for staff development and increased funding for temporary staff, especially for the children's and circulation departments. This funding is especially important as it allows library staff to perform extra duties due to limited staffing. The board also recommends increased funding for professional development opportunities for staff and to meet increased costs of digital collections. The library advisory board recognizes Longmont public libraries and essential services along the community and anticipates councils continues of work with appreciation. So Cynthia wrote that, you know, from her perspective, I think having talked with John a little bit about what he's, you know, really considers just absolutely essential at this point. I personally, you know, my feeling is there should also be something in here about funding it to that level that we have all acknowledged it needs to be funded to. And that begging them to just fulfill these basic requests is really pathetic at this point. Personally, I feel like we shouldn't have to just beg to get these basic things filled because we should really be getting our needs met at the level of preferred service. So I don't know, that would be my suggestion to add, but like number one priority is to fund this at the level of preferred service. Number two is if you're not going to do that at the very least, but build these other essential requests. I'm obviously fired up about this. I haven't been for years. So I don't know, maybe that's not where the board is, but that's where I'm not with it or value all. I can't really call on people and have the screen open at the same time. So maybe John, you can be with that part. I'm good with having that added in as well. Yeah, I agree. I like that phrasing of, you know, let's not forget about the feasibility study that the city paid for and what came out of it. That's obviously, you know, what the expert assessment says we should have. But then I do like then also saying, but at the bare minimum, you need to do the bare minimum. I mean, I'm just typing out a little bit of what while I'm listening to you also, if you want to give me other verbiage, I'm just kind of trying to capture what you're saying here as indicated by the city's own feasibility setting. I'm just capturing that thought anyone else. I would also encourage council to do this. I guess I'm looking for just like a little tiny bit more of a knowledge that connects how doing this, how growing the library helps us all or helps council meet some of its strategic goals or actualize some of its values rather than where the library or we want the library to have all the good things. Maybe just zoom out a tiny bit. You know, more robust outreach, a fuller or actual department will also help the library prepare for a future election because the more people who know about the library and the services it provides, the more favorable they may look upon the library in years to come. And hearing from others what I heard, which was like so many people who don't have any idea no matter how many ways you try to tell them, that seemed like a really strategic focus for this library in the coming years. So would you put that in kind of a, I just sort of put it up here as a place of lighting as part of this why you should just... Yeah, I was going to look like that. Because I think I see like a sign inside the chambers. Is there a sign that lists what the council is? Oh, our goals? Yeah. Yeah, so our... It's the pillars. Yes. Kind of. So we have around the pillars, we have under the umbrella of equity, we have core services, which is the foundation, and then the pillars housing early childhood and transportation. So with, I think, the library, that falls under our core services. That's how I perceive it. And then if we're looking at it through an equity lens, if you look at our library, that's one of the great equalizers that really provide balance for people who cannot afford to purchase books or go to college or higher ed. So it's having that... I saw it, for me, I think with the equity and the foundation being the core services, the library definitely falls within there. Does this sum that up? Investing in equity in the library helps the city to meet its strategic pillars, to meet its equity goals. I don't know if it's called both pillars. Because the pillars, of course, that was housing, early childhood, and transportation. So it's really our strategic goals. Including its equity mission? Yeah, equity mission. Through providing core services available only at the library. Were those all elements part of your strategic plan? Yes. Strategic plan goals, like that. Is that better? And then I just added, as a transition, then at a minimum, we call for the council to fulfill priority budget requests. And then it kind of leads into what Cynthia had here. Does anyone want to add anything? I think it's a little better. I feel like I've got a little brain fog still necessary for wording it properly. So our vision involves people and places. So people, Launmont is the world's greatest village where children are most fortunate to be born and raised. Older adults are supported through their entire life, journey, and all people have access to food, shelter, and the opportunity to thrive and feel like they belong. So I feel like that encompasses the work of the library. So there's ways to tie that into our council vision. Maybe I should say, including its strategic plan goals, including its equity vision? I'm trying to figure out which way. Okay. Including aim of increased equity through providing core services available through the library. And Catherine, I'm going to email you the slide deck that we had of our city council priorities for 2023 and 2024 that might help with language. Am I allowed to just share this out to you all? I don't know what the... No. That's what I thought. Yeah, I mean, otherwise it constitutes a meeting. Right. So, yeah, either it kind of has to be moved and approved now or I think brought back at the next meeting. Okay. Well, I feel like in terms of time-sensitiveness. You can work with one other person. We can. Yeah. Oh, right. Okay. I'm just refreshing my email if you sent it. No. Anybody have anything else? Maybe just moving on to the next part here from what Cynthia wrote that we want to change. John, does this reflect what you and she discuss appropriately? The way it... Yeah, as far as... It'll lead into the next. Well, somewhat. Anyway, yes. When we spoke and I talked about budget priorities, this is in alignment with that. Is there anything you would want to see in there or change as it exists now? No. Thank you. Anybody on those body paragraphs? I'm considering your other job that I'm interested in. Okay. I'm