OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD
Record of Proceedings

Golden Arts & Culture Commission Business Meeting - May 13, 2026

City Council & Boards — Wednesday, May 13, 2026
BodyGolden, Colorado
SessionCity Council & Boards
DateWednesday, May 13, 2026
StatusFILED
Video Record
0:00 / 1:28:25

Transcript — Verbatim
0:00

I'll just go ahead and get us started in case they're running really late.

0:04

So I'll call the meeting for May to order at 601.

0:10

And I will ask Nathan.

0:13

Absolutely.

0:14

All right.

0:14

Kenny Ahmed.

0:16

Christy Rice.

0:20

One Mateo.

0:22

Not here yet.

0:23

Laura Tanner.

0:24

Yeah.

0:24

Paris Hazelmina was absent.

0:26

Heather Mullins.

0:30

Cindy Jen Rick Satter.

0:35

All right.

0:36

And then the next point of business is to approve the agenda.

0:42

Are there any changes to the agreement or is there a motion to approve?

0:47

I move to approve.

0:50

All right.

0:50

Is there a second?

0:51

Okay.

0:52

All in favor.

0:54

Approved.

0:55

And then a motion to approve the minutes.

0:58

Unless there are chambers.

1:03

Move to approve the minutes.

1:04

Is there a second?

1:07

All in favor?

1:08

I approved.

1:12

All right.

1:12

And then we'll start with um public comment.

1:18

That would be me.

1:19

That would be you.

1:22

Oh, you know what I'm sorry.

1:23

Can everyone click your things on too but you want one?

1:37

Can I have one?

1:46

Hello all.

1:47

I'm Barb Borden.

1:49

I'm the uh publisher of Golden Today, which I think most of you subscribe to.

1:55

Um I am also on the board of the Golden Cultural Alliance, and when City Council was discussing how this new arts and culture commission should work, they said you would want to talk to the Golden Cultural Alliance.

2:09

So here I am in case you want to talk to me.

2:12

Um little history on the Golden Cultural Alliance.

2:16

It was formed in 1984.

2:19

That was um during a time when Golden was still pretty economically depressed, and uh a number of organizations started at about that time.

2:29

The uh Leadership Golden was formed and the Cultural Alliance was formed, and they were starting to talk about getting a um a uh well, downtown development authority and later Golden Urban Renewal Authority to try and uh update downtown.

2:46

So uh the Golden Cultural Alliance formed so that the existing um organizations like the uh museums, the history museum, the Foothills Art Center, the Geology Museum, the uh and the non-museums like the Jefferson Symphony and I don't think the concert choir existed yet, but they're members now and many other cultural organizations could get together and talk about how they could kind of co-market and like know more about each other's organizations and maybe go visit each other so that when somebody came to their institution, they could say, you know, where else would be a good place to go is you should go over to the quilt museum or whatever.

3:32

So when they first started, they um put together a series of concerts, and um in addition to the concerts, they would always have some other art form uh available like uh display of paintings or a display of quilts so that people could get exposed to multiple multiple cultural organizations.

3:55

So um the group still exists and um they still get together approximately once a month to get to know each other to find out what's going on in the other organizations, and um probably the biggest benefit they receive from being members of the cultural organization or the cultural alliance is that I include all of their events in my daily calendars, and so that's why you all read so much about library events because they're a member of the cultural alliance.

4:30

So um I am as I said, I've been on the board for a number of years now, and now I'm part of um uh sort of loosely bound uh cultural organization of my own.

4:45

I um worked with a friend of mine, Pamela Gould, who was on uh state council at the time to form Golden Beer Talks, because at that time uh downtown was still kind of struggling.

4:58

Um we had gone through the streetscape, so it was looking much prettier.

5:01

Um we had pretty good traffic on weekends, but uh weeknights were still pretty quiet.

5:09

And at that time I was um maintaining the website for Windy Saddle, and I knew that Deanne, the owner, was thinking about uh trying to be open at night, and she was kind of concluding that there really wasn't enough traffic at night, and so Pamela and I discussed what would it take to get, you know, it would have to be residents because we were not getting that many tourists on weeknights.

5:34

What would make residents come downtown on a weeknight?

5:39

And um so we were both big fans of uh TED Talks at the time.

5:45

I still am, and um, we were thinking, well, maybe something like TED Talks, but we can't use that name because you know, copyright.

5:53

Um so what we golden, what we golden people like to hear instead of TED Talks, um, and that was about the time that so many of our craft breweries were coming online.

6:04

And we thought, well, maybe they could use you know some marketing help.

6:08

So we could call it beer talks, and we could bring in beer from one of those craft organizations.

6:13

As it turned out, none of those craft organizations needed any help from us, they're all doing just fine, but we still call it Golden Beer Talks.

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Arts And Culture█████████████████████████████████████████████50%
Public Engagement████████████13%
Community Engagement█████████10%
Technology and Innovation██████7%
Indigenous Affairs█████6%
Procedural█████5%
Economic Development████4%
Data Management██2%
Historic Preservation██2%
Summary of Proceedings

Golden Arts & Culture Commission Business Meeting - May 13, 2026

Note: The agenda and minutes list the meeting date as May 4, 2026, but the provided instruction specifies May 13, 2026. This summary follows the specified date.

The meeting was called to order at 6:01 PM. The commission approved the agenda as presented and the minutes from the previous meeting with a correction. The main topics included communication strategies, grantee recognition, staff reports, and updates on community events.

Consent Calendar

  • Approval of agenda and minutes (Len Matheo's absence corrected in previous minutes).

