Ann Arbor Public Art Commission Meeting 6/1/2022

001public art commission meeting to order on june 1st at 7 02 pm and there is jamal coming i thought i saw jamal jamal's here i'm here i don't i don't see he's not yeah you're not listed as a panelist you're just an attendee right now you might need you to get upgraded promote you sorry to interrupt you sarah oh no problem no problem all right well and i think maybe sophie two am i on the wrong one again are you promoted as a panelist i just click the link i got but maybe okay well we have a lot on the agenda so i'm just going to go ahead and start with roll call and then vanita if you want to take a look and see if maybe we need to do some additional promotions um

002now we see you jamal there we go um so i will start with allison buck hi i'm present in ann arbor thank you jamal bufford hey i'm president superior township uh sarah fuller myself present in ann arbor uh sophie griez i'm present in ann arbor you're called john catarsky president in ann arbor fantastic penny peggy leonard i muted myself present in ann arbor perfect marionetta porter present in new york fun and linson present magna island wonderful thank you all um so we're gonna go ahead and uh set the agenda so um i invite a motion to accru approve the agenda as presented do i have a motion so moved thank you john and a second thank you peggy um so uh oh and i'm sorry i totally forgot a big welcome to mary fifos i

003am so sorry our newest commissioner um coming back and we are so happy to have you mary thank you for joining us tonight and congratulations for joining the commission so happy to have you thank you and uh so now that we've approved the agenda let's move right into our special presentation which is of course about our arpa funding um so i am going to give the floor over to heather who will give us a presentation on the funding if you'll bear with me in a moment i'm going to share my screen so um oh it looks like you need to enable my screen sharing veneta if you don't mind and i'll get my presentation up and running i'm still not able to share my screen no yeah i'm not able to share my screen or

004my video now okay hold on a minute if you make me co-host i made you a co-host i made you an actual host it actually made john kotarski the host is what popped up something so maybe just went up in the wrong person by accident oh yeah sometimes that moves around but congratulations john for your promotion you can call me heather great i'll sit back so does that not allow me to remove him as a host either maybe i don't know yeah maybe john maybe you need to make heather the host now i don't know how to do that uh i'm gonna do it i think if you um look at the list of participants and then there's dots over to the right uh it won't let me change here okay let me uh go

005to heather and look out there on the right hand side if you scroll over there should be a more button i'll make her okay so yep she's the host now yeah good work teamwork it was already this meeting is riveting okay all right you should be able to see the presentation now is that correct yeah correct all right i'm saying head nods okay so we're here to talk about arpa funding and the good news is is that there's money to be spent so we're gonna get into that it's just a matter of the how-to um before we get into that um actually i'm gonna skip this because there is no q a feature um but if you want to raise your hand digitally there is that raise your hand feature at the bottom if you

006want to share a thought or star 9 if you're calling in you can virtually raise your hand that way through the phone and then we do have medium norms this is considered a public meeting where we're getting into a discussion um and we do ask that people remember the dignity of others as we get into this discussion um so with that we ask that you commit to learning and avoid speculation we also ask that if you're speaking over the phone that you move to a quiet place so we can hear you we do really want to hear what you have to say so that always helps and i know that's not always easy but if you can now make sure you can you try to get a quiet place and then once again just remember

007the importance and rights and dignity of others so please remember to critique ideas not people and that you are thoughtful about your language we want this to be an inclusive um forum for everybody so please consider the language that you use and try to avoid any offensive language okay with that getting back to our main point is that we have money to spend so we have 500 000 that's been allocated to the arts so now what and that's what we're here to figure out with you tonight so we want to get into a discussion about um so i'm going to do a quick review and many of you have probably already seen this presentation and and much of this information but i think it would be good to do a quick review before we get

008into the discussion i'm going to get to that so uh as many of you might recall that there is no real free lunch with this you know this is federal money so there are some strings attached um and those strings in this case have to do with timing so um the cost must be obligated by december 31st 2024 and then we must fully expend the funds by december 31st 2026 so that gives us two years to spend this um there is eligibility requirements um in this case we're going with the eligibility requirement that we are wanting to serve the hardest hit community um some of the hardest hit community um here in ann arbor which is the arts community these funds can't be reoccurring um because they are just kind of a long time shot

009this was meant to sort of boost things you know and help us recover from the effects of covid so we need to be careful about how we spend it in the sense that we can't put it to a program that we hope continues in perpetuity um there are significant reporting requirements so federal funds if any of you have ever dealt with this before as they require a lot of paperwork um so with any money that we give out we do need to report back how we're using that and we need to report that back in fairly great detail so this is uh what was recommended to council um with a full set of recommendations on how to spend the arbor funding um so during that process as many of you probably know and participated in

010um the arts funding wasn't initially on the list of funding options for our funding but the arts community came out and wanted funding to go to this community so that was put forward in a recommendation and that's what this recommendation stated was that we have heard loud and clear from the arts community that we would like to have a portion of these funds dedicated to artists who have been the most adversely affected pandemic so we propose that city create a grant program award up for 10 000 to artists to pursue an artistic endeavor that would be displayed or performed in the city of ann arbor so that's what went forward and what we heard back is that that's not really a perfect idea that we're kind of headed in the right direction in the sense

011that um we're funding the arts but this is not exactly the ideal way to do that um so what happened after that was an improved amendment from city council um which uh read um these whereases i won't read through every word with this but it you know it acknowledges that the art community was really hard hit and it resolved that city council approved up to 200 000 for arts based trauma programs from the 500 000 allocation of arpa funds for funding the art so that's where this leaves us is really trying to figure out how to divvy up that money this is a budget example um and kind of where our minds are right now but we really want to hear from everybody here tonight about how we should adjust this but this is kind

012of what we're thinking of how the money should be divvied up so we can come back to this slide again this is just just putting it out there is one way to do it but we can slice and dice this in many different ways so what i wanted to do tonight was get into a set of four questions i did actually have an interactive um method for us to get into which is called jamboard but unfortunately um technology has forwarded us once again and we don't actually have a good mechanism to get the link out to you um there's some restrictions that are i rit puts on our zoom accounts um and in this case we don't have the q a feature which i thought we had which i thought we'd be able to get

013you the link so instead i think we're just going to have a discussion here tonight going through each of these questions and i am actually going to take this down because i do want to see people it's hard for me to be hands raised when i have the presentation up but i can always put this back up to um so people can come back and look at questions but we'll start on the first question which is given the timeline and constraints what's the best way to equitably distribute these funds to support the arts community in ann arbor so with that i'm gonna stop the share and look for virtual hands raised and we can call on you and let you speak and just hear your thoughts i have four additional folks who need to come

014in if you could let them in as well oh okay i'm the sole host yeah okay all right you need um four people to come in as a panelist is that what you mean attendees yes just as attendees okay i'm not seeing people waiting are you in attendees no okay so i have curtis hannah jenny jeremy and nick who all d2 um okay they're they seem to be there as attendees did you want me to promote them to the panelists no here how about this i will make you co-host and [Music] and that should enable you to be able to do that yes thank you yeah no problem so in the meantime we have two hands raised i see that jeff crockett has your hand raised and so we'll go to jeff and then uh

015tawana and deb so jeff um yes i appreciate i'm a little unclear though whether this is part of the public participation session where people can express ideas for how public art can be funded is this is this the right time for that or this yeah if this was the right time for that this is a public interaction there's a lot of background noise i don't know effect and if you can limit that job that's not in my it's not coming from me oh okay i'm not sure who is that coming from well all right better okay um yes it is it's within the parameters though of the arpa funding that we have yeah so we're not generally discussing our funding should be refined no that's fine uh so my name is jeff crockett and i've

016lived in ann arbor for 40 years downtown and i help recording in progress a green team which is basically a group of over 20 volunteers who have helped to activate a number of gardens on the the council of the con or the city commons the center of the city commons and i don't know if you notice but last year we activated two gardens um but the long-term goal is to activate a number of other gardens and create sort of educational sites we have engaged project grow with joe at ryoma and we have also engaged uh wild ones uh which is a group which uh advocates for the planting of native plants and they've joined their effort this year and in the process of that we've also been involved in trying to activate the commons and

017we're pleased that mary was involved um last year in a couple events uh one was uh chalk drawing which was very well received on the main part of the parking lot but the other thing we reached out for mary for was to put up a mural on a wall that's just next to the primary garden it's a seven foot by 16 foot long section of concrete and we were envisioning um a mural of flowers to support what was being done in a number of different sites there is also um a three foot high by 43 foot long knee wall that's goes right by there and then for those of you are familiar the elevator just to the east side there's also a fairly large wall and we think that those three spots would make excellent

018candidates for for public art we are involved in sort of re rebranding that site and creating a civic space and there have been a number of events that have been held so far so i wanted to speak in favor of having a conversation to understand the process for how we can apply um because we're very interested and and active in this and the other thing i want to point out is that bicentennial is coming up in a couple years and we're looking at this site as sort of a potentially a dynamic site for doing a whole bunch of different events and what better way to uh you know have people come to that event by seeing wonderful art so uh this is sort of an initial idea and a proposal and i would be most

019appreciative to know where we take it from here but my question is are you looking for like just general ideas of where to put art or in the application for that are you requiring specific concepts and you know and ideas or is this something that the art commission would determine um in terms of what actually would go on these sites uh some clarification on that would be most appreciated yeah and basically we're kind of at ground level of forming this program um so we don't have actually a method for people to apply yet so that is all to come today we're just trying to get a sense of really how to equitably distribute these funds so well we welcome you know ideas about um different projects um really it's about the method the means of

020how these funds should be distributed within the parameters of arts funding so hopefully that helps and maybe i i should turn it over to sky um i actually am not seeing you we have many people here if you had anything to add to that i just wanted to give you a chance to detail that out a little bit more yes so i guess you did a great job explaining that i think what's happening here is that we're building a new grant program that has never existed before new programs using new dollars and some of that money um has been identified as sort of like here are ways that we could do this it came both through the the memo from the city administrator saying individual grants to individual artists um and then there was an

021additional amendment that was approved by council that said a portion of these dollars could also go to support um trauma-informed arts based programs and so um before we go build these programs we're looking for a little bit more input and that's what we're seeking here today both from the community and from the the public arts commission to provide some a little bit more detail about what's how to prioritize those dollars across the different options right it's a limited amount of dollars and so one day we'll have those the answers to those questions which is like how do you apply um but this is more like how do we what's the what's the most impactful way we can set this up so that we feel good about how these dollars are ultimately distributed thank you your

022and your project may or may not fall under the scope of the arpa funding that we're speaking about right now that we're discussing but all of our public art commission meetings are they are public and you are welcome to join um any of our meetings to discuss this idea further and we can get some contact information perhaps exchanged it looks like you've worked with mary um thiefels before so we might be able to discuss that uh mural project um in a continued manner outside of um this particular uh topic tonight as well great thank you so next up is tiana and please let me know if i mispronounced your name um and you should be able to talk please go ahead oh hello everybody i'm tiana clemons i'm a local artist from ann arbor um

