W Tali Hairston: OK.
Tom Fay: We're good.
W Tali Hairston: We're good. OK. OK.
W Tali Hairston: It is now 206 and we have a special quorum and I'd like to call this special
W Tali Hairston: meeting of the Seattle Public School Board of trustees to order.
W Tali Hairston: I'll note that this is a special meeting due to a date change from May 29 to May
W Tali Hairston: 27th.
W Tali Hairston: Alright, we do need a motion to approve the agenda
W Tali Hairston: for today.
Faith Pettis: 2nd.
W Tali Hairston: It's been moved and 2nd all in favor, aye.
Yazmin Mehdi: Aye.
Ron Chew: OK.
W Tali Hairston: Opposed.
W Tali Hairston: OK.
W Tali Hairston: It has the agenda, has the perm approved?
W Tali Hairston: And as noted at the top of the agenda for today's meeting,
W Tali Hairston: the Library Board is accepting public comments related to items on the agenda.
W Tali Hairston: By e-mail, in person and at the Central Library and
W Tali Hairston: in this remote meeting as well is there, are there any public comments for today?
There is no one present here at the Central Library.
No one has signed up in the Q& A section and you did not receive public
comment via e-mail.
W Tali Hairston: Awesome. Thank you.
W Tali Hairston: We do not have any public comments.
W Tali Hairston: We do have our consent agenda with minutes from our April 21st meeting and
W Tali Hairston: our April 24th.
W Tali Hairston: Excuse me. April 21st special meeting in our April
W Tali Hairston: 24th regular meeting.
W Tali Hairston: And the April 2025.
W Tali Hairston: Finance Report.
W Tali Hairston: Does anyone have any changes in so I hear them? If not,
W Tali Hairston: may I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda as published?
Faith Pettis: I'll move approval of the consent agenda as published.
Yazmin Mehdi: And I will second.
W Tali Hairston: Is it moon and 2nd all in favor?
Yazmin Mehdi: Aye.
W Tali Hairston: Aye.
Bendixen, Carmen: Aye.
Ron Chew: Aye.
W Tali Hairston: Opposed.
W Tali Hairston: Alright, we have our consent agenda approved.
W Tali Hairston: Let us move to our next item on the agenda the Chief Librarian report.
Tom Fay: Alright. Well thank you all.
Tom Fay: Hard to believe we're already at the end of May, but here we are. On May 1st,
Tom Fay: we held our annual All Staff day and this year,
Tom Fay: instead of being all in one location like we have in many years at the Convention
Tom Fay: Center, we had Staff Day local so.
Tom Fay: It was held throughout the system at various various locations.
Tom Fay: Obviously our our buildings and our services were closed except for our
Tom Fay: online services.
Tom Fay: Was that day.
Tom Fay: It was a great chance for folks to connect in person with colleagues,
Tom Fay: many of them within regions.
Tom Fay: It was good to see a lot of faces that day as well.
Tom Fay: We had our staff recognition awards and.
Tom Fay: We had a lot of effort.
Tom Fay: That goes into this. As you can imagine, making sure that food is arriving for
Tom Fay: people throughout the system, as well as making sure there's
Tom Fay: coordination of the online training that we offered that day.
Tom Fay: Messages from the mayor, myself.
Tom Fay: To the staff as well as all the individual and.
Tom Fay: Group sessions that were going on with additional training throughout the system.
Tom Fay: Big thanks to the library programs and Services division and leadership.
Tom Fay: For all their work, putting it together, the public scheduling office also to get
Tom Fay: as many people there, it does require some shifting of
Tom Fay: schedules.
Tom Fay: And of course, all of our supervisors and managers who
Tom Fay: spent a lot of time that day engaging with their teams and in various
Tom Fay: activities.
Tom Fay: On May 16th, the Central Library hosted the main
Tom Fay: Seattle reads program for 2025.
Tom Fay: The selection this year was you are here poetry in the natural world by Ada Lemon,
Tom Fay: who is the US poet laureate.
Tom Fay: Pleased to introduce Miss Lamont for an engaging program of really thought
Tom Fay: provoking session that that evening.
Tom Fay: The variety and depth of this 24th Seattle reads has really been outstanding,
Tom Fay: and it's hard to believe that.
Tom Fay: We've had this many years of the program, but it continues to grow and is still
Tom Fay: copied worldwide.
Tom Fay: Lawmakers in Olympia did finalize the state budget on April 27th.
Tom Fay: And just to note, they declined to include funding for the
Tom Fay: Washington State Library and the Washington talking Book and Braille
Tom Fay: Library.
Tom Fay: The Office Secretary of State's office requested 6.7 million in the budget,
Tom Fay: and while the House budget contained 2. 7 and the Senate budget contained 1.2,
Tom Fay: there was no money for the libraries in the final budget passed by the
Tom Fay: legislature.
Tom Fay: As a result, both libraries are facing layoffs and
Tom Fay: severe cuts to services, and 47 employees who have received layoff
Tom Fay: notices. The cuts could lead to full closure or
Tom Fay: significant closure of the talking book and Braille Library,
Tom Fay: and it is the only library in the state for seeing.
Tom Fay: Impaired individual individuals.
Tom Fay: We also know that the Washington State Library may also have very limited access.
Tom Fay: As far as physical access.
Tom Fay: To the material in the collection there in Olympia and we continue to work
Tom Fay: obviously in any ways we can to support Sarah Jones, the state librarian,
Tom Fay: as they go through this work.
Tom Fay: It's very disheartening to know that we had a chance within our state to fund the
Tom Fay: state library in the talking book and Braille at a level that would have
Tom Fay: sustained it, and we were unable to have our
Tom Fay: legislature approved that.
Tom Fay: I will say on a positive note, the state library did receive their block
Tom Fay: grant back from the IMLS.
Tom Fay: It was reinstated.
Tom Fay: So that did help in some areas.
Tom Fay: Unfortunately, the bulk of the funding still comes from
Tom Fay: the state.
Tom Fay: And a side note, we also in the last week had our IMLS
Tom Fay: grant around Team mentoring reinstated.
Tom Fay: We were able to get and we will be able to get our reimbursement.
Tom Fay: For funds already spent because that Grant was nearly complete,
Tom Fay: we just have a couple of reimbursement requests to finalize that grant.
Tom Fay: So some positive news on that front for us.
Tom Fay: And then pardon me.
W Tali Hairston: No, sorry, I coughed.
Tom Fay: Oh, no, no worries. Sorry about that.
Tom Fay: And then in April, just another note.
Tom Fay: You may have seen it in the press. Our colleagues at Pierce County Library
Tom Fay: system.
Tom Fay: Unfortunately, experienced the cyber attack that
Tom Fay: resulted in some data, potentially data loss and other issues
Tom Fay: that shut down their systems.
Tom Fay: Our library technology Officer, Charles Wesley,
Tom Fay: our administrative director, Rob Gannon.
Tom Fay: Communications. Laura Gentry and I met with their
Tom Fay: executive director and their team to talk through some of the insights from our own
Tom Fay: cybersecurity event from over a year ago.
Tom Fay: And it's just important to know that you know, these events are growing.
Tom Fay: Obviously in complexity and frequency and it is something that we have to continue
Tom Fay: to maintain proactive security to make sure that we don't experience another one
Tom Fay: again.
Tom Fay: And or hopefully are able to mitigate any harm that might come from another attack
Tom Fay: and with that.
Tom Fay: I do have one other good bit of news. We did have some concern about some of
Tom Fay: our FEMA hazard mitigation grant funding. We were able to put in a smaller
Tom Fay: reimbursement request and that has gone through.
Tom Fay: So that looks like it hopefully will be something that will.
Tom Fay: Go through as we continue to do that work around HVAC,
Tom Fay: then also even the one that we have for.
Tom Fay: EB charging stations.
Tom Fay: We are hopeful that grants will be maintained,
Tom Fay: at least the ones we've already received future grants.
Tom Fay: Obviously we don't know until we start putting those requests forward.
Tom Fay: And with that, I'll leave it there for any questions
Tom Fay: folks might have.
Tom Fay: Yasmin.
Yazmin Mehdi: My one question about the loss of this, the funding for the State librarian
Yazmin Mehdi: Washington talking book and Braille Library is.
Yazmin Mehdi: If those are forced to shut down completely,
Yazmin Mehdi: are there things that could not be sort of put back together in the future if God
Yazmin Mehdi: willing something good happens?
Yazmin Mehdi: S.
Tom Fay: Yeah, I you know, right now I think the hope is to you know,
Tom Fay: while they may have reduced hours or maybe even.
Tom Fay: Hours by request.
Tom Fay: They are at least trying to make sure they do that and keep enough funding to
Tom Fay: produce the material they need to produce, get material out to folks.
Tom Fay: A lot. You know, there's a lot right now that they're
Tom Fay: still figuring out.
Tom Fay: It is a significant it's more than I think it ends up being more than 50% of
Tom Fay: their budget.
Tom Fay: Gone in one cycle so hopefully we can really work to get that back and I think.
Tom Fay: I do think constituents out there will be letting our legislators know about the
Tom Fay: importance of this. So hopefully as we return to next session,
Tom Fay: which is not that far away that that funding can't be put back into place.
Yazmin Mehdi: I just wanted to note that, you know, back when I worked at the library,
Yazmin Mehdi: the Washington talk, Washington talking book and Braille
Yazmin Mehdi: Library was something that SPL actually ran.
Yazmin Mehdi: And it provides an incredible service to people all over the state and to lose it
Yazmin Mehdi: partially or completely would just be horribly devastating for its constituency
Yazmin Mehdi: and.
Yazmin Mehdi: You know.
Yazmin Mehdi: Obviously it would have been nice if the state had come up with funding,
Yazmin Mehdi: but this is really the problem is at the federal level.
Yazmin Mehdi: And I hope that the constituents of the Washington talking book and Braille
Yazmin Mehdi: Library will make their voices known.
Yazmin Mehdi: And at some point, you know, I feel like we're trying to manage
Yazmin Mehdi: through the craziness from the feds, but at some point it might be something
Yazmin Mehdi: that the Seattle Public Library would like to send.
Yazmin Mehdi: A letter on behalf of the talking book Umbrell Library, I mean,
Yazmin Mehdi: we used to put our, our, our bookmobiles used to sit in the garage
Yazmin Mehdi: at the talking book and Braille Library. We there was a very strong connection in
Yazmin Mehdi: the past.
Yazmin Mehdi: So it's just super sad. Super sad.
W Tali Hairston: Go ahead, Aryan.
Tom Fay: Praha.
Ron Chew: Yeah, if I could weigh in a little bit, I actually met a couple weeks ago with
Ron Chew: Danielle Miller, the manager of the library as well as
Ron Chew: Jennifer Kilburn with the All Foundation. And they really are in a crisis state.
Ron Chew: They were reaching out to me partly because they knew I'm with SPL.
Ron Chew: But then also because they're looking at private sources.
Ron Chew: Of fundraising, where they might go.
Ron Chew: You know.
Ron Chew: The audiobook version of my memoirs actually facilitated through John Pye,
Ron Chew: who coordinates all the author audio books that they create.
Ron Chew: And he and a number of staff are looking at losing their jobs.
Ron Chew: And again it is priceless. The support they provide to folks.
Ron Chew: One idea I suggested, Tom was perhaps.
Ron Chew: On a private fundraising side to reach out to Brian Lawrence 'cause he he has a
Ron Chew: full range of knowledge on that private side as well.
Ron Chew: I did also meet separately with Nathan Irretta,
Ron Chew: who coordinates their book Notes podcast.
