 and the committee meeting. Could you please call the roll? Yes, sir, Ms. Herbert. Here. Mr. McDowell. We've got some wonderful guests today. Excited to hear about all things arts today. What Lisa Nelgrove and the Richland County Public Library System are doing for cultural arts. So he's gonna kick it off today. And then we want to take some time to really dig in on an annual update. Well, things that our local arts agency partner at OneColumbia are doing. We look forward to reporting back to the full council on all things arts. So Lee, appreciate you being here, man. Thank you very much. I realized I was walking over here. I think the last time I stood at this podium, I was trying to convince you to get a new flag and that was just before a pandemic. So I hadn't been in this room in a while. Okay, so I am Lisa Nelgrove. I am currently the Arts and Culture Manager at Richland Library. And I formerly was the director of OneColumbia for Arts and Culture. And that's how most of you knew me. So some people are still realizing I made a change. And in my role at the library, I'll kind of set this up in such a way. I think I want to tell you about, you know, how we, and what I've been doing at library and how it relates to what some of Ms. Reese will talk about. Almost exactly a year ago that I started at the Richland Library in a new role of Arts and Culture Manager. The library has a lot of work in the cultural sphere, offering resources, connecting with partner organizations and things like that. They realize they want to do it in a more coordinated way. It's always been certainly a part of the renovations of library spaces. Many of the library spaces are devoted to creative endeavors, maker spaces, recording studios, computer labs for Creative Cloud Suite. And they, in the renovations, they created a gallery. And they had an arts librarian, Ashley Wharton, who was handling the Artists in Residence program and doing things like that. But they, creating a more focused vision for how the library exists within the cultural community in the Columbia area. And what kind of cultural opportunities the library can provide. And the way we have thought through this over the last year is that the library is, I mean it's in the slogan of the library access freely and the library provides that base level access for many people in many different things. It could be information, it could be use of a computer and it can also be now a drum sander or a bandsaw. It could be a gardening tool that they check out from library things. So there's lots of ways the library is providing important resources to people. And we wanted to make sure that those resources were also working for our artists, artists that want to create businesses and even young people that might want to pursue careers in creative industries and have lots of ideas and they wanna find a way to turn those ideas into the rest of their life. So what we've done, the only thing I have to present to you today is kind of our plan that we have just implemented in the last several months. It mirrors the library's strategic plan and it's kind of based on that. But really we focused all the things that the library offers into several sort of pillars is what I called them. The focus is really like I said, creating access. And we created these pillars, we're focused on community and how people engage, the customer experience. So what happens when they come in and how do they experience the library spaces as they are and what can we be doing in terms of education to help them learn how to do that creative endeavor or turn that creative endeavor into a career. So under the community, you'll see we provide space. Like I've mentioned a few, these are spaces where they can meet, spaces where they can build a nonprofit, they can collaborate, things like that. We build a lot of relationships. We work with all good books. We work with the universities in lots of different capacities. We work with the new Finney Center. All of these organizations we are already partnered with to help feature a lot of the activities they're doing but also sort of work within the library's mission to accomplish even bigger goals. And we do a lot around public engagement since many of our locations are located in neighborhoods. People rely on those library locations for a place to do the activities that they wanna do or engage with their neighbors. That could be a quilting group, which we often call SO-Divine. They get together, they make together. And that's how a lot of their social interaction in that neighborhood and our locations in those neighborhoods are deeply ingrained in those neighborhoods and providing those resources specifically to what those neighborhoods need. And then customer experience. So we have a huge number of events. Our team reviews the proposals from all our staff plus we add on there's at least 1,200 events a year at the original library across our 13 locations. And many of those are arts, crafts, hobbies, author talks, writing, workshops. Those are the primary thing. Also there's story times that takes up a big chunk. Those happen every week, multiple times a week at different locations. So people are engaging in the arts in lots of ways. We have exhibits. We have the exhibit space, the main gallery. We also have an art collection that we're working to feature more. We want people to be able to walk into the building and have an arts experience whether they intend to or not, they will engage in some kind of creative happening. Like even if it just means they're walking in the entrance and they're passing by the mural that is being put on the new student building the standard right next door or they're coming in and they're seeing a part of our art collection or they're seeing an exhibit or they're meeting with our artists in residence. There's a way that they're gonna have that even in a passive way. And then