Okay, it is 502 on Wednesday, June 17, 2006, and we are going to begin our City of Joy Arts Commission meeting.

We're going to start out with roll call.

Commissioner Falato present.

Commissioner Frank Tapley will be absent.

Commissioner Morano.

Here.

Ron.

Here.

Commissioner Rosati is not here.

Commissioner Simpson?

Here.

Commissioner Volin is not here.

And Chairperson Grotofsky.

Here.

So I is it now when I would address the situation we just talked about.

Or should I save that for later on?

We we can address that now.

Okay.

I figured after roll call because we only have four commissioners here.

And uh my thoughts on this was that we don't have a quorum, but Deborah Valling hasn't been here, and I think in the bylaws it states three messages are off.

So there's gonna be a note made that she's off, Donna Summers is off, Peg Stoiber's off, and probably Julia Rosati is gonna be off.

So that leaves us with uh one, two, three, four, five commissioners.

So we have four of the five right now.

And is Donna off?

No, she's just absent.

She's just above it.

Donna Summers.

She's on she's she did she's still she's vice president, right?

No, that's yes, Donna, tapped on it.

I'm sorry, I'm just gonna go.

Deb Summers.

Yeah.

She's she here, but yeah.

She's she's off though.

I think her term was up.

Donna?

No, Deborah.

Deborah, yes.

Deborah Summers.

So we only have five right now, so they're gonna make a note.

The city's gonna make a note in the uh for next meeting that we're gonna approve that um these people weren't here, so that we did have enough to to have a meeting because we only have five commissioners as of right now, and uh four of them are here.

So if that's okay uh with the present commissioners, I guess we would need a um motion and a second and an okay.

I'd make a motion to accept as presented.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Do you have to go around or is that good?

Roll call.

No.

You you can make a verbal, you know.

Or I can do roll call if you prefer.

Uh I think it's fine right now.

Okay.

Okay, approval of meeting minutes.

Did everyone get to read the the minutes from last meeting?

Yep.

Move to be approved is written.

Seconded.

Do you want to do roll call on that or okay?

Commissioner Falato?

Yes.

Commissioner Ron?

Yes.

Commissioner Simpson?

Yes.

And Chairperson Grotowski.

Yes.

Okay, on to our next thing, citizens be heard and agenda items.

We have no one here, which will go right into the agenda.

Um, which is the communications update.

Is there a screen we're gonna look at here?

Yes, just hold on one second.

Uh do you guys see it?

Yeah, okay.

All right, just to start off.

Um this is the arts commission uh kind of staff report, but it's gonna go over the items on the uh uh the agenda items on listed there.

Um just to start off.

I mentioned it last time, but um just continuing to recruit new commissioners uh to it as part of the communication portion of it.

Um there's the access point.

Um I sent an email to each of the commissioners regarding uh the web page uh to be located on City of Juliet website.

Uh I met with Sydney Thompson, um the director of uh communications, um, and she gave us the indication that um it was not recommended for social media.

Um so she already they already manage uh you know the social media website for City of Joliet um as well as uh I believe one or two more.

Um so it wasn't recommended for that, but she did recommend that they could do she could create a dedicated arts uh commission webpage that then we can utilize that link uh to send to artists as well, so it's a dedicated area for it.

Um so the items that she put on there, these are completely changeable.

Um this is up to you know the commission to kind of talk about it if they you know want a different order to it, um want different information on there.

Um but this was suggested.

Um Sydney uh Thompson, she actually has a lot of experience.

She actually did the um arts commission page for uh the village of Shanahan.

Um so this is kind of what they did in that uh in her role for that.

Um so it's it's kind of our baseline that we can kind of adjust um, you know, and and make it our own uh in a sense.

Um the one thing that I added, um it hasn't been created yet.

Um but the one thing I would like is having an artist registry.

Um so it would be a link um like a form that they can go on and fill it out and then they can go on our list for artist registry.

So if we have you know a grant opportunity um or of some sort or an inquiry about a mural um as we saw for the uh um the district eighty-six, um we have a method and a means to then transfer that information to um you know the uh the designated party for it.

Um but then it's also a link online that makes it easy so any of our commissioners can share with you know artists that they see and um whenever they're out and about essentially.

Um I don't know if you uh if the commissioners had a chance to take a look at that to get some ideas about that.

Sure.

All right, can you elaborate a little bit uh on how how that discussion went with with Sydney?

Uh it it seems to me that it can happen if they want to, but uh they don't want to put the work into it.

Um do they want to just keep us on a leash?

Um it's not necessarily uh not putting the work on it.

I just don't think they have the bandwidth and staff time to be able to even manage that, um, if that makes sense.

Um I hear that.

I mean they they can but they don't want to.

Is that sort of what that means?

I'm gonna Ann has follow-up to that.

Yeah, no, it seems like other cities.

They do.

Um, so part of the conversation with Sydney that I've had as well separately is you know, there is one communications person, we call it one and a half, not that Jenny Garcia is a half, but she only does part-time for social media.

I do know that Sydney is evaluating potential staffing in the future um to see if we can accommodate it, but currently the communications team doesn't have the capacity to manage multiple different social media and things along those lines.

So I think that the concept of it, and it sounded like it was a good conversation is there.

It's just that at this time the focus is on the ones that we have.

So it's not, and we talked to Ron about this as well.

You know, it's not that it's not um that it's done and we can't talk about it in the future.

It's just at this time.

Um it's nothing to do with putting anyone on a leash.

It's just there isn't the capacity to do it.

I have a couple of suggestions.

One is we know every town around us and throughout the Illinois has their own page to do stuff and disseminate that information.

One thing that we could possibly do is if there is going to be a dedicated page on the website, um if we if we register a specific URL for that red for that portion of the website that would take you to that address.

Uh in other words, uh Joliet.gov arts period.

Make it simple.

And then that could be posted on social media to say here's upcoming dates, here's things like that.

So they still have control, they don't have to worry about doing social media as we could we could share that stuff out uh from there.

And I do want to mention that I doing some research this week that the Alinoy Arts Commission, what I did was doing research on other towns, and when I said uh give me a list of cities with arts commission, it took me to the LA Arts Council.

And there was an Illinois map and pinpoints where all the commissions are.

There's Joliet.

I click on it.

It's an enormously long ridiculous uh URL that it takes you to.

And then when you get there, it says it's a defunct uh link.

So uh there is something out there, but it's dead.

