Chair, we are ready when you are.

Good afternoon.

Welcome to Monday, February 9th, 2026, 1 p.m.

meeting of the Arts, Culture, and Creative Economy Commission.

The meeting is now called to order.

Will the clerk please call the role to establish a quorum?

Thank you, Chair.

Members, please unmute for roll call.

Commissioner Carter.

Present.

Commissioner Eisenberg?

Here.

Commissioner Gutierrez.

Absent.

Commissioner Hershey?

Here.

Commissioner O'Habu.

Here.

Commissioner Orozco.

Here.

Commissioner Smith.

Absent.

Um Commissioner Wallace.

Here.

Commissioner Winlock.

Here.

And Chair Lavulu.

Here.

Thank you.

We have quorum.

I'd like to remind members of the public in chambers that if you would like to speak on an agenda item, please turn in a speaker slip before the item begins.

After the item is called, we will no longer accept speaker slips.

You will have two minutes to speak once you are called on.

We will now proceed to today's agenda.

Please rise if you're able for the opening acknowledgments in honor of Sacramento's Indigenous People and Tribal Lands.

To the original people of this land, the Nissanam people, the Southern Maidu, Valley and Plains, Miwok, Patwin Wintun 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 today in the active practice of acknowledgement and appreciation for Sacramento's Indigenous Peoples history, contribution, and lives.

Thank you.

I pledge allegiance through the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it has one nation under God and the visible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Chair.

There are no speakers for this item.

Thank you.

Are there any commissioners who wish to speak on this item?

Commissioner Wallace.

Thank you.

Commissioner Eisenberg.

So we have a motion to approve by Commissioner Wallace with a second by Commissioner Eisenberg.

Correct.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstain.

The motion passes with opposition from Commissioner Zero.

No Commissioners.

An abstention from no commissioners as well.

Motion passes.

I can jump in here, Chair Lavulu.

Jason Zhong, Office of Arts and Culture.

Today our first discussion calendar item is a presentation by staff with California for the arts.

California for the arts promotes the annual recognition of April as Arts, Culture, and Creativity Month, otherwise known as ACCM.

It's a month full of free events, resources, and advocacy opportunities across the state with the goal of engaging arts advocates and raising awareness of the impact of the arts within community.

So last year we partnered with California for the Arts and they mounted the Arts and Culture Summit, followed by Arts Advocacy Day.

And today we have Nefesha Israel, their lead staff person to share who's here today to share details about this event and ways that the commission, if they're so inclined, can become involved in this really important opportunity to advocate for the arts in our region and across the state.

Nafesha, welcome.

Thank you, Jason.

Should I stand here or I see the slide here?

Where the mics are, that would be great.

Okay, that sounds good.

Thank you to the commission for having me today.

Again, my name is Nafeshi Israel.

I'm the director of programs at California for the Arts, and we are a state ride arts advocacy organization.

We can go to the next slide and you can see a little bit more about our organization.

And again, I'm here to talk about Arts Culture and Creativity Month, which will happen throughout the entire month of April.

Should I say next slide or should I like click?

I can use the clicker.

Okay, wasn't sure if that was connected.

Perfect.

All right, so we have two organizations.

They're kind of like sister organizations.

So CA for the Arts is where we run all of our uh house all of our programming that will happen statewide, or that does happen statewide.

Um that includes our services and our advocacy trainings and networking, and then we have CIA Arts Advocates, which is a 501c4, um, and it keeps our lobbying very separate.

So just to give that framing for the organizations, and I'm here on behalf of CA for the arts, which is our 501c3, and we have a great team of people from across the state.

Just want to give some faces to names and some people you might come across if you go on our website or if you get email exchanges from our team.

Um, and really relatively smaller team for a lot of work that we do across the state.

And uh we've updated this is updated, but we've got a great board of individuals that support our work and and so we really appreciate them.

They are located across the state as well, along with some people that you may see that are here in Sacramento, along with Megan Van Voris, um, Ms.

T also, who runs Studio T Arts Academy, and a few others that are located here in Sacramento.

Our work is really grounded in our racial and cultural equity statement, and this is something that we spent um the last few years working on our vision 2030 and not just doing it in by uh making a statement but doing it in our actions and interrogating ourselves and interrogating the work that we do uh here at CA for the Arts.

And so I just want to share that as a framing that we really do keep this at the forefront of our thoughts and our of our programming.

And a part of that will go into our arts, culture, and creativity work, excuse me, arts culture and creativity month, which I'll also refer to as ACCM is the acronym.

Um a lot of the work that we do with ACCM is figuring out how we can get people engaged in different cities across the state, but also create opportunity.

So we have uh our summit that I'll share a little bit more about.

I think that's going to be coming up.

Um but in our summit, we do a call for proposals, and every year we get proposals from across the state, and we really take it serious to make sure that there's representation in our summit.

And so that's an example of the work that we do along with the different uh logos that you see here, these are all of our programs.

Um so we do regional conversations.

I won't read them all.

One of the highlights that we really are proud of the work we're doing is our grassroots artist advocacy program, which started in the Bay Area, and we're looking at expanding it across the state where we're teaching artists how to be advocates and how to uh work in for civic engagement within their local uh communities.

This is just a little bit about ACCM 2025 at a glance.

Um of the things that I'll call out are we do Advocacy Day, which I'll get into a little bit more.

We do um Arts Champion Awards that we award legislators and champions within civic community that um have been working and championing the arts around policy, and so we did three every year.

Last year we had 500 plus attendees come from across the state, not only across the state, but even nationally.

Uh some people came from New York, some people come from uh different states, some came from North Carolina, I think last year, and so they come to Sacramento, and it's a great opportunity to bring people to the city to see the beauty of the city to get connected and also get to know one another and the work that's happening uh within the state and also nationally.

And so they come to Sacramento, and it's a great opportunity to bring people to the city to see the beauty of the city to get connected and also get to know one another and the work that's happening within the state and also nationally.