education. So our staff already create a lot of programs that are specifically designed to work with people about art creation or cultural creation. We wanna provide a lot more information. So if a young person goes in and uses our North Main recording studio that they'll be able to take the next step after they've done that initial project. So if they create a recording of some beats that they have come up with, then where do they go next? And we wanna be able to provide that to them and share that. Okay, next thing might cost you money because we're about access. But here's where you can go and here's who you can talk to. You can talk to this artist or you can go to this recording studio and they will help you take it to the next level where you wanna go. And then career development. Obviously we have our business and careers department. They help a lot of people with interviews, resumes, things like that, even getting business licenses and talking about how business entrepreneurship opportunities. They have an entrepreneur and residence program. And I see definitely connection there to many of the artists that are living and working in our community. They are business owners in most cases. They have created a business for themselves, whether it's to sell their art or teach their workshops or create their public art. They are businesses and we wanna provide that support too so that they can have a career here. So on the next page, which maybe you can click it. There we go. So just the last thing just to kind of point out and set things up for the next phase like of this discussion is alignment. Obviously I was involved in the work around Amplify. And I think it's informed both where the library is going as a whole. And it kind of informs a lot of arts organizations. It is a good roadmap and a lot of public input. And it really kind of directs how people want to engage in culture in our community. And it showed us a lot of opportunities. Working with neighborhoods was a big priority. And that is where the library is well suited is to work with them. So the things we're doing, I mentioned a few, but we're also seeking very large grants. We're gonna need partners on those. We're gonna need partners like one Columbia. We're gonna need partners like the city of Columbia to showcase the opportunity that is here and why people should invest in Columbia and why we have a talented pool of people that we can work with to create opportunities for young people and older folks alike that want to be a part of our city's culture. So you'll see the alignment. You'll see kind of the things we're doing. And that's where the library is at right now. Fantastic. Love it. Fantastic. Do you have any questions? No, but I wrote down an assignment to go check out the recording studio at the North Main Library. They've had a recording studio for a long time since it was renovated. However, it was just one tiny room and they've been able to expand it to where it has now the live side where the recording happens and the processing side or the production side where somebody can sit at a board and tweak the sounds and make sure that the recording's good when it comes out of there. I think they're still finding their footing on getting people in there because it wasn't finished until just a couple of months ago. And certainly the library's been under a lot of staffing pressures like everywhere these days, but so they might not have it like fully operation as to what we all hope, but they're getting there and they're working really hard. We also have an oral history room and we were able to record an interview yesterday with IS Levy Johnson, hoping, I mean, part of the intent of that at Edgewood was to collect those stories of community members and really hold on to that history before it becomes lost to time. And certainly with the passing of many of our greats, lately it's put an emphasis on why we need to get more people when they're talking about what they've been able to do for Columbia and how they're a big part of what the culture of Columbia is right now. And we're actually working on a project we're hoping with One Columbia on that to do a lot of interviews around a certain population of the city so we can tell their story. Fantastic, so let me, I wanna ask you about the Artist in Residency program. Yeah. How long, I mean, so you provide space that allows artists to do the wonderful work that they do. Is there a timeframe that they have? Hire two artists, we're doing it, we've got a call out right now to collect applications so they apply, they give us their information, their portfolio and the kind of programming they would like to do. We are hiring for a full year, so we have two per year and they're in that studio space about six months, not concurrently. So one in time. How much studio space do you have over there? Just one studio, size-wise I guess it's about two to 300 square feet maybe in that room. It's not a huge room but they get to avail of all the other resources too. So if they need bigger meeting room or they need performance space, we can do that. It's been running since the library kind of renovations finished, probably about 2018. I can't remember the exact number off the top of the head we've had but they provided that studio space for that six months. They are afforded in most cases some sort of exhibit or performance of their work because we've had different types. Some are dance, some are songwriting, some have been visual artists so we can provide an exhibit space too. And then they do programming and then we try and encourage them to work with all sort of the three stratas of folks that we have come to the library so that could be adults, teens and younger people. And they do that programming that can take lots of different forms. It could be a dance workshop or it could be a painting workshop or it could be the most recent one we