AADL Board Meeting - March 22, 2022

Tue, 03/22/2022 - 4:47pm

When: March 22, 2022 at Downtown Library: 4th Floor Meeting Room

Watch the March 22, 2022 Meeting of the AADL Board of Trustees. Select an agenda item below to jump to that point in the transcript. For more information, please see the Board Packet for this meeting.

22-064 I. CALL TO ORDER Jim Leija, President
22-065 II. ATTENDANCE
22-066 III. RECESS TO CLOSED SESSION FOR DISCUSSION OF LABOR NEGOTIATIONS AND REAL ESTATE
22-067 IV. RECONVENE TO REGULAR MEETING AT 7:00PM
22-068 V. ATTENDANCE
22-069 VI. APPROVAL OF AGENDA (Item of action)
22-070 VII. CONSENT AGENDA (Item of action)
CA-1 Approval of Minutes of February 28, 2022
CA-2 Approval of February 2022 Disbursements
22-071 VIII. CITIZENS’ COMMENTS
22-072 IX. FINANCIAL REPORTS Eli Neiburger, Deputy Director
22-073 X. COMMITTEE REPORTS
22-074 A. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Jim Leija, Chair
22-075 B. LIBRARY DIRECTOR SEARCH COMMITTEE Jim Leija, Chair
22-076 C. BUDGET & FINANCE COMMITTEE Scott Trudeau, Chair
22-077 XI. LIBRARY REPORT Sherlonya Turner, Associate Director
22-078 XII. OLD BUSINESS
21-162 A. LIBRARY DIRECTOR SEARCH UPDATE Jim Leija, Chair (Item of discussion)
22-079 XIII. NEW BUSINESS
22-080 A. RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING PARKLAND PLAZA FACILITY UPGRADES AND CONTRACTING WITH O’NEAL CONSTRUCTION FOR CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT OF THE PROJECT Len Lemorie, Associate Director (Item of discussion & action)
22-081 B. VOTE FOR CLOSED SESSION AT THE APRIL 25, 2022 REGULAR BOARD MEETING FOR DISCUSSION OF REAL ESTATE AND LABOR NEGOTIATIONS (Item of action)
22-082 XIV. CITIZENS’ COMMENTS
22-083 XV. ADJOURNMENT

For more information, see aadl.org/aboutus/board.

Transcript

[00:00:00] JIM LEIJA: [MUSIC] We're back in. Hot mic. [LAUGHTER] Welcome back to public meeting. Attendance is taken. Thank you, Karen. May I have a motion to approve the agenda?
[00:07:24] DHARMA AKMON: So moved.
[00:07:25] KERENE MOORE: Second.
[00:07:26] JIM LEIJA: Thank you. Any discussion of tonight's agenda?
[00:07:40] JIM LEIJA: I'm wondering if we need to make the [OVERLAPPING] [NOISE]
[00:07:45] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: The amendment?
[00:07:45] JIM LEIJA: Yeah. I think we need to add a vote for closed session on the 25th, and we're also going to vote for a closed session on what date is set, the 19th. Thank you.
[00:08:06] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I guess I move that we have closed session on April 19th at 7:00 PM.
[00:08:13] JIM LEIJA: Just a vote for?
[00:08:15] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yes.
[00:08:16] JIM LEIJA: Do we have a second on that to add to our agenda, a vote for closed session on April 19th?
[00:08:23] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Second.
[00:08:23] JIM LEIJA: Thank you. Any discussion on the amendment? Thank you. [BACKGROUND] Vote for real estate. Thank you. [LAUGHTER] I was just writing that down.
[00:08:40] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Thank you.
[00:08:40] JIM LEIJA: We're going to take a vote for the amendment to the agenda to vote for closed session for real estate on April 19th. Can we do that? We don't need a roll call for that. All in favor? [OVERLAPPING] Aye. Any opposed? Great. That amendment is added. Any further discussion of the agenda?
[00:09:01] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Do we need another amendment for the other closed session?
[00:09:04] JIM LEIJA: We have that already in there. Then a vote on approving the agenda this evening, all in favor? [OVERLAPPING] Aye. Any opposed? Great. Agenda approved. Which moves us on to the consent agenda. Can anybody motion to approve the consent agenda?
[00:09:25] KERENE MOORE: Moved.
[00:09:26] SCOTT TRUDEAU: Seconded.
[00:09:27] JIM LEIJA: Thank you. Any discussion on the consent agenda? All right. Then we shall take a vote. All in favor? Aye [OVERLAPPING]. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. That moves us on to citizens' comments. Karen.
[00:09:44] KAREN WILSON: I did not receive.
[00:09:46] JIM LEIJA: All right. Anything from online land? Nothing? Great. Next up, financial reports. Eli.