023i think that it would be great if we could actually use some of the funding to rent a space for a year to do um an art art exhibits for students teaching them how to curate um also teaching them how to run a show by also utilizing professional artists who are struggling or disenfranchised or by giving them a stipend for helping the students be able to put on those showcase and we'll also be able to promote that as well as actual exhibits um i also think it would be an amazing thing because we as you stated the funds can't can only be used once so if that was to be a success we'd probably be able to get funding to keep that going for years to come but also in regards to covet and the

024trauma that it has impacted on a lot of the youth i think it would be great to have a space for them to do art specifically and be able to showcase what they what what their experiences are or feelings in a creative way that's all thank you okay deb pollock you're up next hi thank you oops i think we did we lose you doug we might we might have also it looks like there's a couple people that aren't actually permitted if i'm not mistaken um it's nice azaro in here nick has his hand up and deb is on like attendee list but i don't and she has her hand back up i'm not sure she um has the access to talking there isn't a little parenthesis next to her that says talking permitted yeah that's

025yeah that's what i notice about nick yeah nick doesn't isn't permitted to talk either hello now yes we can oh great thanks that was fun um i don't envy you all having to do these public meetings with these machines and technology my name is jeff i am the director i think most of you know of creative washroom and have been engaged with that organization for a couple of decades now it seems um and we work with artists and creatives all over washington county and hundreds of them right here in ann arbor um and i have a couple questions before i i ask or make my point um can can you heather or or sarah how much time do we have this evening we this segment was going to go until about 8 30 at least

026that's what i was anticipating so we do have a fair amount of time to have a discussion okay great thank you i just wanted that parameter and then you had stated from your slide that the recommendation at this time or am i understanding that this is for consideration the recommendation at this time is that ten thousand dollars would go to artists and then the balance of that fifty five hundred thousand dollars would be eligible for arts organizations that do buy pocket trauma programs is that correct or is that what we're working within or are we looking at opening that up further yeah sky if you don't mind me putting you on the spot to detail that out a little bit more yeah those were the two those were the two parameters that came from leadership

027so the first which was the um the language around 10 up to ten thousand dollars to individual artists to create or perform art was was in that original memo from the city city administrator to council and so that language sort of was approved with the additional amendment to um provided by council around the trauma-informed arts based programming and so those are the two parameters that have been sort of publicly discussed and so that's not to say that if if that thinking was wrong or if there if this group or we hear a lot of feedback that we need to broaden our thinking or adjust that that is what the city administrator and the staff are looking for before we like go out and try to actually build this program um what about what about the

028conversations that happened after the initial proposal from um the administrator there's been there's been weeks and weeks and many conversations about ten thousand dollars per artist the intent that these funds are for art that they could be and there's been a lot of public engagement in regards to artists and creative businesses and organizations because they've all been adversely impacted by arpa are you saying at this point that that's off the table i don't think we are seeing this off the table i think we're trying to get more um feedback around scoping this because unlike the other projects they didn't receive that same level of public scoping and we're actually going back to the before the original plans were done to get the public engaged in more of a direct way like you did right your

029other individual initiatives okay thank you right but we do have sort of the guiding posts of what has been talked about both what was put forward in that memo from the city administrator and both and the the language that it was approved by council around the amendment but there's a lot there's a lot of vagueness in there in between right so up to 200 000 can you know can be used for um for this very specific thing but the rest of it is is a little more vague and so that's why we want to make sure we are hearing the public incorporating those recommendations both from the public and from the public art commission um before we sort of define those those specific parameters okay so considering what the purpose of arpa funding is for

030which is for for for us assistance to those adversely impacted by the covid pandemic which continues to impact our industry greatly our industry being the arts and creative industries greatly not only artists individual artists but also the organizations that help make washtenaw county and ann arbor in particular a destination location add to our quality of life add to our economic impact and as it makes this community a great place to live work and play um the interest in helping and assisting both artists creative workers and organizations and businesses is a great um interest to both the creative washington but mostly importantly the people that we serve and the people that we interact with on a regular daily basis um you know we we initiated a creative watchdog aid fund just to help people get through

031a minor cr that might not a lot of money but some money to get into the hands of these artists and creatives and there's hundreds of them that have requested it and so my point here is if somebody asked me today if this conversation went in a particular way what would make you happiest and i said that it's not making me happy it's making the community members that we work with and creative washington's inten interest here that we've been hearing constantly for two and a half years two and a half years from artisan creatives and businesses throughout this community and that is to open these funds up for artists and creative workers and businesses and non-profits and for-profits within within ann arbor so that they can restore their that will pay back bills that they

032have you know the debts that they've been incurred during this period of time so that they can recalibrate so that they can go forward to continue to in fact be that creative industry that makes this community what it is and not one time projects certainly absolutely positively not one time projects and to give the monies to the artists that know and the creatives and businesses that know how to use it best you know a lot of them have gone into debt a lot of them have um are unable to buy supplies a lot of them are just in very difficult circumstances and that's these arpa funds could be so greatly greatly valued by these individuals and businesses and organizations deb can you provide a couple of examples of businesses um that are just maybe off

033the top of your head right now that and you're talking about paying bills not not creating artwork i sent alice in a list today of more than 90 or people in organizations who have sought funds from creative washroom aid over the last two and a half years and there are people there are groups like ann arbor civic theater there all of the um all of the art fairs have requested support because they have difficulty making paying their bills even those organizations that took out idols those loans if you will they have to pay those back and then there's the individual artists and creatives who don't have gallery spaces to show their works anymore or they don't have the gigs the musical gigs that they had previously because we're still in that circumstance where the public

034is not attending events if you look across the board and i do nationally and internationally we're still at about 40 percent of audiences people can't get hired they can and they're desperate you know they can't pay their bills they can't pay their rent it's still happening this is not over for this community oh i agree i mean then the county commission meeting is happening right now where um our rapid rehousing agencies haven't received our upper money at all so there's zero dollars going to rapid hebrew housing like avalon and can and ozone and alpha house there are people who are really suffering in our community and we're looking at federal dollars that won't be going to pandemic relief we'll be seeing homeless encampments soon so there's a lot of advocacy going around right now for

035for folks who are facing um who won't get supportive services for housing and we just published a report saying that our residents beat the odds and eviction when they have supportive services so there's a lot of conversations when it comes to federal money and where it's where it can be the best use so it's it's good to hear a variety of concerns as for timing the wheels of bureaucracy are slow and i'm glad city staff are here to start this public engagement because they can't really start public engagement until after council voted for this approval and this is it right so even though past conversations have started to get it on the table it's been voted and approved so i think what heather and skye are saying is that under the arts commission it's a

036new process of public engagement when we're actually talking about what the but the recommendations coming out of this committee would be to shape the actual application process the grant process versus the need before and the political will to get it before so uh you're you're actually kind of ahead of the service agencies in town who are fighting for uh money to house people you know at least you have a process now uh and an actual allocation where right now the city and the city is voting on um you know the final budget for our human services partnerships next week and the county commission is voting for it right now um so i'm i'm glad we're a little bit ahead of game at least in this area yeah this is somewhat of a good problem to

037have that we have money to figure out what to do with so we do have three other hands that are raised right now so i'm going to move on to curtis and then nick and then express your yes okay curtis please go ahead hi everybody can you hear me i can't yeah cool i am curtis wallace uh owner operator artist uh be creative studio and uh i just kind of wanna i love everything i've been hearing um and i just wanted to first say that everything starts all of this this starts with creativity how we're doing this is a part of the art process itself the creative process itself um that all said i have been recently been working with a lot of these programs and i figured out a way to you know allocate

038the you know some of the funds and get the community involved at the same time so i've come up with and i just recently finished the mural um at the can um creekside community center for can um and um you know what we're discovering through um this funding is is uh it's outstanding it's too much to go really to uh go over but i can tell you one of the biggest things is really putting into and i know i can put this in a better way better terms but really the artists that have been out here putting in the work and the sweat i hear you guys talking about allocating majority of the funds to organizations but i'll tell you right now um and some of it to the artists but if you if you

039allocate it to the organizations and just make sure you you reach out to to have the organization start funding these artists what it's doing for me it's not only giving me the opportunity to be able to be monetized it's also given me the opportunity to teach other artists how to be valued in the community and how to monetize their art so that it they can we can really uh preserve it and we can start getting us paid and but but we're not just getting us paid here it's how can we integrate um this value for art and creativity as well as get the community involved and and again it's too much to talk about but i can tell you guys if we can get that list of a hundred artists and we can get you

040guys support us and our vision and let us sort of uh this this space where we can bounce ideas and help each other out um i think the organizations can then turn to us to come into these spaces and to sort of just piggy off what tiana was saying uh you know my me and my studio we are currently um undergoing um a kickstarter so that we can have a space to not only continue on the education of art and creativity um through the be creative studio but to you know create this certification to really let no students and and creatives out here have put in the work and then show them how to do this art or really help support the art that they're already in that whatever that creative space and then we

041curate art shows and have them truly have some stake in the community not just have this art up on buildings but to curate you know art exhibits so that you know they can really not just create this again this this um financial um freedom or to just give us equity but to really give us stake you know to have this art in people's homes and i've been visiting our communities all over the us and and last recently has been in denver and how they've curated their art culture and community i have been taking several pages and bringing them here and if anyone um out there who can reach out to me beyond this zoom call i can really um i think i figured out a way we can do this where artists organizations and our

042community can have some real diversity equity and inclusion that's that's stuff we keep talking about not the one time not to check off the boxes but to really give us some real steak and the continuum of it all is real easy we just got to really value these artists for real because we've been putting it in there and and i'm and and i apologize sienna for to continue to bring it up but i've been working side by side you know with tiana on a lot of this stuff um you know i feel like i've just kind of gotten um you know just a foot a foot up because i've talked to the right people but her and i are in the same sort of circuit trying to find a path for other artists to learn

043create and be valued if any investor yes thank you yeah and um uh i think it would be great if you have information to share so i'm not sure who the best person that is to go to whether might be vanita collects that information or jamal i see that you just raised your hand yeah i was gonna say i have direct uh uh connection and i talk to jamal often about okay you know what we're trying to do and you know he has a gist of it that's why he made sure i got on this call okay great good good good good okay uh we have some more hands raised so how about nick we go to you all right good evening everyone how's everyone good thank you for allowing us to speak my question

044is simple and i'm i apologize tremendously if i miss this uh is this uh will this funding be open to all of washington or is it just ann arbor it is just ann arbor yeah so this is funding that ann arbor received okay all right as promised i was going to keep it simple thank you uh okay let's go to express your yes hi everyone good evening uh my name is petal sandcastle um i actually was a it was a group of us who uh when this arpa money first came out um i remember being on campus and seeing this in this meeting and it was like in three hours it was about to happen and i didn't know i was really reading i was like i can't be actually reading this there's a meeting

045about 24 million dollars happening in three hours and i i contact deb from creative watch and i contact everyone and i alert everyone i'm like this thing's about to happen there's a lot of money we obviously know that arts and creativity and spirituality and wellness and like a perpetual empowerment of community is important we need to be on this call um and i just i just want to take a moment for anyone who did put in effort to make this happen um it is a lot of work goes into being an artist and i'm just proud of everyone who did do this who talked to the media who got signatures we got over 350 signatures both digitally and um written that we never even had to submit because this thing just got approved it was

