How do we give us a hug I call to order the February fifth meeting of the Museums and Cultural Arts Commission.

May we have roll call?

And I'll do the I'll do the minutes and roll call.

Can you guys hear me today on this?

Okay, perfect.

Yes or no?

No.

Can you hear me?

Yes, no.

No.

The light is on on this too.

So I don't know.

Can you guys talk on your side?

Can somebody come?

I'm sorry, we're having some technical difficulties.

Yes.

Is this mic working?

Yeah.

Okay.

Is it the mine's coming through?

Okay.

Okay.

So if mine's coming through, I'm just going to try to talk loud, okay.

If that's better, I can talk loud.

Okay, great.

You're going to do roll call then.

I'm going to do roll call.

Um Commissioner Caldy.

Commissioner Rukowski.

Commissioner Kimzi.

Present.

Commissioner O'Neill.

Commissioner Fullop.

Um, Commissioner Evans, are you attending remote?

I don't I don't see them.

And uh Commissioner Turgeon uh notified me that she would be missing this meeting.

She's out of town.

All right.

So we do have a quorum.

We have um five commissioners on site right now.

Okay, so we will start with the consent agenda.

Oh, Commissioner Evans is present remotely.

Awesome.

There you are.

Remotely, all right.

He's line.

Thank you, Commissioner Evans.

So we'll start with consent agenda.

Did anyone have any discussion or problems with anything on the consent agenda or comments?

There is no consent today.

I'm going to end that.

Yeah.

Um, and is there someone online that wishes to speak today?

And just a reminder, if you'd like to speak, we'd receive no written comments.

Um, and that there's no one inside council chambers at the time.

But if you'd like to uh comment, raise your hand, or if you're on contacting via phone, dial star nine.

So at this time, if anybody would like to make any public comments, please raise your zoom hand or dial star nine.

And I don't see anyone here in present in chambers.

Okay.

Okay, so we shall we start with um the Colton Hall art exhibits.

Brian with your informational reports and comments.

Yeah, so this is a pretty kind of quick agenda item.

Um but essentially what we would like to do is we've had last year and the prior year we had some great in terms of working with we worked with Monterey County uh Historical Society on the Hathaway exhibit, and we did an exhibit of photos there.

Um it was a great turnout in our opinion on having that as a show, and then we had our recently we had a different photos that we've placed in that I had in the Monterey County um Monterey Board of Supervisors, had like 1849 and different photos there that were blown up.

We put those in there.

We had an art exhibit with our uh Monterey County open studios, and then did a youth arts collective art show in there as well.

All of those bring in new people into Colton Hall, or they bring in um community members and citizens back into Colton Hall for a new purpose.

So we think that bringing in more exhibits 2026 would be great.

One of the first ones that I'd like to do, and I'm in contact with the fire department about is that the fire department at their fire department admin and at fire station 12, which is on Hawthorne, have old archives of fire department history.

And I've also been in touch with the Monterey Police Department because those are two not exactly art exhibits, but they would be two exhibits that I think would have a lot of public interest in terms of seeing the history of the Monterey Police Department, seeing the history of the Monterey Fire Department, and working with those departments to have something and have uh events at some point.

The one thing with the fire department, we know that NCIP did fund additional improvements at station 12.

So I think there might need to be some time where that stuff leaves station 12 anyways.

So it would be I'm gonna be meeting with their uh, you know, the fire station team in the coming weeks to kind of discuss what that might look like.

Uh but I feel like those would be two really interesting exhibits for us to have in Colton Hall, and then possibly open it up for some other type of art exhibits, whether that's um plain air group, whether that's um some other local young artists again, youth arts collective, but I feel that that would be really positive way for us to use the um Colton Hall.

And I think bringing in, I I thought that having a commissioner assigned so that we could bring it back.

We could either do this and bring back like a formal proposal to the full commission and at a later time of what we'd like to do for the timeline, or do we bring in a single commissioner to kind of work with through this um offline and just hammer everything out?

But happy to answer any questions, comments on that.

Any thoughts about that?

Well, I have a couple of comments.

First, congratulations on I've been to several of the events uh events at Colton Hall, and they were both, I mean, the ones I went to were very interesting.

One I would propose.

Well, with the police department, it'd be nice to tie in the Monterey jail, you know, and tie in the whole history of that and how that evolved.

One one item in the future, and it might take some time, but I think it would be well worthwhile is to do one on the public schools in Monterey, since it's right, I mean Colton Hall was the first public school.

I had it.

So uh just the evolution of the schools, where do they go from there?

Um, and all that.

But no, I think it's great what you're doing.

All right, thank you.

And Commissioner, Commissioner Evans.

Um I'm curious how you um plan to display the art.

Are you going to put them on easels and uh so people walk around them or are you going to is there space on the wall?

Exactly how does this all go about?

