.

Chair, staff is ready when you are.

We are at April 14, 2025, 107 p.m. and we are starting our meeting. This meeting is

now called to order. Will the clerk please call the roll to establish a quorum?

Thank you, Chair. Commissioners, please unmute for roll. Commissioner Anderson? Absent. Commissioner

chamber? Here. Commissioner Lamelli? Here. Commissioner Martino? Here. Commissioner Ohebu?

Here. Commissioner Smith? Here. Commissioner Toccalino? Here. Commissioner Wallace? Here.

Commissioner Winnlock? Here. And chair Lovulo? Here. Thank you. We have quorum. Thank you.

I would like to remind members of the public and chambers that if you would like to speak

on an agenda item, please turn in the speaker slip when the item begins. You will have two

minutes to speak once you are called on. After the first speaker, we will no longer accept

the speaker slips. We will now proceed with today's agenda. With the land acknowledgement.

Please rise. For the opening acknowledgements and honor of Sacramento's indigenous people

and tribal lands. For the original people of this land, the Nisanan people, the southern

Maidu Valley and plains, Miwok, Putwin, Wintoon peoples and the people of the Wilton Rancheria,

Sacramento's only federally recognized tribe. May we acknowledge and honor the native people

who came before us and still walk beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing

to gather together today in the active practice of acknowledgment and appreciation for Sacramento's

indigenous peoples, history, contributions and lives. Thank you.

We will now say the pleasure of leaving us. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United

States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible,

with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Our first business today is approval of the consent calendar. Actually, it's a

special presentation. Let's see here. Yes.

Thank you, Chair Lavoulo. Jason Zhang, manager of the Office of Arts and Culture. It is my

honor and privilege to call to the stage our Po-Loriates, Sacramento Po-Loriates, Andrew Defie,

from 2020 to 2024. It is my absolute joy and privilege as Andrew has just been a beacon of joy and hope

and his spirit and his essence and his words have uplifted nearly every corner of our city.

With that, I'm going to hand it over to you. As we celebrate you today, a lot of things going on

today, feel free to share what that looks like. We're also going to have a reception

right after this meeting, 330 to 430 in City Hall Room 1119. With that, Andrew.

Yeah, absolutely. Want to make sure to invite you guys tonight at the Sacramento Poetry Center,

releasing my first collection of poetry, which is a collection that was over the past five years of

being Po-Loriate. There are pieces that are that have gone around the world on poets.org and TEDx,

and there are some pieces that are unreleased journal entries that I'm very nervous about putting

out in the world. So very excited about that tonight. Yeah, and that's what that's what we're

doing. It's been a huge honor to be the Po-Loriate of Sacramento. It's been the biggest honor of my life,

and I'm very excited about what we built and what we're going to continue building

with Sacramento Poetry Week and being able to continue to build with all of you.

Yeah, individually and just connecting as far as poetry week because that's coming up in October,

so pretty soon we're going to start working on that again. Yeah, that's it. Can I leave you

guys with a poem? Is that okay? I didn't really have this plan, but the way that the world's going

right now, I feel like it's part of the job of the poets to like leave people with a little something

that helps us put our shoulders down in a world that has been kind of getting us tense, right?

This poem is called advice when fighting a war of attrition or the fire hose of falsehood needs

a less cheesy name. They're coming to confiscate your calm mornings, wage war on the way you wake up.

They want you tossing and turning. You can drown in shallow enough breath. They want you

dysregulated. You fall easier when you're unbalanced. They'll have you forgetting that you can forgive

yourself for your own sins. See these architects of unrest will rewrite the gospel of your body,

hand you a wardrobe and call it a heartbeat and tell you to march, but you were not born to be a

battlefield. Refuse to become ruins. Be both blade and balm. Let your rest be a riot. Let your breath

be a barricade. A centered mind is empire. They cannot occupy what they fear most has never been

your movement. They fear the way you plant yourself, how you sharpen stillness into sanctuary. They

have studied your fire, calculated your rage and fear how it does not beg permission. There is no

revolution without room to breathe. Rest is not retreat. You are the storm and the shelter.

Let your ease outlive them. Let your rest be relentless and your joy non-negotiable.

Let your breath be balanced. They can't budget because our movements don't need more martyrs.

We need more embers that refuse to burn out and flames that stay hot enough to strike

when the iron becomes worth bending. Thanks y'all.

Thank you so much for that and for leaving those words. They were beautiful. Thank you.

Any commissioners want to add anything to this?

Maya? Thanks, Andrew. You shouldn't have sat down yet.

So I would like to first of all, Chris and you are forever gorilla poet laureate once again.

Andrew and I have been co-conspirators and confidants for a long time and I really admire

the way he works and moves in this community. He is very committed to building it up and

especially our youth by giving them the tools and the space to speak their truths and dream their

dreams. Some of the things you may recognize is as Andrew's work or may not know that they are

the most open mic in the city which got them into trouble with the police which is very good

trouble asking questions about assembly and protest. Zero forbidden goals which really

empowered a lot of really interesting people to unleash their creativity in our community

in the last decade or so. He took on the Sac Poetry Center board's sclerosis

and has transformed it into a place of welcoming for all the people in our community who were

previously excluded and now he's bringing it to the parks with the first church of poetry

and I just want to thank you for your always being willing to question and press the status quo

to see the light in each of us and fight gatekeeping and despair. Thank you.

Thank you Commissioner Wallace. Anyone else?

Well Andrew I want to thank you again for your passion, your creativity, your artistry, your

humility which you always bring to the table, your modesty. You left out so many amazing things

that you did as well as the ones that Maya had shared. Instituting a code of conduct

in regards to how we serve with artists and community. Extending your service beyond being the

pandemic poet and taking that on and really going above and beyond creating arts education,

literary arts education curriculum that is implemented impacting the lives of thousands,

thousands of folks throughout the school district and the region. So I'm glad that you stayed

because we have a little something for you and I'm going to invite all of the commissioners to

come down and present a little something something for you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I'll be warned I take a lot.

All right I'll send the portfolio over. Thank you. Congratulations.

look

Thank you.

What a special moment.

We did have a couple more commissioner comments.

Commissioner Tocalina.

I had a question.

Not that I'm not throwing any dirt on the grave here,

but like what happens next?

When's the next poet laureate happening?

How does this program continue?

No dirt on the grave.

Stay tuned for anyone who is interested.

We will be sharing information on our website,

arts.cityofsecremento.gov.

If you're signed up for our newsletter,

like everyone should be, you'll be the first to know

when we're ready to roll out that information.

Thank you, commissioner Smith.

I just wanted to reiterate to keep going.

I wanted to know what was next

and you said what he was working on next

and I'm thankful for that.

This form of art is needed.

And I just, if I can just show appreciation

and I'm thankful for that and just keep going.

We need it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our second piece of business today

is approval of the Consent Calendar.

Clerk, are there any members of the public

who wish to speak on the Consent Calendar?

Thank you, chair.

There are no speakers for this item.

We actually do have one speaker for item number two.

Chair, please.

Hi, my name is Shira Lane.

I'm with atrium916,

we're a creative innovation center for sustainability.

We are hosting our creative economy meeting on April 16th.

And in there, we're gonna be talking about revitalization,

revitalization of K Street and Old Sacramento.

This is going to be an open brainstorming.

So I like to say this is a penciled idea.

We haven't penned it, but what we wanna do

is we wanna bring in the community

to kind of get some community feedback on the ground.

So we're really bringing in the community,

getting ideas so that way, excuse me,

we're not hiring consultants to do the work

that will end up going to our local creatives,

asking them questions and they get paid,

not our creatives.

So we're kind of trying to do this work.

It's really brainstorming.

The idea is that we want to look at K Street,

how we revitalize that,

and how do we utilize our local creatives.

So that is something I would love to continue.

I invite you to be part of this creative economy meeting.

And yes, just look up Sacramento Creative Economy Meeting.

It's on Zoom.

And if you have anything you wanna participate

in the brainstorming session, please do.

If you have an update,

please let me know.

My email is Shira at atrium916.com.

Thank you for all that you do.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Chair, there are no other speakers for this item.

Thank you.

I believe we're going to pass a motion for item number one.

Item number one and two.

So moved.

Seconded.

Nice.

Seconded.

Thank you.

Commissioners, please unmute for vote.

That was a motion by Commissioner Wallace

with a second by Commissioner Ohabu.

Commissioner Anderson is absent.

Commissioner Eisenberg?

Yes.

Commissioner Lamelli?

Yes.

Commissioner Martino?

Yes.

Commissioner Ohabu?

Yes.

Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

Commissioner Tokolino?

Yes.

Commissioner Wallace?

Aye.

Commissioner Winlock?

Yes.

And Chair Levullo?

Yes.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

Thank you.

We'll now proceed to the discussion calendar.

Item number three,

City of Sacramento Board Commission

and Committee Orientation Oral Report.

So good afternoon, Commission.

My name is Mindy Cuppey.

I'm your city clerk.

PowerPoint will come up in a moment

and I will catch up.

Here we go.

So this afternoon, I'm here to present to you

on a Board Commission and Committee Orientation.

This is something I typically offer

when someone is appointed to the Board of Commission.

This is something I typically offer

when someone is appointed or reappointed.

So I know some of you have been through this,

so hopefully I teach you something new today.

But I will go quickly through the slides.

We'll talk a little bit about Commission Handbook.

I like to plug this handbook,

give you a read nothing else.

Take a look at the handbook.

There's some great resources in there.

We'll talk about City of Sacramento Code Chapter 2.40.

I considered that the umbrella code

over all boards and commissions.

We'll talk a little bit about the Ralph M. Brown Act,

parliamentary procedure,

and our city uses Rosenberg's rules of order.

We'll talk briefly about Council Rules of Procedure,

Public Records Act, Political Reform Act, or conflicts.

And I don't typically go into the scope of the Commission

because I figure you signed up,

you know what you're getting into.

And I will ask staff if they wanna include anything else.

This has also been turned into a video now.

So on our Commission Resource page,

you can have this orientation in video form.

So if you're very intrigued and you wanna watch it again,

there's a video online.

So requirements upon appointment.

Again, I plug the Board, Commission, and Committee Handbook.

There's a lot of great resources there.

If not, read the table of contents.

So when you do have a question, you'll know where to look.

You do need to do an oath of office.

You've all done that.

You have a local ethics training requirement

and sexual harassment training requirement.

Those have to be done upon appointments

and then every two years.

Most commissions have to file a form 700.

It's the Fair Political Practices or FPPC form 700.

That's a statement of economic interest.

We'll talk a little bit about conflict of interest

and when you need to disqualify yourself

for voting on something.

And then disqualification or removal.

Typically that's failure to attend meetings

or failure to do one of the trainings.

So most commissions are advisory to the City Council.

That's what this Commission is.

However, we do have a few that are quasi-judicial.

They make binding decisions.

Our Planning and Design Commission,

our Preservation Commission.

We have the Complaint Review.

So our Sacramento Ethics Commission

is a complaint review body.

And then we have Appeals Board.

So our Housing Code Advisory and Appeals Board.

But most, as you are, are advisory to the Council.

So commitment.

I think this is a silly slide that I have to say,

but we need you to come to meetings.

We need you to let you know

if you're going to be absent or tardy.

And avoid unlawful meetings.

So that's meeting with more than a majority of this body

outside the public forum.

I mentioned the Sacramento Ethics Commission.

As an appointed member,

you are under the purview of this body.

So someone could file a complaint, not that they are.

So I'm not really going to talk about

what these chapters are,

but our Ethics Commission does have,

or listen to and review complaints

about appointed or elected officials.

So I mentioned Sacramento City Code Chapter 2.40.

That's the umbrella code of our boards and commissions.

It talks about appointment process.

It talks about removal.

Your attendance, what I mentioned earlier.

Talks about chair and vice chair rotation.

Talks about quorum, ad hocs, and terms of office.

I mentioned earlier Ralph Elm Brown Act.

So we typically refer to that as a Brown Act.

And really the idea behind the Brown Act

is that the public's business

should all be conducted in public.

Of course I'm, Brown Act meetings.

So this talks about, there's a couple of exceptions.

And I think we mentioned that earlier.

So your poet laureate invited you to a reception

and an event this evening.

That is not a violation of the Brown Act

because that would be considered a community meeting,

something informal gathering.

But I'd like to point out too, think about perception.

So if the whole city council was out at dinner

and they were at one table together and talking quietly,

you would think, of course they're talking about business,

right?

Probably not.

But think about that perception too.

So when you're out in the community or you're in an event,

think about perception if you're all,

a quorum of your gathering together.

Again, conferences, community meetings

are not Brown Act violations.

Okay, so there are activities

that could constitute an improper meeting.

And this can also be done via email, via text message,

and so forth.

So in the top example, our legislative body is nine members.

So Green Lantern talks to Batman, Batman talks to Superman,

Superman talks to Wonder Woman.

We're okay now, but once they talk to the Flash,

we have five members.

So a quorum of that legislative body

has talked about business of the commission.

In the bottom example, one person talks to multiple people,

up to a quorum, and that could violate the Brown Act.

And again, this can be done virtually

by text message by email.

You'll realize if you ever get an email

from one of us, staff in our office,

there's always blind copy so that you can't

inadvertently reply all and say,

"'Can't wait to see you all, item number three

"'is gonna be fantastic,' because that would be a violation

"'of the Brown Act of you commuted out to a quorum.'"

So the city, so notice is in meetings.

So your agendas are all posted, the Brown Act says 72 hours,

but the city has a sunshine ordinance

that extends that to 120 hours in advance.

Your locations have to be open to the public.

The agendas all have time, place,

brief description of business to be done,

and you can't take action on anything, not on the agenda.

So you can briefly respond to people

making public comments, so you'll have matters

not on the agenda later, you can briefly respond to,

but you can engage in conversation

because you as members of the body

aren't prepared to have that conversation

and public doesn't know that you're having that conversation

so they can't engage.

Oftentimes you'll see at council

if we can briefly say something like,

oh, that project's coming back next week, we'll do that.

Okay, so Brown Act, everyone has a place on the agenda.

So members of the public can comment on any agenda item,

so the consent calendar is considered one item.

They can speak up to four items a meeting,

and there's one thing, we can't prevent criticism,

so someone could stand here and tell you

that they hate the ideas you have,

that they don't want you to do something.

We do have one person who used to come to city council

meeting and sing to us, that's acceptable, so.

We do have, I'm e-commit, you guys probably,

and you've never had anybody sing, you know?

We'll have to work on that.

So Brown Act violations, we're not gonna do any of these,

but typically someone could say,

I want, the aggrieve says fix it, so we demand,

they demand to cure it.

Voluntary resolution, that's typically what happens,

is we realize, hmm, we might have violated the Brown Act,

let's make sure we redo something, so I consider it a redo.

During COVID we had this crazy phone-in system,

and that phone system went down.

We had a public hearing, so we decided,

we're gonna do a meeting consultation

with our attorney's office, let's just do it over

to make sure that the public can participate.

Okay, parliamentary procedure, so the city of Sacramento

uses Rosenberg's rules of order.

So, quorum, I talked to that, that's one more than half

of the legislative body.

The role of the chair is really to make sure

that all voices are heard.

Your voices and the members of the public are heard.

And talking about motions, typically most of our commissions

don't get too crazy, but you could make up to three motions.

And the most typical motions are basic motion,

I move the staff recommendation,

someone will second it, we'll move forward.

There could be a motion to amend, so you could say,

the first motion was I wanna buy yellow pencils,

the second one is I wanna buy yellow and purple pencils.

So it just changes it a little bit.

But then there could be a complete substitute motion.

And if there was a second on the other one,

we could take a substitute motion that says,

I think we should use markers instead of pencils.

So that's a completely different motion.

When you get a second on that,

that one is what we call on the table now.

So you vote on that last motion first,

if that passes, we're done.

If not, you go down to the seconds,

and then down to the first.

Currently, we don't hold virtual meetings.

And there are exceptions that you could hurdle virtual meeting,

but I'm not gonna go into that complexity.

So voting on motions, so typically one more than half

would approve that, where it gets a little sticky.

If you have less than a full body, you have a quorum.

So in this example, a commission is seven.

So quorum is four, you could hold a meeting with four.

If all seven are present, you need four votes to pass.

But if only four are present, you need three votes to pass.

So it's based on the folks that are here.

Typical vote is all in favor, say I.

Or when you do a roll call vote, it's yes, no.

Extension means, I don't know, I don't have a vote.

And I always encourage you to never do that,

because you're appointed to have an opinion.

So if you don't have an opinion yet,

keep asking questions.

Recusal is your financial conflict.

And I always will get to that a little bit,

but I always say call your attorney, call your attorney.

And of course, a tie vote means that it does not pass.

Again, this is a silly slide, I think.

We have rules so that everything's efficient, fair,

and people are participating.

Of course, debate and discussion is healthy.

I always say if you all have the same opinion,

it's probably not, you haven't thought of other options.

