Ann Arbor Public Art Commission Meeting 2/3/21

001the meeting to order craig if you want to do a roll call alice in luck here deborah mexico air jonah kopi david esau here sarah fuller you did you did what we see here sophie gray here john kotarsky here peggy leonard here and was santa young you have a uh and also council member uh radina here that don't want to forget the important one you have a quorum thank you um next we will move on to approval of the agenda if i have a motion for such so moved thank you david second second thank you dab any discussion of the agenda all in favor aye aye yeah post okay all right i think we're all in favor of moving on with the agenda and then we get to come to um our most fun part

002of the meeting are public comments and i see that we have erin and i'm assuming julian here with us to present so you guys can uh take it away well thank you so much for having us some it's a real honor to be here yeah thank you to venita who we've been emailing with um for inviting us can everybody hear us all right i just want to make sure okay okay fantastic um so yeah um so i don't know if all of you have seen the um slides that we sent to veneta um but we'll just give you a quick rundown of what who we are um why we're interested in getting more some more public art around ann arbor um and i guess we'll go from there um so yeah so aaron and i

003are founders of the pickle street mural co-op and we'll get more into what it is in a little bit but we are both recent u of m grads we graduated virtually of course um this past spring um and are looking to just bring more color to ann arbor um so yeah yeah yeah so pickle street mural co is a um mural organization that we've created to bring local artists together and have a platform to um paint and design murals locally and um yeah yeah so so again we we were both um u of m grads and we aaron was an art student um and i um helped found a mural painting company which again we'll get to in a little bit um but basically we loved the freedom that we had when we were students

004um of like being able to create an organization and have really anybody who wanted to be involved um and a lot of our friends we both had plans of moving out of ann arbor um after we graduated but like a lot of our friends we found that the social connections we made during um our time at u of m was like was something that we you can't get in society right now so we like a lot of us we actually ended up staying um around um in at u of m um like in ann arbor um and so we just decided that like why not just try to replicate the the freedom and the sense of community that we've had at u of m um and try to make a mural organization that brought in

005like our fellow muralists and our our fellow students and our friends and um try to build community while also making ann arbor a a more uh more colorful spot um so i see that i see that the the screen is up so yeah now i'll go into a little bit about my cell phone again i founded this organization called live in color which is a art organization at u of m um the most high profile mural we did was painting uh roosevelt roast um i don't know how much you guys know of john john roose but we came really close and after i painted um at argus farm stop actually he saw um the mural there and we ended up painting his storefront which turned out super well um and but mostly we were painting

006on campus um in the usually the older buildings um but it was just it was great because students from all across campus could come and like you can see from this picture most of the designs are very geometric so what what we would do is we would put up this like geometric kind of paint by numbers almost and then have anybody who wanted to free of um skill level or application be able to come and paint so it was a very inclusive um and uh beginner friendly place where someone could just come show up paint like one of these red triangles and then leave having a sense of ownership over space which was which was really great to see um and then also i i painted houses professionally which is where i got um a

007lot of the skills so these are a couple other places this top left one is actually in the now closed um in our brewing company um this bottom left one we teamed up with the union for their new opening which was super fun and we actually painted this well there was like that open tour of the union um and then the two on the right are in the uh modern languages building which is one of the oldest and kind of forgotten about buildings on campus so we were able to work with the facilities managers there and get bring a lot of color to the building and a bit about me i graduated with my bfa from stamps the u of m art school and i was an interplus disciplinary artist and painter and also i

008worked on a lot of community oriented projects on the very right i'm painting at the mario grocery store as a it was a performance piece slash um public um art proposal question about what it means to paint in an ordinary space like the grocery store and what it means to see this grocery store with the beauty of something you would give attention to like a beautiful landscape or something that is more traditional um and so yeah here yeah there's a few more thank you yeah a few more paintings and some designs um that i made throughout the throughout my school year um and um here are some larger scale designs from some artists that we really admire um yeah yeah i'll talk about so so like i said earlier a lot of the designs that

009i tend to gravitate towards are very just bright i think aaron and i both are just like very bright geometric um not political controversial like uh complicated but just simply bringing color and design and a sense of place to um a space and allowing again like i think what was so cool about the like out this this one we were on the left and some of the ones we didn't live in color we're just simply allowing anybody um who wanted to to be involved um and this is just an example of someone who has inspired me and morgan myers cloth on the right oh yeah so i met her through the stamps lecture series and she talked a lot about how designs can influence people's feelings of belonging and a sense of place um in

010their neighborhoods or cities um and i i really love her message yeah so this on this next slide there are um yeah so if you go to that yeah could we possibly have we go to the next uh yeah exactly so this is the first proposal that we have in terms of the place um you know and i are both big runners and we've run down along the arb um as i'm sure many of you have been here um and from the pictures you can see it's like just graffitied um and kind of forgotten about um and i think uh part of this whole project that aaron and i are both really excited about is like bringing back like belonging and also just like ownership to like forgotten about and kind of discarded parts of

011ann arbor um one that's like simultaneously a big three-way for a lot of walkers bikers runners and also one that's like not very high profile just in terms of its visibility um which i think is like a cool it both challenges people's conception about what matters but also just like brings color to a place that is forgotten um so we imagined again so i think this middle picture on the top is if you're coming from the argo cascades and you're walking down under the bridge um it yeah it's just it's granite concrete um and really just forgotten about so we both both into like plain geometric designs could could imagine just a really beautiful um design that kind of runs all the way from the top down into the bridge and kind of covers the

012graffiti obviously and brings a sense of place and color to a kind of drab and forgotten about part of innovation so that's the first design area yeah all right and this second design area is in this new tunnel that was just uh built we noticed uh these panels of concrete throughout the tunnels and um one day while we were walking or running through it we imagined it um each panel a different color and so it's like this rainbow tunnel of color um and thinking about how how much our inner child would love that um and um it could possibly go out if you look to the bottom right photo it could extend a little bit outside of the tunnel along the sides i'm welcoming people through um is your title an editorial comment our title

013lore damn argo pond oops typo maybe subconsciously yes freudian's clip we'll tell our editor that that was uh not okay yeah yeah so that's number two yes number two and this third one um this is in the same area under the bridge of division and depot street um just another nice fresh canvas underneath um and we could yeah we could envision another um more simplistic colorful design um something that is wonderful to drive by or walk by a run by yeah and so on these next slides we have some of our designs um so that you can get a feel for what we could come up with together um these are definitely examples um and we're super happy to work side by side to make a final design together um but we wanted to give

014you a taste um and then there's some more on the the next slide as well um do you want to say anything about these um yeah i mean so so these two so the the uh i think i think what's becoming i hope is clear is like the idea is like bright geometric color um again that like doesn't necessarily always convey a message but a lot of the time just like let people become excited and welcomed into a space um also yeah it's kind of combining this like this color and and everything with forgotten about spaces um which i hope was clear with the the couple the couple uh uh design areas that we included like under bridges and in graffiti spaces um and then tunnels and such so so again like aaron said we'd

015be more than happy to shift design um like exact designs and work with with you all um but we just wanted to have our message come across that like we were just super excited to about the possibility even of just bringing some sort of color and some sort of design to a lot of the places that have been somewhat neglected and but are still high trafficked yeah um and some of these that on this slide these words like write more friends do your art those are some things that i i took from my own like journaling new year's resolutions writing um so we could also even work with city members maybe set up a booth out at the farmer's market and crowd source words um and work with like the community for words in that

