 Hi everyone. My name is Angela Mills. I work for the Town of Amherst. This meeting of the Public Arts Commission is happening on Zoom and will be uploaded to the Town of Amherst YouTube channel shortly. Pursuant to the extension of the governor's order until 2025, all of these types of public meetings can happen virtually and we welcome everyone and I wish you a great meeting and at this time I'm turning things over to the chair of this commission, Terry Holtz. Thank you. Thank you, Angela. All right, we ready? Yep. Welcome, welcome. Nice to see your faces again. Thank you. Now we're being recorded. We don't have any members of the public available today so it's just us. Is it all of us? I can't see the list of names right now. It is all of us. All six of us are here. Thanks. And thank you again, Jim, for signing on to be among us still. We loved having you here. Thank you. I was like, no, he can't go away. It's lovely to have you. Thank you very much for saying that. And will you be able to do minutes today or? That's why I can't see everybody because my computer's not letting me see my minutes and the list of people at the same time. Okay, we're all here. So I think there's an agenda that I sent. Very, very simple agenda. I can share it with you if it's helpful. It would be helpful because I was saying earlier I got a week's worth of emails dumped on me all at once. So recently, so I'm having computer issues. So I'm sorry, that's a pain. It's kind of like having a computer is like adopting a teenager. Yeah, pretty much less expensive. All right, so we'll take a look at our menu. Oh, you know what? I can do the whole sharing screen thing. That's probably easier. Let me do that real quick. Okay. Well, guess what? We're not going to have public comment. Looks like we're not going to. Yep. That's okay. This is a short meeting. I'm not going to take much of your time. This is very directed. We'll have a longer meeting next Monday, which I need to work on that agenda. But I'm sharing my screen. If I can get this right again. All right. You guys see where I am here? Oh, whoa. helpful. Okay. Jim, I said do this agenda so that you have it. Yeah, I see it. Okay. Today's really simple. First of all, I guess let's do a quick, quick roll call. Robert, are you here? Yes. James, are you here? Jim's here. Laurie is here. Here. Do we lose you, Terry? Terry, did you freeze? Seems like she's frozen in time. Was her computer flashing for a while there? Or no, it was in my computer. She's the host, so she would need to let us in. Who's the host? Terry's the host. One, two, three, four. I see six people. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. She's on, but she's frozen. Oh, yeah. Her mic's muted. And Dara's muted, but that's okay. Oh, I see she's kind of... It says Laurie Friedman under Jim's name. Really? Yeah, on my computer. Oh, it does. My name is wrong. That's why, because he used my login link. Yeah, and my name is wrong. My name is Dara Barwadikson, so it's wrong on the agenda, too. Oh, that should be changed with the town then, because this invitation came from the town. Okay. The agenda? No, the agenda's not. That's Terry. We'll have to change that. And Jim is looking like he comes to me because he used my link that I was sent by the town to come on tonight. Okay, it's okay. Oh, so I look... Oh, my goodness. My name is changed to Laurie. Yeah. And I have to talk in a higher voice. I don't know if I have Terry's phone number. Let's see. Does anyone have it? There's something wrong. Terry's, look. Terry. You know what? We should get a contact list. We have everybody's... We should have everybody's... I have someone at 413. I could try it and hope it's the right Terry. I don't have her phone number. I'm going to call or see if it's Terry. Hi, Terry. This is Laurie on the APAC meeting, and we seem to have lost you. And none of us are running the meeting, so I don't believe we can let you in. So I don't know if you're having trouble getting back in. And I don't know if this is the right number for you. I have you as Terry in my contacts, which I might be calling the wrong Terry. But anyway, I am trying to reach you. This is Laurie Friedman at 413-374-5503. All I can say is technology ain't trouble free. Well, for those of you who are into astrology, Mercury is retrograde, and that's supposed to mess up everything like this, which... Okay. Well, now she went off. Maybe she's going to try to come back in. I just saw a message that you are now the host, Laurie. I am? Well, I saw a little notice on the corner of my screen, so... Really? She may have... It looked like she was trying to get back in, but I don't know. So it sounds like she's passed the mantle to you in a... Oh, yeah. It looks like I'm a host. Okay. Well, I don't know. Okay. Okay. There she is. She's trying to connect. Yeah. Well, in the meantime, I could give my treasure report just to... Oh, okay. Fill the time. It's not lengthy, but I did find out that in terms of our funds with the town, we'd have a total of $4,184.28 in our account. So how much? $4,041.84 and $0.28. Now, I don't know if that includes the money... Correct me if I'm wrong, if