046kind of epic um and i just i just want to take a moment to congratulate not only the powers that be for recognizing the importance of this but also all of the people who made it important and put a spotlight on it so the powers that be could see it and couldn't walk over it and so with that in mind i don't want to take up too much time but i and i don't want to talk about specific programming because we all have a million ideas on what we think could happen with this money but i do want to say that even though you can't do programs like you can't do things in perpetuity i do think we all know that the system is designed to at best stifle everyone and and are at worst

047i feel everyone at best kind of throw a few dollars now and then like that's the 600 money was a great way to calm everyone for a year during the pandemic and i'm just afraid um i think that we all know how important it is to create perpetual empowerment and so however we go about doing this i do think we need to create a flywheel that empowers not only creatives and artists but people who just people who just are funky chickens and who are who are speaking a different squawk and people listen to them and they hear them and just by being an existing they're they're walking performance art they're walking activists and i think if we had let's say for example we empowered 12 to 15 cultural ambassadors or town jesters or facilitators or

048social lubrication or community leaders whatever you want to call them but a dozen or 15 people who are vetted and together they're like a superpower team and it could do ann arbor so proud and they don't have bosses they don't say have time schedules but they're just like you know what we believe in you here's a stipend maybe even some healthcare who the who knows i didn't even drop the f bomb but man take your time i hear you yeah you can carry on did he get it cut off he's muted oh i don't know how that happened sorry i got muted you were you're telling us about chickens that was not an intentional censorship please go on i think it's good because i tend to get i tend to get riled up but i

049think i think that um the point is is that ann arbor and i think what everyone loves so much about ann arbor is the ann arbor of the 90s that throwback to when it was on it was pioneer it was visionary is avant-garde it was at the cusp the cutting edge of what is possible and ai and augmented reality and all this stuff is coming i think we have this unique opportunity to let's call it like a ubi to live your why right and so you just do this pilot program that could be so provocative and you don't you don't constrict because all these forms and boxes and it's very constrictive for an artist an artist an artist is ultimately tapping the future and so when you ask an artist to preliminarily fill out these

050forms for the specific money versus just being like i see you i believe in you you are epic at what you do let me release you for a year into ann arbor and let's see what you can do and they create their own social media they create their own sort of paper trail doing this and we have we do our tallies and our benchmarks and all of our things in a different way and i think it could be it could be an epic pilot program um that could could revolution there could be yoga you'd just be like you know and you just it just could happen so quickly and they could be on the fly and they're like i want to paint nails now in the diag for the next two hours or i want

051to do like community garden for the next three saturdays but their job is to focus on what could make this community flourish all members of this community and outside of because i think this money needs to reach outside of ann arbor just saying and thank you that's all bless you all man please tab on knuckle prank i hate you you hear me to my balls for real curtis i was finger snapping the whole time just saying we're rough like we don't always get a ton of time in front of people to actually just present these ideas and so it doesn't always curtis i felt every ounce of what you're saying and there is a program there's a program in perpetuity that can create something that's systemic and beautiful and flowering and can combat the fascist

052corporate thing because you know it's not going anywhere okay so we got more hands raised i think people are getting into this now um uh so i do want to remind everybody you know like this is kind of the ground floor of how to get this thing started so we are you know initially trying to look at how to equitably distribute it so i do i'm going to just take a moment to go back to our questions um not that we can't deviate from it because i do want to keep this like energy flowing and kind of the minds going and hearts going and all of that kind of stuff but um but eventually we need to come up with something practical like a program that we can administer so i do want to remind

053people uh help us think through that um so the questions are given the timeline and constraints what's the best way to equitably distribute these funds to support the arts community in ann arbor the second question is how should the city prioritize the creation of new public art and arts based trauma programs the third question is how should the city prioritize between individual artists and arts organizations so what is the balance i mean really it's a balance question with both of those last few questions um and then the fourth one is is how should the city prioritize between visual artists and performing artists and that's also a balance question so those are some of the questions that came to our mind um if there's questions that other questions that we should be asking ourselves please bring

054those forward um otherwise let's continue on with the thoughts so we'll go on to boyd choir a2 hi um sorry i couldn't change my screen name my name is laura and i'm with the boy choir of ann arbor um i wanted a couple three quick comments i'm going to start with question number three about individual artists versus arts organizations i think um it's important to remember that many artists are group artists ensembles you know orchestras bands choirs you know three people that play in a string quartet or quartet um and i think that when you say just individual artists you're leaving out a huge amount of artists um and so i'd just like you to be thoughtful about how we define artists um for example if you look at the michiganhumanities.org which has a giant

055list of um humanities performers in the state of michigan of all kinds um you know there's there's storytellers and there's banjo players and there's choirs and there's just all kinds of artists um and i think it's when it says not nonprofits and not organizations there's a difference between um a nonprofit organization that sponsors something versus the actual artist is a group artist that is an organization so just be thoughtful about the definitions there is my comment um question number two about new public art versus art space trauma programs i it's my understanding that the division of money for art space trauma has already been determined by council so i'd like to talk about the new public art and i'm not i think we should be broad about what new and public are in other words

056you know any performance is new in some sense i don't think we have to build new sculptures or new paintings we could but we don't have to like just having a new performance also counts as new um so i think we should be broad about um what counts as art in that context and likewise i'd like to be brought about what counts as art based trauma programs i know that i don't know but i believe that came from council being informed of that existence of some specific programs and maybe in other communities and i think we could be really broad about what that means in our organization we lost half our kids in over half of our performances and the first year the pandemic all of our performances were canceled um and the kids are

057really traumatized in a way from zoom school as we all know and when we got back in person singing it's like you the relief on their face and the joy that that brings but we're missing some kids the hardest hit ones of course um and so i'm thought i'm wondering if there's maybe some way coming to the first question about equitable distribution is there some way maybe it could be a scholarship program where hard hit individuals could use that money to get art class or join a choir join an orchestra be in a theater group or whatever i'm wondering if there's some sort of scholarship program might be a way some of that money could be equitably be distributed to um folks that are that were you know highly impacted um because that would be

058a win-win right the the kid who who lost the ability to do the art could get the scholarship and the organization could get the the student so it would be sort of a win-win um and then finally back to question number one equitable distribution i don't know the answer to that but i would encourage you to make it as easy as possible um nonprofits artists all of us are you know up the wazoo with trying to fill out forms and grants and get all our ducks in a row to do paperwork i understand federal funding is limited but i would encourage you to to try and make it as simple as possible and as broad as possible so the people that it's hard to apply for can succeed thank you so much for requesting our

059input i really appreciate your time thank you well thank you all right darius let's go to you um can you guys hear me yeah yeah [Music] uh not anymore i guess i think we lost you hold on one second wait wait wait okay can you guys hear me now yep we're good um i'm kind of here representing a group of artists that is uh kind of close to home to a specific um event or issue that's kind of passed by as of recent um i'm not sure if anyone in this meeting has kind of seen um the tags that have been popping up um like referencing uh a suitor or like a long-lived suit or anything like that um i know so yeah um a few of us were pretty close to um his friends

060and family and they were actually kind of talking to us a group of artists about um maybe getting like a real mural done to kind of you know more solidly memorialize if anything rather than you know just kind of tagging which obviously eventually is probably going to have to come down and whatnot um i think representing a memorial with a mural would be a lot more long lasting could receive a lot more input from people and in terms of motifs and what goes into it and whatnot so um i guess the greater question here would just be um if there's anything relative to just funding for getting the materials for some of these ideas and some of these people's visions to kind of manifest in a mural would be our biggest question if there was

061like a pool of funding or you know just uh kind of of materials for paint and anything that we might need to clear a wall or prepare for a mural or anything like that um yeah that's kind of where i'm at i'm glad you brought that up because i was looking at those tags and thinking that very same thing so i'm sure we can make it happen somehow cool cool yeah and i would say stay tuned to how this program develops um to see if there's opportunities to access funds for that effort all right thank you so much i appreciate it okay other comments questions i don't see any other hands up oh jerry please go ahead jerry you can go ahead i've been talking for like a paragraph already oh no what did we

062miss so much anyways i'm jerry rosenberg and um i am affiliated with wonderful productions which does festivals full moon and ipsy glow um i just want to i i just want to acknowledge how difficult this is first of all for you because of the expansive need and this unfortunately it's great to have the money but it is a piddle of the breath of what is needed um i watching all of you i just wanted to just sort of echo petals and curtis about where that core joy and necessariness about how the artist giving their voice um and i think that petals had such an amazing idea coming from um being ambi artists ambassadors and what's the core value what what makes when you started this i think um deb pollock said this what made ann

063arbor so special are the arts and i think you've gotten very corporate and very polished and i think what brings joy to people and the community is people making art and people doing art and discovering and the mystery of just coming upon something and it's right there um those are all very intangibles yet we know it when we see it and also i can only say experiencing myself with the first you know coming back in person with full moon and having workshops i was almost crying of joy with the families coming in and being part of something bigger than themselves so i hope that um encouraging something that might have a community build i'm hearing a variety of needs that are being met community build giving artists a voice curtis is like saying education i

064experienced curtis um working with children and their first experience of how important that is to seeing their things on a wall that's permanent um so just maybe starting with these values and looking back about where you know where can we make our most i think we do their most bang for our buck and a couple things came up i'm just sort of rifling through is like a memorial something permanent something community builds artist driven education and inclusion i'm done thank you that was great okay and we have done debbie you've got your hand up again so many great comments and people that have real um passion for what they do and how they can do it i'm reminded of how many of the funds the rescue funds throughout the pandemic have been expended and if

065you think about the cares act funds the other arpa funds some that have come down through places like michigan economic development corporation and spark and others that were invested in our businesses and our community um there was less uh specificity as to exactly how those funds could be spent as there was letting the people that were using those funds determine how best to use them for themselves in the community i would like to echo what everybody and so many of you have said here artists and creatives and businesses know how to best serve their community and their artists and the groups that they work with and rather than dictating how exactly they have to be spent i would echo again so many people's ideas here put it into the hands of people that know what

066they're doing let them activate these dollars for our community for our quality of life our quality of place and for their souls and ours less less specificity is going to be i think better and i think i am seeing some heads and ads here not here in the groups and and we know what we do best and how we can do it best and how we can can make things happen for our community so um lots of great ideas out there and people that are passionate know what they're doing and i would i would echo make it simple get it in the hands of people that can do it and the businesses and the organizations and please know when i say that i mean seriously artists creatives and those organizations similar to what laura was

067talking about and the fact that sometimes organizations engage a ton of artists that can't necessarily do it all their on their own because that everybody has that entrepreneurial social entrepreneurial streak to move things forward like pedals will for example but others can so um it is very difficult to expend dollars and to determine how best those are um distributed but i think we've got a community here that can make that happen make it simple and keep it engaging and battering our community as we go forward and and perhaps ultimately and more importantly start this process that has been absent from this community for decades we have not had public funding for the arts and the creative industries and when i say industries i mean non-profits and for-profits we have not had that that means that

068who funds these programs it's the elite they determine where the money goes and whether you want to know it or not or accept it or not they also determine what gets produced and so when we put it in they make it a public aspect get the public engaged it does make it more diverse equitable inclusive the public is important in this process thank you thank you go ahead hello did you call on someone because i think you cut out oh did i i'm sorry i called on petals you're up next uh hi sorry um i know i went on a long ramble earlier i just think this is such a precious opportunity and i would be remiss um after i spoke heather i don't maybe i misunderstood you but i just wanted to make clear

