Session 05-01a Regular Meeting of the Library Advisory Board was called to order at 6:00 p.m. on January 4, 2005 by Chair Mauger at the Homer City Hall Council Chambers located at 491 E. Pioneer Avenue, Homer, Alaska.

PRESENT: BOARDMEMBERS HAWFIELD, SEAMAN, WAGNER, LORD, MAUGER, KEFFER, BURSCH

STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE HARRISON

STAFF: LIBRARY DIRECTOR HILL

LIBRARY TECHNICIAN III GEORGE

DEPUTY CITY CLERK JACOBSEN

ROLL CALL

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

A. Minutes of December 7, 2004 meeting

The Minutes of December 7, 2004 were approved as amended.

APPROVAL OF AGENDA

HAWFIELD/BURSCH MOVED TO APPROVE THE AGENDA AS WRITTEN.

VOTE: YES: UNANIMOUS CONSENT

Motion carried.

LIBRARY DIRECTOR’S REPORT

Library Director Hill said December was a pretty quiet month due to the holidays, and then on Monday January 3^rd, they had 330 people in the library and things are back to normal. She reported that she has been working on the E-Rate forms. Ms. Hill passed out copies of the statistics and mentioned that inter-library borrowing doubled from 2002 to 2004.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

A.Capital Campaign Committee

Boardmember Lord reported that the Capital Campaign Committee meeting was on December 22, 2004 and the next one is scheduled for January 31, 2005. She said they are feeling pretty good at the CCC; the unofficial word is that the USDA Grant for $880,000.00 is going to be awarded and the EDA has invited them to present a full proposal, which Special Projects Coordinator Holen is working on. Ms. Lord said her understanding is once you get invited to submit a full proposal you will get the grant. She did not have a final number on the fish sales, but said it went very well, year-end donations are coming in, and the Fall Pledge Drive had brought in almost $100,000.00. She said the Committee has been working on donor recognition and needs to coordinate with the Building Committee on that. Boardmember Lord said she wanted to point out that the reason the grants have gone so well at this point is because the Board and the Committees did so well early on with the Community.

B. Publicity Committee

Boardmember Keffer said she was out of state for the last meeting but said the upcoming events are the Spelling Bee and the Homestead Auction. She wasn’t sure if the oyster eating contest was still in the works or not. Boardmember Seaman said that plans are coming together for the auction and it will be a fun event. Chair Mauger said there was a call for help soliciting items for the auction.

C. Building Committee

Boardmember Wagner reported that there is a meeting with the architect on January 12, 2005 and he will be presenting the 95% plan. She said they will be discussing and identifying goals for the transition from architect and design to building.

Chair Mauger said it had been discussed at the Chairs Lunch that with the fundraising tying up, energy will be needed on the Building Committee. She said that Boardmember Wagner had pulled her weight and more on the Committee and it would be great if there were more LAB members involved.

COMMUNICATION/VISITORS

Chair Mauger invited the visitors in the audience to sign in and asked if there were any comments.

Library Technician III George commented that she was there because she is concerned about the fees.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

There was no unfinished business.

NEW BUSINESS

A. Preparation for Meeting with Council Members at Committee of the Whole, January 10, 2005

Library Director Hill passed out a copy of Resolution 04-98(S)(A), a copy of an email from City Clerk Calhoun regarding clarifying an omission in the Resolution for the fee schedule amendments under Library fees, a copy of an email she sent to Administrative Assistant Livingston for the Budget Meeting and information she had compiled for the Boardmembers to consider for their discussion at the Committee of the Whole meeting with the City Council.

Chair Mauger said in preparation for the meeting with the City Council to remember the discussion will be broader than just the fees; they need to get the Councilmembers up to speed on all that has been happening. Their goal at tonight’s meeting is to strategize and decide who would present different information. There was discussion how the Committee of the Whole meeting was set up and that they may have up to an hour to talk. Boardmember Hawfield suggested that they take the initiative to make an opening statement in an effort to get the conversation going from their perspective.

