ANN ARBOR DISTRICT LIBRARY BOARD
343 S. FIFTH AVENUE, ANN ARBOR, MI
MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING
MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 2016
16-179 I. CALL TO ORDER
President Barney Newman called the meeting to order at 6:02 p.m.
16-180 II. ATTENDANCE
Board Present: Nancy Kaplan, Margaret Leary, Jim Leija, Jan Barney Newman, Prue Rosenthal, Jamie Vander Broek
Board Absent: Ed Surovell
Staff: Bruce Hadler, Eli Neiburger, Josie Parker, Karen Wilson (recorder)
16-181 III. RECESS TO CLOSED SESSION FOR DISCUSSION OF REAL ESTATE
16-182 IV. RECONVENE REGULAR MEETING AT 7:00PM
President Barney Newman reconvened to the regular meeting at 6:58 p.m.
Trustee Leija left the meeting at 6:59 p.m.
16-183 V. APPROVAL OF AGENDA
(Item of action)
Treasurer Rosenthal, supported by Trustee Vander Broek, moved to approve the agenda.
AYES: Kaplan, Leary, Barney Newman, Rosenthal, Vander Broek
NAYS: None
Motion passed 5-0.
16-184 VI. CONSENT AGENDA
CA-1 Approval of Minutes of July 18, 2016
CA-2 Approval of Disbursements
Trustee Kaplan, supported by Treasurer Rosenthal, moved to approve the consent agenda.
Trustee Leija returned to the meeting at 7:02 p.m.
AYES: Kaplan, Leary, Leija, Barney Newman, Rosenthal, Vander Broek
NAYS: None
Motion passed 6-0.
16-185 VII. CITIZENS’ COMMENTS
Tammy Kutter
Hello. Well I just came because I wanted to make you smile, because it’s all my friends fault, she is not here tonight she has left for two days and she’s having withdrawals because she can’t do summer game. So I wanted to thank you on behalf of both of us for the summer game. All the summer game creators and the board for introducing me to graphic novels at a2caf, which I never would have attended but because you changed the name, it used to be kids comic festival, now I come, smart move. Introducing me to trivia night at the movies at summer festival. Classes in jewelry making, who knew there was a National Ice Cream Sandwich Day, massage, amigurumi and teaching me how to say amigurumi, homemade mint sugar scrub, cork trivets, 8-bit videogame cross-stitch, drawing with David Zinn, origami tessellations, letterpress and those are just some of the ones I have attended. I’m obsessed, can’t you tell? Fun evenings with mystery writers, animals from the Creature Conservancy, the Proving Innocence Project, the Lego Contest and Ashley Park on Broadway. Keeping me healthy through what I have now deemed stealthy exercise, that would be all the park badges. Yes, I’ve done like 14 miles now. And special thanks for the fabulous Hine Mizushima needle felted art. That was such a coup, I don’t know how you got her art in town. Thank you.
Lauren Bootzin
So I am here also for the summer game. I have participated in summer reading programs across three different library districts and this is by far the most engaging for all ages. The ones that I have done before have been mainly geared towards just kids and teens. So it was really fun for me to have something for adults. Having grown up in a library system and volunteering in a library system it’s really nice to have a way to kind of continue. The other comment I was going to make was about the book sale which I think it is fantastic to have the Friends of the Library store and as well as the annual book sale. I was a teacher for two years and have a lot of friends that are teachers so I always like to troll through that sale and try to get as much as I can to get into classrooms for my friends and the students because I had librarian friends who did that for me when I was teaching. But I was a little bit disappointed that on Saturday there were a lot of books still hidden away and I know they wanted there to be the bag stuffers for Sunday, but I work on Sunday’s and so I wasn’t able to come back and see what all the extra was. But I think it was great, so thank you.