have right now Dogen Krigga, they offered support for Photoshop because their work is a lot of collage and image. And so they did a whole this past weekend did a whole sort of like virtual help desk where people could call in with their Photoshop questions and get them answered. And that's those are the artists that are giving back the expectations to give back. Yes, yeah. And then they are paid for their residency. They are not just provided the space so they receive a stipend of $1,000 a month while they're there. And then they're in the studio. I think we asked them to be in the studio about 10 hours a week around the studio in the studio so that they're there and can meet with some of the public that come in. Fantastic. So the residency program, did you put that in place a year ago when you came on board? It was already in place. It was part of the design of the renovations and the library to Habit. The only changes we've made, I think since I've been there that we are now seeking them two at a time so that we can get the full year planned and ahead of time. And then I think we're specifically doing some engaging in certain communities that we have not previously had artists and residents in. That is different types of art form that we haven't had yet or certain minority communities that haven't been represented. Would you be open to looking for locations to partner with using the Richland County Library programming, let's say, whether it's Parks and Rec of the City or Richland County Parks and Rec to really get into the neighborhoods like you're, it's like your goal is. One of the grant applications that I'm interested that we're going to be seeking is for some, I wouldn't call them artists and residents because they're a little bit different but really community artists that will work on the library's behalf to work in neighborhoods and build relationships with communities around our locations. And describe that grant for us. So it would be a national endowment for the arts grant and we are crafting it now for a submission in July and we wouldn't be able to see anything happen for another year because NEA's grant timeline is extensive. It takes a long time to get those. But we hope that it would afford us some opportunity for artists to work directly with communities to create. Could be music, could be visual arts in a neighborhood to really help the library deepen its relationship with those individual communities around locations. It'd have to be very, we hope that it would build up into something even bigger but in this initial phase it would be pretty limited to about just four or five artists that we would be able to support through a program like that. And just so I'm cleared, the Richland County Library and your operation is separate than Richland County. So Richland County doesn't necessarily have any relationship with one Columbia as you do at the library. Yeah, I mean we are a, I mean, county millage organization but we are not necessarily tied with the governance of the county. The board of trustees at the library is appointed by the county. Okay, fantastic. And do you have a formal kind of operating agreement partnership with one Columbia? Yes, I think we've had letters of support for different projects we've shared because it's mostly project oriented but they are definitely one of our regular partners that we work with on lots of different things and communicate with. Fantastic. Well, listen, we'd love to talk to you more about expanding out to the communities through Parks and Rec and our wonderful facilities throughout the city. Ms. Herbert. I just have a somewhat random question but piano lessons. Yeah. And you were talking about the artist in residency. Is that a situation where if you had a musician who came in that their gift back could be piano lessons to kids? It's possible. It's hard to do that because that is such a one-on-one type of program, especially giving specific piano lessons but we have had musicians that have done songwriting workshops or maybe not so much focused on the learning of the instrument because often that there are other avenues for that. There's school time for the orchestra and the band but yes, piano lessons are often a pretty difficult thing I think to find. You end up finding somebody in your neighborhood, you hope that knows how to do it and teach because getting a piano is really hard these days but it could be something that if that artist in residence proposed to us and wanted to do I think we'd find a way to do it but in that individual case of like a piano teacher it'd be tough I think for them to do that one-on-one. They'd have a very full schedule but the musicians that we've had in the past have always found other ways that they can sort of teach their art form and pass that along to community members that are interested. Great, thanks so much. We look forward to seeing the wonderful, great things you continue to do at the library. Miss Marjorie, Marjorie Reese, Interim Executive Director of One Columbia for Arts and Culture. Thank you so much for being with us today. Thanks for having us. I'm looking forward to this conversation and I have some prepared notes but please feel free to ask other thoughts as they come ahead. We just wanna give you some updates on what's happened at One Columbia during this interim period. We've, the organization's board asked me to be the Interim Executive Director with a couple of priorities. One was to reconstitute the staff. Thanks to a grant from the Knight Foundation we were able to add a couple of contract positions. One that follows what Lee was saying to you and the amplifiers commitment to community involvement. We were able to hire a community engagement specialist. Some of you know Darian McLeod that's a theater artist in town and he offices at our office on Duke Avenue. I'll tell you more about that in a second. His job is to