Um so if one if we can get a short URL, Joliet gov forward slash arts, then we could share that out and direct them to that.

That whether make make it a little easier to do that.

Uh so the URL and and just uh include that.

Yep.

Good point.

Now is this website you're talking about, is it active right now?

Uh uh no.

So we so this is the uh this is the bare bones of it.

It hasn't been built yet.

Um you know, I was looking for feedback if you guys have any feedback of adjusting.

Or if you guys are okay, I can just move forward with uh how this how this looks right now, the meetings, and then you know, if it if we need to add subject lines or move around subject lines, we can we can do that as well.

Um but this was just the uh you know the the the start of it, you know, like a rough draft, I guess you could say.

Uh I guess I I look at this and and my concern is that we still haven't and it's not even been on an on an agenda is the uh uh arts policy that was worked on uh years ago and how long is this gonna take because we've never got the public arts uh taken care of yet, you know.

Great question, Odd.

Uh uh later in my uh staff report here I'm gonna touch on um the arts policy and guidelines of just the plan of what how I'd want to move forward with it.

What strikes me on this um if we're gonna go with this type of page is I would rearrange it and have events and news and updates at the top.

I mean, anybody who's looking for something to do is not gonna care when the regular meetings are or who's on the commission.

I mean, if somebody has an issue or wants to come to a meeting, they're gonna dig uh they're gonna go down farther.

But we really if we're gonna hit people, we really need to hit them with our events and news and updates first the attention span is short as far as looking for things to do.

And who uh who has access for post and events and stuff, how's how's that process gonna work?

So what what we'll do is um uh we'll have Sydney uh Thompson or G uh one of her staff uh do it.

Um but if there's an event or anything like that, you know, if you guys see one, you know, that is well from our department for sure.

I'm gonna send it to her and get them on there.

Um but if there's one that you think would feel good on there, you can send it to me and then I'll just send it to her to get it on there.

Does she have time to do it?

Does sound like she doesn't have a lot of time.

Facebook is a different animal than like a web page?

I get that.

Um but yes.

What what's the concern?

It's just the negative comments or uh I guess I'm just curious how the discussion went.

Just we don't have time, is that pretty much we did talk about uh the just people making comments in there on Facebook page, you can set it up so that comments can't be made and it could be just used for disseminating information.

Put it out there that here's our grants, here's our uh things that we're looking for, no comments.

And it and it kills it.

So there's no need for moderation.

So you cut that part out.

Just a suggestion.

You know, I I guess like one one question that I have because it was just so recent was we had those banners in the square from for fallen soldiers.

Does anybody know what uh tendance was for that?

Um because that was had to be posted somewhere, I would think on the city website.

Um but I thought I saw it somewhere on social media also, but when I was there, um, because a friend of mine was on that, there wasn't very many people, and they had that band playing that night, and it was nice, but I'm just wondering about like how are we how was the the attendance tallied or was it tallied?

And if we do stuff on the website, how is that gonna be uh looked at attendance-wise for an art show or an art festival or whatever it is?

I mean, how's how are we gonna do something like that?

Because I think it's really important to know how many people went to go see those banners.

It was pretty magnificent and uh you know, a lot of a lot of goosebumps on your arm when you walk through all of those all of those banners, but yeah, I knew nothing about it until I saw after the fact.

Yeah, what what really was the attendance and how do we how do we know that we're making progress and if it's gonna be with the arts rather than just the banners that I'm talking about, like I said, that's just brand new.

Like I said that's just brand new.

I know Katie got in touch with me about the same friend um they're from Wolkino.

But uh I think that's gonna be an important thing and what this website's gonna do.

And I I like dub saying you know the events and news and updates should be at the top.

That's what everybody's gonna go to look for.

You know, they don't want to know when the meetings are necessarily because we never ever have anybody citizens I get uh I get the feed from and s I assume it's Anne City events and it would be nice to see the same effort and popularity if that's the right term for the for the art stuff.

You know it seems like I get I I see that every day almost as something coming up this week or this month or whatever.

And uh it'd be nice if if you know we can get to that point with the arts.

And then is it just art?

I mean what you know you know can I have an opportunity to answer Tom for a second.

Is that okay?

Sorry I was waiting.

Uh Tom first of all and I apologize John I just before it gets too far.

First of all thank you for coming to that remembering our fallen it was really important to me to bring it here.

Um part of the challenge was we had to postpone the opening for a day.

Um so I actually had media from Chicago on the way on Thursday and had to tell them to go back home because they were gonna cover it.

Um and then with the tornadoes hitting um we lost our stories I will say that I was fairly disappointed that no local writers wrote about the exhibit.

I agree.

Um I you know there was promotion there.

I went on Scott Slocum he talked about it but um I was surprised that there wasn't um an article about it um that would have brought more people there.

You know I d I will say that I talked to the gentleman who brought it here, Dave, who if you met is absolutely wonderful.

Um and he was pleased he said there was a constant flow which I mean I was obviously hoping for a lot a lot of people especially bringing in people regionally but um he was very pleased with the amount of people that came.

And I'm hoping also that you know post it and like ac post the actual exhibit being able to show that Joliet is doing things like this I'm hoping we'll attract other things.

So you guys know that you know I've got other ideas and things like that of things like that that hopefully will bring it and I think as more people come down to City Square and start talking about it then we can get more there.

But yeah.

So I I hope you know it and that event is on our website.

So on the special events website um for City Square there's an entire calendar I think we've shown it to you guys before so and I think that's a step in the right direction and something that Jenny's created to be able to do it.

And of course we'll include anything that is is taking place especially if the city is sponsoring it.

So did I I mean I I wanted to kind of address that I think personally because I wanted to as well but um you know we we do try our best to get things out there.

We need people to pick 'em up and talk about 'em, you know that are positive.

And I I guess the reason I'm talking about like with a head count was yeah um creating an event like we created New Orleans North the first year we pushed and pushed and pushed and we had you know a couple thousand people came to it.

But it took us saying we had a couple thousand people came to this event come to it again next year because we had tallies we had numbers we were able to push that and let people know this isn't just something that's in passing.

It's something that's important and and like those those deceased veterans were important to a lot of people and even on some of my personal posts about it I had some people that like one lady asked if her like her grandfather was in there because he was in World War One but I didn't know how to answer her and uh I I was working and it got by me anyway but I think that people like to know that it's a big event and people coming to it and the more people know about that the better it is.

