CALL TO ORDER

David Goldberg called the meeting to order at 5:03 pm.

ROLL CALL

Members Present: David Goldberg, Cynthia Andrews, Heidi Blackwell, and Larry Osborne were present in person. Nick Dierckman was present via Zoom.

Kari Linder and Elizabeth Zinter had excused absences.

Staff Present: Greg Williams, Library Director, Denise Butcher, Library Operations Manager

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

1.  Heidi Blackwell noted a correction was needed in the February 9^th, 2022 minutes, in that the middle school referenced should be “Tumwata” not “Tumwater” as it was written in the minutes. Cynthia Andrews made a motion to amend and accept the February 2022 Library Board Minutes with the noted correction. Heidi Blackwell seconded the motion. David Goldberg, Cynthia Andrews, Heidi Blackwell, Larry Osborne, and Nick Dierckman voted aye. The motion carried.

2.  Larry Osborne made a motion to accept the April 13^th, 2022 Library Board Minutes as submitted; Cynthia Andrews seconded the motion. David Goldberg, Cynthia Andrews, Heidi Blackwell, Larry Osborne, and Nick Dierckman voted aye. The motion carried.

LIBRARY DIRECTOR'S REPORT

3.  Greg Williams recognized this hybrid meeting as the first in-person Library Board meeting in two years.

Greg highlighted that the library Facebook page had 4000+ followers, and recognized the work of the PR team, specifically Aaron Novinger, in fostering digital engagement.

Greg discussed statistics concerning conference room bookings, including the number of booked sessions and number of hours the room was booked out of available hours. Greg noted in the first month room occupancy was approximately 18%.

David Goldberg asked if Greg had received feedback concerning the policy changes. Greg said he had not had feedback but there had been a question about the logistics of signing up in advance; many people had signed up on their own.

Greg provided updates about the hiring of the Library Safety Specialist position. Forty applications were received, interviews were completed, and an offer was extended to a finalist. Greg thought the process would be finalized by the end of the week and anticipated bringing the Safety Specialist to a future Board meeting to meet the Board. Greg expressed excitement about the finalist’s skill set, experience, and attitude as well as the opportunity to increase Greg and Denise Butcher’s time to pursue interdepartmental and interagency collaboration.

Greg recapped the return of in-person and hybrid programming including storytimes, art lab, book clubs, and video game meetups. Greg noted that the relocation of the adult computer lab downstairs facilitated teen engagement with the teen space.

Greg reported that the May the Fourth program was attended by several hundred people, featured Baby Yoda library cards, costumed attendees, and a Star Wars Day proclamation read by Commission President Denyse McGriff.

Greg said credit card payments were now enabled through the LINCC (Libraries in Clackamas County) website and spoke positively of the implementation. LINCC would be responsible for the payment collection, banking and credit card compliance, and the distribution of funds to the member libraries.

Nick Dierckman asked if credit cards were accepted at Oregon City Public library. Greg said they were, and the payment option was a library-by-library decision.

Greg said June 27 marked the LINCC-wide transition from two digital ebook and audiobook platforms (Cloud Library provided by Biblotheca and Library2Go provided by Overdrive), to a single platform (Overdrive). Greg expected most of the local e-collection to migrate from Cloud Library to Overdrive. The transition was intended to simplify the patron experience by providing a single access point for ebook, eaudiobook, and digital magazines beginning July 1.

Greg asked for questions.

David Goldberg asked if a normalized look back of statistics to two years prior would be included as he did not see it present in the materials. Greg said he included the information in March and that his understanding of the Board’s conversation was a quarterly look back would be sufficient. Nick Dierckman stated a quarterly basis had been his understanding as well. Greg said he expected to provide comparative statistics at the June meeting. David said that was acceptable.

Heidi Blackwell stated that the library was present at the Summer of Joy, a resource fair put on by the school district, noted that Greg staffed the booth, and thanked the library for participating. Greg thanked Heidi for the invitation.