going to use a similar subject in the past, which would be an apartment. And so I'm going to class you with me as the whole rest of this apartment. I'm going to read it open in the library. I would just say which is the diversity of populations. I don't know if it's my tiredness, but the sentence in that next graph is a little confusing for me. This funding is especially important as it allows library staff to perform extra duties due to limited staffing. I think taking out a context that is unclear and you want to be careful about using the word extra. So we're not adding on extra unneeded things, right? I think the meaning is that it allows existing library staff to... Doesn't it basically allow them to do, like, overtime? Is that... Well, it sounds like it allows them to really just focus on their one job instead of having to do a bunch of other stuff. But the extra stuff is happening now, and we need more staff in order to bring that down to a sustainable level. About essential duties instead of extra duties, because, yeah, I think you're probably right, but their focus is being spread around other things because they don't have the staffing. This will get them back to their essential duties. But the due to limited staffing, I don't think, is coming after the right clause. Okay, how about... What if we leave to that, like, due to limited staffing, library members are... How would you describe it, Jamie? Like, they're taking on additional... You don't even need to put it there. You could just have that back to that sentence. I think it's especially important as it allows overburdened library staff to perform essential, or to focus on essential duties. Is that how you meant it, John? Like, is that in line with...? It is, yeah. Like, I know it's the original sentence, Matt, but... Yeah. I see the confusion there. Okay, how is that... Does that read better? This finding is especially important as it allows overburdened library staff to focus on their essential duties. Oh, wait, I couldn't hear that. It was... We're quibbling over words. It's... Hang on. Oh, sorry, we were mumbling, so it wasn't... Okay. It wasn't adding any value yet. Do you mean the increased cost of digital collections? To... I feel like the word the is missing. Yeah. Those are going to increase funding for professional development opportunities for staff and increased cost of digital collections. I would say, like, increased support in that last line. Or... I don't know. I don't feel 100% supported when we can't work begging for partial funding every single budget cycle. I feel like there's a lot of kind things set up on the library and a lot of appreciation shown towards this, but there's not money where the mouth is. I'm looking for a better word than substantiated, substantive, like physical, actualized, something we can point to instead of emotional support. Yes. Maybe we could say that. The library recognizes it as an essential source of city and appreciates the verbal support. We would also like to see commensurate financial support. We're about tangible. Recognize it seems weird to me, like... I still think you need to start it with your sentence about we appreciate the... Oh, I forgot the word you used. The verbal appreciation for the library. I don't know why this is an essential service part, because I feel like we said that at the beginning. I'll just write that for now, but I'll put it down here in case you think of it. It goes well in there anyway. More tangible support for the appreciation? I think you maybe swap out one of those appreciation words. Yeah. I think that for the library, I think we're recognized. I like the ending with appreciation. I think the long-run advisory board recognizes the council's verbal support. You guys, like you said, you're getting a little thin of appreciating the verbal support. Values. You can't appreciate your way to paychecks for people. What about values? Values instead of recognizing? I don't really value it that much at this point. Alright, right. Don't flatter them, man. Maybe it looks forward to the council's... It anticipates... What? Expects? Expects. Comments? Expects eagerly anticipates. Expects to see. Expects to see the council. I don't know. Expects somehow, yeah. If we're going to use it, we have to wordsmith it a little bit. Requests? Not too soft. I'm not like it eagerly anticipates. It's a little tongue-in-cheek, but... I do it eagerly anticipates. More concrete support? More tangible? The council's fiscal support with appreciation. Appropriate, adequate... What's the preferred level of support? Not appropriate. I mean, yeah, I think we set it up here, but it's investing appropriately up there. Can't hear you. Tangible? Substantial? Just keep it fiscal. Can't hear anybody if you're talking. If you're not, that's fine, but... Should I read it out one more time here? And then we can take a vote. Does anyone want to make any more suggestions before I do that? I will just add the last line that you were kind of debating whether it was needed because we keep saying essential. So I will just say that that's something that's a hot thing for me, like a hot button. Libraries are an essential service, and I don't think it can be repeated enough. And the more we get that into people's minds that if being essential and not a luxury, I don't think it hurts. Okay. How about what if we say... First of all, thank you, I agree. And the people are okay with it. What if we linked that to anticipate the council's fiscal support in recognition of the essential... In recognition of the essential service, the library provides to the community or something like that? Yeah, I like that. Anyone else? I'm just putting it out here, but we can change it if we need to. How does that look to people? Why don't you try reading it out loud for flow? Okay, the whole thing? Okay, it's ready? Okay. In light of the failure of ballot measure 3C in the November 23 elections, the Longmont Library Board urges the city council to fund the library at the preferred level of service as indicated by the city's own feasibility study. The disappointing result should not deter the council from fulfilling this goal. Investing appropriately in the library helps the city to meet its strategic plan goals, including increased equity through providing core services available through the library. At a minimum, we call the council to call on. The council to fulfill the Longmont Public Library priority budget request. We consider the need for outreach staff and an outreach budget to be of highest importance. Currently, there's a single staff member serving in the capacity of what should be an apartment. Enhanced outreach capacity would need to more residents as card