016sort of way um so something that's very um like a very democratic um thing yeah yeah i i believe i believe that's the last slide um like aaron said we've we have like a good amount of um funding that's simply like we both did this in college like aaron was an amazing artist and i was doing this mural painting and our families are supportive our friends we live in lower burns park um and are like wrapping ourselves in that neighborhood and so so we have we have the funding necessary to make this idea a reality um and again i just want to hit home the fact that like the the designs aren't like set in stone we're really just trying to bring a sense of color and yeah place and happiness to kind of a

017a gray winter and a great time in our lives um so we'd love to hear questions from you all if you have any or comments or anything really yeah thank you again for having us yeah yeah first of all i'd say thank you for being here guys this is awesome i have seen your work around town and love it um i would want to get some questions out of the way before we got too deep into it that actually this is for vanita and craig the um spaces that they identified are those all city-owned spaces um including like under the bridge there it's not any of it's like federal or highway or trans you know outside of your jurisdiction or do you know greg you're muted yeah first thing i'll do is get off from

018you um i believe all those are our spaces um and they mentioned they have funding so that's usually the biggest hurdle for us and a little bit on when we talk about the ellen creek berm opening that may be a good a good place to to put some of the murals [Music] and we can we can discuss the hurdle that we we are facing right there on that project right now because they're bringing the funding i think you folks could be the adjudicators of the art that is going up on it and it would be could be fairly streamlined yeah i mean in our experience we have found that including the public in the process the selection process has been beneficial not only so that they feel included and then have some sort of connection

019to the ultimate piece um but also then there is some input there's more ability for us to communicate with the public and emphasize the importance of public art which i can tell you guys really care about and are passionate about and so and also i love the fact that your murals allow the ability for the community to participate in the creation of them as well which i would encourage you know if you move forward with any of these projects you do not only in the selection of the artwork but in the actual installation um you know one of the things that we are charged with is communicating about public art but to do so is really challenging to find you know the outlets and stuff to do that i think your idea about going to

020the farmers market or things and talking to people and getting their feedback is great um so i would encourage you guys to include the public as much as possible through the entire process because as you may or may not have found um ann arborites are very opinionated and even a piece that you think is not controversial can be cloaked with lots of opinions one way or the other even if it's just color so including people in the process at least gives them the opportunity to say yay or nay or whatever and feel like they participated and in the end they were part of it they had their chance and they can enjoy it even more let me clarify when i said it was going to be it could be streamlined i was meeting we didn't

021have to do the ask for funding through council and go through that i did not intend to be excluding public input into the process out of it but maybe re removing some of the bureaucratic hurdles great but assuming there would be city staff that would be need to be involved as far as um like preparation of the area and things too uh i would assume when they say they have funding that they could prep those walls they are basically except for the dam tunnel um those walls are bare concrete i believe the damn tunnels already have been anti-graffiti coated so that that would if you're going to paint inside the tunnel you have to do something to strip the anti-graffiti coding off okay and then the other thing i would say that all preparations are

022not equal if you know you guys probably have seen a lot of the public art around town if you've noticed the building on i want to say it's on fifth to the fifth or fourth i always get the two confused but the old oxford properties building there's a two-tiered mural and we just talked with oxford properties in our couple of our meetings ago and the top of the mural that's on one building got prepped in one way and the bottom of the mural got prepped in another way and the top mural is peeling away and it's really sad and the bottom it still looks good um so you know we would want to know what your prep was and why you're using that prep and also when when you do a project with a city

023you leave historical remnants for maintenance purposes as far as how it was created and what type of maintenance you would recommend moving forward so that the city can do upkeep if they so choose to do so and and there would be uh some sort of legal contract because when you put a piece of art on a city structure you are going to give up all your artists rights to that piece of art meaning as an artist right you have we would have to preserve it if we didn't have your artist rights and you would have to sign away the artist's rights you would still get acknowledgement for it etc but if we were to demo the bridge we don't have to preserve the art sophia your hand is up yeah i was um maybe i

024was wrong but i was thinking there was already a plan for the tunnel to be we will discuss that a little later i believe the plan for the tunnel is not the inside of the tunnel correct it's at the end it's it's the lower wall as you come out of it oh so there's nothing inside planned at the moment no oh okay so wouldn't it be nice yes peggy i just had a question thank you for your presentation i love your designs and the idea the concept um you talked about involving the community in the painting process how does that work how do you get people how does the whole thing come together yeah i mean so speaking from my experience at um so it was there's a lot of flyering emailing um this and

025that and then again like we had a a dedicated staff uh like like inner team of like 15 people who would just like show up two hours early or so and just like use the painters tape um or chalk or whatever to just like outline everything um and then at noon everybody else would show up and we'd have the paint already poured into buckets and all this stuff and people would just really come um and what was fun is a lot of the time well yeah so a lot of the time we would have it planned out but then a lot of the time we would also let folks like decide what color we would go where um like if if a triangle was going to be 10 feet or 20 feet or this or

026that um so we could really scale the involvement of the community basically from picking up a paintbrush all the way down to helping design it um because like in those designs that both of us um showed especially like the first one on the red page there were like polka dots everywhere and you could like talk about how many polka dots you wanted to add or this or that or what color one of the streaks would be um so in terms of actually day of logistics again it could vary um depending on what um like the desired level of outcome of involvement would be um and then in terms of like before painting day would require just flyering and getting the word out um again we are on the lower burns park email chain um just

027using like modes of communication similar to that just to kind of blast um the the opportunity out through local newspapers flat like this and that you have different areas are you going to focus on one in particular like if you had a preference i'm not i'm assuming you're not going to have the three projects going all at one time yeah yeah i mean i think i think what would be super amazing is the first project that we proposed um that like the the like the lower part of our go damn that goes under that um broadway tunnel um that would yeah yeah it would it it would definitely be one at a time um with kind of a headquarters set up and again we have like the living color project is still ongoing and we

028have friends in the area so we could get like a a crew of dedicated individuals to come help us day off be kind of like overseers of the project but yeah it wouldn't we wouldn't be spread out throughout ann arbor painting all at once done you john you're new john i said uh jeff and aaron i think it's wonderful absolutely wonderful and piggyback a little bit on allison in terms of uh what i really like about the project is the synergy uh so the fact that you're incorporating folks in helping make the project helping design the project and to me that's unique and that's an art form in and of itself and as you are probably aware some neighborhoods have a little more power than others it's you're very fortunate to be in burns park

029i mean you know those those are the movers and shakers of this town so you can raise money kind of easily i would encourage you just like allison said to think about uh taking that synergy to the next step incorporating more and more neighborhoods and the uniqueness of the neighborhoods uh and and more individual groups like there's the women's artist group the and so if you could if you could get their buy-in um that it'll really um leverage the project and so to me uh the the design is very nice you know i i like you know geometric designs and um and it has a rich history and art history um um but it's it's the politics of the art that really draws me into it that you know your your your crowd sourcing ideas