animate that space and to work in neighborhoods to make sure that artists have opportunities for visibility and that the public has access to the resources. We hired a public art administrator, Pamela Zaljack. We recruited, took us a few months. We recruited regionally and Pamela relocated here from Florida to take on this position and her background is in public art as a public art administrator. And then shortly after I arrived and during the search for an executive director our office manager was stolen from us by the arts commission, which we were very excited about for her. And so in the midst of our talking with the mayor and thinking about what role one Columbia could strengthen one of them was public information. So we were able to hire recently Rachel Flood who is both our office manager but has a marketing background and we'll be doing more of our social media, et cetera. And because we received a grant from the Central Carolina Community Foundation to do more programming for young people we created a technical theater training program that will launch this summer and to help us organize that we hired a young man who is a student at USC but as a technical theater specialist. And so with his background and skills we've been able to recruit teaching artists that will facilitate this program and it will launch this summer in a number of theater venues around the county actually. And I have a question, is that just a title technical or is it bringing more technology into the... Thank you. So a lot of the research that we've done over time has shown that especially for young people of color entering the field of technical theater. So lighting, stage design, sound design, costume design. My own background is costume design so I'm always looking for. So this is a training program to help young people see careers and jobs in the backstage fields of the performing and visual arts. Ms. Reese, let me ask you something real quick. The community engagement specialist if we could dive into that for a second real quick. So what kind of interaction does that individual have as far as getting into the communities? Is there interfacing with City of Columbia? Just give us a description of that. It's mostly with the neighborhood-based non-profit some non-arts organizations, churches, community associations, non-profit groups that work with young women for example but connecting with those organizations and helping them utilize the arts and artists in their mission. We use the facility at Duke Street. We allow non-profit groups to use that building on Saturday to do our classes for kids, et cetera. So it's breaking down the barrier, the idea that the arts are for somebody else in some other place and going into schools heavily into neighborhood associations, et cetera to encourage participation and find out what people need. Fantastic. Thank you. The search for the permanent executive director seems to be never ending but it is ongoing. We've done three calls now, one locally, one regionally and now we're on our second going back to the regional call. The most of the hiccup has been inviting someone to relocate with the salary that we're able to offer and or looking for someone with prior arts administration experience so that they're not starting from zero. But we've recently, as last week, interviewed a candidate that we thought was gonna meet the board's expectations. We were asked to go back. Now we have one other one that's in the hopper. So that search will continue and hopefully you won't have to see me much more but it's a very important step for the organization to take, to elevate the salary and then to make sure that the person has the skills to implement the amplifier plan. Back in October, the board had its annual retreat and established a couple of priorities for the organization. One is the marketing and visibility to promote Columbia based artists and arts organizations, to promote the cultural and entertainment aspects of the city's resources to tourism, to tourists, to focus on providing space. So I appreciate your question about artist residency space. We met with a group of artists about a month ago now and space for residency space, the studio space is still rises to the top of what they need. So in a more recent venture in that direction, we partnered with Stormwater Studios recently. They had an opening which don't come up very often for a resident artist. And so we did a workshop for local artists. Primarily they were focused, Stormwater's focus was on engaging its first artists of color ever. And so we did a workshop with a number of African-American artists, helped them through the process, talked to them about submitting, et cetera. And so the artist was selected and we'll begin that residency for a year because that residency requires a payment to be a resident. You have to provide, you have to pay. Stormwater Studios was not able to fully fund that. So one Columbia did fund that in line with our next priority, which is to increase support for artists to allow them to be able to take advantage of those kinds of opportunities. A couple of other priorities quickly. Find new ways for artists to be visible in neighborhoods, which is what the Community Engagement Specialist is doing. More art classes for children. So our relocating to the Duke Street Avenue space is a move in that direction so that we are based in a neighborhood now and much more visible. Developing partnerships to elevate the role of the arts in Columbia. Happy to say, and Pamela will takes all the credit for this, we've been partnering and having a conversation with the State Arts Commission. And in June, we'll host the first public art dialogue in Columbia, inviting public art artists, visual artists, emerging visual artists to come to Columbia and meet with specialists who worked across the country, panel members from three or four different states. We'll