And we do a lot, we we like to say that we're a communication organization also, so we're constantly reaching out through social media.

It's a big part of our work.

We have a communications team, and as you see, we we share those numbers around our social media because it's a it's how we communicate what's happening in legislature, it's how we communicate what's happening locally.

For example, in Oakland, the cultural affairs position was a position that we really supported and advocated for alongside the community of Oakland, and that was uh just last year, and a lot of that happened through social media and through social engagement.

Uh this just shows representation.

Um, here we can see Sacramento County County was almost 21% of our representation at our summit and Arts Advocacy Day last year, and we want to continue to increase those numbers, um, being that it does happen right here in your city.

And so uh we do that through different ways, including scholarships, which I'll talk about in a little bit.

But here you can see we have a large number that comes from LA, of course, um, being that it is such a large city, uh, but then we're trying to also build our numbers in more rural areas, and that's also a part of our racial and cultural equity work, um, looking at culture, even looking at rural areas and opportunities that uh maybe missed.

So, even the outskirts of Sacramento, we're working on getting more people to come to the conference.

So the summit is April 20th, and uh, I know there's a lot of words up here, and I won't read everything.

Um, hopefully, Jason, you can share this slide deck with the commission.

Um, there's some link outs also in the slide deck.

But the summit is April 20th this year.

We don't have a slide for it, but this year we're doing our first year where we have two days of a summit.

So we'll do a pre-summit convening.

Stanford University will be coming, and they have a cultural fellows, cultural policy fellows, and they'll be doing a session talking about cultural policy, talking about how artists can be involved in um civic engagement and your uh local and statewide politics and be in um political offices and involved in decision making.

And so they'll be doing that session.

We'll also have a session focused on arts education, looking at the implementation of Prop 28, and um, and then there will be two other sessions.

One will be more of a closed session with our state local partners, and then we have uh the creative core artist, and that was Creative Core.

Many of you I'm sure are familiar with, but we're going to be doing some more further research on it around the artists that were involved in the Creative Core.

So that will be April 19th with our pre-summit uh convening, and then the actual convening will be on April 20th.

We do have scholarships for artists uh here in the city.

If you are an artist or if you know artists, we'll be announcing that soon.

We've got about the city of Sacramento was able to support us with about $5,000 of scholarships that will cover upwards to 30 scholarships for artists.

So getting that word out will be important.

Artists and culture bearers that live within the city of Sacramento will have opportunity for towards scholarship.

So I'll share that information after this once we have it up online.

It's not up just yet.

We just finalized some of these things last week.

So the scholarships will be available, and uh should put my notes up here so I can see if there was anything else I need to mention with this slide.

But I think I got everything.

And the next thing that we have a great keynote, uh, one of our keynote speakers will be having a keynote conversation, but Dolores Schreter is going to be one of our keynote speakers.

We're really excited about this.

We're looking at um a little bit looking backwards to look forward.

So we're looking at uh Ms.

work around the United Farm Workers and the work that she did and has done.

Um if you don't know Ms.

Juerta is about 95 years old, so she's been doing this work.

I just heard her say this morning since she was 26 years old.

So we're looking at bringing in someone that can give that history and look at how the arts and culture have really shaped advocacy and and how they're continuing to shape the future of California.

And this is just kind of another recap.

I'm gonna quickly go through some of these because I don't think they're as important for this conversation.

Um we do work with and partner with a lot of uh organizations and individuals to do this summit.

So with all of our media, we work with Bay VAC, um Bay Area Video Company, I believe, coalition.

There we go, it's up there.

Um and we work with Arts Collab and Gordon Lim, who is a Sacramento-based uh videographer and photographer.

So we've able to been able to partner with a lot of people and organizations to make this happen.

It is something that we hold, but it's not necessarily it's CA for the arts project, but it is for the community, and we try to get as many people involved as possible.

Then we have Arts Advocacy Day, that's the day after.

This is a free event that actually let me backtrack real quick to give cost for the the summit.

The summit is not a free event.

Um we do have free sessions happening on Sunday.

So the Stanford session is free thanks to Stanford who is supporting everything will happen at the convention center, the Safe Credit Union Convention Center, and then on the summit day, we use the memorial auditorium as the beginning session, the plenary, and then we go over to the convention center for all of our breakouts.

The summit itself, we're in the middle of early bird um ticket sales.

We've done really well.

We opened up last week, and I think we've almost sold a hundred tickets, and we were gonna we're going to the hundred before we go to regular price.

Uh and right now it's 325 for uh individuals, and then for artists and culture bearers, we give what would be a half off of the regular price, and so it comes down to 190 for artists and and uh culture bearers.

Um we use an honor system that people if they identify as an artist, they can get that ticket price, and uh, and then we have member pricing.

And once our early bird ticket prices go up or done, then we'll go to regular, and that cost is 375 dollars.

So we have trying our best to keep it as important affordable as possible.

I go to a lot of conferences, and sometimes they're they're quite pricey.

Um trying our best to keep it equitable so that we can really have a diverse group of people in and uh present at the summit.

Then Arts Advocacy Day is a free event happening on April 21st at Capitol Park.

We start with a rally where we have speakers uh come from across the state to talk about the importance and impact of the art and of the arts, and then we have a parade where we all collectively head over to the legislative offices, and then we meet with our legislators by region.

Um if any of you are interested in being a captain, we do have opportunity for that, and that's basically where you would lead your group, help organize a group of people to go speak with our local legislators.

Uh last year we had 350 advocate registrants, uh 231 check-ins, and we met with 95 95 legislators, and we had 60 captains, so that was great.

Um, we continue to increase every year.

Uh people show up along with youth show up for this day, which is exciting because I think it's important to have the voice of the youth, and we're working on um even having youth involved in this uh in the rally so we can think about the future of the arts.

I'm gonna skip this one because these are kind of old policy priorities, but I will share that we are working on um what we call 50 and 50, since it's the CAC's California Art Council's 50th anniversary, we're asking and working toward getting 50 million in the state budget.