anyone remembers. Was it $2,000 that's designated for this portal gallery? I think it's three. Is it three? Okay. I thought it was two. Oh, maybe... Okay. Well, we can clarify that. I don't know if our balance reflects that money, or if... I believe it does, and that it needs to be used and distributed by the end of... June? June? June? From what I... Maybe, Terry. That's why we are meeting today, because we need to get this... I'm here. Oh, I'm here. I'm so sorry. I just tried to call you, but I don't know if I called the right number. So are you... I don't think you did, but that's okay. Are you five, two, two, four, three, eight, seven? Nope. Oh, I called a different Terry. I can give you my phone number. I'm sorry about that, everybody. I think my web camera finally died, so I'm sad, but I'm here, right? You can see me and hear me? Okay. Am I slowed or anything, or is there any kind of weirdness with the video? Okay. Terry, can you... What is your number? It's 7818599701. 7818599701. 9701. Well, at least I have that now. I left another Terry a message. Okay. I'm back. I apologize. Anyway, what did I miss? Did you guys talk about something that I should know? I should have heard. Well, I mentioned that I found out from Holly at the town that we have $4,184.28 an hour account, and I asked, and it sounded like the money from or related to the portal gallery is in that balance, but I wasn't sure. That's what I thought. Okay. I can clarify that with her. I can send her a email, but if you feel confident that they would have paid us first before we did anything, is that typically... I think you're showing us that that might happen because I had to pay it out by June 1st, so I need to call her and ask her. But we also need to, I guess... I'll send an email to Holly just to confirm that that's the case. Thank you. Oh, wait a minute. Sorry, was your recollection, Terry, that it was $2,000 for the portal gallery or $3,000? I thought it was $2,500, but I might need to go back. There we go. Right in the middle, Mikey. I think you can say anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000 in the minutes. And I thought too. So there we go. You know what? It says here, award $1,500, so I don't think that's... I don't know if this is even correct. I know I need to figure out what the real... I don't even know what the real answer is here. Okay. I'm putting in the minutes that the amount for the portal gallery needs to be determined. Yeah, that's definitely so before we get this thing. I think that's interesting. And this meeting to spend the money and submit that receipt to... It's to the Amherstown Art Council. Is that where we receive this grant from? I sure hope so. I don't know. I haven't had my meeting with your donor like I was supposed to because I had to go out of town. I thought it was from the Cultural Council. Okay. If you'll give me a minute, I'll go find out if it was from the Cultural Council. I will have to take a two minute... oops, no, sorry. I can do it later. Okay. Yeah, that's one of those things that I was going to meet with you showing it about. If you want me to make a phone call, I can do that and I can maybe find out. I think we can do it later and we know that we need to spend between two and three thousand dollars and have that paid out to an artist for the portal gallery before June 1st. That's, I think, I think it's the end of June, isn't it? Isn't July 1st when the new fiscal year starts up again? That's my understanding. I could be wrong. Well, they usually start. Yeah. I'm afraid to share my screen again because I don't want to lose it. I think I'll be okay now. So I sent you all the open call for artists to PDF. So we kind of went through that the last time we met. I don't remember. Catch me up. So we looked it over together and we made changes. Did we finalize this open call except for the price, the 1,500? No. No. Okay. Okay. Do you all still have your? I think what happened was last meeting we met, we went over the call for the making it public. Yes, that was very important. And we reviewed that and completed, you know, whatever we were being asked to do for that. And then because, and working on that deadline, and then we stayed on not enough for a quorum. Right. And I think it was maybe Mikey, me and Jim, right? Yeah. I think. Yep. Yeah. And the three of us were on and we came up with all kinds of great ideas for the first We really did it actually. I have to say I liked our ideas for what to do. We have minutes from those. I thought we finished it. Is am I wrong? Well, we have a PDF and I had sent it out to you all beforehand, but then I kind of lost track. So I don't know. You sent us a PDF prior to this meeting of a proposal that you had made for a call for this, for the portal gallery. We have not discussed it or reviewed it. But I will let you know where we left off just to bring you up to date on our ideas for it. Yeah, sounds great. I don't think we're going to submit as artists, but I did like the ideas. So just to. Never mind. No, I'd love to hear you describe it. But a couple of things were about the space, which I think we still have not determined is