talk about how to get into the competition. To win a commission for public art. Not just only, not just locally, but public art competitions nationally. So how do we strengthen partnerships that'll give our artists more of an opportunity to be seen and be prepared? And then broadening our financial base of support, which is always important. You'll see some of the work that we've been doing. The Central Carolina Community Foundation, the Arts Commission. We have two, three grants in play now from the Arts Commission, applying to the NEA, and then funding from the Knight Foundation, which is largely funding our public art work and some community engagement work. We moved in February. I'm happy to say the downtown space just frankly became uninhabitable. It was just not well maintained by the landlord. So the board decided that we should move to a space that we already were paying rent for. This house on Duke Avenue, I would welcome you guys to come. So the downstairs floor is used by local artists and arts organizations and our offices are upstairs. This past year, we've done a lot of work picking up from our previous executive director's legacy working in the area of public art, but focusing on condition reports. What's the shape of each piece that's in the city? What's the condition of it? Has it been damaged? Does it need repair? What kind of repair, et cetera? Drafting protocols, which is something we wanna bring back to you today also, but drafting some protocols, doing research on cities that are size, cities with the same kind of mayor, council structure, city manager structure, so that this committee will have an opportunity to think about what do you want in your public art policy? And also focusing on cataloging or finishing that work so that the public can, from our website, see the public art collect, create their own walking tour but we're also creating those. There are a couple of private development projects that are currently underway, Benton Crossing, the standard that Lee talks about, and then just beginning to work with the park department on public art projects for Finley Park. Where is that conversation, Mr. Simons, with One Columbia for Finley Park? So we've even had some extensive discussion about art in the park as we've been planning for Finley Park, so along the way, we've been doing that with One Columbia to create a program so we can rotate art in the park. So we've had some extensive talk about that. Yeah. And then I had a question too, because I think I got the email about Benton Crossing. How did you all negotiate that? How did that come about? I'm not them agreeing to do it. So that was negotiation with the director. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They can hear me on the web. So I negotiated that with, I was director. The way that came about is that, I guess, in the review of the architectural plans for that site, it was determined that in one way, they could fall within the bounds of the zoning requirements and other design requirements that they could add public art on that bottom level. That's happened in a few cases with private developers and the city offers for us at the time, me at One Columbia and now with Pamela to go in and talk with them about what opportunities they can take advantage of. One Columbia then would sort of enter an agreement with them and so in that case, we entered an agreement with the folks doing Benton Crossing, set a sort of estimated budget for their kind of project and talked about the parameters. Since that construction has just started, everything's been handed over to Pamela and Pamela is now in communication with lots of the communities that are around that so that they're a big part of how that art is identified with that private developer. I think that's where One Columbia really offers a difference in that process by really engaging community members so that they are a part of selecting that art and it really represents the community and developers appreciate that, especially when they are not already located here in Columbia. Did that, was that through a tax, a property tax incentive? No, there is no such thing available to us. They just are encouraged to do it to meet the zoning requirements or the design requirements that the city has around blank facades. So if they are especially often what happens when it's like first level parking, a lot of times that comes windowless and needs something. So instead of doing what we've seen in years past like with the Meridian building of having like fake storefronts that are like glassed, a lot of times now they'll encourage them to do murals or public art as part of it because like over time, it requires a lot less maintenance. So it's good faith by the developer. So can you put a price tag on that good faith and invest in that? In that case, specifically with Brenton crossing, I think the budget is 19,000 for the whole project with the standard that we mentioned, which followed a similar pathway, that whole project, only half of that was through the design requirements. Another half was in a partnership easement with the Richmond Library, but that total project on both sides of the building is 30,000. Fantastic, thanks, Lee. And then one other question that I just almost forgot. They have the neighborhood, so the community engagement, is this something that they have asked for or is this something that they will learn about? Like community itself? Yes. It's typical when you're working on projects inside of neighborhoods, that the conversation should begin with a resident community. So organizing those conversations, seeking out the key people in the community that would be spokespeople or that would create some sort of an advisory committee. And so that's the step where Pamela is now. So I guess my question maybe is a step back because some folks, not everyone loves murals. Correct. And so that's, I was