And uh right now, it was not in the governor's budget this past December.

Um, so we're hoping that we get that in for the May revise, and we've got a champion right now, so in legislature, so we'll see if we're able to increase the number um to upwards toward 50.

The other thing that we do is tool kits, and I'm almost done.

So we do tool kits, and in these tool kits involve how people can get involved with advocacy day or with our summit, how to create a proclamation, get a proclamation passed, and we do um you know how to get ready for advocacy day, especially if you're captain.

So those if um this shows a little bit more about our toolkits, but those dates for the webinars on how to engage with our toolkits, we have coming up.

So these are our key dates here.

We've got uh some have passed already.

Um for example, the organizers toolkit we did um actually I think the team, no, yeah, January 29th.

We had our organizers toolkit.

That webinar is available.

So if you're interested in having an event in Sacramento, or you have something that's already being planned, and you just want to market it as an ACCM event, which we're encouraging people to do to really get the word out that it's arts, culture, and creativity month, then you can go in our toolkit and we have a bunch of things to download, stickers, social media usage, um, and then we have a specific social media toolkit that will be promoted March 5th.

And um, and then you see the summit and advocacy date.

So, and if you're interested in being a uh captain, that date has passed with that info session, but we have it as a webinar online on YouTube, and you can learn more about that.

And this is just a little bit about our team.

If you and I'll share this again, so if you need any of our email addresses, contact information, you can contact us with our emails.

Um, and I think that that's it.

Definitely stay connected, definitely subscribe to our newsletter because that's where we get all of our information out to the public pretty much weekly.

Our comms team is pretty on it, so it's pretty weekly that we're getting news out.

And I think that that is everything that I have for you today.

Um, is there space for questions, Jason?

Or Chair Luisa.

Yes.

Yes, there are.

Thank you so much for your presentation, Fisher.

Thank you.

It was a great presentation.

Um public comments on this.

Thank you, Chair.

There are no speakers for this item.

Thank you.

Um we do have a comment, Vice Chair O'Hable.

There is a public comment.

Just a second.

We do have one speaker for this item, Lambert.

Um, we just got back in town today, and uh the millennials who follow me heavily, and they they uh told me I should come down here because I'm a big fan of the arts commission because uh because of Megan's leadership specifically at Grant High School, she's made sure that the drumline has always received money for lodging and travel and food.

And that didn't happen until she came in there.

It was always some excuse or something like that.

These young people travel all over the world.

Last year they went to Ireland.

A lot of people don't know about it.

It was it hasn't been covered in the newspaper.

Now, what the millennials wanted me to definitely get on record, and I want to get a card from this lady too, because that's impressive that it's across California.

Uh speaking of California, our cheesecakes were featured at the Super Bowl, not at the game, but before, and according to the millennials, I go by what they say, and then I follow up and what does it mean?

They claim that we went global.

So I don't know what that means, but I know what happened down there, and I would like to talk to you uh away from here because we have very creative ideas, and we manufacture in Southern California.

We don't manufacture here.

A lot of people think we manufacture in Sacramento, and because this is the um fourth largest economy in the world, for those of you who don't know, you should be getting a lot of things accomplished here.

Uh the structural deficit is uh peculiar to me.

That's a peculiar term when you're in business that almost uh I would consider that mismanagement because there's no such thing as a structural deficit to me.

I would get run out of town saying that to my family.

Thank you for your comments, Chair.

There are no other speakers for this item.

Thank you.

Vice Chair O'Hable.

Thank you for your presentation.

I appreciate you coming in and um pleasure to meet you in person.

Um very excited for the Summit Advocacy Day for the scholarships.

Do students qualify for them or just for artists?

For the scholarships, yes.

Um, if they are we try to keep it for artists.

Let me confirm that.

I'm like, I'm thinking if it's a a student that is an artist that could definitely work, but we want to create space for as many artists, and that's why we have the student price.

But let me confirm that, and I'll send an email.

Yeah, it's a good question.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Wallace.

Uh thank you, Chair.

Um we've been doing this several years.

How many years is this um this is our fourth summit?

Fourth sum, fourth summit, okay.

Um, and we've moved it now, it's getting bigger and bigger, so that's really exciting.

Um in past years, there has been an effort to uh showcase the host city, which I realize we're always the host city.

Um, but are we doing anything to um coordinate any programming with local artists?

So that's something that given our some our capacity, limited capacity, it's something that we really have been leaning on.

Our uh allies here in the city that we're connected with.

Um and so we've been working with Visit Sacramento.

The goal is to create a list of offerings that Sunday night, the night before the summit, uh, because we won't be doing um a mixer, usually we do it at Harlow's, uh, but because the date is a Monday of the summit, they have events at Harlow's on Sunday night.

But because the date is a Monday of the summit, they have events at Harlow's on Sunday night.

So we're trying to put together a package basically for summit attendees to know what's going on and how to get connected in the city.

So it'll be more of a virtual offering.

And the night of the summit will actually be California Arts Council's 50th anniversary that will be happening at the Memorial Auditorium as well.

So we're working to think about how we can offer summit attendees just different opportunities throughout the entire time that they're here.

And I think it's going to be even a little bit bigger and broader because of that connection with the arts council.

Thank you.

That was I thought I heard you say it's on there's a Sunday.

Yes.

Which Sunday is that?

The 19th.

The 19th is the free day.

The free day.

And then the 20th is a Monday, the 21st, the day after.

Yeah.

Is also part of the two day summit, correct?

Right.

Arts Advocacy Day is that that Tuesday.

Okay.

Yeah.

And we've had to sort of keep it sort of separate, but we're trying to package it so people understand it's a three-day experience.

Yeah.

But the Arts Advocacy Day has been tricky with going to legislators' offices and so making sure that that's clear that it's kind of a separate thing, but it's packaged within the three.

Are the legislative uh offices open on Sunday?

No, it's a Tuesday that we'll be there, and there'll be an office that that week.

Okay.

Also on your grants, um, can they be professional artists?

