City of Santa Fe Public Library Board met Nov. 15.
Here are the minutes provided by the board:
1. CALL TO ORDER
2. ROLL CALL
Members Present:
Member Marie Schow
Member Elizabeth Alarid
Member Brecken Larson
Member Rebecca Phillips
Library Director Margaret Neill
Member Flavian Mark Lupinetti
Members Excused:
Member Sarah Jacobs
Others Attending:
Maura Gentry, Clerk
3. APPROVAL OF AGENDA
MOTION: Member Phillips moved, seconded by Member Alarid, to approve the as presented.
VOTE: The motion was approved on the following Roll Call vote:
For: Member Schow, Member Alarid, Member Larson, Member Phillips, Library Director Neill, Member Lupinetti
Against: None
Abstain: None
4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
a. Approve August 16, 2022 meeting minutes
MOTION: moved, seconded by , to approve the minutes as presented.
VOTE: The motion was on the following Roll Call vote:
For: None
Against: None
Abstain: None
MOTION: Member Schow moved, seconded by Member Phillips, to approve the as presented.
VOTE: The motion was approved on the following Roll Call vote:
For: Member Schow, Member Alarid, Member Larson, Member Phillips, Library Director Neill, Member Lupinetti
Against: None
Abstain: None
5. PUBLIC COMMENT
6. DIRECTOR'S REPORT
a. Margaret Neill, Library Director
mmneill@santafenm.gov
505-955-6788
• Staffing – Interviewed for part time and full time vacancies, full time librarian position at Southside has been open for two hiring cycles – candidates are turning down offers because of salary.
• One part time position open at La Farge.
• Governor Grisham came to vote at Southside.
• Offrendas at each branch location were well decorated for Dia de Muertos.
• Harvest party with Councilor Cassutt on Oct. 29th – about 250 people came to La Farge.
• Oct 11, Margaret Van Dyk had a group of students from the Indian School discuss the big read and they had such excellent insights – they are the reason we do these things!
• Maintenance at Main – tiles are going up after being restored, and the community room HVAC is expected to be worked on by the end of July.
• La Farge children’s bathroom is out of commission due to a leak. • All locations have new self-check machines.
• Getting new rfid pads using state funding – new GO Bond was passed, and we will be recieving about $300,000 from the 2022 Bond, quite a bit more than our $179,000 in 2020 – plan to apply much of the new funds to updating our technology.
• Circulation is going down because we haven’t had new materials due to our problems with Baker & Tayolor; hoping numbers will go up as the issue is resolved.
• Beginning work on the budget for the next fiscal year – I have been instructed to submit a flat budget. The move to preprocessed books will add about $4 per book, which means we will be buying less books, so I am trying to add more to that budget, as well as put a few other things in there.
• The city is moving to an updated accounting software in January, and we are all trying to be trained by the end of December, so I am trying to push in changes as we upgrade to that.
• We have not heard back about the grant for a study of the main library – we were supposed to hear back last week. It was just an environmental study, but out historic status is all of the rules but none of the benefits. Hopefully we can get the grant and it will give us some leverage for funding.
◦ Member Schow – the FOL have been discussing whether or not fundraising for this is within their mission.
• Our goal is to have a capital campaign, either through the Friends, or forming a foundation to do so on our behalf.
7. PRESIDENT'S REPORT
a. Marie Schow, President
marie.schow@gmail.com
• I attended the last FOL Board meeting, they are working on a strategic plan because their last was completed in Nov 2019 – they are very interested in the Main Library exterior updates and are working to decide whether that falls under their purview or not.
• They are struggling to fill board vacancies, so anyone who doesn’t join our board we will send their way.
8. NEW BUSINESS
a. Friends of the Santa Fe Library Update – Zella Cox
b. Library Board Updates
Margaret Neill, Library Director
505-955-6788
mmneill@santafenm.gov
• Happy to have Member Lupinetti!
• Selected 5 to interview for the remaining two vacancies – one withdrew, so we had 4 interviews, ranked them and sent them to the mayor’s office and we haven’t yet heard back on his selection of the final two. Everyone we interviewed was great!
• The candidates have been told that they were submitted for the top four.
c. Discuss Hybrid Meeting Option
Margaret Neill, Library Director
mmneill@santafenm.gov
505-955-6788
• Member Schow: This was emailed out to the board – we have the technology, so it makes sense meet this way and have enough people for our quorum. Questions?
• Member Phillips: If we adopt this hybrid plan, does it fit under the resolution that was forwarded to us? The language seems convoluted.
• Member Larson: It seems to be an either or situation.
• Member Phillips: It doesn’t have any language about a hybrid option – but I had thought Director Neill had emailed us something with hybrid language in it.
• Director Neill: Perhaps you may have to vote but also state that you will allow hybrid meetings in your bylaws.
• Member Phillips: And define hybrid meetings.
• Member Lupinetti: What would be the technical problems of doing a hybrid meeting?
• Director Neill: the technical challenges are not that vast for us – phones in the Pick Room, we have a screen in the media room, a computer in a meeting, etc. We don’t have a large audience, so it is not as difficult for us as it is for City Council. Hybridity means that the public could join virtually, so that would present a difficulty – we have to stream on YouTube per the City’s policy.
• Member Larson: If you have access in person for the public, do you also have to have virtual access for the public?
• Member Phillips: We could motion that we would like to have the capabilities to do hybrid meetings.
• Member Schowe: We could move that if one of our members is missing, we would like to have them join remotely in order to have quorum.
• Member Phillips: Would we be interested in a hybrid? Not as a regular thing, but to make that available for the continuity of business.
• Members Schowe, Larson, Phillips, Lupinetti, and Alarid assent.
• Director Neill: We can ask the City Clerk about how to adopt this with an amendment.
9. OLD BUSINESS
a. Library Advisory Board Applicant Updates
Margaret Neill, Library Director
mmneill@santafenm.gov
505-955-6788
See President’s Report.
b. Stategic Plan Update
Margaret Neill, Library Director
mmneill@santafenm.gov
505-955-6788
• Member Schow: Maria Sanchez-Tucker said that she’s been working on a presentation on where they are at with the library’s strategic plan – maybe finished by January – we talked about coming back to it for our January meeting.
• The Godfrey and Associates strategic assessment is foundational to a plan, the Big Read and ordering issues have pulled focus from forming a plan.
c. Fogelson Update
Margaret Neill, Library Director
mmneill@santafenm.gov
505-955-6788
• The city has submitted that it’s priority is to the midtown campus. There is an RFP somewhere for the master study for Fogelson – right now it is a training center for Munis, our new accounting system, so we’ll check in with IT on network connection and other insights into its condition.
10. NEXT MEETING: December 20 2022
Next meeting is January 17th , 2022. At the January meeting, we will vote on a meeting schedule for 2023.
11. ADJOURN
https://santafe.primegov.com/public/portal