trying to get more clarity. Do they know that one is coming at all? Well, and it hasn't been decided that the project would be a mural in this case. And so that's the input, that this kind of process could be something different. Such as? It could be a piece of sculpture. It could be a rotating mini art park. Okay. That should be it. And you know, some cities actually have an ordinance that allows public art not to be tangible, not to be fixed. The public art could be piano classes, target stores in, when I worked in another city, wanted to be engaged with the public. And so they sponsored something called, it's a music education program that's now 20 something years old. But it's a music education program. So it just depends on what the community is asking for, what the ordinance allows and what the budget is. Fantastic. And Lee was very mindful for that neighborhood outreach. So here's to hoping you continue that. Oh, that's a priority. It's definitely a priority. I just want to point out, I talked about the conservation just so you can see the work that's, we're documenting the damage to public artworks around the city and then beginning a program to address the decline. And then with respect to the budget, the 19,000 that is coming out of your budget or is it coming out of the developer's budget? The developer's budget. I think the artist fee though is 15. That comes out of? That comes out of the 19. The artist fee for the project is 19 and then we capture some administrative costs out of the remainder. Again, just a couple of the community engagement initiatives that we've launched this year, the stormwater residency, artist development workshops. We convened a couple of months ago, all of the technical theater directors in the city as we were crafting this technical theater training program for kids to talk with them about what their facilities needed, how they might be involved and how young people might eventually be on their staff. We do public art tours. We're collaborating with the South Carolina Arts Commission more now that we have the local arts agency designation. And one will be this public art dialogue that I mentioned a minute ago. The technical theater training, some student internships. We have had interns in the past from USC. This year we're adding to and have been in dialogue with Allen University to bring some of their students over, mostly journalism students over for the summer. The princess empowerment residency is one of those community organizations that we mentioned earlier. They're a nonprofit, they're not affiliated with us, but they needed a place to meet in a neighborhood. And so that's one of the ways that we're responding to that need. And then offering workshops, providing meeting spaces for local arts organizations. This is a little bit of our funding picture. We're trying to branch out as you see to get additional dollars to do some of this community engagement work that you hear. Target Stores is providing supplies for the Czech theater training students this summer. South Arts is an organization, our regional arts organization. We have applied for some professional development funding to provide funding for the workshops for artists. Central Carolina, I've mentioned the State Arts Commission, the Knight Foundation, and today is Midlands Give's Day. And I'm happy to report that we met our goal about an hour or so ago. Can you just give us a general ballpark figure of what these revenue streams, what level they're at? And also speak to, you know, I wanna circle grants. I feel like what grants are we not able to pursue or just don't have the capacity to pursue because we possibly don't have the strength in grant writing? Are we leaving money out there? That we could be going out there? We need to sit here. We want to learn from you. Oh, you're our local arts agent. Okay, I just wanna make sure I was answering the right question. Yeah, this partnership we got going. We do have a lot more capacity now that we have the designation. So that designation allows us to receive a $40,000 grant from the State Arts Commission, but we were not able to apply for it in the past. And that's just year one. We also have an outstanding request to them to fund more arts education programs in the city. So the grant writing capacity right now, I bring a lot of that myself, but we will need to train somebody and make sure that we have someone that can keep that up. Our grant to the Knight Foundation is also pretty hefty lift for the organization, $150,000 over the time period. It's really important. And that, by the way, is an example of money left on the table. If we got more involvement with the city, from the city in that process, there is additional dollars for quality. What does that look like? What is more involvement from the city look like for that process? It looks like an intentional partnership with say Parks and Rec. We do partner with Parks and Rec now, but the grant would come from the needs of that department. We would put the arts components inside of it, but rather than it being just a, we need more of, when I say intentional, we would wanna sit down with the Parks Department and say we have 10 facilities. This is for example. We'd like to have 10 artist residencies in these facilities or three exhibitions. And so our organization would say, oh great, we'll prepare the artists. Here's what that would look like. We'll make sure they are trained that the scope of the residency meets what the needs of the community would be. Our team would meet with community. So it would be a real braided partnership as opposed to one that we just do because it's a natural conversation. And so the application would come from the city of OneColumbia and OneColumbia for Arts and Culture. And that application would go to whatever grant makers are out there. Yeah, in this case, the Knight Foundation. So the format is come