069that there was a very specific program that was the nucleus of that like flowering language and that is ultimately um they say roughly one out of like every 10 000 residents needs kind of like a steward like an earth steward um and so there's 120 000 people so let's say this was 12 the idea would be to hire 12 of these cultural ambassadors community leaders whatever you want to call them flitters of the town and you give them all a stipend i think it has to be below what is taxable so ten thousand eight hundred dollars because i don't think ultimately you can have this be a taxable thing because that feels so corrupt on a different level um so i think that you can supplement that in other ways like if you give someone

070i know 10 600 doesn't sound very much to a lot of people but to an artist ten thousand six hundred dollars you can't give it all at once i think there's a monthly allotment and i think you can include stuff with it maybe you can include a house or what maybe that's too much but you could include a stipend you could include like a thousand dollars a month stipend to buy supplies to create a moment for your community so it's a thousand dollars war chest so whether whatever you want to do about hosted block party whatever it is you just want to buy vegan donuts for your community and have a little town hall about gun violence but i think having i really think just if i could say one last thing just like thinking

071about a nucleus of a dozen or so whatever you want to call them i got a lot of names and they're really fun but that their job they're perpetually empowered without a boss or a time clock without any forms or demands just with a promise to make a social media trail they'll promise to make a public trail that's like that's the main yeah okay i think i made my point and thank you all again for doing this um i would love to continue the conversation and we're also having a monthly mixer at our space tomorrow if anyone does want to come and see what we're up to we do have a brick and mortar now studios downtown ann arbor at five o'clock um thank you expressvs.org thank you and i do appreciate you clarifying that

072i did i think i did get a little bit lost in your energy and the poetry um and missed the specific link that you were making so i appreciate you going back now all right marionetta yes i just had a had a question um i i think nick cazario asked if the funds were strictly for ann arbor but my question is if an artist say from ipsy partnered had an idea to partner with another artist in ann arbor to uh do a project um would that count uh that proposal count or do all of the artists have to be or businesses have to be directly in ann arbor is there no opportunity to partner with um with others my guess is that there is some flexibility with that but once again i'm going to put

073skye in the spot and i apologize i was hoping to let you sit back and relax but i keep turning it over you to answer some questions but what is your understanding of that is there some more flexibility then i think there is some flexibility but i think it needs to be clearly defined as whatever we is decided so that people understand what the parameters are and so um yeah if it's to benefit the greater antarctic community or organization it's working in partnership with an organization in ann arbor i think those things those could be worked out um but you know the city did receive these funds the county received a different set of funds the state received a different set of funds and so i do think it's important that we primarily focus on

074the berlins um but i but i do think that we can if that is a recommendation coming out of this that we need to think more broadly about our broader community i think that's something that the city can take under advisement as we sort of build what the parameters are thank you i just think that we i know that it's limited funds um but the idea that we can build bridges um i think is really important and so if if there there is some way to um to build build those bridges um i'd like to see that happen makes sense thank you all right jeff you're up jeff you can go ahead sorry didn't i meet myself um i must say that i sort of misunderstood uh the parameters of this grant when i first

075signed on or when i first you know came on board it's very helpful to hear this conversation but i have two questions and and one of them is does the decision to spend the arbor funds rest solely with this commission in other words it's sort of a majority vote of this commission that determines how the expense how the funds are to be allocated that's the first question but maybe you could comment on that first sir um and vanita correct me if i'm wrong but this group is an advisory group so how this will work um is that this group will develop a recommendation about how the program should be shaped about the spending of the funds so the funds are there it's just a matter of how we distribute them yes and so we're looking

076at this so tonight is really to help the arts commission develop that recommendation to then give the city council and staff and staff will be helping shape it based on what the recommendation is that comes out of this group so as i understand this this commission will make a set of recommendations to be approved by city council is that correct correct yeah so let me pause just for a second going back to sky would it go back to city council or is it something that staff would would then kind of move forward with based on a recommendation from this group yeah this is a little confusing so council has authorized the funds and has directed staff to build a program but if it very if it sort of deviates significantly what from sort of the

077parameters that council has sort of set out we we would have a conversation internally about taking that back to council just if we feel like it's it's too if it's deviated too much otherwise we would just be developing the program based on both the input from this group and also the guidance from leadership today uh thank you so the next question is i misunders this seems to be a much longer uh grant process i guess the funds have to be expended through 2026. is that correct so this is a really a long-term project so how do you see the the timeline working out for example before you're actually able to dispense some of the funds well i think that's all to be determined i mean ideally we'll be able to dispense the funds sooner rather

078than later um you know we heard tonight you know one of the messages is make it easy on people make it easy on people and that's kind of our hope too we don't want to be overly bureaucratic i know that's our reputation but we're trying to avoid that we do want to create something that's actually useful for people and something that is accessible to people so i don't have an exact timeline to be specific about answering your question um the hope is sooner rather than later i would add to that we are required to have determined how we are spending it by the end of 2024 the dollars don't have to be fully expended by until 2026 but we have to sort basically know we have to have a contract in place or have to

079know what that is gonna how those dollars will be expended by the end of 2024 but then the dollars can can lag up until the end of 2026. if if needed it doesn't have to happen right hopefully not uh john please go ahead thank you uh let me make a couple of observations first um the passion we are hearing is so exciting i mean if we could put petals in a bottle i mean we could make a fortune selling petals in a bottle on the street uh so uh hats off to everyone that's kind of come in and shared their passion the second thing that strikes me is there's far greater a need than we have resources for so um so i think how we strategically or how the city strategically uh uh shapes it

080uh is going to be important um and um third i think the thing that that should come out of this certainly uh resonated with me is the importance of the creative community i mean we just we had a ton of ideas and they were all great ideas and uh it's important to uh to invest in those um art makers you know in our community uh let me reflect on the four questions uh what's the best way to access people um i i think that um uh i think that what we have done this forum is great um that in some of us are members of art organizations i'm not one of them uh but i think really the best way to access those people and it's been discussed tonight is through our organizations and uh

081i think the the the city might see this process for this particular covet grant as helping build a network or the start of a network how uh you know the city should have uh some way of getting to artists and and art organizations so that maybe um i think the best way to to to find that i think something needs we need the inventory needs and the best folks to do that are probably our organizations uh as i think darius and and and and jerry mentioned that they all work through either collaboratives or something like that some kind of an organization as opposed to our commissioners i mean i have friends i know but i don't really know uh the kind of strategic information the city should have so um i think that investing a

082little bit of of this money in art organizations to to inventory the needs and would in effect help build a network that then um veneta would have access to or the city would have access to so that you wouldn't have to come back to this thing if we ever need to do that again um the how to prioritize art projects versus uh trauma it strikes me that this money is coming from the covid recovery and so i think it's intended to be addressing trauma and so um i think that all of these projects could be shaped through that trauma lens so that if um whoever wanted to bring a specific project or something like that if if that could be the lead how is it going to address uh trauma uh either trauma in the

083creative community itself or trauma in the larger community through art um and but i think that trauma it i don't think it should be competitive i don't think it should be one over the other i think it should be um together and there should be a collaborative nature so the the the trauma addressed in individual projects um and then um uh the um individual versus uh the art organizations um i i think um we're hearing you know today i mean from some people that had some really strategic ideas they came from art organizations so that you know but i mean the passion you know and maybe pedals is a part of an art organization i think you might be uh but in any event i i think those folks it shouldn't it shouldn't be competing

084one against the other uh possibly um i think someone mentioned it that you go through an art organization to get an artist so you task the organization with ensuring that artists get this kind of money um visual work versus performance art i mean i'm a recovering artist i did installation work there's literally to me nothing no difference it's like you know the difference between realistic and and and abstract i it's it's it's it's the same uh and it's it's it's it's a false comparison for me i mean other people have you know sort of different approaches to it so um that would be um my sense about it but i applaud everybody that has has come to this and it was very exciting and um all of our meetings should be like this so thank

085you thank you all right it's almost 20 after i see we have another hand raised which is jerry so let's go to jerry and then i'm going to try to do a quick um summary and let you move on with your meeting because i know that you have other things to get to um so jerry go ahead and i'll do my wrap up and again i'll just echo the words that have been said already that this has been great hearing from everybody tonight okay jerry please hi um again i just want to thank you especially john for um getting us back to reality um in terms of what me what what a task it is for you to have to do this so i just wanted to acknowledge that um i just wanted to again

086echo also i mean the idea of this is coven money the idea of covid is a trauma uh that has been upon us and it's it's a mark in time and artists like know on other performing visual sound groups there is no delineation of what an artist is spoken word silence a hole in the wall whatever it is um maybe i'm just putting it out there maybe starting with the premise it is trauma what we have done to our society and how can how can this 500 000 best express it through giving agency to all the artists in the community possible thank you okay great all right just checking to make sure we have no other hands raised because i want to be able to make sure that people are able to get out any

087final thoughts uh lauren is it lauren or laura laura just really quick i i know you want to wrap up but i had two thoughts one is there um if someone has thoughts they wish to share is there like an email or something that we should be using to send written comments in is my first question and my second question is just a complete brainstorm i had when listening and i don't even know if this would be possible but one idea i had was when i was reading the the slide about uh has to be non-recurring and there's all these reporting requirements i'm wondering if again it's just complete brainstorm but what if there was some event that sort of celebrates coming out of this trauma or something like that and then the way it

088was executed would be that you know you somebody who's organizing it would just pay all these artists to participate you know the performers the the visual artists whatever like every like you could have a big festival event or something and it would be simplified how the payments would go because the artist would just be paid to participate in some sort of big festival event that would be a one-time thing so just a brainstorm idea i understand it might not work at all but just want to throw that into the mix so yeah my other question was just like if we have more thoughts who should we email yeah that is a great question i think you can email any one of us staff but vanita might you be the best person because i think your

089name is on the arts commission website but i am also happy to receive emails i can share my email address and and heather if you want to share yours as well um that would be v harrison a2gov.org i'm the public art commission liaison so whatever you uh forward to me i normally share out with the commission as a whole so that they're aware of what's coming in we did have a few public comments that came in prior to this meeting so i want to recognize those folks who did send on their information to us ahead of time those items have been shared with the commission if there's anything additional that you'd like to include um v harrison at a2gov.org and my email is similar in the sense that it's my first initial and last name

090at a2gov.org so that's h cipherth a2gov.org and sarah i see that you have your hand raised yes i just wanted to say thank you again so much to the members of the public that have joined us and um again all of our public art meetings they are public and you can join anytime any of these meetings and you can find the schedule on the ann arbor public art commission website um so please feel free to join if you have ideas uh to come to these meetings this is the my most favorite meeting i think we've ever had uh because we have members of the public we have such a great energy this is such a special community and um you know something that really resonated with me tonight is that artists want to create artists

091want to perform so when we're talking about new projects um that's really something that kind of came to the forefront whether that's an individual artist or an arts organization but um to echo again what people have been saying artists know how to rebuild the community right when there's devastation there's a time for renaissance and artists know how to lead the way so a lot of these ideas have centered around new projects and revitalizing our arts community here and i'm just so thankful um for all of your comment and um we are definitely going to take all of this into consideration and please email additional ideas thank you so much everyone and sophie did you have that yeah i just wanted to thank deb bullich for her work in making sure that the arts community was

