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AADL Board of Trustees Meeting - January 22nd, 2019

When: January 22, 2019 at the Downtown Library

Watch the January 22nd, 2019 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

19-001 I. CALL TO ORDER

19-002 II. ATTENDANCE

19-003 III. ADMINISTRATION OF OATH OF MEMBERS Judge Elizabeth Hines, Presiding

A. Dharma Akmon

B. Jim Leija

C. S. Kerene Moore

"I, (state name), DO SOLEMNLY SWEAR THAT I WILL SUPPORT THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, AND THAT I WILL FAITHFULLY DISCHARGE THE DUTIES OF THE OFFIEC OF MEMBER OFTHE DISTRICT LIBRARY BOARD OF THE ANN ARBOR DISTRICT LIBRARY, WASHTENAW COUNTY, MICHIGAN ACCORDING TO THE BEST OF MY ABILITY."

19-004 IV. PRESIDENT'S REMARKS

19-005 V. ELECT LIBRARY BOARD OFFICERS

1. PRESIDENT (Item of action) Roll call vote

2. VICE PRESIDENT (Item of action) Roll call vote

3. TREASURER (Item of action) Roll call vote

4. SECRETARY (Item of action) Roll call vote

19-006 VI. INSTALLATION OF OFFICERS 

"I, (name stated), DO SOLEMENLY SWEAR THAT I WILL ABIDE BY THE BYLAWS, RULES, AND REGULATIONS OF MY OFFICE TO THE BEST OF MY ABILITY"

19-007 VII. OFFICERS RELINQUISH CONTROL TO NEW OFFICERS

19-008 VIII. APPROVAL OF AGENDA (Item of action)

19-009 IX. CONSENT AGENDA (Item of action)

CA-1 Approval of Minutes of November 12, 2018 and November 14, 2018

CA-2 Approval of November and December 2018 Disbursements

19-010 X. CITIZENS' COMMENTS

19-011 XI. FINANCIAL REPORTS Bill Cooper, Finance Manager

19-012 XII. COMMITTEE REPORTS

19-013 A. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE (10 minutes)

19-014 XIII. DIRECTOR'S REPORTS Josie B. Parker, Director

19-015 XIV. NEW BUSINESS

19-016 A. APPROVAL OF BOARD MEETINGS DATES FOR 2019 (Item of discussion & action)

19-017 B. BOARD BUDGET & FINANCE COMMITTEE APPOINTMENTS (Item of discussion & action)

19-018 C. HBM ARCHITECTS, LLC PRESENTATION Peter Bolek and Renee Moldovansky (60 minutes)