I think it's a great idea, but I'm just concerned about how um you plan to actually do it.

Yeah so what we um part of the grant that I had with um last year with Community Foundation Monterey County is I bought an expanding art display and we use that for youth arts collective and what it is is it all folds up it's on rollers and then it has hangers so that we can hang art.

And so we use that for hanging our art panel on there.

It's not the I will say it's not the most beautiful kind of item out there but it's functional.

It's functional as what we could use in that space and close it back up and put it out there.

And you use that for Pat Hathaway.

Well Pat Hathaway I think we use the the um the grids we have some other grids that we use in there and I I worked with uh Susan and James to install all of those over there too but similar but we have some equipment already it doesn't have a huge amount I will say for like fire and police we would probably want to look at some uh the current school cases go back to what Commissioner Wokowski was mentioning is that we have the exhibit on the schools has been there for close to 40 years I believe um on the wall that has history and I think that would be good to kind of use that and a rotation but I've looked at photos from I think the 1960s and there was a photo of like the handcuffs and the jail key and all that.

And so I think that using those cases which haven't been rotated out we would use some of the the cases that are in like kind of the museum admin space that currently have the school stuff we'd use a locking cases like that so that we could put stuff like badges and pins and things that we don't want somebody to you know just have hand access to something like that have them in those cases and then have other stuff that like photos on the panels that we know people could walk in and out.

That's where I I think and then larger items we may have to bring over tables or stands or something.

Is there any okay yep to work on that project volunteer commissioner evidence.

Commissioner Evans did you have another comment no I'm oh I'm okay.

Okay.

You have your Zoom hand up.

Oh let me take my hand down.

We don't have a volunteer I think if if it's if it's fine if I mean also I just wanted if the commission is good with this proposal and us kind of going forward with these projects and I'll mention also like in our my staff report later our staff report was about the open art studios we did that with the Monterey County Arts Commission and had an artist out here to show off their artwork.

The change for this year and I need to get back with them is that I I'm use I would like to have it as a way for us to highlight city artists so city staff art because we had people that were artists chosen by the arts council but we should be highlighting our city staff and their artwork.

And so I felt like that would be a way for us to do that but just using this as a way for us as a staff to kind of come up with our calendar go through and if the commission is okay we'll go forward and then let you guys know future meetings what we have planned if that's okay as well.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay no further discussion on that move to item two the activity report.

So you'll just keep us posted, Brian, on the status of those and and the when they're going to go up and what are they going to include and all that.

Yeah, exactly.

We'll put that out in the future commission meetings and everything and what we're doing.

And then we'll also I because I I find that I what I what I would like to do is have more opportunities this coming year as we however we can, you know, to have opportunities for commissioners to be there at the events and everything too.

I think those those would be nice events for for us to uh gather, you know, and have and even partnering with the school and school district and saying what might work for you guys for having an exhibit here.

So I think those would all be good.

Okay, and item two.

I don't know if there's any public comment on this item.

Anybody raise your Zoom hand or no?

No public comment.

Okay.

Did you want to move to the next activity report?

Um right.

So wanna highlight on for our we have our the Canary Row Days in the beginning of the report, the activity report.

Um we had Canary Row Days is a program we do it through the library every year, and we partner with a number of our non-profit groups and people that are historians through the area about Steinbeck and everything is in this year's was travels with Charlie.

And I asked our artifact specialist Brianna Schwerling to work with our local history librarian Kathy Lowe on a series of programs, and we had a number of different programs for that series series of talks and events and everything like that.

So I was really happy with that.

And then Brianna and our assistant library director Melissa Mejia went to emergency kit for wet salvage of museum collections.

I believe that was at Cal State University Monterey Bay, and that was something that was um I believe the state library was funding how to deal with like wet salvaging.

Like if things get wet in your archives, how to deal with it.

So that was a a training course that uh they went along with Kathy Lowe, our local history librarian.

So it's always important when you think about having sprinkler systems and archives and how do you deal with you know with archive with damage to archives and things like that.

Um page six of the packet, you'll see the some of the visitor statistics.

And as I mentioned on here, the open studios, they had on that first weekend 214 visitors, and that next following weekend there was 238 visitors, and that was I think it was a great opportunity for us to use Colton Hall in another way to bring in art and artists in Colton Hall to increase our our traffic inside of there.

The um the Christmas and the Adobe's December 12th and 13th, and thank you for our folks that volunteered that day.

I think it was really first off, I think the weather really helped having wonderful weather that weekend and having power that that weekend were really helpful.

Um, but we had they counted 900 visitors.

I thought we had more, but that's what Brian put.

Okay, but it was it was a very busy two days on there, and we went through a lot of apple cider and cookies.

I think we bought out all the apple cider they had a trailer Trader Joe's so we can heat it up.

All the jackery boxes to eat everything.