[00:09:58] ELI NEIBURGER: Good evening. Financial reports begins on the page marked 23 in the packet. This is the time of year when cash starts decreasing. We are decreased $1.1 million from spending down from 10.4 on January 31st to 9.3 million on February 28th. We have received 99.9 percent of the budgeted tax receipts that will continue to roll in over the remaining months. We will end that up a little bit over budget, which is always nice to see. You can see also the fund balance, the general fund ticked up slightly in February, and partially, that's just a slightly shorter month. But also it's again the time of year when we're starting to accrue additional revenue in excess of our expenditures. You can see that under expenditures there, the year-to-date expenditures are $10.8 million. Under the revenue over under expenditures, currently our revenues exceed expenditures by $1.3 million. We're on course for about $1.3-1.5 million surplus at the end of the fiscal year. But there are things that are spent more at the end of the year, especially with us starting to get into programming again, we've got summer festival coming up, there's a number of expenditures coming up. I don't expect that we will be as far under in the remainder of the years we have been thus far. But we are definitely on track to finish with a more than million dollars surplus in the operating budget. Skipping to page 26, the statement of revenues and expenditures. Once again, you can see there the interest income because of the bonds in the investment accounts, those will continue to be negative all year. That's something that happens when there's a lot of inflation. Then just as a few quick notes in the expenditure side, there were no grants and memorials expenses this year. Similarly, the MPSERS pass- through up in the revenues, you can see that that's blank this time as well. That is because that only happens once a year, and it's in December, is when the MPSERS pass-through hits. That's when we get some money from the state that then we pay back to the state. Makes lot of sense. [LAUGHTER] Then yes, we had no grants and memorial expenses, so all of the lines that show empty are correct. Again, this one we're about 66 percent of the way through the year. You can see most of the funds are pretty close to that. A few of them running a little bit above, a few of them running a little behind. We will as usual bring a resolution in the last month to square up any line items that need to be adjusted, in keeping with the line item budget. That's about it for the financial report. Any questions about any of that? All right. Thank you all very much.
[00:12:46] JIM LEIJA: Thank you, Eli. [NOISE] That moves us on to committee reports. We have first executive committee. We have not had an executive committee meeting. That will move us on to B, which is library director search committee. [LAUGHTER] We have successfully concluded our search. We have secured our top candidate. He's sitting in this room. Let's congratulate Eli again. [APPLAUSE] Becoming the director of the Ann Arbor District Library. Eli has officially accepted the terms of our offer, and will begin as director, officially, on April 1st. Congratulations to you and to all of us for a great process and just an incredible amount of thoughtfulness and good work to secure a positive future in our leadership. Any questions? [LAUGHTER] That moves us onto budget and finance. Scott.
[00:14:04] SCOTT TRUDEAU: We had our first budget and finance committee meeting with the new configuration. This meeting was primarily an orientation for the new members to get everybody up to speed on what the budget process looks like and what the role of the committee is, both for the budget and then with any other budget and finance related questions coming from staff and the administration. We don't have a ton to report. The schedule will be, we and the committee will see a draft budget in April at our next committee meeting. Then the full board will see a finalized version of that for review in April and then I believe we go to approval in May, to stay on schedule. The biggest note, just so we're aware of it, and we've talked about this already, we're switching over to new budget software. But the goal is that all the reports we see should look the same. That from our perspective, it should be smooth. But there will be a cut-over at the beginning of the fiscal year to doing software. We'll still maintain all of our records in the old system and then cut over everything to the new system for the new year. Hoping that will go smoothly, but I think that's pretty much everything, unless I missed anything.
[00:15:34] JIM LEIJA: One related item to the processes also, this is an annualized activity which is looking at the friends leasing contract with us, and Jamie and I met with friends, leadership and staff at the new warehouse space to tour with them, because we are planning, anticipating making a transition to moving their book collecting operations and processing to that site when it's available, which we don't exactly know when yet. The staff is in the process of reviewing the agreement which syncs up a little bit with the fiscal year. We'll be taking a look at that agreement as usual in, well, typically April, May. But it will look different this year, based on this reorganizing of space for them. I just want everyone to be aware of that. Scott.
[00:16:59] SCOTT TRUDEAU: It's all for me.
[00:17:00] JIM LEIJA: Awesome [OVERLAPPING]
[00:17:01] SCOTT TRUDEAU: Do you have any questions? No.
[00:17:06] JIM LEIJA: Library report. Sherlonya.
[00:17:08] SHERLONYA TURNER: All right.
[00:17:18] SHERLONYA TURNER: We're going to do a little bit of an overview of the annual report. I'm not going to go by the report as it exists on the website point-by-point, but there are some things that we're going to point out for you about where the real stories are here. One thing to point out here is basically in this particular report, where we're talking about vestibule service. We're talking about that really that chunk of time when we were pretty much just open in the lobby. What I want to point out, when you're looking at the figure here that says registered cardholders, there's about 64,476 registered cardholders, really, what we might've said is active cardholders. One of the things that we were looking at during this year is who was using their card. Sometimes in the past, we've looked at the entire number of cards that we have, this is specifically looking at those that were not expired just to make sure that you see exactly what you're looking at. You see that there's just over 2,500 new cards issued during this time. That's a low number for us, but placed within the context of what's going on during this time, we're pretty pleased with that number. That means that over 2,500 people went and got a new library card even though our buildings were not open. For the most part, these are people who specifically did this online. They decided that library use was important enough to them that they needed to get this card during this time. We're looking at some door count numbers. Obviously, these are not what we're accustomed to looking at, but the real story isn't in the numbers. The real story is in the distribution of this ring here. If you take a look at Downtown, which is at 18 percent here, and Malletts Creek, which is at 17 percent, have you ever heard numbers like that before when comparing Downtown to one of our branches? Everything else is pretty similar, 11 percent at Pittsfield, 18 percent at Traverwood, except the Westgate. Westgate's got that 36 percent, and again, this is when we have the vestibule opens, Sweetwaters was also open. That's what we believe that you're seeing here, the ability for people to come in and do their orders at Sweetwaters. That figure just to make sure that folks who are listening to this that door count's 375,085, and that's about 20 percent of what we did in 2019. The reason that we've made the comparison of 2019 is that 2020 wasn't a normal year either, and we had several chunk of time where we didn't have our doors open. What we're looking at now are page views, about 12 million page views. That's pretty normal for us. Nothing to see here with those numbers. There's something to see here with the videos that we released. There were 1,141. That is not an error. The staff created, produced, and posted over a thousand videos in a year's time that resulted in over 200,000 views and over 17,000 hours watched. That's how folks were using their library during this time.