Yes.

Okay, so it's not just it can be any artists.

It can be any artist, yeah.

We're not gonna, and like I said, it's an honor system, so it could be an artist or a crafter that identifies as an artist.

We're not asking for detail, we're not asking for websites.

We just, you know, we're offering this.

And last year, I think we did about 60 of those tickets.

So it wasn't a whole lot, but it people did take advantage of them.

Yes, and those five thousand dollar um per artist scholarships.

Yes.

As long as they live within the city, they cannot live in West Sack.

Right, they have to live within the city.

Um, and it's five thousand dollars total, and it comes to we're giving artists pricing, so it comes upwards to 30 tickets, somewhere around 26 or so.

Nice, and they have to live within the city.

Yeah, that we do ask for addresses because it is city funds.

Yeah, thank you.

Any other questions?

Thank you so much, Natasha.

Thank you.

I appreciate you all.

Our next item on the discussion calendar is a presentation by city clerk Mindy Cuppy.

So good afternoon.

I'm Mindy Cuppy, your city clerk.

Um, thank you, Jason, for inviting me to make this presentation.

Um, this is a presentation um that I typically do um when you start.

Some of you commissioners have probably attended my Zoom trainings.

Um, I'm going to talk quick, takes me about 17 minutes, um, but then I'll be available for questions at the end.

Okay.

So we're gonna talk a little bit about um boards commission committee handbook, um, city code that cover governs boards and commissions, the Ralph M.

Brown Act, which is California's sunshine laws, parliamentary procedure.

We use Rosenberg's rules of order at the City of Sacramento, Council Rules of Procedure, the Public Records Act, Political Reform Act, and conflicts.

Um, I don't talk a lot about scope of your commission because I figure you signed up and you know what you got into.

Um, but I will ask our city attorney to chime in if I missed something or if he's has some some value ads.

Um, again, I plug the board commission and committee handbook.

Um, that has a lot of great information.

Um, if you don't have time to read it all, look at the table of contents because you'll know where to go back to.

Um, but it is a great resource.

You had to take an oath of office when you started.

You have local ethics training, um, and you do need to renew that every two years.

We will remind you you needed to do a statement of economic interest that's done upon appointment annually, and when you leave office, we'll talk a little bit about a recusal or if you have a conflict of interest and disqualify disqualifications or removal.

Typically, um, if you decide not to continue to attend meetings, we would probably reach out and ask you, you know, what what we need to do to get you back at the dais.

Um, if you don't do your trainings, your your sexual harassment, your ethics training, um, that is good cause for removal.

Okay.

So most commissions are advisory to the city council, which this one is.

There are a couple that are quasi-judicial, so planning and design commission does make binding decisions.

We do have complaint review bodies, so the Sacramento Ethics Commission is one of those.

And then we do have appeals boards.

So your commitment, I think this is a silly slide.

It's basically says I need you to come to meetings.

Let us know if you can't attend a meeting.

As you know, if we don't think we're gonna have a quorum, we reach out and we cancel the meeting so that half of you aren't driving down to downtown taking your lunch break, um, and that we don't have a quorum, so that we cannot conduct business.

Um, avoiding unlawful meetings.

There's ways you can inadvertently violate the Brown Act.

Um, if you hit reply all on an email, you'll notice any email you get from us is all BCC.

So that if you accidentally hit reply all, you could inadvertently violate the Brown Act.

If you replied, yes, I'll be at the meeting, and I can't wait to see presentation number three because it's gonna be great, and I'm gonna vote for yes.

You just violate the Brown Act.

So that's why we do your blank copy on all emails.

I mentioned the Sacramento Ethics Commission.

Um, I'm not gonna go into this because you're not gonna violate any of these things, but this is a complaint review body, and as an appointed official of the city, an uh a complaint could be filed against you for any one of these things.

So Sacramento City Code Chapter 2.40.

I consider this the umbrella code over all boards and commissions that talks about attendance, um, your training requirements and so forth, and then your code itself goes into scope of your legislative body.

So basically, this is what it says.

Um, it's the intent of the city council to assure that appointees for the positions on the city council, city boards, commissions possess high ethical standards.

I won't read it all for you.

So the Ralph M.

Brown Act, um, I mentioned that this is California's Sunshine Act.

So basically it says everything has to be done in public.

Um, so that's why there's not email communications between you.

Um everything should be done at this dais.

Um, it states that everything has to be on an agenda, and so forth.

So some of those things, um, the Brown Act does not cover okay, conferences, community meetings.

If you wanted to attend the conference that you just heard about, um you can attend that conference.

Um, a I always say um the default approach is be conscientious of what people see.

So if you were at that conference, don't sit at the same table because people are gonna think you're talking about commission business, and and oftentimes it's it's a slippery slope.

You'll hear something in the presentation, you'll go, Oh my gosh, we should do that.

That's great.

Um, and then you're you're conducting the commission's business in a non-public form.

Okay.

Okay, so this is how you can inadvertently violate the Brown Act.

Um, so one way is a daisy chain, one is a spoken hub.

The daisy chain is on on top.

So Green Lantern talks to Batman, Batman talks to Superman, Superman now talks to is it Wonder Woman, and then she talks to the Flash.

Um so now a quorum of that body has communicated with each other.

Though they're not sitting around a table together, they are communicating in a chain.

And then in the bottom example, one person talks to multiple people, um, and that is a way you could violate the Brown Act.

You can do this by email, you can do this by text message, um, so forth.

Okay.

So I mentioned the Brown Act.

Um, regular meeting agendas must be posted 72 hours in advance.

The city of Sacramento has a sunshine ordinance which extends that to 120 hours in advance.

Location has to be open to the public.

Um, your agendas always have to have a brief description of the business.

Um, you can't take action on anything that's not on that agenda.

Um, and you um for public comment for matters not on the agenda, commissioners can briefly respond to but can't answer questions, in-depth questions, or engage in conversation.