Heidi shared that the No Place for Hate program, which she had worked on with Youth Services Librarian Barratt Miller last year, was being used this year by teachers. Heidi said Springwater School was working on a student led K-8th grade program to learn about people of different abilities based on student feedback. Greg thanked Heidi for her involvement and spoke positively about the ongoing use of program material.

PUBLIC COMMENTS

None.

DISCUSSION ITEMS

4.  Library Facility Condition Assessment

David Goldberg said that this assessment would link to discussions around capital reserves and would be an ongoing discussion.

Greg Williams noted this report was an assessment of what needed to be replaced/repaired now as well as future projections of replacement/repair schedules and estimated costs. Greg said all City facilities received this type of assessment.

Greg said the assessment found that the floor in Carnegie and the addition would need to be replaced, which was consistent with what Facilities had said the last time the floor was sanded. At the time of the assessment in summer of 2021, the estimated cost of replacement was $90,000. Greg acknowledged that given the increase in the cost of labor and materials and the projected start time of 2023, the estimate was likely a minimum cost. Greg anticipated some service disruptions due to area closures. Greg -said this was the only item the contractor assessed as being a near- to short-term issue to be addressed.

David Goldberg asked if the cost of the project would come out of the fund balances or operations. Greg said he anticipated using the Community Facilities Fund as the purpose of that fund was to have money for capital repair.

Nick Dierckman asked for clarification about new flooring needing replacement. Greg said the wood portion of the addition’s floor would need to be replaced as it was separating and becoming a trip hazard. Denise Butcher shared that multiple mitigation measures had been taken to keep the floor together but were ultimately unsuccessful. Greg said his priorities were durability and respecting the character of the building.

Greg shared the second finding was that there would be over $3 million in repair project expenses needed in six to twenty years. Projected costs were inflation adjusted at a rate of 3%.

Greg said $20,000 was contributed annually to the Community Resource Fund; it would take yearly $200,000 contributions to meet the projected demand if that fund was the sole source of funding. Greg acknowledged that most of the library’s money came from the Library District Distribution and when the measure was on the ballot in 2008, the funding was presented as funding operations, not capital repair or replacement. Greg noted that other libraries were in a similar situation.

Nick Dierckman asked how much money was going into the Community Facilities Fund annually. Greg said that currently, $20,000 was put in yearly. Greg estimated that the Library Fund had a current balance of around $4 million and that the current target reserve level for the fund was approximately $2 million. Greg said that the amount was formulated based on seven months of operating expenses, one year of debt service, and an additional 10% contingency. Greg noted that this came out to approximately $1.9 million and the current Library Fund balance was close to $3.8 million, which was notably higher than the desired reserve fund level. Greg recognized that the question of how to possibly utilize fund balance was complicated.

Nick asked how much the Library Fund balance increased year to year and how it was budgeted.

Greg said that in looking at past budgets, the fund balance grew more than Greg would have expected. For this biennium budget, Greg hoped that there would be a smaller difference in the budgeted vs actual expenses and revenues, and that more funds would be utilized for current operations rather than ending up in fund balance. Greg noted that there might still be a difference this fiscal year in budgeted vs spent, as COVID-era hiring conditions complicated hiring and several positions were vacant longer than anticipated, which could contribute to budgeted but unspent funds.

David said that sometimes the amount of money collected by the county from property taxes exceeded the budgeted amount.

Greg expressed approval of the revenue budgeting for this year and noted it was on track to be accurate. Greg said the City and County district revenue projection for the second year of the biennium were very similar.

David supported a countywide library discussion on bond measures and financial planning and asked Nick if he knew anything about this.

Nick said there was no definitive time frame on bond measures and the scheduling of the next Library District Advisory Committee (LDAC) meeting was uncertain. Nick saw a need for extra analysis about funding and to adjust the Task Force’s direction.