[00:20:39] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: That's incredible.
[00:20:41] SHERLONYA TURNER: We were super excited [LAUGHTER] to see that. Then the other thing I'd like to point out here has to do with our circulation. We have 4,289,133 system life physical circs. That's 67 percent of what we did in 2019, which already is pretty big considering what was going on at the time. But if we recall the number we just saw with respect to our door count, we did that much circulation with 20 percent of our door count. That's a pretty impressive use of the library from our users. It just shows how efficient that vestibule service was for folks, and how important it was to our users that they had access to that service. We did 313 room bookings. Room bookings came up quite a bit over the various reports over this time. That's not a huge number, but these folks were super happy to have this. Remember, we're all zoomed out at this point, everybody's all Zoom all the time, but it wasn't like that at the beginning. There are many people who we were able to assist in using Zoom, and these are folks who may or may not have had access to this tool that seems so everywhere and commonplace right now, so we're pretty happy about that as well. Just going to pause and see if there are any questions about that, please.
[00:22:17] ONNA SOLOMON: I just want to comment that that circulation number is remarkable.
[00:22:23] SHERLONYA TURNER: We're pretty happy about it. [LAUGHTER] I just wanted to draw your attention to a recent posting that we had for a new position in our events department. Normally we are not talking about postings here, but this one we wanted to talk about because we specifically posted this with intention of having this person dedicated to helping the library move forward with respect to more inclusive program offerings. There's a lot when we were thinking about this, that is what I like to call it forever work. There's no way to ever have exhausted, so makes sense to add a position. The idea here is that we have somebody who's always keeping their eye on the ball and always making sure that we hang on to the threads that we've picked up. We're actively hiring for that position, and hopefully we'll have someone in position in the coming weeks. This is about FoolMoon and FestiFools. Our final luminary and puppet-making workshop that's happening out at Parkland Plaza this Sunday. We'll have a presence at both events. We'll have a table at FoolMoon. FoolMoon is happening on April 1st, 6:00 PM-10:00 PM. FestiFools is Sunday before that, the 27th, 4:00-5:00 PM, the big parade. If you know people who are interested in carrying puppets, we have a [LAUGHTER] piece on our website for that too people. Community members have the opportunity to sign up to volunteer and participate in that way. It's at aadl.org/FestiFoolshelp if there's anyone out there who's wanting to do that. [NOISE] We talked about this last time and we're bringing it back, 83 three items were sold. We were pretty happy to see that. This was a flash sale. This was just up two weeks, and then as a result of that two weeks there will be 80 more three AADL shirts out in our community. We plan on having another sale later in the spring. By we, I mean through the friends. We did not make these shirts and sell them at the desks. We mentioned this at the last meeting. Online meeting room bookings are back. They have a nice calendar view. We expect them to be easier to use. Because of that view you can see exactly what space is available. We're returning to the model that we had pre-pandemic, where people are able to make their reservation online. Same day are available, in-person, through texts, if you call. This is for everything beyond the same day. Those bookings can be for two hours. The slide also mentions that each room can be booked 12 times per card per year. That is exactly what we were doing in the past. This really is more of a return to service with the enhanced interface. Indoor story times are back. What you're looking at on this slide is the March schedule. These have been going well. We've had about 30 children and their caregivers at each one of these. We have another one coming up on April 1st, and at this point we're working on the April and May Schedule. This is something that we'll continue to do, and we will add branches and more instances as we continue to rebuild this program. We're very excited about this event. It's a Name Change Clinic that's happening right here in this space, Wednesday, March 30th, 5:30-8:00 PM. We're doing this in partnership with the Jim Toy Community Center, the Outlaws student group at Michigan Law, and the Spectrum Center. This very tiny text is just to describing what the event is, but the highlights are that folks can come to this event and they can get the overview about the process of making a name change in Michigan. Then they'll have time to fill out any forms, any paperwork that's needed there with hands-on help from the partner organizations.
[00:27:03] SHERLONYA TURNER: That is a very pregnant pause, but [LAUGHTER] we have a New York Times bestseller author event happening in the flesh, in the building [BACKGROUND] I had to deliver on that pregnant pause. This is actually an event that that we had began to plan before we closed. Then it just got pushed out and now we can actually have it. In the time between then and now, this book actually was one of the finalists for the Read this year. So we were hanging on for a moment to see what exactly we were going to ask Angeline Boulley to do. Now we're going to have her here [NOISE] very soon. Also very soon, Arab American Heritage Month is coming up. We just wanted to mention that we do have some events both pre recorded events that will happen on AADL TV, and in-person events throughout the month of April. Then we will also do the daily quotes that we've been doing for the various months starting last year. This one completes the calendar. We felt like it was pretty important to make sure that we included April in that recognition with the daily quotes even though we are stepping back to in person programming. One of the events I'd like to highlight is the in person event. It's Arabiqa, I should have double checked pronunciation with Karim Nagi on Wednesday, April 13th, downtown. It's a family event that features music and dance from around the Arab world. That will be happening in our lobby. Pretty excited to have that. We also have a couple of things that we are planning in partnership with the Arab American National Museum. We're finalizing some of the details of that. We do have a variety of events planned here.