getting the key, opening it up, looking to see what's there. If there's electricity, if there's not the current installation is not working. And I think there was an issue of what I'm remembering. I was heard at one of our meetings was, you know, there's something about it not being insulated and it can't function in freezing. And so, you know, I think there's some things about the space, but then we, the three of us, we're just kind of talking and Jim was saying he had these really great trains, right? Train. Train pieces. Is that right, Jim? Train cars. Yeah. Train cars. I did. And they ran. And that they ran. And we thought, oh, we can put train cars in each one and then have Mikey was, you know, has the connection to the historical society. And we could put connected to train schedules of when the train ran through the history of trains coming through Amherst. Right. The other idea was connecting to the hat factory that had been in Amherst and doing something with that because, you know, some little images of little hats or something. And then a whole story about the hat factory. I thought there's work on the Hills Hat Factory. And there's the historical society has the molds, but they're big. They're like this big. But we could have photographs of them, like 3D photographs in each window. Okay. We could do any kind of business in Amherst. I don't know how this award would work that way. I know we don't want to reward ourselves, but who would be willing to do the work and then who we would give the money to, or would we just donate it? What do you, I love the idea. Well, we're just thinking if we need to put something in, we could, you know, we could get an intern. I have seven interns that I work with on Fridays. See if somebody wants to put something together. My only problem is most of my interns are seniors and they're all graduating. So they're stressed to the max. I see. Yeah. Or if we wanted to partner with a historical society and the payments would be for making 3D photographs or whatever, or, or we just put a call out. I think we came up with these ideas because we felt my question before we jump into what you, you're proposing, Terry, is there enough time? Yeah, that is the problem. I think if we had gotten our stuff together and I had had fewer emergencies, we could have got this out earlier. But right now we have a deadline on this state. It was like May 14th. So yeah, I'm also stressed out about this and I'm not sure what to, we were stressed out about the last thing we did. So, oh, another idea that was proposed. Shoshana was on that call and Shoshona was on that call. Zoom. And another idea was to reach out to the artist who currently is there and ask him if he will just fix it. Well, if he did another one. Or did another one. Yeah, because his, there's a plaque right there that's all about him. Okay. So we wouldn't even have to take that down. So what do we think about this idea? There's two proposals here. Go ahead, Robert. I'm just wondering. So the artist who currently has an installation there, what were the terms of that agreement? In other words, what was the length of time during which is it a, I forget the artist's name, but was there an end date for the current installation? And if so, what, what is that? What was that? I love that none of us can answer that question. Right. Like, who has this information? Probably me if you'll give me a minute, but I'm having trouble keeping up with a conversation and also doing the minutes. So the minutes are going to be a disaster, but oh well. Also, your name is Lori, apparently. Hilarious. I gave him my login information because he didn't get it from the town. And our name is wrong. I think for consistency, we're changing everyone's name to Lori Friedman. Oh, nice. That's a beautiful name. Makes the, so wait a minute, what do we call this? Oh, wait a minute. Was it a artist contract for the poem Windows? That's probably it. Portal gallery. Portal gallery. I think this is it. I love both those ideas, by the way. I think they're really clever. I want to see you want to know what the end date is. Okay. When will the project take place spring summer 22? I'm just going down. This is the proposal. Where are you getting your information? I've been on the committee for a long time. I save everything. Thank you. Defantive information. But defining it like this is very difficult. Would we invite him to just extend his prize? The thing I worry about always is that our local cultural council may decide that we aren't a very responsible entity for distributing grant money to local artists. And that is a thing that does worry me because I really want to have more involvement in the arts. And, you know, that's the only concern that I have is worrying about future grants. When you don't spend money in grants, you know, you guys know this, you don't get considered the next round of grants, which we're going to be applying for soon because summer is coming up. So that's a thing I'm worried about. I just, if you think we can pull this off and get someone new in there and spend the money all by the end of, you know, this timeframe, I'm on board to go