Ron Chew: They've been very generous because I'm actually going to be launching a podcast
Ron Chew: later this year.
Ron Chew: And the depth of knowledge, the work they do, the audience,
Ron Chew: the service.
Ron Chew: So invaluable.
Ron Chew: So I think we need to support their work.
Ron Chew: In any way we can.
Tom Fay: Thanks.
Tom Fay: Tom.
Tom Fay: Did you have something?
W Tali Hairston: 8.
Faith Pettis: Yeah, I did just have a a comment and a
Faith Pettis: question for you and you may not have the answer Tom, on this,
Faith Pettis: but as far as the federal funding that's coming to the library,
Faith Pettis: you know there's been a lot of news around the fact that much of the.
Faith Pettis: Federal funding is getting tied right now by the Trump administration to an
Faith Pettis: executive order that limits dei immigration policy,
Faith Pettis: transgender rights and their conditioning. Some of the federal funding on.
Faith Pettis: Elimination of those programs, or at least statements by the users that
Faith Pettis: they will not have those programs in existence.
Faith Pettis: Just want to make sure that we're watching that and making sure that we're
Faith Pettis: not setting ourselves up for trouble down the road.
Faith Pettis: And I know how important that funding is, but I also wanna make sure that we're
Faith Pettis: going in eyes open.
Faith Pettis: So that's that's not something you need to necessarily talk about in public, but.
Tom Fay: Yeah.
Tom Fay: No, I agree.
Tom Fay: It it definitely is something that we look at.
Tom Fay: Obviously, we're not gonna discontinue the work that
Faith Pettis: Yep.
Faith Pettis: Right.
Tom Fay: we do in our community or with communities.
Tom Fay: So we know that it may limit certain opportunities.
Tom Fay: It's not gonna limit at all, and it will just be more selective in
Faith Pettis: Right.
Tom Fay: what what we would go for.
Faith Pettis: We're just hearing of instances where there have been even after the contract
Faith Pettis: has been signed for draws further down the road that are tied with these pop up
Faith Pettis: boxes that you have to certify you don't have those programs. So just.
Faith Pettis: An alert on that.
Tom Fay: Yeah, that's interesting times for sure.
Tom Fay: All right. Well, the one thing I think we can do as well.
Tom Fay: I'll put some thoughts together for and I'll do some checking with Sarah Jones
Tom Fay: again too, on where they really stand with this in
Tom Fay: case there's been movement elsewhere that I'm not aware of.
Tom Fay: But most certainly we can work to to have a letter out to our legislators in.
Tom Fay: The area to make sure that they really know how much.
Tom Fay: Folks utilize the service in the real need of this service in the community.
Tom Fay: This is not just a, you know, Western Washington thing.
Tom Fay: This is the entire state.
Tom Fay: I too spent time in my early career in talking books.
Tom Fay: Las Vegas system actually ran that for the state.
Tom Fay: The southern part of it for the state, for a lot of years.
Tom Fay: So I have a lot of fond memories of the great service that provides to people.
Tom Fay: Any other questions?
Tom Fay: Yasmin.
Yazmin Mehdi: Yeah, you can rely on me, sorry.
Yazmin Mehdi: It's not a question actually, I just wanted to shout out the
Yazmin Mehdi: Communications Office, the report on all the work that the
Yazmin Mehdi: Communications Office does was super impressive.
Yazmin Mehdi: I didn't realize I hadn't already signed up for the shelf talk blog, so I did that.
Yazmin Mehdi: And that's been fun.
Yazmin Mehdi: And I was kinda digging through.
Yazmin Mehdi: Previous postings.
Yazmin Mehdi: And also.
Yazmin Mehdi: So, like the lists of the you know, funny books to read.
Yazmin Mehdi: That's a great list right now.
Yazmin Mehdi: Funny books would be very helpful given everything else going on in the world.
Yazmin Mehdi: So anyway, just wanted to note that there are a
Yazmin Mehdi: couple things I particularly click through on and I do always appreciate
Yazmin Mehdi: reading these system reports and getting more deeply into the work of each of the
Yazmin Mehdi: units at the library. So.
Yazmin Mehdi: Just thank you for that.
Tom Fay: Thank you.
Tom Fay: I know we're looking at revamping some of that a little bit over the next over the
Tom Fay: course of the year, so you'll see some likely some changes in
Tom Fay: how we're approaching that and we'll try to keep you up to date on those changes
Tom Fay: are occurring as far as.
Tom Fay: Format, et cetera.
Tom Fay: All right with that.
Tom Fay: That ends my Chief Librarian report.
W Tali Hairston: Thank you, Tom.
W Tali Hairston: We have no old business but new business we have I think 3 items to approve and
W Tali Hairston: Tom, we can take them one at a time.
Tom Fay: Right, we do have.
Tom Fay: We actually do have a systems report.
Tom Fay: I do apologize that that's on me.
Tom Fay: Tally, we have our 2025 Global Reading Challenge
Tom Fay: report by Jenny Craig, who's our using family learning services
Tom Fay: librarian who runs this program for us all at this time.
Tom Fay: Ask Jenny to come to the table, so to speak.
Yazmin Mehdi: Do we need to amend our agenda or is it OK?
Tom Fay: It is in the agenda.
Yazmin Mehdi: Oh, it is in the agenda. OK. Sorry I missed that.
Tom Fay: Yes.
Jenny Craig: All right. Hello.
Jenny Craig: I was if this is all right with you, I was going to show you a little
Jenny Craig: slideshow of the pictures from this year's finals.
Jenny Craig: We have a really great relationship with youth and focus,
Jenny Craig: which is a local organization that sponsors young people to learn how to use.
Jenny Craig: Basically, to do great photography and this year we
Jenny Craig: had both a teaching artist and one of the youth photographers taking Candace from
Jenny Craig: the finals.
Jenny Craig: So they're really cool.
Jenny Craig: I just thought that'd be fun to share.
Jenny Craig: While I tell you all about the other great things that happened this year,
Jenny Craig: but it'll take me just a second to get this up.
Jenny Craig: All right.
Jenny Craig: Is that visible to everyone?
Jenny Craig: No, no, no.
Jenny Craig: Well.
Tom Fay: You should have sharing capability.
Jenny Craig: If it won't let me do it, this may not.
Yazmin Mehdi: There is one great photo of it from in the levy report.
Jenny Craig: I get. I mean, there's just so many good ones.
Jenny Craig: OK.
Jenny Craig: Wait, I think if I did this one.
Tom Fay: That's looking we can see a lot of photos there.
Tom Fay: Yep, Yep.
Jenny Craig: Yeah. All right. Here we go.
Jenny Craig: So that's just gonna run in the background.
Jenny Craig: You can see the kids getting excited and then enjoying the finals.
Jenny Craig: This is pretty consistent from previous years.
Jenny Craig: We sent out 9870 books to schools.
Jenny Craig: And we had approximately 528 teams from 72 schools competing this year.
Jenny Craig: We're back up to 72 schools.
Jenny Craig: Which is something between 3500 and 3700 participants.
Jenny Craig: We don't always know exactly how many. How many kids are on each team,
Jenny Craig: so that's that's what we got as a, as a guess.
Jenny Craig: Some highlights from this year. We actually had some visiting librarians,
Jenny Craig: professors from Bemidji, MN who.
Jenny Craig: Him out. Who got a grant to come out to help and
Jenny Craig: participate and learn about GRC.
Jenny Craig: They're particularly interested in reading programs that will engage rural
Jenny Craig: readers.
Jenny Craig: So that was really great. Having that visit,
Jenny Craig: we also got to thank you from Burlington Public Library in Burlington,
Jenny Craig: WA for some work I did with them, just chatting with them about how our
Jenny Craig: program works so that they could build their own similar literacy program.
Jenny Craig: Some of the funnier things this year is there were lots of mascots at the
Jenny Craig: semifinals this year.
Jenny Craig: There were stuffed animals and finger puppets and crochet projects,
Jenny Craig: and apparently one of the schools actually started a crochet club after
Jenny Craig: their team made their mascot, which was really great.
Jenny Craig: With regards to our engaging staff, internal staff in helping with running
Jenny Craig: the with running the challenges at the various schools,
Jenny Craig: we had fifty staff in addition to our children's librarians who assisted in
Jenny Craig: scorekeeping capacity, which, like huge thanks to the PSO for making
Jenny Craig: this possible.
Jenny Craig: And also to the regions for getting staff out.
Jenny Craig: Also just huge thanks to all of those staff who wanted to participate.
Jenny Craig: That's I think this is the most staff outside of the children's laboratory
Jenny Craig: we've ever had.
Jenny Craig: So it was an amazing amount of coordination and I really appreciate
Jenny Craig: everyone being part of it.
Jenny Craig: We had six author talks.
Jenny Craig: Oh, sorry. We had six virtual author talks.
Jenny Craig: Those were with Michael Hutchinson and Matthew Swanson and Robbie Baer.
Jenny Craig: We also had 12 in person author talks.
Jenny Craig: With authors Pedro Martine and Tay Keller, they were all at Title I schools.
Jenny Craig: They were all really well received.
Jenny Craig: We didn't actually have any bilingual authors this year,
Jenny Craig: so a lot of the talks were about family and it was pretty great how the kids
Jenny Craig: responded to that, how sometimes the family can be really
Jenny Craig: hard. Paper teen has eight siblings. So he talked a lot about like hey.
Jenny Craig: How? Who else in this room has a large family?
Jenny Craig: And and Tay talked a lot about having a younger sibling who was kind of.
Jenny Craig: A big part of her life and sort of disruptive and sort of the most important
Jenny Craig: thing to happen to her.
Jenny Craig: So like it's just, it's just really great.
Jenny Craig: The kids connected really well to that.
Jenny Craig: Also, tee particularly likes to give away.
Jenny Craig: Signed copies of her books at the events.
Jenny Craig: So we we gave away 5 signed copies to each event for each for the kids,
Jenny Craig: they they she would ask them after her presentation,
Jenny Craig: she'd ask the most series of short questions.
Jenny Craig: And if if they got the answer right, they got a book.
Jenny Craig: So really it was a really nice way to.
Jenny Craig: Sort of segue from the presentation into the question to answer session.
Jenny Craig: So and it worked so well that we did it with with Pedro as well.
Jenny Craig: And we had approximately 1500 kids attend these talks.
Jenny Craig: So those are just from the Teka one schools and so all,
Jenny Craig: not all of those kids participated in the competition side,
Jenny Craig: but I'm glad that they all were part of the.
Jenny Craig: Bigger program.
Jenny Craig: This year, our physical audiobooks changed from an
Jenny Craig: MP3 player, which we've used in the past.
Jenny Craig: This is specifically for Title I schools and for.
Jenny Craig: They're particularly useful for kids who have low English or can't and don't have
Jenny Craig: devices at home and in the past.
Jenny Craig: It's a little MP3 player that they just can check out and use the,
Jenny Craig: but this year what they did was an MP3 player that's embedded into a hardback
Jenny Craig: book.
Jenny Craig: So that you can read along as you listen.
Jenny Craig: And.
Jenny Craig: The responses for that were really exciting because a lot of we I heard back
Jenny Craig: from the librarians who got them that it was a game changer for some of their
Jenny Craig: students.
Jenny Craig: There were a lot of students who just either wouldn't engage with an audiobook
Jenny Craig: without the without the physical book, or just couldn't.
Jenny Craig: Didn't have the devices at home.
Jenny Craig: So like they were super excited about them.