[00:29:12] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Is it okay for us to ask a question?
[00:29:14] SHERLONYA TURNER: Yes. I can't hear you very well though.
[00:29:16] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Yeah. I think Ramadan is basically April this year and I'm just wondering if there's been any thought to that specifically. I think people go about their lives. I'm assuming it's always April, but Ramadan isn't always April.
[00:29:34] SHERLONYA TURNER: Yeah, we are aware of that. We have an awareness that that was happening, but we also had to work with what the various performers could do. We're hoping that with the online and in person options that people will be able to make the choices that work for their families with this. But that's an excellent point. We were aware of though.
[00:29:55] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Yeah, thanks.
[00:29:56] SHERLONYA TURNER: Thank you. This is brand-new. This is the AADL Seed Sampler. Basically, this is the library's approach to the seed library idea. One of the things that I want to point out is that, we have decided not to accept seeds back. That's the trickiest part of the seed library. So were actually more of a seed distributor here [LAUGHTER] That's why we've called herself the seed sampler, because this is a little bit different than what somebody might imagine when they imagined seed library. But if you check out the page on the site aadl.org/seedsampler, you'll see the variety of seeds that we have available, they're over 20 seeds that people can choose from. You just basically place the request for what you'd like. Those seeds will either be mailed to you or delivered to your local branch, whatever your choice is. Through that, you'll also get information about how to plant these seeds. We're super excited about it. We're kind of doing a soft launch. Literally we just sent the email to staff about this today. The website has just gone live recently, and we're already receiving orders for it. We are excited and we can see that others are excited about it as well.
[00:31:28] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Can you tell us about what kinds of seeds they are and where they're coming from.
[00:31:32] SHERLONYA TURNER: Sure. We've partnered with, I want to make sure I get this right, the Ann Arbor Seed company. We're getting seeds that make sense to sow in this area. We've done that in partnership with them. There are vegetable seeds, a variety of them. I know we have beets, I know we have some tomatoes, I know we have kale, I know we have radishes. There are some plants that make sense as companion plants to the other pieces, but they're over 25 varieties. There's some herbs. Some of them come in packs of five. Basically, if it's a plant that takes up a lot of space, how many of them do you need? Normally when you buy seeds in a larger pack, there's way more than you would ever sow in your garden in one year. Some of them that are harder to germinate successfully or you just need more of them, they are are 10. For example, Dill would be one where you would get 10 seeds, but eggplant would be one where you get five. But it's just a general garden variety of seeds that make sense to grow here where we live. Did that answer the question?
[00:32:38] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Yeah. It was me [OVERLAPPING] yes.
[00:32:40] SHERLONYA TURNER: Thank you. We have some social media comments. Here I'm going to rely on the paper, because I can never read screens [LAUGHTER] very small prints on them. Smallish print so give me a moment, please. I can tell looking at this one though, that this is the one that came from 7 Cylinder Studios. That's the group that did the welcome to Commie High documentary. This photo they've shared on Instagram and this is from their Jones School documentary that they're currently producing. The caption says, "Hello from Jones School documentary production. So grateful to all the precious participants for sharing history with us. Big thanks to Heidi @aadlgram for the tremendous help. Keep going, production.
[00:33:36] SCOTT TRUDEAU: [NOISE] We are funding them, that production—?
[00:33:47] SHERLONYA TURNER: We have some bike love here. The caption, and this is a song that I do not know, but even if I did know it, I wouldn't not sing it to you because [LAUGHTER] I like you guys too much. But it says, "Baby you're a song, you make me want to roll my windows down and cruise." This was just a nice March afternoon at Traverwood. This one is my favorite one in this deck. This is a young user, her name's Autumn, she got her first AADL library card on this day. You can see that she's downtown in the youth area. They came down and got her card since it was March, and March is reading month. This young reader is recognizing a lot of sight words and so her family thought it was time. She was super excited to check out her own books. You can see that excitement right there. It looks like she's reading them right now, [LAUGHTER] which is always fun to see. This guy, maybe this is my favorite too, maybe have multiple favorites. This is, I guess we can call it a belated, Happy St. Patrick's Day. The caption says, "Shenanigans at the library." We can see that he's wearing a green shirt that has a bow tie printed on it and some suspenders. [LAUGHTER] This is one of our music tools. Twitter user, MayaPatelday shared her love for AADL in this Omnichord, which Maya describes as an electronic heart with drum beats and stuff on it. [LAUGHTER] She also says God bless Ann Arbor's library system. O-M-G. [LAUGHTER]
[00:35:45] SHERLONYA TURNER: We have some more music tool, love. This caption says, I decided to go to my library, love you AADL, and borrow some pedals today for inspiration. Finally, a patron shared this image of a copy of Scott Punk band, we are the unions most recent album, and tagged the band. This is a band that formed in Ann Arbor in 2005 and they're now based in California. But they saw this tweet and responded, that is 100 percent the coolest place anyone has spotted the record. Maybe one day soon we'll be able to bring some ska to the Lobbytorium. [LAUGHTER] That's it for the library report.