So debate and discussion is really healthy

and should be encouraged.

Council rules are procedure.

I talk about this because all commissions

also have to go by the city council rules or procedure.

Those are adopted typically annually or as needed.

So sometimes there's a small change

that we do it midterm.

It talks about duties of the members of staff,

conduct of the public.

You'll notice that a city council meeting agenda

has the same formats as your commission.

So the public knows how to participate.

So where public comment for matters not on the agenda

is always at the end for all of our city boards,

commissions, and committees.

Request for future agenda items.

So at the end of your agenda,

you have a section called comments, ideas, and questions.

That's a time I encourage you

if you want more information from staff,

if you'd like to hear something at a later meeting

to ask those questions and make those requests.

This does not mean that they're going to come back and do it.

So if this body asked for a presentation

on let's say the police commission or the police budget,

your staff is typically gonna say,

with all due respect,

that is none of the purview of this commission.

So we're not going to invite someone to present.

However, why I'm here is because I'm somebody asked

and Jason reached out to me and said,

I'd like you to do this presentation.

So public records act.

As an appointee, you are also under the purview

of the public records act.

So what does this mean?

Really it talks about the commitment to open government.

So the access to data is broad.

If you wanted, say, my credit card statement

for my city credit card, you can get that.

I'm going to redact the credit card number,

but you'll find out we went to Target, we purchased this,

this is how much it costs.

So I always say that most writings are public record.

However, it has to do with the conduct

of your commission's business.

So of course, agenda, speaker slips are all public record.

But for example, if you had handwritten notes,

if someone requested those records,

if you had text messages that had to do

with the commission's business,

someone could request those and I would reach out to you

and say, do you have any text messages

that have to do with the conduct of this legislative body?

Typically you could have sent a text message

during a meeting to say, I'm going to be late,

I'm picking up lunch on the way home.

That has nothing to do with the conduct of this commission.

So you would not give that to me.

But if you've had a text message that you had sent to staff

to say, I don't understand this question,

or what does that mean?

That could have to do with the conduct of this body.

So political reform act in conflicts.

I think your main takeaway is, let's see.

And what it says is you have a reasonable foreseeable

that the decision could have a material

financial effect on you.

So, and again, I always say, call your city attorney,

call your city attorney, 90% of the time

you don't have a conflict,

but it's really best to talk that over.

And please don't lean over and say,

five minutes before the meeting.

So my brother-in-law owns this business

and I think I want to talk about it

because it doesn't give them time to really look into it.

So again, call your attorney.

So if you have a conflict and you have to recuse

from an item.

So typically, if it's agenda item,

you actually have to physically leave the room.

So you have to make an announcement to say,

I have a conflict with this,

briefly state what that conflict is,

and then physically leave the room.

For the consent calendar, you don't need to do that,

but you do have to say, I have a conflict.

I'm recusing from say agenda item number two,

and this is the reason,

but you can stay in the room if it's on the consent calendar.

And again, call your attorney.

And sometimes if it's a perceived conflict,

you may wish to recuse from that.

I'm gonna turn this over to our city attorney

to talk about ad hoc committees.

Hey, everyone, Brian Meyerhoft,

FEC attorney assigned to this commission.

Ad hoc, well, they're not new, but they've been brought back.

So they're kind of new.

Ad hoc serves subsidiary bodies of the commission.

They can be formed by the chair.

They have to be formed during a meeting of the commission,

and they can be formed by,

it has to have less than a quorum of the members.

The idea is an ad hoc committee

is an exemption to the Brown Act.

Remember if the Brown Act says

if you have a majority of the members anywhere

with the small exception of like a conference or something,

then you have a meeting.

So to get around that,

ad hocs have to have less than a quorum.

So this body has a quorum of six.

So if you have ad hoc body of four,

four people could meet together at a cafe

and talk about commission business,

and that's not a Brown Act violation.

The key thing about an ad hoc

is it's a limited purpose body,

meaning the body has a very specific limited purpose.

They're working towards one specific project,

a report or goal.

This would contrast with say a standing committee.

A standing committee would be,

I'm trying to think of a good example,

would be like a grants review standing committee.

Anytime Office of Arts and Culture proposes

a new grant program, it gets referred to this committee.

That would be a standing committee.

There's a comprehensive process to create standing committees.

They have to be approved by council.

An ad hoc committee would be limited purpose.

Say the Office of Culture wants to create

one specific new grant program,

and the commission wants to provide input

on the formation of that.

You could have an ad hoc committee

to advise on creating that one specific grant program,

and that's an appropriate use of the ad hoc body.

The slide kind of touches on the other high points.

The body doesn't speak for the commission.

It's an advisory body of the commission.

So the ad hoc wouldn't create a final work product

that actually gets implemented.

They would recommend the final work product

or report to the body,

and then the body could then act on it.

And then, oh, in the last piece,

the greater body doesn't fix the schedule of the commission.

The commission sets its own schedule.

That covers ad hoc.

Thank you.

So as I mentioned earlier,

I don't really go into board commission or committee scope

because I figure you signed up for it.

And typically, your staff goes over that with you

when you begin your term of office.

I do point out, though,

I encourage you to read the actual code

that created this legislative body.

That's in our municipal code.

Most of them are all in chapter two or title two.

In the back of the board commission and committee handbook,

there are a lot of resources too.

So if I intrigued you talking about Rosenberg's rules of order

and want to learn more about Parliamentary Procedure,

there are links in the back of the handbook.

And that concludes my presentation.

I'm available for any questions.

Regarding the ad hoc committees,

is there a way that you can make a motion

to make sure that the law and the law works

through the law?

Absolutely.

You can meet now with less than a quorum

of the legislative body and talk about business.

And I believe that's typical.

If the two of you are passionate about some project

and wanted to go to Starbucks and work on a project

and then bring it back to the legislative body

when you're ready, you'd work through staff

to say we've been working on something

and we're interested in bringing this to the full body.

Okay, thank you.

Any other speakers, questions?

I do have a public comment here.

Your time.

Thank you, chair.

We do have one speaker for this item, Lambert.

Yes, my name is Lambert Davis.

And I normally don't come here,

but I'm a huge supporter of arts and culture.

Why?

Because I'm an advocate for Grand High School.

I'm an alumni and I don't see her in here,

but Megan has always made sure that this department

helped to grant drum line.

Those of you who don't know what that is,

it's a group of teenagers that travel all over the world.

And they've been doing this for decades.

It's a legacy.

They were there when I was there.

I graduated in 1976 and they were there before I arrived.

This department, no matter what the budget says,

and I have a problem with the phrase

structural deficit.

When I graduated from college, I understood deficit,

but I don't understand structural deficit.

That sounds to me like mismanagement.

And we have that under our scope.

I also wanted, and I had no idea Menti Cuppey

was gonna do the presentation,

but I'm a tremendous supporter of hers

because she can come down here

and give us the report.

Everybody that's on that rostrum that's with the city,

they don't come down here.

And I specifically say the city manager's department.

I'm a stickler for detail.

I own a cheesecake business.

We've never had any complaints against us

through the better business bureau.

And Menti Cuppey, for those of you who are new,

she was inside the chamber during the pandemic.

That's tremendous integrity.

How do I know?

Cause I was calling in and I'll be back later

to talk about the Brown Act,

but I thought she was on five year hiatus

cause she should be with pay.

Thank you for your comments.

Chair, there's no other speakers for this item.

Thank you.

Our next item of discussion is art in public places

overview and updates presentation.

Thank you.

Terrific.

Thank you.

Chair Levolo and members of the commission.

Thanks for having me here today.

My name is Donald Gensler.

I'm the art in public places manager

for our public art program.

Along with my colleague, Amy Takahama Chapman,

we run the program and all different facets of the program.

And in some conversations actually with Jason

and internally,

realized that some of you all were newer to the commission

and that also we had some updates to share with you.

So we thought that I would give you a little bit

of an overview of the art in public places program,

brief as I can be.

And then a little bit about some recent work

that's been happening or just concluded.

And then update on just two projects that are coming up.

And woven throughout all of that

are some photos of different artwork.

So I'll try to go ahead and expound upon

some of that work that you see there.

And then I really do hope that we could have

a little bit of a discussion afterwards.

I brought my notepad and just an opportunity

for you to ask questions.

And if it's something that I can't address right now,

we'll come back to it.

So as you can see here, you see two artists,

Sean Burner and Francesca Gammes.

And they are in front of a wall with a doodle sketch on it

that will help them to put their mural on the wall

on North 12th Street, life in a basket.

That is the finished mural that they were standing

in front of at that time.

So just to give you a little bit of context for where that is.