Cherie Burkheiser
My family is supposed to be here with me right now but they are stuck in whatever is the matter with the traffic out there. I was driving and I literally jumped out in the middle of the street with a cop behind me. So I really wanted my son to come because I wanted him to come up here and find the code. He loves finding the codes. I’m really here for that truth be told. But there were two things, and I have addressed you guys before and I think one of them I have brought up before I don’t remember if I did or not. I want to mention that one is through my explorations of other libraries in the area it’s come to my attention that there is a reciprocal program between libraries that Ann Arbor does not participate in and I guess my understanding is Ann Arbor doesn’t feel like it’s necessary to participate in. That between MelCat it is not necessary. But I disagree. I think the other libraries out there are just a fabulous as a resource as Ann Arbor is. I actually have started utilizing one on a regular basis because I work out of the city that the library is located in similar to Ann Arbor and if you live outside of the city but work in the city you can get a card. One of the reasons why I do that is because it can be notoriously difficult to get an item. So to give you an example, I was just looking at my account and this book right here that I am going to return today, I am number twelve out of twenty-two. I’ve been on the waitlist for this book from Ann Arbor for months and I’m at number twelve. This is a book about childhood and parenting and for me to wait for Ann Arbor to get the book to me my son will be graduating from college. So I tried to get it from the other library and they did have it unfortunately it was lost and they offered to get me an older edition and I say that’s O.K. I’ll get it through the MeLCat. This is actually a MeLCat and the reason, MeLCat is O.K., but what I find with MeLCat is even if it is coming from one of the library’s that is local to us, a stone throw from some of our residences, it can take two weeks or more to get the book. So I think a reciprocal program would be nice where you could say, oh you know what this library that’s in a different district but up the road from me has it and I can go up there and get it now. And I can go get this movie now, not wait months on end. And the similar point on that is, this library that I am using has digital downloads. I know we have those, but ours are more generic downloads that I am seeing and their digital downloads are actually from Amazon. But if you were to buy the book, so I literally, I have another one that I am on the waitlist for Ann Arbor, but I’ve gotten digital download from the other library as if I had purchased it from Amazon to download to my Kindle and you’re only allowed to check out for two weeks and it automatically pulls the book back and when you, if you check it out again through digital it keeps all your notes, it keeps where you are. So these are two things that I really think you guys should consider implementing to make Ann Arbor even better. The reciprocal benefits and the Amazon digital downloads I think would just make a great library even better. Thank you, the summer game is a lot of fun and I am hoping my son can come. I don’t know if he will actually say anything but thank you.
Moira Tannenbaum
Hello, I’m here to talk about pesticide and herbicide spraying at Malletts Creek Branch. That’s my local branch and the days that the spraying is done I can’t go to the library, I can’t even go maybe within a quarter mile of the library. I feel that we as a community have decided that a certain amount of dandelions and so on are O.K. Witness that the public schools don’t spray. So I am very curious that we allow the pesticide/herbicide use and I don’t know which one it is that’s why I am lumping it into one at Malletts Creek especially when we’ve designated it as a green library. There is a shared entrance to Malletts Creek with the pediatric and dental office building. And also with the residential complex further down the property and in the common area they may be initiating the spraying but as for walking Malletts Creek and seeing those green and white distinctive signs, we sprayed, I just don’t get it. That’s my comment and I looked everywhere to see if there was something online. I did call the library director possibly in about 2012 but I don’t ever recall ever receiving an answer about that. I did speak with the maintenance person at Malletts Creek and he directed me to the head of maintenance for the library. But I thought probably that the head of maintenance doesn’t set policy and that’s why I am coming to talk to you all today. Any questions? Thank you very much and love the summer reading program too.
Tom Brown
Yeah, we brought our stuff because we really like the summer game. I was out doing some requests on Sunday and I needed my umbrella. We want to talk a long time, but we’re not sure how long we’re going to talk so we brought our time cube. Our polychromatic time cube and it changes colors. I was out Wednesday night early Thursday morning looking for meteors, the shooting stars and I used my blanket here and it’s like the best picnic blanket ever for just laying on the grounding watching shooting stars. One side is so soft and the other side is waterproof. I wanted to thank the Friends of the Library, Josie and all her staff, they’ve been really nice to us and we’ve seen parts of Ann Arbor that we would have never seen and we’ve read stuff and listened to stuff we never would have listened to.