up, team up, come up with a wonderful program, bundle it up, and then go pursue funding from various grants. I think that's a good summary. And there are some others out there. Bloomberg is one that would really require the city's heft to be successful. But there are other foundations. The Mellon Foundation, for example, is doing work in small and rural communities. This isn't rural, but small communities are size. The Ford Foundation believes in artist development. So going to them through the city's resources. So sometimes the city is the anchor applicant because of the city's infrastructure, the confidence in the funder, those kind of things. So for the, I'll just take Lee's program of the artist and residency and the workshops, we have a template there. So it sounds like putting together the programming into a certain extent the application. What are we missing? Are we missing a grant writer to come in with a strong, believable, fundable grant application to go to various grant writers or grant makers throughout the country? I don't think we're missing anything, quite honestly. I think we're missing will, the stated will to collaborate and do such kinds of things. The template, and I agree that the library template is fabulous, the template we created during the Amplify plan. We trained artists to become teaching artists. We wrote a curriculum, we engaged. I can't remember how many in our core. And so the templates are out there. I mean, that's a fairly common way to work. I think it is more of a determination that we would sit down together and say, okay, Margie, what we really want is more connecting back to Amplify, more spaces where artists can have a job. Give me some ideas. So we would make several recommendations to you. And then the council or my board would say, go find the funding. And that's what we had to do with the arts, launching the kids program this summer, is go find the money. We put the program together and shopped it around to two or three foundations, Central Carolina. Are you limited to the go find the money portion because of funding from whatever sources upon Columbia gets? I guess my question is if you had more funds dedicated to grant writing, specifically grant writing, could you go find more funds? For programs specifically like we're talking about. Sure. That's always a good yes to have more grant writing support. Well, and I'm, what I think I'm hearing though, is you want more, you would need more direction from the city on what our overall goals are. That's it. As a nonprofit organization, we can raise funds for the programs that we, based on the board's goals, design and implement. As your local arts agency, we would work with the city's team, identify the city's needs in the area of arts programming, arts education, arts and neighborhoods, et cetera. Now that point right there, identifying the city's needs, is that something that the city would be expected to do or is that what you all could do based on what you've seen other cities do? Both. Because I kind of think sometimes, people have to tell us what we need or give us ideas. Because if you're not an arts person, it's just kind of hard. Yeah, and I think that we learned a lot during the amplifier planning process when you met with parks, et cetera. The next step is a sit down with whatever group you would designate and say, okay, now local arts agency partner, what's possible? What can we do? And then the city would decide what its first three priorities are. We would be the collaborating entity to design, to implement, to fundraise for those programs. This is our first year as a local arts agency. So we're all of us are kind of learning who's on first. But most cities, staff people, work with the local arts agency if they're a nonprofit, if they're in-house, it's a city staff driven. But in this case, it would be so helpful so that we're not coming to you after the fact saying here's what we think. We're collaborating on the design, we're collaborating on setting the goals and setting the measures and the metrics. Some of it connects back to the city's comprehensive plan, by the way. So putting artists in, I wanted to say earlier, I took piano lessons in the fire station when I was a little girl. And so there are ways to incorporate the arts into just about every city department. But we need the imprimata, we need the go forth message from a planning meeting, a sit down and sort of collaborating out conversation. Did you hear that there was somebody who wanted piano lessons? I kind of heard that in the back of my mind. I also took tab dancing lessons there too. But it's just, again, to say that the city has resources already on the table that can be capitalized with this kind of collaborating dialogue. A couple of items, back to the local arts agency discussion, we have a one year agreement with the city that year will end in June. And we would like to know from this committee, how do we combat you and ask for an extension of that designation? What would you like to see? Our general services contract, we really need to have another, again, it's a sit down conversation. We come back, one Columbia presents a roster of activities of budget or requests every year. That's appropriate. But I think it would be more, I Margie think it would be more helpful if we were to have a conversation with the city about how do we expand the services that are in our contract now? Right now we're focusing on tourism, marketing, we do that. But our contract does not include some of the things we're talking about, community engagement, for example. So we do find alternate fundraising to do the neighborhood based stuff. Most of our emphasis is on attracting tourism, which is a big and very important task. I also wanna talk to you guys today or at some other point about reanimating the exhibition space that's in this building on the first floor. One Columbia used to be