So today I'll briefly go through the ordinance,

how art in public places was formed,

actually how the commission itself was formed back in 1977.

A little bit about our policy and policies,

as we'll be updating some of those soon.

A little bit about a new bill, Senate bill, SB 456.

And if you're not aware of this,

I'd like to kind of share a little bit with you

and bring it to your attention.

Also talk a little bit about our historic

public art collection and some work that we've been doing

that we've been trying to do for years.

And now we've finally got there with some new mapping tools.

Which we're really excited to share in a beta version.

Recent public art projects,

which I'm quite frankly just thrilled and honored

to be able to share with you.

We've had some incredible artists, local artists

and national artists, international artists

that have worked with us.

So I wanna share a couple projects with you.

And then some upcoming projects.

So the program was established in 1977.

It was established as a city and a county program.

Both, it was a kind of a dual agency.

And with that dual agency,

basically we're matching ordinances.

So ordinance is city law.

And so this was written into city law,

that or in county law, respectively,

that 2% of any capital improvement program dollars,

and that's a very specific type of project here in the city,

would go to fund public art.

There was an idea that started really in Philadelphia in 1951.

And if any of you are familiar with a Klaus Oldenburg

clothespin in the city of Brotherly Love,

that was the first piece of municipal public art

through a municipal public art program in the country.

And other cities followed.

And so in 1977, city of Sacramento recognized

the importance of having a collection of art

and also funding art for the city,

recognizing that many great civilizations throughout time

have seen the value in art.

We have over 450 portable and permanent works

and additional works owned by the county.

And more than 60% of these artworks

are by local and regional artists.

Now I will say while we do receive some funding

and the program is entirely what's called cost recovery,

so it's entirely worked through this funding

that we either receive from 2% program

or that we go out and write grants for.

And so that's what we have been doing as well lately

because we firmly believe that public art,

and by the way, I just really wanna say real quick,

Larry Meeks, if you're not familiar,

just a really incredible artist, local artist,

pastor as well, a terrific human being too.

And this wonderful piece in Natomas called peekaboo,

so I just wanna put your attention to that

if you haven't seen that in Natomas Park.

But public art believe that celebrates culture

and community within the city.

And so our office really goes out there

to try to look for opportunities.

We do earned income where we'll actually work for somebody

to run an artist's call that brings money into the city,

but we also write grants.

And we've just written two recent ones

and I'll share those projects with you.

We also think that it's important

that the city supports artists,

creative thought and innovation.

And sometimes that means taking some risks

and we're not afraid to do that,

but we try to learn from that

and adjust and develop our projects from those experiences

and then create opportunities for wonder and surprise.

And this wonderful project here

is I think something that does that.

You may be familiar with it

and you may not know what it is about,

but it's Joshua Sofares River Crossing.

I want to communicate with you.

It was actually also the time

when I first met Commissioner Martino

because she was a project manager

on this project at the time.

And it was a wonderful project.

We had over 700 submissions to name two public docs,

one in Sacramento, one in West Sacramento.

And if you're interested, go down there.

There's a sign that kind of explains that process.

To do the work that we do,

we have to care about the people that we work for and with.

And that's why I have to tell you all,

it was just impossible for us to look the other way

when we saw an issue in our state government recently.

And a recognition or an interpretation

by the California State Licensing Board

that in order for a person to paint a mural

of over $500 in value,

they were required to have a commercial painter's license,

a C33 or D64 license.

That has been on the book since 1971.

And of course, I'm in touch with people

across the entire state.

We don't know a single person that's been prosecuted.

We don't think they should be prosecuted.

We think that that is really a wrong,

potentially interpretation of the law.

But we also recognize that the State Licensing Board

is doing its work and they have put out some memos.

And so the city of Sacramento,

along with about 40 other cities and 700 people

have signed on to a new bill put forth by Senator,

now Senator Ashby, former council member Ashby,

to amend the Businesses and Professions Code

and to create an exception specifically for muralists.

So happy to talk about this more.

I imagine some of you, this may be news,

but this really gets to the heart of what artists do

and what they're able to do.

And while I firmly believe,

and while many of the supporters of this bill

firmly believe that anybody should go out

and get a license and have a business

to do that kind of work if you wanna paint walls,

but artists are doing fine art on walls.

And so I just have to tell you,

it's not the same as a commercial painter.

And we're hoping that the legislature

recognizes that as well.

Unfortunately, in the meantime,

we have halted and paused our mural program

as have many cities throughout the entire state of California.

I'll just leave you with that for a second.

Our historic public art collection began,

like I said, 1977, the very first piece

was this piece by Gerald Wahlberg.

I believe Mr. Wahlberg was teaching at Sac State at the time

in the sculpture department.

And if it was UC Davis, forgive me.

But this piece from 1979

was the very first piece of public art.

It's still there today,

although some of you may notice

that the area there looks a little different,

but you could definitely see how that's evolved over time.

And then also to the right here,

a little bit about the airport,

which is not part of our collection.

That's actually why I put this picture in,

because when we separated from the county in 2019,

we are only now a city agency.

The airport is county owned.

So all that artwork is owned

and maintained by the county of Sacramento.

A couple other pieces here,

a wonderful piece by Vicki Scurri.

This was a piece along North 12th Street

that we funded through a grant program,

actually a federal grant program,

which was really exciting

and working with new housing there

called Marisol Village.

So it was a really important project for that community,

important project for us as well.

It's called Uplift,

and it went with a whole series of murals as well.

And then also here to the right,

I thought that this was really nice to have here

with since Andrew was here today,

this poet laureate park in South Nathomys,

and it's South Nathomys by Troy Corliss,

series of poems from some of the different

poet laureates in Sacramento.

Quickly, Janine Maparunga,

wonderful project along Bruceville Road,

20 box wraps and 15 banners

that all celebrated community through Janine's photography,

and this was an open competition

that Janine was the selected artist for.

And then Gale Hart here,

one of our local artists who's been working

for quite a long time here in Sacramento,

did this wonderful piece called Missing the Mark.

We installed some additional darts.

So if you see these large darts down L Street,

that is all part of Gale's installation.

Now, the historic public art collection

has been difficult for folks to get into,

to see besides going to see the work,

and we recognize that.

And so it's taken a while.

All those files that you see, those are files from the county

that we had to get over back to the county

that we first digitized for them and then got back to them.

And what we've also been working on,

and I will say, and I just wanna say thank you to Amy,

Takahama Chapman, and Michael Dobbins with GIS,

and to the U-Vise both, wave your hands, thank you.

They have been working a lot on this new

kind of archiving system online.

And as you might imagine,

after over 40 years of artwork,

this has been quite a task.

And we're really getting there.

We're really zeroing in.

And I'm pleased to say that now we have

an updated public art archive.

So you can go online to public art archive

and see some of the updated work.

There were some errors on there that have been corrected.

And just as of this morning,

and I encourage you to take a picture of this,

just as of this morning, on our website,

on the public art portion of our website,

is a new GIS collection map.

So you'll go on there, you can create tours for yourself,

you can search for individual work done here

through the city of Sacramento.

And we're really excited you get to see a map

of where that is.

I realize that my presentation may be a little long,

so I'm gonna save this and tell you,

I really deeply encourage you to go on there.

And then we also have a survey that we'd love it

if you clicked on and filled out

and said how your user experience was.

It's in beta right now, just to be totally frank.

This is a soft opening where we wanna get a sense

of how it is to use this stuff.

So if you wouldn't mind going on there at some point,

hopefully not while I'm still presenting,

but you know, it's okay too.

But go on there at some point,

just go around and see how it is,

and then be totally honest with us.

And if you loved it, please tell us that too,

but if there were some parts that were difficult,

we really wanna know, we wanna make it better.

And then I'm gonna bring Amy back up here with me,

and we're gonna do run through a tutorial on another day

where we'll really share that ins and outs with you

once we've worked through some of the glitches.

Very quickly, we ran a wonderful community mural,

Sacramento program, we hope to do that again

once this mural issue gets resolved,

we hope in the legislature very soon.

But it's a training program involved

over 1,700 community participants, 39 artists,

and 10 different sites.

Also Del Rio Trail, we just finished,

and then Hanami Line.

So I wanna show you a couple images of those.

Like I said, the community mural Sacramento,

this piece at Pinell Center by Leonardo Moliero Totem.

And one thing that was also really exciting about this was,

it brought artists together that hadn't worked together,

that now I see out, I was just out this weekend

at an opening, and it was just great.

I mean, people that really didn't know each other

that were part of this program and have become

really part of a family of folks

that support one another in projects here in the city.