[00:36:30] JIM LEIJA: Thank you. Comments, reflections, questions? It's called an omnichord?
[00:36:38] SHERLONYA TURNER: It is. [LAUGHTER] Eli told me a little bit more about this, I did not trust that I was going to get it correct, so I'm going to gesture him.
[00:36:48] ELI NEIBURGER: It's actually a circuit bent omnichord. It is a modified omnichord, one of a kind to make it even cooler. A regular vintage weird instrument, it is a modified vintage weird instrument and it is super fun and weird.
[00:37:01] JIM LEIJA: An omnichord is a vintage instrument?
[00:37:04] ELI NEIBURGER: Yes, and it's from the '70s.
[00:37:05] JIM LEIJA: Oh my God. Well, I was born in that decade, so I guess I like vintage. Great report. I had a question going back to the job posting, just like terminology for calling someone an event tech, what does that mean when we say event tech?
[00:37:27] SHERLONYA TURNER: One of the positions that we have in the library is called the library technician position, and basically it's a library technician that specializes in events. So currently we have three people who are members of the events team and they are the folks who handle all the details in the back end of events, and this is just another one there. It's just someone in that technician level that is in the events part of the library.
[00:37:52] JIM LEIJA: Cool. Sounds like a great position.
[00:37:54] SHERLONYA TURNER: I think so.
[00:37:55] JIM LEIJA: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] I hope you get a good person.
[00:37:59] SHERLONYA TURNER: I hope so too, and if it doesn't happen the first time around, we will [OVERLAPPING] post it again and keep looking until we get what we need.
[00:38:05] JIM LEIJA: It's amazing, terrific. All right, anything else?
[00:38:09] ONNA SOLOMON: I'm just so excited that there's live events coming back.
[00:38:11] JIM LEIJA: Gosh, me too.
[00:38:13] SHERLONYA TURNER: It's nice to be back in the saddle. It felt weird but it feels the same. It's like this is definitely one of those back on the bicycle moments for us.
[00:38:23] JIM LEIJA: Yeah. I know it feels both exhilarating and completely insane at the same time. But like just catching your [OVERLAPPING]
[00:38:34] SHERLONYA TURNER: Dusting off our checklists.
[00:38:35] JIM LEIJA: Yeah. Like, oh wait, we forgot we had to do this thing in the building when we did it before. I'm in the same zone as you are. [LAUGHTER] All right, thank you Sherlonya. Much appreciation to you. That takes us to old business, which is leveraged directory search update. It's the search that went so well, we had to talk about it twice in this meeting [LAUGHTER]. I did have one other comment that I wanted to make, which is that Rich Retyi has been working on a formal press release which will go out or has gone out as of this meeting. Kaboom, thank you. [LAUGHTER]. That'll be on the website, and it's just our official announcement that everything has happened as we want it to. Moving right along to new business, we do have a resolution on Page 28, resolution for authorizing the Parkland Plaza facility upgrades and contracting with O'Neal Construction for construction management of the project. You'll note that under Item number 1 of the resolution, there is a blank space. Len is going to provide us some context for this, and give us a sense of why that blank space is there and what we're going to do with it. Take it away, please.
[00:40:09] LEN LEMORIE: All right. As we started the project, we were really looking at this space, the office build-out part as house for the archive space, which is about 6800 square feet, so we approached it in that way. You can see a good picture of the inside of this building which is much larger. The scale of the project is we've got into it to house not only the archive space and stuff, but also the conversations to have bindery and acquisitions there, so the project grew. This is a great picture because the columns you see on the wall, that's been our scope. Each column is 25 feet, the width of the building is 125 feet, so as we've looked the project, we've moved the project out. You can see it here, this will be the first floor, and this is the space you were just looking at it from overhead. The back wall, not that little front square, that's the existing offices, so that's outside of the scope. But that back wall is the back wall behind the workstations there, to the left would be our paper vault, this would be the first floor. You can see that's about 12,500 square feet. We went into the project asking for everything with our construction manager and the architect, the budget came back a little bit higher than we expected, and so we went back to plan and said, what is it? We call it a two bay option, three bay option. Two bay is being 50 feet by 125 feet, three bay being 75 by 125 feet. The blank on the resolution is really for the board to discuss and decide on the scope of the project. The two bay option, we have it here with the square footage, the number of workstations, the base cost, the geothermal option. Those additions would be a mezzanine to house mechanical equipment and a canopy outside. Then the total cost of both floor plans and options. Discussion tonight hopefully will be which of the projects would the board like to approve. We've already had the resolution to approve around two million dollars in funds. At this point we're not asking for anymore approval of funds just for authorization to partner with O'Neil on the project, and which scope the board would like for us to pursue.
[00:42:41] JIM LEIJA: To be clear, because I'm just looking back at the notes that I have from when we discussed this, is that there is an option to leave in or extract geothermal, and so that can be added or subtracted to the cost.
[00:43:10] LEN LEMORIE: Yes. If we don't do geo we wouldn't do them as an end and we wouldn't do the canopy, for the two bay is 2.5 million and for the three bay is 2.9 million.
[00:43:20] JIM LEIJA: Okay.
[00:43:25] DHARMA AKMON: All the stuff below it as additional stuff?
[00:43:28] LEN LEMORIE: Yes.
[00:43:29] MOLLY KLEINMAN: The second to last line is the total.