Boardmember Lord suggested a good hand out would be their pie chart. She said she would talk to Special Projects Coordinator Holen to get a copy of the pie chart and it will show very quickly where the funding is coming from and assuring the Council that they are on track. She said she didn’t mention in her report but they anticipate needing to borrow 1.7 million rather than the 2.2 million the voters approved. Boardmember Wagner suggested having the big maps with the latest architectural drawings. Chair Mauger said she would like to discuss the time line on the sale of the current building as well as what actions will be needed from the Council in the spring. Boardmember Lord suggested the City Manager might be a better person to talk to about those issues.

Library Director Hill cited Alaska Statute 14.56.400, which states that a public library will provide certain services free of charge; one of those services is reference information and internet use does fall under reference.

There was discussion about how the charges for internet use would be applied. Student Representative Harrison voiced her disagreement with the charges. She said that kids use the library to check email for free, they can get a book for free and if they have research projects and don’t have a computer at home, which includes a lot of kids she knows of from her classes, they can go to the library and look up information at no cost. These charges will deter a lot of students from going to the library. She said books are good but if they can’t use the internet to find information that may not be in the library, it will hurt a huge amount of students and the City Council needs to know that.

Library Director Hill said that charging a fee for internet use will affect the E-Rate discount that the Library receives. She explained that the E-Rate program is a Federal program started in 1996 as a way to help poorer communities who could not afford to put computers in there libraries. Many libraries across the country participate in this program and because Homer is considered a rural community, it gets an E-Rate discount. Homer uses the discount for long distance and local telephone service. Ms. Hill said that Talkeetna had proposed charging for internet use in their library but it was determined that they would not be in compliance with the basic service and rescinded their proposal to charge for internet. She said the discount covers 70% of the telecommunication costs for the library. Boardmember Hawfield pointed out that losing the E-Rate funding would cost the City money.

Boardmember Bursch asked if there was anyway to take donations for internet use. Library Director Hill said the library does have a donation can for internet users and in the summer time it brings in $100 or so during the week. Boardmember Bursch said, in regard to the information Ms. Hill distributed, that some of the tourism information might be overstated and suggested it be changed to say that the Library supports tourism by creating a comfortable atmosphere for people while they are visiting.

Boardmember Hawfield suggested making a recommendation to the Council that the fees be rescinded and pull the best reasons based on the research and discussion, note that there are more, but list the ones that are most compelling. Boardmember Lord said it would be good to divide the discussion into two issues, one being the card fees and the other being the internet fees then provide arguments for each.

The Board discussed what issues they would like to present to the Council. Philosophically it is wrong because it goes against the best practices of libraries. Boardmember Lord pointed out that the Board had recommended raising all of the fees with exception of the two that the Council raised with out consulting the Board. Boardmember Hawfield said two points that he wanted to bring up is that it seems to be bogus bookkeeping and won’t raise any money and secondly that the Board did not recommend this action. He also suggested that the Board offer some ideas that might help the Council with the situation.

Library Director Hill referenced the last point she made in her draft. She said that the information provided for the grants is based on all of the great programs and services that the Library offers and promoting the service area; they are getting the funding based on these free programs and services and charging for these services is not what we said we were going to do.

Boardmember Hawfield said that the people support the idea of a library and have seen what has been done so far and if there are people out there who are willing to promote the ideas of a dedicated tax or an increase in sales tax, the people who really support the library will be the foundation that will make either of those ideas a public policy. The Board discussed participation with the Borough and came to the conclusion that it was something to look at in the future because of the time and effort it will take to see a result.

Chair Mauger said that they have gotten feedback from people outside the City Limits that the would be willing to contribute, but there has to be a way that is not so taxing the staff and doesn’t require all of the administrative time to bring in such a small amount of money.

Library Technician III George said the Board had already discussed the money that would be lost if the Library does not have the E-Rate funding and suggested showing the Council how much money they are saving the City through these programs. Library Director Hill said that in order to administer these new fees the library would need more staff. Ms. George said that it is easy to say the Library is here for the people, but the Council has to deal with the budget and need to emphasize that enforcing these fees will not make money, it will cost money. She spoke about a community outside that had a certain percentage of money from property sales that went into a fund for their library and the way Homer is growing perhaps there is some way to tap into that growth to earmark money for the library. Boardmember Lord asked Library Director Hill for some more information to quantify the costs that will be incurred by implementing these fees.