Lat Brown
I go out and play a lot of Pokémon Go so I need my AADL bag of yielding so that cars don’t hit me. I play a lot of Pokémon Go and am out late at night when it is very chilly and I need my Axis hat. I’ll sometimes go out in the dark which is very dangerous but fortunately I have my AADL bag of yielding, it’s bright yellow so cars or people don’t hit me. I also get very thirsty so I have my water bottle. We’re also very excited about Sweetwaters coming to the West Branch or next to the West Branch or very close. We also got our pomegranate tea. We’re really enjoying the summer game. Thank you.
16-186 VIII. FINANCIAL REPORT
CFO Hadler reported July showed unrestricted cash balance of $6,233,508. Tax receipts totaling $1,575,658, reflecting 10.6% of the budgeted amount, have been received through the end of July. The fund balance stands at $4,766,266. Three line items are currently over budget on a year to date basis.
16-187 IX. DIRECTOR’S REPORT
In addition to the written report in the Board packet, Director Parker noted that monthly statistics have now been incorporated into her verbal report.
Today at a Kiwanis Club meeting, Director Parker presented them with an Old News photo history on the Kiwanis created by staff celebrating the organizations 95th anniversary.
Concrete work is being done this week at Traverwood to address issues there.
Notification regarding Brownfield redevelopments within our district has been received. These redevelopments have some impact on our funding as taxes are diverted to them. We do not have the ability to opt out.
AADL welcomed Dijana Sabolović‐Krajina, the Director of the Public Library Fran Galovic in Koprivnica, the first Croatian Library established in 1650. She was in the United States to receive a medal from the American Library Association and had asked to visit AADL.
On September 28th AADL is co-sponsoring a refugee event with the Interfaith Round Table of Washtenaw County and the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice.
The Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads program is now Washtenaw Reads as libraries county-wide have joined the program.
The 11th annual Lego Contest saw 165 entries with 77 prizes awarded in seven age categories.
Tom Hayden has asked to return to AADL for a talk on September 26th.
The Westgate walk-through video was emailed to over 23,000 and received over 11,000 views. The Summer Game promotion with AAATA has had the following participation: 776 players have found exterior bus codes; 145 players have found the codes near branch library bus stop locations; 301 players have found interior bus codes and 448 players have found codes within The Ride’s website.
Email distribution of the summer newsletter shows over 71,000 sent, 58,000 delivered and 17,590 opened.
16-188 X. NEW BUSINESS
16-189 A. RESOLUTION TO AUTHORIZE THE DIRECTOR TO NEGOTIATE AND EXECUTE LEASE WITH OXFORD COMPANIES
(Item of action)
Trustee Vander Broek, supported by Trustee Leija, moved the Board resolves to authorize the Director to negotiate and execute the lease with Oxford Companies for a term of five years for the space at 2805 South Industrial Highway, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48108; that all resolutions and parts of resolutions that conflict with the provisions of this resolution are rescinded.
AYES: Kaplan, Leary, Leija, Barney Newman, Rosenthal, Vander Broek
NAYS: None
Motion passed 6-0.
16-190 B. VOTE FOR CLOSED SESSION AT THE SEPTEMBER 19, 2016 REGULAR BOARD MEETING FOR DISCUSSION OF REAL ESTATE AND OPINION OF LEGAL COUNSEL
(Item of action)
Roll call vote
Trustee Leija, supported by Trustee Kaplan, moved to hold a closed session at the September 19, 2016 regular meeting for discussion of real estate and opinion of legal counsel.
A roll call vote was taken.
AYES: Kaplan, Leary, Leija, Barney Newman, Rosenthal, Vander Broek
NAYS: None
Motion passed 6-0.
16-191 XI. CITIZENS’ COMMENTS
There were no additional citizens’ comments.
16-192 XII. ADJOURNMENT
Treasurer Rosenthal, supported by Secretary Leary, moved to adjourn the meeting.
President Barney Newman adjourned the meeting at 7:34 p.m.