[00:43:31] LEN LEMORIE: Yes. The total construction budget at the bottom, that's basically everything in our wish list within the two projects. I'd like to note with the geo option, which we've all talked about and we'd like to pursue, the mechanical engineer gives us a 10-12 year payback for that. It is more expensive than traditional HVAC, but with a 10-12 year payback, it's something we've wanted to do and if we decide to do solar in the future, we're confident the panels and that infrastructure could basically power the building.
[00:44:07] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I have a question.
[00:44:08] LEN LEMORIE: Yes.
[00:44:10] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Because the geothermal cost something but traditional HVAC also cost something, is it 400,000 on top or?
[00:44:19] LEN LEMORIE: It is.
[00:44:20] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: So that includes taking out the other HVAC?
[00:44:24] LEN LEMORIE: Well, no. O'Neal based estimate includes traditional HVAC.
[00:44:31] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Right.
[00:44:31] LEN LEMORIE: I think that number was around 300,000 or $380,000, and so the total cost of HVAC going geo is closer to 700.
[00:44:41] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Okay, got it.
[00:44:41] LEN LEMORIE: Okay.
[00:44:43] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Thanks.
[00:44:43] LEN LEMORIE: Yeah.
[00:44:46] SCOTT TRUDEAU: The numbers are pretty close for the two sizes.
[00:44:48] LEN LEMORIE: Yeah.
[00:44:49] SCOTT TRUDEAU: So the geothermal here is just a condition to finished space and not the greater warehouse or is just a condition in the entire warehouse?
[00:44:56] LEN LEMORIE: The finished space, that's correct.
[00:44:58] SCOTT TRUDEAU: Okay.
[00:44:58] LEN LEMORIE: The warehouse space, there's two hidden units in there and cooling wouldn't make sense with the air leaks, with doors, and we have the dampers for the exhaust fans, things like that, so cooling space doesn't make sense. The good thing is, I was in there last summer and never really get hot. There's so much air up above you, it's a fine space for the warehouse.
[00:45:19] JIM LEIJA: Okay, so we wouldn't be cooling the main space and we've got heaters if we needed the main space, so this is just the finished space. Okay.
[00:45:26] MOLLY KLEINMAN: I have a question too.
[00:45:27] LEN LEMORIE: Yes.
[00:45:29] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Do you have projections on how quickly we would outgrow each of these two options? Since we're all [OVERLAPPING]
[00:45:36] LEN LEMORIE: Great question. I think with option A, which is the two bay option, we'd be at capacity for the staff we'd want to be out there pretty close to day 1, the three bay option. That was our first approach with it, was the three bay option because we wanted space to grow into. Other projects, other buildings, things like that, how many people could we put out there, partner programs down the road, how can we really use the space? Again, we got the budget back for that option B three bay, and we went, okay, let's dial it back to what our need is. Really, Scott mentioned about the difference between the two for geo, there's not a huge difference because all of the steel and concrete is almost the same. I think the total difference between both projects is around $465,000, and it's mostly due to the amount of steel that you have to span the space. We even looked at traditional wood frame options, and it can't bear the load.
[00:46:45] JIM LEIJA: We don't have any good local mass timber. [LAUGHTER] If we execute the most expensive option with geothermal and three-bay that brings us at 3.5. We had earmarked 2 million already, which is already in the capital projects fund. We are expecting at least a $1 million over, under surplus at the end of the year, which we can later discuss on how to use that. But that would either go into the fund balance or it would go into the capital projects fund typically. That gets us almost there and so we would be looking at we're taking another like half million, 800,000 from the general fund ultimately.
[00:47:51] LEN LEMORIE: Yeah. We received these probably a week ago. I do want to get with finance and see where we stand with the capital project fund now Because I know that the Generator project is around $100,000 under budget. We never use contingency funds, things like that. I think there's still some from the branch meeting room project so there are some funds available in the capital fund now, but I wouldn't want to say what they are.
[00:48:20] JIM LEIJA: [OVERLAPPING] Do you think there's more than 2 million probably in there?
[00:48:24] LEN LEMORIE: Yeah. There's money in the capital fund that's probably leftover either from other projects or things that haven't been used. But it's probably less than 500,000. I would say 250,000 probably in there that's not your mark for another project. That's just a guess.
[00:48:41] DHARMA AKMON: Also to clarify as I look at this. If we think we're going to grow into three-bay, it is more cost-effective to do it now than to do the two bay and then add on the third later because I'm seeing the difference in the cost per square foot.
[00:48:57] LEN LEMORIE: Yeah. Once you're in there and you set the columns and you do all the floor cuts. A lot of the cost for construction like this is just the mobilization and I think we talked about it before. We're looking at about 20 weeks to get steel. Now once we commit to it and order it and so all that goes into that cost per square foot. Once you get everyone mobile and on-site, honestly, the bigger the project, the cost goes down per square foot.
[00:49:27] ONNA SOLOMON: Question not to put too much on the spot. But I appreciate you backing up and looking at a lesser budget. Do you think it makes sense to do the higher budget at this time?