Greg acknowledged COVID’s disruptive effect on the Task Force’s progress and anticipated that the resumption of the Task Force might look different than initially envisioned. Greg thought hiring an outside consultant to do a financial assessment for services, operational, and capital needs would alleviate the pressure on the participants anticipated to be overextended for the next one to two years. Nick thought that Greg’s idea of hiring a consultant was sound and said it had not been discussed to this point at LDAC.

David asked that Greg bring back a sense of the positions of other library directors.

Nick said consultant fees would need to be funded out of the County General Fund and was unsure how feasible that would be. Greg thought that if it was approached from the perspective of staff time savings by not engaging in an intensive two-year task force project, perhaps cities could fund a consultant even if the county did not. David voiced support for seeking a consultant.

COMMUNICATIONS

5.  Tactical Plan Committee Update

David Goldberg said that the Committee had met to discuss how to initiate the Tactical Plan. Greg said that another meeting of the Tactical Plan Committee needed to happen but expected the plan to be shared at the next Board meeting as feedback from the Committee needed to be incorporated into the existing version.

Heidi Blackwell asked if staff contributed to the Tactical Plan. David said yes, the Committee created a template and were waiting for staff ideas on how to realize it.

Cynthia Andrews acknowledged the old plan mixed strategic and operational aspects, creating some difficulty for staff in determining focus. Cynthia expressed hope that separating these two levels of library function would make things easier.

Foundation

Cynthia Andrews said she missed the last Foundation meeting due to unexpected health reasons and reported that the Dolly Parton Imagination Library program served 900 children, with 500 children still in the sunsetting process.

Greg Williams shared that approximately 130 families had signed up for 1000 Books Before Kindergarten in the first few months of the program and over 10,000 books had already been logged.

Cynthia asked if current Imagination Library participants could be advertised to for 1000 Books Before Kindergarten and transitioned over. Greg said that he would look into it, as he needed clarification on privacy conditions the program and enrollees had.

David Goldberg asked if there was outreach to all preschools. Greg said that there was outreach to many schools, and he would have Barratt Miller check into the particulars.

Greg said that the Foundation was applying for a Community Enhancement Grant of $6,750 ($7500-10%) to put on a series of three dance instruction events intended to strengthen community bonds and facilitate healing from trauma. The proposed events would be co-organized by Parks and Oregon City School District. This year’s proposed style would be Bollywood, with the hope that this would be a yearly reoccurring series with Ukrainian folk dancing next year. Larry Osborne provided assistance in looking over the grant application.

Friends of the Library

Larry Osborne reported that the Friends had reached their fundraising goal for the mural, and he was impressed by the mural.

LDAC

Nick Dierckman said that LDAC updates had already been relayed earlier in the meeting.

Cynthia Andrews wondered if the library might be interested in future partners in learning events, as they were well attended and would present outreach opportunities. Greg said he would be interested and asked anyone who had advance notice of similar events to let him know.

FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS

6.  Review, discuss, and prioritize future agenda items.

Nick Dierckman wished to discuss the potential shortening of the minutes.

Heidi wished to discuss the Recognition of TAG. Greg affirmed that was on the agenda and that feedback from the teens had been positive.

Cynthia Andrews proposed a work session to work through and resolve agenda items to allow deeper discussion of big picture items during regular meetings.

Greg stated the bylaws said nine regular meetings were needed per year and that he would check with the City Recorder to see if work sessions would count towards that minimum or if the bylaws might need to be changed.

David Goldberg identified Outreach efforts as an item of high priority. Nick Dierckman suggested setting up a dedicated committee on the topic. Greg said it appeared that the library’s portion of the City Community Satisfaction Survey could be sent out to the full unincorporated service area population to gather feedback. All present Board members expressed interest in being involved with an Outreach Committee, with varying focuses.

Greg thanked the Board for their willingness to be at meetings, extra meetings, and their general support.

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting adjourned at 6:10 pm.