a part of programming that space. Everything is about funding, but right now it's about space to showcase local artists. And if we were able to learn who in city government we would create that partnership with or we engage in that, we would be able to respond to artists who are looking for spaces to show their work and then to promote that to the public. And then the Amplify cultural plan just to say that that is the roadmap as Lee says that we're continuing to follow and wanna know from you, how do we engage with this committee in a more structured way to make sure that we are focusing on the components of the plan that this committee and the city council would like to see. These are just a couple of examples of how other city halls are using their gallery spaces and then our social media posts, which helps us to keep up with the public. So that's my story. I do wanna come back to the conversation about a public art policy and ordinances or however this committee would like us to support that quest. Pamela has done some research and I'll be glad to leave these examples with the city clerk of other cities our size and structure that might be templates or launching that but to develop a public art policy as you can imagine is more than just picking one off the shelf. It has to connect with the comprehensive plan with the public's idea what they want with ordinances, you know, it's shop kind of conversation but I do think it's one that the amplify plan for sure called for and one that I really appreciate this committee. My question for this body is how do we have a sit down thoughtful conversation about what this committee want expertise can bring to the table? How do we begin to draft such a thing? Well, let me ask you this, right? Right. So I think, what's the timeline? I'm sorry, you said earlier, hopefully in the next 60, 90 days you'll have a new executive director. I hope so, yes. Yeah, so experience there might help our conversation move along and also digging back into the amplify study and everything that came out of that to, I guess, take a look at the overarching approach. We will start meeting more often of this committee and we need to continue to have these conversations as we move forward. One last question before I turn it over to Tina for any questions she has. One Columbia as a local arts agency, you are essentially a resource to all artists, all nonprofits, all artists groups. Can you give us an example since you've been the local arts agency designation? Have any other smaller arts groups reached out to you as a resource to team up to go after grants, anything to speak of in that capacity? The answer is yes. And even before we got the designation but in more recent months. Artists are restricted to applying for some grants as individual artists. And so one Columbia can serve as a fiscal agent as the actual applicant. And then actually as a coach to helping them craft their artist statement to craft the project goals and missions. So we do that kind of work more one-on-one in the workshop we did at Stormwater a couple of months ago. And so we're meeting now with a group of artists who are just needing somebody to help them find a space to exhibit. And so we engage with them, we talk with them. I mean, the team does all that kind of work. So the answer is yes, that's good. And that's what we wanna hear more of is how you are being a successful resource to growing our arts and all the talent that we have here in Columbia in the Midlands. Including the upcoming public art dialogue that Pamela's organizing. We have artists in this town that are not comfortable applying for a public art commission. So this workshop will help them understand the logistics of that, the priorities for information, how to take a good photograph, how to redesign your website, how to budget, you know. So those kinds of things do happen. And I appreciate having this chance to share that with you. Perfect. Thank you, Tina. Do you have anything else? The only thing I was gonna say is I'm actually glad to, not glad, but that was good information to know that sometimes the artists themselves are not able to apply. And I'm assuming that's because they trust the art agency to make sure that everything is handled properly with like the grant funds. I think there's- Not that they can't trust the artist. Exactly. But just to, is it more of a accountability? Actually, it's both, it is accountability, but it's legislated-based. More government agencies, the state tax code, doesn't allow them to grant to an individual. They need the backup of a structure of a board or 501C3 status. And so that's why many local arts agencies serve as a fiscal receiver for public funding in particular. Now foundations are a little different, a lot more flexible. They will award individuals. But again, artists don't know where to go look for those dollars or even how to present themselves. And so that's a function that we continue to provide. Fantastic. Well, I will say we are excited about Finlay Park. It's coming along. Henry, if you could keep the dialogue going and let us know from just hearing about the sculptures, the art presentation that will be involved in Finlay Park. I think it's very exciting. And I think there's some wonderful energy that could happen. And I encourage you guys to, this committee to use us as a resource. I know we're a structured partner and I'm interim, but I got a lot of miles on this old body and I can provide- Well, getting community arts programs going, I think, is something we're very interested in. So that's a dialogue we'd like to have. But then on the flip side, going out and finding grants to make it happen is also important to us. Absolutely. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. Lee Margie and the team, if there's no other comments, questions, we will adjourn. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thank you.