with it. I feel like we as a committee commission have come in really and need to really restructure and do strategic planning and to be handed things that we had no information on at the last minute have not set us up well. So we're doing the best we can. And in this case, I just found on the Amherst Town website that the Portal Gallery is five small south facing windows, blah, blah, blah, the Amherst Center Cultural District is supporting the exhibition with the $2,000 recovery and rebuilding grant. So that was the first one. It does not say that it will run through the fall, played it open in the summer, run through the fall. And that article was 2021. Who was this name that we're talking about, please? Benjamin Howden, C-O-W-D-E-N. C-O-W-D-E-N will help. All right, but anyway, you found it. Is that right? Thank you. That's another question. Yes, go ahead. Sorry, Robert, go ahead. Has anyone on this commission approached the Cultural Council to ask for an extension upon? To Lori's point, there's been a great deal of transition in this commission, obviously, the person who was the chair when most of this joined left. The whole make it public project was not managed, in my opinion, successfully by the town. And then subsequently kind of fell onto this commission with no one here having been through the training. So I think it's, to your point, we obviously want to be responsive. We want to be able to administer the grants, et cetera. But we've barely had time to get up and running as a commission. So I guess my suggestion would be to contact the Cultural Council, explain what's going on, and ask if there's any way that we could extend the period to use this money. Because I don't know, I would prefer that we actually put out a call for artists and actually try to make something of this opportunity, given that it will, well, I guess, you know, sort of tied with the make it public, be our first endeavor. And I think we're all committed to creating a thoughtful process. And I just think trying to do something in a rushed way. And also, I think my feeling about what our role is is not necessarily that we should be creating the art, even while the ideas that you mentioned, you know, seem like very good ones. I think we want to really be seen as facilitators to support local artists. So, yeah, I don't know, do you know any of the people involved in the Cultural Council? I don't even know who's. Can I just speak to what I just talked about, Robert? Please. Is it possible, Jim, to give us access to the last three years of minutes? Yeah, I mean, they're on the website for one thing. On the website, we can read all that. So a lot of our questions should be answered. Yep. But why are you calling me Jim? My name is Laurie. I'm sorry. I forgot that it was changed. It's okay. I hope it's okay that I forgot. Yeah, of course. So Robert, to your suggestion there, I feel the same way that we should definitely not be creating the art. I totally agree. So if we extend the deadline until the end of May, do you think, oh, that's just a nightmare. The whole thing is a nightmare. And I feel like we're just jumping right back into the hot water. You know, it's like we just, we're like a few weeks past just getting past the last emergency. And now here we are at another crossroads. We're trying to figure out stuff. I'm suggesting a lengthier extension than just the end of May. I mean, is there, is the source of this money, is it, you know, ARPA funding that they had to spend? I mean, I guess I'm curious to know how tied are we to this June 30th date? Whose deadline is that exactly? I believe Shoshona said that it was, I may not have the name right, but the Amherst Cultural Council that distributes funds and that they have to, we have to spend this money by that. That's the way it always is. Yeah. Well, but I think it would be worth clarifying the source of that deadline. I mean, I understand what you're saying, that it's the cultural council setting that deadline, but I guess I want to know how fixed is that deadline? Well, and also was there anything, I don't think there was anything up last year. So there was not because of COVID. Shoshona said that because of COVID, it missed a year. And I agree with you, we shouldn't be creating the art. I just wanted to throw those out so the kinds of things we were thinking about. I love our idea. I loved it. Wait a minute. Can I just ask a question? Yeah. We can't find out among ourselves if we can get an extension, but I might be able to get a clue myself just by taking a short recess and making a phone call. If not, then we should decide that we need to find that out, schedule another meeting in the near future. I think we have one for a week. We do. Because we're talking around in circles and we can't get out of the circle. Okay. So can I worry also known as Jim, why don't you make that phone call and report back to us May 1st next week. We have a scheduled meeting. We'll get an answer to that question and we'll go forward with whatever that plan is going to be. Okay. All right. So I'm going to find out about a possible extension. Great. And I wanted to say, what do you think of if we