holders and greater involvement in the library, which is important for underserved populations within the city. Of second import is the need for staff development and increased funding for temporary staff, especially for the children's and circulation departments. This funding is especially important as it allows overburdened library staff to focus on their essential duties. Board also recommends increased funding for professional development opportunities for staff and to meet the increased cost of digital collections. The library advisory board recognizes the council's verbal support for the library and eagerly anticipates the council's fiscal support in recognition of the Longmont library's role as an essential service to the community. But, pretty solid, I would suggest adding the word election before the word results at the top just to clarify that it is not the feasibility study results. Will you say the disappointing results? The disappointing election results. Ah, yes. Good catch. Good catch. Yep. In the paragraph although that, the last clause, I would change the word important to essential just going back to my previous statement. Yep. Good. I'm just highlighting anything just that I could be able to read them. Okay. Anything else? I think we say especially twice here. Maybe critically important? Is that too dramatic? It's essential, it's critical. Yeah. And if we say essential here, that's good. Something about this last line just, I think it's a parallelism issue. So put both between funding and for. The board also recommends increased funding both for professional development opportunities and to read the... There we go. Yep. Thank you. I don't know if you need for staff but it makes it worth it. Because if it's a professional development opportunity it is missed out. Yeah. And to meet. I think that's tired. Good. Okay. Anything else? I wondered about saying goal and goal here. Responsibility. Yeah. What's happening, John? You let me lead one meeting. I just... It had to be this one. I'm way too responsible for this. It is important you like to result should not deter the council from fulfilling this responsibility. It is a responsibility. It's an essential public service. Fund it. Like you believe it. Okay. That's my... Substone. Sub... Subbox, there we go. Anyone else? Have a subbox issue. Captain, after that second it should be importance, correct? I don't know what she was going with there. I agree that we could have a different lead in, maybe. Or you could just say sight and lead. Second lead. How about just second? But then we still... The sentence still doesn't work. Second is the need. It is the need. It's very passive construction so we need a... A secondary lead. In addition... In addition... How about the next priority is... Sure. Yeah. Can't hear you. We're hearing a voice that doesn't exist here. It's a ghost. A ghost? Either somebody at home has somebody talking that we're hearing or... Huh. I don't know. Everybody's on mute. That's curious. Yeah, I don't know. Can only be paranormal. Yes. Are they saying anything interesting? No. You can't understand it, but... Oh. That's really odd. Okay. Both sloppy and... too distracting. The next priority is the need for staff development. The next priority is staff development and increased funding for temporary staff. Is that... Or is this a secondary priority? I like the next priority. Yeah. Next. Yeah, I like next better too. Okay. Keep it simple. Okay. All right. Anything else? Do you want another reread or do we feel ready for a vote? Thumbs up on a vote, isn't it? Please give it a thumbs up. Is everybody else ready? Okay. All right. All in favor of sending this letter to Longmunch City Council, please say aye. Aye. That passes unanimously amongst board members. Yes. All right. Cynthia will be able to see this and pass it on to City Council in the near future. I know she's traveling right now, but she said she would get to it soon. Thank you, everybody. All right. Any closing thoughts there? All right. Looks like we are on to then budget update. Back to you, Jen. Yeah. So unfortunately with this, you know, the library's 2024 budget requests that we make every year, you know, around spring, we're all folded into this election. So all the eggs of the library requests were put into the election. So which leaves us with, well, what does that mean for our budget? Currently, what that means after I've been sitting manager is our budget will go unchanged. There are other priorities. Sounds like there's some competing police priorities that are not going to put any of my budget priorities at all through for 2024. So the budget we have now is the budget we have for 2024, at least as of right now. And I don't, I wasn't given any indication that that is going to change. So just wanted to update the board with that information so that you are aware. Of course, updated staff that information as well. Just so everyone's aware of what expectations they can have going into this next year. That's really, that's, that's the update. It's kind of, you know, the knife that was in there is now twisted a little bit, right? So, yeah, it's, I was, I was hopeful at least that if this didn't pass that something, some of anything of these budget requests would go through, even nominal stuff, but there's zero is what I understand right now. Was that decision announced before or after the election? After. So before, like, when the election, you know, I, I indicated my concern to the city manager that if, if all the leverage budget requests are being folded into the election, what does that mean if it fails? And I said, you know, there's, there was uncertainty at that time. And I just indicated that I would be one of the first to this door to see what could be done. And so what I was told just last week was nothing. I don't think I understood. But how is that possible if, oh, sorry, someone else talking. That's okay, go ahead. Oh, how is that possible if city council hasn't meant to discuss anything yet? Like, how does he get to just decide that? Well, he's telling me you're correct. It's not officially decided. Right. So, but what I'm telling you as far as, you know, me and having the city manager is, is someone that's in the line or somewhere I report to is telling me the current situation of the budget. And so, so maybe the way I should have stated this better is that there's, it doesn't look good for any of my budget requests to go through, but you're correct in technically that has not been decided. So basically, city council, he just anticipates that nobody on city council is going to vote in favor of the library over something related to the police. Well, the city council's gone through budget discussions