How do we give us a hug I call to order the museum.

May we have the roll call.

Sure, as um Chair Kimsey.

And Vice Chair O'Neill.

Present.

Commissioner Evans.

Commissioner Wakowski.

Here.

Commissioner Fuller.

Commissioner Caldee.

Present.

And I'll note that Kim Commissioner Kimberly Turgeon noticed that she had a conflict today and is not able to make it.

So we do have a quorum today.

You may participate in the meeting remotely via Zoom or webinar you can join on a computer or smartphone at https colon backslash backslash monterey dash org dot zoomgov.com.

Backslash J backslash one six one six two two two two nine nine you must use an up to date version of zoom or you can join by telephone by dialing eight three three five six eight eight eight six six four.

It's toll free you can enter the webinar id of 161 6229 nine pound sign okay so we're starting out today with a presentation yeah and i'll I'll start this off just briefly we'll do we'll have more of a discussion here I have um our intern from Middlebury Ariana is here with us as she'll be we'll be talking a little bit about a public art policy and just to give you a background on the public art policy here for um museums we have a museums and cultural arts collections policy which does drive how we as the museums commission accept and and accept and deaccession how we take care of art and it regarding to different spaces like Colton Hall whether that's Presidio and the city art collection but those are items that are typically artwork that the city owns those are objects that the city has added into their collection so the requirement of the public art is trying to create clarity for the public when they're applying for art in the community how do they get how do they apply as a private resident to get art installed at different places in there.

So this is something that's been on our to-do list for quite some time because there's we see in our side people asking us how do I get a mural on this building how do we get um a sculpture installed on this site and we feel that creating a public art policy um would be ideal for us to see on this and would change um different scope we believe in the future but what this is right now we don't have a fully fleshed policy we've been working on a policy and um Ariana will come and talk about some of the project of how that's what we've done so far but the goal is to have a discussion today start talking about a little bit about this today then come back and present a policy we're gonna bring a policy back to our city attorney as well and bring back um things and just we're in discussions with community development and different areas here in the city then bring it back for recommendation from from museums and cultural arts commission and eventually bring it back to city council for a um approval to be the same way that we have and I will say also the city uh for our our newer commissioners here we do also have a utility box art policy that is separate than the collection the museums of cultural arts collection policy so there's a utility box art uh project and policy and so that is currently would be separate but there's different interpretations of what public art is with that and invite Ariana you're welcome to uh sit at sit here or present up with the front wherever you feel more comfortable good afternoon everybody thank you so much for the opportunity to be able to speak with you on the portion of our hello can you can you guys hear me on this one I can hear you not much hold on let's try this your hello it might need a BB on I can also project my voice if necessary I know people online's still off okay I'm just trying to see can you adjust that?

Is that up adjust the is that better?

That's better.

Okay.

That might be too high.

Come on.

Sorry, this one.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Once again, thank you so much for the opportunity to be able to speak with the commission about the public art policy.

As Brian had mentioned, our goal in writing this public art policy is to establish a formal governance structure that currently does not exist for the community, for artists and for local businesses and professionals to be able to access and apply for public art.

And so essentially just a little bit about our process and how we've approached writing this public art policy.

We've intended and intentionally grounded our public art policy in evidence-based research.

And so our first step towards beginning to write this policy was by conducting a comparative case study analysis of about uh 10 to 15 different cities who already have a formalized public art policy and a public art process.

Amongst those include some of the attachments that Brian attached to the meeting agenda for today, and notably we are intentionally trying to follow a more simple policy structure, hoping to begin with a more generalized policy and build that out as time continues based on the demands, and something that will reflect the community.

The second process that we have also taken to begin writing the policy is by conducting interviews with local arts professionals and leaders within the community.

And so we've had individual meetings with both the leaders and their employees and uh pertinent people within the organization in order to inform types of art, art placement, proper language, proper terminology, et cetera.

And fine, our final process was also getting informal public input.

And we had very simple questions also tailored towards uh gauging the public's perception on public art, definitions of public art, uh creative placemaking, and what that means to them.

And so together those three stages and those three steps have informed our draft of a public art policy, and we have been working more on language, going back and speaking with those public arts leaders and professionals and continuing to make uh edits and iterations for hopefully a final version to present to council for approval.

Brian, I didn't know if you wanted to add anything.

Yeah, so just we wanted to have kind of I mean some of it is just to say we're looking at this, as I mentioned earlier, as a public art policy.

And so what I mean by that it's not a mural policy because we feel that it has to be things which are it could be landscape art, it could be things that are temporary art.

This could be two-dimensional art, it could be something where there's sculptures, and the other part that's very important on here is the intersection of how do people apply, as I mentioned earlier, because for example, if you're having a sculpture, you still are gonna need building permits.

If you have a historic structure here in Monterey, you have we have H1, H2 zoning, we have different historic buildings and districts.

Those still have to go through Historic Preservation Commission.

So we want to make a essentially a flowchart for people when they're applying to know where does this application go?

Does it go to the museums and cultural arts commission?

Does it then go to historic preservation commission and what order of these things that we have, and also what are the fees for this?

And so we have not created anything for a master fee schedule, but you know, for right now, if you're applying for a mural that goes through a sign permit through um community development, and so we're looking at it would it then go instead on um you know through museums and cultural arts.

And we at this point we're not looking specifically identifying the funding structure in the policy.

That's not what we're looking at right now.

We although a lot of different research really shows about like percentage of arts.

We have our TOT, you know, we have different funding structures here in the city of Monterey.

Um, so we're not exactly looking, we're we're doing the research on that of like what funding structures are available, but we want um to get just get initial feedback and get any questions that commissioners may have regarding this, and we can um if you have anything you'd like to add right now, we can follow through.

The only thing that I noted in here, I read through this, it didn't seem to address the insurance issue, and I know that's been a big roadblock for us in the past.

I did say when you're in the right-of-way, but that's something I hope you'll include in that and make it more specific because that is an issue.

Um the cost of the insurance that people have to put up in order to do that, as I understand.

Excuse me.

I would say, you know, we run into that with most of our performers or programs, and that would all be something that would be approved by our risk manager and city attorney.

And I would probably, in my opinion, we would list that out in the policy.

This is what I mean by when I when I was talking with Ariana about simplifying it a little bit, because if you look at like our collection policy, it's 25 years old or 30 years old.

The insurance requirements, if we were to list like static names or insurance doc insurance requirements of that, when those change, the policy would then have to go back for review and and change and readoption, re-get a new resolution.

So it makes more sense to me to like have those as part of possibly um we talked about requests for quotes, the RFPs, like having examples of what that would be essentially for that.

Um, and I will say for insurance, because this is a public art policy.

If you're doing something on your property, that you know, you may have a different requirement in my in my opinion.

I'm not on the building side, but I know the city has our own, the city has our own, like if you're doing work with the city, there we're gonna have our own um insurance and licensing, which is going to be approved.

The standard will be approved by the risk manager and the finance department.

But just to say that we would want to connect that, but not list just the static number, but just to put out the insurance should be.

Yeah, I thought I read one place, Brian, where it said public art is art on a public building.

Is that the case?

Or is it here's a good example.

Uh at one time we were involved with redoing the mural behind the state theater.

Obviously, the state theater is not city owned, it's privately owned, but it's highly visible from the public.

Would that what would a mural on the back of the state theater be covered by this policy?