Jenny Craig: I'm really excited about them because we worked with a newer company that's called
Jenny Craig: Vox Books.
Jenny Craig: That actually produced several of the titles on request for our program,
Jenny Craig: which was really amazing.
Jenny Craig: Play away, which is the the like the big provider of
Jenny Craig: of these types of books has also shifted to that format of the hardcover book with
Jenny Craig: the embedded MP3 player.
Jenny Craig: So we got a couple titles from them as well.
Jenny Craig: We did as per usual.
Jenny Craig: We had our digital downloads available and the ebooks and the E audio did have a
Jenny Craig: pretty good download rate. Although my surveys from to the teachers.
Jenny Craig: I reflect that the kids really still just prefer to read a physical book if at all
Jenny Craig: possible. So.
Jenny Craig: Let's see also the big difference this year for the finals is we actually had 11
Jenny Craig: teams this year.
Jenny Craig: This is only possible because one of the teams was unable to attend in person on
Jenny Craig: the night of the of the finals. As you can see from the photos it they're
Jenny Craig: really crammed in on the stage, so we can.
Jenny Craig: We're like, we have a Max space for 10 teams,
Jenny Craig: but because this this one team that won.
Jenny Craig: Was going on their annual school camping trip that we did a asynchronous round
Jenny Craig: with them ahead of time, and then compared their answers to
Jenny Craig: everyone else's.
Jenny Craig: And they were really happy to do it that way.
Jenny Craig: And I was really relieved because the next semi final that we had after that
Jenny Craig: one had an unbreakable tie between a couple of the title one schools and so
Jenny Craig: both of those teams went to the finals.
Jenny Craig: And the finals? The finals felt great.
Jenny Craig: This year it felt different from previous years because it felt like not only.
Jenny Craig: Were the points really close across the board, which sometimes they are,
Jenny Craig: and sometimes they aren't, but we had.
Jenny Craig: We had two title I schools and two non title.
Jenny Craig: One schools go into the finals with perfect scores and they were into the to
Jenny Craig: the tiebreaker round at the end with perfect scores and they I thought anybody
Jenny Craig: was gonna win it like it was anybody's game at.
Jenny Craig: That point, and usually most years you think.
Jenny Craig: I think, Oh well, I know which of those non title one
Jenny Craig: schools is gonna win it.
Jenny Craig: And it didn't feel that way this year at all, which was really cool.
Jenny Craig: It's a cool thing to see.
Jenny Craig: Queen Anne's Queen Anne's team did win it with by by answering a really,
Jenny Craig: really hard tiebreaker question. At some point on this slide show.
Jenny Craig: There's my Oh my God.
Jenny Craig: I can't believe they knew that face, and when we talked to the kids afterwards,
Jenny Craig: they were like it was a guess we.
Jenny Craig: We knew that there was, you know.
Jenny Craig: It was about a TV show and one of them just I guess,
Jenny Craig: had it in the back of their mind, this particular TV show.
Jenny Craig: And so they, they guessed it, and they won it.
Jenny Craig: And they were super, super excited about it.
Jenny Craig: And I'm just really happy for everybody participating.
Jenny Craig: Things that were kind of challenging this year,
Jenny Craig: we we are continuing to try to navigate around Ramadan to make sure that we have
Jenny Craig: as much.
Jenny Craig: That everyone has as good of a activity or as good of a experience as possible.
Jenny Craig: So we were trying to have the finals after Ramadan ended,
Jenny Craig: so everything kind of got stretched out.
Jenny Craig: We pushed out into April 2nd for the finals.
Jenny Craig: We also had 10 rounds of semifinals this year,
Jenny Craig: which we spread out over the month of March, and that mostly worked pretty well.
Jenny Craig: But I've been getting some feedback that that was a little bit too long.
Jenny Craig: So I think we're going to try to tighten it up next.
Jenny Craig: Year if we can. And as Ramadan moves that like over the
Jenny Craig: course of the calendar year, that helps us to kind of reorganize it.
Jenny Craig: Because and the reason that the the library or the reasons that the schools
Jenny Craig: have a hard time with that, the longer schedule is because the kids
Jenny Craig: are just rereading and rereading the books and we want to engage them and not
Jenny Craig: bore them to death.
Jenny Craig: So that's that's the goal.
Jenny Craig: We what else was a challenge?
Jenny Craig: Oh, right.
Jenny Craig: For the first time, we had a team that went to the finals,
Jenny Craig: but they didn't have.
Jenny Craig: The parents couldn't go like for the whole team,
Jenny Craig: so the school stepped in to get them here and were paid for their transportation.
Jenny Craig: And there was a cheating incident at one school, which the school handled.
Jenny Craig: But my workgroup is thinking about ways to.
Jenny Craig: Thinking about how we can expand this so that it's less about the compet.
Jenny Craig: Well, I mean, it's always about the competition.
Jenny Craig: But where we can recognize teams for other things, select,
Jenny Craig: maybe doing a recognition of the 2nd and 3rd place or a recognition of really
Jenny Craig: great teamwork, or a recognition of the funniest names.
Jenny Craig: The school? I don't know. We're thinking about it.
Jenny Craig: It's a. It's in the brainstorming stage.
Jenny Craig: And I think my slideshow is starting over again and that is about all that we have
Jenny Craig: right now.
Jenny Craig: So thank you very much for your attention and see if I can stop sharing.
Jenny Craig: Here we go. If you have any questions, I'm happy to organize them or to answer
Jenny Craig: them.
W Tali Hairston: Any questions?
W Tali Hairston: I'm so glad that Tom, you caught that and we went back and did
W Tali Hairston: this and that I made a mistake and shot ahead.
W Tali Hairston: And this is such the joy the all of that. The world needs more of that.
Jenny Craig: Yeah.
W Tali Hairston: The world needs more of that.
Jenny Craig: They you can just see it and how much, how much excitement they bring to it.
Jenny Craig: And this is actually the first year that I knew somebody like my friends had a kid
Jenny Craig: in the finals, which I've never had that experience
Jenny Craig: before.
Jenny Craig: And they I didn't actually get to interact with them really much at all or
Jenny Craig: with him much at all, because I was busy.
Jenny Craig: But afterwards they were just just glowing about how proud they were and how
Jenny Craig: proud he was and his.
Jenny Craig: And how his team was all about just having a really good time.
Jenny Craig: They were the the Peppa pigs with the ears and they were like they were just
Jenny Craig: there to just enjoy it and they really, really did.
Jenny Craig: So that was very exciting.
Jenny Craig: Carmen, what's your question?
Bendixen, Carmen: Yeah, I was just curious about how far ahead of
Bendixen, Carmen: time you choose the books.
Bendixen, Carmen: So is that coming up around again pretty soon? OK.
Jenny Craig: Today. Yeah, we're finishing our selection today.
Bendixen, Carmen: Oh wow.
Jenny Craig: Hopefully, or hopefully we we try to get the the the
Jenny Craig: list of books as a top secret in a thing to the schools before they get out in
Jenny Craig: June.
Jenny Craig: So the selection committee is meeting for our third meeting today,
Jenny Craig: and we're gonna try to narrow it down to 15 hopefully 1514 or 15 books.
Jenny Craig: And then we take that to Ingram to find out about.
Jenny Craig: About.
Jenny Craig: Whether they can fill that order 'cause it's such a large number of books,
Bendixen, Carmen: It's a lot of books, yeah.
Jenny Craig: and so that's so that's something I'm a little bit worried about with with the
Jenny Craig: tariff situation is trying to get that trying to get that order in before they
Jenny Craig: get.
Jenny Craig: I mean, we'll see what I honestly don't know what
Jenny Craig: Ingram's gonna say about where they're producing books right now,
Jenny Craig: and if they've shifted some of that production from China.
Jenny Craig: So we'll find out about that.
Jenny Craig: It's unknown.
Tom Fay: Yazmin.
Yazmin Mehdi: My question Jenny is do do you guys know that there is like can you test what the
Yazmin Mehdi: impact is to reading comprehension for the kids who participate or the schools
Yazmin Mehdi: who participate?
Jenny Craig: I don't have a way to do that at this point in time.
Jenny Craig: I mean, we can look at, we can look at the.
Jenny Craig: The state Washington State Office of I'm trying to remember it's it's like Aspe
Jenny Craig: and I don't know what it's called. Yeah, osbi.
W Tali Hairston: Ospi. Yeah, office of Superintendent, Public instruction.
Jenny Craig: They publish.
Jenny Craig: They publish yearly, basically test score information about
Jenny Craig: how many kids are reading at reading at reading, reading level,
Jenny Craig: reading at grade level.
Jenny Craig: So like that's we have that sort of big picture, but we don't have a.
Jenny Craig: We don't have a direct small picture about how much this particular program
Jenny Craig: has as a direct impact in like statistics. We have a lot of.
Jenny Craig: Stories and testimonials.
Jenny Craig: I'm part of the survey. I ask people to share if they have a
Jenny Craig: story of impact and almost every year I'm not definitely every year I've heard at
Jenny Craig: least one where they're talking about a student who has dyslexia or who has felt
Jenny Craig: like a not not a conf.
Jenny Craig: Reader and then the program helps them feel like a reader,
Jenny Craig: and when they identify as a reader that then that helps them just continue on
Jenny Craig: being a reader.
Jenny Craig: Which so I I get.
Jenny Craig: I have a lot of those stories, but I don't have a lot of.
Jenny Craig: Like specific data.
Jenny Craig: In a.
Jenny Craig: In a statistical kind of way.
Jenny Craig: And I'm not exactly sure how we would do that, but it's.
Yazmin Mehdi: Yeah. No, no.
Yazmin Mehdi: I was just a curiosity because I my my impression is that the outcomes that you
Jenny Craig: Something.
Yazmin Mehdi: are seeking and that you probably get are a, you know,
Yazmin Mehdi: an increase in love of reading.
Yazmin Mehdi: An increase in books in general and then I presume that if you've got kids trying
Yazmin Mehdi: to compete in these sort of questions at a finals that you are improving reading
Yazmin Mehdi: comprehension.
Jenny Craig: I mean, I assume so too.
Jenny Craig: A lot of the outcomes that we actually have published for the program are about
Jenny Craig: are more focused on access because I feel like that's something we can actually we
Jenny Craig: can actually measure, right.
Jenny Craig: So, so yes, and we want that.
Jenny Craig: We want the reading comprehension and we want the social emotional learning that
Jenny Craig: happens that comes with the teamwork and we and with honestly, with,
Jenny Craig: with experiencing disappointment and then figuring out how to be resilient about it.
Jenny Craig: Bit like that's unfortunately also a lot of the what you learn from competition.
Jenny Craig: But a lot of our like stated outcomes are things about like making sure that kids
Jenny Craig: are getting windows in your books, in their schools,
Jenny Craig: giving the schools access to newer, exciting.
Jenny Craig: Newer exciting titles that have bipoc main characters that and that they have
Yazmin Mehdi: Yeah.
Jenny Craig: those that they.
Jenny Craig: The funding for for the funding for library books in our schools is very
Jenny Craig: variable.
Jenny Craig: Last year, they did have funding.
Jenny Craig: Some years they don't.
Jenny Craig: And so the library's.
Jenny Craig: Just it depends where they're at in their library system.
Jenny Craig: Are they walking into a new library?
Jenny Craig: Have they been working in the same library for for decades and they and
Jenny Craig: they're waiting for that next for the next time that the the building is is
Jenny Craig: fixed to get to get a refresh of books?
Jenny Craig: So like this is something that we can do is we can give them that sort of little
Jenny Craig: bit of extra upper elementary.