[00:49:46] LEN LEMORIE: I do because I look at the parkland plaza spaces, the multi-use space. When we look at it five years or even 20 years from now, I think the potential to do what we want to do now for office space allows us to grow into it. It still gives us a ton of warehouse space for anything we want to do programs or partners to do the office space now and let's just start thinking about those things. To revisit it, and then go back into construction if we decide it's not enough. We'd be back here. It'd be probably double the cost we'd be back at another $200 per square foot to add onto something that's already there. I think yes, if you're asking my opinion to do the bigger project now makes more sense because it just opens the door for us with the building. Everyone has ideas for the building and I think they're all great ideas. To get this locked in now, it allows the people that go in and do the work that we know are going to be there, our current staff, but also allow space for other opportunities. Because there's a lot of work that people do that doesn't really matter what building their own. We've learned that over the last couple of years so this gives us the opportunity to provide that for our staff and other partners.
[00:51:02] ONNA SOLOMON: Do you feel like this plan makes sense from a flexibility standpoint that we don't know exactly what we're going to be doing, but what you're planning out has room for interpretation?
[00:51:18] LEN LEMORIE: I do. The other part I left this we went away from it, but this front portion, we've called it the traditional office space of what are our beverage was. That space is still going to be utilized. There's not a lot of work to do in there, but that space we can also use for really whatever we want to use it for, and that's it. There's been several conversations about how to best use that space so there's a big footprint there. But to do if we go to the two-bay option, it's enough space for what we need today, and it doesn't allow for room to grow.
[00:51:57] ONNA SOLOMON: Thank you.
[00:52:01] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Do you feel like the other staff are lining up also wanting the--?
[00:52:08] LEN LEMORIE: I think it depends on the staffer. There's interest for sure. I don't think we've really pulled everyone. The groups that are going we know they're going. We've had those conversations. I think for other staffers, if we open and give that opportunity, they'll want to see the space like anyone else. I think the big thing for any of our sites parking, you can park there. They did put the sidewalk in. That's all complete. I think it's really attractive location for a lot of people. But for some that might not be.
[00:52:45] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to put you. In our transition period, it's difficult to know how to address the three of you [LAUGHTER] I think I mostly meant, Eli and Sherlonya, do you agree with one I guess? [LAUGHTER].
[00:53:02] ELI NEIBURGER: Just to jump into.
[00:53:03] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I'm sorry.
[00:53:04] ELI NEIBURGER: No it’s quite alright. We've had our first public programs out there the past three Sundays. The staff who have worked those have been like, This is amazing and they're having all kinds of ideas and we hope this face will still be available and it's like there's so much volume inside the warehouse. Whether we take away 50 feet of it or 75 feet of it, it's still a lot of warehouse.
[00:53:23] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Cool.
[00:53:23] ELI NEIBURGER: I think that what we don't have anywhere else is these workstations and the larger paper vault. That's really what we're getting for that and the more cost-effective dollars per square foot of now as compared to later. I think we're really hearing from the staff a lot of excitement about that. The [OVERLAPPING] departments that are definitely moving are excited and then there'll be opportunities for other people to choose to relocate out there depending on their role in their job and their desk or their needs and all that stuff. There's a lot of excitement across the staff about it.
[00:53:54] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Amazing. I just asked to clarify like, I totally respect you bring your expertise so I was just curious about the other side of the coin.
[00:54:05] LEN LEMORIE: Don't worry. I'm glad Eli brought up the paper vault because that is the big difference, right?
[00:54:09] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah.
[00:54:10] LEN LEMORIE: We also want to give the archives space to grow. As collections become available.
[00:54:16] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Right exactly. I think that's definitely appealing as a professional librarian.
[00:54:21] LEN LEMORIE: We've learned that or at least spot with on South industrial. They built the cold room out for our materials. We get to build this one the way it should be built and I think it'll serve us in the future and again, to put it at capacity day one, I don't know if that's the right loop.
[00:54:41] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yes, it totally makes sense. Thank you so much.
[00:54:44] SCOTT TRUDEAU: Just to clarify on that, so the two-bay option versus the three-bay option, we get a bigger paper vault with—?
[00:54:49] LEN LEMORIE: Yes. I think we had that on there.
[00:54:55] SCOTT TRUDEAU: [OVERLAPPING] Great.
[00:54:59] DHARMA AKMON: I don't suppose any benefits come into play from installing geothermal, do they? Like they do for residential or is there any?
[00:55:07] LEN LEMORIE: Yes, there are. Not as much for what we're going to consider commercial use. For us, it really is the payback, right?
[00:55:13] DHARMA AKMON: Yeah.
[00:55:14] LEN LEMORIE: When you look at a lot of just any plant system, usually the 30-40 year life cycle. Anything under a 15-year payback is always good. To hear this was at 10 and 12 years, that's what perked me up. I thought, wow, we're going to operate basically 20 years at zero cost. The other benefit of the warehouse space is all of our equipment can be housed inside. That allows it to last longer.
[00:55:39] JIM LEIJA: I hear fossil fuels are getting more expensive.
[00:55:44] LEN LEMORIE: Yeah. Heard that. [LAUGHTER]
[00:55:48] JIM LEIJA: Any other questions before we move into the formal business with this resolution? Because we don't have a number in there, I'm feeling that there is a general consensus about the 3.5 number. This is not a vote because we're going to read it in and then obviously we can discuss it or change it when we get to the resolution, but I'll read the resolution out loud. This is a resolution authorizing parking plaza facility upgrades and contracting with O'Neal Construction for construction management of the project. Longest title of a resolution ever. One, to authorize the construction of upgrades and new workspaces at the Parkland Plaza facility with a budget of $3,502,173. Thank you. To authorize Associate Director Lemorie to enter into a contract with O'Neal Construction Incorporated to manage the construction work, and that all resolutions and parts of resolutions that conflict with this provision of this resolution are rescinded. Can I have a motion to consider this resolution?