It's great to see.

And it happens in other ways too,

but it was just nice to see a little bit of that happen

through this program.

Something that really helps support our local talent here,

especially in Sacramento.

And then there was some paint days at each of those events,

which were really exciting opportunities

for the community to come out and kind of paint here.

You see Liv Unger, one of the artists,

she's a Bay Area artist, but doing a lot of projects here

in the Sacramento area,

and then this is the paint day at Pinell.

Recently, we wrote a Clean-Oct grant

together with our Public Works Department.

We're working really hard in the Office of Arts and Culture

to kind of weave into different departments

and find ways to where we can create

this kind of nexus between different departments.

Because I think that's what people expect,

that the city works together with one another

and they figure and solve stuff.

And so we really, as a group, have not just APP,

I think Office of Arts and Culture in general,

really has worked hard to do that.

And this is one example where we wrote a grant

with our Public Works Department,

actually a $5 million grant,

and $2.5 million went to artwork and artists,

and the other $2.5 million ended up going to clean up

and that type of thing along the trail.

But it's a wonderful trail.

This piece by Adam Frank, Wavefinder,

kind of disappears into the sky there.

We also hired 20 local artists as artist ambassadors,

and this was a show that we did at Twisted Track Gallery.

So those 20 artists all created work about the trail

and just started that dialogue.

So we're looking at community engagement,

not just as a sit-down community meeting,

tell us what you think, which is important too.

But in this way, artists were out there actually making work

and allowing people to respond to the work they were making

as a form of engagement.

And then these are two examples

of two of the different pieces.

One, Singer Studio, which is located in Vermont,

and did a whole series of pieces along the rail lines,

really wonderful avian gantries,

they're actually bird houses.

And then Gerald Heffernan, Hummingbird Giganticus,

which is Gerald's humor there at a binomial.

But Gerald is actually a local artist

and has done quite a lot of work in this area.

Has a couple of pieces in the Crocker as well.

And workshops, these were really important too.

Get people out, get them engaged.

These workshops were held at the different sites,

so people were there working at the site prior to,

prior to the artwork the sculptures being installed.

Hanami Line, this was a really interesting project,

direction is at the Waterfront Park,

at the Matsui Waterfront Park.

And something that took probably over a decade to happen,

both this park, this Hanami Park,

but also the sculpture itself.

There was an artist's call,

there were probably over 100 artists from around the world,

zero down to four finalists.

And ultimately two artists were chosen,

Reed Madden out of Berkeley.

And while they were not Japanese,

the panel felt, and half the panel was Japanese,

felt that they really were the right artists

for this particular project based on their past work

and based on their interview.

And they dove in head first,

and I think they did a wonderful job

of really distilling out a lot of conversation.

Actually, Jason at the time was joining us

in some of those dialogues and was really exciting

to be working with the Sacramento Tree Foundation

and this project.

So these are some examples of the finished sculpture.

If you haven't been down there,

it's about 1.6 acres of cherry trees,

flowering cherry trees.

And that was, we had a really wonderful

taiko dedication event at the park afterwards.

So quickly, upcoming projects.

This one is really in process.

It is a 5,000 square foot mural,

but it's done in vinyl.

Not sure we'll do this again on vinyl,

but a 200 by 25 feet.

It is a teaching tool called the Living Balance.

We'll also talk about birds and benches

and then creative crosswalks.

So that's a little bit of the design from Live.

That's the wall.

It's at the Sutter's Landing Regional Park.

It is now actually covered,

but we're having to get the vendor to come back

and make some small edits and corrections

to some of the install,

which should be happening very soon.

It's also really exciting that there's an online teaching tool

that you'll be able to download there

and then learn about the plant and animal life.

So this is an example.

That is actually just a Photoshop version

of what the mural will look like,

but it pretty much looks like that to the left.

And then to the right,

you can see some of those individual animals.

There's over 70 animals and some artifacts.

We live under the artist worked with the Wilton Rancheria

and integrated not only some artifacts

from this tribal group,

but also she organized the plant animal life

in these different creation myths,

which was kind of cool.

Like that's the way that she put the animals together

was based on these Miwok and Nisanon creation myths.

So go out there.

It is awe-inspiring.

It is up now and encourage people to go to the park.

Like I said, it's not fully, fully installed,

but it's very close.

And you'll also be able to download the teaching tool,

which is right now on our arts and culture website.

Very quickly, birds and benches.

This project is coming up.

It's a two-phase project.

It's really going to give artists, local artists,

and the opportunity to do smaller sculpture projects

throughout North and Atomis Regional Park.

And so there are going to be benches

based on this bird theme

that evolved through conversations with the council member.

We have the Audubon Society, the Atomis Basin,

Wilton Rancheria, Jib,

and maybe one other group involved

as kind of key care holders for this project.

And we'll be linking up artists with those care holders

as ambassadors in the first phase

and in the second phase,

we'll be doing 10 benches.

So exciting project to stay tuned for.

And these are the type of benches I'm talking about.

These are artist-designed benches,

but we're going to take care of some

of the engineering portion for them

so that artists that don't have as much experience

in permanent public sculpture

could have a chance to do this kind of project

and work with a fabricator

to actually get their bench made.

Just an example of the Heron there to the right as well.

And then lastly, this creative cross-section

of the creative crosswalks project.

Really exciting project in District 3.

Council Member Talamantes brought us into this project.

She had received a grant from the state.

We went and wrote another grant

from the Bloomberg Foundation,

and we are fingers crossed.

We're waiting.

So we're waiting to find out

if we did receive that funding.

We hope we did.

It's for a whole series of creative crosswalks.

Whether we receive the funding or not,

we are going to work with Garden Valley Elementary

and some crosswalks right out in front of their school,

and there'll be a teaching artist and a design artist.

So they'll be in the classroom working with the students

and then go out and they'll be designing

and we'll have these crosswalks professionally installed.

But we're hoping if we get this grant,

we'll add on Smythe Academy.

So that's some of the different crosswalk locations

where we'll also be looking at Smythe Academy

along Northgate.

So and just to end, this is a wonderful project

that came out of our community mural, Sacramento.

Beth Rubel did this mural,

and while they started kind of rocky

and just some of the conversations,

what happened was this became a real focal point

for the community, and now there's a taco plaza there

at this location and really a celebration of that

with a kind of a letters artwork out there

and plans for the future.

So sometimes art really can be that catalyst for change,

but I think it's incumbent upon us as a program

to keep our ears open and eyes open and listen

to the community and recognize what the importance is

of that shared relationship and responsibility.

So thanks, I know that's a lot,

but I wanted you all to have a chance to hear a little bit

about what we've done and what we're doing now.

And I would love to have any questions or comments

that you might have about what I showed here

or just something else that you've been wondering about.

Thank you, Commissioner O'Hebel.

Thank you for your presentation, that was wonderful.

I had a question about the regulations for muralists,

that's very concerning.

Which agency decided to regulate them?

Yeah, so well, it's the state of California,

and technically the law is the definition of contractor,

business and professions code 7026.

And the agency in the state that deals with enforcement

and regulations is called the California State Licensing Board.

And cities around the state received a memo in 2003,

reminding them that their interpretation was

that muralists would need to have a C33 or D64 license.

And we just couldn't sit in the shadows anymore

and just kind of hope that there was some talk about this

in the past, but nobody was really thinking about it.

But it got to the point where it just,

and it has chilled mural making across the state.

It's not to say the mural making is not still happening,

but it has chilled that process.

And I would hate for this to not be resolved.

And I just applaud Senator Ashby

and the coalition of folks that have worked together.

We have California Arts Advocates

and the League of California Cities

has both sponsored this bill

and worked hand in hand with lobbyists on their staff

and with a coalition of folks including myself.

And the city of Sacramento has signed on

for their support of this bill

along with about 40 other cities across the state.

So yeah, that's what I've got for you.

We went through committee in the Senate just last week

and we got 10, we were voted aye votes,

10 aye votes, 10 to zero.

And so unanimously approve this bill

to continue on to appropriations committee,

I believe next week.

And then we'll go through the assembly

and we know that the governor already supports this.

So yeah, again, it's not really the work we do,

but as recognizing the importance of supporting

those artists that we do advocate for and support,

we couldn't sit back and not participate in that process

as many cities have done the same.

And any known opposition?

There wasn't at first and now there is a trade association

group, a union of painters trade and they did come out

and they did not formally oppose,

but they stood up at public comment

and said that they have some concerns.

So we are working with them.

And here's the thing, and I just wanna say,

I don't wanna go too long,

I've already taken a bunch of your time.