And the reason behind that is if it's not on an agenda, members of the public haven't driven down here to participate in that discussion, um, and you also aren't prepared to have that conversation if it's not an item on the agenda.

So I mentioned you can briefly respond to.

So I know the first time I made public comment for matters not on the agenda.

I wanted you everybody to talk to me to answer my question to solve my problem.

Um, but the council cannot do that, and you as commissioners cannot respond to.

Um, you can make brief comments.

So, for instance, uh, we had someone ask about um Mama Mark's Park and their splash pad.

Well, the city manager knew that we were starting construction the next week, and so we can briefly share that information, but not engage in the conversation.

We can't talk about the color of the water and the water features, we can just briefly respond.

Okay.

So the Brown Act states that every member of the public has the opportunity to engage in conversations with this legislative body.

So, what does that mean?

So, any agenda item, they um can speak on that.

Um, we can't restrict their criticism.

So someone could stand at the at this lectern and tell you how much they hate the project.

And we criticism, if it's good or bad, we treat everybody exactly the same.

So this legislative body can limit or further extend speakers' time.

So two weeks ago I had 132 speaker slips for one agenda item.

So it would be reasonable to only have a one minute instead of two minutes for each person.

That's reasonable.

You can always you can do half an hour for people in support, half an hour for people in opposition, as long as it's consistently applied, and that's really the role of the chair to make sure that that's done, and your partner, your city clerk will help you manage that.

Um e-comments is a great tool.

So I think it's um you can see those live.

So I know council members do review those over the weekend to see what people are saying.

Um and you can you can see what what comments are being made if people are in support of an item or not.

Um I think that's a great tool.

I always encourage members of the public to do that.

Um members can speak um four times, so on four agenda items, so a total of eight minutes per meeting.

Um so what happens if we violate the Brown Act?

Well, we're not gonna do that.

Your city attorney will help you not do that.

Um but typically there's some ways to remedy it.

Um, someone they aggrieved can say you need to fix this.

Um voluntary resolution.

Oftentimes we've realized maybe maybe something could have been a violation, and so we'll kind of do a do-over.

Um we had this problem during COVID.

Um we had a speak uh phone in line, and that line went down, and it was during a public hearing for a project.

And so we met with the attorney's office and said, you know, I think we should just do this over again because members of the public did not have the opportunity to participate.

So we just voluntarily did that.

Of course, there could be a civil court action or criminal penalties, also, but we're not gonna do that.

So I mentioned the city of Sacramento uses Rosenberg's rules of order for parliamentary procedure.

One thing that that talks about is a quorum.

So quorum is one more than half of the legislative body.

Okay, the role of the chair is to make sure all voices are heard, so make sure that the public's voices are heard, and then commissioners' voices are heard.

I'm sure that the chair has some maybe has done this, um, has said, you know, Commissioner Mindy, you've spoken six times today, but I haven't heard from Commissioner Heather.

So Heather, do you have any comments to make?

So that's the role of the chair to make sure all of those voices are heard, and and some that are not overheard, I I say.

The three basic motions are the um basic motion is um I make a motion to approve the staff recommendation.

There could be a friendly amendment.

Um, so after you get your second, there could be a friendly amendment.

So if the motion was um I would like to order yellow pencils, uh another commissioner can say, you know, can I make a friendly amendment?

Um I I propose we order yellow and blue pencils if that is seconded.

That one is then on the table.

They kind of stack on top of each other.

And then there could be a completely different motion.

Um, I make a motion to ignore the staff recommendation, and I want to do um Sharpie markers instead of pencils.

So that's a completely different, and you vote on the one that's on top.

Okay.

Um and your attorney will help you manage that.

It's rare that we get a little crazy like that in commissions, right?

So um voting on motions, simple majority is more than half.

So one more than half.

I sometimes use my fingers.

So there's a set number, you have to have a quorum to hold the meeting.

Um, but then if you have less, you have just your quorum, um, your voting thresholds could go down, and so I list them here.

So if you have a commission of seven, your quorum is four.

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

But if only four are present, you still have a quorum, so you can hold the meeting, but you need um a more uh one more than half to pass anything.

Typical is all those in favor say aye.

Um the chair will look.

Um you can the chair can ask for a roll call vote.

Um, it's not necessary, um, but and sometimes it takes a little bit longer.

Um but if you have a controversial item and you want to make sure that um that everyone's voices heard, you can do that, and the chair will work with the clerk.

Um so an abstention is um I I don't have an opinion, so you don't vote.

And I'll encourage you to not do that because you're appointed to have an opinion.

So if you're not sure, ask more questions, would be my advice.

You don't have to take that.

A recusal is if you have a financial conflict, um, and my advice is always to call your attorney two days before the meeting, not um don't walk over and ask that question during the meeting because likely we'll be um out of budget of caution, you probably shouldn't vote on this item.

Okay, so if it's a tie vote, um the motion um does not pass.

Again, this is one I think is silly.

Um, hearing on voices is really the chairs um helps us manage meetings like that.

Um, we should use um courtesy and decorum.

Um debate and discussion is super healthy.

Um I encourage that, um, but respectfully, right?

If you all had the same opinion, we wouldn't be a real effective commission because we wouldn't be thinking of other viewpoints.

So ask questions.

Um, and also if you don't understand an issue, ask more questions.

Um if staff uses acronyms, um, ask what that means.

Because if you don't understand, I'm sure that somebody uh that's watching online doesn't understand either.

So let's see, council rules of procedure.

So annually um or as needed, the council adopts the rules of procedure, and those trickle down to all of our commissions.

So you go by the same rules that a council, our council does.

Okay.

Um it talks about duties of members, conduct of the public, uh, meeting agendas, talks about the order of the agenda.

If you notice a council meeting has the same order as a commission meeting, um, and that's intentional so that members of the public know when to participate, how to participate.

Um talks about um requests for future agenda items.

So your agendas always have a section that's called um comments, ideas, and questions.

This would be the appropriate time for you to say, I would like to have a presentation on.

I'd like Mindy to come back and do this presentation again.