030you're crowd-sourcing words and you're letting people participate and and own a little bit of it that to me brings it up a big notch and it certainly helps us and i think allison said that far more eloquently than i did but uh so kudos you know and and like craig said you've got the money most of the projects that come to us are great ideas but they really don't have the funding uh and i think what what what craig and and allison and and i think peggy and sophie touched on is uh the sustainability of it so the preparation of that wall the finish of that wall the maintenance that wall how often does it need to be touched up who's going to do that and where's the funding for that so i would encourage

031you to build into your project budget some maintenance and some documentation and it sounds like you really have the um the promotion uh so what we can do is help you get roadblocks out of your way but uh kudos kudos great project thank you sarah i also wanted to commend you guys beautiful work and beautiful spirit so really wonderful and i was just wondering if any of the funding does include a bit for marketing i think even taking out an ad in the ann arbor observer um you know those are relatively well priced ads um and something like that could be a great way to get the word out and um if you're familiar with the nextdoor app um that is a really great way i'm on the app in my own neighborhood here in

032ann arbor and it's a really great way for people within that immediate neighborhood to get together with you know community projects like this and that i believe would not necessarily be something that you would need to pay for um but if if any of that funding includes marketing yeah i think i think it totally it totally we we we've thought a lot about it and i think we it's an amazing thing to include um and that's a great idea about next door um i tried to get on that app when i was still in college living on dewey street um but now we're going to be here for a while i think it's a great idea to it's a great way to do it thank you for the idea travis thanks and we'll we're going

033to start like start sounding like a broken record here because i also want to just thank you and and i really appreciate everything and all the work was really great um actually hearing you talk about kind of your passion for like the bright colors and shapes also reminded me of my favorite parks and rec episode when tom falls in love with the with the with the shapes and the art um but but i uh i also just i i think this is really great i i'm still new enough to this that i'm not entirely sure kind of what next steps are in terms of process but if this were to move forward i also really like the idea of um kind of how you you want to engage with the community around this and and

034i could see this being something that um you know sarah brought up a good point about kind of making sure that you have some marketing built in but also really thinking about ways that you can leverage some of the free media that you might be able to get um i think just the fact that you want to engage the community and participate in that you might actually be able to get a story out of the observer rather than having to pay for it and and i think you know to the extent that we can be helpful in making some of those connections to the right reporters and things like that to kind of pitch an idea for a story to them um might be might be an avenue to get some folks aware and engaged

035as well and then i also just wanted to say that i know that both i and a number of my colleagues um have council newsletters and this is exactly the type of thing that we would love to be able to advertise as well you know really proactive ways for the opportunity to come together around something that that could be exciting and in community building and so um to the extent that we can be helpful as well i'm happy to to help make those connections to my colleagues and and make sure that they're aware so that it's something that they could advertise and and share as well craig i see your hand yes and travis did a beautiful job of the lead-in to next steps um the next steps would be to prepare a project proposal

036uh for the art commission to consider and in that you would have to include what areas you're interested in working in your your budgets how timelines staffing etc so that the art commission can look at it and weigh in and that application is on our website correct okay yes i believe it is vanilla would you be able to maybe send them that link to the application great what's up i see your hand okay yeah thank you uh very colorful and you're spiritual colorful the colors are colorful and your uh inclusiveness and diversity is very nice lovely um i just want you to also make sure that you include some liability insurance craig you're muted i'm trying to click on my new button uh that goes without saying as part of your project if we if

037it were to go forward there not only is liability insurance there is work area plans how you protect your work area what safety you're going to need but that gets into the finer details as it's going forward great sophie um i just wanted to ask if the pickle street mural company is your website if you have a website or how one would contact you if with any other ideas or suggestions or questions yeah yeah so we um have an email for the pickle street mural crop um it's called the street pickle gmail.com and we can um i don't know if um if um we need to share it with you but we can also tell you our um emails right now as well um would that be helpful okay um mine is um can i

038suggest that vanita i also i don't know that i have the um the presentation and i would love to have that as well if possible and so maybe you can head out along with contact information i sure can and jeff and aaron uh this is being recorded so if you want everyone to know your email you can say it now or you can just have the need to send it to us yeah okay yeah now i just see the flashing red dot up in the corner final comments david a couple things first of all i just want to make sure that we're all clear you're not asking you'll be paid for this at all correct correct so the funding will come from um the crowdsourcing that we've already done and um plan to do in

039the near future um and then craig some of the locations they were looking at i assume would need a public right-of-way permit would the city be able to waive those fees at all for something like this where they're basically making a contribution to the city and it's okay because i had i was formulating a response in my head i won't say that we can wave it but there may be alternate funding for the right-of-ways but permits the the biggest hurdle i think for them is going to be the the insurances for working in the right of way i think that go ahead i'm sorry i think that when uh after we see the proposal there will be an opportunity to meet with y'all and kind of go over what those other pieces might be yes

040there may also be some other uh funding that even we might be able to garner toward that sort of support for a project that comes to us so shovel ready and financially supported we do have access to some funds that we have recently been able to expand and so there are all sorts of little details that we can work out once we have the broader proposal in front of us one other thing i wanted to say is that as far as marketing goes we also have ways to get the word out through social media as well through the city if indeed this is a a partnership and so it wouldn't just be on you to necessarily get the marketing done in order to get community engagement i think that one space that you guys are

041narrowing in on is right across from a dte property um so they may be interested in supporting in some way cool yeah and we might be able to to create that opportunity for introduction as well so and the last thing i want to say is aaron so nice to see you a former uh arts engine uh micro grant recipient so that's true thank you anyway great to see you both of course um but just wanted to do a little shout out there to say yeah nice to see you nice to see that you're uh how you're expanding to support the community oh thank you thank you well thank you both for coming and feel free to reach out to us with any other follow-up questions as you're putting together that application um and you're welcome

042to stay and stick around and listen to the rest of our meeting although i don't know how inspiring or fun it will be um or you can get onto the rest of your evening i'm sure it'll be scintillating but uh the rest of your evening will probably also is as well yeah i think we're gonna take some time to hop on over and start uh looking up the the application yeah great we look forward thank you so so much for joining me thank you and hopefully we'll talk to you all soon all right so our other um public commentary uh is not happening tonight um i will be talking to jeff uh next week so i will come back and let you guys know if there's anything regarding that that needs further input if you

043needed wants to jump in yeah um could we let um glenn uh come on next and do a presentation now before we go all the way through the agenda through the group sessions well it's funny i i struggled with how to start this because this project uh is is maybe only about seven or ten days old it it just it just started a couple weeks ago with uh a quick discussion with venita and sarah and david um so i i do have a very short presentation uh to share i so crudely put it together today just in an effort to have some talking points so forgive me um it won't be nearly as colorful as aaron and julian's uh presentation but um as a as just a way of uh of means of an introduction

044to this to this new endeavor um veneta uh are you able to pull up uh some slides here well she's filling that up glenn can you tell everybody who maybe doesn't know you who you are and what you do allison that's my very first slide oh allison you get the two dollars for the lead-in my name is glenn wizorick i'm the engineer at the water plant and uh i have been working on city of ann arbor projects for about 17 years now um most of them uh for the water plant but they have extended to uh parks and rec and also on a couple instances um directly with the art commission um there were two projects in in particular uh can everybody see the slide here yes uh the two projects that i thought to