I 100% believe that everybody should go out there

and get a license to, if you wanna be a commercial painter

and if you're also an artist

and you wanna get a license,

you wanna paint the person's sign

and go inside and paint a mural inside their cafe

and then also do a sponge painting,

decorative painting around the other walls,

then you would need a C33 license.

But if you're just doing fine art on the walls,

if you're just doing a mural, like this mural by Beth,

I don't think, and so many of us around the state

don't believe that artists are commercial painters.

They're really making art on the walls.

They still are required to do all the safety standards

that anybody would do when they do any construction projects.

So, Calotia still applies.

You still have to have a legal agreement

with whoever's property you're doing it on.

But we want artists to feel empowered

that they're doing work

and that they're not in some way violating the law

by doing this work.

So yeah, so it's been a big deal

and we're really hopeful that the state can correct this.

Thank you, Commissioner Wallace.

Yeah, Arnold.

Kudos.

First of all, I just want to note

the amount of work that's been done

since I left the commission is tremendous

and a lot of policy in place

that we didn't have in place before and I love that.

And I really want to commend you for the work

to incorporate people in the community

and connect all these different artists with each other.

I'm curious if you were talking about giving artists

who have not had opportunities

to work with fabricators and stuff like that

and then that technical assistance.

Are we also partnering with schools

and career technical education programs

to provide them the opportunity to learn how to do that?

Yeah, I don't know that for this project

we had thought about that,

but I think that that's something that I'm gonna write down

and think about if that's a way that we might

weave that in somehow.

We are working with those two schools on Northgate.

So we had it and kind of,

and I'm not sure, so that's the other thing.

Is that, I mean, I don't know,

there are places for people to learn this stuff

outside of kind of traditional academic institutions

like a university.

But I do think that at the very least

we will reach out, we've got some,

actually Amy and I both live in Natomas.

She lives in South Natomas, I live in North Natomas.

So we kind of got it covered.

And I think that we should definitely be able

to make sure some schools are involved.

And I know Council Member Kaplan

would love to see that happen.

So let me.

Yeah, I don't know if they have it in Natomas,

but there is a CTE-focused charter school.

Yeah.

And I don't know if any of it off the top of my head,

but it's the front of mine who runs it.

And they do a lot of sort of,

they do, let's say they do music recording, Maurice.

SAVA, that's it, SAVA.

Yeah, yeah.

And so I just, it seemed like a good synergy.

Yeah, and there is an Atomas charter school,

arts charter school as well.

And what I would say that the simplest thing is that,

just to make sure that folks know about it,

so that we can invite them to be a partner in this project.

And so there's gonna be a ton of workshops

and opportunities.

And so if a school signs on and says,

yes, we're coming to these,

we're gonna actively participate,

that would be a lot of learning there.

And I just really quickly say the reason that,

this has always been something that,

has been something that I've felt,

like as somebody that practiced myself for about 20 years,

I know how it was to get started.

And you don't have work.

And now we're asking for requests for qualifications.

And it's like, but I haven't been able to give in a chance,

so I can't do one of these big projects.

So I always encourage artists,

just try to do projects on your own.

And then when you see an opportunity

for a smaller project, you can kind of build on that.

So that's what this is.

They'll have maybe $25,000 to work to design,

have this bench made.

And those artists that are welders and things like that,

might be able to do it themselves,

but they also might be able to utilize fabrication companies

that could help with the fabrication,

and then they have a finished piece.

So that's what our hope is, is we'll see how it goes.

But there's 10 opportunities for these benches,

and it'll provide seating around the park.

And then we also want to have interpretive signage

about some of the plant and animal life there at the park.

We did write another grant for that one too.

I mean, I've been writing a lot of grants lately,

so we'll see fingers crossed on that.

But thank you, Maya, and I'll definitely take that.

Thanks.

In regards to those parks that you guys are looking at

to put those benches on, are they going to be distributed

everywhere around Sacramento or more towards Natomas?

No, it's just one park.

It's just one park.

It's a maybe five acre or no, 200.

Sorry, five.

Jesus.

212 acre park in Natomas, North Thomas Regional Park.

So it's specifically for that.

The money is from our 2% program.

So it is kind of isolated to that area.

And so we're able to use it for that area.

But you know what, commissioner, if people love it,

and we maybe will do other projects similar to that

around other parks.

But yeah, we're just starting with this one.

But everybody will be able to come and use that park.

You don't have to live in Natomas to come and enjoy

that park and that wildlife.

And 200 plus acres is an enormous park.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Vice chair, Modino.

Thank you, Donald, for sharing with us.

I always really appreciate your depth of knowledge

about public art.

So thank you.

My first question or maybe comment related to the benches.

First, I wanted to ask how many artists would be hired.

And I think you just said 10.

10.

10 benches, 10 artists, and then five artist ambassadors.

So 15 total.

What's that?

15 total.

And then we did write a grant to basically try to add on

about four more artists for another component that

would be a garden component that we would love to do

with Wilton Rancheria.

But we'll see, fingers crossed, we

don't know if we have the funding for that.

OK, cool.

And so I really like how this project could be for artists who

don't have much public art experience,

but would like to get it.

I actually just met with a couple of artists

who are interested in applying for the,

you may have seen the county has released requests

for qualifications for airport art.

Yeah, second round of it.

Yeah, I know that's not the city, but I

talked to some artists who want to apply because they say

this is for artists who don't have public art experience.

Oh, right, OK.

So they say they're willing to work with artists

who don't have that experience.

But even the artists I talk to, they're like,

I don't even know how I would create a budget this size.

Like, it just seems crazy to me.

Like, even it starts, I think, at like 25,000 to like 200,000.

So they just have, even beyond the fabrication,

there's just a lot of, there's a gap in like this information

for artists.

So I was wondering if it would be possible with this bench

project if there could be some type of educational element

for artists who haven't done public art before.

What that would look like to start getting into this field

and maybe applying for this project could be part of it.

But I think there's a lot of other aspects of it

that they would benefit from as well.

Because even I was like, yeah, the budget,

like you'd hire fabricators.

You might hire engineers, a project manager.

And they're like, what?

Because usually they would just do all this on their own.

So I think that could be really helpful.

And off, go ahead.

If I could, just really quickly respond to that,

because it's right on point.

We've been having some conversations with the Crocker

art ed department.

And I think, although it's not in Natomas,

but I think that they have a wonderful space

and they invited us to do an informational session

at the Crocker.

And I don't know if you remember, but we did River Crossing.

Yeah, I remember.

We actually live streamed it before.

Live streaming was just so commonplace.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

We called it live streaming, right?

Yeah.

So we'll do an information session.

But that helps to remind me that that information session needs

to not just have photographs, but also kind of help folks

that maybe haven't done those types of projects before.

How do you kind of do that?

And then we'll have maybe some office hours where folks

could talk with us.

I imagine some of those sculptures

may have some experience.

I'm not saying that that's going to be a prerequisite,

but I'm opening the door for folks

who don't have a larger portfolio of public art

or permanent public art to apply.

But thank you for that.

And yeah, stay tuned for that Crocker event.

I think it would be great.

I still need to work out the details.

I love that idea.

When the call is out, we'll have this information session.

And that should really help folks.

Yeah, because I think even though the request for qualifications

won't entail a whole project plan,

artists are still feel discouraged from applying to these

because they don't think that they're

qualified when really you are making these opportunities

available to artists who might not

have that breadth of experience.

Absolutely.

And also, will the benches actually be for sitting?

Yeah, that's going to be a requirement of the design.

That was something.

We don't always think that art needs

to have a kind of functional aspect.

But in this case, I think it would be a really wonderful thing

to add.

And there is a need for more seating

at that particular regional park.

So we hope to add the benches, have an opportunity

for that seating.

And then also, we will have a couple interpretive signs,

no maps, interpretive signs there as well

to talk about the plant and animal life.

Awesome.

Thank you, Donald.

Thanks.

Thank you, Commissioner Whitlock.

Don, this is just fantastic.

Being on the commission for a number of years

and watching this public art grow is so wonderful.

Thank you.

And so much of what it's doing.

But one of the things I was thinking about

is we're looking at, public art actually identifies the city.

In so many ways, our Sacramento is

being represented about who we are through the public art.

I think when we look at the process about how

we do the public art, the communities that we make,

the diverse communities that we make sure

are involved in the public art, all of the things that

represent Sacramento.

I just can't say how much it is so beautiful to come to this

city and to ride a Del O'er trail or to see the Johnny

Cash or to see some of these things that

are marking our city.

So I was just wondering, somebody should be crying.