19-019 XV. CITIZENS' COMMENTS 

19-020 XVI. ADJOURNMENT 

Transcript

  • [00:00:04.49] Ann Arbor District Library Board of Trustees meeting.
  • [00:00:08.19] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Welcome everyone. So tonight is a special night of the Ann Harbor District Library Board of Trustees. We will be electing, what is the word? swearing in two new members and re-swearing in a third member. So before we do that though Karen, we're set on attendance?
  • [00:00:32.38] OK. So I would like to introduce judge Elizabeth Hines who will preside over their swearing in, if you'd like to come up to the podium. It looks like we'll be starting with Dharma.
  • [00:00:42.93] JOSIE PARKER: All three at once.
  • [00:00:44.18] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Oh. All three at once? OK. Sorry. So yeah, if you three are ready.
  • [00:00:54.66] ELIZABETH HINES: And I think they might be over on this side.
  • [00:01:07.53] KERENE MOORE: We're supposed to face this camera.
  • [00:01:10.44] JOSIE PARKER: Yes, look at them.
  • [00:01:13.67] ELIZABETH HINES: All right. So first of all I consider it such an honor to do this. I've been asked for several years by Josie Parker. And I just think a library is such an important institution in our community that it's a sort of a public way of thanking you all for the work you're going to do to protect such a community treasure. So if you could raise your right hand and keep it up after and, Repeat after me. I, and state your name--
  • [00:01:37.57] DHARMA AKMON: I, Dharma Akmon--
  • [00:01:39.85] ELIZABETH HINES: --do solemnly swear--
  • [00:01:40.75] ALL: --do solemnly swear--
  • [00:01:42.28] ELIZABETH HINES: --that I will support the Constitution of the United States--
  • [00:01:45.46] ALL: --that I will support the Constitution of the United States--
  • [00:01:48.45] ELIZABETH HINES: --and the Constitution of the state of Michigan--
  • [00:01:50.86] ALL: --and in the Constitution of the state of Michigan--
  • [00:01:53.30] ELIZABETH HINES: --and that I will faithfully discharge the duties--
  • [00:01:55.87] ALL: --and that I will faithfully discharge the duties--
  • [00:01:58.74] ELIZABETH HINES: --of the office of member of the District Library Board--
  • [00:02:02.38] ALL: --of the office of member of the District Library Board--
  • [00:02:06.40] ELIZABETH HINES: --of the Ann Arbor District Library, Washtenaw County, Michigan--
  • [00:02:10.06] ALL: --of the Ann Harbor District Library Washtenaw County, Michigan--
  • [00:02:13.68] ELIZABETH HINES: --according to the best of my ability.
  • [00:02:15.45] ALL: --according to the best of my ability.
  • [00:02:17.80] ELIZABETH HINES: Congratulations.
  • [00:02:18.76] ALL: Thank you.
  • [00:02:19.56] [APPLAUSE]
  • [00:02:32.83] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Welcome. I'm glad it's official. It's a long road from November to January somehow. It's like you know that you'll be joining us, but you're finally here. There's a little section on the agenda right now called president's reminders. And I just wanted to take a minute because this is my last meeting as your president, which is something that I was talked into by Pru and Jan a few years ago.
  • [00:03:05.09] It's not something that I thought that I would want to volunteer for, but I have learned so much from doing it. And I hope that you all have the chance while you're on the board to do it. Though Jan and Pru told me it would be easy and I should totally do it, there's a lot more to it I think than I realized. But I think it's, again, excellent opportunity for growth as a civic participant.
  • [00:03:34.88] And I've really grown so much from working more closely with Josie. I mean, I have loved getting to know you better over the last two years and partnering with you and Eli on things. They're the dream team, which I know you all know. So it's work, but it's very easy because of them. And then you all are just really incredible and I'm very proud of what we've accomplished. Like we televise these meetings. That's something that we didn't think we would do a few years ago and now we do it every month, and it's just the way it is. And we've I think really rocketed forward in a transparency way. Like the meetings are not only televised, they're also transcribed which makes them really accessible to people.
  • [00:04:19.61] We have a more inclusive annual retreat process and we've made lots of progress on our strategic plan, particularly goal 3.3 where we're advancing the mission of the downtown library, including tonight when we talk about a presentation from HBM architects who are eagerly anticipating discussing with you. So I think we've made a ton of progress. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it from meeting to meeting.
  • [00:04:43.91] It's the kind of thing that I guess just takes a long time, but I have really appreciated working with you all over the last two years because the thing about this is that you learn everything in real time in front of everyone. And that's like hard sometimes, but because of you all it's been a really incredible experience. So I appreciate working with you all and I'm excited to pass it on to whomever we elect tonight. So with that in mind--
  • [00:05:14.58] JOSIE PARKER: One thing. Staff in the room, there's something I think we'd probably all like to do for Jamie. So join me.
  • [00:05:23.80] [APPLAUSE]
  • [00:05:32.55] So any of you who don't know, Jamie was staff here when she was in grad school. She was a public library associate. So we are particularly proud that Jamie's on the library board and has served as our president. So thank you, Jamie.
  • [00:05:46.04] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Oh my gosh, wow. I have a little bit of a habit of crying at these meetings so I'll try not to do it tonight, but that means a lot to me. Thank you. Thanks, Josie.
  • [00:05:55.28] JOSIE PARKER: You're welcome.
  • [00:05:56.51] JIM LEIJA: You're not getting off that easy, sorry. I just have to say that I feel very grateful for your service as president over the past two years, especially through a time of really incredible transition, both in kind of some of our activities at the library and also just in the leadership on the board. I think of your leadership as courageous and kind and diligent, and I'm always learning from you this wonderful skill of helping people feel like they've been heard.
  • [00:06:36.96] And I really admire you for that. You have just handled this position so marvelously, and it is a lot of work. It really is. And as now the elder statesman on the board I just want to say that I couldn't be more grateful and I hope that you'll get a break from executive committee DDs after this evening. But thank you. Thank you, Jamie.
  • [00:07:05.92] VICTORIA GREEN: And Jamie, I want to add one thing, which is I can talk about how you listen to people even when they disagree with you and you bring us together. But I don't want to talk about those things because we always say those things about women. I want to say that Jamie is wicked smart.
  • [00:07:20.31] JIM LEIJA: She is.
  • [00:07:21.54] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Oh my gosh, you guys. I always feel like I'm a hot mess up here. Thank you.
  • [00:07:32.09] COLLEEN SHERMAN: You always say such self-deprecating things, but you really don't need to.
  • [00:07:38.95] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Thank you. OK. So should we move on to who's next. Who wants to do this next? OK. So we are going to elect new four officers tonight, starting with the president. Will be roll call votes. And I would actually like to nominate Linh Song for the position.
  • [00:08:03.99] JIM LEIJA: I would second that nomination.
  • [00:08:06.56] LINH SONG: Thank you.
  • [00:08:07.32] JIM LEIJA: Which means we can also discuss it now. I think it's also important to know if there are others that are interested in this position at this point.
  • [00:08:16.45] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah. I think formally we do one at a time. So even if you bring up someone else's name in the discussion, we'll vote on Linh and then we would move on to that, if that makes any sense.
  • [00:08:30.11] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I would like to be an officer if that's appropriate, but I want Linh to be president. I think Linh will do a really good job of doing all the work and she'll share fantastic meetings and keep the executive committee meeting going. I've worked with Linh for-- how long have I known you now? 2 and 1/2 years, and running for office together. I enjoy partnering with you and debating with you and making decisions with you, and you're smart and sharp and always have good ideas and you listen. And I think it's a good progressive step, and Jamie's laid a great foundation over the last two years. So that's my thought.
  • [00:09:16.72] LINH SONG: Thank you.
  • [00:09:18.02] VICTORIA GREEN: And I am also really happy to serve under your leadership, Linh, as I was under Jamie, and I want to give a special shout out to Linh's ability to sort of summarize and inspire people, which I think will be a great characteristic when you're asked to speak on behalf of the board your way you can bring things together and get to the heart of the matter. Thank you so much Linh for accepting the nomination.
  • [00:09:37.57] LINH SONG: Thanks.
  • [00:09:41.82] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Further discussion? Let's vote on this.
  • [00:09:45.98] KAREN WILSON: OK, Dharma Akmon.
  • [00:09:48.63] DHARMA AKMON: Yes.
  • [00:09:49.49] KAREN WILSON: Victoria Green.
  • [00:09:51.02] VICTORIA GREEN: Yes.
  • [00:09:51.63] KAREN WILSON: Jim Leija.
  • [00:09:52.70] JIM LEIJA: Yes.
  • [00:09:53.08] KAREN WILSON: Kerene Moore.
  • [00:09:53.93] KERENE MOORE: Yes.
  • [00:09:54.65] KAREN WILSON: Colleen Sherman.
  • [00:09:55.57] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Yes.
  • [00:09:56.03] KAREN WILSON: Linh Song.
  • [00:09:57.21] LINH SONG: Yes.
  • [00:09:57.65] KAREN WILSON: Jamie Vander Broek.
  • [00:09:59.24] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yes. OK, one down.
  • [00:10:03.84] JIM LEIJA: Congratulations. Boom.
  • [00:10:04.96] LINH SONG: Thank you.
  • [00:10:05.53] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yay!
  • [00:10:05.91] LINH SONG: Thank you.
  • [00:10:06.53] [APPLAUSE]
  • [00:10:10.57] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: So you are installed in a moment here. So we'll go through everyone and then we'll switch out. So are there any nominations for vice president?
  • [00:10:21.57] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I nominate Jim Leija for vice president simply because I want to hear a speech.
  • [00:10:32.34] JIM LEIJA: I know.
  • [00:10:33.46] LINH SONG: Oh gosh, I didn't get the speech. I'll second it.
  • [00:10:37.44] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Discussion? Is there a speech?
  • [00:10:41.15] JIM LEIJA: No speech. I'd be honored to be vice president. If you elect me I don't have a choice.
  • [00:10:48.00] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Oh. I think Jim would make a great vice president. I think the two of you work really well together. I think you don't always have exactly the same opinion about something, and you have a really good way of coming to a better place after your discussion. I really like how you push each other in the right ways, and I think you'd work really well together.
  • [00:11:07.92] JIM LEIJA: Party.
  • [00:11:11.05] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah. Any further discussion?
  • [00:11:16.81] KAREN WILSON: Excuse me, Dharma Akmon.
  • [00:11:18.68] DHARMA AKMON: Yes.
  • [00:11:19.12] KAREN WILSON: Victoria Green.
  • [00:11:20.29] VICTORIA GREEN: Yes.
  • [00:11:20.59] KAREN WILSON: Jim Leija.
  • [00:11:21.78] JIM LEIJA: Yes.
  • [00:11:22.61] KAREN WILSON: Kerene Moore.
  • [00:11:23.50] KERENE MOORE: Yes.
  • [00:11:24.16] KAREN WILSON: Colleen Sherman.
  • [00:11:25.20] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Yes.
  • [00:11:25.87] KAREN WILSON: Linh Song.
  • [00:11:26.53] LINH SONG: Yes.
  • [00:11:26.84] KAREN WILSON: Jamie Vander Broek.
  • [00:11:28.12] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yes OK, congratulations.
  • [00:11:31.78] JIM LEIJA: Thank you. OK, two more to go. How about treasurer?
  • [00:11:38.90] VICTORIA GREEN: I'd like to nominate Colleen Sherman.
  • [00:11:41.94] JIM LEIJA: I'll second that nomination.
  • [00:11:44.19] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Discussion?
  • [00:11:46.21] LINH SONG: I think it says a lot that it's coming from finance committee members.
  • [00:11:49.93] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah, agreed.
  • [00:11:51.09] LINH SONG: That shows their faith in you and your skills
  • [00:11:53.60] COLLEEN SHERMAN: That's so nice.
  • [00:11:54.47] JIM LEIJA: So Victoria, Colleen, and I have served as the Budget and Finance Committee in the past, what, for the past two years. And I think this is a great role for you, Colleen.
  • [00:12:07.43] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Thank you.
  • [00:12:08.42] JIM LEIJA: And I have all faith in your abilities to carry it out passionately.
  • [00:12:14.98] COLLEEN SHERMAN: If you vote for me the meetings will be as smooth as they were under Jim's direction.
  • [00:12:21.82] JIM LEIJA: Which is to say smoother.
  • [00:12:26.36] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK, great. Ready?
  • [00:12:29.17] KAREN WILSON: Dharma Akmon.
  • [00:12:30.01] DHARMA AKMON: Yes.
  • [00:12:30.86] KAREN WILSON: Victoria Green.
  • [00:12:31.77] VICTORIA GREEN: Yes.
  • [00:12:32.47] KAREN WILSON: Jim Leija.
  • [00:12:33.30] JIM LEIJA: Yes.
  • [00:12:33.99] KAREN WILSON Kerene Moore.
  • [00:12:34.86] KERENE MOORE: Yes.
  • [00:12:35.59] KAREN WILSON: Colleen Sherman.
  • [00:12:36.71] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Yes.
  • [00:12:37.40] KAREN WILSON Linh Song.
  • [00:12:37.74] LINH SONG: Yes.
  • [00:12:38.65] KAREN WILSON: Jamie Vander Broek.
  • [00:12:39.36] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yes.
  • [00:12:41.36] LINH SONG: Congratulations.
  • [00:12:42.71] [APPLAUSE]
  • [00:12:46.57] JIM LEIJA: Just remember with great power comes great responsibility.
  • [00:12:50.61] COLLEEN SHERMAN: You too, darling.
  • [00:12:53.18] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: No. I think it's great. I mean, I think that not only on the board you have increasing like inner experience with the area. You're one of the people who deals with money the most outside of your board service if you think about it.
  • [00:13:09.68] COLLEEN SHERMAN: That's probably right.
  • [00:13:11.23] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: So I think it's a really nice tie with your professional experience too. OK, secretary.
  • [00:13:17.42] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Does anyone want to be secretary?
  • [00:13:19.84] LINH SONG: I'd like to nominate Kerene Moore for board secretary.
  • [00:13:24.34] JIM LEIJA: I'll second that.
  • [00:13:25.30] KERENE MOORE: I accept the nomination.
  • [00:13:33.25] LINH SONG: I'll just add a little something. Kerene's professional background as an attorney I think will be invaluable, and we have a lot of work ahead of us. We have strategic planning this year and your insights and your community work. But really, you bring a lot to the table. So thank you for accepting.
  • [00:13:57.28] KERENE MOORE: Thank you.
  • [00:13:59.26] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah. I mean, I think from the moment you decided you wanted to run for the board you were really impressive. You were just like ready at the very beginning of thinking about like-- once you decided you wanted to do it I was so impressed. So I think that you'll become a natural member of the executive committee and it's really nice to be able to switch out the people who can attend meetings and stuff because sometimes something comes up and someone's away or whatever. Yay.
  • [00:14:26.72] KAREN WILSON: Ready? Dharma Akmon.
  • [00:14:29.32] DHARMA AKMON: Yes.
  • [00:14:29.62] KAREN WILSON: Victoria Green.
  • [00:14:30.45] VICTORIA GREEN: Yes.
  • [00:14:31.14] KAREN WILSON: Jim Leija.
  • [00:14:32.34] JIM LEIJA: Yes.
  • [00:14:32.70] KAREN WILSON: Kerene Moore.
  • [00:14:33.60] KERENE MOORE: Yes.
  • [00:14:34.14] KAREN WILSON: Colleen Sherman.
  • [00:14:35.11] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Yes.
  • [00:14:35.79] KAREN WILSON: Linh Song.
  • [00:14:36.49] LINH SONG: Yes.
  • [00:14:36.96] KAREN WILSON: Jamie Vander Broek.
  • [00:14:38.07] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yes.
  • [00:14:40.45] JIM LEIJA: Congratulations.
  • [00:14:49.51] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK. So you're just going to read that out loud at the same time.
  • [00:14:55.38] LINH SONG: We can do this.
  • [00:14:56.80] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK. Are you ready? 1, 2, 3, go.