[00:57:07] MOLLY KLEINMAN: So moved.
[00:57:08] JIM LEIJA: Thank you. A second, please.
[00:57:10] KERENE MOORE: Second.
[00:57:10] JIM LEIJA: Thank you, Kerene. Further discussion.
[00:57:17] MOLLY KLEINMAN: I think the high number makes a ton of sense.
[00:57:19] JIM LEIJA: I'm sorry?
[00:57:19] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Oh, sorry. I think the higher number makes a ton of sense.
[00:57:22] JIM LEIJA: Yeah. The compelling thing for me is the cost per square foot.
[00:57:27] DHARMA AKMON: Knowing that we're at capacity right now.
[00:57:29] JIM LEIJA: Yeah.
[00:57:34] ONNA SOLOMON: My understanding is that this is not a strain on our fund assets. [OVERLAPPING]
[00:57:40] LEN LEMORIE: Where we stand right now, it won't touch our fund balance.
[00:57:43] JIM LEIJA: Yeah. We have a $5.5 million fund balance as of today or as of last month, with a $1 million surplus coming, 6.5 with 2 million plus in the fund already. Here on terrible mental math, that's about $8.5 million, I think. I was a musical theater major. [LAUGHTER]
[00:58:09] DHARMA AKMON: You could sing it. [LAUGHTER]
[00:58:11] JIM LEIJA: $8.5 million. [LAUGHTER]
[00:58:19] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Sold. [LAUGHTER]
[00:58:19] JIM LEIJA: Wow. Any other discussion? Conversation? Seems like a good investment. Shall we vote? I think this is just a group vote. Yeah? Thank you. All in favor? Yes. Any opposed? There are none. Terrific. Well, congratulations. Let's order that steel. [LAUGHTER]
[00:58:56] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Twenty weeks.
[00:58:56] JIM LEIJA: Makes also what?
[00:58:56] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: It's half enough to make us have a baby. [LAUGHTER]
[00:58:56] JIM LEIJA: Thanks, Len, too for all your work on this. As you know, we're very excited about this new location and new space. We have two items, two new business left. We need to hear a motion for closed session on April 19th for the discussion of real estate.
[00:59:26] DHARMA AKMON: So moved.
[00:59:27] JIM LEIJA: Thank you.
[00:59:28] ONNA SOLOMON: Seconded.
[00:59:29] JIM LEIJA: Thank you. I think that was Dharma, Onna. Yeah? Any discussion? We will have a roll call vote.
[00:59:43] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Akmon?
[00:59:44] DHARMA AKMON: Yes.
[00:59:46] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Kleinman?
[00:59:46] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Yes.
[00:59:47] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Leija?
[00:59:48] JIM LEIJA: Yes.
[00:59:49] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Moore?
[00:59:50] KERENE MOORE: Yes.
[00:59:51] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Solomon?
[00:59:52] ONNA SOLOMON: Yes.
[00:59:52] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Trudeau?
[00:59:53] SCOTT TRUDEAU: Yes.
[00:59:54] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Vander Broek?
[00:59:55] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yes.
[00:59:57] JIM LEIJA: Motion passes. Then we have a vote for closed session at the April 25th regular board meeting for discussion of real estate and labor negotiations. Can I have a motion for closed session, April 25th?
[01:00:13] MOLLY KLEINMAN: So moved.
[01:00:14] JIM LEIJA: Thank you. That was Molly. Thank you.
[01:00:18] KERENE MOORE: Second.
[01:00:18] JIM LEIJA: Kerene. Thank you. Any discussion?
[01:00:22] DHARMA AKMON: Yeah, I'm confused. I thought that the other one was to take the place of.
[01:00:27] JIM LEIJA: We're holding both dates.
[01:00:28] DHARMA AKMON: Got it.
[01:00:29] JIM LEIJA: We will choose one or the other. Any further discussion? Roll call vote?
[01:00:44] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Akmon?
[01:00:45] DHARMA AKMON: Yes.
[01:00:46] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Kleinman?
[01:00:47] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Yes.
[01:00:48] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Leija?
[01:00:48] JIM LEIJA: Yes.
[01:00:49] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Moore?
[01:00:50] KERENE MOORE: Yes.
[01:00:50] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Solomon?
[01:00:51] ONNA SOLOMON: Yes.
[01:00:52] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Trudeau?
[01:00:53] SCOTT TRUDEAU: Yes.
[01:00:54] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Vander Broek?
[01:00:55] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yes.
[01:00:56] JIM LEIJA: Great. Motion passes. If we decide to cancel the 19th, Karen, do we have restrictions on how much in advance we need to do that? We'll find out.
[01:01:14] KAREN WILSON: I don't really think so. We'll do it obviously prior to that. We'll put a notice out and post it online and we post it in the building.
[01:01:22] JIM LEIJA: Great. Terrific. Thank you. We're just anticipating one of those dates and we have some scheduling to do and we'll use one of them. Great. Have we any more citizens comments?
[01:01:36] KAREN WILSON: Still not receiving.
[01:01:39] JIM LEIJA: Awesome. Well, it is 7:59 and we spent a lot of time together last week, so I'm happy for a one-hour meeting today. [NOISE] We're adjourned. [LAUGHTER]