Yes, um, we uh actually a large majority of the feedback that we received was clearly defining.

I'm sorry, can't hear you.

Sorry, can you hear me a little better now?

I know I'm a little soft-spoken, I'll try to project my voice.

Uh, one thing that we received a lot of feedback on in regards to the policy was clearly defining the definition of public art and also making a distinction between what public art is and what private art in public spaces is.

So that's something that we're also hoping to define and provide a process for the public um in their application is clearly say if your art is on this building or in this circumstance or in this context, it might be considered private art in a public space, whereas if it's just public art um city owned or for a public project, it would just be considered.

So there's policy will cover private art on public.

I mean, a good example is uh MIIS just did a mural on the north side of the McCone building.

It's all on again, all on private property.

That will be covered by this policy.

That's our goal.

So our goal, what I'll say on the goal is here, we have a section which would be private art in public spaces.

Because private art, you're still when you have private art that's still viewable and accessible to the public, you're still providing art for essentially for the public, right?

Like you're saying on the back of the Golden State Theater, there's the the it's really washed out right now, right?

But they have the, I think the cypress trees and the the big image on the back there in the Middlebury um mural is a great example as well.

And that's where it was saying about like what's the intersection between museums commission and historic preservation for some of these buildings.

Like Golden State Theater, for example, which is pinning 100 years this year, and other buildings, like at what's level does it go through which commission?

Would it be because we also want that intersection with the general plan and local and neighborhood plans?

So that we have these neighborhood and community plans for the different things with through community to development.

And so that's why I was I've been talking with Ariana about this, which is that we should reference neighborhood plans.

And what I mean by that is like there's a uh North Fremont plan, and if there's a lighthouse district plan, and if there's a Canary Rail Business District plan, which the general plan gets updated, and if that and those those do say we want community art in these districts, we can then reference back our policy should reference to to that, which is basically saying there are these are priority districts or art can be uh done in here, but we have to make sure we do the the legal language right, and that's going back to what's this the scope of you know, would it be my initial thought on this is what would that look like with, you know, because uh Commissioner Wokowski, I'm sure you're you were very in involved in you know that Middlebury project is the review, would that review initially be through here because it's approved in a if it's approved in the district plan under general plan, like how do we expedite these projects?

That's kind of the goal is we want to make sure that we have a pathway for applicants to know, okay, this is um community art, public art is wanted in in these areas and it fits in these goals.

Now, if you hit a roadblock because it's a historic structure, then you will still have to go through and define how it fits in the Secretary of Interior guidelines for historic places, and we will identify that.

But we want to make sure that people can then see it.

And my feeling is that, and this I will still have to get clearance with city attorney and counsel and everything, is that this body would be a good um group to review those kind of projects.

You know, if the artwork from those private places and another, you know, there was a recent mural on the back of the recreation trail that's been added, and that doesn't go through Museum Cultural Arts.

But so this is just a that's a long answer, but to say that this is where we're headed, what we're looking at.

In that in that same general direction, um, one of the examples uh that was in the packet uh says that the art is owned by the city.

Anybody that puts public art on a public building is gonna or in a public place, is gonna that art is automatically owned by the city.

And the San Diego, I guess it was there, they're saying that uh the art belongs to the uh artist, uh the copyright of the of the whatever it is, uh, belongs to the artist.

And then they have a fairly very legalistic waiver that says they can reproduce it for their the city can reproduce it for their images of it, I should say.

Not they're not can't reproduce the actual art, but they can reproduce images of it to be displayed uh in advertising and other ways.

So is that part of the project as well?

Yeah, like I go, I don't think you can follow in there too, but I just say that there's a couple points of that.

There's a there's uh state law, which is Kappa, and then there's also um VARA, which is a visual artist rights act, which provides um they are art, they are laws that protect the artists in terms of owning the artwork that they produce that goes on to public spaces.

And so that's the waivers that some of these cities do basically allow them to say, hey, um we need to do maintenance on that building, and if you have a an artwork that you own, you know, they're they're providing and giving over ownership of net.

So there are two, there are different aspects to this because part of it is private art in public spaces, and that does not mean that somebody's making art for a private business.

That's not the city's art.

Right.

If they're if it's visible by the city.

So for example, the Middlebury mural is not owned by the city.

The Middlebury mural is owned by Middlebury, I believe, right?

I mean, the next two years.

The next two years, right?

Um, some of these other ones that are visible by the by their, you know, so artwork that's, for example, on California State Parks property, that's not owned by us or you know, private um things.

The difference is some cities, what they do is they do a percentage for art, and they will have funding and they will often have funding for basically public art that's on private buildings, you know, public, and so those there is a when it's funded by the city, even if it's on private pro private property on those cities, they often have that the artwork is owned by the city or the city arts council or you know, county arts council, something to that nature.

But we don't have a funding structure for that, and we don't have a part that says like we're doing it.

The other one is, for example, like the for what I recall, the Mike Morada statue that's on Alvarado was created and then donated to the city, so the city does own that statue, but it was donated to us.

So that is something that like you know, we own that statue.

But just to say we don't own every statue out there, and that kind of policy like that, and that waiver and those legal requirements would be for things that are ours, possibly not ones that every private entity would have to do, if that makes sense.

I think the key there is that the Mike Morada statues on public property beginning with it's in the I mean there, you could have like a statue at the Merit House, that beautiful garden right there across from the Sheraton.

They could put a statue there, but I'm sure they're not gonna dedicate that, you know, give that to the city on that.

And there is when you start thinking about the amount of public art uh at Friendly Plaza in front of Colton Hall, and then all along San Carlos Beach, the fountains and that.

So there's a lot of public art and public spaces, right in the city, right?

And just to add to that a bit, uh the great thing about the policy is that we've uh we envisioned uh the policy outlining site selection and um criteria for the art, and so both public art and private art in public spaces would need to adhere to the site selection and criteria, so the design standards for the public art.

And um in addition to that, we also have a management and maintenance statement, which states that if the public art is publicly owned, then the responsibility adheres to the public's standards.

Whereas if it's privately owned, um, it has to adhere to maintenance standards by the contracts that would exist, for instance.

And so it's the the policy is great in that sense because it helps applicants make that distinction and for them to understand their responsibilities based on whether it's the public or the private art and who the responsibility would fall under.

Any other questions or comments?

Um, well, just to comment, um I've the the flow chart in the San Diego example, I think uh is a big help.

Um both of the examples seem to me to be very complex and very bureaucratic.

And so if there's a way to simplify things, I think you'll get more attention to it than if it's a book and uh you know it that would I think that would be off-putting to people to realize that oh my god, there's this horrible bureaucracy that we have to go through.

So if you can somehow or other simplify it, uh I think that would be a real help.

I think that was I think that's in part a problem with the uh utility box program as well.

Uh but then the real kicker is funding, uh because this sort of thing requires human effort and it has to be rewarded in some way, or it's not gonna happen.

Absolutely.

And we also came to the same conclusions during the research during our conversations with different professionals.

Um and like we had mentioned before, our intention is to really keep this policy generalizable, something that is able to be interpreted and something that's able to be expanded upon with time and as different avenues and different structural opportunities become available.