So we have no way of like tallying something like that.

Because you can just come and watch it.

We're working we're working on I mean we are try we are working on tracking attendance.

We've actually got clickers that we're now gonna be using.

The remembering our fallen was tricky because it was there for so long.

Yeah.

Um I'll go back I did kind of talk to Dave about it.

I'll go back with him and see if he can help me gauge how many people were actually there.

But we do have an attendance tracking sheet for the events that are going on at City Square and Bicentennial Park.

Yeah that's good and I think that that's uh information the public should know.

We had two thousand people come to a concert let's say you know and and let people know that there's all these people coming downtown Joliet now.

It's not you know, don't be afraid to come down.

There's beautiful.

Um I'd say that there's been you know, to your point, I mean it's better than uh it's better than it's been in a lot of ways.

You know, uh you and whoever else is I don't know all the players behind the scene that are starting to put it stuff out.

Um you know since it's gaining momentum, you want to just get on that momentum bus with whatever we're doing because it's it's starting to happen, which is you know, so this is not necessarily a a bitch session, it's just like can we get on uh get on the bus.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, the the fa you know, the lead car, so to speak, and and we can do the stuff.

And then uh, you know, as far as the that just the arts commission that to me arts is more, you know, a lot of it's art per se, but there's you know, it could be you know, poetry, it could be music, it could be uh you know, handful of other things and uh the forgotten arts, the culinary arts.

Well, whatever.

I mean uh Yeah, there's so many different aspects.

Great point.

You know, the more the better for the commission and the city and it reflects well on everybody.

So I mean that's the point I'm trying to it's not necessarily complaining, it's just like how do we get there, you know.

So you're hearing it, I guess.

And and by all means, I'm not complaining at all.

I'm looking for ways to improve it even more.

And that's why I say if we can like put out numbers somehow to let people know, hey, I missed this, like the band we saw last week, they were awesome.

They drew a great crowd, you know.

And but what what was there, a hundred and fifty people maybe came?

Probably more than that, but it is significantly better than say six months ago or whatever before you start.

So it's getting there, but uh when you start to see see it happening you get excited about it yourself.

So maybe not a question for you, Ann or for you, Luke, but um how does how does this information get out?

Are we doing any press wire to get it out to multiple sources?

Yeah, there's um there is press releases that are going out regarding things and media alerts.

Um Sydney, um, our communications person does have um that list.

Ironically, Luke and I were talking right before I came in here to say because we've got a couple of upcoming press releases because we've got the opening celebration weekend, third and fourth, you know, 250th anniversary.

I said we need to make sure that we actually send them to the arts commission as well because you know, I think we think that people see the same stuff as us, and that's not the case.

Um and you know, you Luke and I have talked a lot about making sure that we over you can when you complain, remember, but we will be sending you more.

Yes, okay, yes.

We'll tell you when to quit.

Yeah.

Um but I mean a lot of it was, and I think you guys heard this from me, you know, I was putting everything together, and now that we have it, it's like, okay, it's all coming out.

So it is.

But we will make sure to send those press announcements to you.

Um and I notice that you know, you guys are reposting things that we do, and hopefully you're noticing, like Ron, I reposted, you know, cars and guitars, like I'm reposting um or asking Jenny to repost stuff too that other people do.

Yeah.

Uh yeah, so we're we're getting there slowly but surely, but please you guys all know.

Keep the ideas coming so we can continue.

Anything else, Luke?

Uh unless you guys if you um that's pretty much it for the communications portion.

If you guys come up with any other ideas for the website, um rearranging.

I did write down the uh the idea of putting events and news up towards the top.

I think that's a great idea.

Um but if you come up with anything else, please let me know.

Is it reasonable to uh put some kind of a a timeline when this might happen by this time next month?

Uh um I think that's reasonable.

Um so uh I mean um I'm gonna get back to Sydney and make sure that I don't want to you know over sell her, you know.

I don't know her schedule per se.

Um but what I can do is I can sh uh schedule a meeting with her next week um and get the ball rolling on this.

Um I'm gonna shoot for a goal of by next uh arts uh commission meeting that we have something up.

Um as long as everything aligns.

That'd be great because we'll be here every month trying to ask where's this at?

That's right.

Yeah, and I I I just kind of would like to have you go over the overview of our mission and goals because I think we're not 100% sure.

Yeah, we're not really doing much.

I mean, we sh we should all be proud of our sculpture that we got put in place.

Um I think that's very important that something that came, you know, through the arts commission, we got to meet all the artists and approve what we have set in place right now, but we haven't done much else be and we don't have money to do much else.

Right.

So goals is a little loose.

Yeah, so it it is kind of hard to know like what can we do.

Like we've got a beautiful art project going on at the museum right now with the old windows that are a hundred years old, it all has to do with music and it's local artists that are doing this stuff.

How do we get that on our website as an event to come see the the art exhibits at the rock and roll museum, you know, and just in particular, or any or any place.

What's that?

She was asking when the windows would be done when they need to.

Well, it just depends on who brings them back.

A lot of people took them, but they haven't done them.

I have one that I've got to put going on the other.

The ones that we do have are one question or one statement that I'd like to make is I think we need to be uh and maybe now that with Sydney's here, this might help is we need to be more proactive with positive news.

Yeah.

Rather than sometimes it's reactive and sometimes there's no action.

And I think we need to be proactive too.

Tom's point when the arts council voted to support the fallen officer's sculpture that's now sitting sitting in front of the police station.

We weren't even invited to the party.

We invited ourselves to to come out and say, hey, listen, we helped with this.

We we need some positive and and I think that would probably um kind of start the curtain the synergy that we need here is uh positive uh posts, positive uh uh more proactive than reactive.

Um I think the last time we got called on was to defend our decision on the art sculpture downtown, and that really wasn't fair to us.

You know, that was that's what we're gonna be known for now.

So um just a request that if we can find some positive spins on some of this stuff and that we are trying to do something good for the community.

You're not go ahead.

Sorry, I I was just gonna give an example of that.

I I worked with the YMCA in building two of their buildings, um the Joe YMCA, which is now Shorewood.

But uh after after Shorewood was built, um, and I I didn't I don't feel like I put a whole lot of time into it, but I was there every week, at least once, sometimes twice.

But uh when it was all done, um Richard Snyder sent me a picture and said, Hey, look at I put your name on the plaque on the wall.

I didn't expect that and I didn't do it for that at all.

I did it because I like the YMCA and I still keep me in construction.

But I'll tell you what I did.

The first thing after he sent it to me was I took a p I I sent that picture to my son and my family, because I was proud of that.

You know, because I got acknowledged for something that I didn't even expect would be acknowledged, and that's gonna be at the YMCA in Shorewood forever.

So when we we as an arts commission do things and we don't get invited to uh like like what Ron said about John Walsh's uh uh statue out there or sculpture, um you know what are we doing it for?

Because we don't we don't we haven't done anything else.

We we've tried to, we've worked towards it, but we haven't really done anything and um without any money it's really hard to.

But the city now, like we have Bill's new art gallery, which some people haven't been into, but he's got some beautiful art in there.

Deb, you've been in, you've seen the stuff that's going on.

John's been there, Ron's been there.

But when they do art shows or art openings, is that something that the city of Joliet should really be supporting and saying, hey, let's get these people down here, and should that be with the events and the news and and let people know that these are big big important things to to the arts and we have to take these small steps with these places that that are stepping forward to make sure that we have new people coming.

You know, a couple years back, and I think you were at that one that uh Deanne and I put on over at Juliet's, we had a hundred and twenty people who came, and most of them weren't from weren't from Joliet that came to that.

So there are things that happen, but we did that on our own, and I had to promote that by myself and and not a lot of people from Joliet came to it.

So we have to figure out when we we do have people that are putting an extra effort in to bring the arts in how we're gonna support them also and let them know that they're important to to what we're trying to do here.

Us as volunteers once again, I keep saying this with no money to do anything with support.

You know, give us give of time, talent, or treasure.

We don't have any treasure on this arts commission.

We don't have any money to do anything with.

So building up what you're saying about us trying to be out there and stuff.

This communications page, is there going to be the ability to put photographs on there of recent events, things that we might have attended or been at to get some action to the page, or is this just a has to be dynamic?

Yeah, I don't dynamics and status.

Like I think it would be nice to put some action to this.

So if we're take pictures of the you know park opening, I mean the dedication, and we have commissioners there, and there's pictures of what's going on that go on this page that kind of shows that there is activity.

There might not be a budget, but there's some activity and people and faces, and it doesn't have to be just ours, but just and I agree because this picture on here is still a rendition drawing.

Yeah.

You know, that's not anything that's happened.

There's no pictures of things that have gone on.

I think that's important.

Well, and um one of the reasons the commission was created in the first place was economic development.

And to your point, you brought 150 people from a different city to see what we're doing here.

So I think this is important to do that.

And I also think it's important to engage the local community to get them involved in the art projects and have pride and ownership in their own city here.

Off track a little bit, but I mean we talked about communications there, right?

Right.

Right.

And I think that's why we have to have these discussions during the state.

I think we beat that horse to death.

Yeah.

What's up, John?

No, I was gonna say pretty much all right.

Okay.

We got that point.

All right.

Anything else from you, Luke, on this?

I uh I added a note uh to speak with Sydney to see if we can add like past events and pictures and stuff on there just to you know gain some traction and gain some uh, you know, like what Ron was saying, like that goodwill portion of seeing like, oh hey, wow, they're having a lot of fun down there.

Maybe I want to be a part of that.

Right, even if they weren't changed, you know, every other month or something on the group.

Just keep it fresh.

And to reiterate, if we can ask uh for that short URL to take them directly to the page so they're not muddling through the whole city website to find something that's a deep dive.

That's not there, that's not there.

Yeah, I mean that's you know that's the bottom line to it.

You go through a website.

And if you can add to that um for somebody to get a hold of Illinois Arts Council and update that link.

I yep, I have uh just I got that on my list.

Yeah, just to just to update that so it's not a dead link.

Okay, is this yours next to Luke?

This comprehensive plan update.

Yes.

Okay.

Um so uh I spoke with Jan Jane?

Jane, sorry.

I almost said Jan.

Jane, uh planning director, uh City of Juliet.

Um she gave me the uh uh the comprehensive plan.

She uh mentioned that nothing has really updated yet, but she's actually supposed to get an updated version of it here soon.

She said middle of June a while ago, so I'm not sure if they have it yet.

Um but this is the comprehensive plan update that has been out.

Um and what I did was I kind of thumbed through it just to give you guys a little bit of a kind of a summary of what you know is in there uh regarding uh the arts um arts and culture.

Um what I saw from it.

Um the community engagement, um, the feedback that was received uh regarding arts and culture.

Um residents want more public art, live music, festivals, cultural programming.

Um there was suggestions of reusing historical buildings for community and cultural space.

Um there was uh uh why uh uh very supported, uh beautifying public areas with murals, landscaping, and cultural expressive design.

Um, this was all in the uh the the update, and this is a feedback that was received.

Um the culture and identity seen as a tools for shaping Joliet's perception and civic pride.

Um there's uh uh the next idea was uh the character areas with cultural components, um historical, historic and cultural areas includes areas with concentration of historically or cultural significant structures.

Um of the cited examples um that was provided was like uh, for example, the old uh Joliet Prison was cited as an example in it.

Um these areas offer opportunities for preservation, adaptive reuse um, and tourism centered on uh like cultural heritage.

Umtown as uh um cultural destination as one of the goals uh for the economic development section, strengthen downtown's Juliet as a cultural hub.

Um highlights include uh promote downtown as a regional destination for cultural culture, arts, dining, sports, and civic life, um invest in public gathering spaces, plazas and place-based amenities to support cultural activity.

Um prime example is City Square, um, support uh experiential retail environment, entertainment, restaurants, art-oriented businesses, um encourage adaptive reuse of historical buildings for housing or cultural identity, activate vacant lots and placemating making, uh examples were temporary art, pop-up events, uh more cultural programming, um, continue organizing public events that promote cultural tourism.

Um a lot of this is repeating, so I'm just gonna kinda uh thumb over some of the land use and neighborhood identity, um, as I mentioned, the cultural preservation and place making in the historical buildings.

Um of the key objectives that came from that is add public art and branding at major entry points, um so that's like entry into Joliet, um creating pedestrian pedestrian-friendly routes that strengthen connections uh to cultural spaces, um, support neighborhood-based initiatives, um, and then activate historic uh corridors and public spaces with cultural programming and events.

Um the big section that was uh a really good one for arts and culture specifically is uh people, places, and belongings, um arts and culture focus.

Um so uh there were some recommendations that came from that.

Uh some of those recommendations as you can see there was uh preserve and adaptively reuse the historic buildings and cultural spaces, as I mentioned, expand opportunities for artists, cultural groups, and creative entrepreneurs.

Um we're trying to start that with our arts registry stuff, so we're getting the ball rolling on some of these items that are mentioned in the uh comprehensive plan.

Um integrate the public art and storytelling and corridors, gateways, um, everyday spaces, um, and to continue to support cultural events, festivals, creative programming, and then strengthening partnerships with schools, museum, and nonprofits in the area, and then uh continue to promote regional tourism through cultural trails.

So all in all, uh the summary, um it's pretty much everything I mentioned.

Uh but the plan repeatedly prioritized those ideas.

Um it's uh it's a it's a good document, it's about 50 or so pages long.

So it but you know I tried to pull out all of the art focused um items from it and stuff that would affect you know, arts commission and kind of the uh arts and cultural uh programming that we're trying to do with uh with our within our department.

Um so definitely prioritize public art investment, cultural programming, so uh in citywide arts and culture plan.

So it's cool to see that you know the public and the comprehensive plan has a lot of the ideas that we have you know put into uh you know program like that.

So that's essentially it.

Yes.

Go ahead.

When you're are you done?

I mean so this sounds like the four of us.

Were you guys at the uh public as saying all of the okay?

It it's determine what the public wants, what this commission wants.

Uh you know, uh I guess the question is is do you want to uh I say you not per personally you, but does the city uh want to support what what they're hearing through this?

And I I think it would it be unreasonable to get a monthly uh report on what you're doing about what you're hearing here.

Um you know we can support and work on and work on stuff.

I mean, this you know, this sounds like what we're all you know, what we want, what the public wants.

Kind of common sense.

I guess the question is is that a you know uh you know, will it be uh uh a priority uh you know, for the for the city and and uh and tell us like we're giving you X amount of dollars or we want to do this and you could address each one of these uh every month as far as I'm concerned and be accountable.

Like are we gonna you know, how do we make progress on this?

We spent a lot of money on on this and other dozens of other stuff with a comprehensive plan, but and everything has every thing every one of those things has different priorities, but um it's clear and uh you know, whatever's a reasonable time frame to you know, whether it's next year's budget, whether whatever, you know.

Uh you know, how can we attack uh and I think the the right word is attack?

How do we attack some of these?

And uh we want to be partners uh in in the attack.

I'd like to add to that too.

Um you are very diplomatic about saying it that way.

I wanted to ask like how much spending pay for this comprehensive plan that says we have to use empty buildings and empty lots and and put more artwork out there.

Um I'll never get used to uh the speed of how government works.

I it's just uh it's sometimes very long to take care of and do these things appropriately, I suppose.

But I kind of refer to this as analysis paralysis.

It's like are we gonna do something?

Uh how do we mobilize this now?

So this uh this is uh the you know one of the updates of the comprehensive plan.

It has not been adopted by council yet.

Um so there is gonna be more updates to it.

Um but obviously, you know, that's that's probably not the answer we were looking for.

Is now it has to go to somebody else to approve.

How do we get it to move is what we're looking for.

Or at least when they approve it, can it come back to us and say, hey, take this and run with it, do something with it.

We'll give you one line of something to accomplish.

You need our to approve this.

We support this.

I mean not that it's approved, but we're seeing what you what this plan says, and can it be put on record that we support uh this?

I mean, is that somehow uh so I actually go to the comprehensive plan meetings and I can let I mean them know we like what we hear that you guys are in the case of the case.

You can you can voice for us.

Yes, I can voice for you guys.

Yeah, I think I actually I think we have many times over.

Um I I would feel uh good as well.

Uh can I hear from you, Ann?

What your thoughts are.

I mean you you're close to the I love Ron's comment.

You're getting used to the speed of government.

Well, to be correct, I didn't say I'm getting used to it.

No, you can't get used to it.

Um and I I actually I feel like all of you in some way have actually been in in some part of the comprehensive plan, whether attending a meeting or something like that.

Um it is a plan and it does take time.

Um I also appreciate the fact that what's being pulled from it is saying that we do need to do things like that.

That helps me when I try to get a budget to do things for that to say, hey, you need to implement that now.

So I I think I need to have a uh a little bit better understanding about the timing of it of it.

Sorry, Ron.

Um to figure out, you know, if there is gonna be money put towards comprehensive plan implementation.

Um but it does help to support me when I am looking for budget, and it is budget season.

Some and and it would it help?

I mean we could use uh a a council liaison that would you know that supports this and supports what we do to so that somehow behind the scenes when they all talk and they can talk more than two at a time, can't they?

I don't know.

You know, forgive me.

Um we actually did have that internal discussions and I do have um someone that has um uh said they will do that, but let's you're doing it and that's the thing.

Yeah, no, we we we have a plan for that actually.

We have somebody also advocating I'll finalize with Luke and Katie what the protocol is to make sure that that gets implemented by the next meeting.

That'd be nice for sure.

Yeah.

Um one thing like with this comprehensive plan, which uh I don't know, I guess people get tired of hearing it as a comprehensive plan all the time and and don't see any action.

But just uh for instance, tomorrow night uh Morningstar mission, a local nonprofit to get involved, they're having their caravan go into different restaurants here in Joliet.

Is anybody from the city going to attend this comp this comprehensive plan thing when Morningstar is actually doing it and we get no response from the city of Joliet for anybody going on this caravan for the food and go into the local restaurants?

You know, it would be nice if somebody could spend whatever it is 50 or 100 to go on the caravan and see what a nonprofit's doing to try to help the city out.

We serve 300 people a day there, free food, you know, that that doesn't come from taxpayers' money per se, it comes from donations for the most part.

And in return, they're trying to get people known to like they're going to the Mexican restaurant and the train station, they're going to Stone City Post, um they got four three or four different restaurants that they're that they're supporting right here in our community, you know, a nonprofit stepping stepping out of out of bounds and saying, hey, we're gonna try to to show what we're doing.

So that's that's one point that I that I saw in this because I did see the nonprofit part of it.

The other is bringing people downtown and and what was the uh the verbiage to be a cultural uh whatever it was, but what is that exactly?

A cultural destination, I think is what it was called.

What is a cultural destination?

Districts and trails, maybe cultural districts and trails.

No, it was on the first it was on the It was on the previous page.

Previous page, I think.

But uh what what exactly is that?

What is what is what is that in the comprehensive plan?

You know, I just I read that and I say, well, what what is what are we really looking for in this you know, culture, whatever whatever it was.

Can can you go back one page?

It might it might be two, but um go back one more.

So downtown is a cultural destination.

What what is that meant?

I mean what what is the actual meaning of that?

I know we have City Square and we're we're pushing that, and I think all of us push that because we've been to the affairs, we've been to the concerts, we've been to the different things that are happening.

But what is what is that downtown as a cultural destination, the comprehensive plan.

And this this might be just for me because I don't understand what that means.

Well, I think each one of us will interpret that differently in the city may interpret it completely differently than we do.

So I think some clarity with the in tourism uh a destination uh is more than just coming to one location.

When you're there, you're there for an experience.

So you can take something like Utica as an example that's near Starved Rock, and now they have outside dining.

It's there's an experience to go there.

They have uh winery, they have uh restaurants they have, you're doing a lot of different things there.

So now it becomes a destination that you're going to.

The summation of all of this.

I yeah, I that's what I've heard in tourism.

Uh as a but I don't know if that applies in this case.

But well, that's what I'm saying.

From the city, what is that?

You know, what is that?

What do you what are you looking to do as as a cultural destination?

What kind of culture?

Um we have four restaurants within the district uh right now, and there's no other room.

I guess there is one or two places that could be, but that's about all there's room for in restaurants that I see right now in in the real estate market within that city square uh area.

You know, how do what what is that what is that cultural destination?

Do we do we want to expand that in the future to take on, you know, that downtown Joliet isn't just Chicago Street from Jefferson to Cass, but it actually goes from Ottawa to Scott all the way down to Ruby Street.

You know, how is that is that part of this cultural destination?

In in the document, it's a 54-page document.

I just did it as a summary.

Um but in there there is more detail, I think, on that cultural destination portion.

Uh-huh.

Um they even have it listed as goals underneath that of how they're defining it and how they reach it.

Um, but so I could send you the link if you'd like, and then you could go on there and view it yourself.

I think we'd all like to see that link.

Yeah.

I think I think it's kind of important because there's there's so much on this comprehensive plan, and I know I I saw everybody here at one or one of the meetings at least or comprehensive plan, right?

Yeah.

Traveled around the different rooms in here.

So we're we're putting our heart and soul into what what this arts commission is about.

But we also have to have answers and we have to have dollars and know what kind of dollars we have, and I know there's not any in the budget right now.

Well, budget's coming up though.

I know.

That's why I looked at Anne when I said, I believe I believe in you, Ann.

All right.

I do want to make a comment about that uh cultural destination though.

Um there was a post recently on Facebook from the historic Route 66 group of somebody who's traveling through the museum itself gets people from all over the world that come in.

Uh there's a particular group of people that came from um from New Orleans, and uh when they walked in our museum, they were pretty upset that the other museum was closed.

Um it's not an uncommon thing for people to come into our museum and say what's up with the train station.

I today somebody said I we went to the one to the museum at the train station, it was closed, and then the other museum was closed.

So they came in, but their post was a review, and it read, don't go to Joliet, don't waste your time, there's nothing there.

There's the photos don't uh are exaggerated that there's nothing there.

Uh the nice compliment for the art for our museum was that the rock and roll museum was open, although it's small and uh building, it was very nice to be able to go there.

But I think that to the point of cultural destinations, I think one thing we all need to do is learn to play together and create the synergy here amongst the restaurants and everything, going back to my point of using Utica of giving people a place to go to to do many things.

And knowing that we could put heads in beds, uh hey, we're gonna start our trip on Route 66 in Joliet.

So we land in O'Hare, we're driving down to Joliet, which does happen.

They stay in the hotels, they kick off their their tour at the Rock and Roll Museum or the Joliet Area Historical Museum, and then they're off.

They're going to the next destination.

But if we can keep them here for a day or two, then we're also creating uh uh economic engine and you know money happening here in the city.

So I think that's one of the things we need to think of.

And and the importance in trying to convince our council the importance of how art plays uh a part of that because the second part of that review was we left Joliet, went to Pontiac, it was much nicer, they had more museums, they had more artwork, more murals.

Um I'm be happy to send that to everybody if you want to see that that they put that.

But I I want people to understand the importance of what the art means here, and when you see degraded art that that's coming off the walls and things like that, we we look like we're falling apart.

And and again, we're the we've said it before, fourth the largest city, and and so far behind on everything.

So how do we get caught up?

Uh the plan is interesting, it's good, but going back to this, how do we mobilize this and make this happen?

How do we move forward?

And I I I read that same thing, Ron.

That was one of the saddest things I I read about Joliet right now, as we're as we're trying to make it better, and as the city's trying to make it better, and the downtown with the new park that was very sad to read, and it was very disheartening.

And I you could you could feel the passion in the woman's writing about about Joliet like that.

And yeah, you know, one one one review like that can wipe out ten great ones, you know, because people have a tendency to focus on on the negativity, which we don't we don't want to do at all.

But uh yeah, I I agree.

And the flip side to that is uh that I do notice um all of the entry ways to Joliet have great greatly improved.

And I know the bridge is a mess right now, but that's being repaired.

All these things should have been done.

The city, the city uh square should have been done years ago.

I'm glad it's being done now because that ugly parking lot is now a beautiful park there.

But now we have to change perception not only for people who are coming through, but for the people who live here, because I still get people that say I've never been down to your museum and they live four blocks away because they're afraid to come downtown.

So we we have to find a way to change perception.

I look at uh I had brought in books with this prior to Ann on Paducah, Kentucky, because whenever Bob and I travel, we go through every little town, and I look at every piece of art they have, every museum, every place they they teach classes, public art.

I look at their average income in the towns, and we are getting our butt kicked by people who have an average income of thirty thousand dollars per person in these towns.

I look at Paducah, Kentucky, um old river town, old buildings could be quite comparable to us.

Uh Fort Myers, Florida, the same.

There back in the 80s, 90s, you wouldn't go downtown.

They have used the arts to turn it around completely.

They have art co-ops, they have museums, they have vendors on the street, they have festivals, they have murals along their waterfront.

They have a lot of things going on for a town that doesn't have a lot of money.

They're giving artists grants to come into these dilapidated buildings, and then they're giving artists can apply for grants to help them build it out.

And you went through all the places in this designated area.

So if you wanted to shop here, you might get 10% off, you might get a free drink there.

The art museum, you might get to see this artist working on something, but they had all these passport destinations.

And the amount of people doing it was incredible.

Nashville's the same way.

I was just going to say that back when I wrote the business plan for the museum in 2016, one of the things we talked about was finding ways to work off each other's synergy to work with other places.

We should be having a city pass.

You get discounts for lunches.

How do we then become this cohesive city with the restaurants, the attractions?

How do we how do we make this a destination for people to come to?

That's I think we need to put some focus on it.

And artw is something that pulls it all together.

And that that lady who traveled through with her family who left a negative remark was that was the first thing she noticed when she got to uh Pontiac was the murals down there.

So let's keep them over.

That's all I have for the uh comprehensive update.

Okay, so when I asked before, you were gonna uh touch base very quickly on the public arts policy that was written that hasn't been on the agenda, or were you talking about this comprehensive plan?

If you want to move to uh staff comments, okay.

I can give you some staff comments.

There's some follow-ups and things.

Um I did have a chance to meet with Becky, our grant coordinator.

She mentioned that we uh uh we in the spring we did apply for the IACA grant that we got in the past.

Um so we're hoping to get confirmation for that uh sometime in August or September.

Um the received amount she told me on and for that um depends on how many people apply for it.

Um but it could be anywhere from 2,500 uh to 25,000.

I think last uh last cycle there was a lot of people applying for it, which is good, but then it thins it out a little bit.

That's why we were I think we only received 2500 for it.

Um so we're hoping to you know have some good news from that when it comes.

Um I also invited uh Becky uh to come to the July 15th meeting um to give uh you know a presentation and stuff about how she looks for grants for uh you know the arts and and different things for the city.

Um one of the uh grants that she mentioned to me was through the Illinois Arts Council.

Um there it's a creative projects grant.

Um this is something the you know the city can apply for or individual artists, um which I think is a really cool opportunity for that.

But that's just a quick grant update uh for that one.

Um hoping we got some good news coming soon.

Um but I thought it would be beneficial to have her come on and you know do a presentation to you guys because you guys are looking for grants, or if you guys have grand ideas and you see it.

Um she's a she's a great resource.

Um she even was coming up with ideas that I never even thought of, so um she'll be a good presentation for uh uh for the next meeting.

Um then the next thing was um uh utilizing committees to help develop uh you know recommendations.

Um two committees uh that I had uh the idea for subcommittees uh would be uh just to go through the public art and policy committee.

Um, you know, utilizing two uh members from the arts commission to meet with me and uh and maybe Ann to kind of go over the public art guidelines.

Um, I haven't had a chance to really dive into it, but I think getting me up to speed would be great, especially from you know Ron, the one who helped write it.

Um I kind of put together a timeline too for it.

Um once we get the committee together, um I'm I would like to have like a bi-weekly meeting standing where we can kind of get the ball rolling on that and make it move quicker.

So I know we have a lot of the stuff already built, so it hopefully we'll move quick um from that point.

Um so that's one of them, and then the other one would be the artist uh like a community engagement committee, uh something that helps with the web page that we're talking about.

Um, you know, some ideas of what should we put on there, how can we keep it fresh, how do we keep it active, and helping and having arts commissioners, you know, help kind of spearhead some of those ideas would be the idea for that for that subcommittee as well.

Um we're free.

So we're down to four commissioners.

Yeah, I have commissioned too.

So those are thoughts.

Um uh I can, you know, if you want to email me separately and you know, we can kind of figure that out or you know, figure out who how we can uh get that get that ball rolling on those committees.

I would work on the arts and community engagement committee if anybody wants to.

I've been working with you on the artist registry already, sending you who I know of.

Yes.

I've done a little bit of research on the public arts policy.

A little?

So I'd be willing to take that one on.

So with the public arts policy.

That was it was written, it was researched and written and written well, and um how long will it take you, Luke, to be able to like be able to look at that yourself.

I know you're new, you're getting hit in all directions.

What kind of timeline could we expect from you to look at the one that's already written and see how far we have to go with it?

So that would uh so on my uh guideline plan, um that would be phase one.

Um and I would like to have um once we get the you know committee start and we get a meeting date set, um I'll review it in depth at that point.

I've read it, I've seen it, um, but actually going through and identifying different sections in it.

The first meeting would be a orientation and draft review.

So when we do get to the uh the first meeting, um the idea would be to remove uh re review the draft and essentially get me up to speed because there's maybe I can look at a policy, but you know, what's the background of how we got to some of those conclusions?

I would I would love to hear, you know, from Ron especially with some of those ideas.

Um and then uh phase two would be you know refinement.

Is there any refining that we can do?

You know, I don't know how when was last time we you know was actually looked at, but is there any way that we can refine it?

And you know, maybe we saw something recently that we can improve or make it better, right?

So that would be refining and content completion on that.

Um so my goal would be three to six weeks, so that would be the you know, second meeting that we would have as a subcommittee.

Um and then phase three would be um on the city side, so internal and city department review.

Um trying to rope in all of the different um uh departments into the review just to make sure they have a chance to look at it and um get a view on it.

Um and then hopefully after the city review and and that plan would be uh just getting the final revisions down and then bringing a final um you know art policy uh to review as uh as a commission.

What do you what do you anticipate?

Three to six weeks for you, what do you anticipate for the people above you?

Uh no comment.

It depends on schedules of everybody, so it's hard to it's hard to, you know, it's hard to answer that question, unfortunately.

So you wrote this what, three years ago, Ron?

Uh-huh.

Can we expect with these updates and reviews by the end of the year that this could be put into policy in the practice or not?

I mean, you don't comment.

I know you said no comment, but I mean is that seem like that.

It was originally presented as uh kind of a living breathing document that it had enough substance to it to approve it, which we did as a commission for it to go to the next level, which would have been the city council, which it never got to.

So and then the thought after that was we know we're going to as we being so new at this, we know we're gonna learn more as we go along that we're going to have to add other parts to that policy moving forward.

We did as much research as we could by looking at Elgin and St.

Charles and places outside of the Alinoi at their city policies at their art policies.

But it was presented as something that could be uh altered in the future to say that um hey, we just stumbled across this, you know.

So we need to we need to add another uh policy within the policy or something, you know.

But it was presented as something that could be uh altered in the future to say that um hey we just stumbled across this you know so we need to we need to add another uh policy within the policy or something you know so now that I'm you know now that I'm here you know I'm into I'm into my s uh third month now I just finished two months um you know uh a lot has been thrown on me right we had uh I'm getting up to speed on a lot of stuff which is great um that's you know getting up to speed on a lot of that stuff you know is uh um it helps make it go smoother um so now that we're on the the ball is rolling on that you know um I'm hoping to get this you know the ball rolling a lot quicker on the arts commission stuff so um you know I'm I'm definitely excited about all this stuff moving forward and and ready to just start attacking some of these you know lofty goals and lofty dreams so hopefully we can keep moving on it but if you guys I got Ron on uh the public art policy and then Deb I have you on the uh engagement committee um could I have maybe Tom or I'll work with Ron you want to work and then Tom would be interested in engagement Ron on that maybe Donna could work with Deb.

Yeah if John is in the artist she'd be with that yeah she'd be she'd probably be good at that right that's who I thought of first yeah so if you're not here and you get appointed you have to do it.

Not here to defend herself all untold.

She's chairing it by the way I make a motion yeah yeah even better.

Yeah she worked during the day so maybe maybe this summer you know it's convenient for me like after 3 30 because I'm downtown every day now so it's it's kind of nice but I have to work until 3 30 so I can attend meetings after that like four o'clock or whatever John's retired he doesn't do nothing.

Any other member comments I do what where do we stand with what do we have three commissioners spots open well no we've got four four only five of us.

Okay has there been any applications do we know of can that obviously try to uh it's probably gonna rely on some of us but can we try to make that a you know a priority so that if we can maybe have more than five of us at the next meeting so to speak are up for approval even if we don't have all the spots but may just it'd be nice to add a couple that's all I mean I think um I think Tom or one of you guys mentioned earlier that we really need a liaison from the city council.

Yeah um as I entered here Caesar Cardanas said that he had some interest in that maybe there's others I don't know but I think we need to get some uh somebody to help um to define what we're doing here let's take a look at those bylaws again we I I just I have my reservations about any inviting anybody into the into a mess right now until we know what we're doing until we know where we stand.

And I and I don't think we stand anywhere unless we get city buy-in to what we're doing and I think that might have to come through city council.

And if you go back and look at last month's um agenda or the approval of minutes those comments were were in there from last month still so maybe maybe suggestion would be to have a hold a special meeting to go through the bylaws and talk about having uh a uh liaison from the city uh to approach the city to ask if we can get somebody on this as uh ex officio um then and maybe you would know this uh or so on Friday night when I was down at the City Square concert uh I happened to be talking to the mayor and he said something about trying to do some artwork uh on uh the back of the parking garage and I thought he said he had North Point uh uh some money from them and maybe trying to put up a big screen we're exploring options right now for what can be done with that parking deck and hope to have some type of um artistic element to it.

All right yeah as soon as we know you'll know but hopefully he's as you could probably tell he's very passionate about it.

But hopefully he's as you could probably tell, he's very passionate about it.

So I think there's hopefully some good uh energy there and momentum to get that.

Uh you know, we could we could use you know something cool that we're a part of we both could, all of us.

Yeah, your side, our side.

Uh so uh I just I heard about it, I just wonder if there was any updates, but okay.

Sounds like it's still being worked on.

All right, that's I have one last question uh for me anyway, about um the last year's Illinois Arts Council grant.

Um have we expended all of that money because that's coming up, the reporting on that's coming up in August, and we only have what, one meeting before that.

I know we talked about using part of it for the uh Poet Laureate.

Does that uh uh expend all of the arts council grant money?

I it wasn't much, it was I think you were right, it was $2500, but I think we talked about using fifteen hundred dollars or so to pay him.

Leaves us with another thousand.

His his term expires, right?

Yeah.

And we talked about uh do we extend that too, or do we what do we do from there?

But my my question is even if it's only twenty five hundred dollars, I don't want to end up in the same thing that was happening before, which is on August 1st, we say we've got to spend the money, let's give it to and then we just give it to Bicential Yes, somewhere.

Right.

Yeah.

Like the this money should be going to artists or something, really.

We have no operating expenses.

We're we're not paid, we don't have an office.

So the operating expenses could be uh the cost of whatever, you know, for uh artist.

I know that at one point we were talking about that banner program and Ray was gonna buy material for it.

Yep.

And I don't know if he ever did.

We never heard on that, but that's what part of that money was supposed to go towards, and the rest of it was supposed to pay for Uxmar.

So I just don't know where that money went to with the for the paints and stuff.

Yeah, for paints and bands.

And one of the reasons I bring this up is because Val from Joliet Library contacted me and said that they're doing a um they're doing an artist in residence at the library and asked if there was any funds from the arts commission that we could uh help with a stipend.

Anything she said, if it's a hundred dollars, five hundred dollars, a thousand dollars, if there's anything we could use that would help an artist that's uh that's gonna have a you know artists in residence program downtown in the Ottawa Street branch.

Yeah, that would that would be great.

So if somebody could find out if we have any of that money before before it runs out.

Yeah, that that uh I don't know off the top of my head, but I can find out for you.

The the grant cycle I think ends in uh August, if I'm not mistaken, for that Arts Illinois Arts Council.

Well, and where where does the Poet Laureate are we giving up on that or are we gonna do another two-year for somebody else?

We would put it out for uh applicants or do we have money to fund it?

So I I think we did a pretty good job of answering most questions.

I do have to defer that one to the next.

I just don't have um all the information.

What we did do was we asked Uxmar for kind of a report of everything that he had done that Luke and I just got.

So it's kind of waiting on that a little bit to be able to move forward with, you know, what do we do with the poet laureate?

So I don't have that one done this time, although I really wanted to, but we will um we will look towards um figuring out how to extend that program.

You will see him tomorrow though at the dedication.

Yeah, and I just think it was uh it was really really uh, you know, from where we were with we didn't have one and to what he did in in two years, you know uh like to keep it moving forward, obviously, as and as opposed to and that that program actually started be to before the two of you came on, um, and there was some expectations.

He had to show up at six different city events and he has to do six presentations and I can tell you he's way beyond that.

He's we got our money's worth out of him tenfold so any other comments?

No public comments uh motion to adjourn.

Make a motion.

So move.

Second second.

Aye.

Is that it?

That's it.

All in favor?

All in favor, we can do that.

Any opposed?

Yeah, let's stick around for a while.