We should have a coffee table book somewhere, really,

of Sacramento and the public art and how it happened,

how it got here.

Part of what it does is the different communities

that it's in.

It's just fantastic.

So I'm not asking you to do a coffee table book.

But there might be somebody that we should join up with

to have us chronic what's been going on in public art,

because I just think it's outstanding.

I love it.

Thank you, Commissioner Wynlock.

Appreciate that.

And we will work on trying to make that happen at some point.

We'll see.

This is how it happens, right?

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

I love that you guys did that QR code,

because my nieces who are not from here,

one came up here from LA and one is going to school here

from San Diego.

And I'm always like, there are so many murals out there

that you guys can go take pictures of it,

because they're young.

They want to take pictures.

They're like, where?

I'm like, you can find it online.

It's on there.

I promise.

I have pictures.

I go and take pictures with my kids.

And they're like, where?

And I'm like, I'm going to get that information.

So the QR code, I took a picture of it.

I'm texting it out like, here's that information,

because young kids, they were in the age of Instagram,

social media.

They want to take pictures.

And we are a city full of great art,

where the way that we get it out, people bypass that

is through your young people.

Give that to your young people and put that in their hands.

And as long as they have, they know where to find it,

people will take pictures.

And then they spread that with their friends.

You want something to move fast, give it to the kids.

They'll push it out there really fast.

So that's a really great tool that you have.

Even if you put them on like some,

I know that Cruz used to say like, hey,

we need to have more signs of this.

Put your QR code where you know most people are going out

there on the Golden One Center, out on K Street,

where they can just want to know where these are,

just have them take it, and then have somebody wear a shirt.

You have all the kids wear a shirt.

It's a great idea.

And we thank you for acknowledging that,

but we've got so much more work to do.

And I just recognize that too.

I try to walk into the city sometimes,

just like pretend as if I'm just like a visitor,

like I do in other cities.

And it really has bothered me for years that I walk in.

I couldn't like don't even know how to direct people.

So we're working on that one step at a time.

I think we're going to do better than we have now.

You should be able to have walking tours and links

to other things that we're still working on it incrementally.

But thanks for that.

And again, I encourage you guys to go on there

and see how it is, see how the user interaction is for you.

And it has to be great if you had this or this

or this worked really well for me

and try to do that little survey as well,

would really help us out.

And then we'll do a launch where we really go through that whole

portal with you as well after we've had it up online

for at least a few months and working out some of the kinks.

Thank you again.

Anyone else?

Any public comments on this item?

Thank you, Chair.

Yes, we do have one speaker for this item, Lambert.

As I listen to the presentation, I am a native.

I'm a native of Sacramento.

And when I was growing up here, we

had some great artists in Del Paso Heights.

Back then, it was the Chicanos.

They were very talented as well in the blacks.

And they were denied access to these murals.

They used to call them graffiti.

And they were actually great artwork.

And so as I sat here and listened,

I heard grants and things for Natomas.

But when I was growing up, Natomas

was a wide open field to me.

If you look at our core arena, it's no longer there.

If you go by our core arena, which I recently went by

on the way to the airport, I didn't

realize they had torn it down.

So that's how Natomas looked to us when we were growing up.

It was just wide open field.

That's why when they mentioned 200-something acres,

that's because there was no housing there.

And so another thing that I want you to be aware of,

because I come down here to enlighten you,

I'm not really here to be popular.

Some people close to me made me aware

that not only are artists of color having difficulties

getting access to some of this grant money,

but they enlighten me on a scandal that happened regarding

wide open walls.

And wide open walls received a no-written agreement grant.

That's unheard of.

And what happened was because that happened,

they weren't able to audit what they did with the money.

So those of you who are new, make sure you understand

that was approved by the staff of City Hall.

Otherwise, they would have never approved that.

So be aware of the history of artwork in Sacramento,

because it's not just Natomas.

Thank you for your comments, clerk.

Chair, there are no other speakers for this item.

Thank you for, can I say something?

It seems unlikely that wide open walls would have received

a grant with no written agreement.

Could Donald, maybe you comment on that?

The Office of Arts and Culture doesn't have discretion

to hand out any money in that way

without any kind of agreement.

So, and again, wide open walls is a non-profit organization

that is not directly connected with our office.

And while we're happy to see murals throughout Sacramento,

I don't know specifically how what money wide open walls

may or may not have received.

But I do know that the Office of Arts and Culture

takes its application process.

And specifically, APP, I know for myself,

we take our application process really seriously.

We create transparency.

We create an opportunity to recognize

the importance of equity and inclusion

in all the work that we do.

So we still have much more work to be done,

but and we'll continue to do that.

But we don't just hand out money without agreements.

So I really can't comment on that, unfortunately.

Well, I can comment on it if you can comment.

Thank you for that clarification, Donald.

Thanks.

Thank you.

We'll move on to our next item.

Chella Vila, actually, if I could just wrap up the last item.

And I just wanted to thank Donald Gensler

and our amazing team with Amy Tokohama Chapman.

Also, Michael Dobbins with the GIS crew.

I mean, this has been a long time in the making.

And just want to, again, take a moment

to recognize the amount of work that

is coming out of Art in Public Places program

and how deeply it is elevating the experience as you go

through the city of Sacramento and how the work is just

threaded throughout all of our neighborhoods,

but is also, it feels like we're just getting started.

There's so much left.

There's so much activity behind the scenes.

I also want to thank the council members, who we work with very

closely in all of these projects and for their leadership

and identifying opportunities.

So those are all the things that you might not

see behind the scenes, but I want to just share

some gratitude for our amazing staff for their work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next item on the calendar is recognition of April 2025

as Arts, Culture, and Creative Creativity Month.

And this is a motion passing item.

I can take this, Charla Willow.

So I just wanted to share what you have here

is a hard copy of the draft for proclamation language

that is being considered through the mayor's office,

with the support of the mayor's office,

and with the support of Council Member Mai Vang.

As was shared earlier and last month,

and in our newsletter, if you're keeping up with that,

April is recognized throughout the state

as Arts, Culture, and Creativity Month.

This is spearheaded by the nonprofit organization

California for the Arts.

They are also, as Sharon noted, bringing to Sacramento

a statewide convening.

And it happens actually over more than two days,

state and local partners with the through the California

Arts Council, state and local partnership program

will be meeting on the 21st.

Then the summit will be happening at Memorial Auditorium

and the Convention Center on the 22nd.

So then out on the kind of west side lawn

of the state capital park grounds

will be the Arts Advocacy Day event and rally

that some of you have already been involved in the past.

So this is a proclamation, draft language

for that proclamation.

And the request before you is to consider a motion

that would recommend City Council approve

a proclamation acknowledging April 2025

as Arts, Culture, and Creativity Month.

And this would be presented to the public on the 23rd.

Thank you.

Is there a motion to approve it as amended?

Moved.

I'll make a motion.

Second.

Oh, second, sir.

Sorry, quick question.

Approved as amended, meaning there was a change

from the version that was published in the agenda online.

Okay.

Yes.

The nature of the changes are in regards to the kind of

therefore be it resolved section primarily now

that we know that there may be an opportunity to request

signatures from all council members.

Made sure to get the date right and kind of truncated

some of the language.

So the main change was that we're now looking at support

from the mayor's office and all council members.

Thank you.

So we have a motion by Commissioner Martino

with a second by Commissioner Ohabu.

Please unmute for vote.

Commissioner Anderson.

Aye.

Commissioner Eisenberg.

Yes.

Commissioner Lamelli.

Yes.

Commissioner Martino.

Aye.

Commissioner Ohabu.

Yes.

Commissioner Smith.

Yes.

Commissioner Tokolino.

Yes.

Commissioner Wallace.

Aye.

Commissioner Winnlock.

Yes.

And Chair Levillo.

Yes.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

We have two speakers.

And do we have any public speakers?

Thank you, Chair.

Yes, we do.

We have two speakers for this item.

Our first speaker is Lambert

and our second speaker will be Shira.

Lambert is waving his time.

Thank you.

Hi, Shira with HM916.

Question, do you do public comment after a vote?

Is that normal?

Sorry.

Is that standard procedure?

It was an oversight if the body wishes to do a motion

to reconsider after the comment they can to change the vote.

Okay.

Not that I have anything to say.

It was just odd.

Okay.

So hi, one thing, I love the Arts and Culture

Creativity Month.

Me personally, I would love to add earth into it.

I would love to collaborate that earth arts and creativity.

But with that collaboration,

we are holding an event called Collab.

And that is kind of combining arts

and the earth and sustainability.

And that is also in preparation for Big Day of Giving.