It was so fantastic, I want to hear it again.

Um, if it's under the scope of your commission, staff will invite me back to do it again.

Um, if you ask for a presentation on the police budget, um, staff is probably going to say with all due respect, that's not under the scope of this commission.

Um, so we're not going to invite the budget office to make a presentation on the police budget.

Okay.

Um if it's a simple request for data, typically you'll get an email from staff the following day.

Okay, public records act.

So as a member of the commission, um, I I would say generally, everything in the city is a record.

And if you think about it that way, then we won't have any problems.

So any email that's sent is a record.

Um, that does not mean if it's an email that's um that's not under the scope of this commission.

So, for instance, if you emailed your council member and say, I really I don't like this project, um, and then someone requests that email, we provide it to them.

Um if it has something, so let me give you an example.

So it has to have to do with this commission.

So if you're sitting at the dais and you send a text message, um, if you sent a text message to Jason and said, I don't understand, what's that acronym?

That text message could be a record of the city that we would release.

Um for commissioners, we don't have access to your emails nor your text messages, so we would reach out to you and say, I got a request for all the text messages between commissioners, between this person and this person.

And we would say, Do you have any text messages to between you and Jason that has to do with the business of this commission?

Um, if you had texted him and said, Hey, um, I'm gonna stop in for pizza on the way home.

Do you want to join me?

That doesn't have anything to do with the commission's business, right?

So you would not provide that.

Okay.

I always say if you don't want it on the front page of the B, don't put it in an email or text message.

Okay, so what is a record?

Of course, the agenda, the speaker slips, those are all records.

Um, of course, there are exceptions.

Attorney client privilege, there's quite a few exceptions, but if you do send an email to a city staffer, it's likely we might have reviewed it.

So political reform act and conflicts.

Um, so my big takeaway is call your attorney.

So it really means that there's a reasonable, foreseeable that a decision could have a material financial effect on you.

Um, so one what could that be?

Um your um partner um owns a gallery and you guys are making recommendations with the council about this gallery and should it receive funding or shouldn't it receive funding?

It's possible that you could have a financial um effect.

So I always encourage you to call your attorney and say, This is what's going on, what do you think?

Um 99% of the time, they're gonna tell you no, that's fine.

Um, but sometimes um I know with council um it's the perception that they might have a conflict and they'll they'll recuse yourself.

Okay.

So what if you have a conflict?

Okay, again, call your attorney and don't do it at the dais.

You can't lean over.

He's gonna tell you just I I can't opine on that right now.

So uh if it's something on the consent calendar and you're recusing from it, you you just need to state why you're recusing from it.

If it's an agenda item, you actually you have to state why you're recusing, and you have to leave the room until that agenda item is finished.

So you can't sit in the audience, um, you have to leave, and then once that's done, you can um and then my my final disclosure, call your attorney.

Um scope of your commission.

Um, like I said, I don't really go into scope very much, but I encourage you to look at the municipal code that covers your commission.

It's in black and white and tells you what your role and responsibilities are.

Okay.

Again, I plug my commissioner handbook because I think it's pretty cool, and I wrote it, so please take a look.

Um, there's a lot of resources too.

This is the back page of that commissioner um handbook.

So if I intrigued you talking about parliamentary procedure and you want to read more, that's a link to where you can go see that.

Um that concludes my presentation, but I'm available for questions.

Thank you.

Uh clerk, do we have any public comments?

Thank you, Chair.

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

This year, the uh my family and the millennials, they will probably come to more commissions than I do.

Because uh I'm a huge fan of Minti Cupy because she was inside the chamber, she was sitting over there during the pandemic.

Pandemic six years old.

I personally think she should be the highest paid, and I'm not saying it because she's sitting here, but all of the commissions I go to, I see her there.

So when I see the brown act being told to you today, this is probably my fifth time hearing that same thing, and I always learn something new because I'm uh I'm on a mission to to find out how much this brown act uh is either not being violated or being violated as something that's a stickler for me.

I've been on this mission a long time for that, but uh last week an example of her work is she did have a hundred and something speakers, and they gave them I believe two minutes.

That thing lasted over three hours, and I know because I was in and out of the chamber, and that's when she earned that spot again because she was uh courteous to a lot of people that were very angry that night.

I mean, they were angry, it was about uh ice and all of that that's going on, and she handled it well at the same time.

Uh we are on a serious mission this year, and what they accomplished down there during the Super Bowl was incredible.

So that's why I say you may not see me as often, but you may hear some millennials come down here and say, hey, I'm here representing the cheesecake guy.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, Chair.

There are no other speakers on this item.

Thank you.

Commissioner Wallace.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh, I had a quick question for the clerk.

Um there was a note in your presentation about um having to make a recusal.

Um, and that that would be treated as an absence.

Is that an excused absence?

That was my line.

Yeah, typically, if you're gonna read the question was um a recusal, is that um an absence for purposes of meeting attendance?

No.

Okay, thank you.

And then actually, just following up on the meeting attendance.

How many meetings are we allowed to miss before we fall in a rears?

Three.

Ryan, I'm looking at you.

So just yeah, so the process I believe it's three meetings.

Um, and then the process would be I would reach out to your appointing um or your recommending body.

So most of the commissioners, if if you're uh recommended by a district, so all commissioners um you're recommended by someone, the mayor appoints with concurrence of council.

I know that's kind of makes sense, but so if you were recommended by uh a council office, um I would reach out to that council member and say um your your commissioners has is getting near the the three absences.

Can you help?

Um sometimes they'll reach out and say, Okay, what's going on?

Do you have some something?

Um is it not a good time for you to serve?

Um, and sometimes there's a reason why um if you had work issues and so forth.

So typically that's the way it's handled, it's not an automatic lip dismissal.

Okay, it's up to that recommending body.

Thank you.

Um to follow up on that.

Is that three in a term or three in a year?

I mean a calendar year.

Just had to clarify.

I did have a few questions as you were uh presenting.