cannot get a possible extension? Well, we can definitely get a possible one. The question is, can we get an actual what if we cannot get an actual extension? Would you all be on board for going to this artist Benjamin Cowden and asking him to update what he has there? And that would, we would extend his installation for another year. Well, I certainly think we have no choice and that would be a very prudent and wise thing to do because it's about the only alternative that's practical. Yeah. And we would give him that's what I think. Yep. I agree. I don't even know how you contact him. I don't know who he is or where he is, but well, I bet there's an application somewhere with his name and information on it. I'll also look for that. Okay. So members agree. We will ask the president artist, what's his name? Benjamin C. O. W. D. E. N. Okay. Yes. Of Amherst. So he is from Amherst to extend his present project, right? Yes. Okay. And Jim will get his contact information. Okay. Robert. Sorry. I don't mean to be a pest, but so what are the terms of the extension of this? I mean, is he is he making substantive changes? I guess I'm wondering what what is he doing to earn an additional award? So I think we can offer it to him first of all. I'll not, you know, we could say we would like to offer you another year of your exhibit. You know, you can either fix what you have in the windows or has something new since he's already kind of made it through the application process. What do you think about that? Well, what I think is that we should postpone the discussion of this because it's contingent upon us not getting an extension. So we may be wasting a lot of time. So what if we what if we find out about the extension and I'll send an email to everybody, which I can do without violating the open meeting laws laws. I don't discuss it and then we'll know for the next meeting whether we're going to be discussing an extension or if we're going to be discussing the money from the council. Okay. So it's I'm going to put on the agenda. So we will circle back to this next week and hopefully get answers and move forward with all the stuff. Right. All right. Anything else for tonight guys? I'm sorry. Thank you so much for sticking with us. No, no need to apologize. I'm just wondering, Terry, do you have any information, you know, given that Shoshona has left the commission and I believe there was a new member who lasted about a week and then looked through. Yeah, they're gone. So we have two open positions. Do you have any sense of what the process is for? I don't think we have. They have been publicized. Wait, I think we have seven members, right? We have six. No, but how many members authorized? Six people authorized. Then we have in terms of capacity. I don't know that. In other words, we're saying we have two vacancies. I'm suggesting it might be one because I think yeah, we're supposed to have an odd number. So it should be seven. So we just need one. We have one vacancy. Okay. That's what I think. Okay. Yeah. So all right. Same time, same channel next week. We'll have lots to talk about. The agenda's going to be long. It might be a long meeting. Bring coffee. Okay. Please tell me anything you want me to look up in advance because I'm just not good enough to look up information and keep them in us. You got it. Thank you. I'm just wondering if there's some reason, Jim, that you didn't get the invite from the town of Amherst for this. I have no idea. I know that I had a whole bunch of emails dumped on me this morning from as much as a week and a half ago. So maybe it's there. It might be there. Yeah. Yeah. Angela sent it last Thursday. So I got back into town Thursday morning and I had her send it Thursday morning. So And it was recent this afternoon. Right. Right. And I usually send up a little reminder saying, hey guys, they're having a meeting, but I bleh did not. So I will try to remember to do that guys. Yeah, that's a good thing to do. Yeah. If you have any other agenda meeting items, send it to me. I'll put the to the agenda and it's going to go out Wednesday. So I you have a couple of days. So you have the town hall stuff, the phone, everything. I have what you sent me and what Angela Mills sent me. So I think we can have a fruitful conversation about the gallery. Yeah, which will you you by the way will be hosting that conversation. Okay, but you have the photograph to put up. I just don't know how to do all that. I should have I should have them. I went through them. Okay. So just I have a question. We have this call for art that is sitting in my inbox and is that going to be discussed? Or what are we doing with that? I can't even look it up. I just we just got it. Hang on just a minute. See if I can come up with it. Oh, never mind. I'll get in touch with you later and to see if it's appropriate to put it on the agenda and I'll let you know what you can decide. How's that? Sounds good. Yep. All right. All right. Big meeting next week. Thank you so much. I'll see you all there. Thank you for tonight. Bye. Meeting adjourned. Good luck, Carrie. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Okay. Bye-bye. Bye.