Big Day of Giving is happening May 1st.

And because Big Day of Giving is very digital,

and also it's very competitive among our local nonprofits.

So we decided we wanted to do,

we're all about collaboration at the atrium.

We wanted to do an in-person event,

inviting all the nonprofits to come and hang out for free.

And we're gonna host the event,

and it will be an event where people can meet

the nonprofits in person,

hear about the projects that they're working on.

So to think of it like a market for nonprofits in a way,

that you get to drink wine, watch art, make art.

So that's happening April 25th.

I do have flyers, and then I also will provide to you guys

a flyer that's got a QR code to sign up

for our Creative Economy meeting

that is happening on Wednesday at 5.30.

And then yes, at the summit, thank you Jason.

We will also be providing our Zero Waste Mobile Art Cafe

at the summit there, so you'll be able to meet her.

It's a upcycled mobile art cafe, very fun.

So thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Sure, there was no other speakers for this item.

How do I do this?

That's like appropriate.

Do I give it to you or give it to, what's the right?

Yeah, it's the right.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, we'll turn the time over to Jason

for the director's report.

Thank you, Chair Lovulo.

I'll try to keep this rather brief

as we have some updates from commissioners

and a party to attend at 3.30.

Just wanna note that our grant and programs manager,

Melissa Serone, will be following up next month

with an update on activities in that program area.

And this is all in the interest of keeping

the commission informed, community informed

on all of the work that is coming out

of the Office of Arts and Culture.

So just to bring it on one last time,

California Arts and Culture Summit is the 22nd.

Arts Advocacy Day is April the 23rd.

We invite folks out to join us

and to join the presenters of this opportunity

as we uplift arts culture and creativity month.

If you're interested in more information,

you can go to caforthearts.org.

It's California for the arts,

but shortened caforthearts.org.

We also want to acknowledge the partnership,

which I believe some notifications are going out this week

for those city of Sacramento artists and creatives

who are being recommended for a scholarship to attend.

So that is something that we're very proud of.

We're hoping to almost double the number

of scholarship awardees to attend this year.

We know that there was a big desire

and we're pleased to be in a position

to try and fill that gap.

I wanted to share that our sibling agency,

Entertainment Services Division

and the Sacramento Film and Media Program,

they have an upcoming Film and Media Grant Program

that seeks to sustain and grow film and television production

within the city of Sacramento.

And you can find out more about this opportunity

at filmsac.com.

The application deadline is May 15th,

so there's still some time.

Filmsac, F-I-L-M-S-A-C dot com.

Our own office, the Office of Arts and Culture,

is still accepting applications to serve as a panelist

for upcoming review panels.

The independent review panel process is critical

to the way that we do things here.

It ensures accountability, equity,

all of those things that we care very deeply about.

So we really rely on the expertise of peer review panelists

and we're especially going to be looking for

regionally panelists from throughout the region,

Northern California and beyond

for the Creative Growth Fellowship,

individual artists support opportunity

that's coming up around the corner.

So please consider checking out the information

and visiting our website arts.cityofsecremento.gov

to review the panelist, review panel section

for more information and application to apply.

We also do still have one vacancy on this body.

It is the second mayor appointed seat.

You can find out more about that also on our website

and you can head over to the Arts, Culture

and Creative Economy Commission.

We hope to fill this with someone who has expertise,

connection to the arts, a passion for advancing,

uplifting the arts, culture and creative economy

throughout the entire city.

So if you're interested, learn more about it on our website.

And of course, as always, make sure that

if you are not already subscribed,

you can subscribe to our newsletter.

And a reminder that we're on LinkedIn, Facebook,

Instagram and have recently added Blue Sky.

So at SACC, City Arts is S-A-C-C-I-T-Y, ARTS is

where you can find us on all platforms.

With that, I'll hand it over to Chair LaVuello.

Thank you, Jason.

Our next item is commissioner comments, ideas

that are not on the agenda.

Are there any commissioners who wish to speak?

Yes, Jeff.

Hi, thank you.

Just have a few announcements for things going on

in District Two.

All kinds of cool art events happening

on the Boulevard this month.

A show at the gallery by We Are Sacramento,

which is also going by the Gallery 916.

You can find them on Instagram

at the gallery underscore 916.

It's a group exhibition called Heavy.

It's curated by Jeff Musser.

I think we got that right.

It's actually featured in this month's SACC Art Pulse.

It's a group exhibition by works

by Sacramento-based artists as they respond

to the current tumultuous political

and cultural condition of the country.

That's at 1019, Del Paso Boulevard.

It's going on until the 27th with hours

every Saturday and Sunday, one to five.

Additionally, we've also got another cool event

coming up on the Boulevard again.

It's Spring on the Boulevard and it's

co-sponsored by Root Rise.

Forward Together, Marysville and Del Paso Boulevard

and Broadroom Creative Collective.

It's a celebration of art, music, and community.

It's free and family-friendly.

There's gonna be live music with Sung Cafe

and DJ Omar art activities, with Broadroom,

Storytelling, Springtime Tales with the Sacramento Library,

and Delicious Food from VIP Cafe in Delhi.

They'll have 80 delicious taco plates

first come first serve.

Interesting too, that's VIP Cafe.

That's right next to Stony's.

That's 1328 Del Paso Boulevard.

And you all saw an image of that earlier.

There's a big mural there.

It's really beautiful by Liv Unger.

The one with the guy playing the trumpet.

That's just down the street actually

from the Gallery 916.

So if you want to pair it all in one day,

you could really have a good time.

Also, Big Idea Theater, they're putting on

their next production, The River Bride.

That's opening April 25th.

So just tons of stuff going on.

What's that?

Oh, sorry about that.

That's April 27th from noon to four.

Thanks.

Thank you, Commissioner O'Hable.

Thank you.

From now until May 31st, PBS KVIE has a call for artists

for their art auction.

You can apply on their website kvie.org

and submit an application.

That's in District 3.

And that's kvie.org.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Martino.

I want to thank Shira for bringing up

the Big Day of Giving and for organizing the collab event.

I'm excited for that.

I also just wanted to shut out the Big Day of Giving

and just give a little summary of what it is.

So Big Day of Giving, also known as Big Dog,

is an annual 24-hour philanthropic event

in the Sacramento region,

organized by the Sacramento Region Community Foundation.

Since its inception in 2013,

it has mobilized community support

to raise over 104 million for local nonprofits

across El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, and Yolo counties.

This year, early giving opens on April 17th,

and the actual Big Day of Giving is May 1st.

This is a really amazing opportunity

for our local nonprofits to get unrestricted funds,

which means funds that they can use

in any way that they need.

A lot of nonprofits rely on grants,

and often grants have very specified specific uses,

and those often don't include the paying of staff.

So our local organizations really need our help

to stay afloat and stay sustainable.

So I encourage everyone here to donate

what they can, every little bit counts,

and also to attend the Atrium's collab event

and get to know some more of our nonprofits.

Thank you.

Any public comments?

Thank you, Chair.

Yes, we have one speaker for this item, Lambert.

Well, for some of you who aren't aware of actually who I am,

I'm actually the founder and CEO

of a family-owned business,

which is a cheesecake business

called To the Bay and Back Cheesecakes.

It was founded in District 2.

Now, there's very few people that will acknowledge

what I said earlier about wide open walls.

It became contentious.

I start hearing things about they don't give money away,

and that's not true.

And so officially I'm gonna send,

when I get to my computer,

I'm gonna send you a copy.

I'm gonna send it to Minty Cuppey's office.

That's the only department I trust down here.

I've submitted a lot of paperwork here

and it's well documented.

In this city, I attend a lot of meetings.

I'm talking about a lot of meetings, commission meetings.

And one of the meetings I learned at Race Equity

is that there's resistance at City Hall to DIE.

I call it DIE because it's dead on arrival.

And there's a lot of people inside City Hall

that are resistant to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

And some of them are thrilled that Trump is there

because he's eliminating it.

And to me, it's disingenuous to even talk about equity now.

You know it's under attack.

So to pretend like it's not isn't.

But I cannot wait to send this to Minty Cuppey

because wide open walls was caught

with a no written agreement.

Jeff Harris, who's the city councilman,

stated on the record, it was a black eye quote unquote,

to City Hall.

It was six figures.

It was $100,000.

And I'm not sure if they had to give it back,

but it's in the article.

And because it was a no written agreement,

they couldn't audit it.

So be aware that there's some,

there's a lot of scandals going on here.

All you gotta do is read the Sacramento Bee front page.

Thank you for your comments.

This concludes today's agenda.

Thank you everyone for participation.

The meeting is adjourned.