045to share with you today uh is on the left here the manchester elevated tank um some of you may be real familiar with that whole process but that was an extraordinary public engagement uh effort um receiving uh citywide votes on this i believe if i recall we we received uh almost 4 000 votes um on on this artwork and uh and and this is the end result it is a matter of fact it received the tank of the year award it's a national award um for this painting project and the second project that i was involved in was the canoe art project my scope was was uh not so artistic but rather it was uh designing and constructing uh the foundations for the artwork there so um that was uh that was still nevertheless uh

046an extremely interesting project so uh vanita next slide that brings us to um this this new uh possibility uh we are here with these two pictures here we are inside the water plant um this is near the the entrance to the to the um the front entrance of the plant in the conference room this is a two-story stairwell that leads the public um from the ground floor up to the second floor and we are undergoing um some fairly sizable renovations at the water plant right now and we're going to continue to do so over the next few years but right now they involve a lot of interior work and that kind of sparked some interest in what to do here with the stairwell uh you can see it's a very large blank slate basically without

047much interest and the fact that uh this stairwell plays an important role in our uh tours our open house tours of the water plant every year um in addition to the corridor for public staff up to uh public up to the uh the laboratory and the in the control room um this is a uh highly traveled area that will receive a lot of uh viewership so um again i think uh that that this uh kind of sparked some interest in maybe painting of a mural of some sort to really uh brighten up the space and play a part of our public engagement process um so we kind of incorporated on the tours uh vanita next slide really quickly this was just another ground floor view showing the two-story nature of the space next slide so

048obviously we have not discussed any sort of style or ideas but just for the sake of discussion um i wanted to share a few things that i was aware of along the these lines and in the smithsonian there's this fantastic uh artwork here's construction of a dam um incidentally it's it's so interesting to me because this is this is essentially the exact year that the water plant originally finished construction and and came into service um you know i'm just sharing here again possible ideas of of things that could end up in that space something of a of a you know municipal construction type nature venita next slide and similar to that i think we're all familiar with the mural and the detroit institute of arts um this is also of that same uh era in

049the early 1930s and uh drawing upon like the art deco features of our original water plant next slide and incidentally i was able to grab some pictures from the lansing board of water and light and they in fact i coincidentally ended up with murals along this line too showing infrastructure and and and and the construction process and the in the construction workers and you know essentially the history in the backbone of of how they got to to who they are now uh i think the next slide is just another view of some of that you can you can see it's quite a dramatic uh entry at the lansing board of water and light last slide uh is the point that i just wanted to make with this is you you know it can be it

050can be anything we we haven't started the process really just yet um you know it could be educational in nature where it's reflecting uh like our own watershed of the huron river um similar to like the artwork on the manchester elevated tank that was uh here on river water life there are ideas of maybe a mural uh tying into specific components of our water plant where it could be um discussion points on an educational tour because we do receive you know in different times we receive regular busload tours of students throughout southeastern michigan [Music] so the there's there's all sorts of ideas and i'm and i'm just sharing um just to just to let the the juices stir a little bit but um the engineer in me also thinks that maybe the stairwell we don't

051want to have a spot for too much reading you know we do you don't want people stopping and and uh doing anything dangerous on a stairwell but nevertheless uh this does present a great opportunity to really liven the space serve part of our public engagement strategy and uh and and also be um an educational tour in the in the whole process um veneta and craig uh if i say anything incorrect please let me know um i'm understanding that the budget for this is about uh 25 000 right now and uh um the details have not uh necessarily been hammered out yet um you know whether it's uh a call to art or or commissioning of a artist directly there's a lot to be hammered out still however one some of the input that i am

052receiving from plant staff though is that uh we do want some sort of control on some level about what goes in there just because we feel it's it's so critical to our public engagement strategy knowing that this is the exact path um for all of our public tours and and all of the uh school tours and the open house we envision uh using that as part of the story that we're telling and that leads to the upstairs where we're going to have further historical photographs of the construction of the water plant just really telling the whole story because the history the history is is is is quite impressive you know it's well documented way back from the early 30s and uh and much of that still exists today uh is is there is there anything

053else venita and craig that i should be adding at this point no i would just add a little bit to the history you say to the early 30s for the water plant but the water system itself goes further back than that to earlier days when it was a private water company prior i don't remember off the top of my head glenn but it was the turn of the 18th to the 19th century if i remember correctly when the water system was first formed so there's quite a bit of history there there is yes thank you that budget is craig and are you guys looking at having city staff handle the call process to contracting it out what do you as glenn said totally unformed as of now process he is correct when we say it's

054about eight days old please please please forgive me for not having all the details here no i don't as of early this week i was having discussions with bra with brian glenn's boss about financing and how we're going to swing it etc so none of those details are formed well i would say just preliminarily i think we're all on board to help support it move it forward it's really exciting um i think it has great potential that's why i go up go ahead john ah let me see if i'm on you no i'm not um i want to compliment you uh glenn on the manchester water tower i mean i've been on the commission for too long uh but uh that's the gold standard uh that uh that was done in-house by you your in-house

055and it was widely supported that you you you had all of the many of the submissions uh at the water plant uh that it was the outreach was absolutely incredible and the final product was awesome i don't know anyone that does not like that manchester water tower and you received or the company i think received a national award for doing it so absolutely wonderful i'm delighted to hear that you're interested in doing another one because as i recall when you were presenting that you really liked it again so um that let me just in the brainstorming the five day old project give you kind of my my in feedback uh and take it as it is i'm one of uh nine or ten what really attracts me is is the notion of celebrating workers um

056um you know manual workers workers that that get trade workers that that go to community colleges i mean that's a big thing right now that that there are a lot of folks that are kind of transitioning and and i think it's a perfect opportunity uh to do that to celebrate work in in much the way the riveras and all the other things do it but maybe do a modern twist so um that that really touched me when i heard what you were saying and when i was connected to those uh murals of workers so i would encourage you to explore that but again uh this is just the minor stage i'm absolutely tickled to know that you're going to take charge of this project because i know it's just going to be absolutely awesome so

057kudos oh my gosh john thank you those those are the kindest words i i'm so appreciative thank you very much well deserved i i will say i am equally excited about this as i am the elevated tank so if uh if some of these visions uh hold true we're gonna see great things uh i was just gonna give a little more background this came up on a zoom call that sarah and bonita and glenn and i were having a week or so ago about the project that's already approved for enhancement at the water plant that's still a ways off and glenn volunteered this as an idea that he thought would be really cool a day or two later venita emailed that we had money for it i thought she was volunteering to pay for it

058well thanks venita i might add that the manchester water tower as i recall craig you correct me this was one of the first volunteer the cip projects this is one of the first ones that came about after the uh the the new um uh uh uh charter was was was changed the ordinance was changed and and and you hit it out of the park so it ties it all all in uh if i can share i know i'm speaking out of turn here i i just wanted to share um piggybacking on john here my recollection is is we receive 600 public entries for the design of that and the evaluation team scored every single one of them it was such a tremendous uh um public uh involvement uh it was it was it was quite