Um so that's where you'll see Colton Hall had a pretty solid.

Um we put on the October, November, December, and January months so you can see that and December, because of Christmas and the Adobe's, even so.

I think in then having those events, you know, having some special events in there too, really has helped us increase our attendance over there at Colton Hall.

Um Pacific Biological Laboratories.

There's just a number of we don't do there was just one basically private tour in December.

That's why you only have 15.

We didn't do the public tours.

We generally do the public tours January through November.

And we've been advertising those on the library website.

We've been advertising all of our uh museum events also on the library website in the newsletter.

Reason being my newsletter goes out to 11,000 people, 12,000 people were in the prior newsletter went out to 150 registrations, right?

So it's by combining these, we get a much broader reach, as well as we know that the weekly on their events calendar, they pull from our events calendar.

So everything we put on the library calendar, they put on the on the public events calendar on the weekly.

So we're getting a lot more traction by putting our museum Colton Hall Pacific Biological Laboratory tours, anything like that, putting them on our library calendar is getting more awareness.

So I think that's helpful.

And Presidio Monterey Museum reminder were open Saturdays and Sundays right now, 10 to 4086.

And then I did put on the mobile tour usage.

These are people using either their phone or the website for the mobile tour to track down that where they have the QR codes and how to visit Monterey walking tour app.

And that's 2,787 and I track that through the uh the website management.

And still with that the mobile phone tours 260 callers.

So that's what we're getting right now.

So all of that so is that 260 part of the earlier one 2787 or no it's separate.

Oh it's it's separate.

Separate.

Yeah so it's it's separate from that it's that we just do we have like the the mobile phone tour component on there.

I will say also on that one thing that we've wanted to do um or plan to do is the marketing component of that of like and I may have mentioned this before which is that certified folder is the distribution point at like the hotels the airport the welcome centers and they have all the distribution of the brochures and our brochures I had them stop distributing them before because it had the out of date information and it was the stuff that was changed during the pandemic.

So we may want to go back and put back on on there about how people can explore Monterey but we have to redo the the map redo some of the content on there highlight the walking tour highlight some of that but those signs the mobile tour usage that's those are those little signs and the large signs that were put out at the different parks.

So I'm curious Brian I wonder if you could request and I'm sure they must keep those statistics uh state parks and MHAA what are their monthly totals for couple months or whatever in comparison MHAA of course has the Stanton Center and Casa Serrano State Parks has many buildings I don't know how many are open.

I think they're keeping the one next to the museum of art that seems to be open a lot more now.

Casa Cutier is yeah yeah I I know I mean I volunteer off of work I'm on the Monterey State Historic Park Association board okay and so we've been talking because Casa Gucci has been operating as a as an art site.

You know an art gallery just like Fridays and Saturdays.

So I don't remember the numbers I think it's about 30 a day I believe are going into on those so you're looking at you know pretty similar to what we'd see on like Presidio Monterey museum essentially like we could have some synergy there with the museum of art and then the law office that they just bought and in Casaca Terrace there could be three sort of art museums or photograph museums or whatever.

Right.

And I I think the the thought I had with um yeah I know the museum of art is really interested in that you know kind of the area and they built that little parklet yeah side of you know and I'm talking with state parks I think having that that kind of corner parklet you know over corn at the end of KayAP that that has been helpful for having a like a like a like an A-frame sign you know art museum here and more people are kind of walking in around in that area.

So I think that increases that so when you partner and do everything and I think they have some benches in that triangular area and who knows maybe a piece of sculpture or whatever.

Yeah eventually yeah so it's um yeah, I think I I don't know the totals um you know at the oh no I don't know if but at Casa Serrano or you know those other ones but I will will say you know I think a lot of this the the prior map that we used to hand out was done years ago when it was a preserve America grant which meant that MHAA, state parks, city of Monterey, these agencies all work together on that and that was 10 plus years ago.

So since that 10 years ago the funding dried up a lot of that stuff everyone's doing their own marketing but for a while 10 plus years ago people were doing historic Monterey and marketing together.

How do you how do you market this as a group of like of sites together?

Yeah.

What I'll the um Monterey mural, and you'll see that there's on the packet page seven, four lower tiles um separated and fell off.

And we're looking at um met with architectural resources group, who was the one that worked on the I believe 2002, but also 2015.

So like 2002, there was a restoration project that was installed in 1984, right above the entrance of the Monterey Conference Center.

It was restored by Architectural Resources Group.

And then 2015 they took it off, restored, cleaned up the tiles, restored any cracks, and but they did not they put in the recommendation of how to do the installation, but they did not do the actual installation in 2018.

So with that, um we brought them out to look at they're gonna have an engineer look at how or why the tiles have fallen off.

We still don't know exactly why those tiles have fallen off.

But there are cracks on other ones, and that's a main artery where that is where the hotel goes to provide food for the conference center.