Um, one of those being funding, uh, we have a funding section in there that outlines uh opportunities for the applicants, but opportunities that again already exist within the city of Monterey's structure, and so it's more intended to outline the different avenues available for the artists, the businesses, and whoever the applicant might be, and to really provide them with clear instructions as to where they could potentially find funding within the city, where they can potentially find funding within private to public partnerships and different avenues.

So, yes.

Thank you very much for the presentation.

It was very helpful.

We look forward to what you come up with as a policy.

Was the San City process looked at?

Yes, and what I'd say San City is also because it's a very um there it's a commercial zone, and it's very much that it's in a it's um I forget what it's called, but it there's a there's basically a city, there's a zoning area where it's like a San City art zone, and it's in that commercial zoning area, and what it allows is that for people to do like as Commissioner Evans is saying, like how do you simplify it, right?

Like how do you simplify it?

But because it's in their because that's identified in their commercial plan and their general plan because they have a essentially a virtual visual visual arts plan as part of their guiding documents for community development that allows murals to go through very quickly.

But each of them had to be reviewed by somebody, right?

Some commission or um, have to look back again.

There's a there's basically a Google form process that's pretty simplified because the thing with art also is that um I don't believe they have a design standard, for example, like in which is which is separate for for us, like we have like Canary Row has a has design standards which fall under like fitting under Canary Row themes, or if you're at the downtown or fisherman's wharf, they may have different theme thematic elements that are in there for that neighborhood.

San City, I don't believe had that.

It was a visual art, so there's a there's just a very broad mix of art styles and murals that go under there because what happens is it's very much we appreciate art, we want art in the community, and it defines where that map is and what it's going to be, and then art does fall under First Amendment, which is your freedom of expression of freedom of what what you want to say.

So if you don't have a guiding document that says you know, you have to fit in these thematic elements, these sizes, this, you know, these kind of pieces on there, you can make a full building um mural.

So we did review that and I've gone through and I've talked with um the arts council on that one too.

Absolutely.

And another thing to add on that note, as well as the city of Monterey is extremely unique in terms of the structure that exists, and so something I've spoken a lot about with Brian is how although, for instance, San City has a very simplified process in the case of a Google form, the city of Monterey has those district considerations, um, historic preservation considerations as well, which is also something that we've been including in the policy is because of the different historic preservation standards within X districts.

There's they can find information in certain places on the City of Monterey's website through planning.

Um, and so we've also built that into the policy in terms of compliance with building codes, building standards, and historic preservation.

Okay, at the end of questions and comments.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dan.

Okay, next item we have our consent agenda.

We have um approval of minutes from March 5th.

Did anyone have issues with March 5th?

Second.

Um there is one typo in there, but I'm sure you'll take that out.

Yeah, there are two of them actually.

Two of them actually use the same paragraph, I think.

Okay.

So then down.

There's another one someplace.

Okay, so check that out.

All right.

Well, all in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Okay.

They have been approved.

So do we have anyone online that wants to make comments?

No one online, anyone in the audience that wishes to make comments.

No.

Okay.

So our next item we are going to look at the approval recommendations for public trash receptacles.

And that's me again.

Um, yeah.

So hopefully you guys seen in your packet.

There's a mock-up of a uh trash can.

There's a map of where these would potentially go.

Um, these are art panels.

These are would wrap on the existing trash cans that the city owns, city maintains.

These are made out of rolled aluminum with the images on it are from our different sardine can labels.

They're on here.

The images are either owned by City of Monterey, through our California History Room collection or the Hathaway collection, which we're licensing from Monterey County Historical Society.

Um, we will put on them as well the City of Monterey logo and mark something about it being like keep the sea plastic free or something to that line.

Um but this rec this question came in actually initially through the Fisherman's Wharf Association.

This is something that they would like to see done on there, and these are owned because they are city owned trash cans.

The city attorney is recommending that we um approve these as a art installation, and we're looking at this in future, we may look at whether to do something like this as part of an art, as going back into the last item, which was the art policy, things like this, whether these fall into art policy or not.

But at this point, we're trying to get these done hopefully this year.

Um have up to a, I believe, um, up to I think it was either 11 or 12 on here, because there are also a couple cans that are on the walkway near like custom house that are on kind of shared land right over on there, and whether we would do some that are right there off next to like the recreation trail as well.

So that's where the thought is, but there's the map on there of these specific on the wharf.

And these are just in um my opinion, and talking with uh Wendy Brickman and Fisherman's Wharf Association that this is consistent with beautification projects in this part of this this, you know, that part of the city, um, and it brings a little bit extra character along the the wharf area as there.

And I've uh spoken with uh Jan Aldretti from our property management about using funds from the Tide Lands, which are dedicated to you know maintenance and repair for this purpose.

So we have funding available, it won't come from the museums and cultural arts um trust fund.

We won't pay any money for this.

This will be going through them.

Um so I believe we should uh that the my recommendation is that the museums commission approves this project, and then I'll need to bring it to council um for final approval.

Um, but yeah, happy to answer any questions or comments.

I think it's a great idea.

I think though one thing it's missing is maybe a sign.

You know, as you start going down the wharf, there's a big wooden sign on the left that talks about the history of the wharf.

Could we need sort of I would think we would need a little introductory sign, maybe on the right saying, you know, uh most of the people know this, but the Mardane Monterey was a sardane factory, blah, blah, blah.

And to commemorate that, we put these trash cans in.

So just uh, you know, it doesn't have to be real big or real long, but just some kind of a sign and maybe with a little cell phone history too, where people can, if they want to know more about it, you can give the whole history of the sardines.

Yeah, no, and I'll say I I put one of our little cell phone signs on the telephone pole there, but we need a bigger sign that people actually walk by and see.

We need something like a like a freestanding interpretive sign.

Just explain it.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's nowhere near as big as the fisherman's wharf working sign on the left, but something I I think would be helpful.

And I think that's something we could talk about this kind of upcoming fiscal year also with Jenna or the Wharf Association.

Those are the kind of things I think that I think it would be a good discussion with the Wharf Association and with the businesses to see what they would like.

Because I know I mean, I've talked with um Wendy Brickman and you know, her thought of like they really want to highlight some of the historic nature of the buildings and like what other buildings were here, what what did people see here on the wharf?

What's the history?

So I think they would be supportive in the future for some of those other projects too.

About highlighting the history of it.

Canary Row will be jealous.

Um any thoughts of trying to um co-fund, you know, get the Wharf Association to contribute to our beautification of their area.

I mean, they'll benefit from that, I think.

Yeah, so I'll say that you know, they the all the businesses pay into the tide lands uh trust, but also that would be the other option.

So it's either going to one would be one of the others that we either that in my opinion, it's either done by the Tidelands, but if we can't have the Thailands do it, then we work with the Wharf Association directly.

But I'm I don't expect to use our uh trust funds for this.

I would I'm gonna I'm recommending that we either have it through Tidelands Trust or the Wharf Association pay pay for these, but because they're on city trash cans, I it's it's better if we pay for it, we do the work, we install them, we own them, and then um you know they could donate, right?

Exactly, but if if they don't, right, they could donate towards it, but if it would be something that we would we would if we paid for it, exactly.

They we would ask for them to donate money towards it so we could get that project done.

But I agree that I I we have very limited budget in our museums and cultural arts, our trust fund and our acquisition fund.

And I think this is a great model, as Commissioner Bukowski's mentioning, of like somebody else might want it because if you see it and it looks nice of beautification of something as simple as a trash can, I think it's um moving forward.