  • [00:15:01.19] ALL: I do solemnly swear that I will abide by the by-laws, rules, and regulations of my office as to the best of my ability.
  • [00:15:13.35] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK. I relinquish control to you. Here's your gavel.
  • [00:15:18.98] LINH SONG: Thank you.
  • [00:15:20.29] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I think traditionally we would like move around, but we're going to save that tonight. Next time we meet we'll sit in our new spots.
  • [00:15:28.96] LINH SONG: Thank you. Thank you. I don't bang the gavel, though. No.
  • [00:15:36.58] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: You do at the end.
  • [00:15:37.89] LINH SONG: At the end. At the end. Great. So approval of the agenda. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda?
  • [00:15:45.96] JIM LEIJA: I move to approve the agenda.
  • [00:15:47.43] KERENE MOORE: Second.
  • [00:15:51.42] LINH SONG: All in favor--
  • [00:15:52.38] JIM LEIJA: Discussion.
  • [00:15:52.86] LINH SONG: Or wait, discussion, yes. Any discussion on the agenda? Ok, all in favor.
  • [00:15:59.43] ALL I.
  • [00:16:01.58] LINH SONG: Any opposed? Onto the consent agenda.
  • [00:16:08.02] JIM LEIJA: I move to approve their consent agenda.
  • [00:16:10.03] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Second.
  • [00:16:12.27] LINH SONG: Any discussion? Any changes or discussion? No? OK. All in favor.
  • [00:16:19.47] ALL: Aye.
  • [00:16:22.17] LINH SONG: I think everyone said aye. Good. Do we have citizens comments?
  • [00:16:28.24] KAREN: We do, Mr. Allen Hoover.
  • [00:16:35.66] LINH SONG: Hello, Allen.
  • [00:16:36.90] ALLEN HOOVER: Hello. Hello, board. I'm a little apprehensive. I know I'm not the one person you're most enthusiastic to hear about. I represent the Ann Arbor Committee for the Community Commons, which wasn't one of your favorite ideas, but the people did say yes on proposal A, and I am here. I was here first about nine years ago 2009 to first present a proposal for an Ann Arbor community commons when the city first put up the library lot with a request for proposals.
  • [00:17:21.50] And that proposal was not approved then, and we worked and worked and worked and the people did an election as you all know last November, decide that was a preferable and the best interest of Ann Arbor use of the library lot as a community commons, a Central Park a Civic Center, and as a neighbor of the library. And you also are a community commons, and I'm really saying how can we as neighbors develop the center of the city which this block is now called, in the best way for everyone? I think we should be partners. I am eager to see how,what developments you want to see in the library.
  • [00:18:08.90] Our view of the community commons is really a three part structure. And maybe you have seen the picture that has been around that views a green roof over the surface of the parking lot, that views a terrace balcony over where the parking ramps go abutting onto the property of the First Martin and connecting to the Liberty Plaza and over Library Lane from Division Street up to the library a several story community Civic Center building.
  • [00:18:43.94] And some of the functions that we see as needed are also functions that you see as more necessary. Municipal auditorium, a ceremonial room, classrooms. We're interested in having a visitor center. So if someone comes to Ann Arbor like they would come to Yosemite Park, they go to the visitor center. See, what is this place? Are we located in the here in the Huron River Valley Watershed? What does the town look like? What is its history? And have ongoing classrooms about it, particularly sustainability, and what people need to know about green ways of living and about what is the commons. And I hope you will see in your task of the library collection to begin to develop increasingly the language and literature of the commons, which is not like just any commercial place.
  • [00:19:39.50] We take Elinor Ostrom's Nobel Prize winning book on the governance of the commons, is that which is a community resource held in the tradition of the community, not by the government, not by the corporation, but by the people themselves self-generating, self-creating, and taking care with mutual responsibility, mutual respect, and mutual benefit. And I know there are many questions about difficulties that you have that the society has, and I read through in your survey the several pages of concerns people had about homeless and such who are around here. And that is certainly a concern I have as a community organizer, as a social worker, and I think these problems of the difficult conditions of our society and people in difficulty can well be addressed and made not as problems, but as opportunities. And I would see this place in the center of the city also as a helpful place and as a healing place.
  • [00:20:46.28] When I first spoke I said my vision and there many visions coming together and we are in a process of a vision quest looking back seven generations and forward seven generations, including all the people here. What really is the vision of a center of the city that speaks to the future to sustainability, to the culture of peace and non-violence. I think that's what we need to create together.
  • [00:21:11.54] And I'm basically here to say, well, let's find out how to do it, where we on our side of the primary lane can best cooperate and see what we do with you, and I hope you will see also defined to designate some liaisons from your border, from your staff to work in an ongoing way with what we and the Committee for the Commons and the Library Green Conservancy and the City Council Task Force that is being created about this is doing. We need a close cooperation where all the commons is a very important concept.
  • [00:21:48.08] And when I suppose I was interviewed by a student from Community High about the petition process, and at the end of it I asked her, so what do you know about the Commons? And said, well, they don't teach anything. That's a problem of curriculum. The Commons is what people struggle for all over the world against the privatizers for what is a public resource on which our survival really depends.
  • [00:22:13.88] LINH SONG: Sorry, Allen, can I just put you in pause for a second? Karen, can you give us the time?
  • [00:22:18.83] KAREN WILSON: He's past his--
  • [00:22:21.51] ALLEN HOOVER: Did I exceed myself? I usually exceed myself. Is that it?
  • [00:22:27.31] LINH SONG: Thank you.
  • [00:22:28.13] ALLEN HOOVER: Thank you.
  • [00:22:31.10] LINH SONG: Do we have any other public comments, Karen?
  • [00:22:37.03] KAREN WILSON: No, I haven't received any.
  • [00:22:37.88] LINH SONG: No? Great. So there's another opportunity at the end of the meeting.
  • [00:22:44.53] KAREN WILSON: Correct.
  • [00:22:45.49] LINH SONG: Correct. Thank you. And it's a three minute limit. Great.
  • [00:22:50.32] JOSIE PARKER: He was just there.
  • [00:22:52.09] LINH SONG: OK, great. Thank you. So we're moving on to financial reports with Bill Cooper.
  • [00:23:05.78] BILL COOPER: Good evening, everyone. Congratulations to the new members, re-elected member and the new officers. Before I get started on my report I just want to quickly review the components that make up my financial report. This is primarily for the new members, but also a refresher for the other members. But my report has a narrative, it also contains the disbursements that you have approved in the consent agenda for the month, and it contains a budget versus actual statement, an income statement and a balance sheet. So those are the components that make up my report.
  • [00:23:47.95] So I'm not going to go over November's since we didn't have a meeting in December. This report contains both November's and December's financials, so I'm just going to go over a couple of highlights for December. So we have received approximately 97% of our budgeted tax receipts of $16,186,497 as of the end of December, and we are currently revenue over expenses of $9,114,252.
  • [00:24:26.63] Our report is based on actuals and not accruals. We used to do an accrual report and then last year the Finance Budget and Finance Committee decided that we would switch to an actual cash accounting report. So these are actual cash numbers. Do I have any questions? And I'm free to schedule time to go over these in more detail with the new members or maybe you can join the Budget and Finance Committee.
  • [00:24:57.62] VICTORIA GREEN: Bill, I have a small question. Can you remind me the terms of the City Lower Grant, what that funding is for?
  • [00:25:04.09] BILL COOPER: That was for a film that we purchased, and we have a narrator or a speaker when we show that film. So every time we show that film we pay a little bit towards that speaker. So it's for that film alone being shown for the expenses of that. And I think we've just about exhausted that money. I think we have a couple of more events planned to use up the rest of that grant. Anything else for me?
  • [00:25:39.91] LINH SONG: Great. Thank you.
  • [00:25:40.76] BILL COOPER: Thank you.
  • [00:25:44.95] LINH SONG: Committee reports, the executive committee. When did we last--
  • [00:25:51.56] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Oh my gosh. That was like a million years ago.
  • [00:25:54.43] LINH SONG: November. It was back in November.
  • [00:25:56.98] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: December.
  • [00:25:57.35] JIM LEIJA: December.
  • [00:25:57.68] LINH SONG: Oh no. It was December. I apologize. It's like another lifetime ago. Yes, that's right. We were getting ready to welcome HBM to give today's report which would be after the executive directors report. I'm trying to remember what else we had discussed. I think was just wrapping up the year. I don't know. Do you remember anything else? It's been so long.
  • [00:26:29.02] JOSIE PARKER: Dates. Calendar.
  • [00:26:29.94] LINH SONG: Calendar, yes. So if you notice on our board meeting schedule website I think we're only scheduled up until March. Is that right?
  • [00:26:38.34] JOSIE PARKER: We're going to vote on it tonight.
  • [00:26:39.85] LINH SONG: OK. So we're scheduled out until today and then we'll vote on the remainder of the year tonight. We've been on the same night as city council for the past two years. And so is that right?
  • [00:26:54.34] JOSIE PARKER: 20 years.
  • [00:26:55.81] LINH SONG: Oh, 20 years. Goodness. That's more than two years. So a consideration that we can make is perhaps changing it or just maintaining our long standing tradition. But this is something we need to coordinate with staff because availability on rooms takes priority. We're in high demand and I hope the board takes priority maybe, hopefully.
  • [00:27:24.64] JOSIE PARKER: We spoke to different people about the calendar before you looked at the dates to make sure that it worked for the majority of people to keep it as it is, and it was affirmative. So we did not have anyone asking us to consider changing the night or which Monday night.
  • [00:27:45.37] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: And since we're televised, I feel televised is really the wrong word, since we're filmed--
  • [00:27:49.02] JIM LEIJA: Streaming.
  • [00:27:49.71] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: --streaming I think there is less of an argument to--
  • [00:27:54.21] LINH SONG: Change.
  • [00:27:54.78] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Right, because if you are interested in both things I think you can consume the content from both and you can look at the agenda and decide which one you want to go to. The other thing we talked about is when to have the retreat I remember now because usually we have it in like May I think, but I think last year got pushed really late and almost into vacation time and stuff. So I think we talked about, how can we avoid that this next time?
  • [00:28:19.51] LINH SONG: And then also the strategic plan is coming up so we're wrapping up the end of our 10 year strategic plan and starting into--
  • [00:28:27.22] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Three, sorry.
  • [00:28:28.62] LINH SONG: Oh gosh, three years. I'm so sorry, three year strategic plan. I've only been here two years. Why am I saying 10? So we're looking at starting that process again. So it'll be an interesting exercise for new trustees, and the trustees that were here before this was something that we'd worked with Carrie from Bridgeport as well as Fritzie. So this is the next phase and the next work. So I think that's sort of the big items that we have discussed on the executive committee last we met. Good. Good. Is there anything else that you wanted to add, Jim?
  • [00:29:12.69] JIM LEIJA: I was not there for that meeting, so no.
  • [00:29:17.21] LINH SONG: Good. Moving on to Josie.
  • [00:29:20.69] JOSIE PARKER: Thank you. So I'll direct you to the slides. The first one is the website from the African-American Culture Historical Museum on listing their community service awards and their other awards from the December event where the library, Ann Arbor's District Library was named their Community Service Award recipient. This is a real pleasure for us and an honor. We really love working with them, and they say it back.
  • [00:29:54.90] And so we have done oral history project with them now, this is the fifth year entry, and we're looking at continuing on and what that might look like, how it might change, how it might be better. In addition to the online oral history project that you can see on our website, we have two events, or we've had two events a year around it, and one was at Malletts and one was at Westgate, and I think the second this year was at Westgate as well, where people who have been interviewed for these filmings and recordings come and are honored.
  • [00:30:30.42] And it's wonderful. Fills up the space at Westgate. So it's always a real pleasure. So we're very privileged, we think to be identified by them for this award. So my thanks to all the staff involved and to the library board for your leadership in helping us to determine that partnerships are a priority for the library.
  • [00:30:51.09] This is the downtown library lobby reflooring which will be coming up. We will be closing the downtown library on the 25th of February or up for 10 days, perhaps a little longer depending upon how the work goes, to recarpet the entire first floor from the elevator lobby to the street. So that elevator lobby in the children's room have been done in the recent past, but the whole front is going to be redone, including the Friend's Bookshop. So their big sale is the Saturday before this and they'll be unloading their shop into their big sale out in the lobby area, and then we'll be helping them clear it out.
  • [00:31:33.06] So you see it's sort of a rough plan of what will be carpet and what will be LVT, which is like the vinyl flooring that we have at Westgate. So we're going to be doing that. So this is a big project. So that's coming up.
  • [00:31:46.92] VICTORIA GREEN: Josie, this is the first time we've had tile instead of just carpet in at least a long time. Do we have any concerns about that? Is there any pro and con?
  • [00:31:54.72] JOSIE PARKER: Well, not after what we've experienced at Westgate in terms of door count and what gets tracked in. No, this is a huge perfect solution to a lot of-- like this time of year wear and tear on that carpet-- So we're looking forward to this change. And if you can see it's going to wrap in front of the restrooms and over to the Friends. So where most of the traffic and all the way down to the elevator lobby will be LVT. So it will be easier take care of, look better. Good question. Thank you.
  • [00:32:26.52] LINH SONG: What's the life on carpet?
  • [00:32:29.46] JOSIE PARKER: Oh. Well, it depends where you put it down and who was using your building. So Len, what do we say? 10, 15 years at the most?
  • [00:32:37.01] LEN LEMORIE: Manufactuer says 25 years-- Yeah, 10, 15--
  • [00:32:39.76] JOSIE PARKER: ADL says 10. I mean, this will be a shorter life than say the third floor because you're coming right off the street. So yeah.
  • [00:32:51.21] LINH SONG: Thank you.
  • [00:32:52.65] JOSIE PARKER: You're welcome.
  • [00:32:53.13] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: That's great. I'm so glad you're switching to the LVT. I mean, Westgate, if you think about it, that is one of the big things that makes Westgate feel like a little fancy. It's a luxury vinyl tile.
  • [00:33:03.76] JOSIE PARKER: Thank you for saying it, Jamie. I'm glad someone said it. I just call it LVT. We had the WAPUR Championships, which are robotic scenes from seven local high schools in the lobby in December, and you'll be hearing a little bit more about that a little bit later in my Director's Report. But you have to see it from the second floor balcony. It was way cool and very loud. And congratulations to the winning high school combo which was Steiner and Jonesville from Hillsdale. So it was really great. And many thanks to Joe Malcoon and Doug Song for being brave enough to take on the winning teams in a exposition match, and the older players lost. Good naturedly I will also say.