Jenny Craig: Exciting new books for their kids to engage with,
Jenny Craig: and it helps the school librarians are even more every year their hours go down,
Jenny Craig: but it helps them.
Jenny Craig: Have more things for their students to engage with,
Jenny Craig: but also it exposes them to new titles and new series as well.
Jenny Craig: So it kind of helps with that part of the part of their.
Tom Fay: No.
Jenny Craig: Professional development stuff.
Jenny Craig: We try to find ways to make their jobs easier, basically.
Tom Fay: One one thing I would I would encourage you to do if you get a chance when we
Yazmin Mehdi: Thank you.
Tom Fay: publish the list is to read a couple of those.
Tom Fay: I try to read as many of them as I can and then I go test myself with the
Tom Fay: questions that they.
Tom Fay: Put together, our team puts together and you know you
Tom Fay: can tell with the way they link those or put those questions together.
Tom Fay: You know, you really have had to have read this.
Tom Fay: You had to comprehend it most certainly, and there's some critical thinking in
Tom Fay: there because it may be.
Tom Fay: Be linked somewhere down the line.
Tom Fay: I know if I scan a book I really, really really not even close to an answer.
Tom Fay: So, I mean, these kids are they are putting in the
Tom Fay: time for sure 'cause some of these books are not.
Tom Fay: A little 10 page book.
Tom Fay: I mean, they're good size book.
Yazmin Mehdi: Yeah. No, thank you. Jenny. You gave me, like a whole bunch of really useful
Yazmin Mehdi: information about what your actual goals are and the issue of access and.
Yazmin Mehdi: Getting kids books that they might not otherwise.
Yazmin Mehdi: Be might not find on their own and then lastly this link of Seattle public to
Yazmin Mehdi: Seattle Public Schools, libraries and how our our library really
Yazmin Mehdi: supports and benefits.
Yazmin Mehdi: School libraries and school librarians.
Yazmin Mehdi: I mean, these are huge, remarkable outcomes of of this program.
Yazmin Mehdi: And just like from a personal point of view,
Yazmin Mehdi: I was a kid who struggled with reading comprehension.
Yazmin Mehdi: I really like I I for a long time.
Yazmin Mehdi: I couldn't for the life of me pass a reading comprehension test,
Yazmin Mehdi: and I think if I had access to something like this it would have helped a lot.
Yazmin Mehdi: So I do think.
Yazmin Mehdi: If only anecdotally, you guys are.
Yazmin Mehdi: Making strides in that direction too.
Yazmin Mehdi: So hats off for a remarkable program that has a remarkably broad impact.
Jenny Craig: Thank you.
Faith Pettis: Can I just say I would love to get that list of books and do what Tom's doing.
Faith Pettis: If you could remember to share it with us.
W Tali Hairston: That'd be great.
Jenny Craig: Oh sure, I can probably put it in the chat for the.
Faith Pettis: Thanks.
Jenny Craig: Yeah, the yeah, absolutely, for sure.
Faith Pettis: Thanks.
Tom Fay: Thanks Jenny.
Tom Fay: Appreciate it. Great, Great year once again.
W Tali Hairston: Thank you, Jenny.
Jenny Craig: Thank you.
W Tali Hairston: I and I just.
Jenny Craig: Thank you.
W Tali Hairston: I only want to add one piece to this and that is that the the things of access
W Tali Hairston: opportunity.
W Tali Hairston: And time are inputs that create an opportunity for those outputs to happen.
W Tali Hairston: And that's what I see in this program.
W Tali Hairston: Is that you're you really are providing SPS with some inputs that they can
W Tali Hairston: otherwise achieve themselves.
W Tali Hairston: And which then has the the outcome of improving reading comprehension,
W Tali Hairston: reading frequency and literacy, and all the other things.
W Tali Hairston: That the school is testing for when it does, those awful standardized test.
W Tali Hairston: Through that commentary in there.
W Tali Hairston: Thank you Jenny for everything.
W Tali Hairston: I really appreciate it.
Jenny Craig: You're you're welcome.
Jenny Craig: I really enjoyed my job, so thank you for making it possible.
Jenny Craig: I appreciate that too.
Jenny Craig: Have a good day.
W Tali Hairston: All right, Tom. Now we're ready.
Tom Fay: Alright.
Tom Fay: Yes, and sorry about that.
Tom Fay: We are up the first one on the new business is community use agreement
Tom Fay: policy and for that I believe I have Rob Gannon coming to the table and rob,
Tom Fay: I'm not sure who else you're bringing with you.
Rob Gannon: Thank you, Tom and good afternoon or good morning.
Rob Gannon: Members of the board. Before we get started, Valerie,
Rob Gannon: Wonder and Richard Counsel should also be promoted.
Rob Gannon: They'll be joining and presenting the bulk of the the material this morning.
Rob Gannon: Well, that's current.
Rob Gannon: Let me just say that the global reading challenge is incredibly inspiring,
Rob Gannon: and it's also a tough act to follow on a on a board agenda.
Rob Gannon: So we will do our best to make this policy update just as.
Rob Gannon: Interesting, intriguing, competitive and exciting.
W Tali Hairston: No worries.
Rob Gannon: So thank you, Tom, for the introduction.
Rob Gannon: So we are here this morning to give you an update and present to you 2 policies
Rob Gannon: for your consideration.
Rob Gannon: You will likely recall that we joined you in March and we introduced to you all the
Rob Gannon: work that has been done.
Rob Gannon: To move from a rules of conduct.
Rob Gannon: Policy and approach.
Rob Gannon: To a community use agreement, which better we think better embodies the
Rob Gannon: sense of what libraries are attempting to achieve and creates opportunities for
Rob Gannon: many people to participate in the safety and well-being of our environment.
Rob Gannon: So today we're bringing forward to you for your review and consideration.
Rob Gannon: The two policies that would enact that change moving away from a rules of
Rob Gannon: conduct policy to the embodied community use agreement.
Rob Gannon: The second policy that you have in front of you is largely an administrative
Rob Gannon: change, but it reflects all of the necessary
Rob Gannon: enforcement language.
Rob Gannon: That stays attached to the new Community use agreement policy of approved.
Rob Gannon: This effort has taken many years and represents a great deal of hard work by
Rob Gannon: countless individuals.
Rob Gannon: Some of which has been detailed in the summary memo that is before you,
Rob Gannon: but we thought it would be beneficial to have Valerie Wonder and Richard Counsel,
Rob Gannon: two of our managing librarians who have been instrumental in leading this work
Rob Gannon: and bringing it to its current stage if they.
Rob Gannon: Could make a small presentation to you.
Rob Gannon: And give some highlights about how the considerations were made.
Rob Gannon: What work went into it and why we think that this these policy revisions are so
Rob Gannon: important to the library's current state of services?
Rob Gannon: They will be quick to acknowledge that many,
Rob Gannon: many people contributed to this work and that there is still work to be done,
Rob Gannon: but they have as much insight into this process as anybody and the work that they
Rob Gannon: are doing to move this forward.
Rob Gannon: The final completion, if approved by the board and the
Rob Gannon: readiness of our library colleagues and our patrons,
Rob Gannon: is a credit to to their hard work and their leadership.
Rob Gannon: So I will turn it over to them and let them give an overview of the history and
Rob Gannon: walk you through some of the changes that have been made and then we'll all be
Rob Gannon: ready to answer any questions that you may have.
Rob Gannon: So Valerie and Richard, please take it away.
Valerie Wonder: Thank you, rob.
Valerie Wonder: I I it's good to see you all again.
Valerie Wonder: You spent some time with me two months ago, so I'm just going to give.
Valerie Wonder: A pretty quick reminder of how we got here and then turn it over to Richard to
Valerie Wonder: look at the Community use agreement and highlight some of the specifics.
Valerie Wonder: As we talked about the rules of conduct have remained static since 2013.
Valerie Wonder: In 2019, the library initiated this process of
Valerie Wonder: reviewing and updating the rules of conduct prior to which.
Valerie Wonder: Two articles in local press brought attention to disproportionate engagement
Valerie Wonder: and impacts of the Rocs on unsheltered patrons,
Valerie Wonder: patrons of color and youth of color.
Valerie Wonder: After those articles, the library worked quickly to adjust our
Valerie Wonder: practices to better reflect our values of equity inclusivity.
Valerie Wonder: But we needed to do the same with our formal policy.
Valerie Wonder: So thanks to COVID-19 and last year's ransomware attack,
Valerie Wonder: we had an extended timeline, but along the way we were able to take
Valerie Wonder: many steps to involve the voices of the communities who are most impacted by our
Valerie Wonder: rules. Eight members of the community joined our
Valerie Wonder: task force.
Valerie Wonder: And worked for two years side by side with our staff.
Valerie Wonder: On this process and then we also held listening sessions to hear feedback from
Valerie Wonder: community as well as staff supervisors and security officers,
Valerie Wonder: and the feedback was consistent. The community members and staff asked for
Valerie Wonder: shorter, easier to understand document that leads
Valerie Wonder: with our values of inclusivity and equity.
Richard Counsil: Sure.
Valerie Wonder: Use agreement.
Richard Counsil: Hi everybody.
Richard Counsil: I don't believe I've addressed the board before, but my name is Richard Counsel.
Richard Counsil: I'm the regional manager for the Southeast region.
Richard Counsil: I've been at SPL for about since 2010.
Richard Counsil: I've been in LA two and LA 4A, librarian supervising librarian.
Richard Counsil: And I've been in intimately involved with the rules of conduct since I came here.
Richard Counsil: So it's been a good project. I briefly want to highlight some things
Richard Counsil: about the policy as you see it and then try to leave time for questions and
Richard Counsil: dialogue. I think the most important point I want
Richard Counsil: to make is that we are again trying to make it simple.
Richard Counsil: And at the top, at one point you'll see it's be safe,
Richard Counsil: be respectful and be aware.
Richard Counsil: The idea it does connect a little bit with children,
Richard Counsil: Tali that that we want to present expectations and support in a way that's
Richard Counsil: really easier to understand.
Richard Counsil: So instead of having a huge poster with 500 words,
Richard Counsil: or maybe 2000 words of what you can't do, trying to make it clear and easier for
Richard Counsil: staff to have a more sensitive conversation with youth and other people
Richard Counsil: who need that sensitivity.
Richard Counsil: However, there are times frequently and quickly
Richard Counsil: when people need more. They need more detail.
Richard Counsil: And that's form of support as well.
Richard Counsil: Just wanna highlight a couple of agreements that are either new or a
Richard Counsil: little bit different to give you a sense or a flavor of the policy. Number one,
Richard Counsil: I wanna highlight is under be aware that violence, intimidation and harassment,
Richard Counsil: etc will not be tolerated. There's one that starts.
Richard Counsil: With staring and following that existed as a rules of conduct,
Richard Counsil: but what we've added based on staff feedback in particular is unwelcome
Richard Counsil: personal questions or comments to patrons or staff.
Richard Counsil: In the past, the burden was on staff to sort of bend
Richard Counsil: intimidation and harassment to fit that that story. To fit that experience,
Richard Counsil: to try to report it.
Richard Counsil: That's possible, but it's pretty onerous and so one way
Richard Counsil: this is responsive to a lot of staff concerns around questions or comments
Richard Counsil: about your marital status or your availability for a date or your hijab or
Richard Counsil: your, I don't know where you're from, these kinds of things.
Richard Counsil: The enforcement strategy, which really isn't included here,
Richard Counsil: is that we set a boundary and say that those questions aren't welcome.
Richard Counsil: We didn't name it as a rule, though, and now we're naming it as an agreement.
Richard Counsil: When you're at the Seattle Public Library for patron staff and for everybody.
Richard Counsil: Another one I want to highlight is.
Richard Counsil: Under be respectful of staff one another in the space we share,
Richard Counsil: and that is refrrrn from activities that interfere with the use or operation of
Richard Counsil: the library.
Richard Counsil: That's pretty broad.
Richard Counsil: One of the ways we eliminated a lot of words and a lot of details was to subsume
Richard Counsil: a lot of things under that one used to be a little bit about disruptive.
Richard Counsil: But there's a variety of of behaviors that can be challenging.
Richard Counsil: What we appreciate about this and.
Richard Counsil: What was responsive to community members was that it it names the impact it names
Richard Counsil: something specifically, it's not just disruptive which anything
Richard Counsil: can be subjective, but interference with use or operations
Richard Counsil: is just an easier connection to make.
Richard Counsil: In dialogue between staff and patrons and staff and staff,
Richard Counsil: we'll talk a little bit about the ambiguity.
Richard Counsil: All these agreements.
Richard Counsil: Create and. I imagine your questions may lead to that.
Richard Counsil: Those are two examples I wanted to highlight though,
Richard Counsil: that demonstrate a little bit of change.
Richard Counsil: I could talk for hours about it, but I don't want to take up the time
Richard Counsil: doing that.
Richard Counsil: Does anybody have any questions or comments or Valerie,
Richard Counsil: do you want to add anything I left out?
Valerie Wonder: Let's get a questions.
W Tali Hairston: Can I just quickly ask?
W Tali Hairston: Did I understand your process to include staff feedback and that the staff feel
W Tali Hairston: this policy is is appropriate for them? They're accepting of that?
Richard Counsil: That's correct.
W Tali Hairston: OK.
Richard Counsil: I.
Richard Counsil: I believe that will be an ongoing premise to demonstrate with training and ongoing
W Tali Hairston: Yasmin.
W Tali Hairston: Sure.
Richard Counsil: dialogue and support, but in terms of the content and the
Richard Counsil: approach, I'm confident about that.
W Tali Hairston: Yes, ma'am.
Yazmin Mehdi: Thank you, Richard.
Yazmin Mehdi: It's nice to meet you.
Yazmin Mehdi: I think you were supposed to be part of the briefing in March and weren't able to
Yazmin Mehdi: be here, so I'm glad to see you this time, Valerie.
Yazmin Mehdi: Thanks for covering the whole thing in March and being back here.
Yazmin Mehdi: Richard, you just named probably my biggest
Yazmin Mehdi: concern.
Yazmin Mehdi: And I know not to put words in Faith's mouth,
Yazmin Mehdi: but I think she and I both articulated the concern around.
Yazmin Mehdi: This.
Yazmin Mehdi: This new policy does leave a lot to interpretation,
Yazmin Mehdi: and that's probably that probably was true with the rules of conduct as well.
Yazmin Mehdi: I will say that I think the framing in this document is is remarkable in a very
Yazmin Mehdi: good way.
Yazmin Mehdi: I really like the first three points about look. Ultimately,
Yazmin Mehdi: we want people to be safe.
Yazmin Mehdi: We want people to be respect.
Yazmin Mehdi: Ful etcetera.
Yazmin Mehdi: So I do think this framing is beautiful.
Yazmin Mehdi: But I just want to acknowledge that and I'm you.
Yazmin Mehdi: You just did yourself that there will be these moments of interpretation, and so,
Yazmin Mehdi: you know, I I think again my request will be that
Yazmin Mehdi: we get a report back from you guys some months hence about how that's going and
Yazmin Mehdi: both from the staff side and.
Yazmin Mehdi: The You know patron side and how you feel.
Yazmin Mehdi: This more positively worded document is helping in making interactions more
Yazmin Mehdi: positive.
Yazmin Mehdi: That's probably my biggest thing.
Yazmin Mehdi: I have two minor questions.
Yazmin Mehdi: One is.
Yazmin Mehdi: In under the the section about being aware of violence.
Yazmin Mehdi: There's a there's a bullet that says showing or using weapons in a manner that
Yazmin Mehdi: indicates an intent to harm.
Yazmin Mehdi: And I guess the one thing I ask is like sometimes somebody's using something as a
Yazmin Mehdi: weapon that is not necessarily a weapon.
Yazmin Mehdi: And I suspect you guys thought about this.
Yazmin Mehdi: And so I'm just curious about why you chose this language.
Yazmin Mehdi: And the second thing is around.
Yazmin Mehdi: The understanding with 911 and SPD like has there been some kind of?
Yazmin Mehdi: Communication with them around what their role is in helping to implement and
Yazmin Mehdi: enforce this.
Yazmin Mehdi: Those are my two questions.
Richard Counsil: Thank you.
Richard Counsil: I'll speak to the the weapons one that one in particular went through some
Richard Counsil: dialogue with our.
Richard Counsil: Legal advisors with the city, I believe at one time it said objects.
Richard Counsil: That may be used, but it was mostly feedback from from Gary
Richard Counsil: and Gary his Gary's office. Rob, do you want to comment on anything about
Richard Counsil: about your understanding of that one?
Valerie Wonder: And I can say that it didn't used to say objects.
Valerie Wonder: It used to say dangerous weapons and we removed the word dangerous yazmin I think
Richard Counsil: Hmm.
Valerie Wonder: with with you know the notion that somebody could grab a pen and use it as a
Valerie Wonder: weapon so that anything that somebody is using in a manner that indicates intent
Valerie Wonder: to harm is by.
Richard Counsil: Is a weapon.
Valerie Wonder: Definition. A weapon, even if it's a yeah.
Valerie Wonder: Fountain pen.
Valerie Wonder: But Rob, feel free to.
Richard Counsil: Maybe we don't need you, rob.
Richard Counsil: Go ahead.
Rob Gannon: Well, I won't complicate things by trying to
Rob Gannon: add anything at this point.
Rob Gannon: I think Richard and Valerie have both summarized our intent here. We will.
Rob Gannon: Continue to look at how this language is put into practice and whether it's
Rob Gannon: sufficient, how staff are reacting, how our patrons are reacting,
Rob Gannon: and if we need to make modifications to this,
Rob Gannon: either in practice or in the actual language of the policy,
Rob Gannon: then we will both report on.
Rob Gannon: That to the board and bring it forward for additional consideration.
Richard Counsil: That was one of your topics, Yasmin.
Richard Counsil: What was the second one?
Yazmin Mehdi: It was just around understanding what what communication you've had with.
Yazmin Mehdi: 911 and SPD.
Richard Counsil: I am aware of no direct communication with SPD about the Community use
Richard Counsil: agreement itself.
Richard Counsil: I am aware that Tom on frequent occasions is in dialogue with the chief about
Richard Counsil: safety concerns overall, but I'll leave it at that and not speak
Richard Counsil: too much out of turn.
Tom Fay: Yeah, it's like, you know, this is it's always.
Tom Fay: A challenge when you're you have your basically our community use agreements.
Tom Fay: What used to be the rules of conduct.
Tom Fay: There are components, obviously, that are violations of law.
Tom Fay: So when PD shows up, they are going to manage it from that
Tom Fay: perspective. When we're looking at things like
Tom Fay: exclusions and or.
Tom Fay: Legal trespass again.
Tom Fay: And that that legal trespass all stays in their realm.
Tom Fay: They are noted.
Tom Fay: We note to them that, you know, we are not gonna see this person back for
Tom Fay: two years if they do come back, it might be illegal trespass,
Tom Fay: some other type of thing. If someone were to use a weapon or to
Tom Fay: assault somebody, then we we would be report.
Tom Fay: Those, as you know, those types of crimes that have been
Tom Fay: witnessed, so nothing really changes on Spd's part.
Tom Fay: In this particular case.
Tom Fay: They're still going to manage it from their legal side of things.
Rob Gannon: And if I may, I would just add that when we engage SPD,
Rob Gannon: it is almost always when our security officers are involved.
Rob Gannon: And so they are managing the.
Rob Gannon: Internal circumstances to the point where we're contacting SPD and then they're
Rob Gannon: portraying our to SPD.
Rob Gannon: So as Tom says, a lot of what we do ultimately with SPD
Rob Gannon: and law enforcement has not changed, but our security officers have been fully
Rob Gannon: briefed.
Rob Gannon: They are supportive of this transition and they understand what work they're
Rob Gannon: going to continue doing all the way up to that point where it does need to be
Rob Gannon: escalated.
Rob Gannon: To law enforcement.
Yazmin Mehdi: I think.
Yazmin Mehdi: I get there is a if I'm correct.
Yazmin Mehdi: The place in here where it talks about if an if an SPL security officer is not
Yazmin Mehdi: available, at what point staff then in a say I would
Yazmin Mehdi: guess a branch.
Yazmin Mehdi: Then need to take on the role of contacting 911 and SPD and.
Yazmin Mehdi: I guess I would just think.
Yazmin Mehdi: That if it's branch staff without a security officer there.
Yazmin Mehdi: They might be more inclined to bring in 911 SPD and.
Yazmin Mehdi: Just wanting to understand that 911 and SPD also understand that situation and
Yazmin Mehdi: that's probably true today irrespective of what whether this is a rules of
Yazmin Mehdi: conduct or a Community use agreement.
Yazmin Mehdi: I just. I like to think that.
Yazmin Mehdi: When another city employee is calling 911 SPD that there is some.
Yazmin Mehdi: I don't know additional attention put to it, but maybe that's not fair actually,
Yazmin Mehdi: and I shouldn't even say that.
Yazmin Mehdi: Anyway, that's it.
Yazmin Mehdi: That was more a comment.
Yazmin Mehdi: You don't have to answer anything.
Tom Fay: Yes, they all all 911 calls are triaged and
Tom Fay: prioritized.
Tom Fay: So I can say that.
Tom Fay: And then yes, sometimes you're on that priority list.
Tom Fay: And sometimes you're not.
W Tali Hairston: OK.
W Tali Hairston: So we do need to approve this policy and just to for clarification the there's a
W Tali Hairston: first policy and then the second document is or the second approval we haven't yet
W Tali Hairston: talked about, correct.
W Tali Hairston: And you're gonna talk to us about that second document,
W Tali Hairston: which is the one around suspension.
W Tali Hairston: Or are we taking them together?
Rob Gannon: So I'll just jump in.
Rob Gannon: We're happy to talk about the second document if you have any questions.
Rob Gannon: The 2nd policies changes.
Rob Gannon: Effectively adopt 2 new pieces of language.
Rob Gannon: They strike rules of conduct and introduce community use agreement as it's
Rob Gannon: replacement and then it changes the language around what we used to refer to
Rob Gannon: as exclusion to suspension. And those are the only real changes in
Rob Gannon: that document.
Rob Gannon: And this just keeps that second document consistent with the rules of conduct
Rob Gannon: transition to a Community use agreement.
W Tali Hairston: OK. Does everyone under the board understand
W Tali Hairston: that?
W Tali Hairston: Because if so, we can just.
W Tali Hairston: Have a motion that includes adopting policy one and two.
W Tali Hairston: Things they're related.
Rob Gannon: And.
Rob Gannon: And tell you if I could make one more.
Rob Gannon: Request or comment here so the work of the library to prepare our staff and our
Rob Gannon: patrons for the actual implementation of these changes is ongoing.
Rob Gannon: And so we would ask the board to consider approval with an effective date set at
Rob Gannon: August 1st that will allow us the remain.
Rob Gannon: Months of the summer to effectuate our training and the transition and be fully
Rob Gannon: prepared.
Rob Gannon: To begin, the community use in actual practice,
Rob Gannon: so we would request that you consider an effective date of August 1st for this
Rob Gannon: policy implementation.
Faith Pettis: Rob, would that be for both policies or just
Faith Pettis: the first one?
Rob Gannon: Thank you.
Rob Gannon: It would be for both policies.
Rob Gannon: Thank you for that correction.
Yazmin Mehdi: I'm happy to make that motion.
W Tali Hairston: Any discussion?
W Tali Hairston: Before you do just any discussion, any other questions discussion.
W Tali Hairston: Great. OK. Is there a motion to accept both policy
W Tali Hairston: one and two on the agenda?
Yazmin Mehdi: I'm happy to make the motion.
Faith Pettis: I'm happy to 2nd.
W Tali Hairston: Have a second.
Ron Chew: 2nd.
Bendixen, Carmen: I'll 2nd.
W Tali Hairston: OK, I think Carmen won that.
W Tali Hairston: It's been moved in 2nd and all in favor of adopting both changeone and change two
W Tali Hairston: to the policies as listed in the agenda.
W Tali Hairston: All in favor?
Faith Pettis: Aye.
Bendixen, Carmen: Aye.
W Tali Hairston: I oppose.
W Tali Hairston: In both parties past.
W Tali Hairston: Thank you, Rob, Valerie and Richard.
W Tali Hairston: Appreciate the work you're doing.
Tom Fay: I'm thank you.
Valerie Wonder: You and we look forward to coming back and letting you know how it's going as we
Valerie Wonder: do our ongoing assessment and Richard has a really exciting slate of trainings for
Valerie Wonder: the staff, which I think is part of why we're
Valerie Wonder: getting so much support for for this plan.
Valerie Wonder: And so we'll, we'll share out on that.
Valerie Wonder: Sometime later this year. Thank you.
W Tali Hairston: Thank you, Valerie.
W Tali Hairston: And just to add, the board does not to speak on behalf of
W Tali Hairston: everyone, but these issues are very important to us.
W Tali Hairston: We do get emails from, you know, if we're going to get a complaint,
W Tali Hairston: it would be about something. If something were to go awry.
W Tali Hairston: This is what it would be about.
W Tali Hairston: So we're very mindful.
W Tali Hairston: I know what I've read through these.
W Tali Hairston: I followed this.
W Tali Hairston: Others have done the same on the board and it's it is an important issue to us.
W Tali Hairston: Thank you for your work.
Valerie Wonder: Thank you.
Tom Fay: It will be some great some great work over a couple of years and I really
Tom Fay: appreciate the way the documents cropped. It's gonna, I believe, allow us to.
Tom Fay: Let it be a living document that we'll be able to adapt to over time.
Tom Fay: That's really what we wanna do here.
Tom Fay: It shouldn't be.
Tom Fay: This many years, 12 years between reviews of such
Tom Fay: important policies, so we'll keep you informed as we go
Tom Fay: through it.
Tom Fay: I think we'll have some statistical information.
Tom Fay: Will definitely have some information about how the training is going before
Tom Fay: August, so we'll keep you up to date.
W Tali Hairston: Thanks Tom.
W Tali Hairston: Think we have.
W Tali Hairston: Stand with us for the next item on the agenda.
Tom Fay: So we have our first quarter 2025 levy report.
Tom Fay: It's already that time.
Tom Fay: And Jan is, I think joining us are in the midst of
Tom Fay: joining us.
Jan Oscherwitz: Yeah, I'm here.
W Tali Hairston: I think I see you.
W Tali Hairston: There you are.
Jan Oscherwitz: And and I'm going to be tag teaming with Elise Murray,
Jan Oscherwitz: so she should be promoted to a speaking.
Jan Oscherwitz: Tom.
Jan Oscherwitz: OK.
Jan Oscherwitz: So I'm here to present the first quarter Levy report.
Jan Oscherwitz: We're in the sixth year of our seven-year 2019 levy and this year we have $54.
Jan Oscherwitz: 5 million of budget authority, including 17.
Jan Oscherwitz: 6 of prior year budget authority mostly from our capital program which funds
Jan Oscherwitz: multiple year projects.
Jan Oscherwitz: The levy represents more than 38% of our total revised budget for 2025.
Jan Oscherwitz: Each quarter library staff report on levy spending at activities for the board,
Jan Oscherwitz: and after these reports are approved, which will ask you to do at the end of
Jan Oscherwitz: this presentation, we post them on our website for the
Jan Oscherwitz: public as we enter the final years of this levy, we.
Jan Oscherwitz: Trying to produce these reports in a way that will make them more accessible and
Jan Oscherwitz: visual and allow us to share parts of them in other formats such as one page
Jan Oscherwitz: handouts for those who don't have the commitment to read through the lengthy
Jan Oscherwitz: narrative that we provide.
Jan Oscherwitz: So this quarter?
Jan Oscherwitz: Laura Gentry and Elisa Murray from our communications team have worked hard on
Jan Oscherwitz: this report to make it more accessible, and I'm going to ask Lisa to talk about
Jan Oscherwitz: the changes from the report in a moment.
Jan Oscherwitz: But I wanted to highlight a few things in the report before I turn it over to Elisa.
Jan Oscherwitz: Some major accomplishments in Q1. On January 29,
Jan Oscherwitz: we increased the open hours at libraries.
Jan Oscherwitz: With this change, we're offering more library open hours
Jan Oscherwitz: than in 2019, the start of the levy, and this is one of our levy promises.
Jan Oscherwitz: Except for university Branch which is closed for construction,
Jan Oscherwitz: all branches are open at least one weekend day and 13 branches are open
Jan Oscherwitz: seven days a week.
Jan Oscherwitz: We're also operating 24/7 pickup lockers at 7 locations.
Jan Oscherwitz: Also on January 29th, we closed the university branch for
Jan Oscherwitz: construction. This levy funded project will retrofit
Jan Oscherwitz: the branch to improve safety in the event of an earthquake.
Jan Oscherwitz: We'll provide a new HVAC system, update the interior to increase
Jan Oscherwitz: accessibility and preserve the historic building for future generations.
Jan Oscherwitz: This is our second seismic retrofit project, funded by the 2019 levy.
Jan Oscherwitz: We completed the first project, Green Lake branch, last year.
Jan Oscherwitz: Q1 was also significant because it remarked our continued recovery from the
Jan Oscherwitz: cyber attack that occurred one year ago and significantly disrupted operations
Jan Oscherwitz: for months. In terms of number of patrons borrowing
Jan Oscherwitz: from our physical and digital collections and using our computers and printers,
Jan Oscherwitz: we are now nearly at.
Jan Oscherwitz: The same or in some cases above usage levels from before.
Jan Oscherwitz: For the attack.
Jan Oscherwitz: So the rest of this report provides information about all the key levy
Jan Oscherwitz: investment areas and includes highlights from the additions to our peak picks and
Jan Oscherwitz: local history collections, as well as statistics and stories from
Jan Oscherwitz: social service and early learning programming and the hotspot Lending
Jan Oscherwitz: program which are fund.
Jan Oscherwitz: Polar in part by the levee.
Jan Oscherwitz: Now turn this over to Elisa to talk about some of the changes that we've made with
Jan Oscherwitz: this report and how we share the information and we hope to get your
Jan Oscherwitz: feedback here on how we can make this even more accessible in the future.
Elisa Murray: Hi everyone.
Elisa Murray: I am Alyssa Murray. I'm with the communications office.
Elisa Murray: And as Jan mentioned, I have worked with Jan and the Libby
Elisa Murray: report. I think since 2020. But just in the past quarter,
Elisa Murray: we actually developed a new template for it in 2020. But we just saw some OPP.
Elisa Murray: For the final two years of the levy to modify the existing report so that it was
Elisa Murray: more scannable, more visually compelling, and that we could also use it for.
Elisa Murray: Their purposes, you know, especially as we're kind of building our
Elisa Murray: case for the next levy and I'm gonna just share a few things 'cause,
Elisa Murray: it's probably better to show antle together.
Elisa Murray: So let me see if I can do that.
Elisa Murray: Can you all see this?
Elisa Murray: This is the first page of the levy report.
Tom Fay: Yes.
Elisa Murray: Let me just.
Elisa Murray: Zoom out a little bit.
Elisa Murray: Yeah. So.
Elisa Murray: Let me now try to get to one page.
Elisa Murray: Here we go, OK.
Elisa Murray: Yeah. So it has a a similar look and feel in a
Elisa Murray: lot of ways.
Elisa Murray: But we looked for opportunities to develop these kind of call out boxes that
Elisa Murray: highlight something really important about the levy that was in the report,
Elisa Murray: but maybe people might have skipped over a little bit.
Elisa Murray: This is about just the levy is a really important source of funding for staff
Elisa Murray: positions.
Elisa Murray: Including children and teen services. Librarians, you know,
Elisa Murray: we have a lot of great social media content these days.
Elisa Murray: So we're looking for ways to bring in some of that into the levy report.
Elisa Murray: So this highlights a campaign that we did when we expanded hours at these different
Elisa Murray: locations in Q1.
Elisa Murray: And then we have David Christensen.
Elisa Murray: Data specialist.
Elisa Murray: Probably not getting his title exactly right.
Elisa Murray: Who developed some really great maps and other compelling material,
Elisa Murray: again to kind of highlight in a in a more visually compelling way,
Elisa Murray: some of the accomplishments.
Elisa Murray: Of the levy.
Elisa Murray: So hold on, let me zoom in a little bit more.
Elisa Murray: This is a map we had him do around our seven day week locations and pick up
Elisa Murray: Locker.
Elisa Murray: So you can just kind of see how that falls out around the city.
Elisa Murray: Again, another great photo from Global Reading
Elisa Murray: challenge, and it was great to see all the other
Elisa Murray: ones that Jenny shared.
Elisa Murray: We're looking for ways to use more photos and this is from a crafter Noon event
Elisa Murray: where they're doing cross stitching, among many other things.
Elisa Murray: This is a highlight of our social services team's work to build community
Elisa Murray: and connect people to resources at the Central Library and across the system.
Elisa Murray: You know, we've always highlighted quotes, but we're looking to just make those a
Elisa Murray: little more.
Elisa Murray: Prominent in the levy report.
Elisa Murray: So this is a really nice quote from social services.
Elisa Murray: Again kind of call out boxes and then our special collections.
Elisa Murray: Have really, really amazing photos and we've always
Elisa Murray: used those in Levy reports, but we are using those in larger formats
Elisa Murray: and using more of those just to highlight the asset that that is both on our
Elisa Murray: digital and physical collections for the Seattle Room.
Elisa Murray: So here's some other really nice photos from the Seattle Room collections.
Elisa Murray: You know, calling out all the different ways that
Elisa Murray: Wi-Fi hotspots help people, and then we had David develop.
Elisa Murray: Some charts.
Elisa Murray: Just really showing.
Elisa Murray: How our use of public computers has been affected and by the ransomware attack
Elisa Murray: last year than how it's rebounded in use since that time.
Elisa Murray: So we're just kind of looking through the content and looking for ways to highlight
Elisa Murray: those things. Again, another map and then.
Elisa Murray: Something that we'd love your feedback on and we hope to do more of this shows some
Elisa Murray: photos from the University district branch that closed on January 29th.
Elisa Murray: And the renovation is just starting.
Elisa Murray: So we developed.
Elisa Murray: Oh, I'm sorry now.
