And the excellent cool.

I call the arts, culture, and library commission meeting of April 21st, 2026 to order.

Please take roll call.

Chair Miller.

Present.

Vice Chair Alvarez.

Commissioner Acevedo.

Commissioner Alex.

Present.

Commissioner Bryant.

Present.

Commissioner Gillary.

Present.

Commissioner Ridsdale.

Commissioner Scotland.

Present.

Commissioner Velasquez.

We have five.

The quorum is met.

Great.

And as part of roll call, we have a new commissioner with us, Mike Bryant.

So would you like to introduce yourself?

And yes, well, I'm Mike, as the sign says I'm Michael Bryant.

I grew up in the East Bay, um Oakland Hills, uh, went to uh Real Christian in uh San Lorenzo.

So I'm familiar between Oakland and uh San Leandro, but um yeah, been here for 30 plus years, and um yeah, just came to on the commission to make a difference, communicate, uh just build community and uh you know see what kind of things we can get done for the city of San Landro, of course, the people of San Leandro, bring in money and just uh again just kind of spread culture, love, and uh build good community.

So thank you guys for all having me here.

Wonderful.

Thank you for being here.

Yes, yes, thank you.

Yes, yes, thank you.

All right.

Um now it's so if there are no announcements, no one else.

Okay, there are no announcements moving on to item three, consent calendar.

Can I get a motion to approve the minutes of March 17th, 2026?

Um there a second second.

Any discussion?

Hearing none, all those in favor?

Aye, aye, aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

Motion carried.

Um moving on to item four, library services staff report and announcements.

All right, thank you.

Um my report is uh centered around the budget discussions, which have been happening at the at this point at the council level.

Uh most recently there was the city council.

Sorry, I'm gonna pause so we can okay.

So um the budget as we've been discussing is for the mid-cycle fiscal year 27 update, and it's been making its way through the uh city council process.

It was presented at their retreat, it was presented at the finance committee, and most recently at the April 13th, I think I have that right.

The April 13th, yes, the April 13th uh council meeting.

And so what we're talking about is what we've already discussed, which is the reductions that are having to be made in order to eliminate the deficit spending, deal with our structural deficit.

And um these these uh at this point it went to the council as a whole for their discussion.

As you'll recall, one of the elements in the library's budget was to uh for fiscal year 27, so next fiscal year to eliminate the $50,000 that is in the arts uh budget uh line item.

So there was some discussion about that topic, and the commission excuse me, the council expressed concern about this, which we're gonna talk about tonight, the uh um the um grants program and expressed a desire for the grants program to continue.

So there was uh you could watch the the uh council.

I encourage you to watch the council meeting itself, particularly at near the end where this was really discussed.

Um it was the library director with my assistance talking to the council about this situation.

So uh with some back and forth that there was discussion about the realities of needing to make the reductions to achieve the the deficit reduction target from across the city, and um how could we, however, still maintain the grants programs for the next fiscal year, fiscal year 27, the one that we're talking about.

So after some discussion, um back and forth from the director and myself to the to the council, the decision was made to forward it to the next meeting where this will be discussed, which is May 4th.

Uh and so it's this preliminary discussion, and then they will they will finalize their um their discussion and decision at May 4th.