already before the election and the library wasn't part of it. So the question is after the election, what does that mean? And so in my, what I understand that that becomes more between myself and the city manager and what they have. And, you know, there were a lot of unknowns primarily because of Proposition age, what that means for the city in taking in property taxes and all that level. And that's still uncertain now because the governor pulled back the state legislatures to, you know, further discuss this. It's really still unknown in a sense, but what was communicated to me was don't expect any change to your budget. So that's what I'm sharing. Thank you. I don't mean to shoot the messenger. No, no, no, I'm not. I'm not taking it that way at all. Okay. Well, I guess, Susie, I just, I know you're hearing us. Yeah. Yeah. That was the first I heard of that. Well, yeah, I mean, it's new, right? It's new, yeah. It was just last week and that was, that was how it was communicated to me. So I just felt it was my responsibility to share that because I don't, I need to make sure staff in the board and anyone else that is aware that the outlook for the next year's budget doesn't look like there's any change. That was until they read our letter. Maybe, well, that's an important, is there a meeting we can come to, Susie, to talk and put a little pressure on this at all? So I think our next meeting is the swearing in. I don't know if there's going to be a lot of substance in that meeting because I think we do a signing of the boards. And I mean, I haven't even gotten the agenda yet. I don't want to say don't, you know, I maybe come to public invited to be heard the next opportunity we have. So it's the fifth, is that what is next? Next Tuesday. That's the 28th. No, so our swearing in isn't until the fifth. So yeah, the 28th, that could be an opportunity for public invited to be heard. I don't know when we are going to be discussing the outcomes, but I don't think, you know, you all should have to wait for that. John, I don't know where I'm getting this delusion that a while ago, John, you submitted your proposed budget for 2024. And I thought I walked away from that meeting thinking it was like, oh, if we don't make any headway during the election, at least we might get a little bit more than what we had. Like I thought, not that it was a guarantee, but I thought that there was more of a positive outlook or optimistic outlook around getting like a little bit more. So that you could check off a couple more things on your list. I had the same feeling. So, yeah, I'm not sure where that originated from, but the optics to me that counsel or the budget has no increase for 2024 in a time of, you know, where I don't know where we are. You know, inflation, I think, looms large in a lot of people's minds to keep the budget for the library at 2023 levels following this election feels punitive. I feel that there is a statement of value statement being made in that decision, if that is indeed a decision. I appreciate that. It's very well said. I agree. Empathy for the library's position right now, post-election, give them some color. Yeah. Susie, is this happening with WREC too? Are we just doing that WREC's budget is frozen to 2023 levels too? I have not, because I'm not part of the WREC advisory board, and I haven't had a chance to chat with Jeff Reesner to see what I'm assuming then that they've probably all heard the same thing. Wow. But I don't, I don't know. That's what I want to find out. But if it's frozen too, I mean, talk about putting my eggs in one basket during, you know, a time of inflation fears. I mean, just to put everything on the plan for winning the election seems... No, it just, it doesn't make sense to me, because I know that there was a concern if age age passed, we would be receiving less revenue. Well, it didn't pass, and I know that there's a special session going on that might have some impact, but I don't think it would have the same impact if age age passed as far as revenue to the city. I could be mistaken. And then the other thing that, yeah, that has me a little confused is how we're going, I need to move a barrel, because I know we had an increase to our budget, to our, you know, just $444 million, which is an increase from last year. So there's a lot of moving questions I have to process this. I'm curious to find out if everybody's budget is frozen to Jamie's point about the punitive nature on that, if it's only happening to the library, that would be especially painful. I would hope that's not the case, but I'm very curious. Any other thoughts on this one? Susie, how will you be able to find that out and get back to us, do you think? So I'm going to reach out to Harold, just, I mean I have to chat with him about some other stuff too, but set a time to meet with him. I don't know if, I don't know, how would that work? As far as would this be something that I would bring up then next month, would we meet as a group? Can you get back to like Cynthia or John as an individual message and then they can individually tell us what you find out? I think that's a lot, right? Yeah, okay. Thank you, we appreciate that. Anyone else? Okay, well John, back to you, actions and updates. Okay, well, alright, let me go to share because I have that for the next couple of minutes. If there's anything else we need to say before we get there, let me know. Are you seeing any action plans? I don't even really mean to have it out, but it's really for the next thing. Well, I'll just talk through this while you kind of stare at that. So just a few things this month that went towards our action plan. So the security of the staff areas, we finally got a quote back for the double doors that go into the staff area, which I approved. So now to begin work on ordering that and well basically moving forward. The second piece of that is the electrical components and the wiring. Part of it I have a quote for for some of the physical materials and then waiting on a quote for or wiring. So, you know, this is taking time, but once I get those together, I can appropriate the funds for it and it'll probably be done early next year, sort of guessing. So, you know, every steps further along than what we were is how I look at one. It's years overdue. So under leadership here, I did arrange with with some help from the city's HR department and minds and associates who the city works with for employee assistant program and other aspects. But they also have trainings and so we brought in a couple of consultants who did two different trainings on emotional intelligence, which I thought would be helpful for some of my leadership team here. And we talked about it a little bit after we have had a lot of time to be brief about that, but a step towards some leadership development that I wanted to do was that. So there's more to come, but that's going to spill into next year, I can guarantee you. Under, sorry, now I'm trying to make sense of the military rule. Yeah, under customer experience, continuing EDI training. So I believe I probably mentioned this last month, but we did an equity meeting with my self and my leadership team and so the equity team and the city manager and my leadership team to kind of set the stage for one. Some upcoming workshops with individual departments within the library. So that began this past month. At least the initial meeting of the circulation department will be a few for each department. Initial feedback was good. I'm not a part of these meetings by design, you know, to allow equity in the departments to have some good discussions around equity. We have some work to do here. We've had a couple of incidents on recent unfortunately with some patron micro corrections for some of my staff. And that's unfortunate, but how we as staff respond to that is something we can't control. So that's what we're one of the aspects we're working towards is how we approach that and support one another, but also making sure we do respond to that in a timely manner. To people that might say or do things in that sense and how we respond to that in a way that makes sense, which could range from a conversation to a suspension. Anyway, so and then the last thing I have on here is an impulse, I think, under customer experience as well. But this is our continued conversations and work with the St. Rain Valley School District on library student IDs acting as library cards for digital access. So I think I mentioned last time I circled back with the school district in the context I needed to make on how that project began and the goals surrounding it, which were way more often and needed to be to provide access for databases and resources that the district doesn't have. And so they're all behind it. They've had some questions about that and providing access. Anyway, the shorter story that is through some emails, we have a meeting scheduled with the right people in December, which meaning in the district because And for me to kind of share more of this story, what the library's goals are, how we need student needs. And with the goals that I have for it, which is much less involved, we don't need to capture student data other than a number, which doesn't identify the student. So it removes a lot of student privacy and what schools need to be concerned about for sure. We don't have to worry about that, but we're not trying to give them a full-fledged library card. We're trying to provide them access to digital collections primarily in databases. They already have e-books anyway. It's more of these databases and a lot of which they don't have and they would love to have access to. So really just to make that easier. So we've made a little bit of progress with that as far as getting something scheduled. And I've learned that getting a meeting scheduled with school district people is an act of God. But the person I'm working with is very, I think they're behind me with it on it, so that helps. So they're communicating with the right people. So those are the action play updates. Any questions or comments on that otherwise? Well, I'll let you with the agenda. Sorry, are there any comments and questions on it? Your volume went way down, yeah. Can you hear me now? Oh, sorry. It went from zero to 181. I heard that lesson as a question. I was just saying thank you for working so hard on behalf of the students. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I just think it's what one of the many things we're here for. Yeah, and it's so important, I mean, again to be on my soapbox, but like learning to be consumers of online content in a educated way is seriously important to our democracy. So helping kids have access to reliable information and teaching them how that looks different than a lot of the other things they can find on the internet is super, super important, not just for their own education, but I think for our whole society. So is this important? No, no, that's the thing. Okay, it's, in fact that was a question, I don't know if you heard Jing's question, if it increased our costs as a library. It does not, and here's why, because the contracts and agreements we have with our various databases, it's by library card holder. So effectively giving the student, getting them into the system with their ID is effectively giving them a library card. So we're not, we're not functioning outside of our service area, the school districts in our service area anyway. So no, it doesn't, it doesn't change that. I think that makes sense. Yes, that was just curious. Yeah, that's a great question though. That being said, it would be great to be able to increase, especially if we can get this to work. And I would love to expand our, you know, we have some resources I know they would love. We have a pretty much the full EBSCO package, which is really good for students. We have some Gale products, but you know, we can really expand on this. And I think getting the students in there and using it, and that would mean increased usage, which really helps. I mean usage is a lot, right? That's how we justify paying these things. So if that usage goes up, we can make a better case if we have the budget for it to spend money on that. So kind of in that same pot, and I don't know, you can tell me if you plan to speak to us in your records report, which works next. But I know this, this action plan, what you're presenting to us tonight is really relative to the past month. Yes. So I would be curious either now or another time to know what specific things in your action plan might not be achieved if you have no increase in your budget for time and time. That's a good question. I'll spend more time on it for maybe for the next week, especially as we approach it in the year. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Do you want to keep sharing, John, or do you want to take that? Yeah, I know I'll keep sharing for the next, if we're into directors report, yes. Yeah, just go ahead and throw into that. Okay, just in a second. Can you see my screen still of a PowerPoint? Yeah. Alright, so my directors report is what I try to do every month, which is highlights of programming that we're doing. So I'll just, I'll go through this. Let me see if I can just get a sense. So we had a really good event during Bandbox Week. This was actually, you're going to see this, a silver slide to get with adult. I love this for a couple of reasons. One is the topic. But one is this was a collaborative program between children and adults to bring in this topic of censorship. And I was not able to go, but it sounded like it was a great conversation and really good information to share and very well received. And I'll add that, you know, at least for the public library in Longmont, you know, I don't get a whole lot of comments or anything about materials we should not have here. I feel like the school districts in general face more of that than we do. So not really that continues, but we still have to always, of course, be aware of that. So I think it was a great conversation. The Eclipse program was huge. We ran out of those glasses within two seconds that we got through a grant that the children wrote, the children's team wrote. So those were distributed between them and all the service points, actually. The children's team wrote the grant, got the close classes. Anyway, they were brought out, our outreach person brought them out to some programs that were on that same day. So it was really good stuff. October, of course, we were busy all the way, mostly. A lot down there, what we call passive programming, which is, you know, there's no library staff involved. There's preparation and whatever the passive programming is. It's really independent for the kids. This was huge here. Halloween was fantastic because the kids started here and then they did a little parade over to the Civic Center and Trigger Trigger over there. You can see all walking by. So you can see the amount of people here, almost 200 people that were coming through here in very cute costumes. And that's the last one because I forgot to update it. So going along, it's okay. It's just the numbers part, which is important, but it's more about the stories, right? So here's the adult perspective of that, Van Rook's event. The Domestic Violet Awareness Month was really impactful. I think the attendance, you know, that's a tough topic, but I think it was good. We partnered with the Department of the City to do this. We had a display out for the entire work on this. So that went over pretty well. And then some of our regular stuff that adults does that are ongoing and people come to a lot. I've talked about those many times and here's what we asked for last month. So, and then outreach. Here we go with outreach. The community right here was huge. That was a great turnout. So we were all there stationed right in front of our main doors, which was great. I'll kind of just go through some of these quickly. Getting back to the point of how much our solo outreach person does without a team. And I will say that, and Lillian is good about indicating whether she did something literally herself or not. But many of these programs and what going back to unity, you know, this is a team effort. But what that means, if I haven't said this before, is library staff, I'm going to quote this, but they volunteer their time to do these things. They technically can't volunteer their time. But what it means is they, you know, if they want to help in an outreach event, they have to trade off work time to go to that event, which impacts staffing here. So just the amount of effort to do these things is huge. And Lillian does many of them alone and doing a program alone when you're encountering 90-some people is a lot for a new person. And then just going through, these are a lot of her regular programs. That one's already on her part. Our center, she goes to every one. The numbers you're seeing, like 76 people, these just keep going out with the people that are engaging with her. Which means, of course, engaging with the library. Parents involved in education is, I mean, Lillian just made that into a babysitting program into an actual outreach program, which is educational and they have activities and story time. And just, it's just fantastic. Back to one of her parks. This was, you can see the picture here. I was on this over the course of a minute. Oh, I did. Well, America's thought was a huge, fantastic program that the city did, but me and of course I had to move there. So a lot of interaction there. Kind of see just a regular program. Just all this stuff. You know, some of this repeats. She lists it out by when she's there. I put this in here just because I wanted to share, among everything else that Lillian does, she's a member of a library organization called Reforma, which is for Spanish speaking library staff and reaching out to that community. She's in Reforma and she presented and she taught a whole course on how to do outreach. So on top of everything else. And by the way, she also is a part of, she was asked to be a part of another organization within the state library called CLEL, which is Children's Library, something. Anyway, they select books that win awards and she was specifically asked to be on that and it helps with that. So she's doing all these things on top of her regular job. And frankly, I worry a little bit sometimes on how much she's doing it. That's why I have that framework. By the way, the senior senator that keeps growing. I mean, I think when I was here, started a year ago, she would get a few people engaging with her at the senior center and now you can see over 50 people every time she's there. And when she's there, she's handing out library cards. And these are some numbers that aren't in here. So we're getting new users every time we're trying to treat more Halloween stuff. Yeah, there were a couple of programs there. Lillian did one and our children's staff did it at different schools. So we divide and conquered there. It's delivered to programs and Halloween. And then here, how we collaborate. Of course, Lillian was involved with that too. And then just getting into some of her numbers that she shares. And just to point out, from this time last year, she's doubling the interaction she's getting. And then here's everything that you saw about just listening out. So that is outreach listed out. And I'm sorry this wasn't in a packet, but I try to do that so you can have a chance to look it over and incorporate that into next month. So that's my director's report. Awesome. Thank you so much. Just a personal interest note. I really appreciate the band books events. I always do something every year with my students on that. And then I got some pushback this year, which I thought was interesting the first time, but it was a good conversation. Not from my school, I don't care. But I'm actually in my law school program, you can do this like independent study thing, and I'm going to do it on band books. I'm considering focusing specifically on band book requests in the public library system. So John, I might want to reach out to you to get an insider perspective if you don't mind. No, not at all. Hopefully I could maybe bring some of my research to the group if it's of interest. I have a question for you. So if an individual is concerned about a book, what is the process that the city or the library does as far as, okay, I don't want this book off the shelf? Right, right. So generally what will happen and what staff are educated to do. So someone says something, and this is come up. The most recent was a few back in the summer, and it was something that was on display. In that case, they weren't asking it to be removed, but they didn't think it was appropriate to be displayed in the way that everyone would see it. But anyway, it's still the same process. What I encourage staff to do is just really to listen, let them express what they want, and if they have questions, they get a supervisor or a work in retail. And then if they really are adamant that that needs to be taken out, there's a formal process. In library language, it's a form, and everyone in the library almost calls it the same thing. It's called a request for reconsideration. Okay. And it's a written form. It has to be done in writing. And so that can be handed to a person that wants to challenge something. We call it a challenge. Yeah. And they throw that out and give as much information as they want, and they're using it why it doesn't belong in the library. And then that, her policy gets turned into the library, and a committee reviews it. And the committee would always be me and designated staff, and that will depend on what they're challenging. So if it's a children's book, I'm going to bring in children's staff. Right? And so that's what happens. And then based off that and research we do, then I write a formal response to that. That's in my case, with my decision, four hours. Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks, that was something. I didn't know how that was handled. It's pretty common in libraries as far as how that's done. Yeah. Any other comments on children's book? Questions? That was room. It doesn't look room. Were you in your self-counting? Did we have a friends meeting, Jamie? So I was not in town for the friends meeting this month, because it was just last week. And did not receive minutes from that yet. But what haven't I told this board from our last meeting, just so appreciative of all of the efforts that came from that corner around the election. And the friends did support a small campaign that included social media posts, some lawn signs, some bookmarks. That specifically tried to highlight that program with reasonable increase that would have happened with taxes. And then lots and lots of talking to people in various communities. And I felt like the friends were really well positioned to speak to senior residents. And a lot of other, many of our friends, volunteers are also involved with other organizations and nonprofits in a volunteer capacity. So to be able to go and visit other groups in the community and talk about the library, you know, I thought that was invaluable. But every time I spoke with somebody, they would let me know, like, here's how it's going. Just so you know this is the word on the street. Nobody wants to pay more for your tax bill this year. So, you know, I think that we, you know, the friends did what they could with the resources and the timeline that they were given. And for that, I'm really appreciative. They are now going to segue into full book sale prep mode. So the holiday or pre-holiday sale starts December 13th. It goes through the 16th. And so it's going to be a lot of promotion and getting ready for that. Great. Thank you. Do you know, is there a December meeting or will they be taking a break? I think they originally weren't going to have a meeting and then decided that they had some things they might want to talk about. So they were going to do like a combined one, don't they? Sorry. With whom? A combined meeting with... I thought they did like a combined November-December meeting. Oh, yeah. I wouldn't know. This is my first December meeting. Hang on, that's my question. I'm going to remember a year. For some reason that just popped up for me, but, well... So in my last meeting we voted, or they voted, to not have a meeting in November or December and then there was a change to that. So now there was a meeting both November and December. They paid up for it. Yes. Okay. Are you able to attend the next one or should we get a surrogate? I should be able to attend next time, but it is two days after our meeting. So you will not hear about the December meeting until January. Got it. Okay, well, remember we can always back you up if it's too much because you're doing extra. So thank you. All right. Let's see. Susie, I think it's you, right? Yeah. So I'm just going to give some dates on December. So we do have a regular session or regular meeting on the 28th. So if anybody wants to come to public provided to be heard, I think that would be a great opportunity. We have an outgoing reception for council member Waters. That will be his official last day. And then we have our organizational meeting at seven o'clock where we swear in the new council. So I don't think a lot is going to really be happening at that. It's more ceremonial type. And yeah, I'm trying to think, oh, and then I just looked. We have the Longmont Housing Authority Board of Commissioners special meeting on November 30th, my anniversary to let my husband know. How romantic. I know. I mean, I can't think about better way. Oh, better way. Well, it's weekdays. Weeknights are hard. We'll celebrate on the weekend. So I think, you know, I kind of said a little bit earlier that we are going to be addressing the outcomes and reflecting on the ballot measures. This, you know, I don't know which meeting, but it'll be coming up. I'm basically going to say a lot of what I said tonight, you know, just really looking at having in the future, maybe ballot measures not occurring the same year that we have City Council races. You know, because I think that did play an impact. But yeah, I'm trying to think of, I mean, there isn't a whole lot as we're trying to get ready for a new council and, you know, seeing council member waters off. So if you're available or want to come to any of those dates, I'm sure you'd love to see all on December 5th, 6 o'clock. December 5th, I thought it was the 28th, sorry. We have a regular session meeting with our old council on the 28th, but we have an outgoing reception for council member waters. Yeah, December 5th. And that starts at 6. Yes. The last, the 28th is my birthday. So I can't make it to that one. If anyone else feels so inspired, you could always just go read our letter. If anyone else is