  • [00:34:02.64] Preschool Expo is something we've done for many years and in a partnership, and it's been at Palmer Commons on campus. It has come to the downtown library. This will be its third time and it will be in the lobby. And this is a place for parents of preschool children to come and meet with all representatives from all the preschool agencies in the community and around the county and talk to them about their programs, their fees, their hours, what they offer, so that people can have one stop to look and see where they might want to send their preschooler.
  • [00:34:40.50] Washtenaw Read author Michelle Kuo was amazing. She was one of most outstanding Read speakers we've had, and we have had some remarkable people speak at the Read. Her book, Reading with Patrick was something that I think resonated with many of the people in the community from various professions; education; libraries of course; just teaching in general, but reading teachers. There were many reading teachers there; social workers; physicians.
  • [00:35:17.07] It was an interesting crowd. We had at Rackham on that evening. She was very gracious and wonderful. And if you haven't been to a Read event at Rackham it's great fun. It's so easy to be in that space, and everyone can see and everyone can hear. And so we were very pleased to have Michelle here.
  • [00:35:38.64] This was this past Sunday. We were the event sponsor for the women's basketball game against Ohio State. Go Blue! And these are some young ladies who were there showing off their scarves and you can see the scoreboard. And also, what did they call the thing at the top now? There's a scoreboard above the arena, and then-- I'm trying to see the difference, Eli. It's that one. Is that the backboard?
  • [00:36:08.73] ELI NEIBURGER: This is on the backboard.
  • [00:36:10.77] JOSIE PARKER: On the backboards. So we were all over Crisler Arena, and we had a fun time. It was a good time. Good times have by all. And I think, what'd they say, almost 6,000 people attended this basketball game? Which is a lot for one basketball game.
  • [00:36:21.81] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Is it the first time we've sponsored a basketball game?
  • [00:36:24.60] JOSIE PARKER: Yes, it's our first time.
  • [00:36:25.94] COLLEEN SHERMAN: The logo looks great.
  • [00:36:27.15] JOSIE PARKER: Thank you. Thank you.
  • [00:36:28.88] JIM LEIJA: And everybody got a scarf?
  • [00:36:31.56] JOSIE PARKER: The first 1,000 people through the doors had a scarf, and if they missed it they came to our table and begged. And Eli and I gave ours away. And so we said next year, next year. So we have a little video for you to see.
  • [00:36:46.98] ELI NEIBURGER: This is what showed on the screen during our timeout.
  • [00:36:49.62] JIM LEIJA: Oh, cool.
  • [00:36:54.68] [VIDEO PLAYBACK]
  • [00:36:55.14] - The Ann Arbor District Library is the best deal in town. Theremines, mental detectors, synthesizers, giant games, spinning wheels, anatomical models, replica human skeletons, you name it. What would you expect to pay for these? $500? $600? a jillion dollars? At ADL, all these items can be checked out for free. That's right. Just four easy payments of $0. Come on in today.
  • [00:37:18.14] - Use your library card to take advantage of these deals. Go to aadl.org/tools for more information. And yes, we still have books.
  • [00:37:24.06] [END PLAYBACK]
  • [00:37:24.51] [LAUGHTER]
  • [00:37:25.41] LINH SONG: Oh, that's wonderful.
  • [00:37:29.04] JOSIE PARKER: We had so many people coming up who live here in Ann Arbor who were like yes, we have a library card. We have very few people who live in Ann Arbor who said you know I never used a library. That wasn't it. But we had a lot of people from a lot of other area around us from a distance away who were, the library? We had a telescope, we had a sewing machine, and we had one of the little cute kiddy pianos. And it was a lot of fun to stand there and go, yeah, that's a library. Yeah, there's a library. So it was good.
  • [00:37:58.59] LINH SONG: Who is the voice?
  • [00:37:59.94] JOSIE PARKER: Several.
  • [00:38:00.70] ELI NEIBURGER: Al Sjoerdsma.
  • [00:38:01.59] JOSIE PARKER: Al Sjoerdsma, and was that you at the end? That was Matt at the end. Just a brief rundown of projects and initiatives underway. Malletts, Traverwood, and Pittsfield, meeting room bids have been accepted. The construction schedule's being finalized. We're looking at that possibly each location will close one branch at a time for reflooring, reshifting of material, changing up some of the shelving. And in this project, Mallets will be organized by BISAC, the way Westgate is. So it's going to be about a month for each one and six weeks for Mallets possibly for closure. So only one at a time because we can't have more than one down at one time.
  • [00:38:47.67] We're looking at that happening shortly after or right at the end of the lobby work. Correct? We participated in Cook Ross Unconscious Bias in Hiring. For our managers and supervisors we did that in December. Two a person and there were 25 or 26 of us involved. Two a person said it was outstanding, amazing. The person who led it was incredible. And all of us came away very glad it happened, very glad that we did it. And the way I can say to you I know how successful this was is we're also talking about it with each other. And what do you think of this, and how would you react to this? And that is the success of this.
  • [00:39:36.62] We will take this training to the entire staff in a abbreviated form on our staff day in November. The fourth floor staff area will also be done, and our planning for that is done. We'll be completing that work also in this fiscal year, but it's not public area. So it won't affect opening. And this is the last of the 1990 building that has not been recarpeted, reorganized and so we're getting that done in this fiscal year. So that's happening. That's coming up too. So a lot of people up there are looking forward to how that's going to be reconfigured and how their work areas are going to be much more efficient and modern.
  • [00:40:24.40] VICTORIA GREEN: And Josie, I don't recall that came to the board and that's because the cost of it was under our threshold.
  • [00:40:30.82] JOSIE PARKER: It did come to you and it's part of the approval for the capital fund for work that's done on the library.
  • [00:40:41.22] VICTORIA GREEN: And can you tell me where that came into us? I just don't recall that.
  • [00:40:44.79] JOSIE PARKER: In the budget process.
  • [00:40:46.97] VICTORIA GREEN: In the overall budget.
  • [00:40:48.66] JOSIE PARKER: No, it's an overall budget process. Overall budget process. It was one of the things listed as this will happen this year, and that's part of it. So there were no bids on this, and the reason is because the place where you get the equipment, there's one. And so we don't do bids for this. We just get the design of it and we work through the negotiate and we organize it and we order it and we get it done.
  • [00:41:15.42] VICTORIA GREEN: So it's not a competitive bidding process.
  • [00:41:17.07] JOSIE PARKER: No, it's not.
  • [00:41:17.69] VICTORIA GREEN: One vendor.
  • [00:41:18.25] JOSIE PARKER: That's right. Correct.
  • [00:41:19.62] LINH SONG: This doesn't include plumbing?
  • [00:41:21.78] JOSIE PARKER: No. No. This is carpet, and this is furniture.
  • [00:41:27.21] JIM LEIJA: So no work will be done on the crocks?
  • [00:41:29.23] JOSIE PARKER: No, no, no.
  • [00:41:33.42] JIM LEIJA: I wanted to be the first one to say it.
  • [00:41:37.36] LINH SONG: There was flooding into the third floor staff area at one point. Yes, Eli knows this. So it wasn't crock related.
  • [00:41:51.96] JOSIE PARKER: No. This was a separate plumbing issue. This was a pipe that was-- yeah, not sewage. And the last one is the relocation of the WLBPD. The digital cartridges to the State Library has begun. We heard from them this week about how quickly they want to receive that material, and we'll be working through that process with them. And when that's done they will relocate the Friends storage area to that area and we will put our material next to the back of the secret lab for access in and out of the secret lab on the staff side. Did I answer your question, Victoria?
  • [00:42:34.30] VICTORIA GREEN: Yes, you did. Thank you.
  • [00:42:36.83] JOSIE PARKER: These are for Dharma and Kerene's information. We highlight the public and staff comments that come up, usually through social media to us about a number of different things at the library board meeting. So this one is from Michelle Kuo, thanking us for choosing her book and having her speak in Ann Arbor. She was a Michigander. She was raised in Kalamazoo. And so she was here visiting friends, and so she's very happy to be here.
  • [00:43:13.31] These are two different people very excited about the tools collection. And this one is a person letting us know they're very happy that we're an awesome place of wonder and letting us know they would be there every day if they could be there; and the other one is someone talking about having three kids to read and how the library actually helps save their family a lot of money; and this one is a new resident of Ann Arbor who, I love this one, just made our first pilgrimage to our @aadl branch, and I am in love. And we know he was at Westgate; and then someone was at a story time where Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger music were part of the story time and they had to say something about it.
  • [00:44:14.02] These are, I'm trying to remember-- things that were done in the block printing class, letterpress lab. And so they're examples of things that were done. Did we get that letterpress piece to the board members that Jodi did? Jodi Harnish did this lovely letterpress work that's a poem from Reading with Patrick that Patrick wrote about reading with Michelle because he was in prison when she was visiting him and doing this. And Jodi took that and made a lovely commemorative booklet for her, and we had a lot of them. So we'll make sure you get a copy. And I should be reading my notes. I'm just looking.
  • [00:45:04.04] This is a father who was at Traverwood when there was a little bit of snow, but they called it snow, some, snow, and now here we all are with a lot more snow. So this little girl clearly was watching it saying snow, snow, snow. This is a young man who is all about reading; and this is a person who found a nook at Westgate to settle in and read; this woman is letting us know that she's finishing her first degree, and she's worked on it in a study room at Westgate. And we know what this is. This is the chess set downstairs; and here we are back to the robotics championship. And I'm going to tell you that just get your ears ready and go ahead.
  • [00:46:00.32] [VIDEO PLAYBACK]
  • [00:46:00.81] [ROBOTS CHALLENGING EACH OTHER]
  • [00:46:06.68] [CHEERING]
  • [00:46:11.57] - Here, we tied up here.
  • [00:46:13.85] [CHEERING]
  • [00:46:17.81] - Only 10 second difference here.
  • [00:46:20.29] [CHEERING]
  • [00:46:37.83] [END PLAYBACK]
  • [00:46:38.32] JOSIE PARKER: So the idea is it's volleyball. It's volleyball. And so each robot is controlled by a different school and the schools are in pairs. And that's how that worked. And it was quite loud. And on the side you couldn't see you were looking out at the 5th Avenue windows. On the side you couldn't see were bleachers, just like at the racetrack. And they were packed full of people cheering on their high school. So I think we had 800 people come through the afternoon that we know or were involved with WAPUR.
  • [00:47:13.99] It took over most of this building. All of the rooms like this for their team prep and their work they had to do with their robots, and we had them spread out all over the place. It was a good use of the building, but it was pretty much how the building was used that day, except for the computer lab and the children's room. Thank you. If there are questions I'm happy to answer.
  • [00:47:41.17] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I guess one thing I wanted to say is that the robot tournament made me realize how nice it is to have a really high ceiling space because it made that activity feel like it was really nice. Like people could be on a second floor and look down into it, and then when you were down in it you had a lot of height to kind of let the energy escape. So it made me think a little bit differently about our future and stuff in a way that I hadn't before. I mean, you couldn't do that in here. You'd feel like you're crazy, even though it's not like you needed the ceiling to do the activity.
  • [00:48:15.54] JOSIE PARKER: But it was nice to have this.
  • [00:48:19.40] LINH SONG: I like seeing so many teenagers. They were here to cheer each other on. They had banners hanging from the second level. It was really impressive and they were the ones who were not moderating--
  • [00:48:34.90] [CHATTER]
  • [00:48:37.46] JOSIE PARKER: They were in charge.
  • [00:48:38.24] LINH SONG: They were the ones who were-- they were fantastic. There was a lot of really good energy and the parents were on the sidelines. It was really teen led, teen controlled. Any other questions for Josie? Great. Thank you, Josie.
  • [00:48:55.94] JOSIE PARKER: Thank you.
  • [00:48:57.74] LINH SONG: New business. Is this a motion for meeting dates?
  • [00:49:12.69] DHARMA AKMON: Yes.
  • [00:49:13.78] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I move that we adopt the calendar as laid out on the last page of our booklets page 44.
  • [00:49:23.20] KERENE MOORE: Second.
  • [00:49:26.32] LINH SONG: Discussion.
  • [00:49:29.91] JIM LEIJA: I mean, this is the time to say if there are issues that the schedule poses for you in any particular way. I think it's important to note that. And I think it says this in the document that last year we canceled two meetings which would have been December meeting last month and then August, typically when people tend to be leaving Ann Arbor and going on vacations of various kinds.
  • [00:49:55.15] LINH SONG: But also it was because we didn't really have new business--
  • [00:49:57.74] JIM LEIJA: We didn't have new business. Yeah.
  • [00:49:59.06] LINH SONG: --either I think.
  • [00:49:59.92] COLLEEN SHERMAN: And we adopted it at the beginning of the year, but then canceled the month before based on a vote. And that simply because, well, is their business? OK, there's not a huge amount of business in August and December. We'll cancel the meeting.
  • [00:50:12.19] VICTORIA GREEN: And I don't recall hearing that that was an issue for any one, although I remember talking about the August meeting and the summer game and points in some way.
  • [00:50:19.85] LINH SONG: Yes, good point.
  • [00:50:20.75] JIM LEIJA: Because people come to speak at the meetings to get points.
  • [00:50:25.66] VICTORIA GREEN: I don't recall. Did we hear whether or have any additional information about whether it was hard to for people last year, or was it a non-issue?
  • [00:50:33.07] ELI NEIBURGER: It's really only an issue if it is canceled late. If they know that June, July meeting--
  • [00:50:46.10] JIM LEIJA: I know that you brought up the idea of changing the day of the week I didn't know if there was other conversation to be had about that.
  • [00:50:54.95] LINH SONG: I mean, if everyone's available for that Monday, and it's a 20 year tradition.
  • [00:51:01.81] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Monday is my bowling League, but I will make the sacrifice. Eli is on my bowling league, so it's his sacrifice too. But it's OK. We have bigger teams to accommodate the library board.
  • [00:51:13.46] LINH SONG: Thank you for your sacrifice.
  • [00:51:15.37] COLLEEN SHERMAN: It's tough.
  • [00:51:17.48] VICTORIA GREEN: Can I ask, the February meeting is President's Day weekend, which is a Ann Arbor public school holiday. I'm fine with that, but is it an issue for anyone else or enough of us that it's an issue?
  • [00:51:31.94] LINH SONG: I'm good with it.
  • [00:51:35.70] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Not going anywhere.
  • [00:51:38.85] LINH SONG: And then Josie, are there any other conflicts with holidays?
  • [00:51:44.31] JOSIE PARKER: No. Generally we avoid MLK Day, and President's Day, generally we have the meeting on President's Day because we're not closed. And Veteran's Day, we will be closed for staff day, which is a Monday, but we are open in October on what was Columbus Day now, or more locally known as Indigenous Peoples' Day. We're open that day. We'll program that day the way we did for MLK Day yesterday.
  • [00:52:19.47] LINH SONG: Great.
  • [00:52:23.18] JOSIE PARKER: And I will say this, the December date's earlier because the week of the Christmas holiday tends to be a difficult week for people to meet. So we move it up on purpose.
  • [00:52:37.68] JIM LEIJA: I would also just remind everyone, of course, that obviously people have schedules that occasionally will need to miss meetings, and it's important for us to achieve quorum and to know that in advance. That has not been an issue typically, but a quorum for us is--