The first one is um can the Brown Act be um broken.

Can you break the Brown Act by social media?

Yes, platforms?

Okay.

So if I were to post something and then my commissioners also our commissioners also um commented underneath that, that could violate the brown act.

It could violate the brown act, yes.

Okay, because you're actually having a conversation, right?

And then my next question is is if someone does oppose an item, um, is it discussed there or can it be discussed there, or is it just to be logged down that they opposed in the vote?

Uh is it a question in regards to the recusal?

Um no, for when we a discussion item is given and we're supposed to call uh a vote on it.

All of those in favor say aye.

And if there's a no or nay, can we discuss it there, or is it just logged?

Yeah, once you once you're at the voting point, um, the discussion is is complete.

So once a motion is made and you vote, um that that vote is then, and maybe Mr.

Meyerhoff can say that more eloquently than me.

But um, all the discussion, once you call the vote, um, we don't typically re-engage in conversation.

That makes sense.

So if you do have something that you want to raise up to say I oppose in that, you would do it during the comments of commissioner comments.

You could, or um, sometimes you'll hear council members say that when they make their comments and they'll say I'll be voting, I'll be voting no on this item, or I'll I'm in support of this item.

Sometimes they'll do that it that way.

Otherwise, when you um all those in favor say aye, ayes, the no's, and then typically the chair would say um unanimous, with the exception of you know, Commissioner Winlock, who's opposed voted no.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um and then my last question was uh you said call your attorney.

Can that attorney also be this guy?

Yes, okay.

That is your attorney.

Okay, Mr.

My attorney.

No, that would be um the attorney that supports your commission.

Okay, perfect.

To confirm if I could jump in, the preference would be to reach out to me first, and then I can connect to you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh Vice Chair O'Hable.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for your presentation.

Just a quick question.

Um, if we do have a conflict and we have to physically exit, are we allowed to watch virtually?

You can watch, you just can't participate in the meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Eisenberg.

Oh, hi.

Um, this is kind of a follow-up to the Instagram question from Chair Um Lavulo.

Um what about reactions or reposts?

I mean, I know this is getting into kind of silly nitty-gritty of Instagram, but uh, I just want to know like something like if we have uh somebody saying, hey, there's an announcement for a specific project that the office is doing in their district and you want to promote that, cross-promote it, can you repost or is that considered kind of getting into conversation?

Or if they're commenting on something that you okay, you're not gonna say anything in the comments, but you give it a little heart or something.

Correct.

That's a great question, and it's somewhat complex.

So it's not a yes or no question.

It really depends on is this something that um are you forwarding something um to someone who um about um a company that's gonna be asking for a grant later?

Okay, so you could inadvertently make make it so that you can't vote on an item later.

Um so I just encourage you to be careful if it's um if it's seems like you're um moving something forward, if you're just reposting something with really not an opinion, um, like an event that's going on, but where it can get dicey is in six months, they're then up for um uh getting a recommendation from this commission on getting a grant.

So that would be a could be a problem.

So is that somewhat help?

And the and the law changes constantly because the platforms are changing constantly.

So there's actually this recently here it was more flexible to allow you to do more, but it's still a kind of a slippery slope.

I would thank you.

Any more comments.

Thank you so much.

All right, we will move on to the manager's report uh from Jason.

Thank you, Chair Lovulu.

I just have a few items.

Um I wanted to uh to thank folks who are able to come out to last week's Creative Economies in Action Statewide Engagement Tour.

This was um a three-hour evening event last Wednesday that addressed the state's first creative economy strategic plan.

Uh it was held at the Memorial Hall, uh, followed the next day by a virtual session for Sacramento, Yolo, Solano, El Dorado, and Alpine Counties.

And for folks who were not able to attend, I do encourage you to check out the plan and you can sign up for updates at the California Arts Council's website, creative economy.arts.ca.gov, creative economy.arts.ca.gov.

Uh this is an important plan that I think it was very heartening to see uh a good number of Sacramento folks turn out.

I think we had about 90 to 100 folks in the room receiving information about the plan, updates from initial creative economy work group members and working in small groups to discuss and dissect what uh what's missing, what what are some of the gaps of the plan and how can it better represent the needs of the Sacramento Arts and Creative Community.

Um wanted to just acknowledge that and encourage folks to sign up for updates.

Uh in Office of Arts and Culture News, Birds and Benches, the mentor artist speaker series began last week.

I'm not gonna go into too much detail on all of these items.

Uh in general, we're posting information about these activities that come out of our office through our newsletter, and you can sign up on our website, arts.city of sacramento.org.

Um this is one of them, but this is a really exciting project in District One.

It's a two-year public art project that will culminate in 2028 with 10 public art benches installed in North Natomas.

Um the uh eight benches at the park are funded through the city's 2% for public art ordinance, while two additional benches along the Jack Rabbit Jack Rabbit Trail are sponsored by um North Natomas Gibe.

Um and so you can find out more information on our website, but also just be sure to sign up on our newsletter and you can uh view when the upcoming um discussions in the speaker series are going to happen.

Also funded through the city's 2% for public art ordinance.

Our art and public places program uh is managing a new public art project for the newly constructed North Sacramento Hagenwood Public Library.

And um this project will engage professional visual artists and artists teams working in all mediums.

Uh they're encouraged to apply by the submission deadline of March 23rd, 2026.

The Artist Commission Award is in the amount of 100,000 dollars, and that includes all project costs.

So you can sign up and register for an information session February 26th, uh 25th rather, um, 2026 from 530 to 630.

And again, uh this information is generally pushed out at the top of every month in our newsletter.

You can find out more about this project on our website, arts.city of sacramento.org and go to public art and public art projects.

Um we shared information about the Stockton Boulevard Plan Action Grant at our last commission.

This is still a uh rolling opportunity.

Um, and you can likewise find out information about this opportunity on our website.

Um, and then we also have we still have a opening for council district seven, the council council district seven seats on this body.