interested. I'll let Cynthia know too. All right, any other questions for Suzy? All right, I think the last thing on the agenda then is library profession news. Does anyone have anything to share? Well, I will share one thing that's kind of somewhat related to book banning, just to bring this to people's attention if you haven't seen it, but there's a story that came out of Huntington Beach Library in Orange County, California. You're not familiar with that area. It's fairly politically conservative. That's saying it lightly. But they passed their library board of trustees past something that basically they're recataloging a bunch of their materials and coming up with these library cards that restrict access to obscene or pornographic materials as decided by the board, basically. And I just want to bring this to attention because this is one of those other areas where people are trying to influence particularly public libraries and trying to create ways where at least the argument on that side is it's that way parents can feel safe that their kids aren't checking out something that they shouldn't have, but putting it in the form of a restrictive library card it puts them... This is John's opinion, just to be clear. Going this method and doing it this way puts the burden on the library to enforce it. So if a 12-year-old or 13 or whatever comes to the desk and they hand them their card and it's a type of card that the parent decided once restricted to certain things then the library is required to not check that out. And this is, I will say very transparently that is not the role of a public library. We are not responsible for your children. Parents and guardians are responsible. So I just want to bring this forward just because this is the kind of stuff that is also going on. And, you know, anyway, it's Huntington Beach, you can look it up. The article from their local newspaper called The Huntington Beach Tribune and the article is called Library Sex Content Policy OK. So it's very vague, yeah. I would be shocked if that survives a constitutional challenge. Yes. That's a lot that happened. First of all, based on my very cursory knowledge of these things, seems to violate lots of First Amendment rights of lots of different people, actually. Yeah, I mean, there's, you know, there's layers. It's not a legal opinion. It's just my general opinion. Yeah, well, there's lots of... There's layers of issues with this decision and that can't be the solution in my... Well, it also puts the burden on... I mean, I don't guard my library card. So if Samaritan can't find her library card, here, take mine. And so then, like, are you... Is that supposed to ID and make sure that it's the kids' card and not their parents or their name? I mean, it's just so... Oh, that's a lot of burden on, like, whose library card do you have today? There's lots of layers, right? And then with self-check, you mean... It's also, you know, assuming they might have self-check or not, but we do. So what are we supposed to now pull these self-check and take that away? But it's like, well, no. So, yeah, you know, give your kid your library card and let them check out whatever they want because it's gonna bypass staff anyway. So in some ways, the whole thing's ridiculous, but it's also concerning, very concerning. Does the library... That library has scanners at every entrance and exit to the library? I have no clue. Do we? No. What do you mean, scanners? Sorry. But if you have not checked out a library card... Oh, like an alarm system. No, we don't. Now, they may... Yeah. They better. You know, we don't. That's the kind of alarm system some libraries still have and a lot don't because for the purpose of library materials' loss, we can take this aspect away. It's been shown over time that those are really not effective and it just makes people feel bad. I'm not suggesting. Yeah. I'm not recommending it. No, I know. I know what you're asking. I just, you know, yeah, I used to be a teenager and I've worked with teenagers and they will find a way if they want to read something. Well, that's the whole thing about it, right? You know, so it's like... I mean, you can just... You can just... It's like if you're going to tell the world that this is now banned, you can see that the checkouts go up, the purchases of that book go up. Some authors made a lot of money as soon as their book is banned. So it's just ridiculous that this is... Well, of course, always available online. Yeah. Yeah. You're not solving anything except for... Well, no. Not anything except. You're not solving anything. You're just creating a lot of... a world of problems for the library which then can lead you to the library and staff getting in trouble and if you're in Arkansas, you can actually be criminally charged. Yeah, the library. So, anyway, just... That's library news. Maybe next month I'll share something positive. Positive? Yeah. See if we can find something. Well, tell me if this is lots of this. Yes. Is... Okay, it looks like DiCano voted not to become part of High Plains Library District. Does this... Does this have any bearing on anything? I was just curious about that. That's interesting. I wasn't sure. Was it very close? It was very close. Yeah. I think... I don't know a lot about it. I will say that you know, the opportunity to become a part of a district of High Plains that is extremely well-funded, that sounds like a little bit of me. Now, I don't know enough about DiCano independently. You know, I think... I just... I think that would probably would have been a good move to be absorbed into that district and get the benefits of being a part of that district and not having to figure so many things out yourself in a small town that probably has, you know, on scale different but similar challenges that we face here in Los Angeles. Yeah, I did ask Cynthia about it and she said that she had some thoughts on it, but I'll let her do it for herself so maybe we can follow up with her next time too. Yeah. But yeah, I know it was like this is what the Denver Post reported at least on November 8th so updated number 9 so I think it's where I'm landed but I know it was like too close to call for a while so it'll be interesting to see. All right, anything else from the DiCano group? All right, thank you everyone. Our next meeting is December 18th. Does anyone foresee enough conflict with that that we should move in? I guess a full week before the schools get out. Is that right for you Susie too? Yeah, I mean, it doesn't matter, I'm not going anywhere so I'll be here. Everybody else, will we have enough people around? Okay. Sounds like it. Good. All right, well then the meeting will then be adjourned at 8.57 p.m. Thanks everyone.