092recognized and received funds because i think she definitely made a difference yeah and that's one of the things that i wanted to um oh deb you have your hand up if you wanted to respond i'm sorry hold on hold on that are you still there sorry it's weird because you can't just hit the unmute button you gotta wait for another thing um thank you sophie there's very kind of you um as we all know none of us work alone and um you know we have a team here at creative washroom and then there's the team of people throughout the community um i think what you'll know that that in the early process of this arpa funding and how to spend that original 2.200 i'm sorry 24.2 million dollars the arts community and people that were

093consumers of the arts as well jumped in so um petals and i uh you know we rallied troops for sure but everybody else rallied their troops too and the fact that there's a half a million dollars to be spent um from the arpa funding on this very important sector um that does all the things you guys have talked about tonight i think everybody should pat themselves on the back and applaud each other for everything that they do to make this happen thank you yeah and with that i do i do think you should applaud yourselves right now because you were influential over this process and you did change the trajectory of it so um oh it's never enough money but um but we it's a starting point so yeah take a moment to applaud snap

094sing whatever you want to do um so you can rejoice in that again i know it's not enough money but we are we are starting something here and this could eventually be a model program um some of the themes that i heard tonight i started doing a little ad hoc flip charting i just can't help myself it's kind of a throwback to the pre-cover days when i actually used to write on paper in front of a group of people but um i started writing some notes about some important themes one of the themes is elevate the importance of the artist community and that this process can it can be a really important step in that um historically art has been central to ann arbor's identity so it's kind of getting that back reclaiming that and

095really uplifting the artist community don't be overly prescriptive about this allow for the artist community to drive this effort allow for joy that was a theme that came through in various ways with what people said um not only um allow for joy but in fact let it thrive like really foster it um don't kill the spirit of artists basically um you know we want a program that's not you know squashing people's spirits um build bridges is another theme um address trauma throughout everything and that's something that art can do um go through art organizations to get to artists and avoid false comparisons that there's no real delineation of what an artist is um and then do the most bang for our buck which is in fact what we're hoping to do and there were some

096ideas and this is not an exhaustive list so i apologize if i missed some of the ideas here but one is to do a memorial community build is another idea cultural ambassadors build a network do an inventory of needs shape projects through a trauma lens and do a celebration of coming out of covid so those were just a few of the ideas that were shared tonight and we do have this meeting recorded so we will certainly capture all of the ideas that were shared um so we are just about at 8 30. again i want to thank everybody who came out tonight to share your thoughts um we are really happy to have you here um and it's always exciting to me to see um civic engagement work so again thank you for being here

097and sharing your thoughts tonight so i guess but if there's no other final thoughts that people want to get out there on this topic i'll let you move on with your meeting thank you thank you heather thanks a lot thank you right so i'm not seeing any hands so we're going to move on to approval of our minutes from our may meeting and those have been delayed those will be presented at the august meeting and we will go over those so um we will move on then to old business vanita do we have anything i don't have anything for old business yeah okay so then we are going to move on to another special presentation that we're having tonight um from heather martin who is joining us um tonight to talk about the reclaim courthouse

098presentation again heather martin was the founding director of youth arts alliance heather you have the floor and thank you for joining us heather i'm here i'm just clicking through buttons thank you so much um for sharing some time hello everyone um hi mary um it's wonderful to be here with you all and i have to admit it's my it's my son's birthday today and i'm here to talk about an exciting um project with a lot of organizations involved and it's also very exciting that he's asleep right now despite a piece of chocolate cake the size of his head and um laser tag and video games but i'm here we did it we celebrated um so um if it's possible i could share some slides with everyone um i i can pull up my screen here

099that will help me kind of if the host could give me permission does that stole me yeah sorry um hold on just a i'm moment you to panelist and then i think we might have lost her oh there she there she is all right one more step in here um sorry you know what it's okay oh no it's it's coming you should be able to do it now okay let's see okay can everyone see that awesome so um to tell you a little bit of history about this project um about a year ago um uh judge vandenberg at the washington county court approached approached me about displaying some artwork in a hallway there at the court and of course knowing all of the incredible organizations that are tied into arts and advocacy and music and

100culture makers here in town i knew that there would be potential for a much larger project which led to a presentation to all of the judges in washtenaw county who unanimously approved what is now a multi-layered multi-disciplinary um project titled reclaim which is a takeover of the municipal court building on main street on each level of the court building reclaims that stands for rooted exhibition um community love abundance intergenerational multiplicity so you can imagine that this town loves acronyms and of course with that mouthful we need one and really the values of this project are around being inclusive of organizations who are doing work to mitigate the harm of the criminal legal system and also artists activists culture makers who are tied into uplifting visionary ideas of what a system of care and healing could

101be and so as um the founding director of youth arts alliance i've been doing work in what i call healing centered most folks say trauma informed worked for the last 15 years in the county and in southeast michigan and michigan at large we have a organizing body of folks let me take a breath a second it's been a day i mean you all are very kind and you smile in your profile pictures and you're still attentive so um i've been running okay so this is a really exciting project that um uh your colleague commissioner um jamal bufford is involved in representing my brother's keeper and formula 734 jenny jones is joining us here in this meeting and she will be offering um some insight to questions who is a local musician co-executive director of title

102track an organization of youth empowerment water equity racial equity rod wallace who is the co-executive director of amplify project as well as a visionary over at groves studios and also managing director of upward bound at eastern michigan university so in january we began working on the structure of this project and the multiple layers of involvement for community organizations and artists we just had a gathering of over 35 organizations artists um performers um and this is just the initial layer of interest for folks who want to be a part of this exhibit so i think i always like lose my breath um talking about this because um most for the most part of the last year i was whispering about it this is truly unprecedented this is an arts and culture and advocacy activist takeover of

103a municipal space in our county um the intention is to to really complicate um narratives um around the court building understanding the complexity of that space beyond criminal legal action but also thinking about all of the activities that happen at the court you know there's the abuse neglect docket there's um there's folks um approaching benches around guardianship there's all sorts of reasons that folks come into that building and for any of you who have spent time in the building um it's a pretty cavernous um space with lots of marble and wood and it really invites color and art and immersion and so what this looks like is a series there are three layers there's the first layer of what will be fixed and permanently installed for the the two months that we are exhibiting and

104and sort of activating the space so we will fill the walls we will hang luminaries and three-dimensional works from the ceilings of court rooms we are also coordinating a series of concerts and performances and movement um sort of gorilla theater alongside so that's a secondary layer which is what will be performed and have concert in this municipal space and then the third layer is around programming workshops civic education um engaging the general public in the act of making or learning or growing alongside of some of the efforts of organizations and artists and community and so um we have really big um goals here we'll be running the project we'll be installing the project at the end of august running the bulk of programming concerts in the month of september and then october we'll have some

105quiet events and and keep exhibited works up the intention of this project is that we're having a transparent budget process which means that the money that we've secured for the project so far is coming from the michigan arts culture council math um and arts midwest as well as ann arbor area community foundation um so right now we are um we are seeking additional funds because the only thing that's preventing us from bringing the project the scale of involvement of those interested is resource for the project so we will be paying artists for their efforts alongside this project musicians audio visual we will be having installations for example of local organization black men read will have local leaders reading children's books outside for example the abuse neglect court the courtroom that sees those cases they'll be

106streaming that on a wall outside of the courtroom with wireless headphones there are many different layers the amplify project is doing a 16 um sound recorded sound library that folks will be able to mix and listen to of different leaders talking about issues and his their own personal histories the list goes on and on so essentially what happens as you enter the court building as many of you know is that your phones are removed your keys are put into the locker along with your belongings and you enter a space without any distraction right and so there's a lot of possibility for full engagement because if there's one thing that folks are doing at the court um universally it's waiting it's sitting and waiting for very big and often dramatic news right or um transitional news

107in folks lives so so we're thrilled about this project you know this idea of rooted exhibition has to do with the fact that all of the organizations and folks involved are rooted to the values of the projects that everyone's who's who is contributing is paid equitably for their contributions so what does that look like in the landscape of washtenaw county it means smaller organizations with smaller budgets will get a bigger piece of the pie folks who have grants that they're enacting through their involvement of the project will use the resources they have on hand to continue to promote their mission but i think you know oftentimes in youth arts alliance um we put equal value in the process and the procedure of doing something together as the end product so this will certainly be a

108remarkable exhibition um the curation of artwork um coming from artists and organizations will be incredible the audio visual installations the immersive installations in this space um are going to be like i described before unprecedented in a municipal space like this um but i really think that the most healing centered part of this project is the collective of organizations which really for our initial meeting at 35 organizations and artists is the first layer of folks who are interested in being involved and it just it it makes a lot of sense you know i spoke before with sarah and sophie about some of the the needs beyond resource are what does it mean for a project like this to be coming across the radar of national news outlets right we're getting a lot of different attention on

109this project and to be honest with you um me and every and the sort of leading group we we're no strangers to um publicity for the work that we do as artists or organizations i'll say that we need help local help through um the commission through other resources to make sure that while we're amplifying this this project that we're doing it in the best way possible how do we share about the power of washtenaw county to have such a diverse array of organizations and artists who are attacking a very important issue right so how is arts and culture interwoven into our exploration of how systems change can happen in a really restorative way for community um i think that they are directly tied to one another i think the folks who are who are coming

110together as part of this project um are remarkable and and really long vetted community members here um i think i think i had too much chocolate cake and i'm sort of also feel my blood sugar dropping and i'm not quite sure what else to say i i can say that um i can say that it was remarkable to gather with everyone just last week knowing that everyone who came into the space with ideas and vision in this project also articulated another handful of people that they would like to see come into the project and be involved we have local school districts who are interested in doing tours okay so this is another so think about this like deeply right so a classroom comes into this space they have exposure to multi-disciplinary arts right multimedia arts

111they're coming into civic education and knowledge about what this building is what happens here what are ideas circulating in the creative community around it and i'm in the position alongside jamal rod jenny and desiree simmons who's the co-executive director of interfaith council for peace and justice who's also a lead organizer on this project um you know we're all in the difficult position of truly the only thing preventing us from expansive involvement of the project as a whole is resource and we're scrappy we're artists you know we always figure it out um but the ease of having folks involved in a way that's that has enough people power to run docent tours to make sure that there's bridges between audiences these performances that will happen in music are intentionally driven in partnership to have intergenerational audience

112difference of audience who would show up to see one group versus another group in this county how do we bridge that gap and have both audiences come into space to see multiple performers how do we do call and response to encourage dialogue between creatives and mediums so um just stop me and then i can answer questions maybe here i'm just gonna mute myself heather i don't want to cut you off at all i um no please i've never met you but please cut me off no no it sounds super exciting and um i love your passion about the project um the more you talk about it the more cool it sounds um and all you did was sell me online to be a part of it um i work for the guild of artisan artisans

113which puts on the ann arbor summer art fair and we do a2 arctoberfest which happens in october on the streets that surround the county building so our gallery space is on fourth right behind the county building there so we would be a cultural ally for you within that neighborhood to spread the word you know give you more spaces for engagement more events where we could potentially engage um so i'll definitely be reaching out to you after today's meeting don't have any money to offer you unfortunately but can give you some more manpower and potentially some more organization power to make the project happen yeah i just want to make sure i can be heard can anyone hear me can everyone hear me all right awesome so i appreciate the energy that heather has brought even