  • [00:52:55.25] JOSIE PARKER: Four.
  • [00:52:55.98] JIM LEIJA: --four.
  • [00:52:56.36] JOSIE PARKER: And unless there's a certain type vote, then it's five, but we would know that ahead of time.
  • [00:53:01.83] LINH SONG: Great. Thank you. So I guess I'll call it to vote then. All those in favor.
  • [00:53:08.52] ALL: I.
  • [00:53:10.41] LINH SONG: Opposed. Great. See, moving on to welcome a motion for the Board Budget and Finance Committee appointments. This is a discussion.
  • [00:53:30.43] JIM LEIJA: So Josie, remind us how this works exactly.
  • [00:53:34.34] JOSIE PARKER: The president appoints.
  • [00:53:35.81] JIM LEIJA: The president appoints Budget and Finance Committee.
  • [00:53:39.17] JOSIE PARKER: The president appoints and it's at the president's discretion who serves on the Finance Committee, and the way that your bylaws are written now it's your only appointed standing committee.
  • [00:53:57.65] LINH SONG: There's no nominations.
  • [00:53:59.16] JOSIE PARKER: No. And the treasurer of the board is generally the chair of the Finance Committee, and then you appoint two other people to serve on the Finance Committee. We start our budget preparation now because it comes to you as a draft in April and you must vote on it in May.
  • [00:54:21.06] JIM LEIJA: The committee can only be made of three people.
  • [00:54:23.01] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Thank you.
  • [00:54:24.01] JOSIE PARKER: Thank you, Colleen.
  • [00:54:25.11] JIM LEIJA: I do think it makes sense that the treasurer would be on the committee. Please.
  • [00:54:32.07] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I would like to be on the committee.
  • [00:54:34.30] JIM LEIJA: And, as I mentioned earlier, it has been Victoria and Colleen and me.
  • [00:54:45.59] LINH SONG: So we have Colleen as treasurer, and if you don't mind, my additional appointments will be Dharma and Victoria. So we have a committee of three.
  • [00:54:57.85] DHARMA AKMON: Great. Thank you.
  • [00:54:59.62] VICTORIA GREEN: I'll accept your appointments.
  • [00:55:03.02] JIM LEIJA: We have to vote on that.
  • [00:55:04.43] LINH SONG: Yes, we do.
  • [00:55:06.10] VICTORIA GREEN: But seriously, I think that's a great committee. I think it's a great committee moving forward. I like that there is some continuity, but also some new folks because it's a good way to get enmeshed in some details when you're feeling like there's a lot going on around you to be able to focus on findings.
  • [00:55:20.94] COLLEEN SHERMAN: It's appointment, but it looks like we approve it. I move that we approve Linh's appointments.
  • [00:55:29.46] KERENE MOORE: I second.
  • [00:55:31.25] LINH SONG: All those in favor.
  • [00:55:32.50] ALL: I.
  • [00:55:34.40] LINH SONG: Good. Any opposed?
  • [00:55:36.16] JIM LEIJA: Oh my gosh. I can't believe I'm not on the Budget and Finance Committee anymore. Yay. It's been like I've been on the committee I think all four years that I've been on the board. Congratulations, everyone.
  • [00:55:48.45] LINH SONG: Thank you. Thank you. So moving on to HBM. Can you please come to the podium?
  • [00:55:57.80] JOSIE PARKER: So I'd like to introduce Peter Bolek and Renee Moldovansky from HBM Architects out of Columbus.
  • [00:56:04.84] PETER BOLEK: Cleveland.
  • [00:56:05.21] JOSIE PARKER: Cleveland. I do that every time and I don't know why I do that Cleveland. Cleveland, Ohio. There are more. There's more than one big town in Ohio. So thank you very much for being with us this evening and making a trip up during what was probably some harrowing weather.
  • [00:56:20.13] PETER BOLEK: It was. Got a little crazy. Well, thank you. Good evening. I'd like to first start by welcoming and congratulating the new board members and for the standing board members. And Josie and Eli, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to work with the library to create this building program. You all have a copy of building program. It's in draft form. And tonight I'd like to just hit the highlights for you.
  • [00:56:45.23] So as you further dive into it and study it you have a little bit of a better sense of how it was created and what it was intended to do, and maybe from your reaction are questions and comments today, maybe some fine tuning of it. But the program is set out to outline really what is desired in a downtown library. And as we worked through the process we worked with the administration, the staff, we had a couple of board engagements, and with our staff bringing forward kind of trends in libraries where things are going along with your library's thoughts and knowledge of where you've been and where you'd like to go. All of that boiled down to this report of this program that you see here.
  • [00:57:42.99] OK. All right. So obviously a table of contents it's a pretty succinct document. There's four parts really. Introduction part of summary and then the main part of the building program outlining spaces, recommendations, adjacencies, begins to talk about cost, and then the last step in the document is what we would call next steps. And what we've done for this presentation because you're not going to read the text on the screen, we put a large number of the page that we're on in the top left of the image. You can follow along in your booklets, and if you have any questions along the way as well please interject.
  • [00:58:27.27] So the introduction basically describes where you've been and where you're going. In general I think the notion is that the library is growing, and there is some statistics here that demonstrate that. There is one that is slightly down from last year in that circulation, but it's not down in a large way. And it's not uncommon with libraries because today we're really doing a lot more than just providing material. There's a plethora of programs that are being conducted.
  • [00:59:00.30] And so when you look at number of events, the attendees, visits and all of this in general, things are on the rise. And so things are growing with the library. And what that means then is you need to look at how you're building is working today and some things you can do, like the events you do in your lobbitorium, and maybe some events you can't do there, and how then you can look to create a building program that will allow you to do the things you can't.
  • [00:59:33.51] In this page and the two summaries on page 5 and then page 11, we start to talk about some of the things that you'd like to do in two different categories. One being short term spaces that are needed, and then the next category is basically looking longer at long term space needs.
  • [00:59:56.26] The short term space needs, this outline here, a bullet list is really described in detail in each category in the packet or in the booklet. But it talks about things, like, let's take for instance, the building exterior. What type of things might you be thinking about incorporating on the exterior of your building to invite or welcome in or create a presence in the downtown that would be desired? And so maybe it's transparency, maybe it's a lot more openness, ability for people passing by to see in, see activity within, and then people within the library obviously for spending time there for natural light and views out.
  • [01:00:36.36] We talk about site considerations, outdoor spaces, all of these things that would need to be considered when you think about a library building today in an urban environment. The different components within it the cafe, the shelving and collections, how that's housed and then browsed, and you talk about incorporating different types of environments on the bisect development that you've been implementing in some of the branches. All of these things are what we would consider probably the short term space needs. The needs that we know already that we'd like to do in a library and some of these things you can do here and some of these things you can't do in your existing facility.
  • [01:01:20.19] Going on to the long term space needs then, these are things that we really don't yet know about, or maybe we know that are coming, but we don't know maybe when they would be implemented or when the library programs would start to need these things. And so I think the biggest, the most important thing in a long term space needs is to find a program that can be implemented with built in flexibility for continual change and adaptability, looking at the use of furnishings or elements that can be reconfigured demountable partitions so that as spaces need to change as you evolve they can be easily done, and they're not hard components like maybe you have now where it takes a jackhammer to change and reconfigure.
  • [01:02:10.98] Innovations in infrastructure. So how is the building set up to be, again, easily adaptable? These are the things that are longer term things that we need to build in now in our thinking so that as they to be or come to be a desired to be implemented, they can be in an easy way.
  • [01:02:30.52] So as I said, all of these components you can read through. They have definition, more description about what they are. And then when we start to look at the building program or the spaces within a library, they're all defined with their names. These two sections, page 16 and 17 talk about meeting space. We have large meeting space, we have medium meeting space and small meeting space. But each space within the library and in this program is defined by four different categories. Talks a little bit about what it is, what that space is, the description of it.
  • [01:03:13.02] The next section is about its functionality. How does it need to work for the given use that it's there for? The next category is what components need to be considered within that space? And then the last section, defining that space would be adjacencies. And adjacencies are where would that specific space be within the building? Where does it need to be next to? How do the spaces perhaps play off one another for the best utilization of the space and the intended need?
  • [01:03:47.67] So each one of those different types of spaces is defined like that. In this section we just snipped out the collections on page 22. One category right now that you don't have in your current building that's off site is the archives. And there was some discussion about bringing that back into a downtown library. So that's been included here again with its description, its functionality components, and adjacencies.
  • [01:04:19.49] And then the next section would begin to help us understand, and you as you look at this document, what your existing conditions are like. And so we begin with this document here which is basically a plan of the downtown district area of Ann Arbor. And the orange square in the middle there is the current library. And we developed this diagram so that it is better understood about how much maybe space need there would be for different types of applications of a library building.
  • [01:05:00.05] And so right now I'd say you're occupying about a quarter of a typical downtown Ann Arbor city block. And as we move forward in this document you'll see that's important because the three squares on the right, we looked at the potential of maybe a small, a medium, and a large site. If you were to look at this as a new building and maybe on this existing site or maybe a different site, you'll better understand with this document then what type of space you would like to have in the constraints or the benefits it could be having to the building program.
  • [01:05:45.63] And we also went through the entire building and quantified your current space usage. So for us to be really able to understand how you operate the thing you're doing within the square footage you currently have, and then to be able to realize some limitations or some things that are working well. So this is just an example of the first floor, and it has a table that quantifies the areas of square footage. Also defines a little bit for everyone a little bit the area breakdown between public and staff and auxiliary space. And so we've included that in all the floors of the library. And right now the building currently is about 110,000 square feet. That's just the benchmark.
  • [01:06:42.94] So I come back to this diagram, this plan of downtown Ann Arbor, and, again, the existing building in the middle. When we talk about the spaces that we'd like to incorporate into a library building, an urban library, we have a sense of where they go by those adjacencies, and then we also have a sense of the size of them given the need and what we're trying to do. And what we thought would be important is we developed three concepts, an A, a B and a C based on a different site footprint so that you can better understand that all of the stuff that you want to do in a new library, if you had a larger footprint like the A example.
  • [01:07:33.39] That building might be able to have better adjacencies because you'd have less number of floors to put everything in. And so in that particular case maybe it's a basement level and then main level and a second level, and you might be able to do what you're looking to do all on two levels in that situation. And so those adjacencies can be maybe handle a little differently than if you went to a smaller site like B or C. You can imagine that that program fit all of that in in a smaller footprint would require more floors. So taller building, less opportunity to have maybe ideal adjacencies because you're limited to that floor area.
  • [01:08:21.67] And we'll look at an option A here that we have a large footprint of space. This document, this diagram here starts to show you of those spaces that are included within the building program how they may be arranged, what they may be next to, how they progress as you enter through the front door when you come to first and what comes after that and how they work off of each other. And this because it's concept A had the large, basically was a half of a city block in its footprint, would mean that you could do a 45,000 square foot footprint, which is your floor plate and in this particular case, you can accommodate what we're thinking and have discussed as your total square footage within a basement and two basically public floors.
  • [01:09:14.65] And when you look at these bubble diagrams, every label on this diagram is defined in a narrative about what it is, what it includes, its functionality. But when you look at it here, these are relative in size to each other. So in other words, if you're entering Plaza or your entry lobby is 1,000 square feet and the cafe is 250 square feet, I'm just picking those numbers, you can get that from looking at this diagram that the lobby is three times bigger than the cafe.
  • [01:09:50.71] And when we look at these adjacencies, these diagrams like this we're not suggesting essentially a design. This isn't designed. It isn't have all of the considerations that you would want to bring to this in terms of its creative look and feel. It really is strictly talking about if this space has to do this, what are the spaces around it doing, and how do they work together, and is there a flow that has to happen between one another?
  • [01:10:20.98] So just a couple of things to highlight here, I think the idea of coming into a lobby, maybe right there's the cafe, the Friends area. The little bit of a grayed out space is what we're calling the large event space. And in this program we talk about it as perhaps a space that can be entered from an upper level and then entered into it as it goes down into the lower level. And so as you spoke earlier about the environment where you can have a space that can be viewed from above and have activities in there, those are some things that you can begin to realize in a diagram like this where you have that across two floors.
  • [01:11:07.96] In these diagrams you'll also see that in this floor the staff work room is in the top quadrant there. When we move to the second floor of that document, it's located adjacent or above that. And so, again, adjacencies aren't just about what's on that floor and what's next to each other, but when you think about it vertically organizing things so there's more efficiency of use of the space for your staff to be able to do things a bit more easier.
  • [01:11:37.77] So all of these help you better understand how those spaces would relate to one another on a specific footprint. And so the next adjacency diagram is the B which is about the current size of your existing space, maybe a quarter of a city block. And you can see here that you start to get a bit more of a condensed bubble diagram. You can now begin to understand with less footprint you have to start to squeeze this stuff in more. Not as much stuff as on one floor as the diagram A.
  • [01:12:15.77] So in this document or in this concept B, to develop the program and to fit it in, you're looking at more likely three floors now with a basement. Whereas A was two floors of a basement.
  • [01:12:34.44] And then the last thing we looked at was even if it were a bit smaller in site-- as you use this document and whether you use it for this building or a new building and a new site, you may have a great opportunity where a smaller site becomes available. And there's benefits to that, and then you can look at, well, how does that then work with my building program and what type of trade-offs might I need to be considering? and evaluate that in that way.
  • [01:13:05.61] So you can see here on a C on a much smaller site you can still make it work, but now we're suggesting about five floors and a basement, and even a little bit more dense or combined elements and not as many elements on each floor.
  • [01:13:28.79] OK. Then we come to a section that begins to bring quantified analysis to those two categories I just mentioned, the narrative of the space which describes what it is, how it has to function, what's in it, and then its adjacency, and then the bubble diagrams, which suggests how those adjacencies might work. You have this table which begins to define its square footage in a quantitative way.
  • [01:14:01.26] And so this diagram we've included, the second column is your existing square footage. And so a lot of the building program elements you have already. And there's a couple of things that have been kind of made a little smaller, suggest to be a little smaller, but I think in most cases everything is been increased. So you can see relative to your current footprint and the things you're doing, the square footage you have, and then the suggested new square footage based on knowledge of discussion with the library and trends within libraries where things are going and what you would like to do.
  • [01:14:40.48] There are things on this document that are new that you don't currently have, and those are demonstrated too as well with a new square footage. And as you get through the document, at the very end on page 61 it totals these spaces. And as I mentioned earlier, the current building is 110,000 square feet, and the process we've gone through with the library and discussion and evolving document here we're suggesting perhaps about 150,000 square feet of space to really do what you're looking to do in the short-term, the short-term needs, and then also when you design, designing carefully so that you're building in flexibility, and those longer term things that we really don't know can be easily adapted. So 150,000 square feet is where we're arriving at here of this document.
  • [01:15:47.22] DHARMA AKMON: Can I ask a question?
  • [01:15:48.80] PETER BOLEK: Yes.
  • [01:15:49.38] DHARMA AKMON: Is our current footprint most like B?
  • [01:15:52.08] PETER BOLEK: It is. Yeah. And it's about a quarter of a downtown block. So the last category or section of the document begins to talk about cost. And to segue into that I wanted to reference this document. This is not included in the building program document. I think you have it as a separate document. But it is a document that will help you a little bit better understand some of the current things happening with libraries and their relative costs and perhaps scale.
  • [01:16:31.11] All these that we've cited here are urban libraries, many cases similar to Ann Arbor and some maybe a little bit bigger, but everything's not apples to apples. But the first example is the Tulsa City County Library. It was completed in 2016 and its total square footage is 145,000 square feet. Its budget was $53.5 million and about $368 a square foot.
  • [01:17:03.45] So, again, we wanted to provide you with some peer comparisons, if you will, to better than understand if we're talking about 150,000 square feet of space in an urban environment. What are those costs?
  • [01:17:16.58] LINH SONG: And their programs are comparable to our programs?
  • [01:17:20.76] PETER BOLEK: I think in general they are. I think that this is the first library with the tools library that I've seen as really prominent in use. But every library, maybe they're at a nuance of element that they really highlight. And I think that in general I think you can look at it as a balance between book space and people space. And so what are those type of programs that you might be doing that may differ from place to place?
  • [01:17:52.18] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Are we going to talk about the whole appendix? This appendix?
  • [01:17:56.65] PETER BOLEK: Yeah. So I was going to go through a couple of other--
  • [01:17:59.49] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Because I thought it was really cool.
  • [01:18:01.08] PETER BOLEK: OK. So I mean, I think it's very good information. It's helpful information. You can really be dumbfounded by the cost of things sometimes, but without some real explanation and I think correlated examples it's sometimes hard to understand. So this is the first one.
  • [01:18:23.20] The next one we thought was kind of interesting to consider was Madison Public Library in Wisconsin. A little bit smaller. About 120,000 square feet of space $30 million budget. Both of these were additions and renovations. So that's also important to know. And in every project, and especially in this early stage, I think you need to be looking at a range of potential costs versus a fixed. This is the number and it's not going to go up and down because, again, this is a document suggesting building program, not design so much. And I think there's a lot of things that can be chosen and through a design process where you might be a little less expensive or maybe there's some choices made where you want to have a longer lifespan of things there that might be a little bit more costly. So this building is $250, where the Pryor, Oklahoma one was $360.
  • [01:19:26.19] This example in Cedar Rapids is a brand new library. I guess we've also included like how many floors are on these examples and so forth. But 94,000 square feet of space. The budget here $49 million and the total square foot costs $521. It was completed in 2013, this complete and brand new library.
  • [01:19:54.36] JOSIE PARKER: So it's a 521 square foot--
  • [01:19:57.11] PETER BOLEK: Cost.
  • [01:19:57.63] JOSIE PARKER: Was it elite building? I mean, what made it--
  • [01:20:00.12] PETER BOLEK: Well, a couple of things with this project is that it had a devastating flood and they had also then some FEMA money and insurance money and its capital budget. And so they used it.
  • [01:20:18.78] JOSIE PARKER: They spent it. I got it.
  • [01:20:19.51] PETER BOLEK: And if anybody's ever been there, I mean, it is a wonderful building. It is great environment. The space is exceptional. It's an icon in this iconic building in this new area.
  • [01:20:32.66] COLLEEN SHERMAN: What's the population of Cedar Rapids?
  • [01:20:35.18] PETER BOLEK: You know, I couldn't tell you that.
  • [01:20:37.56] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I love those that statistic of city population size. I don't know if Cedar Rapids. I'm going to say smaller than Ann Arbor.
  • [01:20:45.57] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I'm googling it right now.
  • [01:20:48.00] ELI NEIBURGER: 132,000-- That's the city-- [INAUDIBLE]
  • [01:20:56.70] PETER BOLEK: So on this building, too, there's--
  • [01:20:58.24] COLLEEN SHERMAN: What's their service area?
  • [01:20:58.87] SPEAKER 1: [INAUDIBLE] area?
  • [01:21:00.44] COLLEEN SHERMAN: OK, thank you.
  • [01:21:01.67] PETER BOLEK: They did incorporate some outdoor space. They have a nice rooftop terrace. You'll see that referenced in the program here. We talked about some outdoor space for Ann Arbor Library, whether that be a Plaza or maybe it could be a rooftop terrace.
  • [01:21:21.27] Another example here at Columbus Metropolitan Library, again, an urban library. The real difference here, though, is that there is no new square footage. So it's all a complete existing renovation and the kind of rectangular form at the bottom right there is the original Carnegie Library. That was renovated prior to this project where we're citing here.
  • [01:21:45.36] I should also take this opportunity to say these are colleagues of ours, friends and other firms that have done these projects. They're not HBM projects, but they are really great projects. And here the total square footage is 230,000 square feet, but it already was there. It just was a complete interior renovation. So the square foot cost $35 million dollar project, $152 a square foot. So that gives you a little perspective on renovation.
  • [01:22:15.00] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Do you know how old the existing structure was?
  • [01:22:18.21] PETER BOLEK: Well, the Carnegie is sometimes early 1900s. I don't know the date exactly. The addition that was put on was I believe late '80s. Late '80s probably. Maybe '90, '91. And I think it suited this renovation well because it was pretty open space. It wasn't a lot of compartmentalized space. So even when you think about 20 years ago trying to design so that you didn't have hard walls that you really had to move in the future. I think they were benefited from that. And so, again, also reflected in the square foot cost. 230,000 square feet of renovation for only $152 a square foot.
  • [01:23:05.33] Now, this project in Wichita we did have a big part in. It's the Central Library for downtown Wichita. We did all the programming, planning initial concept design for the project. This is a brand new building. Two levels, 105,000 square feet of total space, and a $34 million dollar project, $326 a square foot. This project just opened just late last year. So this building, even though it's about 40,000 shy of what you're building program is suggesting, was on a site where they were able to do it really in two floors and maximize the adjacencies that they were looking for.
  • [01:23:52.19] LINH SONG: What was on the site previously?
  • [01:23:54.58] PETER BOLEK: Well, this particular project we also evaluated their existing building, which was the only AIA award winning structure in Wichita. It was a great building, but it was landlocked. It was next to their, what do they call the-- Event Center. They have a name for that. But we couldn't expand their existing building, and it was kind of a brutal building actually. It had a lot of solidness to it. They couldn't get Wi-Fi to work in the building at all.
  • [01:24:32.30] So what city of Wichita is developing beyond the river that borders the city, and there's some museums that have been built up on that other side of the river right from the Downtown proper area. And this site, I don't actually remember what was on the site. I don't know. I don't recall. But it is in a good location and the whole city is expanding too. I think it's the west, and there's more housing development and multi-use buildings that are happening on the other side of the river. At one point there was some discussion about co-locating spaces within this library. And we talked a little bit about that perhaps in a building program to make it kind of a broader destination.
  • [01:25:36.00] And so a couple other examples which are really interesting projects, but costs can skyrocket. This is in Austin, the Austin Central Library. 198,000 square feet of space, $125 million budget. So $631 of square foot completed in 2017. Brand new building, all new, no existing space.
  • [01:26:05.19] And then Calgary Public Library just opened last year. It's 240,000 square feet of space. So quite a bit larger.
  • [01:26:16.39] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Has anyone been to this one?
  • [01:26:18.45] LINH SONG: No.
  • [01:26:18.67] JOSIE PARKER: It just opened.
  • [01:26:19.50] PETER BOLEK: Now, we're actually--
  • [01:26:20.55] COLLEEN SHERMAN: It was amazing. I saw this picture, and I thought it looked like--
  • [01:26:22.65] PETER BOLEK: It is. But it's also $706--
  • [01:26:25.49] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Yeah.
  • [01:26:25.86] PETER BOLEK: --what is that number there?
  • [01:26:26.73] LINH SONG: That's expensive.
  • [01:26:27.17] PETER BOLEK: $700-something.
  • [01:26:28.20] JOSIE PARKER: 86. $786?
  • [01:26:29.62] PETER BOLEK: Yeah. We're going to visit there. It's highlighted in the Library Journal, I think, last month. There's some additional photos of it.
  • [01:26:38.73] But we have a trip planned to go see the library I think in February, I believe, or March. So I'm excited to see it. This library, like the library in Aarhus, Denmark, is really a central destination for civic elements. There's more in it than just the library. Here in this example, and in the Dokk1 library in Denmark, the transit light rail runs through the building.
  • [01:27:13.59] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: That's cool.
  • [01:27:14.71] PETER BOLEK: There's a lot of things that are being done that are a bit more, I think, civic-minded to getting people there. And when they're there, they're doing more and more things.
  • [01:27:27.18] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: And that firm-- they're doing the train station in Detroit, right?
  • [01:27:32.10] PETER BOLEK: Snohetta?
  • [01:27:32.37] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Snohetta? They're not? OK.
  • [01:27:35.31] PETER BOLEK: No, I think--
  • [01:27:37.14] SPEAKER: They're doing some master planning in [INAUDIBLE].
  • [01:27:40.45] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK. They're doing something, but they're not doing the renovations.
  • [01:27:47.17] SPEAKER: Yeah, they're doing a little master planning of the site.
  • [01:27:50.66] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK, thank you.
  • [01:27:53.35] PETER BOLEK: The last example we what we wanted to include was San Diego Central Library. A very large project-- 497,000 square feet. A budget of $184 million, so $372 a square feet.
  • [01:28:08.15] So you can see in this document, there are some correlations between the square foot cost-- there's some deviations in how big the building is, and thus a bigger building, more money. But you could probably think anywhere from $350 to $800 in this wider spectrum of kind of examples.
  • [01:28:28.32] LINH SONG: I visited this library. There's considerable philanthropic money that came through to fund this.
  • [01:28:35.26] PETER BOLEK: There is.
  • [01:28:36.51] LINH SONG: And there's a school.
  • [01:28:38.41] PETER BOLEK: Right, there's also a school.
  • [01:28:40.06] JOSIE PARKER: There was a lot of philanthropic profit money for Calgary as well.
  • [01:28:45.02] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Madison had a lot of-- all of their spaces were named. What about Austin? You were in Austin too, right?
  • [01:28:51.37] LINH SONG: I didn't get a chance.
  • [01:28:52.40] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Oh, you didn't? OK.
  • [01:28:53.17] LINH SONG: I'm sorry.
  • [01:28:53.71] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I'm sure they have--
  • [01:28:56.86] PETER BOLEK: Yup. So we have all of this data-- a table for this that talks about its square footage, its cost. And I think the thing that is important to recognize here with the building document, the building program, and planning is what might this mean to Ann Arbor if you were looking at $150,000 square feet of space? And so we have suggested that based on, well, our knowledge and history of library projects and the examples that are -- been sighted -- up.
  • [01:29:37.44] And one other step we took, we talked with a local construction company, very reputable Ann Arbor based construction company, that we've worked with before as well. And we asked them, here's our program, here's what we're thinking of trying to accomplish here. What do you think the cost is right in this market, in Ann Arbor, downtown, especially building in the city?
  • [01:29:59.61] So all of that comes to a recommendation that suggests $60 to $70 million for about 150,000 square foot library. That would be $400 to $466 a square foot. So as I said earlier, a range is appropriate, because this is suggesting the ideas you might want to consider-- it's not the design.
  • [01:30:26.16] And I think as you move through design, you have opportunities to put more money in certain areas than in others or adjust that budget accordingly. Maybe it's based on available funding, and things can be considered more in-depth as you move into that. So a range at this point is what's recommended.
  • [01:30:47.76] VICTORIA GREEN: Excuse me. Can I ask a question about price per square foot and whether or not there are general rules about how many levels it's spread over? I mean, can we make a-- are there rules like price per square foot tends to go down if you have more levels or fewer levels?
  • [01:31:03.59] PETER BOLEK: Yeah, it does have a little bit of an impact on that. I think when you have multiple floor plates and elevated structure, the higher you go, there may be some increase in cost of square feet.
  • [01:31:16.29] VICTORIA GREEN: Increase in cost.
  • [01:31:17.64] PETER BOLEK: But at this stage, this range that we're suggesting is a range that could really accommodate A, B, or C. That's another thing that might be a bit more identified as you start into your design process. And the last section, then, is what we call next steps. Page 63 here, we highlight a few things.
  • [01:31:48.49] Basically, it's your big decisions now where to go. And how can you work through a process that finds a site that might accommodate your need, evaluate things that are needed to support that building, site utilities and all of those elements? Parking considerations-- how do you want to handle that?
  • [01:32:12.28] And should the building be designed to accommodate any tenants? I mentioned earlier there were some of those examples that showed the opportunities to have rental space. Maybe it's a located space that has a common civic component, or maybe it's just rental space for office or something in the building that is allowing you to generate some income, like with the school in San Diego.
  • [01:32:44.48] And then the tools you might need to move ahead in next steps. And I think one of those things that might be considered is to take this document and evolve it a little further with what is generally called test fits. So that you begin to look at any potential site, or this existing building, or you have an opportunity to start to concept the building.
  • [01:33:14.41] And it's not a complete design process, but it's a process that starts to bring more definition to this that you can better understand how the pros and cons of your building program would work on a particular site, or that particular site. If you're building more floors or you have other constraints might suggest a higher cost of construction. Those are the type of things that might come out of an exercise like that.
  • [01:33:44.45] And so this document really is the first piece that brings everything together in one place that suggests what you'd like to do in a urban downtown library. But there's a lot more things to be considered as you would move forward. So that is the broad overview, hitting the highlights of the document.
  • [01:34:09.91] I think you read through already. You have a good sense of the depth of it. But is there any questions, or is there anything you'd like me to elaborate on further?
  • [01:34:22.83] LINH SONG: Can you speak to-- so this is the beginning, or no, just one phase of the process. Because this is a cumulative report of the work that we've already done with the trustees and staff over a period of-- how long has it been?
  • [01:34:38.17] JOSIE PARKER: It's been four, five months.
  • [01:34:40.57] LINH SONG: Five months. So with other projects that you've developed, after the program evaluation, what is the timing for the other phases?
  • [01:34:54.40] PETER BOLEK: Yeah. Well, there's a lot to consider with the timing. First, I think the board needs to consider yourself when you think the time is to move into that next phase.
  • [01:35:07.72] If you're asking about what we call those test fits, I think that they probably take about the same amount of time that the building program took to develop to get to a point where you have enough concept developed to really understand the pros and cons about a specific site. And then also, it depends on how many sites you're evaluating and how many of those you want to take to that level. In Charleston, West Virginia, we're working with their central library right now. And when we first started, they had identified 32 sites.
  • [01:35:46.72] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Whoa.
  • [01:35:47.11] PETER BOLEK: And when we came on board--
  • [01:35:48.55] LINH SONG: I don't think we have 32 sites!
  • [01:35:49.57] PETER BOLEK: They narrowed it down--
  • [01:35:50.32] [GROUP LAUGHING]
  • [01:35:50.90] Yeah. Well, Charleston-- they have more opportunities. A lot of vacant buildings and such.
  • [01:35:56.56] But when we came on board, there were 16 sites. And so we really quickly eliminated eight of them without really doing a test fit, by just working with the library and coming in, visually seeing it, and defining what hurdles there would be that were really obvious. And so then we got it down to really eight viable sites. And did a bit more, developed a test fit for those. But to get to the top three-- so we went from eight then to three-- to get to three, it took quite a while.
  • [01:36:34.19] Because it was compiled by-- there was a consultant on board. The library brought on a realtor, a commercial realtor. And a couple of those sites came about without us even do anything about it as we were going through the process. And so as you're doing it, we ended up going back and re-evaluating some other ones. And I think it took over about a year to really go from eight to three to then one recommendation. And that was evaluating concept design, pros and cons about how the program would work, and then developing cost parameters for that.
  • [01:37:23.66] LINH SONG: Thank you.
  • [01:37:24.41] PETER BOLEK: That, I think, section of work, too, is not what you would really consider your full design for whatever the project you would be at. It would be more of concepting. And that's exactly the process the Wichita Central Library went through.
  • [01:37:48.18] LINH SONG: Are there any other questions from folks?
  • [01:37:51.01] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I have a wonky question. So you come at this story from the perspective of an architect. I come from the perspective of a fundraiser, someone who thinks about capital campaigns. The biggest one I've been involved with was a public TV station-- this is straight up capital-- for a building that was $22 million, and it was a refurb of a building. So when we start thinking over $30, $40, I think, OK, that's a lot of money coming from a relatively small community.
  • [01:38:21.37] You have experience in the architecture piece. Have you worked with communities where the fundraising feasibility part of coming together with the money has been something you've seen done up close? So what I'm really asking is are there communities they have done that really well that you can recommend we talk to?
  • [01:38:44.83] PETER BOLEK: I can, yeah. And, in fact-- we're not campaign, fundraising specialists. But in our practice, in 41 years of--
  • [01:38:54.15] COLLEEN SHERMAN: You come across it.
  • [01:38:54.79] PETER BOLEK: --designing libraries, when I first started with the firm over 20 years ago, everything was mainly a bond issue. It was a referendum or a ballot issue of some sort. That's still required-- though boots on the ground, and running a campaign, and developing information and material, and getting the word out to bolster support.
  • [01:39:14.74] Today, we're seeing a lot more balance between capital money that's been acquired either through a ballot or some other fashion, and then private funding. And so one project that comes my-- it was a $28 million project. $18 million of it was privately funded. We're working through about $4 or $5 million of a historic tax credit grant, tax credit. And then also within that city, new market tax credits.
  • [01:39:49.06] And that particular project had a little bit of a nest of a capital budget of about $5 or $6 million. But the rest of it was boots on the ground. Now, in that case, the library also hired a spokesman to run that fundraising campaign.
  • [01:40:05.65] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Campaign director.
  • [01:40:06.79] PETER BOLEK: But they did a whole rollout. We did community engagement. We were hand in hand with the library and their other consultants to develop it along those lines.
  • [01:40:18.28] So you're absolutely right. This is coming from an architectural or space needs idea. I think you're also going to want to think, when you do test fits, how do you start to build that campaign that looks at the funding?
  • [01:40:34.00] COLLEEN SHERMAN: When you started talking about test fits, I started thinking about, OK, feasibility of a capital campaign and where the money comes from to do something like that. Because they go together. I mean, I would argue that capital comes before test fitting.
  • [01:40:48.07] PETER BOLEK: Right. Yes, yeah.
  • [01:40:50.74] JIM LEIJA: Josie, the last bond issue was-- what was the amount that we were going to the public for?
  • [01:40:58.14] JOSIE PARKER: $65. Is that right, Eli?
  • [01:40:59.58] ELI NEIBURGER: Yeah.
  • [01:40:59.91] JOSIE PARKER: $65 million.
  • [01:41:01.01] JIM LEIJA: So this lives in that similarly. I'm just curious to know, from your point of view, some of the higher level questions that the building program has provoked for you and the staff since their chance to review it?
  • [01:41:16.87] JOSIE PARKER: I think for us, one of the things that we found in this process that's different from others are the scenarios A, B, C. And looking at what's possible within adjacencies. I mean, we've done enough buildings now that we think that way.
  • [01:41:33.56] But this is the first time it's been done this way in such a big program. Which I find personally helpful, but I think it's also helpful for anyone who's looking at this who's not looked at one before. Because it makes sense.
  • [01:41:44.41] If you have this much square footage that you're looking at putting in a building, and you're putting it on something that's going to cause it to be five stories tall, what can't be next to something, and how important is that to you? And that's when you start asking that question, how important is it that these things be adjacent? And what does that mean in terms of what sites do you look at, or what size is your building really? What don't you need to do, or what can't you not do? And those are the types of questions that you ask yourself when you're looking at building a site.
  • [01:42:23.35] I'm going to just use Westgate as the latest example for us. Westgate was a renovation, was a tear-out and a renovation. But it was a very defined envelope with a very weird shape.
  • [01:42:36.61] So you want all the things you have in the traditional branches in this space, but you have to do it with these curved walls, slanted entrances, and a place off to the side that was the old library that's not in the sightlines of anything else. So do you do it, first of all? Do you do it? Do you use all that space? And if you do, where do things go?
  • [01:43:03.09] And it's a literal moving it around. It's having shapes that represent things really and moving them around. And then making that decision to be able to see straight through. And then you start negotiating, this is where the fits start in terms of when you talk about utility infrastructure, and what can happen on a site, what can't happen on a site. This is rented space.
  • [01:43:30.17] ANNOUNCER: Your attention please. The library will close in 15 minutes. The internet stations will automatically shut off at 8:55 PM. Please make any final copies at this time and take all materials to be checked out to a self-check station or to the circulation desk by 8:55 PM. Thank you.
  • [01:43:51.55] JOSIE PARKER: So in that space, it was will the shopping center owners allow us to open out the back? Because parking was going to be a big deal if that weren't possible. And of course, you know what happened. But before we would go too far down the path spending money on design, we needed to know that answer.
  • [01:44:12.56] It's the same thing, but it's much bigger. It's much bigger. So I find the way this is done to be a step ahead in thinking about that for anyone looking at it, I think, for us.
  • [01:44:25.48] And bringing archives into the building, adding a reading room, which we don't have. Adding an auditorium, a space that we don't have-- that's a space that's flexible for what we did with WAPR, but also one that has theater seating, sort of thing. We don't have that now. Doubling the size of the children's room.
  • [01:44:49.65] And we put that on the first floor ideally. But if you look at one of those scenarios, it's not. So what does that mean when you start pulling strollers in the library?
  • [01:44:59.74] How many elevators do you have? Where are they? It's a lot. But those are the types of questions that you have to ask yourself when you start doing this.
  • [01:45:10.33] And what are you going to-- what are your competing objectives? What are you going to give up? Because something's going to go. And then site fits help you decide what possible opportunities you have.
  • [01:45:24.19] So I'm pleased. Thank you. I'm very pleased with the way it's presented.
  • [01:45:28.63] It makes it a lot easier to work with in chunks. It's not just this huge thing. And I know it's not a design. It's not even close.
  • [01:45:39.04] JIM LEIJA: Can you tell me a little bit more about the rationale for bringing the archive back into the downtown building?
  • [01:45:43.54] LINH SONG: I love that.
  • [01:45:44.29] [GROUP LAUGHING]
  • [01:45:47.19] PETER BOLEK: Can I interject on that question before-- pick up on one of the things Ms. Parker said.
  • [01:45:51.40] JIM LEIJA: Please.
  • [01:45:51.88] PETER BOLEK: And Ms. Sherman, it speaks to your parallel thought of fundraising. And so, you're right, this is not a design. But as it evolves, and you begin to look at some of those spaces you just rattled off that you don't currently have-- when you start to put those in place in test fits, you start to then begin to develop material that you could use for fundraising.
  • [01:46:13.90] And I think any of those spaces you just mentioned, it'd be hard-pressed for people to understand, OK, I get why the library needs this type of space. And so I think paralleling your thought of doing all the fundraising with the building test fits and so forth-- they do play off of one another. And the material that you would continue to work with here would help that.
  • [01:46:37.54] JOSIE PARKER: So the archive is the community's local history that's publicly accessible. And we have many people who ask us for access to that material. And the way we're situated now, we find it very difficult to give people public access in a building that's rental, that's off-site, with very few staff in at any given time.
  • [01:47:00.05] So having the archive downtown does two things. It's access. It's also about development. People want to give us their material, and do. And then sometimes, people want to give you the support that it needs to be digitized and to be utilized.
  • [01:47:16.45] Having a reading room adjacent to that archive space makes sense, because that's where you can have people looking at that material, but you can also have people using a reading room in the traditional sense. And that's that space, the way-- we know the success of Westgate's reading room. So having a place like that in the downtown library, but near the people who do work that aligns with the use of a reading room in many ways makes even better sense.
  • [01:47:45.40] JIM LEIJA: Yeah. And I think clearly, from mission perspective, it makes a lot of sense. I wonder really in terms of the demand what it truly looks like, and if we can drill down on that over the course of the next year or so. Because it's an expensive proposition to bring back-- by the square foot, to bring back the archive into the downtown space. And if it's not being--
  • [01:48:15.16] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: But I think it has potential use that it cannot possibly satisfy now, so--
  • [01:48:20.58] JIM LEIJA: Yeah. So it's to anticipate what the demand might look like, right.
  • [01:48:24.07] JOSIE PARKER: And we can't measure it, because we can't allow it. We aren't able. We aren't able to open it.
  • [01:48:31.30] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: But I think it has a lot of potential benefit on the fundraising side. When you think about the last project, and people were like, what do you need with an auditorium? It's a library.
  • [01:48:39.46] But if you say, we don't have a reading room, and we don't-- our archives are in rental space, I think that could mean something to that community that we're going to bring our community's local history back to the core of the city. I think that could really mean something to people--
  • [01:48:54.04] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: --that might outweigh the potential cost.
  • [01:48:55.98] LINH SONG: But we have historical libraries in town that are used, right? We've got the Bentley, and--
  • [01:49:01.58] JOSIE PARKER: And they all have very specific purpose, and they're well used, and they're supported. The local history aspect of what we do with the Ann Arbor News work, and some of the other newspapers, and some of the other matter that has been donated to us, it's different. It's unique. And it's accessible in the sense of we make it accessible digitally. But by having it on location, it's a different type of accessibility.
  • [01:49:31.30] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: It's accessible content-wise, too, in the way that the whole history of state is not applicable to people here in the same way that-- I was at a salon today, and someone was like, I'm so interested in the South University, all the changes-- the owner. And I was like, there's a new Instagram account that the public library has. You should follow it. And I showed her the archive's new Instagram account of the vintage pictures.