So we have to have that pathway open because of there's always operations going on between those sites.

So worked with public works and engineering, and we put up the temporary bracing up there to prevent any really damaging cracks, uh damage to that um mural.

I contacted uh the artist's son to let them know about that we're bracing it and we're working on restoration.

And hope I am hoping that we get a uh they're gonna start getting people out here with a proposal for next steps.

But my feeling is that most likely we're gonna need to take down the mural, store it, and have it done professionally look back at how to reinstall it.

So working with, but we're going to contract that out with architectural resources group and their group of uh what their recommendations for taking it down and moving it up because it's really critical, I think, for our art collection and our history to have this mural over.

Why aren't we going back to the original contractor?

I mean, when they installed it after the conference center was uh completed, they knew a service delivery road was gonna be there, right?

And the vibrations and whatever.

So I'm I can see his contact in ARG, but what about the original contractor who in the who built it?

I'm sorry who installed it.

Yeah, I from my understanding, there's a that's passed the warranty on the material, passed the warranty on the the contract with that contractor from looking at but they still owe us, they owe us an explanation.

Well, so I think that's where they want to get the engineer in there too to see what exactly was it the material, was it the installation?

We don't know yet.

So we don't we don't know yet, but we're getting somebody to do the they're gonna bring in somebody to do the investigation of that to see was it moisture, was it installation?

We we really don't know.

Um so I I don't want to I want to be I don't want to be aggressive on that and want to make sure that we do all of our research for we and then see what we can go forward before going.

Did they actually break or they came loose?

They actually did not break, but they came off and fell off.

Oh my goodness.

It was the lower four tiles came off.

The lower part actually bulged out, popped off the wall, but it's being held up by the um by the scene.

So the the backing of it popped off the wall on some of the tiles, but because the mortar, the joints, the joints are holding them together.

So the bracing is up on the front of it so that if it pulls off this way, it's not going to fall, you know, like like fall down.

It's basically gonna push against the brace and just the bracing is gonna hold it up.

So we're convinced there too.

So you're convinced that it they weren't hit by a truck or something that was passing along that area.

I've always wondered why we didn't uh put in like a low guardrail so that you uh vehicle couldn't get close to it.

It would rub on their tires before they would actually get close to the to the mural.

Um I will say they have a security camera on the outside facing towards there, and it just, it just fell.

It wasn't hit.

It just it just fell.

Um basically somebody somebody found the tiles loose.

I think they called police report in, and then the conference center took a look and said no, it's it just fell.

So, but that's where they have to figure out was there anything else that happened before anything else that would have happened that that caused this.

And I and I hear what you're saying, uh, Commissioner Evans, because I I think that was prior when the first installation was over the entrance, so it was in a protected area where you couldn't access it.

And when they did this one, it's next to the walking part, and there's nothing that protects the front of it.

So I do think it's something when we talk with ARG with that, like ask them anything on those.

And is the artist still alive?

No.

No.

No.

Shall we move to item three?

Yeah.

I don't know finish.

Oh, let me all just not finish with all the art.

Well, just in case, or if you if you don't have any questions, that's okay.

Just the the ends of mural has been installed over in the the tile mural has been installed over in the city manager's garden right over in there.

Um, I really think it looks quite beautiful.

I'm really happy with with that.

And then the angel storage racks on page nine, we had those installed.

They're on wood storage rackets which were falling apart.

And um talked with our um one of our border like our border library trustees chair, um, or she had their business sudden ag donate and create these racks so we could store the angels so they're secured in there and NCIP project updates.

So that's also wanna highlight uh for folks especially on the commission that the um we did have things thank you for Commissioner Evans for a uh presenting on the Colton Hall project to the NCIP was ranked fourth out of the votes, and that's for $350,000 recommended um for increased drainage, water, basically the stuff that we've talked about here at Colton Hall.

Uh what that is is that we have to look at the the drainage solutions, the hardscaping around the building.

So this includes this would be in tandem with the work that we're doing for repointing because you need if you're doing the repointing, which is the all of the the mortar between the stones at certain areas for that to last, you also need to do the hard scaping to prevent the water from preventing further damage.

So if it's a issue, we're doing both together.

Um, but that was approved, and council had also directed the NCIP commission to come back with three to four million dollars of prior projects to uh defund and final approval of the projects, and then come back at a later date.

So what they gave to NCIP was a list of different projects and had them vote every one of their commissioners voted between zero to 10.

Some I believe I'm not sure the exact number of feet.

I think it's like 500 feet or 500 yards, it's 500 feet or 500 yards.

If you live within a project, you have to recuse yourself.

So that person, you know, would automatically be a zero on that project.

Um, there's another one that's on here that I missed initially at all mentioned in the packet, but the lower presidio slope monument restoration, those are the different stones that are on the slope monument.

Um that was an earlier project for $150,000.

That one ranked in terms of so what they did also is they're doing a running total going down to seven, eight million dollars, and they're presenting this to council at a later date to say this is what the exercise that you've given us.

Now council has to make that that decision.

Council will will come back.

So the NCIP commission, so that will be at a later date.

Um, but one of the first ones that would be off would be the Lower Presidio Slope Monument Restoration.

The shoreline.

Oh, the next one that I had missed was there's a Via del Monte Casa Verde underpass hardscape, which is 548,238.

What that one would be would at the underpass at Casa Verde of Highway One would be to install a mural or art under that on Caltrans property.

So that one was also ranked fairly low.

That's a half uh 548,000 for a mural there.

Yeah, yeah.

That's how much they had previously approved on there for that project, which is some of that was for side sidewalk.

Um there were some um sidewalk uh development uh apparently in addition to the in addition, so it wasn't all mural, um, the half a million.

Got it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Evans.

So that was right here.

All what Bob said.

Um Commissioner Evans was stating that it also included some um like walking pedestrian elements underneath there.

I see.

So that makes sense.

Um it's so that we have a presidio walkway.

Yeah.

So then the well, the third one that was lowest would have been the Shoreline Park Fish Hopper Restoration.

If you're on the recreation trail and you're going around Sister City Park on your right, towards going towards New Monterey, on the left, we have what's called a fish hopper, a large fish hopper, looks kind of like a wooden dumpster, looks really big out there.

Uh big redwood uh structure, which would have been a fish hopper, and that's where they had those out in the water, and they dumped the fish and they would suction them into the canneries.

So that fish hopper there was a $60,000 allocated towards fish hopper restoration.

That was um one of the lower ones.

The next one was the lower presidio walkway phase two.

That was $78,000 on there.

Um that one, and then what is that project though?

I was curious.

Let me check.

I'm gonna have to.

Uh Old Monterey Foundation has put in two walkways.

I've never heard of another phase of a walkway.

I thought, and I could be wrong, would be from going up private bolio, like across.

You know, you were going up private bolio by the creek.

Oh, yeah, you mean on the state parks property.

Right, state parks over there.

I thought it was over there, but I could be wrong.

You know, we proposed uh a major work there, and state park said they didn't want to do anything on that site because it would just increase the amount of homelessness.

So I never heard of a walkway in that area, just to the left of uh the presidio as you're going up.

My impression was that the there's a pedestrian cut uh pathway that goes up to the left of Boleo where Bolio intersects the lighthouse, and that the improvement was going to be to shape that up and a grade it and uh then uh put asphalt down, I guess make it a good, a nice walkway, uh, but it has to be done sort of on top of the surface because again of the historical uh archaeological possible finds if they actually start digging into the into the landscape there.

Uh I'm not I was not clear on what that one was all about.

The what we proposed a number of years ago was to um come through the fence at the out at the end of Hawthorne and cross Bolio with a bike path, which also could be a pedestrian path, and there would be a ramp on the uh Hawthorne side of Bolio then uh and uh but at that at that time there was a a neighbor at the end of the street that was very opposed to it.

So the project died for lack of a second.

Yeah, so I would say, you know, let me look up this one, trying to see if I could download any of those files.

So that one, I mean, it was an older.

Let me see if I can find this on there and it was uh 70 78,000.

Yeah, I mean, because it's previously, I don't have a I can follow up with that.

I'll follow up with that if I can track down more detail.

But all I had was just the project card that just had a description because I didn't attend the meeting on that one.

I just know it was partially, I thought it was up like what Commissioner Evans was talking about.

I thought it was on that on the bolio side, okay.

That's where I I thought it was is coming up off of there because 78,000 would be very small for that project because it is a very that's a larger project that needs to happen.

You know, there is also access from Van Buren, it's not the safest or easiest access, and it's virtually impossible to have that ADA, but I don't think anybody's proposing that.

Right.

And then the last one that I that I saw on the list that um I thought would be of interest to the museum commission was the Canary Road worker houses restoration, and the city is currently getting quotes on that.

I've been working with our city engineer uh Reggie Paulding on that.

Those are the three houses which are on Bruce Harris Way across the street from the Pacific Biological Labs next to the aquarium.

Those three houses were donated by the aquarium to the city when they used to be up at their property where they're one of their admin buildings are the park, and they moved them over.

And what it is is that they've hit extensive rain.

There's water damage, there's wood damage, so it's very much like replacing just the damaged wood, possibly replacing some of the glass for the windows, um, doing termite bagging, like there's some work that needs to be done for those things to really stand up, but they have not been painted in years.

They used to be whitewashed and painted regularly, they there's some of that work that just needs to needs to be done correctly.

Um so I'm not sure of the status, that's why it owns an italics interpret in terms of it's currently in progress because we're getting bids on that, and so that might be um some of these other projects I believe were crossed off when they were funded, but happy to answer any other questions regarding the activity report, or if there's any public comment.

Yeah.

Shall we move to item three, the update on Pacific Biological Labs?

Yeah, thank you.

So I don't know.

Last meeting I discussed the you know the Pacific Biological Laboratories and moving that to the Historic Preservation Commission for them to adopt just in concept the plan for the accessibility plan.

So with that, um I worked again with uh architectural resources group on the how to how the report fit with the secretary of interior guidelines for historic properties, and we have to do that in terms of submitting any project to be approved to the historic preservation commission.

So with that, this proposal would be going to historic preservation commission next week, February 12th.

So if any of our um commissioners I know that worked on our um subcommittee on this, I know Commissioner uh has resigned from the from the commission, but I know Commissioner Wokowski's been there and Commissioner Evans.

I'll be there on February 12th talking about that.

But if you're um interested in being there or discussing anything on your opinion, just let me know on that.

But we're basically trying to get just the concept plan, that concept plan then basically gets adopted for three years.

And that what that says is that it's just a way for us to decide that is this a way that the historic preservation commission will approve a project like that moving forward.

This is not the architectural drawings yet at the scale.

That would go back to historic preservation commission at a later time.

So once we get back and say yes, we want to do this.

I think it gives us a good path for looking for private donors or looking for how do we get this kind of project funded for repair there at the site.

And it would adopt some of the earlier historic reports that we have on the site too that are, you know, we there are certain reports on there in terms of the windows that need to be repaired.

There's other areas that need to be repaired there in the lab.

So as a building is also it's H1, it's one of the most historic kind of structures here for the city.

That's where we go forward.

And then it's my understanding ARG proposal is for over 2 million dollars.

That's their cost estimate.

We just had them put in a cost estimate, but that's not we're not approving the them doing the work and the cost estimate.

Whether what I mean, the question, Brian, would be say we did an alternative.

No, I'm just concerned about the amount of construction on the back, how it's going to change the whole shape of what of Ed Rickett's lab.

How about if we did not do provide ADA access on site, but we provided it off site, either with an iPad or through the intercontinental hotel.

For I guess my first question is, would that be acceptable to the Secretary of Interior?

And second, what how would that uh affect our current and future uses of Ed Rickett's lab?

So that's a couple questions there, yeah.

And then so what I'll say um, only put this frame for my notes too.

So I'd say the first part about that is current and future use, those stairs need to be replaced.

And so what it does in the front.

No, the stairs on the back primarily, both of them actually, but the front stairs are actually more historic.

The front stairs are historic, the rear stairs are not.

So if we use the rear entrance, the rear stairs have been replaced, the rear porch or rear stairs are not replaced.

So the this project does not adapt the main facility.

It changes the porch and the stairs, which are not historic, and putting those and getting a lift and putting stairs that would be accessible.

So that would allow us to continue to have access because I feel that we're at a point where those boards are falling apart in the rear of the building, and we're gonna get to a point where we can't get people out the back door to go down that stair.

So I would say in the future, there's going to be a very soon future where we're saying, hey, we need to address this anyways.

So to me, it's like really getting in there to access that for current use, future use, we need to we need to address the that access on there.

Um that part because of this kind of the reconstruction side of it, because we're not damaging the main structure.

I don't see it as it's not something I have to go through the report in terms of ARG again, but really we're not readapting the interior.

We're not making major changes to the interior of the building.

We are enlarging the restroom, right?

Not exactly.

So there's we're the restroom, we would not enlarge the main restroom, we would keep that the same size.

It would be adding it, possibly adding another restroom underneath, like underneath the stairs.

I see.

So the ADA accessible restroom will not be on the it'll be underneath.

Right.

And so that would be something to get on the construction guideline, and you know, when we get the actual architecture plans, that side of it.

So I I find that we would also have to have that discussion whether we just tell people to go to the aquarium or the hotel, right?

To the restrooms, one of the two.

If we just say we don't have restrooms, because currently we've been telling people we don't have restrooms, there's publicly accessible restrooms at the walkway next to the aquarium where the staff entrance, I mean where the member entrance used to be at the aquarium right over there.

There's public restrooms which are right there.

So we tell people visiting right now, use those restrooms.

So that's where I think it's it's kind of like ideal.

And as for the virtual access, we actually are working within um uh our assistant library director, Melissa Mihan.

I've been in contact with we actually last year we had a we had a private studio working with the Steinbeck Center in Salinas that did a 3D, like a VR tour.

We did a meta VR tour, which you sit down anywhere on the headset, and it's an and it's a narrated audio tour of VR.

So I actually earlier um today contacted uh John Holland, who's the past director of the Steinbeck Center, and he's creating his own nonprofit Steinbeck experience.

He was the one that was working with Lever Studios to create that.

About how do we do that as the alternative for tours?

So currently, right now we have the iPad and we show people a YouTube video of the tour done by Susan Chilling Law.

And so instead, what I want to do is Melissa and I talked about this is that we would set up days at the library where somebody needed an accessible tour of the site, and they could go to the library, which the library is accessible.

We have to have Wi-Fi access for the the headset, and then they could watch a virtual tour narrated of the lab, and that gives us the accessible option for for the site, but it doesn't allow accessible programs.

So that's site, it allows us to still do the tours on that site.

And I do think the construction was, as I mentioned last time, I think it was like $1,500 a square foot or so or 2,000 square foot that ARG was proposing on that site based on access and historic nature, but it wasn't.

We were really focusing on external side of it.

So I don't know what the overall cost would actually be.

Would we be allowed to renovate the the front portion of Ed Rickett's lab if it's not ADA accessible?

I mean, all of those things.

If we renovated anything would go through Historic Preservation Commission first, we would have to put through a proposal and making sure it went through the standards.

I will say that off the top of my head, I know the facade is listed in our design standards for the Canary Row plan, like that building site, and I know the so like the front facade of the wood and the staircase in the front, that's those are like that's what it originally looked like.

There is a little piece of a bar over by the handrail that's by the um what do you call the driveway that goes down that might be able to be amended, like that or the garage door, but anything I think would go through another proposal.

And I could add, um, we had an inquiry about using Ricketts Lab for a group, and we are not allowed, I understand, to have chairs, any sit-down thing because we aren't ADA accessible.

So if we had people giving lectures and whatever, I mean that's just out.

Oh no, they've given lectures, no people sitting down.

Well, I got this from Brian this week.

So we we do the talks, we do the tours, we do the tours, but be we can give a tour because we have we can do a tour because we have the accessible option of the online tour.

But we can't do an online.

If somebody says I want to do a special program, which is a special lecture at the lab, we haven't been able to do a tour.

You know, we haven't been able to host programs in there.

That's been our guidance.

It's been we haven't been able to do special programs inside the lab because somebody comes in and says, I have a wheelchair and I can't get upstairs to the second floor.

And the earlier design of the uh from the that 2019 accessibility report really like I don't you don't want to mess with the front of the building because there's just there's too much to it, which would really damage the integrity of the building.

Once we get once we start going into the structure, I think it really damages the integrity of that building.

Any more comment or Bob?

Bob.

Commissioner Evans, I I've I'm with uh Brian on this.

I think that we stay away from the building, but the stairway, the deck in the back and the stairway, which are not particularly historic.

I think access through there and having the accessible restroom underneath the stairs.

I think that all works very well.

It's gonna be expensive, but that's what fundraisers are all about and staying away from we I don't think we should mess with the front of the building.

We need to make sure it's painted and preserved and that there are no termites out there, but otherwise we ought to leave it alone because that's where its character is.

Anything else?

Yeah.

So with regard to the lift, what is the vision with that?

My concern is that if we lift a wheelchair up there and the doorways are still too narrow for ADA access or in or even the floor.

Where are we seeing these wheelchair patrons going once they get up there?

So there's two aspects of it.

One is that there may be a um one is the wheelchair would go down first off to the lower level, and you could do programs at the lower level.

So it depends on how you want to do the tours or not.

So we could do one of the I think big uses of that building that the doorways, you know, your doorways need to be 36 inches, right?

Um, kind of for main access like that.

I believe one of the the earlier ARG reports on that was the rear door that's in there is was actually added is actually not original, could be replaced, and there is enough room on that rear door going into the bar area.

So going into the bar area, you are okay going into there if you can go up to that lift.

So if the lift goes up into there, it's actually fine.

We wouldn't put in the the restroom would no longer be used as kind of as a primary restroom, it would just be kind of like this is a you know a room for you to kind of look at.

Um, but I think one of the big areas would be to get people downstairs into the lab area, and that would be okay because we would be able to go for that one would go down and you'd be in the main area.

So that would be eventually left, you know, getting a leveled access in the back because you could do programs outside.

You could do um, you know, whether people do fundraisers outside or the vents out there on that back patio and viewing sites on the back patio and on the lab on the inside would be accessible through that kind of low lift and then go through the garage area where all the specimens are.

Yeah, so that'd be kind of like I think that would be the main piece is that you know, we if we can get down there is one of one of the options, but going upstairs, there may need to be replacing the the doors because the two doors actually, the front door is actually pretty weathered too.

I think it's it's getting a lot of water resistance, and that was done in replacing the 1990s.

So that was just replaced when they did some restoration work.

The front door and the back door were done in the 1990s, so they're not historic either, they could be replaced to fit.

I might point out as as one who is now looking at the possibility of being in a wheelchair, that the there's a whole industry of travel uh wheelchairs or uh self-propelled uh mobility devices that are 24 inches wide, so that the the need for a 36 inch door may not be as as much pressure as there would have been in the past.

Good point.

That's a great point.

On still the issue of the lift.

Because if we're talking about going from ground level down into the garage, is it possible that that could be implemented by way of a ramp versus a lift that's going to need a lot more maintenance and hydraulic attention and so it's that you can and that goes um back of the building to the very end of the back.

So it goes all the way because of the height, it goes all the way back to um where the um specimens are and it would actually go over this.

You would have to knock out some of the specimens, the this the containers which were which were restored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

So the ramp in the other part, so like that was the same thing that was looked at before was the because of just the slope, it's a pretty steep slope going through the garage.

They looked at before at a slope from the garage level to get down to the back, and the garage at 18 or is it 12 to 1 or 18 to 1 goes from the garage all the way to the back of the house, the slope.

The slope goes very long because it's really steep, so to have that.

So you either have to, you know, go back and forth to go through it.

So I will say the we probably have like 95% of the time you're gonna have people using the stairs, right?

And so we would want to put the stairs in there because it's the same thing.

Like when we have the Colton Hall concerts, you have to design these things.

Like when we've had the concerts, it's good to have somebody outside there to go on there.

And um, Chair Kimsey has been there with with me at this concerts, and you know, we've had to go through them, and they are not elevators.

I'll just say that.

They're not elevators, they're not as reliable as an elevator.

They do have to have maintenance, you know, and you have to go through, but they're just not the same, and they're not used for they're not made for using like every day, like multiple times a day, right?

So they are something that like you build for accessibility, you build for like when you can and make sure you have to have somebody there monitoring, you have to have somebody there with it.

So when we do that, we'd have to build that in of like who's going to be there, who's going to help this person go in and out and be there.

But it's the same thing I I would say we do when we have Colton Hall concerts, is we just have to have somebody there to do it, but that allowed that lift that was done for Colton Hall is allowed Colton Hall to be open for other events.

And I think this would allow that too.

If we look at a regular sorry, did we look at regular elevators?

I mean, they're like 20 to 50,000 dollars.

There's no possibility of this very small elevator being used rather than just the lift.

Um I don't know enough about them.

I note I know that because of lifts are kind of what are recommended because they're outdoors and the cost of like what they are because I know when we looked at the accessibility studies on the library, you're looking at also minimum on a elevator of going in.

There's so many elevators now, they are so um regulated in terms of like the everything like everything else is of course, but the buttons that turn off of like how far you have to have the space around the elevator, the space inside the elevator, like the size of the cabinet.

The capital size has to be extremely large, has to have 36 inches and a 36 inch, like you know, the full turnaround, all of that size, the lights inside.

There's a lot of construction, the hydraulic nature, you know, the hydraulic pump, all of that stuff that has to happen with the elevator.

I think the elevator just dramatically increases the cost versus the lift, which is a because the lift is it's really it's called um Lula, like limited use, limited action, right?

They're they're not meant like I mentioned, they're not you have elevators meant for consistent use, regular use, regular maintenance, and then the Lula, your you know, our Colton Hall lift will be used during the special events, and occasionally somebody comes by and it's there, and it's helpful when we have it, but it's not used every day.

Okay, so we shall we move to commissioner comments?

Would we like to start with a comment?

I have no comments at this time, please.

May Lynn?

Okay.

Well, I have a few comments.

So um one thing is the um the Anza mural that you mentioned.

I hope perhaps afterward you can go by and see it.

It really is beautiful now that it's been restored and it's right here.

So it'd be very convenient.

I wanted to remind everyone, February 14th is our next concert.

Going to have it on Valentine's Day.

I think we've had a very good response already with the reservations being made, maybe sold out.

I'm not sure.

It is sixty-five out of sixty five right now.

So we're not it's it always four o'clock on Saturdays.

And uh we've had some really wonderful groups.

This is a two tones there.

So I think it'll be a lot of fun.

What's it what's their name?

Two tones.

Oh, two thousand.

And um, last of all, I'd like to suggest that we start meeting every month up through May.

We have a lot of things on the agenda, and I think this every other month was fine for when we did it.

We didn't have a lot of things going on, but right now I think we need to meet um the first Thursday of every month, and then May we'll revisit.

We need to do that during the summer.

And do we need um an actual um motion for that?

No, no.

I think I'll just make sure that I what I just have to make sure is that if I'm out, um that Melissa will be our alternate for running the meeting, just so you can the commissioners are aware that you know there might be time that I'm I'm I'm not here.

Okay.

I don't know if if uh Commissioner Evans, did you have any comments?

No, other than I'm always amazed at how much you are getting done and all of the different interests you're involved in, Ryan.

Thank you, Bob.

Appreciate you.

Okay.

Meeting is adjourned.