And for anyone in the community interested in serving on this commission, I encourage them to check out our website and drill down to the commission pages, and you can find out information on how to apply.

You do not need to be a resident of district seven to represent that um that area, but uh you do have to be recommended by representatives from that office.

Um, and that is all I have to share.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Jason.

Um, are there any uh public comments?

No public comments.

Commissioner Fox Um public and then Commissioner.

Thank you, Chair.

We do have two speakers for public comments.

Our first speaker will be Jenna.

Good afternoon, Commissioners.

Thank you so much for your time today.

I am here as a citizen of Sacramento.

And I am opening a new art space here in Midtown at 19th NV.

We are called the Atelier, and the focus of the space.

I have a flyer going around.

You can check out our website and kind of see what the space will be doing.

But I wanted to let you know about my motivations in creating this space.

And also the artists in the community have been coming to me again, citing that there's not enough studio space or um space to work and hold classes.

So I am fortunate enough to be in a position to try to adjust address these challenges for my community.

So my goals here is to just support our artists here in the city by providing them space to uh create work and show work, even if they um do not have access to a personal art studio.

Um my goal is also to um connect with our youth and our families through the arts.

So we do have uh a program called the Play Atelier that is focused on um arts development for um our youngest uh under the age of five, and then we have classes for uh homeschool students as well to help connect their um arts engagement.

Um and with that I'm really excited to be opening.

Um tentatively, the second Saturday in March will be our opening date.

But um thank you very much, and I'm happy to be here.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker will be Lambert.

Okay.

Um I wanted to get on the record that the last time I was here, I brought up uh a very sore subject for me, and I went to the city council and told them as well.

Uh I had uh studied a an auditor, great auditor, he's gone now.

Jorge, he was wonderful.

He found out about a no written agreement given to a company that's still receiving funding.

You should really pay attention to that.

That's a blow to a company that uh can't get a no-written agreement.

They said they couldn't audit it.

How in the world can you not audit something if you wrote a check to a company?

I'm a company.

If I if they need to, if the IRS needs to audit me, all they have to do is demand my records from the from the bank.

A check was written from this city, and they said it went to the wrong entity.

You should look into that because that's gonna be a nightmare for the city.

Now, let me explain something very positive that happened.

The millennials came to me and said, Hey, we know you can't pay for a commercial, so we got an idea.

I'm listening.

Look what they came up with.

They said, we're gonna take your website and make everybody we know link to it and ask two questions.

Does the website do you like the website?

And would it inspire you to buy a cheesecake?

That seems simple, but it blew up.

I mean, it was wonderful.

They were so proud, too, because we didn't really have to pay any money.

And uh it went all over California.

So you won't see me that much because we're gonna sell a lot of cheesecakes, and we also released our mother's carrot cake this weekend, which took the show.

So shout out to the millennials.

I know they're listening.

I'm getting ready to go have lunch with them.

I'm so proud of them.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Sure, there are no other speakers on this item.

Thank you.

Um, I apologize.

We went a little bit out of order.

It should have been um comments for the commission that are um ideas and questions.

And so we'll start with um Jeff.

Commissioner Eisenberg.

Thanks.

Um first, I just want to give shout-outs to uh the Telier for your efforts there.

I think that's great.

Um I think we're all supportive of that, and I can't wait to see the space in March.

Um I also wanted to give a shout out to the office, and specifically Donald and Amy for uh the work they've been doing on the Hagen Morning Library project.

Um they've been having to do a lot of work in the beginning of January on a lot of different things, and they made a real special effort to make sure.

Oh, sorry about that.

Um, can I have just a minute more to make an announcement?

Okay.

And then lastly, um, former Commissioner Tan Blair uh at Neverboard, they've got a big show coming up uh from the Toy Room from the archives, so Tim Kim Scott's Toy Room.

If some of you might be familiar, um we've got works from over a dozen artists over 30 years of uh working with Toy Room.

That's gonna be February 21st at 5 to 7.

That's 1518 Del Paso Boulevard.

Check it out.

There's gonna be a bunch of punk bands and other kinds of bands afterwards.

Um should be a good show.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner O'Hable.

Thank you, Chair.

In uh District 3.

Um, specifically PBS KVIE have a few events.

Um if you check out their website, kvie.org slash events.

Um, one that I'd like to highlight is uh Judy Knott's gallery.

Um there's a reception that PBS KBIE is hosting on March 12th at 5 p.m.

And then the gallery will be available from March 11th through May 4th.

And then if you check out the website, you'll see a few more events happening throughout the um this spring.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Wallace.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, I have a question that is maybe for our attorney and maybe for the follow-up log, but we had um a constituent come and talk about the wages that are paid for event associates uh that are part of the safe credit union complex.

Um there's been a question about um there's some sort of the wages are under review.

Um and we are being encouraged to support or advocate or at least ask questions about this.

And so um I'm wondering if we could get some more information about um this issue.

And then um, I don't think I don't think it's in our purview, but if we could get a uh an opinion on whether or not there's anything that the commission can do to support this um question.

Not prepared to address that right now.

It's in the e-comments for today, so if you want to if it would help you be familiar for next time.

But you could put it on the follow-up log, that would be the mechanism.

Um to see if it's even appropriate to discuss.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Carter.

Uh, just want to let my uh fellows know that there is an art kickoff happening in Oak Park Brewery on February 17th from 6 to 8 p.m.

Uh it's the next Tuesday.

Uh two meals and two pints for a lovely fee.

So February 17th from 6 to 8 p.m.

Sure, I'd like to add on to my prior comment.

Sorry, when I say um for the follow-up log, uh Commissioner, you could there's a procedure in the follow-up log item that discusses how an item can get placed there, and it includes things like linking how the proposed discussion item relates to like creative edge plan, cultural goals and all that.

So if you complete those, send it to Jason, um, then we could take a look at it potentially.

Thank you.

Um anyone else?

Thank you all for being here.

Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to come.

It does take a lot, um, but we appreciate your time.

Everyone have a good day.

Meetings adjourn.