I think other people would like it.

By the way, they weren't all sardines.

One of the ones that you put up as an example has uh swid on it.

And I believe there's also mackerel, which was later.

I thought about because there's there's eleven cancer, but there's another one that I another label that I might recommend because we do have a um uh what do you call that?

We have like the soil like planners mix, you know, because they uh the a lot of the fish, the the offals they would use and they would make chicken feed and they would, you know, they would make uh gardening soil, right?

So this is that kind of thing where we have one of those labels in the California history room collection.

I think some of those things are also a good point because to see the diversity of what the sardine provided for it.

When I first came here in 1984, I used to take my kids down to the wharf, and you could buy a little container of um of sardines and they would feed the sea lions, roam over, of course, every environmental group uh in California went after that and said, No, no, no, you can't do that.

Brian, would it be possible to maybe incorporate some type of a QR code or something to allow the public if they're interested to click in to the path of history or to get more information on the packing labels that are along Canary Row?

I think a tie-in like that would be great.

We know that our resources are great resources, they're not always utilized, especially our path of history or the walking tours that are provided.

So maybe that's a way to feed some more traffic back that way.

It would have to be done nicely.

Yeah, I I like that idea because I've I feel like there's also I know the Wharf Association put together a pretty much like a Google Drive or slideshow.

We might ask them about how to put that in better, but they did a a hundreds of photos of the wharf in history.

So they put together something that they've shared out, and that that would be another thing for people to highlight, you know, to click on that, you'll get more information.

So I think that's a I think that's a nice idea too.

And since the labels will be made individually, perhaps each one could have a different token if you will.

So maybe one goes to the walking tours, one goes to the photo show, another one goes to the path of history.

Yeah, we'll we've got to work on it.

We'll work on the design.

Yeah.

Any other questions or comments?

We need a motion.

No, there's public comment, right?

Yeah.

Is anybody on public?

She said there was no no one wanting to comment.

Okay, so we need a vote.

We need to I'll move that we uh approve the project of getting uh aluminum wraps with uh labels on the trash cans.

I'll second all in favor.

Aye, anyone opposed.

Okay, it's passed.

And I like Bob's idea of asking the Wharf Association to donate or pitch in some money.

Okay, our next item is um providing recommendations um on Monterey Angel fundraising.

And Brian, is that going to be you or Monique or both of you?

I can start it off and then I can um can add in.

But this is um, so mention that for the Monterey Angels.

I don't have I'm gonna start off to clarify.

I don't know how many angels are coming up going up for a display this year.

We've had a um I'm waiting to hear back from public works, and I've inquired with them about the map and the site, you know, the map of of sites and where they're putting in the number that we put up.

And um we do have you know the Monterey Angels, which we've had in our collection since 1956, and so you'll see them in there the description inside there um of the angels.

I still find it fascinating that initially Bruce Arris, and we have Bruce Harris way, Bruce Harris was initially chosen to make the angels, and they uh passed on him, and then Erica Frank was chosen.

And so they she came in with what they called at that time the Mexican Angels.

And um they have kind of a sepia tone, but they were redone later, you know, in the 1970s, they auctioned off a number of the um a number of angels into the community, and they used that money when they auction them off to restore them through the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, which is now MMA, Monterey Museum of Art.

And those were so those some of those were restored in the the funds for that.

Some funds were used to buy the new ones in '73.

Um those ones are the larger ones.

We almost never have the 1973 angels out because it's actually a thinner plywood and a larger plywood.

She used like a four by eight sheet rather than a four by six sheet to cut them out.

And the four by eight sheet because it's larger, has a larger wind load.

It's also they they snap a lot easier.

Um, so that's why they kept using the 1950s ones and the 70s and 80s, in my in my opinion, is because I think they were sturdier than the than the replacement ones.

Um, but during the 80s, that's when they were doing another restoration they did the restoration.

So, my understanding they did restorations in the 70s and in the 80s with the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art.

And then 1999 is the time when they got the last 10.

One currently hangs inside Mayo Hayes O'Donnell Library over on Van Buren Street.

So you'll you'll see that one down there, and it's in great shape because it's been held inside since we got it in 1999.

The other nine typically hang on California State Parks buildings every year.

So state parks uses them as for part of Christmas in the Adobe's.

It's the symbol, but the symbol that they use is the Monterey Angels that the city owns and not state parks.

I always like to highlight that because I think people always see them on the state parks and they think, oh, this is a state parks thing.

It's not, it's a city of Monterey owned project.

Now, over the past several years since I've come here, we've um displayed them on sites like on the Stanton Center at the um OMBA old Monterey Business Association building over there at the end of Alvarado Street.

We've put some on there.

We've put them on the OCO Adobe.

Um, but last year I set up several in the House of Four Winds, and uh we had them inside Colton Hall.

We've had them, we have our one that the library owns, which is a 1950s one.

So we set them up in different areas, and we've had a different range of different ones that are there, and then also we had 12 replicas made.

And the replicas, those were done on what's called an aluminum composite panel, which is a piece of sheet of aluminum with a composite sheet, and this is bonded on there.

Then there's like a sign fixed channel rail, and those bolt up onto the street signs, and they're much more secure than the wooden angels.

Um, so with that, um, and with that, I with creating the angels that were for the the streets, the replacement ones, which they put up in the last two years, I worked with our sign shop team and um signworks in San City is the one that actually made those for us.

But we worked, I worked with our sign shop to make sure we had the right um material, the right mounting system, and all of that for secure mounting on our um streets on our street signs.

So, with that, just to say that all of the angels that we have that are existing, I would say every single one has a need some level of need of restoration.

Many of them would never uh be put out outside in the public.

Um, they've been some have been done by basically fiberglass patches, Bondo, we have cracks throughout throughout them, wooden chips like chips of missing wood on multiple of them.

The brackets would shear off in the wind.

You get high wind in December and January often and November.

When you get the high wind and you have a sheet of plywood, it just shears.

So that's where my recommendation is is that we do not have the wood angels on high street posts because that just becomes this high wind load with a sheet of plywood that's often um now gonna be 70 years old, a 70-year-old piece of plywood hanging up.

That's the that's a concern of mine.

The metal, the ACP panels are much more secure mounted, and they're what we use for the different uh kind of dark blue signs that you'll see around town as well, they're directional signs.

There's aluminum panels with a sign fixed channel.

So um discuss with um Commissioner Caldy has been interested in um restoring and displaying more angels.

And I know in the past, the museums and cultural arts commission worked with the library, worked with um old Monterey Foundation to host two different.

There were two different auctions that were held, um, two different events that raise money by creating replicas and then auctioned those off.

Each one of those events really didn't um in the scope of I believe I think we have an uh Brianna's here too, she can probably answer um better than I can on some of these things.

I believe we have 98 right now in our collection, 98 angels.

Uh anywhere between 98 and 100, I believe, angels.

Those were a lot of work on those auctions, and they did between four and six uh restorations with each year.

Those angels that have already restored are already in need of further restoration because they bet they were the ones that were put out on the streets and everything like that.

So they got really worn out.

When you have heavy rain, rain, wind, all of that, and having wood and acrylic paint outdoors, it just really damages that artwork.

So what I would like to see is if how do we get to a process?

And this does involve at some point our loan agreements, and that's something that Brianna and I work on is on loan agreements with artwork for um other places.

But how do we get to a part where people can either is there an adopt an angel?

Is there something where we can display them in other places like the the wood angels indoors?

Can we display the the some of the original wood angels during Christmas on the Adobe's at a at a much broader range of Adobe's throughout the you know the Christmas and in the Adobe's pathway rather than just state parks in Colton Hall, can we expand that to more businesses along the Christmas in the Adobe's path all around us?

So those are you know, and I will say um the angel ornaments that we've had, those are sold really well and made several thousand dollars on um that as a revenue source.

But you know, other options, in my opinion, are um finding out the licensing on it.

Can we make replicas that for other people to adopt to put in there, you know, of a different material?

Like, is there something we can make from a different material that they adopt an angel, but it's maybe not the original wood.

Do we adopt something that's a little bit easier for them to hang or a smaller size inside a business?

So different businesses in different areas may be able to display something and use that money that they adopt for us towards restoration of the originals.

So with that, I would um ask uh Commissioner Caldi if she has other comments or thoughts.

You've done a great job of giving us the history and lots of options, and my quick math told me there's a hundred angels, so it's it's about that.

And we have 12 replicas, so we would need 88 more.

It doesn't seem like that big of a mountain to climb, and I believe that we can get input from our local businesses to help us to sponsor, adopt, foster whatever word we want to choose, so that they are essentially providing the funds to allow the restoration of the original angels, and perhaps those are displayed on city property, so we don't need to worry about insurance concerns and loan agreements.

So that could be an option.

The other is to allow them to sponsor, adopt, foster whatever word we choose, and they get to keep those replicas, but then we would have to have some type of a use agreement where they can be displayed, how they can be used, when they can be up, when they can be down.

So that may be a little more sticky.

If we have the room to store the 100 original angels and the 100 replicas, I would see that as being the best solution so that we can control the product.

I remember the 2018 when Owen Monterey Foundation uh did that, and actually it was a fun event.

They we had it at the Stanton Center, and they um the artists weren't making replicas of the existing angels, they were sort of free form, and then those were auction off, and some of them actually got quite a bit of money.

I mean, so that was a fun event.

I don't know we have uh the history and how much money we made, but we can look at that.

So uh they weren't replicas, they were I think the city provided the the wood, the plywood, and then a group of artists.

And so, you know, the museum of art might be able to help us with this too to look at something uh replicating uh an event like that.

Yeah, I mean, that's where I know the the Maori Museum of Art did the the first one, the first one, and they would as you mentioned they were all unique.

So the ones like the angels that are on like the Parker Luceau building, that's that was a that was one created by a different artist, so different artists throughout the community all made their own.

They got a blank.

The blank was done by we still have one of the wood blanks, but the the wood blank was done from what I understand from the high school when the high school wood shop teacher at the time cut a lot of the blanks, and then like youth arts collective artists like Marsha Perry and artists like Bell Yang made them and um Kathy Crozier.

So different artists throughout the community made all of their just like here's a blank painting angel, and then they went out for auction.

As I mentioned, that's a great event, but it was a lot of work, and we got six angels restored out of that.

So it was not like the the amount of money, like I feel like it's it's the kind of thing where because of also the size, like having a six-foot angel in your house, not everybody has the space to put on like that big of an angel.

So I I feel that there could be other components to it as like is it um Commissioner Caldi and I spoke about this too, which is there are things like you know, the the library does like chocolate and wine, and you know, that raises a lot of funding, and that those kind of things sometimes people come to events like this for the casual nature of like having wine and music and different aspects of it as well, not the ticket price or whatever, like some of those things can help raise the funds as well as the the art and the auction.

But it I think if it was I don't know how the I don't know how the program went, Commissioner Wikowski.

You know, for that day, like whether they charge or people just came because a lot of people have told me still, like, hey, I had a great time at that event.

And I said, Yeah, I'm sure you did, but we didn't the results did like the results to me was like it wasn't sustainable for.

So we only, yeah.

Yes, but it would just it's it's still an idea out there to like have some kind of event to help restore it, but we need to figure out what that would be.

So I I think on my side on this would be um the action item that I was requesting on this is that we appoint a commissioner or appoint an ad hoc committee from the from this museums commission to discuss how should we raise funds to restore or make replicas or what that would look like to basically do more research on the angels.

So that would be my recommendation.

Well, you were talking about sponsors, people could sponsor an angel, and if they if they sponsor the angel by providing enough funds to have it uh repaired or re you know, re rehab, uh that they would get um a reproduction of that particular angel to whatever size they want, in other words, a photographic reproduction that could be, you know, then overlaid on either plywood or some other material, so they could if they wanted to use it then inside uh it's the scale would not become a problem.

Right, and I I think well, the one piece is that we still have to like we would run all of this past the city attorney and all that, and then one of the ideas that I had with it talking with Commissioner Caldy was that um there's a polyvinyl thing that people use for like political signs, you know, which folds up and it's much lighter for storage and everything.

Those are the kind of things that you could buy those, and they are they are custom cut out to the size, whether that's cardboard and it's like a you know, that the metal is for us like the replicas that we display on the streets, we do those out of the aluminum composite panel because they're sturdy, you know, we could bolt through them and there's something we can have on as like a street sign.

I don't think that like people would need something that would be six foot or metal or anything like that, right?

So that I would say we would as part of the discussion would be what would be I mean that could be just even like part of the discussion is like what would that look like?

What does the adopt program look like?

And I feel like there is enough, like this also would require some research into what other cities have done for you know, um, different different similar programs that cities or arts commissions have done in the past.

What about the ornaments?

You have them only for a few.

I mean, if they sponsored one, you could get an ornament of a replica of that, or do we have that many?

We only I designed those, and those were my those are my digital art, actually.

And so um, I think something like the reward.

No, I I think it's great.

If we did something like that, I think we did three, right?

We've done three angels and three angel designs so far.

Um people, I mean, some kind of, yeah, what would we get?

I think something out there, something small or whatever, what it would it be.

Um, and I think also the recognition, what does that mean to adopt?

You know, what does that mean?

Where does your name go?

Does it go on this program?

Like, I I'm not entirely sure, but I feel like this is where we just have to have the the conversation start about we know that we have we know that we need funds to make replicas.

We know that we have our work that needs to be repaired.

So, what's the next step?

That that's our that's how I see it.

Like we we should investigate what's the next step and what would that look like for people, what would you like to see?

You know, what would you like to see as part of your recognition of of adopting an angel?

Do you have an estimate of what it might cost to restore a particular angel?

It seems to me you almost have to come up with a good estimate there in order to make the whole thing pencil out at some point.

Um yeah, the rest the restoration's really gonna depend.

And I I find that it to be honest, it's gonna be whether people look at it as art or object restoration.

And I would say because if you look at it art conservation restoration, people look and you have to hire an art conservator, and that is they're gonna go through every single detail on it, you know.

They're gonna go through and look through layers and we see that with all of our ARG reports and page internal, which you guys are familiar with, which are you know charging us tens of thousands of dollars for some of these things, which I don't find feasible on the same side.

So with that, it's that's why in the past I think they used community artists and they went through proposals to um do specific restorations with people that are trained together.

And that was why I that's why I believe they probably did it through the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art at that time, as you work partner with an agency that has people trained to do it, and whether they could do that as like a um an internship or you know, you I would I would average minimum probably a thousand dollars per, you know, per item to make to restore it, is what I would loosely average.

I don't know, Brianna, if you have any other come up if you want to talk or anything.

Just push the button if you want.

Um I'll just add that um as Brian was saying, the condition of each of the angels varies.

So the amount of conservation that each angel would need is also gonna vary, and that would affect um the cost as well on the on that project.

And you know, and I will say that we we would probably what I would recommend we do also just on on the replicas themselves to reduce wind load to reduce cost, as we look at with a vendor probably doing something like maybe a four foot high, the replicas coming in at four foot high.

We're familiar with most of them being six foot, um, but also I would want to check with our engineering department, but I feel like the large size of them also limits the size of which phone poles or you know, which light poles and different things like that that they're able to install them on because they are so large.

You know, the the very large angels, you can't they don't put them on CAE Principal anymore, and they're not on Alvarado, they're not on a lot of the different streets here.

There's you're generally two on Pacific.

So that would be like we would want to say, so you don't want to make replicas of all of these large ones, and then they could only put them on the high posts on Fremont and Ramona, Lighthouse, some of those really high up there.

Then they're not they're not as visible either if they're that high up and they're that big.

Is it possible that our own uh sign department can do this work and keep the costs down and keep it within our control?

They as far as I know, they don't have the um equipment for cutting the blanks.

That's one of the big things.

It's cutting the blanks.

There's there's a um, yeah, I I did talk with the team over there about that too.

They just they didn't have the the they don't have the equipment to cut like the aluminum blanks to do the bonding to the ACP.

They could do like very like the like print out vinyl, like single-color vinyl, but they don't have like a large, they don't have the large format printer that has the full color vinyl press of that all of that stuff.

But wait a minute, now I'm confused because it sounds like there's two projects here.

One is to restore the angels, and the second one then is to reproduce them for display.

But what are we talking about as far as fund how do we fund these things?

Are we trying to fund the restoration or the reproduction of the display versions, or both?

I mean, I think that the re reproduction for display sounds like an additional complex complexity that's gonna cost a fair chunk of chunk of change.

So I would say in my opinion, it's what's the end.

I think we also have to figure out what is the end goal.

If the end goal is to display more on the streets, then we want replicas, right?

Because if you want to put them up on street posts or if you want them, we have to figure out what the size would be, and we also have to figure out how many were there because the originals are not fit to be put on the street post anymore.

Now, if we want to have them inside places, you know, in a business, if they're inside a place and not put up by a contractor on street posts throughout the city.

If they're done inside of a business, you know, then we look at whether that's either a restored version or whether that is a another replica.

So I I feel like there's a there are different options there, and those are things that we have to discuss about what is the end result that we want to see.

I do think the ri the restorations event eventually though, are we need to have these eventually a lot of these restored because the paint is just peeling off and flaking and they're not getting any better.

So there's a there's a restoration project, there's a replica project, and both of them have value.

I would venture to say, I'm sorry.

Oh, I was just gonna ask, so the angels are they're in a semi-stable state, but like how rapidly will they need like restoration?

Well, I you know, I'm not a yeah, I'm not a professional on that side, but I would say every single time you handle it, the paint comes off.

You will have paint flakes every single time we every time we touch it.

And this is particular with the um ones that were created in 1956, those are the most worn.

And there's a there's basically if you see a lot of paintings that they you know, if you put on like a like a shellac on it, and or on like a like a wood table and your wood table starts getting that orange peel and that shellac coming off, that's how that paint is on some of those.

You'll touch it and your the the paint comes off on your finger.

And so that's where some yeah, some of those that are on there, and that's been my my concern right there is that we're putting those out there and they're just the paint's gonna come right off.

Well, that makes it sound like um we need to conserve them to the point that we can reproduce them and create replicas, and then the originals, I don't know, do you keep them in a vault or do you then have the digital version of the original and the originals can could be auctioned off or uh but they would be de-accessed at some point and you would have high quality reproductions uh and you could go from uh original size to any size you want.

I I would say we would, in my opinion, and um, correct me if I have a different opinion, uh, Brianna on this, which is that I would say we keep the originals as long as we can because then they are our source.

They are the source from the city of Monterey.

Because if you know, if you auction off the original, then the the original art becomes the you know the property of another owner out there, and I don't know all of the how that legal ownership changes over time uh with different copyright law, but I feel that because if we had the originals, we have the original design and the you know the original artwork.

So having those originals and storage in an area where we could just have them stored, and then yeah, the replicas are the ones that come out, and the originals can come out on sites like let's say there was a show at the Stanton Center.

If there was a show at like when we put out the originals at Colton Hall and we put originals at Stanton Center, or if another museum wanted to show them the originals, I think people would like to see those.

That's where I feel there's a part that's decoration to me, and there's a part that's art.

These are art, but they're also decoration.

Sounds like we're making good headway.

So what we need to do is appoint someone, and Monique, you have a great deal of expertise at this point.

Would you be willing to uh be the point person in this project?

I decline the expertise part, but I'm happy to head it up with do we want to do an ad hoc committee?

What do we want to do?

Well, I think if you're the point person, you could decide if you want to be the one or if you want someone working with you.

We'll have to review Brown Act on that and and figure out what we can.

At least two of us, I think would be good.

Yeah.

What happened?

We can't do ad hoc committees anymore.

We could do we could do ad hoc committees, we can't do ad hoc standing ad hoc committees.

This is basically because this is a monetary angel ad hoc committee.

If we said every single year we have a moderate angel ad hoc committee, that's that's not allowed on there because we want to have so we, you know, we could have two or three commissioners on something like this, um, because if we end up with four, then we have to we have to agendize that as a if there's four or more, we have to agendize the meetings.

So, is there another commission that would like to work with Monique volunteer or I'd be happy to?

Cool.

All right, so we have two volunteers.

Fantastic.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Um, just as a point of inquiry, maybe you know this.

If you had the sponsorship and the way other cities have done this, is that a tax deductible donation because it's for the city or from the city?

Some be a good question for them.

I mean, because we typically we are um I don't know enough about that.

I'm not a tax agent or anything, but I do know we send out when we get donations to our library trust and museums trust, we send out those donation letters.

We send out the donation letters when we get people that donate money or objects, whatever that is, to our library trust and museum trust.

So I would say that the funding for something like this would still go into a museum trust, and I would leave that on the person that was their tax you know, professional to decide whether that was tax deductible or not.

Looks like we have our work cut out for us to navigate the policy.

Thank you so much.

So next, informational reports and staff comments.

Do we have anything?

Um, we've got item five.

Yeah, just item five.

The um these were the requests from the commissioners for some updates, and so on there.

The first one was on the um accessibility project on Pacific Biological Laboratories that did was presented the historic preservation commission that was adopted and approved.

The um the plan, and it's just it is a conceptual plan at this point that allows us to look at creating accessible access through the back of the building.

It's not a finalized plan, it's not a finalized cost estimate, but allows us to work with that to say this fits within the Secretary of Interior guidelines for Historic Structures.

So, with that said, uh, reached out to Western Flyer Foundation because they have approximately 240,000 through um community development block grant HUD funding towards this project, and I would like to see what exactly we can accomplish with that funding, or if there are potentially other funding sources on that so that we could get uh accessible access in the back of that building.

Those staircases are, if you've been by there recently, we do tours.

We do tours pretty regularly over there, and those stairs are wearing down.

And so I feel like those are highlights is like getting some of this improving some of that access.

That's why they want funding there.

They want to basically do community programs for school groups there at the lab, which they would that's why they would like an agreement is to have provide funding for this, and then we'd have to work out the details of what that agreement would be for this funding.

Um so I've reached out also to our engineering department to have them come out and say, can we provide a different like another cost estimate?

What would this look like?

And then look at what we can use that funding for.

Cause I feel like we need some plans.

We need some rough estimates about what we could do with a certain amount of money to move forward and then start doing.

I don't want to get into an agreement with Western Flyer Foundation right now until we have an agreement of what we actually are going to do and what access they will have there.

The uh path of history mentioned on here, the um we've updated the app and website and added content in the various languages and added content from the expanded path of history that we worked on together.

And so we added the Pearl District, a new Monterey area.

The Casa Serrano sign, the 24 by 36 inch sign was installed.

They had to create a custom bracket for that, but that was one of the signs that I did from grant funding last year.

So those have been updated, and the smaller path of history, um, like QR code signs we have around town.

Some of those have been done.

But we don't have funding for that right now.

I will say that uh community foundation grant, the the Dowd grant that was available.

I applied for funding for the Granito mural rather than the path of history because the green so mural is very timely.

We need funding right now for that for that restoration of that project.

But the path of history, I think eventually we have to have a project for how we're going to do um what are the signs, what kind of signs do we have around town?

What are historic um presentation of signs, whether there's kiosks with informational booths around town in certain areas, do we have smaller signs installed?

But I feel like there's some research because a lot of the larger signs, the white signs that are in the shape roughly of Colton Hall that have been done since the 1930s, those were originally designed for the for driving, and then they were done in the 30s, the 60s, the 70s, and the last one that was done was at Casa and Mesti.

They did a replacement there, but most of those over time, there's at least 20 plus that are missing, plus our newer sites.

So there's a lot that are missing on those there.

So it's a pretty big project.

And in 2007, the Museums and Cultural Arts Commission looked at possibly replacing and updating all of the signs in 2007 with new posts and new signs.

At that point in 2007, it was 140,000.

So I imagine it would be like 300 to 400,000 today because there were those black the black posts with the 24 by 36 inch signs that we added at Cooper Malara Custom House, Caso Serrano, um, and Colton Hall.

Those are the ones that I recently did, but those are the ones on the decorative posts.

So in 2007, 2009, when they did those, they only did seven total signs out of you know, about roughly 60.

So that's just to say that's a much larger project.

And um, Commissioner Evans asked about where we are with utility box art.

That program still stands.

Now, the um last communication I had was with our city engineering staff about two years ago on this project because I asked for an updated map of what utility boxes we own because the utility box art program is only for city owned utility box art.

It's not for PGE, it's not for ATT boxes, it's only for the City of Monterey owned utility boxes.

And so we have a map of which ones are there.

Some are different shapes, you know, of how they do that.

And I've reached out to them again recently just to get an update if they have an updated map, because it is not something we have highlighted on our city museum's website.

But if we had a let process it as something that we could publicly list as a possibility for people, how how do you do this?

How do you prepare it?

Um, but I think it's important for us to work with engineering and public works to say these are the ones that are eligible because what they don't want to do is if you're going to be replacing a utility box, you don't want to have it painted because if you have it painted or wrapped, and then all of a sudden you have to update your street light, you're now stuck with an older box that doesn't work.

That's what you have artwork that's there.

So my opinion from working with colleagues in San Jose and Fremont is that most of the time they wrap theirs with vinyl because if a car runs into it, or if they have to replace the box, they can rip re-wrap the utility box.

So just that on there.

And the Monterey mural, um, I met with the uh contractor architectural resources group yesterday.

They're gonna come in with a proposal to most likely um remove all of the tiles and put them in storage for now.

And part of that is that and I need to um contact uh the artist's son, also just give him an update.

I'll be doing that tomorrow.

And it's because the the tiles are not adhering correctly.

So the the when we have a lot of people traffic, that area is a major thoroughfare because the you know the hotel brings all the food over in through to the conference center.

So they walk across the street, you'll see them with their carts.

They're walking through, it's a major traffic area.

So we want to make sure that we have a um a safe place for everything here and have that reinstalled.

Architectural resources group is going to provide a mock.

We um we've asked them to provide a mock-up of what a reinstallation process would look like.

The when it was redone in 2018-2019, it was they provided a they wanted to do a different style, but it was not chosen of mounting the project.

So we need to figure out what's the best mounting method on there.

It was initially done, I believe, on wood, right?

On plywood.

Do you remember that?

I think when it was first done over the entrance of it used to be over the entrance of the Monterey Conference Center, it was on plywood, and it was taken down.

And so this was, I think, the third time it's been, this is the third time it's been essentially removed and restored.

So it's been done multiple times since the 80s.

Yeah.

Thanks for that report.

Yeah, and so any uh happy to answer any questions or comments on any of those if you need any clarification on any of those objects.

When it was originally mounted on the plywood, was it taken down as like an aesthetic choice or because it was just kind of?

I've I believe that was done in the 80s, and I think it was just a maintenance from what I from what I saw like years back when looking at it.

I think it was just a just an installation they were doing because typically you don't want to remove the tiles.

There's a chance of breakage anytime you're removing tiles, any time you remove tile from a mounted surface.

So you try to keep it up there as long as possible.

And I will say right now the the concern that I have and our public works team is that we know there were some tiles that that have fallen on the lower end, and we're protecting all of those ones off the side where we knew the ones were were popping, and we've without taking them all off and testing them.

There's no way to know that further won't fall.

So we need to take off all of them to make sure that they were all get reinstalled and installed properly so that they will last.

And that's a larger project, and that's why I did apply for funding from community foundation.

I'm waiting till next month.

I'll see if I get any funding for that.

And I'm also looking at some federal uh grants for art to see if there's additional funding that we can help pay for any of that.

So what are these alternative mounting technology or whatever it is?

So we didn't I didn't see on there, but basically, um the sample in there, but for example, the panel that we had done in um the garden, the sunken garden recently had the Alta California map done.

We had that done within a tray on a backer board on a uh waterbacker board, so that if you need to replace an area, you could do sometimes.

What they've done is they've they mount them inside uh panel, essentially within like metal panels, so or a rail.

So the panel is hooked on a rail, so the weight they can take off each one.

So if something happens on the wall, if there's anything that happens behind the wall, you could take off the panel with everything mounted inside.

So if you think of like I would describe it like this, which is sometimes if you buy um, you can buy tile art, and people have taken tile art and they mount it onto back to plywood.

They mount the tile art onto like a mounted sheet.

So like if you can see some of Grenizo's artwork, you're more granito, he has some of his artwork in the Salinas Welcome Center and in uh San Francisco at their um their um one of the museums I forget.

But one of the museums in San Francisco, which is with the the biodome and all of that there, the Cal Academy of Sciences has a lot of granito artwork in there.

That work is all done, it's framed, it's mounted, it's together in panels.

So if you have to take something, you take off the panel rather than take off the tile from the wall.

So the tile has been adhered to something that all of the weight isn't on there.

That's that was one of the things they had discussed was having some kind of railing, and then the railing is mounted in there on the panel, and so everything is um, if there's any damage to the wall, they could take it off for restoration back and forth.

Um, I'm not sure I followed all that.

I mean, those tile are irregular in shape, so it doesn't lend itself to being modularized, so to speak.

Yeah, I think there would have to be gaps and everything on there, right?

I mean, there are different ones.

There are I think there's close to 500 tiles on there in there, but it would essentially it would still be done in there mounting it in larger sections because what happened right now is basically one tile falls off, all of the tiles are popping out all off the center off of there.

So there's a large section of them all connecting and they're all connecting by the grout.

So the grout is all connecting and they're all carrying out.

So this is what it's saying like if there's a problem, it's contained more to a smaller section, and you can take off that smaller sections.

I didn't see the actual design, but that was what I was what from what I understand that was proposed in 2018, was it was proposed to be done in sections of it so that they could mount it in sections on there.

If we're going to be removing the entire mural, has there been any exploration to move the mural to an inside location?

That is um a question I've had.

Um I don't know the because it's around I think 4,500 pounds, too.

There's a lot of load on whatever wall that would be, what what kind of is there something that would be another like even like a case where you have a you have it mounted in there with something holding up the weight underneath too?

That was a thought that I that I initially had is like what where is there is there another place?

That I think is something to look at for a reinstall.

You know, I do think that is something that we would look for basically because you just have it's close to 50 feet, so it's a really large um that's a large um sculpture, but I feel like that's something we have to look at.

I'm envisioning the conference center.

Right, right?

Exactly.

No, but yeah, just a wall inside because the wall because the conference center is modular and everything, what can hold that amount of weight for if we have like 4500 pounds of tile, you need something that can hold that kind of weight on there.

But I would hate to see it go inside.

That's uh, wonderful piece of public art about our community and its history.

Yeah, uh we get a lot of people that stop by there and people on walking tours, people that lead walking tours use that as a as a site to walk over there to basically highlight different elements.

And I know people from state parks that do that.

I know people that are private walking tours, they do that all around.

Yeah, it was even more visible when it was on the corner of the building, but the remodel squared off the the conference center, and we lost our nice big corner, which it was higher and much more visible before they remodeled the conference center, and it kind of got relegated to the the back side there, which was a mistake.

But uh I would I would much rather see it there than uh and keep the bushes along the the side of the sidewalk there uh manicured so that it's easy to see for people that drive by and uh I've had more than one visitor see it without me pointing it out and say, hey, can we go back and look at that?

So Brian, could you just briefly let us know if um we are moving forward on the Colton Hall music thing for the fall?

Are we good for that?

And after the budget meetings and such.

Yeah, well, I mean, with the because that is a trust fund thing, we do have funds in the trust fund for the Colton Hall music series.

And what I I will add that I I what we need to do, and I mentioned this with uh Commissioner Fullip also was that I think it would be good for us to sit and have a a meeting to kind of just discuss and talk with our museums team of like what's a calendar for the fall, winter, and spring and everything like that.

What is what does all this look like for us to have it?

Because we, you know, the same way we we book out our library calendar and everything, our calendar of events.

Um we'd like to to do that, but we do have funding for music series.

And when you say we, do you mean commissioners or do you mean just staff?

We for the Colton Hall Music.

Well, the Colton Hall Music Series, I mean that's funded through the through the trust fund.

And so I'm saying like we should we would come back and have a conversation with the commissioners yourself, the different folks on the commission, but we also have to have a staff capacity of the staff are the ones that are, you know, writing the contracts and making sure they have all of their paperwork on order.

You know, I'm going and buying supplies on my day off and setting up locking up on the building.

This is there's a lot of staff time.

We have to make sure that we have staff that are there.

We have two, we had to have two staff there on concert.

So it is it's a lot it is a heavy staff lift to host programs like this.

Um it doesn't happen easy, so that's just to say that we we have to make sure we have the staff capacity to do programs like this, but to come back to the commission and say this is what we're recommending for it, and we do have funding to hire performers.

So the funding is just one component of it.

There's a lot of staff time that comes into it.

Okay, and summer art.

I think you and Maylin had met about summer art programs.

Yes, we we talked of um one I one the first ideas, and I need to um meet with um uh Melissa and Brianna next week too.

One of the first ones I was looking at is around Fourth of July, would like to do a flag display.

You know what I mean by that is we have our John C.

Freemont flag.

I was just out in Monterey History and Art Association at the um Mayo Jesu Donald Library.

They actually have an original Mexican flag.

We have a last um little sliver of the original Mexican flag, the last flag that hung here in Monterey.

Highlight something about what the Monterey flag is and what that means, that ceremonial flag.

But doing a flag display, we have a thirty-one star California American flag during Fourth of July, so people would be able to go into Colton Hall during 4th of July celebrations and see different aspects of the different flags from around here.

I think would be a really interesting display.

But we'll come back and do that, but I need to connect back with my team next week too on kind of what we're able to do on there.

But I think the flag one would be the ideal one to start off with because that would really align with 4th of July activities and getting people inside of Colton Hall during 4th of July.

Okay.

So do we have any commissioner comments?

No.

No.

Comments?

Nothing for me.

Okay.

I would like to just mention one thing if I could.

Commissioner Caldi might have one too.

Oh, sorry.

Sorry, sorry.

I know.

Sorry.

Okay.

Um, many of you may know Alan Hoppe, who was a city councilman for some time here.

He is retiring.

And there is going to be an open um reception for him.

It's going to be May 19th, 11 a.m.

in LF 103 on the Monterey Peninsula College campus.

Everyone is welcome, and I'm sure he'd love to see you as he starts another chapter in his life.

Uh you can also go Gentrain.org website, and that'll have the information in just two or three days from now.

So other than that, we have anything else.

Oh, the next meeting.

That is an issue.

The next meeting we had talked about having June 11th, and Brian, you were checking about room availability.

Yeah, and I was it's still they still haven't put up anything on their agenda, so I don't know if there was any other um other commissioners had conflicts on that first Thursday.

I know uh Chair Kimsey has a conflict that day and not able to attend, so that's what we're looking at the following week.

But June 11th, there is there are currently um other commission meetings on that day.

There's a historic preservation commission on June 11th at 4 p.m.

as well.

So if we were to move the date, we have to make sure that there's no other commissions, and then that week there's a 9th, 10th, and 11th.

There are commission meetings for other commissions, and I just don't won't know until further in or get more information from those that staff whether they're going to postpone or cancel any of those.

So I if there's any other um if commissioners can possibly send us or send me your availability, or what data we're looking for that second week?

11th.

Would you say we can't meet in here on June the 11th?

We don't know yet.

Um not at 4 p.m.

unless that unless that meeting gets cancelled, and because it's Zoom, I mean we wouldn't we wouldn't want to have two meetings at the same time.

We wouldn't want to have two community meetings at the same time.

So if it was possibly earlier, like a 2 p.m.

we could look at that.

I don't think it will get us, but I I just have to look at the field building.

So everyone will let Brian know their availability and then you'll get back to me so we can plan accordingly.

Uh also the August meetings August 6th, that's what it's scheduled for, and Commissioner O'Neill is going to be chairing that.

He's agreed to do that.

He's uh the vice chair currently.

I will be out of the country.

Okay, is there anything else?

Not meeting is adjourned.

Thank you, everyone.

Fi