114though she's had a full day with her six-year-old enjoying so many things so heather i appreciate you um being on here and i also i appreciate this entire commission's ability to listen and be excited and i cannot say enough about pedals just as a former discussion point but just amazing but with regard to this particular project the other aspect that um is kind of alluding to but not necessarily mentioned i will say is that particularly on main street there are a lot of things that go on um you know people are having cocktails people having dinner prom prom dates are happening you know people are riding bikes eating ice cream all this stuff and all these lives are changed almost at the end of this street and i feel like people just don't have a

115realization they see it as a courthouse it's a marble building there's a lot of different things going on but i uh just as a side note i am a board member for amplify project but also a board member for the arc and they have been wanting to do and be of use in some way and they are also an organization on main street and so to bring um a realization to lives changing in a building that is to me very sterile and just needs definitely needs some more love and some more art but also needs to um have a story told within it and just to know that there are a lot of organizations um in ipsy in ann arbor in washington county that were just jumping out of their skin last week to just

116try and figure out like the dream was just so big and the idea of i think there was one of the artists who came who said i just i just need to leave right now because i just need to go home and dream and plan because this is just amazing to be able to to think of all the things that could be done and all the stories that could be told because of something like this i think it is imperative and important that as many community people know as possible people that are just visiting for the week in september or october um to have people have a realization that this is going on i think is almost maybe not almost as important as as funding um but i i'm kind of getting tired of hearing

117all these people say you know what did you do this weekend and it's like well i went to this exhibit and all these things happen and they're like well i didn't see anything about it i don't want to hear that about this project like i really do want to make sure that people are aware of this artistry that will be happening this connection that's happening within this county it is so important um because it's just an endless it's such a huge idea but i want it to come to fruition because i want people to be aware of the struggles that people have in this community that aren't being acknowledged but also the artistry and the giftings that they have it's tremendous and to see that small group of people last week come together and just

118be so copious with their note-taking oh my god and just so willing to just collaborate it is a blessing and it's a gift and so um even if the the finances may not be there within this group i totally understand i really want um there to be awareness of this art that will be happening in this space so that's what i wanted to say thank you jenny that starts an idea that um i just want to connect you guys with the main street area association um sandra runs that group and they are doing saturday i don't know if it's just saturday morning or saturday during the days when the streets are closed through the summer activations of the space or arts groups yoga whatever so that might fall within your timeline as a way to

119activate and kind of promote what's going on down at the courthouse on main street thank you allison sophie i think you had your hand up uh yes yes i was going to say that there are there are some many unique aspects to this projects uh three of the most extraordinary perhaps are the um the fact that it's inside the courthouse which must be pretty rare i mean you might get a statue of some old white guy probably but in most courthouses but nothing much beyond that in terms of uh let alone live contemporary art that challenges the actual events of the courthouse so that's incredible and the next unique thing an amazing thing is the unanimous support of the judges which is um pretty mind-blowing in itself and the third thing which i found extraordinary

120unique and wonderful was the fact that the artist receiving payment um uh let alone equitable payments so those are all wonderful things um an amazing thing so i really applaud you for getting this this going having the idea and getting it going it's really really incredible um but one aspect i was just thinking when uh jenny was talking about how to make sure people know that it's happening which is obviously if if something is amazing is happening clearly we want people to know about it and i was just looking at that photo of the the slide with um the washington or county courthouse and it has this huge pale wall which just cries out for some sort of sony lumiere um some slide projection something moving so that people can can be aware that there's

121there's a thing happening there so i wonder if something like that could be maybe added again yeah we have soy pasted dreams we're planning on um adhering something to the exterior we'll also thank you sophie we're also planning to have a lot of vinyl stickering in the windows so um works of poetry from local youth um artists um the untold stories of liberation and love poetry group based in ipsy is interested in putting some poetry on on windows as well we we have the capability with vinyl and different adhesives to to go on the marble walls but we also are going to be taking a lot of advantage of sort of the cavernous overhead space of the building and suspending things from the ceiling thinking about immersive um of i realized that i only showed

122the first slide of the multi-slide presentation so i'll be sending it on i'll just i will circle back with that but thank you sophie um and and thank you alison i think this is about you know that's the beautiful thing like um case in point in this meeting folks you know this is the piece about multiplicity right you know which is one of these values is all the roles we hold in community that you all are on the commission and you also hold a multitude of roles as artists yourselves as affiliations to galleries as connections to organizations and i think that's what has driven the success of the project so far and i think that the scale of the project will be determined by resource i will say that i'm not as understanding as jenny

123around financial support um i think it would be a really big miss for the the city of ann arbor public art commission to miss an opportunity for investment here um i think that would be noticed um and um and i think i think this is about public art because this is about municipal space and i think that when we think about public art and um and where it's installed or and who has access to it and we think about placing immersive art in a municipal building where so many of our neighbors and so many folks in community are coming into this building for so many different reasons i mean what an opportunity for engagement with public art but an opportunity for multi-disciplinary and mixed media um and so um i just i feel like this

124is a really um expansive and generative opportunity for so many artists and orgs and so many people and school age kids who can come into the space and engage with all of this thank you heather and lynn i think you had your hand up and then mary i wanted to share i don't know if folks saw um a political article that came out last summer after ann arbor the city council had passed a resolution supporting an unarmed crisis response program um and then that we ended up funding it with arpa dollars um once that resolution was passed april of last year there was an article that came out in political following a local family and how they've been in and out of the justice system it was how a liberal michigan town is putting mental

125illness at the center of police reform and it follows cynthia harrison and her son anthony um i got to know her after that was published and uh ann arbor resident now running for city council but what was really moving was how she called me the day that um the judge was signing has released papers at that court and like when you when you're saying that um there are these decisions that impact generations um [Music] and just that that anxiety and that weight to make sure that her son would get the treatment that he needed um and then and having the support of different community advocates to get to that point and meeting a national um spotlight on these struggles um that particularly affect black men in our community was really revealing you know it's and

126and to hear that um you know there can be artwork that can really express that kind of turmoil um but also hopefully uplift communities in a way and give comfort um would be really i mean it's it's it's i'm hoping that it's a reflection of how um we can respond in in in uh in the manner that um i guess acknowledges what kind of what happens at the courthouse um so i i've been hearing a lot about this work i know judge vanderbilt really well and and judicial uh attorney greene moore um she was on the line i recruited her to the library board um so you know i i mean it really it really shows when you have uh a judge with an msw who is rallying around this project because she understands intimately

127what what um trauma what a trauma-informed approach to um justice work and look like how what it should look like so um i'm it's this is really this is a really difficult project you're you're tying together community engagement um you know innovative approaches from individual artists um tying together different funders so you know kudos for you for straining this all together that i haven't heard of a project like this in our community in a while so um but maybe it's because i'm just new to to the art world so i'm just really impressed i'm really proud to be able to go back to my friend cynthia and say like hey you know maybe in the next should should there be a time and hopefully not soon you know you're back in this courthouse they'll be

128you you won't be alone you know there'd be there'd be something for you so i'm really moved by this project and i'm really thankful that you you're working on it thank you lynn and uh mary yeah hi um heather i wouldn't expect anybody else but you to be spearheading this dynamic opportunity it's pretty awesome um good to see you here and um to hear comments from everybody about this um i'm new to the council again um after a few year hiatus and i'm actually just to the council do we actually have money to give out um this was something that we did not have before um we had a lot of people that would come with proposals and petitions but do we have financial dollars we do we do we voted on it twice reality

129that we had to vote on it twice all right all right sorry all right well someone will fill me in because um there's there's lots of questions well and that's actually something i wanted to ask about because we do have some funds i believe that we put aside for marketing um we were thinking of marketing the golden paintbrush award so we have some funds and vanita please correct me if i'm wrong that we've already pulled out and are potentially ready to disperse somewhere very good uh yeah so people about specifically for marketing and told the community foundation that's what we're using them for okay we could get creative with how that happens but that's what we told them we were using it for well and we could help with marketing this event i mean it

130this doesn't have to necessarily be marketing for golden paintbrush but part of i think you know what what we're trying to help achieve here is getting the word out um as well as funding um and you know kind of networking to see if there are additional funding opportunities outside of this commission but i do think personally that it would be great to help in some marketing efforts with with that money that we've set aside for that purpose the the second point i wanted to touch on is documentation is that a barrier for this event that you can't have cell phones video with anything going on inside the courthouse um what what does that look like in terms of like getting the word out sharing what's happening um while this event is happening yeah that's a

131great question so i will say i think um mary also thank you so mary was one of the first muralists to work with youth arts alliance back in 2014 um uh so uh just to say a little bit more about my history we've been doing youth arts alliance has been doing programming in carceral spaces um since 2013 and so really taking sort of carceral or untraditional spaces municipal spaces enacting arts culture music um programming activity workshops exhibition performance is sort of what um um what my career has been and and sort of still is and so um documentation is actually we have a re we have really beautiful opportunities so as sophie mentioned you know um i'll tell you um presenting to all of the judges in washington county was a certain um anxiety and

132you could really say to yourself that they're not judging you but you would be lying because that's what they do and um so in that part of the unanimous support is also i think reflective of the people power and the amount of institutional partnership and frankly trust around the work that we've been doing in community um what we've been given access to and what we plan to do is we're partnering with um culture verse um locally who is going to do like a full building scan of the of the courthouse prior to installation and then a full scan once the installation happens now obviously permissions on live um video and all of those things are lining up we do have permission to have access to the closed caption footage of just for capturing the before

133and after um of sort of the blank building and then the after with everything in it um because court proceedings have been throughout the pandemic live streamed um by and large and and folks have been given access through zoom um the judges have given permission for live streaming to audiences for specific events in terms of documentation around um you know in the day-to-day operations of the court the business hours 8 30 to 4 30 we're going that's going to be a real challenge when it comes to the evening events that we're coordinating um the specific general audience engagement um i think we'll be able to capture that with ease and media permissions where we're holding this delicate you know there's the benefit of having so much so many folks involved in the project is that

134we are thinking deeply and intentionally every step of the way around ethics humility in space understanding the complexity of the space and also offering a lot of narrative a lot of counter narrative and and sort of vision within that space if that makes sense so this is this is delicate and we're thinking through every every sort of stage and documentation is critical throughout this because the intention of the collective of folks who is involved you know i think this is i mean i'll say i think this is arpa eligible i think that this collective of folks working on this project is also interested in collaborating in this way in perpetuity i don't think i think this us coming together in in and having integrated and multi-layered engagement with one another as organizations as artists as

135musicians i see this folks have expressed interest in moving forward with this in different ways what does it mean to take over a dmv you know what does it mean to do a immersive public library installation how do we enact how do we enact um community and audience for all of the things happening that are so positive resources that are available um but it's 905. so i'm just like time checking myself and also i know that you have had public comment and everyone's been really grateful the whole time for all of that but i also know that there's an end of public comment you know like a necessary end so i don't want to keep you past your time and i'm happy to i you know um jamal jenny is here i'm here you know