Elisa Murray: Sorry, I'm in the wrong version that doesn't
Elisa Murray: have that.
Elisa Murray: Let me see if I can pull that up.
Elisa Murray: We highlighted.
Elisa Murray: Or we developed a one pager just about that seismic retrofit project that we can
Elisa Murray: then use in other ways.
Elisa Murray: Let me just scan through here.
Elisa Murray: And use as just A1 pager when we're talking to people about the Univers
Elisa Murray: University District project.
Elisa Murray: There we go. Sorry about that.
Elisa Murray: Here it is.
Elisa Murray: So this is something that we might do more of in the future is just develop
Elisa Murray: those kind of one pagers.
Elisa Murray: Just one other thing to call out is that we, you know,
Elisa Murray: if you look at just the number of hours that increase compared to 2019 down at
Elisa Murray: the bottom, it's not a lot. But then if you see it just branch by
Elisa Murray: branch where where it's incre.
Elisa Murray: Hours by color coding, you're able to see how that spreads
Elisa Murray: across the system. So we also looking for opportunities.
Elisa Murray: To do that.
Elisa Murray: So I think that's all I have to say. Just thanks to everyone on that team,
Elisa Murray: Jan and David and Laura and Jessica for working on this with us and we hope to do
Elisa Murray: more of this kind of reformatting and highlighting in future levy reports.
Elisa Murray: Yasmin.
W Tali Hairston: Any quest?
Yazmin Mehdi: I just wanted to say that I think I think you guys hit it out of the park.
W Tali Hairston: Ions.
Yazmin Mehdi: I hate baseball metaphors, but here I am using one.
Yazmin Mehdi: But you did hit it out of the park in terms of making this much more scannable.
Yazmin Mehdi: Thank you. As someone who reads every word in the
Yazmin Mehdi: report, it was just much easier to read through
Yazmin Mehdi: and kind of get the highlights and I just wanted to tell you that.
Yazmin Mehdi: That map that you showed that David Christensen worked on.
Yazmin Mehdi: Is terrific.
Yazmin Mehdi: It was like a highlight for me 'cause. It was very easy to see where these
Yazmin Mehdi: better access points are within the system.
Yazmin Mehdi: And the other thing that I really took away from this report was how much the
Yazmin Mehdi: levy funds in terms of staff.
Yazmin Mehdi: It's remarkable.
Yazmin Mehdi: So really appreciated that.
Yazmin Mehdi: And the last thing I wanted to say is, Jan, I love that you that.
Yazmin Mehdi: And Tom, but this report is going to be one of the
Yazmin Mehdi: ways that we get information about strategic planning implementation.
Yazmin Mehdi: I love that you guys have really taken to heart that in our reporting to not only
Yazmin Mehdi: us on the board but to the public, we're reporting on all of our commitments,
Yazmin Mehdi: whether it's the strategic plan or the levy.
Yazmin Mehdi: And we're not trying to report on those separately it.
Yazmin Mehdi: AI think it's a a boon for the.
Yazmin Mehdi: City that you're thinking about?
Yazmin Mehdi: All of our commitments holistically.
Yazmin Mehdi: So I just I think you guys did a great job.
Yazmin Mehdi: I was really excited about it.
Yazmin Mehdi: My one comment about the.
Yazmin Mehdi: One pager on Uni is if you could maybe describe what each of the photos is
Yazmin Mehdi: showing within there, but otherwise I thought it was a great
Yazmin Mehdi: one pager. Thank you.
W Tali Hairston: Any other points of discussion?
W Tali Hairston: I believe this is a we have to approve this as well.
Tom Fay: Correct.
W Tali Hairston: And and if I'm miss, the motion is to approve this as a final.
W Tali Hairston: Version of the report correct.
Jan Oscherwitz: Yes.
W Tali Hairston: OK.
W Tali Hairston: Any other questions or compliments?
W Tali Hairston: I ran to the digital part to see how you were working through digital books and
W Tali Hairston: budget because I recall the higher price and the higher cost.
W Tali Hairston: And and and the other thing I the strategic plan I went to see that you
W Tali Hairston: included it. And then my question has around will
W Tali Hairston: there be other languages that the strategic plan starts to build out,
W Tali Hairston: but we can answer that later.
W Tali Hairston: It's it's I noticed you included it in a different languages, but I've we can.
W Tali Hairston: At a later time, discuss how many languages you eventually
W Tali Hairston: will grow that out with.
W Tali Hairston: There was one more thing I had, but no questions.
W Tali Hairston: So I'll save it.
W Tali Hairston: If there'd be nothing else.
Yazmin Mehdi: All right. I do actually have a question.
W Tali Hairston: Yasmin.
Yazmin Mehdi: The one thing I was I should know.
Yazmin Mehdi: For a reminder, but in the financials page which is page
Yazmin Mehdi: 16 of the report.
Yazmin Mehdi: It shows the revised budget having the 4. 4 million for capital IT infrastructure,
Yazmin Mehdi: which is different from what was in the operations plan.
Yazmin Mehdi: And I just can you remind me why that's added?
Jan Oscherwitz: It's the carry over from the ILS.
Jan Oscherwitz: From from prior year budget authority.
Yazmin Mehdi: Thank.
Tom Fay: Tali, can I get a clarification on you?
Tom Fay: You were asking how many languages will it be produced in in the future.
Tom Fay: Was that the question?
W Tali Hairston: Yes, the strategic planning notes there and
W Tali Hairston: that it's been developed for us.
W Tali Hairston: Is it Spanish language?
W Tali Hairston: It's Spanish and uh Chinese simple Chinese and traditional Chinese,
W Tali Hairston: and I just, I was curious if there were any more
Tom Fay: OK.
Tom Fay: Thank you.
W Tali Hairston: desire to expand it into other languages, given the city has it's kind of language
W Tali Hairston: uniform language that it uses for languages that it uses to get material
W Tali Hairston: out.
W Tali Hairston: For community so.
Tom Fay: Yeah, and the library is has its language
Tom Fay: access plan that ties to the city and is also focused on.
Tom Fay: Languages that we also find in our communities working.
Tom Fay: So I'll have.
Tom Fay: I don't think Helen is on today.
Tom Fay: I could be wrong. Let me speak.
Tom Fay: No, we'll we'll send this back and we'll get
Tom Fay: you an answer to that one.
W Tali Hairston: Thank you.
W Tali Hairston: Any other questions or comments? If not, can I entertain a motion to approve?
W Tali Hairston: The report.
W Tali Hairston: The levy report.
Faith Pettis: I'll make that motion.
W Tali Hairston: Moved in second. All in favor?
Faith Pettis: I.
Ron Chew: OK.
W Tali Hairston: Aye, opposed.
W Tali Hairston: All right.
W Tali Hairston: Thank you everyone.
W Tali Hairston: It's been approved and we can.
W Tali Hairston: Give a give you a big shout out for all your work and the creativity that you put
W Tali Hairston: into this and the amount of hours and information that you're collecting.
W Tali Hairston: Thank you to be I love this document because it has everything I need.
W Tali Hairston: So.
W Tali Hairston: Again, thank you.
Jan Oscherwitz: Thank you.
Elisa Murray: Thanks Dolly and everyone.
W Tali Hairston: Alright. We I think with Texas, our Union report.
Tom Fay: And I believe Jesse is with us today.
Tom Fay: Up there she is.
Jessica Lucas: Yes, thank you and thank you for all the work
Jessica Lucas: you've done today. Getting some of these things approved.
Jessica Lucas: They're important to staff so.
Jessica Lucas: Really appreciate the work going forward.
Jessica Lucas: Sorry, I have a sort of a noisy office today.
Jessica Lucas: I did wanna touch on staff day and just say that most members really appreciated
Jessica Lucas: the support or or the the opportunity to reconnect with their regional Co workers,
Jessica Lucas: something that we only get to do spottily throughout the year as we move around
Jessica Lucas: three different locations.
Jessica Lucas: Also appreciated the bystander training. We do request that future years that this
Jessica Lucas: event is not held on May 1st.
Jessica Lucas: As it is a historical day for the labor organizing so.
Jessica Lucas: That seemed to be something that we heard about a lot from Members about this one,
Jessica Lucas: and we brought it up kind of late because of the the way that the scheduling went
Jessica Lucas: was.
Jessica Lucas: Didn't know when it was going to be at first,
Jessica Lucas: and then suddenly we had some other things we needed to work out about it.
Jessica Lucas: The other thing that I wrote about in the the report for this month.
Jessica Lucas: Month and I just want to say that we haven't had a chance to connect with
Jessica Lucas: management about it because of the holidays and things like that.
Jessica Lucas: But location security, not the rules of conduct or or the
Jessica Lucas: security or sorry, the Community agreements.
Jessica Lucas: This is about physical locking of doors.
Jessica Lucas: And automatic openings and things like that.
Jessica Lucas: So we had that event that happened.
Jessica Lucas: And that was alarming to staff and made them worry about their safety in
Jessica Lucas: buildings. And so we're still a bit frustrated with
Jessica Lucas: the with the doors not closing properly. This can be mechanical issues or it can
Jessica Lucas: be our amig integrated security management system,
Jessica Lucas: which you've probably heard about.
Jessica Lucas: In the past.
Jessica Lucas: And when that malfunctions, it.
Jessica Lucas: Creates a lot of uncertainty in our locations.
Jessica Lucas: And also we have to change our daily movements in order to make sure that each
Jessica Lucas: of these things are addressed. And so when we have staff coming in from
Jessica Lucas: outside of our branches, sometimes they don't know about these
Jessica Lucas: things.
Jessica Lucas: And so there's just a lot of knowledge that has to go into making sure that your
Jessica Lucas: branches secure the right way and is getting locked properly at the end of the
Jessica Lucas: day.
Jessica Lucas: Things like that.
Jessica Lucas: So that's just my update. We're going to consider continue to work
Jessica Lucas: with management about these issues.
Jessica Lucas: Choose. But this is like a forefront of some of
Jessica Lucas: our morale issues right now.
Jessica Lucas: Is just that feeling of insecurity in our locations.
Jessica Lucas: Thank you and let me know if you have any questions.
W Tali Hairston: And discuss anything.
W Tali Hairston: Do you think that's bringing the staff joy right now?
W Tali Hairston: What's making them smile?
Jessica Lucas: We're we're currently supporting a staff reads.
Jessica Lucas: And that is bringing some joy.
Jessica Lucas: You know, hearing about the global reading
Jessica Lucas: Challenge also brings us joy, things where we see our Co workers
Jessica Lucas: succeeding.
Jessica Lucas: And I think that hopefully summer of learning will also bring us some joy.
Jessica Lucas: The bingo especially is working well for us this year,
Jessica Lucas: so hopefully as we move forward, those things will be able to, you know,
Jessica Lucas: lift ourselves up and continue to feel that you know that we're supporting our
Jessica Lucas: communities and doing good work.
Jessica Lucas: Work.
W Tali Hairston: Thank you, Yasmin.
Yazmin Mehdi: Yeah, Jesse, I just wanted to say that, you know,
Yazmin Mehdi: I do appreciate you bringing the things that are of concern to you.
Yazmin Mehdi: On behalf of the workforce.
Jessica Lucas: Mm hmm.
Yazmin Mehdi: I also do love hearing. You know what good things are out there?
Yazmin Mehdi: But the thing that you know is really underlying for me is that when you talk
Yazmin Mehdi: about your concerns.
Yazmin Mehdi: You often also say, and we're in communication with
Yazmin Mehdi: management.