Public Comments & Testimony

  • Barb Borden, publisher of Golden Today and board member of the Golden Cultural Alliance, spoke about the Golden Beer Talks – a monthly lecture series held on the third Tuesday at the Buffalo Rose, attracting 80-100 attendees. She noted the series has no formal 501(c)(3) status and asked about potential grant support to help edit and post backlogged lectures to YouTube. Commissioners expressed interest and suggested a fiscal sponsor could facilitate a grant application.

Discussion Items

  • Communicating about the Work of the ACC: Commissioners discussed guidelines for representing the ACC publicly, the purpose of the white paper (internal reference vs. public-facing collateral), and the need for consistent messaging. They emphasized using the city website as the primary source of truth and planned to revisit communication tools in a future meeting. Ideas included updated printed maps, QR codes at artwork sites, and digital story maps using GIS.
  • Recognition of ACC Grants: The commission agreed to create standardized language and downloadable templates (logos, statements) for grantees to acknowledge ACC support. Sarah volunteered to draft wording and bring it back for approval. The goal is to increase public awareness of ACC funding.
  • Staff Report (Nathan Richie):n - Indigenous Connections Summit: Second annual summit held April 28-30 with 150 participants from 10 tribes and 24 tribal representatives. Theme: "Cultivating a Culture of Consultation." Future plans include partnering with History Colorado and expanding public education. Nathan noted the summit was one of the most meaningful projects he has been part of.
    • Strength, Dedication, Discipline, Determination sculpture: Staff sold seven miniature bronzes back to the artist Jeff Rudolph for $250 each. Proceeds will go into the public art account for acquisitions or conservation.
    • Public art signage and website: Designs for interpretive panels are in the city’s work plan; a template with artist name, artwork name, QR code, and ADA compliance is expected. Website consolidation is ongoing.
  • New Business:
    • Littleton’s Arts & Culture Strategic Plan Rollout Event (Tammy Ahmed): Described a successful event at Arapahoe Community College, highlighting regional arts economic data (e.g., $3.12B economic activity, 14,466 arts jobs in CO; in Littleton: 500 arts jobs, 10,424 programs, 2M+ interactions). She proposed a similar annual event for Golden.
    • Comfort and Comedy Festival (Len Matheo): Len Matheo was absent; the item was not presented.
    • Makerspace Open House (Heather Mullins): ~70 attendees gave positive feedback. The group is collaborating with Foothills Art Center for Arts Week workshops. A feasibility study is funded by the Economic Development Commission.
  • Other Business:
    • Discussion of citizens dressing the "Alex" bicycle sculpture (e.g., seasonal costumes). The commission decided to allow non-destructive interactions as long as artwork is not damaged, citing previous PAC precedent and similar practices elsewhere. Complaints can be directed to staff for board consideration.
  • November Meeting Change: Due to election use of Council Chambers, the November meeting will move to Thursday of the same week at 10:00 AM.

Key Outcomes

  • Approved agenda and minutes.
  • Standardized grantee acknowledgment language will be drafted and reviewed at a future meeting.
  • Communication strategy (white paper, collateral, website) will be further refined in upcoming agenda items.
  • Public art interactive dressing (non-damaging) is permitted; concerns may be submitted to staff.
  • November meeting rescheduled to Thursday at 10:00 AM.

Meeting Transcript

I'll just go ahead and get us started in case they're running really late. So I'll call the meeting for May to order at 601. And I will ask Nathan. Absolutely. All right. Kenny Ahmed. Christy Rice. One Mateo. Not here yet. Laura Tanner. Yeah. Paris Hazelmina was absent. Heather Mullins. Cindy Jen Rick Satter. All right. And then the next point of business is to approve the agenda. Are there any changes to the agreement or is there a motion to approve? I move to approve. All right. Is there a second? Okay. All in favor. Approved. And then a motion to approve the minutes. Unless there are chambers. Move to approve the minutes. Is there a second? All in favor? I approved. All right. And then we'll start with um public comment. That would be me. That would be you. Oh, you know what I'm sorry. Can everyone click your things on too but you want one? Can I have one? Hello all. I'm Barb Borden. I'm the uh publisher of Golden Today, which I think most of you subscribe to. Um I am also on the board of the Golden Cultural Alliance, and when City Council was discussing how this new arts and culture commission should work, they said you would want to talk to the Golden Cultural Alliance. So here I am in case you want to talk to me. Um little history on the Golden Cultural Alliance. It was formed in 1984. That was um during a time when Golden was still pretty economically depressed, and uh a number of organizations started at about that time. The uh Leadership Golden was formed and the Cultural Alliance was formed, and they were starting to talk about getting a um a uh well, downtown development authority and later Golden Urban Renewal Authority to try and uh update downtown. So uh the Golden Cultural Alliance formed so that the existing um organizations like the uh museums, the history museum, the Foothills Art Center, the Geology Museum, the uh and the non-museums like the Jefferson Symphony and I don't think the concert choir existed yet, but they're members now and many other cultural organizations could get together and talk about how they could kind of co-market and like know more about each other's organizations and maybe go visit each other so that when somebody came to their institution, they could say, you know, where else would be a good place to go is you should go over to the quilt museum or whatever. So when they first started, they um put together a series of concerts, and um in addition to the concerts, they would always have some other art form uh available like uh display of paintings or a display of quilts so that people could get exposed to multiple multiple cultural organizations. So um the group still exists and um they still get together approximately once a month to get to know each other to find out what's going on in the other organizations, and um probably the biggest benefit they receive from being members of the cultural organization or the cultural alliance is that I include all of their events in my daily calendars, and so that's why you all read so much about library events because they're a member of the cultural alliance. So um I am as I said, I've been on the board for a number of years now, and now I'm part of um uh sort of loosely bound uh cultural organization of my own. I um worked with a friend of mine, Pamela Gould, who was on uh state council at the time to form Golden Beer Talks, because at that time uh downtown was still kind of struggling.

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