136rod and and desiree and other community partners are interested in talking further we could follow up with questions i'll share the presentation um that would be fantastic heather if you want to send that presentation to venita she can share it with all of us and you know thank you so much for your time tonight especially after your son's birthday party and thank you don't ever tell him like like don't tell him i'm playing it like it was like a punishment you know how these things go listen i enjoyed the whole day it's just very busy you know we did the whole thing we just did the whole thing i mean like i love him and his birthday is joy but we were bike riding you know laser tag you know anyway yes thank you thank

137you heather yes this is thank you perfect thank you all right so um we are going to move on to report from staff vanita you have the floor yeah i just had the two staff updates there um nothing additional for them just giving you some updates on where we are for those two items yes those are exciting updates yeah venina can you verbalize the two items for those of us who don't have the agenda in front of us and those that are joining us um so i don't have it in front of me either but i have to apologize i had an update from 365. um she's working with tay onna i believe it's the right way to say her name to um work with our building department to get some additional ideas of where

138she should start and how she should move that forward they want to make sure that they have the ability to do the things that they need in the space that they the location that they want to use um and what was my other item i'm sorry i've been engrossed in all this other stuff i have something centered alley project yeah oh yeah ali project um i may have mixed those around ali project is the same that was just an update that we had gotten from the building department to say that we received some information from the a ann arbor arts center that they were having some stumbling blocks with what they were working on but they've been forwarded over to staff and community services to help them move that forward um i that update was

139probably about uh maybe a couple weeks ago i hadn't reached back out to get an additional update but i i could share something back out with you all later on that too that would be great thank you vanita you're welcome yeah all right and then we have you banana yeah you're welcome um report from committees um so the capital improvement project working group um that is myself and allison right now and um if anyone else wants to join because david has uh you know has resigned um from the commission uh we have an open spot so uh i don't have anything additional to add um besides you know what we discussed um last meeting about getting some of those budget items approved um which is wonderful from council um and we're going to continue to

140work on that and john i see that you've unmuted yourself if you have something to add no okay no no i have nothing to add thank you though accidentally unmuted myself well and so again if anyone would like to join the capital improvement project working group please do because we have an open spot um and then i'm going to move on to the outreach working group which is sophie peggy and marionetta anything to report um i i guess i can um maybe go kind of go very very quickly um and then i'll have to leave i have to pick up someone from from the bus station um the outreach group decided that uh we wanted to explore um some potential partnerships with art related organizations um like the library and uh parks and rec and

141also to build uh connections with kind of upcoming uh events that might be happening in ann arbor for instance we found out that monument lab of the museum is hosting a residency for two years for the founder of monument lab and we thought you know might be a good idea to to have some conversation so we've started a series of conversations with uh various arts related organizations um in ann arbor and our first conversation was may 17th we met with eli nyberger who's the director of the library to talk about ways that we might build bridges between the arts commission and the library and he was very excited about the idea had lots of ideas about um ways that we we might um partner um he he offered the uh the notions that the library

142itself could be sites for projects or performances or exhibits it could be venues for public meetings so for instance non-profits or any city or governmental entities could meet uh in person at the library if we found we needed to meet as a big group he also said that he would the library would be very happy to help us in promoting uh and publicizing any of our events particularly helping us this he says they do call for artists all the time so um as we think about this new funding for instance if we've got a call out um he said that the library would be very helpful i'll be happy to help us with things like that one of the things that he also brought up in terms of thinking about partnerships is the library hosts

143these summer games every every summer uh it's a very very popular event it's uh participants of all ages from adults to to children and it's it's basically uh the participants get a set of clues um and solve puzzles and as you solve these these puzzles you're able to kind of cash in on on prizes from the ann arbor library and so he was suggesting that perhaps we might think about ways the art commission might think about ways um they've already got plans for the for this summer but for summer 2023 that uh and they'll start planning for that in the fall that there might be ways that we might um highlight arts uh in the city um maybe in some of the clues in the summer games so um but we are actually in this

144summer's summer games that was going to be nice okay i don't know so we're finalizing the copy for the script for the clues but we have um some spots including one of our manhole covers or oh i'm not supposed to do this oh no you wasn't supposed to say that anything um so we're gonna we're gonna be in it i'm glad that i'm glad that we're we're already uh way ahead of ahead of us so so we left the conversation uh both on a very very positive note uh what we decided to do was um eli was gonna identify a library liaison and um he asked that we identify a liaison from the arts commission just to kind of keep the communications open so there's molly bickley who's on the staff and she's in charge

145at the library of public events will be their liaison and then once we identify someone as a liaison eli will put the two together so i'm very excited uh about building these bridges and peggy and sophie are also working on building bridges with parks and rec and having a conversation with them and also having a conversation with monument lab so we are very excited about reaching out to our community partners and figuring out ways that we can help each other i i can send vanita i will send you the the notes from that outreach meeting thank you marionetta i'm sorry you got to go and pick up someone but this was a great meeting nice to meet you marianne oh nice to meet you i look forward welcome welcome to the to the commission thank

146you um all right so next uh we are moving on to the special projects working group which includes sophie peggy myself and jamal um do we have anything to report would anyone like i i think we haven't met since our last meeting but if you have anything you'd like to add sophie yeah well generally at the the meeting we were talking with uh heather um jeremy never uh about the the thing when we're just hearing about the reclaim project so we talked about that a lot but one of the things we've been talking about on the um on the commission uh is about something which i'd like to connect up with the uh upper money discussion which is the two main things one is having somewhere on our website where people can just simply propose

147things and clearly we've heard that it needs to be very simple and that people should be able to propose their own specific project they want to do as an artist or as a group or maybe somebody should be able to propose someone else as being a chicken or court jester or whatever it happens to be that they think should be supported so any proposal we should make it clear that it's totally broad and just try and gather some information so we could take it somewhere and the other idea that i think again would fit in with uh with what we were just talking about on the apple money is the idea of a residency a residency could be a very traditional thing um where you know an artist comes in this equipment they can use

148and they do something inspired by the community they've they're in while they do the residency but it also could be something completely different um so you know i think we should we should try and make clear that we want people to be able to think broadly uh one of the the aspects we've been looking we've been talking about all the time is trying to make things connect with the community and be collaborative so i think those should be kind of something that we would look to specifically but without again rejecting some if some individual artist has an amazing idea sure why not so i think being broad and open and easy to apply to and then you can find other ways of figuring out whether it would work for us whether to take it further

149whether it's through a phone interview or whatever it is um so to make it make it pretty simple and not involve too much box filling thank you so much sophie um correct me if i'm wrong vanita but we already have on our website a place for people to put proposals is that correct does that still exist i was looking at that we've done some changes to the the home page for the city we did at one point have um a line item within our page where folks could actually submit proposals i can't get there just yet right now and i have to double check but i think there's something some changes to our page in general just because of a new sharepoint platform but i'll have to double check but we did have it available

150once yes and i'm not sure if i'm not sure we'd have to redesign it just a little bit if you want to include that there um and if that's still okay with the way that um heather and skye want to move the arper funding up forward yes well i think sophie correct me if i'm wrong you're just saying in general you want would like that to be on our website for people to apply not necessarily specifically for arbor funding but in general if they want to engage with us and put together proposals we should have a spot for them to do that is that what you're saying sophie or are you saying specifically for arpa i was i would say that we need both and whether you start in the same thing and and drop

151into the right funnel later or whether we you know we need to have a discussion about how to make it something that people think oh i could do that uh how to make it very visible and obvious and you know hey this is here and then publicize it so that you know people know to go look for it um but these are all things that we need to to talk about specifically i think that to how to make it work both for the upper funding and in general thank you sophie um all right we can move on to the communications working group which is myself uh marionetta and allison and we do have another opening um on the communications working group so if anyone is interested please join and um yeah the only piece of

152news was we are going to participate in the summer games so uh that's great and uh allison do you have anything else you'd like to add well maybe i could just be a little bit more descriptive about what that means is like through our participation with the summer games we're hoping to get people to visit at least four of our public art pieces and learn about those pieces um they just sent us language during this meeting which we have not reviewed um to get people to those um sites and we'll be charged with maintaining the signs so as you participate give us a heads up if those signs go look bad or need repair or whatnot um but all of them are close to venita's office as a hint so she will be able to

153check in on them routinely i will be able to check in on them routinely as i'm around the corner um my office is around the corner so hopefully you guys will all participate and it'll be a good experience to get our feet wet participating in the summer games and thank you lynn for bringing that idea to the table and we've put it together so hopefully it'll be a great way to get people engaged it's great it's a great pr move so good work you guys and it's free well i mean the library will cover it but that's that's that's that's our locally collected taxes um um that goes to the library so yay library yay local library taxes thank you for doing that they're they're such a great team um and there's so much good

154wealth at the library they're always looking for partners publicity partners first as well we should use that yeah so enthusiastic and this is going to be really fun so yeah librarians are good friends to have and and for everything for civic engagement democracy arts um awesome work you guys is it dude do you want me to report in my counsel stuff out or are we yeah i'm just gonna go down the rest of the list and then yes lynn if you wanna we would love to hear um about uh about the council updates as well um so our leadership working group that's myself in jamal we have not met since our last meeting um unless jamal you have anything to report well obviously we have mary who has joined us so that's part of it

155and we're reviewing more applications um to fill david's thoughts but we're so happy to have you married um and then we have the fundraising and development working group which is myself and allison we have an open spot so if you're interested in joining that working group please do alison and i have not met specifically to talk about um fundraising and development although it seems from tonight's meeting that we perhaps have a few things that we can certainly uh talk about um so that would be great and then our annual chair vice chair review and election um project which is john and allison do you have anything nothing to report fantastic ben lynn please take the floor sure um thank you i think the big update from the council world is that um the housing commission

156voted earlier today the board of directors for housing commission approved their partnership with avalon housing to co-develop a 68 unit affordable property at 121 east catherine um that's the development that's across the street from the people's food co-op um it's currently a parking lot um so 68 units affordable housing uh to individuals exiting homelessness as well as income qualified artists so this is this is um the space that was in discussion the the art space came in and did the community engagement for so it's it's nice to see that there's actual sometimes bureaucracy is very very slow um and it's it's really nice to see that there's community engagement that's already been done on this and to hear that the housing commission has signed that partnership with our housing partner it just brings us that

157much closer to um artists being able to live downtown um yeah i'm really excited that's going to be really interesting yeah john did you have a question we're also going to be a gallery as a part of that whole project so there's talk about um so one of the our one of the budget considerations that we passed at the last meeting um that i unfortunately wasn't able to attend that's like my most favorite meeting of the year this is the what is the budget meeting my son had covet at the time and i didn't want to inadvertently expose folks but um uh one of the considerations that i really rallied hard and advocated for uh was a money from the marijuana excise tax revenue and having some of that um which is sizeable that was

158900 thousands and it came back um uh actually it was 1.2 million and then some of that had already been allocated towards deflection work through our city prosecutor's office and then we gave additional money for that another half million um but i had asked for uh kind of like um like a business a generator incubator kind of space for um uh in support of bipac businesses and that that would reflect the history of that that area being a historically black community um so that passed so we'll see what the community engagement will look like to that end um and there was talk about potentially having that in this building in some form so if it's an incubator gallery i'm all for it so there's there is room on the first floor for um mixed use

159um i guess let's see yeah other budget considerations gosh there's so much going on that night i called in at the very end too um there was uh additional money that went to um barrier busters uh uh i went to a child savings account program at the county level to kind of speak to the impact on the war on drugs um and vulnerable communities there's a lot of work that went into that night but we now have a budget we also affirmed the hiring of our up until then our interim city administrator so mr milton de honey is officially official now um i'm really excited to to have him on board um as for arts work oh i have a the update from um shache duckworth and the parks folks so initially when trishay came

160to the commission last year when travis was here um the plan was to have a black lives matter mural on the streets and and i think public works came back and said like oh there's all these things to consider uh the color of the paint and um uh the the type of paint because it's a it's a busy street um also we're planning road prepare and we're bonding out for additional road repair so instead of just waiting for this to be scheduled out depending on when we're going to fix the roads i asked the parks to step in and um our parks uh head of parks came out and met with trishay um and and community community folks who who did the painting in ypsilanti uh at um gosh wheeler park and then the discussion

161went on to say like well can we think of other areas in the community that um could really benefit from from seeing this mural and uh parks folks said well we're already doing this exhibition with um liz margolis and uh that's already out in gallup park so they went out to gallup park and looked and scoped it out and the now the plan is that the painting will start in july in gallup park um but i think parks and shea just pretty much thought that it would be it's it's the most well attended park um and there's already artwork there and they can tie the mural together with programming so they can also do that with um community groups um and do like an educational series around it so yay parks parks uh they're really

162and they'll do maintenance on this too so um they're finding the budget and they have staff who are dedicating themselves they said this is really important to them to to see it through um so we'll be able to turn that out around from i guess i think planning to painting and programming in probably a month so beginning of july to end of july we should have something we should be able to meet each other in person actually maybe we can think about that um maybe the august meeting is actually meeting for the first time in person and seeing actual artwork in the in the park um so there's that update what was the yeah what was the site for that what was the parks location so they're looking at gallup i don't know where exactly

163in gallup park um because i i couldn't bring my um potentially cove itself to that meeting either um but they did me and they were really happy they said it was a really productive meeting um i'm assuming it's still on a street i think it's the pathway the walkway okay yeah cause i think the worries that you know the cars um i mean it's such everywhere it's it's so busy in ann arbor you know they just didn't they wanted people to be able to actually see it instead of waiting for cars to clear you know um and then also cars would damage the mural so um the thought was that if it was on a walkway it would be more visible and more protected very smart easier to maintain well that's what they did in

164italian right in the in the park um so let's let's see we're only we're only catching up to ypsilanti like i think three years later so we will get it done um so i don't know if it was really smart versus just i don't know connecting all the dots in a different way um what else has happened i think that's oh the the flag thing came up and i'm live i didn't have a comment from ryan stanton i said uh i actually am not quite sure where it stands with this commission or where the conversation lies uh the mayor has sent me this ted a ted talk on on the power of flags or something and truthfully i still haven't watched it maybe i am not the best person to be involved in this whole

165flag uh i don't yes so i leave that all up to you um as actual artist and for me as to what you would like to do with that i i think ryan stanton wrote a really amazing article in the history of ann arbor flags so he he's already dug deep into the archives uh i guess the challenges for this commission to revisit what the process would be like if it was i guess in the past they had a a contest with students to redesign it and council remember song the commission just still needs his approval to move this forward we haven't started to do anything with the project because he hasn't really given us permission to do it just yet wait he hasn't given you the tedx the ted talk came from john yeah

166yeah we submitted a resolution and we we we needed that and okay yes clarify the ted talk a student sent a ted talk to the mayor okay the ted talked to me okay and presented it to the commission okay said great if you will then just task the art commission with the project and the parameters and what you want us to do we would be glad to do it so now he gave you the ted talk so i think i think what we were hoping for there was some kind of an official uh resolution task memorandum that the council would ask the art commission to take this on with the parameters with the budget the timeline okay people want to come up with that without knowing what he wanted well i asked him and he's

167like yeah i definitely want to do it let's do it but then i had no instruction so john i mean just be mayor like that wouldn't have we could have escaped this whole path of the ted talk and then uh it could have been done um i will commit to it i'm so sorry it's good well in the redesign of the flag we went as far as to assign it to a working group and it's in our annual plan i think for the last two years that i know of and i forget which working group if it was outreach or special projects or youth outreach that had existed so we can definitely revisit that conversation maybe we can recline it and once we all watch the ted talk okay i will tell christopher taylor it's

168like christopher taylor these are details that you did not share like how we we can't really i can't really go back to commission say like he said okay so uh okay thank you veneta thank you john um i will press on him to see where this resolution is because i've never seen it so i apologize i didn't realize i had to ask for a resolution i just he just said okay so this is very helpful thank you well it was craig hoopey's idea that we should get some clarification from council we just shouldn't act on our own in fact you know so that the student that sent it to christopher sent a a proposal for a flag that was brilliant frankly but the idea is should it be a wide open inclusive how is it

169going to happen uh is where's the money coming from for the flag and the question was we wanted to make sure that council was totally on page for us to to follow up on this so we wanted some assurance and craig hoopy thought this was the best way to do it was to ask the mayor okay and then crack blue and then craig cooper left the building buildings now we're back to you getting that ted talk and uh okay um i can do this i will do this uh thank you for the more detailed instructions my goodness uh and thanks to ryan stanton for all that homework too so uh that was a great great article it really was um i don't have other updates so um yeah so maybe you're hand raised if you

170have a question or comment yeah i i had a question about the black lives matter thing um just to go back to that for a minute uh which was is this part one instead of having one dance tunnel as well as um right so i mean i said you know what harm is there if we had more than one mural uh and um and public works was just like sure i mean we'll just keep it in mind until we figure out you know this the schedule for the streets because i really didn't want it to be laid down and then torn up again um i just you know versus lay down and then um maintained um so so there's a there's a process going on that where where somebody at some point will say yes

171this is the right street or do we have to do something they already identified the streets uh i think it's on catherine and for fourth and catherine was was what um where we left it before i came on board and that's what public re public works had reviewed so um it's really i think it's just a matter of once we get a schedule of what the repair would be like and then we can then we can circle back like with the timing of the repair for those streets and it might coincide with this development you know it's on the cip list that project so you know as it becomes more reality we'll probably tag it with our cip efforts to say hey there's this project let's make it happen okay well i'm glad to hear

172because i feel like several other cities seem to have managed to paint their street so you know it seems to be possible to do yeah there's their efforts other cities have um like ferndale has a rainbow cross like a rainbow pride pride flag kind of crosswalk um there are things that folks paint to slow traffic down to so um [Music] i don't know if that's something like the interim public works rep can can really engage on but i think it's really interesting how folks can use paint to to make streets safer for for children and families especially i don't know if you all were following how um this past year was really difficult for uh animal public schools to hire enough bus drivers and there were bus routes that were cancelled so more kids were

173walking to school farther away from i think the cutoff for uh bus transportation is a mile and a half so there's there's more interest in pedestrian safety and and building sidewalks we passed that sidewalk millage in 2020 so maybe there's a way where we can kind of integrate um art to make that walk a little bit more safe and more interesting i know there's a i organize a a walking bus from king's school so we have about 20 families that meet from my front yard every morning and we kind of rock paper scissors who actually wants to walk with our children to school not all the parents want to do it because we have people to get to work or meetings um and uh some of the art that's right outside of king school that's

174etched in the sidewalk is eat your vegetables um and the kids always yell eat your vegetables as soon as we get to king school so uh there's a more permanent way to do something goofy that'd be maybe we can talk to the schools about that too because they have um i mean they have their billion dollar bond and uh um you know there's some infrastructure that would be it it'd be really interesting if there's some artwork involved in that that that that plan too so besides vegetables you know and mary you have your hand up yeah just quickly lynn and um anybody here representing the city i'm happy to advise on best practices for street painting it looks like jerry's still on the call here but in in 2021 we did the the giant mandala

175at the intersection of like and it was not meant to be permanent but i i have a lot of lessons learned and there's definitely things that can be done to make it permanent so just check in with me if i can thank you mary yeah i think um that might be something that we would probably have to collaborate with um transportation commission too so they're the they're the transportation nerds they felt all sorts of ideas of cities around the country um so maybe that might because i see some collaborations between commissions lately like um police oversight i'm also on police oversight the chair collaborated with the human rights commission and transportation commission and bringing together a resolution asking the police to make traffic data more publicly available and on the angle that it's a public

176safety issue and the human rights council as a human rights issue in case there's bias involved in um in in who we who we um take it and who we pull over um maybe this is a project for uh you know art and streets that we can work on with the transportation commission and saying you know can you give us ideas of what you see in other cities and we can do a joint resolution council can't say no to during joint resolutions that's a lot of people uh working together so i offer that up to you for your consideration selfie i'm sure everybody wants to go home but i just wanted to mention i guess it's connected with public art that schools have had to cancel their trips to the museum the university of michigan

177museum of art because of not being able to get a bus because there wasn't a driver yeah is transportation is so difficult right now um i mean there are kids who i mean yeah it's been really difficult the the areas where the routes have been canceled it's it's not the fault of schools it's you know labor shortage um but i i thought the museums are doing something virtually for students i think to make up for yeah that you but it's not i mean it's nothing not the same right right and they generally have to cancel really close because they were hoping so you know the point is that they see the actual artwork so it's very different [Music] yeah we're still in a pandemic unfortunately um [Music] yeah i don't know i don't know how

178to fix a labor shortage i met mac and i could ask the folks here who have more authority than me and city government so maybe um i can ask them to do something more i'll ask the governor and say like the kids need to see art so they need to be fed educated and they need to see art um yeah i'm here until friday so that's the other thing i should offer you all if there's something that you would like me to ask our state reps our congressional reps are here to pledge fudge can you bring you want me to bring back no no um i love this group uh i don't know if that was very helpful in my report out too i am just really excited about the potential for affordable housing for

179for artists to live in the city very um i'm super excited about that project especially since then it's in the neighborhood of where i work and it's going to be an awesome creative sector over there and you have a gallery included that's awesome and it's always very helpful lin thank you for all of the updates and thank you for the offer for us to send you some questions um while you're there so uh that is wonderful and um yeah i already chased down peter peter yeah and he asked him about bike lanes his security detail was uh kind of nervous but you know i mean if i can i will be relentless so i can chase folks down um yes we need to go out i love it it's a great spirit thank you so

180um before we adjourn if anyone has any last-minute comments announcements things that we should know because we will not meet in july we will adjourn again and or come together again in august art hot shop this weekend this weekend this weekend the following yes next weekend the 11th the 12th yes is that backwards or the right way around i don't know anyway it's on do you want to send us an email with the dates as well sophie sure okay so you send it to vanita share the flyer okay yeah great all right well thank you guys so much for hanging in there we had a really lively meeting this is great and uh what's the august date the august the august the first wednesday and first wednesday yeah but it's always going to be the

181first wednesday and um and we do skip a couple of august third august third thank you vanita thanks danita and welcome back mary thanks john yes let's cause some trouble exactly good trouble all right so with that i am going to ask uh for a motion to adjourn thank you john in a second thank you allison and sophie thank you guys so much this was a fantastic meeting have a great june and july see ya thanks everyone welcome buddy bye you