Yazmin Mehdi: About that and that just that makes me very happy to know that the communication
Yazmin Mehdi: line is open and that you feel comfortable raising issues with Tom and
Yazmin Mehdi: that you know Tom is hearing and and talking with you and the Union about how
Yazmin Mehdi: to improve on any of these.
Yazmin Mehdi: Problems that arise because it's just the normal course of business for things.
Yazmin Mehdi: To arise that need to be addressed, so I'm always happy to hear that you.
Yazmin Mehdi: You know are communicating with management, so I appreciate that.
Jessica Lucas: Yeah.
Yazmin Mehdi: And you know, Tom, I'm sure that you'll talk to us about
Yazmin Mehdi: what the.
Yazmin Mehdi: What the security issues are that and how they're being addressed, so thank you.
Jessica Lucas: Mm hmm.
Jessica Lucas: Yeah. Thank you.
Jessica Lucas: We wouldn't be able to get anything done without working with management on these
Jessica Lucas: things, so we appreciate their cooperation as
Jessica Lucas: well. A lot of times these issues are things
Jessica Lucas: that build up and finally get to the point where.
Jessica Lucas: It's it's a major frustration that's impacting morale and that's how it gets
Jessica Lucas: to the point where it would be in the library board report.
Jessica Lucas: So you know, there's a lot of layers to getting things
Jessica Lucas: done and eventually some things float to the top.
Jessica Lucas: So thank you.
W Tali Hairston: Awesome.
Tom Fay: It's Jessie.
W Tali Hairston: Any other? Anything for Tessie, OK.
W Tali Hairston: Great. Thank you, Jessie.
W Tali Hairston: Appreciate it.
Jessica Lucas: Thank you.
W Tali Hairston: And library board updates.
W Tali Hairston: I mean, the foundation and friends, sorry.
Yazmin Mehdi: I'm gonna seed. You're doing a great job, tali.
W Tali Hairston: Working from my phone this this is a tough one. Working from the phone but.
Yazmin Mehdi: You're doing a great job.
Yazmin Mehdi: I I have to seed to Rick because I was not able to attend the last friends board
Yazmin Mehdi: meeting.
Yazmin Mehdi: So I think we have to promote Rick in order to let him give that report.
Rick Sheridan: Can you hear me?
Tom Fay: Yes, he is eager.
W Tali Hairston: Yes.
Yazmin Mehdi: Yes.
Rick Sheridan: Excellent, excellent.
Rick Sheridan: Thank you, Yasmin.
Rick Sheridan: So I had the pleasure of providing the library's report on behalf of Yasmin and
Rick Sheridan: Tom at the Friends Board meeting on May 14th.
Rick Sheridan: The friends been very busy lately in their efforts to promote the library and
Rick Sheridan: support literacy and learning in our community,
Rick Sheridan: and here are some of the highlights from their May 14th meeting in April.
Rick Sheridan: The friends gave away 5434 books to various nonprofit groups.
Rick Sheridan: In the Seattle community.
Rick Sheridan: This is the largest number of books shared with the community in one month
Rick Sheridan: since the pandemic.
Rick Sheridan: So a real accomplishment for the friends June is typically their busiest month of
Rick Sheridan: the year.
Rick Sheridan: And this upcoming June will will certainly be no different.
Rick Sheridan: They'll be at Benaroya Hall during a concert on June 6 to give away 250 books.
Rick Sheridan: They'll provide approximately 900 books at their June books for teacher event,
Rick Sheridan: which is their last one of the school year.
Rick Sheridan: Friends board president Angel Sauls will speak with the Sunday Assembly group at
Rick Sheridan: the Beacon Hill branch.
Rick Sheridan: On June 8th, the Friends will give away 300 more books
Rick Sheridan: at the Juneteenth event that will be held at the Northwest African American Museum.
Rick Sheridan: And then lastly, the friends will hand out approximately
Rick Sheridan: 1500 books at Seattle Pride Fest on Capitol Hill on June 28th.
Rick Sheridan: So a lot of activities for the group in June,
Rick Sheridan: the Friends Board is also formed a strategic planning committee.
Rick Sheridan: This committee is drafting steps they'll take to further enhance the friends work
Rick Sheridan: in the Community.
Rick Sheridan: In support of the Seattle Public Library, and that concludes my report.
Rick Sheridan: The Friends board meeting.
W Tali Hairston: Thank you, Rick.
W Tali Hairston: And thank you for stepping in.
Rick Sheridan: My pleasure.
W Tali Hairston: Ah.
Bendixen, Carmen: And I have the foundation board meeting from just a couple weeks ago.
Bendixen, Carmen: Just a few highlights.
Bendixen, Carmen: Foundation fundraising.
Bendixen, Carmen: They're in a strong position after their spring campaign, which made about 1.
Bendixen, Carmen: 2 million, and actually that exceeded last year's
Bendixen, Carmen: total by about 270,000, so.
Bendixen, Carmen: Quite good news there in case you missed it.
Bendixen, Carmen: Hopefully you didn't library.
Bendixen, Carmen: Giving day was April 1st and then give big was May 6th and 7th.
Bendixen, Carmen: So they had a lot of donor generosity and commitment to the library there.
Bendixen, Carmen: In terms of financials, the 2024 audited financial statements
Bendixen, Carmen: were reviewed and accepted.
Bendixen, Carmen: Clark Huber.
Bendixen, Carmen: Essentially, the audit was clean.
Bendixen, Carmen: No internal control or.
Bendixen, Carmen: Internal deficiencies.
Bendixen, Carmen: So all good news there.
Bendixen, Carmen: There, the Foundation CFO, K Adamski.
Bendixen, Carmen: Got kudos for her dedicated diligence on that.
Bendixen, Carmen: And then also Speaking of strategic planning,
Bendixen, Carmen: the foundation is also embarking on a strategic plan.
Bendixen, Carmen: They've hired a consultant who was introduced at the meeting and she gave a
Bendixen, Carmen: little introduction of herself and she'll work with the Foundation Board and staff.
Bendixen, Carmen: With Tom and and the team for alignment of the of all of the plans and their
Bendixen, Carmen: timeline, essentially it's it's pretty quick.
Bendixen, Carmen: They're looking to have foundation board approval of their strategic plan in
Bendixen, Carmen: November of this year.
Bendixen, Carmen: So soon? And then they also elected 5 new board
Bendixen, Carmen: member.
Bendixen, Carmen: To begin their ten year.
Bendixen, Carmen: The names that you're interested but just suffice to say there's interest and
Bendixen, Carmen: support for the library and by extension the foundation, so.
Bendixen, Carmen: That's the report.
W Tali Hairston: Thank you very much.
W Tali Hairston: Any questions for Carmen?
W Tali Hairston: OK, any library board member update?
W Tali Hairston: Ron, where are you going to be next?
Ron Chew: I'm gonna see are are you gonna be in Philadelphia for the a la?
W Tali Hairston: I am not.
Ron Chew: I know there's other folks.
W Tali Hairston: No, I'll be back in DC, sorry.
Ron Chew: Yeah, but.
W Tali Hairston: But you all have a great time.
Ron Chew: I yeah.
Ron Chew: So I'm hoping to catch up with. I see Carmen shaking her head.
Ron Chew: You'll be there.
Ron Chew: And Jasmine, you're going to be there, yes.
Ron Chew: Nope. OK.
W Tali Hairston: Faith.
Tom Fay: Fayette.
Ron Chew: OK.
Ron Chew: Yeah. So I'm looking forward to that.
Ron Chew: I did want to mention actually prior to that I'm literally going to be in DC for
Ron Chew: AARP, big lobbying effort.
Ron Chew: As I've mentioned previous meetings on.
Ron Chew: The new state president and just returned from DC actually meeting.
Ron Chew: I know the issue of DI with Rob earlier in this meeting.
Ron Chew: Just a reassuring note that at the AARP meeting that I attended in DC,
Ron Chew: there was a affirmation of the fact we still have an office that's dei and.
Ron Chew: We're pretty.
Ron Chew: Firm on continuing that work.
Ron Chew: Work and you know, I do want to hopefully figure out if
Ron Chew: there are other ways we can partner because our audiences are very
Ron Chew: synergistic and there's a lot of crossover, so.
Ron Chew: And then the one other thing I wanted to mention, I had a meeting with Shannon G,
Ron Chew: Head of the Seattle Channel and Tom prior, members back in the day Seattle Channel
Ron Chew: used to come into all of our meetings.
Ron Chew: Pre pandemic and tape record the meetings.
Ron Chew: Very passive kind of thing, just to provide obviously public access
Ron Chew: to what was going on. But Shannon's interested in perhaps.
Ron Chew: A follow up conversation to see if there may be ways they could record.
Ron Chew: Some of the library programs that library wants to highlight and feature those on
Ron Chew: the Seattle Channel.
Ron Chew: In addition to, she said, Walter.
Ron Chew: Things that can be joint partnerships, where there's a program that is sponsored
Ron Chew: both by Seattle Channel and the library as kind of.
Ron Chew: A.
Ron Chew: You know, emphasis.
Ron Chew: She'd be very open to that, so I'll leave that there for Tom and
Ron Chew: staff to perhaps pursue further.
Ron Chew: So those are my quick updates.
Tom Fay: Yeah. Thanks, Ron.
Tom Fay: I'm actually on the Seattle Channel Advisory panel as they look for some.
Tom Fay: Kind of future sustainability and funding.
Tom Fay: So we're in a lot of these discussions.
Ron Chew: Seems like everything's around funding and sustainability these days.
W Tali Hairston: Thank you.
W Tali Hairston: Yep. Well, I'm here in Washington.
W Tali Hairston: DC right now.
W Tali Hairston: That's why I was using my laptop.
W Tali Hairston: For a housing.
W Tali Hairston: Conference where we are looking to talk with legislators.
W Tali Hairston: We are scheduled to talk with legislators on Thursday, so I'll be here this week.
W Tali Hairston: On a side note, both 100% personal.
W Tali Hairston: My wife was cast in the play The Color Purple of village theater and opening
W Tali Hairston: night is June is May 30th, so I will be flying back to make sure.
W Tali Hairston: And I make opening night.
W Tali Hairston: This was her first ever tryout for a play.
W Tali Hairston: And they cast her on her first go round.
W Tali Hairston: And so we're super excited to see her perform.
W Tali Hairston: I haven't seen a lot of her over the last four weeks, but.
W Tali Hairston: I'm excited to see her on stage for the next two months.
W Tali Hairston: They run in Issaquah through June and then Everett through July.
W Tali Hairston: And it is the musical, The Color Purple.
W Tali Hairston: Get your tickets. They still ask though.
Yazmin Mehdi: Oh my gosh, that's so cool.
Yazmin Mehdi: I'm gonna try to see her.
Yazmin Mehdi: That's really exciting.
Yazmin Mehdi: And on that same excitement level note, my son's graduating in June from college
Yazmin Mehdi: and I will be have two college graduates. Yay.
W Tali Hairston: Any other updates? No. OK.
W Tali Hairston: We do not have an executive session scheduled for today, thank goodness.
W Tali Hairston: And our next meeting is June 26th.
W Tali Hairston: I will be in DC doing that meeting.
W Tali Hairston: From there, I'll be back here at the end of of June
W Tali Hairston: for that meeting.
W Tali Hairston: Hopefully by then I'll figure out what happened with the laptop.
W Tali Hairston: If there'd be nothing else, we are adjourned.
Tom Fay: Thank you all.
Bendixen, Carmen: Thank you.
Faith Pettis: Thanks all.
Bendixen, Carmen: Bye.