  • [01:49:54.67] And she was like, whoa! And put it in her phone right away. And I think it's something that-- it's content that is uniquely ours that we should really own and be proud of, I think. Because I think we lean too much on the university for those other collections.
  • [01:50:11.21] LINH SONG: Right. And those are not all publicly--
  • [01:50:15.45] JOSIE PARKER: They're not all accessible.
  • [01:50:16.96] LINH SONG: Right. And even the--
  • [01:50:18.92] JOSIE PARKER: Much of those collections are not digitized, and there's no plan to do it anytime soon.
  • [01:50:23.12] LINH SONG: And even the Ford Library is-- you have to get special permission tags.
  • [01:50:28.51] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: They're accessible.
  • [01:50:29.01] JOSIE PARKER: They're accessible.
  • [01:50:29.70] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Anyone can go to them.
  • [01:50:30.13] JOSIE PARKER: Anyone can go to them, right.
  • [01:50:32.53] JIM LEIJA: I would say-- so this is educational for me to think about. But it also leads to this other question of the opportunity cost embedded in, how do you animate and think about that then programmatically and developing a bit more of a vision about how that space is animated, and how it spreads out into the library in physical ways, would be pretty interesting.
  • [01:50:59.51] LINH SONG: Like our "Becoming"-- wasn't that-- there was a "Becoming American" series. That would be maybe something that could speak to archival work, too. So I'm sure there's opportunities.
  • [01:51:10.89] JIM LEIJA: And also, it leads to the other question that I have, or the other reaction, which is at what point do we do the analysis of the operational outlay that we'll require for an increase of space, and increase in programs, and so on? So that the cost of this building is not $70 million and then you're done, but it's actually $70 million and then whatever the increment is in terms of our annual operating.
  • [01:51:44.05] PETER BOLEK: Right, and that's all part of what you can evaluate when you look at your test fits. You can begin to look at both utility cost, operational costs of the building, and also look at staffing costs and operational costs that would differ from where you currently are to maybe where you might go. All of that we've worked with libraries to project.
  • [01:52:09.28] And then as your timeline evolves, another factor when you're considering budgets is putting a factor in for increases-- inflation. I think since the downturn, I mean, things have turned around significantly in the construction market. It's not only hard to find trades to work on projects, but the cost of the raw materials has gone up.
  • [01:52:37.01] And so when you're doing these test fits, you're looking at bricks and mortar cost. But then you're looking at long-term utility and operating costs for the building you're looking at, operational costs from a standpoint of staffing. And then if your timeline is a few years out that you think it takes to raise this dollar, then you've got to put in that factor. Because you've got to make sure you're covering things, and everything that you're-- the big ideas you're trying to implement-- that you actually, when you get the point of implementing them, you can--
  • [01:53:12.55] JOSIE PARKER: Afford it.
  • [01:53:13.15] PETER BOLEK: And you don't get caught without thinking of something.
  • [01:53:16.67] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Quick. question. Oh, sorry, Jim.
  • [01:53:17.72] JIM LEIJA: Oh, sorry. This is the last thing. But I know a part of the project is to find the Cadillac version, right?
  • [01:53:26.59] ANNOUNCER: Your attention please. The library will close in five minutes. If you have material to check out, please go to a self-check station or to the circulation desk now. Thank you.
  • [01:53:39.43] JIM LEIJA: And that this is the deluxe version-- everything that we would aspire and anticipate having in the building. And there hasn't been a reaction that this doesn't seem unachievable. So I wonder why there's not a $40 million version alongside the $70 million version, or if that's something that we need. I'm just testing the assumption here.
  • [01:54:10.48] JOSIE PARKER: Well, the assumption was to do--
  • [01:54:12.43] JIM LEIJA: Just to go--
  • [01:54:14.31] JOSIE PARKER: --what would you do if you could? And then when you see what you have to do to do it, then you talk-- then you question your own assumptions. And that's when the work is. That's what the work is.
  • [01:54:26.94] JIM LEIJA: Yeah.
  • [01:54:28.28] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: My question is about the half-block size proposal. I think within the downtown area, we don't see a lot of low, large buildings like that. And it seems unlikely we could find a site downtown that would suit that.
  • [01:54:42.20] So I wonder why you chose to include it. I like the adjacency, certainly. But otherwise, within our context in which we're operating, it sounds hard to achieve.
  • [01:54:51.44] PETER BOLEK: Right. Well, one of the things we didn't do was identify specific sites. So we didn't get into that. Although it was hard to not realize that there may be a couple of sites that can do that-- maybe one.
  • [01:55:06.02] And I think that it's-- again, as Josie mentioned, if you looked at it from an ideal setting, maybe that is ideal. Maybe you can't achieve that, but at least you've planned it out, and you've thought about it. And it informs you better on what maybe the plan B is. And that plan B doesn't mean it needs to be any less of a good plan. It just gives you those parameters.
  • [01:55:30.21] So I agree. I don't think there are many-- maybe more than one, even though-- And then you could also think of, well, is there anything that could be removed, you know, demolished that could create that? and maybe that's an opportunity.
  • [01:55:45.44] But I think that there's probably only a few of the quarter lots, too. And so I think you're really looking, when you get to that point strategically, maybe what can be taken off the map to provide for that, including this site here, too. I mean, a site can be a new building, too, if we thought that you could take this out.
  • [01:56:10.13] And speaking to efficiencies, and operational costs, and all that sort of thing, that's another thing when you try to balance a new building versus a renovation, you look at that as well. What can you achieve better in a new building both operationally and cost efficiently.
  • [01:56:26.24] JIM LEIJA: That you hope to pick up some savings in certain ways.
  • [01:56:28.64] PETER BOLEK: Yes.
  • [01:56:30.13] LINH SONG: Of the libraries that were listed as comparable peers, which ones are independent? Versus part of a city budget and city government?
  • [01:56:42.99] PETER BOLEK: Oh. I'm not sure I know all of that. Well, one I could speak of-- Wichita, which we were involved with, was a city-driven project, budget-wise. I really couldn't tell you--
  • [01:56:57.05] JOSIE PARKER: Calgary is city. Columbus is city. I think they're all--
  • [01:57:01.20] PETER BOLEK: Columbus is--
  • [01:57:02.37] JOSIE PARKER: Is it a district?
  • [01:57:03.00] PETER BOLEK: --independent, yeah.
  • [01:57:04.07] JOSIE PARKER: --is independent?
  • [01:57:04.39] PETER BOLEK: Yeah.
  • [01:57:05.09] JOSIE PARKER: OK. Calgary is a city.
  • [01:57:06.86] LINH SONG: City, OK.
  • [01:57:08.00] PETER BOLEK: We could--
  • [01:57:08.69] JOSIE PARKER: Madison's a city.
  • [01:57:09.42] PETER BOLEK: --look into that and follow up. Charleston, the one we're doing, the main in Charleston, West Virginia, is independent. The central library.
  • [01:57:20.94] LINH SONG: Do we have any remaining questions?
  • [01:57:23.17] JIM LEIJA: The only other thing I want to respond to--
  • [01:57:25.19] LINH SONG: You had three last questions!
  • [01:57:26.59] [LAUGHING]
  • [01:57:27.14] JIM LEIJA: Sorry! I'm very excited about this. Why does anything have to be in the basement?
  • [01:57:31.00] [GROUP LAUGHING]
  • [01:57:33.58] Which I--
  • [01:57:34.69] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Versus a parking lot?
  • [01:57:36.04] JIM LEIJA: Which is just a--
  • [01:57:37.06] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Oh, yeah.
  • [01:57:37.72] JIM LEIJA: Yeah, I mean, which is just a philosophical question. I think it's interesting that there's usable public space that's built into two of these three plans in a lower level. And I'm curious about the rationale for that versus--
  • [01:57:56.44] LINH SONG: Montreal had-- the kids section was down an escalator off of-- so it didn't feel like a basement.
  • [01:58:04.24] JIM LEIJA: I love the practicality of this room, but I think I'm a little scarred by being in it so much!
  • [01:58:09.54] [GROUP LAUGHING]
  • [01:58:09.91] PETER BOLEK: I think that's a very good point. I think when you think about the opportunities in a new design, a basement doesn't necessarily maybe carry the same feel or connotation that it does--
  • [01:58:21.04] ANNOUNCER: Your attention please. The library is now closed.
  • [01:58:25.55] JIM LEIJA: And yet we're still here.
  • [01:58:26.54] [LAUGHING]
  • [01:58:28.30] PETER BOLEK: But I think in most cases, most of the diagramming was more storage and mechanical infrastructure. I think when you think about a big, large event space-- and in the document, we use some terms like "black box theater," or something that's very flexible.
  • [01:58:45.93] JIM LEIJA: Flexible venue.
  • [01:58:47.19] PETER BOLEK: A venue like the Seattle Public Library has, where you come in the lobby there, and that large event space spills out from the lobby right down into that lower level. Now, that particular building, too, has an access point out from that lower level so you can enter in two ways. So it's not quite really a basement.
  • [01:59:04.13] COLLEEN SHERMAN: That's-- UMMA has its theater in the basement, right?
  • [01:59:06.93] JIM LEIJA: Yeah.
  • [01:59:07.35] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yes.
  • [01:59:07.67] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Yeah, so does-- DIA has that too, right? They have their film theater--
  • [01:59:12.23] PETER BOLEK: Yeah.
  • [01:59:12.50] COLLEEN SHERMAN: --off in the back.
  • [01:59:15.02] JIM LEIJA: It's just--
  • [01:59:15.49] PETER BOLEK: I think there are-- those type of spaces you could really realize in a nice way in that lower--
  • [01:59:21.46] JIM LEIJA: In that lower level idea, yeah.
  • [01:59:23.68] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Before we say goodbye to Peter, there's one clarification question. Victoria asked the question about stacking up floors-- you have five floors versus two floors-- A to C, I think. But property acquisition is your biggest expense, correct? In the square footage we were looking at, we weren't looking at property acquisition?
  • [01:59:45.28] PETER BOLEK: No.
  • [01:59:45.85] COLLEEN SHERMAN: So really, once you add to that half a city block property acquisition, then your costs go way up for that, correct?
  • [01:59:54.97] PETER BOLEK: Right. And that is a very important distinction to make. It's footnoted in those tables. That cost is really what we would call bricks and mortar and furnishings.
  • [02:00:04.30] COLLEEN SHERMAN: OK. So that's why when you were asking that question, I wanted to make sure that we all had it in our minds. Like, yeah, two floors looks great, but what you have to pay to get that.
  • [02:00:15.49] PETER BOLEK: Again, those are the things that you would evaluate with this program to say, OK, I have this opportunity to maybe do that here. Let's draw it out. Let's look what it might mean both from a functionality standpoint and a cost standpoint. Is there really a half a city block available, those sort of things.
  • [02:00:35.41] LINH SONG: So Peter, before we wrap up, I wanted-- would you mind giving us a little bit of background about your firm and how you specialize in--
  • [02:00:44.24] PETER BOLEK: I'd love to, yeah.
  • [02:00:44.62] LINH SONG: --this area and how you're different from different architecture firms?
  • [02:00:49.40] PETER BOLEK: Well, I think the first distinction is 95% of our work is library work. We don't do much other work. It's really focused with libraries. With libraries, it's public, academic, medical, law, everything within the library realm. So there's some diversity in that.
  • [02:01:07.69] We have a practice where we work nationally. We're all over the country. We're based in Cleveland, but we specialize in libraries, and so we have a practice that figures out how to do work from afar. In some cases, it's cross country. In some cases, it's right in our-- next door.
  • [02:01:33.14] We have a staff of 18. So it's a modestly sized office of architects and interiors. And everybody in our office knows about libraries.
  • [02:01:43.88] So probably a real big distinction between us and another firm is that if we work with a client-- you work with me and Rene or anybody else we assign to the project as a point person-- when they take work back to the office to develop it, they're not handing it off to somebody that's designing an office building or something different. Everybody in the office is working with libraries for both the interior and the architectural realm. And we all spend a great deal of time with organizations-- American Library Association-- a lot of state conferences, the Library Journal, speaking about libraries, learning about libraries.
  • [02:02:27.17] And it is a passion of the office. I mean, it is really important to us. We love what we do. We don't think there's a better civic space for anyone's community than a library.
  • [02:02:39.38] And personally-- so 1976, the firm was founded. And over 41 years, we've worked on-- designed over 400 libraries. That's a pretty deep portfolio. And probably half of those are new buildings, half of them are expansion renovations. We also have a pretty significant amount of work in Carnegie libraries.
  • [02:03:01.06] But personally for me, my mother was a librarian. I grew up in that vein. And working-- I've been with the firm now a little over 20 years. My mother was so happy with projects that she could see us doing and attended a lot of those openings.
  • [02:03:21.67] And our staff-- we have some staff that spouses are librarians. And it's a unique, special group. And I think that we bring a lot to our clients from not only the architecture, interior design, but all aspects of campaign support development. And that's kind of in a nutshell a little bit about HBM.
  • [02:03:49.42] LINH SONG: Thank you. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for all the-- this work is fabulous. Thank you.
  • [02:03:55.57] PETER BOLEK: Thank you.
  • [02:03:58.27] LINH SONG: So moving on, Karen, do we have additional citizens' comments?
  • [02:04:06.59] [INTERPOSING VOICES]
  • [02:04:09.00] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I think I see one approaching.
  • [02:04:10.37] LINH SONG: Oh, OK.
  • [02:04:11.18] JOSIE PARKER: It's all right, Jess. Just come on up.
  • [02:04:12.98] JIM LEIJA: Come on up.
  • [02:04:14.37] JOSIE PARKER: Jess Letaw yeah?
  • [02:04:15.51] JIM LEIJA: Yes.
  • [02:04:16.12] LINH SONG: You're our known unknown.
  • [02:04:20.43] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Repeat offender of the--
  • [02:04:23.61] JESS Letaw: That's a pretty accurate description. Hi, I'm Jess Letaw. I'm a renter in Ann Arbor.
  • [02:04:29.70] I moved here for school, as many people did. And my first encounter with the community was when Josie talked to our class, talking to us about the architecture of Traverwood Library. So my introduction to the community outside of campus was really through AADL.
  • [02:04:45.90] I am super excited about buildings. I love talking about buildings, and I love thinking about buildings. I feel the same way about the library, and so thinking about a library building is a special treat.
  • [02:04:57.99] I was thinking a little bit earlier today about the Detroit activist Grace Lee Boggs, who said "It is our right and our duty to shape the world with a new dream." I am excited for what the building and the place of a new library could be. And I just wanted to be a voice for boldness and excitement in whatever that is.
  • [02:05:20.64] I mean, the process is-- it's really fun for those of us that geek out on spreadsheets and 63-page reports. But the building is going to be what ends up serving us all, and so I'm just advocating for architecture with a capital A. And I'm delighted to see HBM and really thoughtful partners on board. That's it.
  • [02:05:39.92] LINH SONG: Thank you. Great. Do we have any other-- Great. Well, thank you for joining us at the beginning this year. We will see you next month. Meeting's adjourned.
  • [02:05:53.95] [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
  • [02:05:57.82] This program was recorded on January 22nd, 2019, at the Ann Arbor District Library.
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January 22, 2019 at the Downtown Library

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AADL Board Meeting