059exciting so thank you the challenge on this project because it's at the art at the water plant it's in a secured facility so trying to pick something where people would see it while the stairwell you would think is a crazy place to bury art but it's the only place in the plant that is likely to be seen on a regular basis by any of the public craig that's absolutely true um in fact strangely enough that's probably one of them the one spots that is viewed by the most uh public here on our site sarah you had your hand up i just wanted to say anecdotally um that i uh grew up in ann arbor going to ann arbor public schools and i remember our field trip to the water treatment plant and uh you know

060i i think and i i still remember it to this day and these have you know long lasting effects so i'm so happy to see that this is approved and moving forward and i love the presentation you put together glenn those are great ideas for what that mural could be and certainly that focus on education i think is so important um so really happy to see this move forward thank you yeah i think we're all really excited um do we know what a time the timeline is for this project at all as far as like does it have to tell us as we said this project is eight days old well i didn't know if there was like a timeline that has to be done by or like we're trying to well and you're you

061probably got another year on renovations out there yet right our capital project exactly it has about uh about a year to go maybe slightly less uh so we're in that time frame however uh in if we're doing this project right the right way doing this with you you know without compromise if that pushes our project long then then so be it we'll finish our work and we'll keep this mural going and um and finish it the right way great i'm excited i always say glenn just let us know how we can help push it forward and um you know how you want us to be involved moving forward i think we're all in support i see deb's hand before we move on though it's just um this is a great project i think it the

062stairwell is a fantastic place to do it i've spent a lot of time in stairwell art and on the stairwell looking at art so this is great um and the the loft of the space is really nice as well what i was going to say is i don't know that um i know that it's been eight days which means that in 24 days or so you should really have it all set to go you know the planning phase is always about a quarter of it and so um but i did want to be a little more serious and say you know the fact that you've got the green light and the fact that there may be funds encumbered and the fact that you might be able to move forward on some of the planning aspects

063of it sooner rather than later might not be such a bad thing it would be a lot more time for public commentary it would allow more time for um you know work getting gathering excitement um making the call more broad things like that and so i don't know that i would wait the whole year before getting this rolling um i think i might want to strike a little earlier while resources excitement and that eight day push has really gotten things underway so um that would just be my only advice is not to put it off too long but really keep the interest rising and the put pieces in place and if you're done a little early and ready to go before the renovations are done so be it so the commission understands the timeline for

064this is not necessarily tied to the timelines for the architectural renovation they the project the architectural renovations is the parent of the funding but not driving the project anyone else have any last-minute questions or do you have any questions for us glenn uh i don't have any questions um however as the project evolves i'd be happy to continue updates great we love that all right thank you okay thank you um for those familiar faces it was all great to see you again and and for all the new faces um i i hope uh i hope this will all be a great experience for everybody thank you thanks glenn okay take care bye all right next on our agenda is old business which it looks like we don't have any and then new business which we

065don't think you skipped a minute oh minutes isn't on my agenda but we can do minutes um so minutes um we have two minutes to review and approve so the first one we'll look at is last meetings um the january minutes so do i have a motion to approve john a second deb great any discussion no all in favor aye any opposed great those minutes are approved um the other minutes we have to look at and approve are the um december that's that retreat that we do um and do i have a motion to john do i have a second deb thank you any discussion oh and i'm sorry if sarah would like to be the second on that i'm more than happy to uh okay sarah a second they yield the seconding so um

066david your hand went up for a discussion yeah on the third page of that there's a presentation discussion at the top of the first paragraph of that page and in particular down toward the bottom of that paragraph it says that a recent mural installment on the back exterior pot belly represents is a new art take on the convergence of university life i think either represents or is needs to come out of that before it gets posted great benita's doing a thumbs up she's gotta change that i i noticed on the fifth page um it's just a formatting thing the special projects group means it just needs to be a space and then it underlines so it's clear that the bullets underneath the special project group relate to that and i read it and i was

067like that's not the policy and governance but it's just a little formatting thing there any other discussion of the minutes um so i would assume those are fake our in-kind changes or and we can just move forward with approving the minutes with those small changes all in favor um as long as the the uh first and second person are you okay with moving forward with those small changes i'm seeing some thumbs up great all in favor any opposed great we've got minutes from our last two meetings um i it looks like i'm working off of a draft agenda so please correct me if i miss anything else the next thing on my agenda is old business nothing there and then i have new business which i have nothing okay and then we have report from

068staff i'll i'll jump in starting off with the allen creek berm project update um the construction on that the berm tunnel is essentially complete there's restoration work that needs to be done landscaping work in the spring the issue we have on that project is we are significantly over budget on the project and so currently there is not available funds for the mural at the end of on the wall not saying that it won't happen but it's not going to happen in this springtime the nature of the cost overruns are without saying too much there's probably some lawsuits involved and until those wind their way through we won't know fully what funding is left for that but that all being said that might be a site for these folks that presented earlier in the meeting to

069do one of their murals so and the space is is prepped for a mural correct it had it is what the treatment was left neutral uh they'll probably have to strip the sealer off the wall to put the mural on it but i don't think it has the full anti-graffiti coating on that stretch if i remember correctly the other piece of news on the allen creek berm opening a corporation has come forward and is interested in doing art at the intersection of the tunnel walkway in depot street and i have as of this morning when i was talking to their rep they would like to be on their next meetings agenda to talk about what they are thinking about and what possible treatments they would fully fund for that entrance way does it make sense

070for them to put together the formal application like we just told aaron and julian yeah we can ask them to do that it might just percolate and give them some ideas about what we might ask them about in that meeting and they might become more prepared or whatever when you see who it is they are a very well known large real estate investor in the area they hold they build projects and hold on to them they don't build them and flip them and they might be near the tunnel location if that gives you any clue greg you also have their their name in our minutes yeah i think you may have told us yeah it's first martin um but have they done i have has first martin done public art projects previously yeah that that

071the trestle is their art project they preserve the trestle and put a rail car up there okay they the issue for them will be the public engagement part but we will share the the application for them to use when they come back great okay did i see someone did someone have a hand sophie yeah i was just wondering whether it's possible legal or wise to put a sign up near either of these places that aren't funded for murals and things saying we would love to have a mural here if you want to contribute to this happening send money here wherever or is that um not done because a lot of the people going under those places probably think this really needs a mural and they might you know be willing to help it out generally

072the city has not gone out and sought funding i'm not saying we couldn't but that has been the past practice um we're not into the crowd funding etc the nearest we came to that was the jewett memorial chairs and we didn't do it an individual did it and it got vanitas shaking your head they're not in your head it got quite hairy john was there for that uh extravaganza i think don't put me there no ability to have a dedicated source or our place that people would donate to that would automatically go towards public art and that would be the area foundation well sort of i mean i think that and i think that having i think that there might be a both and for what sophie is suggesting that we should probably talk more

073of as a group is that certainly something to get people to uh look into more information about something is always a good thing and then talking about the possibilities of where funding might come from or how they can contribute either through uh you know spreading the word about it or something else but i do think that there should be a way for the um the public to engage back about the project if they want more information or if they might be interested in donating to the endowment those kinds of things so i think that there is a really good sort of pr element there that could lead to some funding toward public art in general and we could also then talk about how any donations that might go to the foundation for this might somehow

074be reworked into our annual uh interest take toward a project so for instance if you contributed to the endowment a certain amount that amount could then be used from our interest earnings up to a certain point against that project so i think we can do some shifting that would allow for some crowd sourcing that might not be quite as direct as money to money but that would generate interest in things that we already do have set up and make raise awareness that way uh john me dovetail and dab i think it's a great idea what sophie has brought up is that we should think about engaging not just opinions but also money from folks so that they can buy in to what we're doing uh these particular projects however i think come funded i mean

075the folks from burns park they're pretty confident they have the money and it it sounds like uh first martin does have the money uh so it may not be these projects to start with but i think sophie's idea is worth exploring as deb has mentioned maybe even something after a project if you like this you can actually help with the next one and this is how you help but i think that um that's a great idea that sophie has brought up and it should be explored we have some working group i'm sure that could do that oh i'm sure we can make a working group if we don't have one john i mean we only have 45 working groups so you know sure else it needs another one to be on yeah yeah there's the

076fundraising work group who should put this into their thinking caps and try to make something like this happen for sure yeah even just like a qr code somewhere nearby to as john says some of the more popular ones and uh like the the canoe one and things and uh you might get a few you know few pennies added good idea sophie thank you alison if i could be so bold to move on to the next one um the city flag project i have had conversations with uh mayor taylor we i i owe him the whereas i mean that therefore clauses of a resolution for council to use to direct uh or request the ann arbor public art commission to take on the project the project of a city flag i admit i got sidetracked the

077last three weeks with some family matters but we'll be back on track and i suspect travis you might want to sponsor that along with the mayor when it comes yeah i was just going to say i actually also spoke with the mayor this week about it and um similarly uh he he mentioned that he spoke with mr hubey and um was was hoping to to have a resolution that we could work on together and so um we anticipate that um likely to come sometime soon but i think he was also thinking uh that this would probably be a project for the spring so i don't think we're behind or anything like that so um so yeah we but we will certainly work on that and have something to bring to council so that we can

078provide some direction to this body i i it is direction but i think of it as cover for this body to go forth and do it okay have the um apec project folder update on here or at least on my draft agenda i think everybody's gotten a link already from jake on accessing that project folder shaking no okay um you should have an email from jake chase it's a microsoft account um if you don't have it i can certainly send it back out or ask that he forward that back out to you you probably may not have recognized what it was coming from jake chase and microsoft hopefully didn't get caught in a spam folder so this is what's going to give you access to that really cool shared folder that venita shared with us

079last meeting and there'll be individual folders for each of our working groups where you can upload files that you guys are sharing and working on together there's also going to be um other documents that are more like reference for you as far as meeting minutes and agendas and bylaws and all that kind of stuff also did i be looking for an email from someone called jake chase yes john did you get yours how did yours come through okay it was filtered uh through updates or something like that with okay gmail but uh it did not get spammed okay i guess if you don't if you look through your emails and you don't see it just let vanita know and she can um work with jake to get you that information yeah i can't i'm doesn't

080come up in search so i don't know c-h-a-s-e nothing there it seems like a resend might be best fanita yeah yeah it looks like sophie and david could use a recent anyone else need a resend raise your hand i have found it in my spam box oh you found it sophie yeah great so it looks like sarah might want to resend too bonita any other updates from bonita or craig no all right we'll move on to our reports from our work groups um and start with our business owners and developers work group nothing to report uh the design review board did not meet okay um cip working group okay so hopefully you got my email um with a couple pages of recommendations for you which i would hope i could put my finger on and

081i'm not right now so there were a few things on there that were a little that we might want to discuss the the main one being there are several big housing projects added to the the cip this year um and they've been a there's been a lot of public discussion about them using city land and um and obviously the tax millage that was just passed very recently so they've been added to the cip and we would love to have public art on them i have reached out to jennifer hall at the housing commission i have not gotten a response back so we haven't talked to her about these and i don't know you know what the possibility is of um using that millage money or what other sources there may be typically the tax credits

082that they get for public health or affordable housing barely pays for the project so they haven't had a lot of possibility in the past this one just has some new things about it so that's one that's that we're still trying to refine the other one is that i had put in there about this project that we just discussed at the water plant the stair painting and i don't know if that really needs to go in here because it's kind of already funded it's not really part of the enhancement process that's that last one that you see right there um that bonita just put up but there were a couple others that we thought were were worth putting in there for enhancement we've also been having a lot of discussions with people about either potential new

083projects or projects that were already approved for enhancement and how we can get involved in those so some of them are starting to to move forward not all of them by any means but a couple of them are starting to have a little bit of movement so we hope to see something happening maybe in the next year or two with another art project so david i know that includes one of the fire stations can you can you elaborate a little bit which ones are we are hoping are are likely to move forward within yeah we have there were a couple of fire station projects in the cip that we got approved a couple years ago and one of them it's the replacement of the fire station on huron parkway south of washington so they're tearing

084the existing one down and rebuilding it it's a pretty tight site but because of the odd shape of the site there will be some land available there's also a park right next door so it's possible i i would think maybe it'd be possible for the artwork to go in the park um instead of on the site if we just can't find a place uh we also in the part process of discussing that did some online looking in the the fire chief sent us some stuff about artwork that he'd seen and liked and there are a lot of cool examples of fire station or fire related artwork that have been done at fire stations around the country so there's a lot of cool models that we can work with but they're they are just in the

085process of signing up an agreement with the architect who'd be working on that so they don't even have the building design yet um you know they'll talk with them about whether it's possible to incorporate a place for art but it may be something that we need to kind of come in afterward and figure out how it can go because it's such a tight sight and a difficult program but this is the perfect time to be having those conversations you know with the architect involved you know potentially could go on an exterior wall or something you know so i'm excited that we're hitting the ground running at this point rather than coming in at the final moment like yeah and he was very supportive of doing something with it as well that was good david i

086would leave the stairwell project on your document uh so that anybody looking at it knows that that's one that has the commission support okay my only question is craig this is this is document is being prepared to go to city council for their approval um what if they look at it and say well we don't want that i would hope that we don't go there with that but i would rather fight that battle there at council than finding out that we're doing art without their knowledge i i don't expect that that's going to be an issue this time around i mean we haven't been opposed to art they've just been opposed to paying for and we've already got the money for this one yeah that's right john i know it's late i'll be very brief

087but i'd be remiss uh david comes around with these opportunities once a year this in my opinion is the single best opportunity to expand the public art collection of ann arbor what we are doing is that we are leveraging material that's already going into municipal construction and incorporating creative design public art um and this is huge it's actually in the ordinance uh and it's more than one line it goes through a it tasks us with discovering to uh to to counsel the council uh to advise the council on what projects have the greatest opportunity for public art david and his team spent two years identifying um um a way of doing that a process of doing that and how to do it and he's applied that to these cip projects uh and as allison has

088pointed out this is the best way to incorporate our actually within the building it's at the design process not sticking it on to the end so this is near and dear to my heart um this is i believe one of the most important things the art commission can do and it has the greatest opportunity to actually uh expand the art collection so i've i've done my little piece i will do it next year but uh kudos to david and the other thing that i think is really important is allison is now on that cip committee that's absolutely i think essential to get the chair of the art commission and you know i mean david knows the mechanics of this machine that he's invented and it you know i mean it comes out very well so

089if there is in fact opposition to council uh we council members that support our will say i know because they've done it before look this is exactly what we've asked the art commission to do this is what they're doing for us and this isn't approving a specific art piece this is just saying the project has potential enough to build a slot into it moving forward and if as craig pointed out the tunnel project ends up not having enough money that's what happens but at least we planned it into it so i'm sorry i've said enough thank you very much well and so today we're looking at these recommendations and david is are we going to approve them here so that they can move forward or what were we hoping um yeah i would like to

090approve them so that we can start seeing when they might go to council hopefully we'll have time to talk to jennifer hall before it goes to council and we'll have a better sense of what that piece of it can happen but it usually takes quite a while to get onto a council agenda with us i also want to throw in from john's discussion thank you need to mention that sarah fuller joined our committee this year our work group and has put in a lot of time on zoom calls with me so thank you for that as well forward sarah forward or onward onward as the mayor says so i guess i would make it a motion to approve those recommendations if anyone would like to second it second seconding any discussion great deb i think

091we should do it all right i'll approve all in favor okay any opposed great it's approved thank you thank you david yep craig and vanita let us know when that gets put onto city council's agenda travis that'll be a big one for you to want to push forward and you know touch base with us if you have any questions about these projects that can be really um not complicated i guess is the wrong word because it's like not described at all what the projects are in the cip but david has a good grasp on what these projects are if you want more information on what they potentially could be no i don't nobody does as good of a grasp as we can have on what these projects might be in the next 10 years or

092whatever most of them are still quite a ways off so yeah that'll never happen so if we want if we want that on the march first agenda we'd have to hear back um by february 16th in order to have it on that march agenda yeah um the next a deadline date for staff would be march the 3rd and it would go on the march 15th agenda so those are the the dates to try to hear back from jennifer yeah and and none of this is a commitment that each project that we recommend or even that gets approved will have art on it some may not work out but this is what we've been tasked to do by council so we have to submit something and they can decide where to go with it and but

093i i know that it's been said but i think it's worth being re-said and and maybe said again so i'm going to help here david maybe it's helpful these are projects that may or may not have art but could have no obligations far in the future no money being ascribed to it this in this moment am i am i doing okay so far david money is sort of a range a budget range is in the proposal it does get attached to it in the cip for whatever that's worth but not encumbered no so just just to be clear what this is it is it is a planning document of the first kind yes right do you have any other discussion around this item before we move on to our next working group thank you so

094much david and sarah um we will move on to the communication and art placement work group um we have not met so we will have an update for you next time uh same with fundraising same with the leadership forum this past month guys um nominating and membership i don't know who's on that one is that me too i don't think so since you're a chair right the hardest working commission in the city that's all i can say i i think i might be on that and uh that has been a working group we don't have a report i think we're full up for members anyways right and it's also to nominate a slate for leadership so what is done in the past is that this working group told everyone to find out how they feel

095about the existing leadership and who they think might be good leaders in the future and that this working group would use all of that and create a slate to present for uh that says if i do i have that am i is that the working group i'm talking about i think so knowledgeable yeah you're on there with jonah jonas on with you as well okay okay so it's just a matter of timing for when that that leadership piece turns over and i believe that's at the fiscal is it not um you know it's at the annual did we did we have a vote uh on uh on the chair uh what month is this well we february well we we should have had a vote in january i think so maybe we are a little

096bit uh behind um i will i will send out a survey and try to get everyone um and we can do that at our next meeting and and present a slate with um how many years have you been allison is this your third year coming up or have you already had the chair can only serve for three years i can be done at the end of this time i can be done at the end of this time at the end of this year yeah yeah let's just let her go for another year if i might recommend um uh veneta could you ascertain uh when our last uh leadership change occurred and yeah i thought those were part of the minutes for for december though there there are three folks coming up they may be in

097the minutes for december that december retreat i'll take a look at that instead that's for membership that's for replacements for council people or i mean commissioners correct yeah and it gives the yes and it's the end dates as well right right but what i want to go back to is when did we last when did we typically have our leadership votes when were uh my my sense of it was that it was later than january but if it was january then we are indeed behind okay i think it's in the ordinance whatever so i think if we can we can find that out vanita can find that out and um uh and and we'll just assume that allison this year would be her third year she hasn't already served and uh i can have a

098seance right now uh i think we can nail this down for the next meeting so okay do we get to do like putin mid video switcheroos and you can step down and then step back up again later or is it three years and that's it you're done well though i think i i think it's three consecutive but there were a lot of discussion with previous council with previous commissioners that we we wanted to uh set in place kind of a um a way of of training leaders so uh if everything goes well that mexico the vice chair would move into the best position for chair justice allison was my vice chair she became chair and so the whole idea of identifying folks that might be have potential for leadership is important and then this working

099group would reach out to those folks to see do they have any interest and i can tell you we reach out to david esau constantly and he constantly says no thank you but um so i'm sorry travis no you're fine but while we were talking here i did pull up the bylaws from the the website and it does say that the the term of each officer shall run to the date of the commission's regular meeting in january and something should have done in december yeah that was um so we definitely need to do it um as soon as we can and uh we just need to get those pieces in place so john do you need anything uh from any of us at this point or would you like our help with getting that reset

100up no i i think i have a copy of the survey it's like three questions you know tell us what you think of the existing leadership tell us whether you'd be interested tell us if you can recommend anyone else on the art commission that would be interested in the future so we assemble all of that and um and i think it might be what did you like best about uh the leadership i don't like we don't ask what david i i was just going to say is there any reason not to just vote on this right now yes no let's do it let's do it a lot of time but no no that's what i said no no you're gonna say no no we need to go through the process right i mean if this

101is an annual process we need to need to follow it even if we're late okay i'll do it and jonah i will tie him in we'll get it done because one of the things that concerns me and and this is something that why i said you know john if you want to you know chat with allison and i about this afterwards i mean while this is getting put together because you only have two people on the committee and maybe you could use a hand uh but the other piece of it is is that um since it's january and those terms are calendar wise they don't necessarily intersect with people's terms so we need to be cognizant of that as well i mean for instance my term is up in i believe may correct and so

102voting me in for any sort of three-year term is is something we need to probably look at a little more carefully well you'd only be voted in for one year but there's only half a year left but if you're not interested in being reappointed then uh well the thing is that you you can serve as vice chair and when you when it's vacated i think it says when it's vacated we can we can re-elect a vice chair but right that's correct but i think that that that having that all laid out is important before entering into that that commitment i love the way you're thinking about this deb i will put a draft together i i will share it with you and allison and you can give me feedback one thing i might suggest we

103do this evening if indeed we are currently rudderless by statute is that we could uh huzzah a temporary until such time as uh a temporary continuance of the current leadership until the next meeting or the time that we decide will be the vote we could do that if it made people feel better so moved you got that bonita the way that i phrased that it's very carefully worded resolution back to the recording thank you all right we have a second second any discussion hold on i i can't see everybody with the document up so no discussion okay uh so all in favor aye any opposed all right you're stuck with us for as long as it till the next vote at least my apologies not really being on top of this better you know i

104just want to say just for for the gather because you know i i really love you guys and all but the pandemic has really just thrown off our time frames in ways that i would never have expected to happen you know and it is not just here and it is amazing how the time soup has affected most of the other organizations i'm on uh my colleagues at the university it has been difficult keeping track of what is normally very routine so i just want to say that you know we we shouldn't beat ourselves up too much over this we just need to do what we need to do to get back on track yeah i would say vanita if possible would it be could you make note of like specific things that we should be

105voting on at certain meetings so like in december it sounds like we should be voting on leadership um and then in january we should be approving an annual plan you know those kinds of things that we have to have specific um votes on but could you make a note of that in some sort of document that you share with us in that folder so that we can um all of those things are already in the folder i have a feeling that what we should look at would be the annual retreat in december and pulling some of those things off of there and adding them to that site for all to access that'd be fine i just i just don't want to be charged with doing it and keeping track of making deadlines so if somebody

106else wants to work with me on that i'd be happy to do that work group should be doing it and i was remiss no no no dad thanks uh one of the the other things that has been done is that on some committees that i'm on where there is an annual thing is that the template that there are templates for each of those agendas and it just sits on the template and so when you pull up the december agenda it's like oh look there it is or when you get the project the project folder does have calendars so we would be able to put all of those things exactly on that calendar within the phone right and even even whatever it takes to just get it so that you don't even have to even look

107at the calendar the agenda template comes up for december and there it is so yeah no that would be great thank you [Music] moving on okay so we will look for something from john survey wise coming up for that group um policy and governance um in our last meeting we had talked about how the line item was moving forward um have we heard anything back about that bonita i'm sorry i didn't hear we had talked about in our last meeting that the line item that we were asking for potentially for funding had been dropped off at whatever office it was supposed to go to did you get anything back on that no no it did not go i i don't know what council agenda it was on we were due to have it in by

108february 1st i haven't been notified that it's been on agenda yet okay but it is it has gone in yes so it's out of our hands was that just an annual budget request so yeah whenever they did that and the budget is still being formed yeah it was the dedicated line item yes that's probably a may vote right yes okay um special projects let me um golden paintbrush is teetering on the brink of being ready to go in what a day or two if you need to the um we've been having discussions with the design department who've been finishing up designing all the uh nomination forms for the website and and the virtual flyer and things like that so um wasn't quite ready for this meeting but i think in the next couple of days

109it might be yeah i think robert's working on the um website is already except that he has the survey attached to the website and i think he's all set with that so he probably sophie will reach out to you or i sometime before the week is out i don't know that you're ready to push that live just yet you should probably have something else look at it first but yeah yeah he will he will share a preview of that first but i'm pretty sure when you say yes he's ready to click the button and i just had a question sophie because i looked at that again today i know we've been drafting doing drafts back and forth did we ever change the deadline submission for nominations or did we keep that as april could we

110move that to later i don't have that you know bonita i don't have it pulled up right here i was just worried that if we you know when we started this in the fall it looked like we had a lot of time for nominations and i just want to make sure we give ourselves enough time for nominations because i do feel like um like deb mentioned time kind of goes yeah yeah no well actually what what robert was saying was that it's better not to have an endlessly long nomination period because then it concentrates people's minds a bit more if they think oh it was sometime in the future and then they go oh when was that you know and then he said so he said keep it as it is but um i only

111thought about it today because we're i'm involved in an education project with the university of michigan art museum and i'd love to nominate this partner not i can't but i'd like someone to nominate it but i don't know if the project will be done by the end of april so since we incorporated education as part of our yeah i don't think it has to be i mean if you know that it is finishing okay then that's okay i think yeah right i'll go back i think you can nominate it completely part of it is we could nominate ourselves artists could announce so you could nominate the project okay my understanding i i also just wanted sofia as that becomes available in the next couple of days i know that i mentioned this before but as

112soon as you can let me know as well and i'll make sure that all of my colleagues are aware and so that we can help spread the word as well and post to our social media and share in our newsletters that folks are interested in helping with that thank you does the timeline allow for if you don't get as many submissions as as you think are enough does it allow you to potentially extend the deadline if you want to um i don't think anybody will come and smack our hand if we do but uh i would rather not even if there aren't a huge number i think it would be better to start with not that many nominations for the first year and build up from there because otherwise people get to assume you're going

113to extend it you know what i mean so in this one i guess my question was more not about the number or if you just didn't get any quality nominations or something there's that potential for not sure if there's a requirement that we give all of the all of the you know awards out i can't remember whether it's required that we do or not i don't think it was it was just up to a certain number so if one we get one okay all right any other questions or anything related to the special projects um the next group i just want i'm sorry else and i just want to say hooray a couple of days it's going to get launched i just want to say great work good job hooray come on sophie oh y'all

114take my feet to the fire there yeah really near the fire anyway uh and then we have the youth outreach group work group yeah actually jonah and i we had an email conversation and we were going to meet soon to kind of talk about that great um i i was in a meeting this week with um a gentleman his name is trevor stone he's been hired by the neutral zone as their artist in residency and he's really interested in involving some young people and painting a mural so i thought that he might be a great connection to our pickle street mural company so anyway we'll work on that and jonah and i are going to talk soon he's on the side right riverside gallery in the past yeah i wasn't familiar with him but when

115i brought him up at my art meeting today everyone knew him do you know him sophie well he used to be at riverside oh okay okay he's got a lot of energy you know when you come on a new job you got a lot of energy and tons of ideas so good guy yeah i think mary thief is had that job for a while didn't she i think she did yeah all right well before we adjourn are there any um updates or things that anyone would like to share for the greater good sarah um this is information i actually just got yesterday that i thought might be good to pass on to the business development group and i my apologies because i had forgotten who was on it so i would have said this via

116email but just wanted to give a quick uh shout out um my day job at motowee i received an email from uh someone who works at kla which is a new company that is going to be building a big headquarters here in ann arbor um this is by woodridge avenue near the u of m botanical gardens they reached out because they'd like to do a make a tile workshop with us uh for their employees to create a wall of uh employee artwork tile artwork um and it just made me think if they're thinking in that along those veins um and this is a huge campus that they will be constructing um it might be worth uh reaching out and seeing if there can be any collaboration uh in terms of other artworks they might want

117to incorporate in that campus um i can you know who is on the the work the business development work group just so i can john and david john and john all right so i will send you um a link uh just so you can see the campus it's very contemporary um really interesting looking and uh could be a good connection thank you um i have an announcement which is that the formerly ann arbor women artists as a few months couple of months ago became huron river art collective and has been working its little cotton socks off to get a new website up with a new name which hopefully next week will be up and running and so look out for that here on river art collective it's got all new graphics all new mission trying

118to be bigger and more inclusive and more exciting and more diverse and all that it should be good and i'm on the board of that which is too many things but there we are great i just wanted to say that many of you are probably aware of the university of michigan president's arts initiative that he implemented as a three-year project about a year ago the pandemic sort of delayed that a little bit but they have um recently posted for a managing director position for that arts initiative at the university of michigan and i just wanted to sort of say that out loud to the viewing audience and to each of you all to just have a look at that and if you are yourselves perhaps interested or know someone that might be interested or good

119for that position um please inform them of that opening right well if there are no more announcements uh is there a motion to adjourn do i have to do that emotion john second all in favor hi hi all right good work everyone thank you have a good night thank you bye you