Boardmember Hawfield said that the new library is an important asset and all of these entities, the voters, the Councilmembers, and the granting agencies are coming together to create this special asset for the community. He said he doesn’t think they have all of the answers to get all of the Council nodding but if they could get them moving in a positive way, for example we don’t have to start billing people now but start looking for the long term solution to make the new Library happen. Boardmember Bursch said a few years down the road the City’s net worth will be increased by six or seven million dollars and the City will have this great asset. Chair Mauger said that Ms. George brought up a good point that the Council needs financial details. She said there are people on the Council who do not see a difference between an Internet Cafe and a Library and the Board can’t educate them on the philosophy of a library so they need to help them understand the dollars. Student Representative Harrison said she understands the Council’s job is to close the budget gap and if they don’t see the difference between and Internet Cafe and this sparkling jewel in Homer, they need to see that financially their idea won’t work. She said that the library will be a moneymaker for the community anyway and charging people won’t help. Boardmember Bursch commented on information he got from Library Director Hill that the LAB was the one group that made all of its meetings for the year and that shows that they mean business, they aren’t a pushover board, they are serious about making this Library functional for all of the people of Homer. The Board wants to help the Council reach a solution, but this isn’t the best way.

Chair Mauger commented about the money that will be generated by the cost of the library card. She said looking at the numbers generated based on the 2004 numbers there were 404 Borough cards issued. Library Director Hill said it is her understanding that everyone outside the City will have to pay an annual card fee of $6.00; it won’t be for people who come in for new cards. She said that one of the problems they have been discussing is how will they know who is outside the City when so many people have post office boxes and when doing annual renewals, they would have to send out letters, which will increase the cost of postage. She said the library software doesn’t handle doing a Borough search, so they would have to manually search and put notes into the software and so on. They will have to hire more staff to make it enforceable. She said there would also be a problem with people who reside outside City limits, but own property inside and pay City property taxes.

Boardmember Keffer was excused from the meeting at 7:30 p.m.

The Board continued their discussion, reviewing the points they had been talking about. All Boardmembers were planning to be in attendance at the Committee of the Whole meeting on January 10. Library Director Hill said she would prepare financial information for the Board. Chair Mauger said she would talk to the City Manager to see if he would talk about obtaining the low interest loan and that she would get together with Boardmember Lord to work on drafting some language for the meeting. Everyone agreed to speak to different points.

COMMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC

Library Technician III George thanked the Board for all the work all the work that they are doing.

Frank Vondersaar asked if it would be beneficial be in the audience. The Board thought that any support they had would be great.

COMMENTS FROM THE BOARD

Boardmember Lord said she had read in the New York Times about the Seattle’s new library. It said the old library averaged about 1800 people a day and when the new library opened it jumped to 15,000 per day in the first couple months they were opened. She said it had dwindled down to about 8,000 now, but that is 5 times more than the old library. The article also said that of the new computers that were installed are always in use and the primary users of the library were teenagers, because it was the cool place to be.

Student Representative Harrison said she admits to not knowing all the details of the fees and balancing the budget but she does understand the idea of what the Council is trying to do and what the Board is trying to do and why. She said she thinks coming from a youth it will mean something since the library is being us as well as future generations. She said she will graduate and may not use it as much, but her sister and her friends will and this library too could be the cool place to go.

Commissioner Bursch thanked the public for coming to the meeting and thanked them for their input.

Boardmembers Hawfield, Seaman and Wagner had no more comments.

Chair Mauger thanked Library Director Hill for her attention to things that matter.

ADJOURNMENT

There being no further business to come before the Board, the meeting was adjourned at 8:20 p.m. The next Regular Meeting is scheduled for February 1, 2005 at 6:00 P.M. in the City Hall Council Chambers located at 491 E. Pioneer Avenue, Homer, Alaska.

INFORMATIONAL MATERIAL

A. Resolution 04-103, A Resolution of the City Council of Homer, Alaska, Establishing the 2005 Regular Meeting Schedule for the City Council. Library Advisory Board, Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission, Advisory Planning Commission and the Port and Harbor Commission.

MELISSA JACOBSEN, DEPUTY CITY CLERK

Approved: