Good morning everyone. Today is Monday March 24th and this is the Education and Culture Committee. We have two important and interconnected items on the agenda today. We're going to first hear from our Arts and Humanities Council about their work to develop a new cultural plan and we're really excited about that and the midst of everything that's going on. We're continuing to move forward talking about how we meet the evolving needs of our very diverse community. Then we'll move on to the FY26 capital budget amendments for the CIP from Montgomery County Public Libraries and I see we've got our libraries team here so we thank you for being with us. Another adapting and changing public good that we need to make sure has what it needs physically and with resources. So with that, I want to welcome up our arts and humanities and I'll turn to Council staff to TSUP and the great memo we've had today. Council member Mink is on her way so she'll be here shortly and Councilor Albinar is an I would just talk about how happy we are that Maryland won on the last second shot. Yes. So we all we all needed a bit of good news and that was really it was nice. Miss Cummings. Thank you, Chair. Jolanda. Today we'll have a presentation from the Arts and Humanities Council on the work they've been doing to update their cultural plan. But before they get started, I would just preface by noting the amount of work and research and involvement in the community that has happened even before the development of the plan really started. The committee conducted approximately two years of pre-research, looking at economic factors, how arts are represented within the community. And while they'll speak of much of the good work they're doing, now that the officials start and development of the cultural plan has begun, I did just want to make sure I know that. Thank you. Thank you so much. Miss Jenkins, welcome. Thank you, Councilmember Juando. Good morning, Councilmember Juando and Councilmember Albernos, it's wonderful to be in front of you this morning. With us is my colleague, Joe Fandoni. He's our deputy director, and he is the project manager for the work that we're doing on the cultural plan. And my dear colleague and Godwin Nicodemus who is our consultant from Metrice Consulting. We did an extensive search for a consultant and that search involved many many many community members in order to select Metrice Arts consulting for the work. We found that they were most aligned with the work that we needed to do. And so if it's all right, I'd like to turn it over to Anne who will talk to you a little bit about our work, her work as a background, and then we'll go forward if that's all right with you. Sounds good. Great. All right, Anne. Take it away. Good morning Council Member Duwando and Council Member Alvornos and everyone attending today. It's great to be with you and thank you for the opportunity to formally brief the education and culture committee on the Montgomery County Cultural Plan. So as you know, I'm Ann Dadwin Nicodemis. I am the Muckity Muck of Metro Sarts Consulting, a research and planning consultancy dedicated to improving and measuring cultural vitality, and it's my great privilege to serve as the consulting lead for the Makkongri County Cultural Plan. So Metrus is stuberning Makkongri County's new cultural plan for the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, AHCMC, and its collaborators in Montgomery County governments, including specifically its planning agency, the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission. So let's take a beat. What is cultural planning all about? What we particularly like, this definition from Professor Tom Borap, cultural planning is the practice of creating place-based plans that identify priorities, guide investment and inform local policies concerning arts and culture. So generally speaking, cultural plans help guide a locality, in this case Montgomery County. So to help it figure out how it should spend public and private dollars, develop facilities, establish or change regulations, use public space and government buildings, promote economic development and tourism, support education and artistic programs, and make other decisions that affect arts and culture in the county. The framing question guiding this cultural planning process are North Star, so to speak, is how can Montgomery County help its residents lead culturally rich lives and best support community-backed priorities through arts, culture, and humanities. And as Miss Cummings alluded to, Montgomery County has already made great strides in identifying community-backed values and priorities for this cultural planning effort, namely belonging, cultural sector resiliency, and intersectionality. And these values are based on AHCMC's leadership and community research efforts over the past two and a half years, like the Cultural Asset Mapping Project Reflective Conversations on Arts and Culture and Setting the Stage. And just as an aside, I can't tell you how impressed the metrics team was with the depth and thoughtfulness of AHCMC's groundwork preparation research. I approach this work as an urban planning researcher with direct lived experience in the arts. I'm actually an ex-coiographer and arts administrator. And over my career as a consultant and author, I've had the honor to be a leading national voice exploring how arts and culture can be an essential tool for community vitality and well-being. And Metrice is very selective about the Cultural Planning Project it pursues, but we just saw this as such a fantastic opportunity to combine Metrice's national prominence in creative community development and cultural policy with AHCMC's deeply rooted local leadership. So building on all of the great groundwork, our cultural plan research and community engagement will explore these domains. So first belonging. And when we talk about belonging, we draw inspiration from the city of Oakland's cultural plan and here is their understanding. People sense belonging is tied to their ability to leave meaningful lives, to be connected to the place they live in and the people they live among and to feel a part of something larger than themselves. So specifically we'll look at how can arts, culture and humanities, investments and policies respond to Montgomery County's rapid and diverse population growth, expand access to arts and cultural resources for all residents, and advance racial equity. Cultural sector resiliency or helping our artists and cultural communities thrive, so we'll consider how the county can best support the core arts, culture and humanity sector to strengthen capacity and address gaps and help it effectively respond to continued impacts of the pandemic and economic and political instability. An intersectionality or using arts and culture in the humanities to help solve community challenges. How can arts, culture in the humanities innovatively intersect with governments and NGOs to advance work in these sectors from housing to environmental stewardship? This can be a hard concept to wrap on his head around, but I think this committee gets it during the briefing calls that we were fortunate to be able to have council member Albornes, for instance, talked about exploring how arts and culture connects to the physical, to connect to physical and mental well-being, and Metrus is particularly well positioned to help unpack this, given our development of we-making, a suite of groundbreaking resources on how arts and culture unite people to work towards community well-being that we produced for a consortium of major funders, and Councilmember Mink pointed to asphalt arts ability to increase safety through traffic calming, and I also just love this example right here from Montgomery County, the Climate Crisis Center. So for this project, the Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Health and Human Services Crisis Center came together to try to understand how climate change is disproportionately impacting Montgomery County's most vulnerable communities. Working with the public art trust, the agency's broadened artists to foster communication and engagement at the crisis center. And the process sparks intimate and hard conversations about resilience, climate change, and other issues such as housing and security. And they created beauty. Participants worked with the artists to create an interactive public art project in the lobby of the facility. So I love this example because it illustrates how arts and culture can advance the county's work in completely different areas such as community resilience and face of climate change. And it expands access to arts and culture through a participatory art making project that transformed a drab building into something with cultural resonance and beauty. So we'll seek to answer our guiding questions with a goal of establishing cultural policies over its 10-year time horizon that advance these priorities. We will seek adoption by the MNCPPC's Planning Board, H's board, and the county council, so that this plan can act in tandem with a thrive 2050 general plan. The plan will seek to provide specific actionable steps for AHCMC, MNC PPC, county council, and arts culture in humanity organizations that they can take to further these priorities. And we will seek to align county's resources across all of its agencies from funding to management of community planning and land developments. So I'm very excited that we're now have launched into what we call our discover phase of the planning process with extensive opportunities for community engagements. We are doing presentations such as these to committees and boards across the county. We have a cultural preserves community pop-up events. We actually just had our first kickoff event at Mo ComCon this weekend, and we planned to do one of these pop-up events in every council district. Our online community survey is in development. It will be translated and available in multiple many different languages. We have developed community conversation toolkit. So people with organic connections to high-priority stakeholder groups will be provided with training and toolkit resource to be able to host their own mini-community meetings. And just a week away from today, we have a youth town hall coming up on the 31st, which we're thrilled to be producing a partnership with Council Member Fannington's Alice's office. And lastly, but not least, focus groups with the core arts, culture, and humanities sector stakeholders. So the Council members on this committee have already helped considerably through suggestions of stakeholders to reach out to and community events to try to coordinate with for our Cultural Preserves pop of events. We would love your continued support helping to help connect to your constituencies. For instance, promoting the survey, the Cultural Preserves pop up in the youth town hall, whether that's via email and social media as individual council members or if the education and culture committee sends out more committee oriented email or social media correspondence. Our goal is to present the plan for adoption by February 20, 26 to three entities, the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, it's their board, Montgomery County Council, the Montgomery County Maryland National Cap and Planning Commission Board. And we ask that during the public review period, which we're anticipating November and December 2025, the Education and Culture Committee consider offering a letter of endorsement in support of the plan. So that concludes our formal remarks. We'll follow up regarding specific engagement support requests. And if you haven't done so already, make sure to visit the Cultural Plan landing page where you can sign up for updates and just keep track of events that are forthcoming. So now I'd love to just open it up to clarifying questions and comments, whether to myself or my colleagues and partners at AHCMC. Thank you so much and this is really exciting and great, great, great work that you all have done. I enjoyed our conversations in preparation for this and it's clear you, I was just commenting that picture where we threw the paper airplanes. We need to be in a room where that's happened and that looks fun. And so I'll start and just ask, unless there's anything you want to add. Okay, and just ask a couple questions. And I know this has been something that's been important to you, so I want to allow you to elaborate. The report talks about stakeholders identified as high interest and low influence who may struggle to shape the plan, because they're trying to get their arms around it, understand what it means, where they have their place into in it, and traditional engagement methods. This is something we struggle with at the council trying to reach more people, not just the same folks. Could you talk about how you think your outreach strategy has and will make sure those folks are represented in the cultural plan? Absolutely. So Anne addressed the idea that we've got these multifaceted ways for the community to work. First of all, we are going to the community, right? So in traditionally, in places where we traditionally have low response, At the very beginning of the work with Metris, we asked our colleagues across the county where do we think we have high interest but low participation? Where are those places? Once that was identified, then we understand that we just need to go to those places. So the idea of an online survey or traditional ways of getting information from residents may not work. And so going to their community-based events where we know that we might see residents from those particular constituents who often go to their own community-based events. That's where we're going. So we're continually looking for community-based opportunities, looking for stakeholders in those communities to identify those events. The size of them does not matter to us. So it could be a huge, large street fair or it could be a small community gathering in someone's home. Nonetheless, our intention is to fan out as far as we can possibly go to hear directly from those stakeholders using non-traditional methods, which includes in-person attendance surveys in multiple different languages, different kinds of, say, the youth town hall, which is very unusual for something from, like, for a cultural plan, and other opportunities, as we have discussed, when we've met with you individually, asking you to talk to us about that intersectionality, perhaps there are constituent groups that we normally would not see, but you might see them from your legislative priority seat. And so it is that conversation we've had with all of the council members to hear from each district member where you think constituents may not be and give us an opportunity. For example, we met with a county executive and he encouraged us to talk to evangelical groups that we may not have normally been speaking with to just understand better what those groups may need from an arts and culture plan. That was interesting to us. It's not a group that we would have particularly said, oh, we should be out there talking to different, really. culture plan. That was interesting to us. It's not a group that we would have particularly said, oh, we should be out there talking to different religious groups, but the idea to show up at some of those convenings might be a great opportunity for us to intersect again with communities we may not otherwise know. Mr. Friendoni, yes, sir? Additionally, hi, Jennifer and Donnie. I think that culture preserves is our creative engagement kind of mode that we're using. And it is really spectacular and I'd love for Anne to talk a little bit about it. She is really into it right now. And we also partnered really deeply with MNCPPC to understand what did and did not work very well for Thrive 2050. And we were able to garner some really interesting feedback from them, one of which was to reach communities where English is not their primary language and people who may be feeling a lot of pressure right now from immigration and the federal government. Physical mailers that come in their language are much more engaging than trying to get someone to fill something out directly from an email or some like that. And if you could talk a little bit about our physical mailer and culture preserves, I'd really appreciate it. You know that, I'm happy to show first of all the photos that are existing, uh, creative and creative, and creative. It's meant, uh, artistic project developed by artist Holly Bass. She is a Metro-Sophiliate Consultant on the Cultural Plan. She's also in your region, not about Good and County unfortunately, but she's at DC. So we're thrilled to have her creative brain power on this project. And so it's very whimsical. I think you saw the photograph of the apron wearing team members holding mason jars. So what it is is at an existing event like a barter's market. You have these trained community facilitators, which are intentionally trying to have the facilitators reflect the diversity of Montgomery County and Multilingual. And they invite passersby to contribute a story, the prompt directly feeding into the cultural planning research objectives. And you catch people that would just walk on by, if you're asking them to like, oh, here's a QR code, please take our server, please take our server. And I think, hey, what's this government doing? Or is somebody asking you for money? But no, like, oh, what's this? There's beautiful rice paper, there's mason jars, people are wearing aprons. So it's fun. And you catch people in a way that you wouldn't normally get them. So they write a story. And then it is preserved. Cultural preserves. In these mason jars, you have your story on beautiful rice paper in the mason jars. There's a photographic component. And then those stories are transcribed and analyzed. So it's real data. It's not just fluff. It's real data as well. So we're thrilled to be able to do that and we were very intentionally trying to reach as many corners of the county as we can. One per council district is the minimum that we're going to be doing for these cultural preserves events. And we crowds or suggestions of what events to do through our relationships with our county, our county advisory committee and our community advisory group as well as through council member suggestions. And then when we reached out to Bridget Earlyair from MNCPPC to try to ask her before we committed to any particular community engagement techniques, you know, what worked well for Thrive 2050 and other small area plans that the planning department has done recently, limited limited resources, what is the most high impact value that you would recommend for to have an inclusive and robust planning process? And so what she was able to advise, I found very helpful, particularly with our approach to our online survey. We had never considered doing a physical postcard mailer, but she encouraged us to do so and to do so with multiple language translations and to incentivize completing the survey with a raffle. We will be mailing to all of the cultural equity index zip codes. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, I Community Partnership for both making sure the survey, the English survey as well is plain language and accessible, not too overwhelming in terms of length and then getting it translated in all of the most frequently spoken minority languages in the county. I appreciate that. Yeah, I'm assuming that overlaps well with our equity emphasis areas. It's the planning definition areas. Okay. I'd love to see that survey. When is that going to go out? Yeah. We are working our tail-up to get it uploaded. We want to get it right. So I originally had wanted to launch it in April. I think we'll be more like early April. I think where might be more like early May, because we do have to go through the vetting process of testing the questions, making sure they're not too many, making sure they're plain language, and then translate it into, I think, a 7 language, which is how many we landed on. So it is involved, but and we don't want to cut corners, but I'd love to share share it with you when it's when it's ready for your eyes. Yeah, that'd be great. I think we could learn a lot from that just and the work we do here and trying to,? Yeah, that'd be great. I think we could learn a lot from that, just in the work we do here and trying to. So yeah, that's really exciting to hear. And I'm glad that the cultural preserves, I really like that. I didn't know where that was going to go. But it makes sense. And Mason jar with rice paper, that you are transcribing, because rice paper will dissolve eventually. you are getting it that's that's that's really cool I'll just I'll ask one more question. I'll turn my colleagues You mentioned the youth town hall Which is an important space One of the things when you're doing a cultural plan, right, you know, are we have, and Montgomery County is everything. Our fastest growing population are seniors. We also have a ton of youth. We've got everything in between and all the languages and everything else. It makes it a very rich and diverse cultural plan, but there also be some inherent tensions. Right. And the vision and what people want to see. So I'm curious about how you're approaching those inherent tensions in the presentation of the Cultural Plan about how you're approaching those inherent tensions in the presentation of the cultural plan and how you're weighing those equities at once you get all this robust feedback. Well, I'd say right now we don't know what the tensions are. We can make assumptions. Some of us think we know. But I think until we get the data from the community and and I wanted Joe to talk about these two community advisory groups that we have, until we get all of this data from the community, from the community advisors, from our colleagues at MNCPPC from you. We won't know exactly what the tensions are. You know, perhaps the world is very different right now than it was say five months ago. Perhaps we'll find that we're more like than different. Perhaps those differences will be more well illuminated. But whatever the case, we're in the discover phase now. So I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves, and I certainly don't want to make assumptions. But what I know for sure is that everybody wants security, everybody wants to be able to thrive in an environment where they feel safe, and everybody wants to be able to support their families. And so however we see that, we're going to try to meet that with this cultural plan and whatever the tensions are. We're going to work to a place where everybody can get some level of satisfaction so that we can continue to be this incredibly vibrant, wholesome, wonderful place to live. That is Montgomery County. I wouldn't live anywhere else. And so right now, I'm just gonna hold any assumptions that I might have in a Bayance and ask that this committee do so too, because we just don't know. But I'm excited to learn, and I think that the many ways, the many pathways for learning that we've opened ourselves up to will give us an opportunity to figure out how best to serve our residents and that's my hope. Well, I think you're off to a great start and you notice I didn't ask. I didn't assume what those intentions will be but I just have been around long enough to know they will be there and that I think you're doing a great job at the beginning of getting the inputs and matter, right? Right. a broad cross-section and being really intentional about who hasn't typically been in part of these processes will change the data we get. But also being intentional about how it's presented. So, you know, we're representing all of our many viewpoints in every one sense of what culture is. If I asked this whole room what culture was, we'd probably get 50 different definitions. So it's a challenge but it's also a great opportunity I think to reflect our community. I'm excited about it. Thank you so much. I'll turn first to Councilman Browernos. Good morning everybody. So I really enjoyed my conversations with Miss Nicodemus and Mr. Frandonius. you know, that was, it was only supposed to be half an hour and it ended up being over an hour and it could have been longer because I really, really appreciated the comments and the- Sorry I'm so chatty. Yeah that's right that was great. It was like a therapy session for me. So and you all, no surprise, have thought through so many different angles and are being so thoughtful and strategic about this and this is a huge opportunity but I just want to pick up on where you just left off. The world has changed in the last five months in ways that we're still processing and that are coming into focus. One of the many ways that it's changed is that Montgomery County is, we've always been proud of leaned into our cultural diversity, but now we have become a safe place, not just for our residents, but for our entire region. And there are many, many examples that have happened just in the last few weeks when the Trump administration took over the Kennedy Center, where lots, and I mean lots of programs that were scheduled to take place there and in other venues across the District of Columbia are now homeless and they are looking for venues and they are reaching out to the film more, Strathmore and only theater and Germantown at BlackRock. So this does in many ways present opportunities, not the right word because that sounds like we're taking advantage of this time in a way that probably isn't appropriate, but there's an opportunity for us to lift up even more what we find so valuable and dear here. And so while clearly we need to focus our time and attention on polling our county residents, I think a second phase of this, once this incredible work is complete, is for us to consider polling our entire region. Because that does present some economic development opportunities because we, you know, it may not just be these three years. And I've talked about this publicly before, but the film more in their first couple of years were trying to figure out the rhythm of their operation and what that would look like and what they've settled on is something fantastic. When you look at the menu of the concerts that they offer, it is very multi-athic and cultural and they've become a destination spot for this entire region. They've embraced that as an economic development model. So I don't know how exactly a synthesizer process that into what we're talking about this morning, potentially again, potentially again as I said a second phase and pulling. Excellent example of a potential recommendation from a cultural plan. That's right. I love it. So I think that will be critical. I just have a lot of experience with youth development stuff. stuff so the town hall will be fantastic and Council Member Fanny Gonzalez is incredible she's got a great team. But needless to say, I think partnering with our friends and MCPS and of course Montgomery County Recreations here, which I know you all already have strong partnerships and alliances with. But thinking through how to expand that, and there's got to be sort of microsurvey's within our youth community so that we are, you know, checking in with everyone. And now I'm going to jump around a little bit, I apologize. But the issue of people being much more reluctant now to fill out surveys, particularly related to diversity, equity and inclusion in any of its forms, is real. And so we are going to have to work even harder to make sure we get the feedback and input that we all need and we know is out there, which means using, for example, our health promoters within our Department of Health and Human Services, which means using our minority health's initiative program. Yeah. So, and the great news is you all already have wonderful relationships with the Sister County agencies. They know you, you know them. So, but now's the time, even more than ever, to leverage those partnerships to get the word out, because I had a meeting just this morning with Mr. Harris from the Planning Board, talking thrive and what the lessons learned from that process and I was counsel president at the time. I learned a lot during that process. So we do have to be very intentional and methodical about reaching folks who aren't otherwise engaged and utilizing the various communication channels we have to let folks know this is happening in the first place, which I think will be very important. So not a lot of questions, just a lot of random thoughts there, but I do look forward to seeing the fruits of your labor. And as is always the case, all of us and all 11 of my, ten of my colleagues stand ready to help and get the word out because we have a lot of folks within our realm of communication and influence that can be very helpful. Absolutely. Absolutely. And thank you so much, Councilmember Alvin, for those observations because when we first came to each of you to talk about the work we were starting to do, getting your insights about those community relationships, it is critical. Because as I said a few moments ago, there are constituencies that cross your path that I may or may not have ever met. And so understanding that intersectionality for this work, which is at the core of this work, is really critical. So working with the Office of Community Partnerships has given us great leverage to understand some of those groups that we might know. So in combination with the advisory groups that we have, your good council, community partnerships, MNCPPC, we're hoping that we that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that with my peer colleagues at Fairfax, Alexandria, Arlington, DC, PG County. We have an ongoing hangout. And we have met now a couple of times looking at what's happening with the crisis. And we have banded together. We sent out a joint communicate to all of our constituencies saying we see you. We're here to help. We're watching what's happening. And we're going to try to keep you in the know. We have an entire list of resources on our website for our colleagues. And I just recently sent a note to Monica Jeffries as Angela is that Strathmore just thanking her for that opportunity at Strathmore to meet the needs of the community when we weren't able to meet it at the Kennedy Center. So I think that these conversations both intersectionally within the sector and in the region are going to be critical. One of the things that I think is really something that I didn't expect, but having led this agency during the downturn of the economic downturn of 2008, and now led this agency through the pandemic, and now I've learned a lot too. And so as a result, I'm able to take some of that learning and apply it to this work in ways that I didn't quite know I'd have to. But it's good because I think it's helped me become a more agile and intentional leader. And I think with my, with the incredible work that Anne and the mattress team is doing and the incredible leadership that our deputy director is doing and our wonderful consultant Todd Bressie who has helped us with the roadmap and really thinking about the public art guidelines and how to be more present for the community, especially those voices that we don't hear from. I think that you'll see a lot of that and just know that for us, we consider our agency a learning agency, not a teaching agency. And so our work constantly is to learn, to learn, and then to be able to give back to the community what they've asked us to learn. Thank you. Somehow, somehow you have an age in that all that time. I used to have black hair. I still look for it, but it's just not there. I'll remember, mate. Well, say I texted my team and I was like, check out Susan's look. I love it. I think. tying into what my colleagues have mentioned, I just want to note also that one, and I'm glad that you said, as you talked about being in the discover phase and how, there may be some more commonalities that people are feeling now in this place where we are in Montgomery County, Maryland. But that, you know, something that everybody has in common is like the desire for security and the desire to be able to thrive. And I just want to note that we're not in a public safety committee meeting right now. We are not in an economic development committee meeting right now. And I think it's really important that we all acknowledge that what we do with our art space and is a big part of making people feel safe and creating that safety. And it's not something that we often talk about because the correlation, it's not as easy to draw a direct line in kind of the traditional ways that we're used to talking about safety and security. And even some of the ways that we're, you know, used to talking about economic development and prosperity, although I think that does happen more. We know that arts and culture is a major economic driver here. But these are not just kind of nice to have. And I think that's evident in the attacks that we're seeing from the federal government who are looking to undermine our sense of safety and undermine our ability to bring together people of different cultures and make sure that everybody feels that cohesion. Those direct attacks that we're seeing now and that we've seen historically in governments like this one. I think we need to learn from that and say that tells us how important this is right now as we try to maintain our ability to ensure that everyone is able to thrive and that everyone does see their cultures represented and sees everybody else's cultures represented how fundamental that is to building the type of community that we want to have and that we're going to need to very proactively work to maintain now more than ever. So I'm glad that you said those things. Oh, could you say a little bit more? And you've touched on this in a number of ways. But in terms of what residents are going to see on the ground, right? When this cultural plan is finished and we're ready to start looking at how can we implement and let's start lobbying for this and that. What are some of the types of things? And obviously you don't have the feedback back, right? But if you can speak in general, what are some of the types of things that we're hoping for residents to be able to see as tangible results of having this cultural plan and having this type of direction? Before I answer that question, I just want to go back to the unusual suspects. And that is that in order for this to work, we've got to align ourselves with unusual suspects who we may not have wanted to align ourselves with before, or may not have thought about aligning ourselves with before. And that HHS example that Anne gave you is just that. Your my colleague Doug Weisberger called me and said soos, the climate crisis center is just the saddest place on the planet. Now I said, okay, immediately let's open up the doors of the public art trust art bank. We don't actually call it that, but I'll use that so that you can get the visual of it. And let's just take art out of there and put it on the walls. It's like, oh, wow, why didn't we think of that before? We've got over 600 pieces of public art that are in public offices. We should put it in public places. It in live-ins and lifts the spirit. And then HHS said, but we also have other issues. Other than the DEP issues, we have issues with the residents who come to this building in some of the most dire and saddest of times. And so we engaged that audience in the work of this teaching artist who also revealed that she had experienced homelessness. And so she was able to then align herself with this community and they then brought this piece of work to bear that now in live in the spirit of not only those who work there but those who go there to see services. So when I say aligning ourselves with unusual suspect I'm not exactly sure what will come of it, Council Member Mink. But I do know that we plan celebrations in the community in order to talk about the plan. We also hope that the policy work that we'll do will be able to result in things that residents can actually see. For example, in Seattle, they have artists in residents in many departments across the agency. So Department of Transportation, Department of Recreation, Department of Health and Human Services. They have an artist who resides right inside of those offices to not just talk about art, but to talk about the intersectionality. What things could we solve? For example, on universe, I grew up in San Juan Puerto Rico in a trade. And so I am used to living in places where sometimes the roads were paved, sometimes weren't, and people would cross the street wherever, right? And when you're living in a community where people cross the street all the time, like I grew up. Well, people would just stop because they saw people crossing the street. But it's not the same on university and New Hampshire. People are crossing the street and getting hit by cars. If we knew more about the residents in those communities, maybe we could have saved some lives by having some way finding and some crossing information that was artistically done to help guide people to where you should cross, not where you shouldn't cross, to be hit by a car. Those are the kinds of thinking things that I'm hoping will come up with and I'm not exactly sure what that will look like, but I do know it's possible. And so I'm just prayerful that we can hear enough community voices to understand what would be helpful to them in their communities. And then I want to be able to offer that up between the policies, the programs, and all of the things that we've heard that residents want. I'm hopeful that together we can serve it up in a way that's not only viable for the county, but we are able to put resources in and policy behind it that would support that kind of intersectional work. Great, thank you. I appreciate also that circling back to the outreach side of things that you went to MNCPPC to talk about what did work, what didn't work. And we needed that. Yeah, I'm sure you got a lot of feedback. And, you know, just thinking forward, this is a little tangential, but it would be so great to have some kind of document. There's like a building here, right, across different county departments, agencies and partners of how do we do this really well? And just to make sure that people aren't reinventing the wheel, like the research that you have done and are, you know, preparing to implement our implement is so valuable. And how can we make sure that we have something that come a product that comes out of that, which has also built upon the learnings of others To then you know be able to deliver that you know I want to have something that we can take away at the council Yes, you know to to learn about what we're doing right and wrong and what we could what we could build on I mean there is no department that wouldn't benefit from having that resource and every department is doing that kind of I'm just thinking I don't know if this is like an old over point, you know but I'm just thinking that like there's so much that's being done and I'm excited to see that piece of it come out also that talks about, you know, talks about that, that outreach strategies I'm thinking about how we can make sure that that's a resource for us in other areas of county government. Absolutely. You know, maybe you've noticed, but I'm kind of competitive. And so the work we did to get the work done, that's really, that's really important to me too. I wish I could quote this, but I think the, what do they say, the project is the work, not the project. And so we're really working hard, maybe you've noticed, to document every piece of our activity so that not only can we learn what works and what didn't work and we learned a lot by talking to our colleagues at Thrive, but also to help other communities learn because learning in and of itself has no value to me unless I can help other people understand how we learned about this. And as I see America in total and I understand that there is a browning of America that America that's just not going to stop no matter what people think. Being able to use this incredible investment of work and time and energy and and be able to show it phased by phased by phased to others I think is something that we can offer as a county that will be highly important. And I think both Christian and Ann have talked to you about how impressed they were with the research that we've done that far. Even that is something that, mattress, when they accepted our call, said that they had not seen it at that level. We're documenting all of that because I think being able for you to be able to say this is how we did it here and it can be done and this is what we learned, this is the good, the bad, the ugly, that all is going to be critical. So we're trying to document just about everything. That's right, that's right. And one last comment is, you know, to the point that things have changed a lot in the last few months and how is that going to be integrated into this, you know, one of, in addition to the shutting down of arts programs and the takeover of arts programs that we're seeing and the funding cuts that are coming and threatened and all those sorts of things. There's also a lot of movement of people. And so, you know, that people, and that's going to be to our area, that already is to our area. And we saw that during the previous Trump administration is going to be even more this time. And so I think that as we're, I do think that this is going to be a critical part of how we, of learning how we need to best respond to that, how to make sure that folks feel safe and welcome as soon as they arrive. Where are the places where people are going, you know, the MCPS International Welcome Center? So many newcomer families that pass through that space, right, and what a difference it would make to make sure that when they come in, that they are seeing artistic representations from all of these different places that they're coming from and seeing, really right away, that work and care and love has been put into making them feel, and not office does a fantastic job, and they have flags that they have all kinds of things. But I think that that's a big part of it, and also tying into that, how do we help to plug them into ways that they can find their economic footing. We have so many people who are bringing skills that are marketable and where there's a relatively low bar to even starting to make somebody on that. you know, even making an additional, you know, $50 here, $100 here, over a couple of weeks or months, like that's something that we're seeing some of our families, for example, who are struggling with eviction, like that can make a big difference. And maybe that's all you're making for now as we work to help you scale up. But that can make the difference between whether it's sustainable or not sustainable in your current residence. And so, and I'm seeing that conversation play out, for example, in with the Muslim Community Center as they're working to help support many of the Afghan residents who have been here and they're saying they're seeing marketable skills and thinking about, well, how can we help them to have a place in the markets? Maybe we can start a market. We've got people who come to MCC who have money to spend and we have people who come here who have money that they need to make. And they're thinking about how to bring those together. And so I do think that some of what's going to come out from the work that you're doing here are ways that we can learn and have situations like that all across the county that can be implemented not just by the county but also by our partners on the ground. But I think I do think that the arts and culture work is going to be really a big part of how we can help to deal with the influx of people that are coming from communities that are being that are under it and not just immigrant communities, we think about the trans community, you know, the LGBTQ community. Where are folks coming in? How can we make sure they feel welcome and how can we help to make sure that they're able to support themselves and leverage perhaps, you know, this space to help? I think that really speaks to sort of our ethos from the whole process, which has been a collective engagement and intersectionality. And so before I had ever met Anne or thought of Metrice, we got all of the departments and all of the NDAs that we could together. And that's who comprises our County Advisory Committee. So we have transportation, we have economic development, we have planning, we have recreation, we have HHS, we've got DGS. Everybody has a representative there environmental protection so that when we crafted the request for qualifications for people to even talk about our cultural plan, all of those agencies said, oh, we need to make sure this is somebody who understands the implications of traffic patterns and land use. Oh, we need to make sure that this person understands that the health implications and how we might be able to augment that. We need this firm to be able to do deep community research because we have such a varied constituency. And so that group is still together today and we brief them regularly and send them emails and updates and use them as a sounding board internally for kind of the voice of the county. On the opposite side of that we have our community advisory group and those are artists, scholars, arts organizations, cultural institutions, Mana Food Bank, funders, community centers, JCC, just people who are representing those who are going to be on the receiving end, not the planning and implementation end of this, and they've also been involved since we hired Metrice. And so we said, this is the consultancy that is going to be helping helping us what do you need? This is Ann. Next time we get like let's go. And so for us it's been about this idea of making sure that we can intersect all the different places that we can to augment our collective goals and also listen to and serve the residents of this county no matter who they are. We're doing everything we can to make sure that our table is big enough and everybody has a chair. Well it's great, thank you. This is really exciting, that's work is going to be of such great value to us during a really difficult time. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I couldn't agree more, really appreciate all your work and I'm Mr. Cadeamus, thank you for your work and I wrote down anyone who has a job where they can use the call themselves a Muckety Muck and use the word whimsical in the same presentation. That's a really good job. And so thank you for everything that you've done. Thank you, Ms. Jenkins. Thank you, Joe. Thank you so much. You guys, we, one thing I did want to just in addition to the postcard, which we'd like to see to Councilmember Migs Point in the discussion you were just having. There's a lot of learnings here, I think for us, but also for cross-county government and communities in general. And you know, you're documenting all this. So for example, one of the things I'll be eager to see is who did you talk to? Like I'm assuming you'll have a list of everybody. Yeah, you know, and I've been in this job seven years and been in the community my whole life. I am still learning about new organizations, new community groups, and so there's always a constant need to refresh that and keep up with that. So I think on the long list of things we can learn, I think very practically, who did we talk to? How did we talk to them with the postcard? What would we say? Those are going to be some amongst the things that are going to be really valuable. So look forward to all of that. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Anne. We'll move to our next item and bring up our great folks from the libraries team and our DGS team. And OMB, if they won, if you fill all the seats if you like, you know, or not. And we're joined by Mr. Anvinder, good to see you. We've got a couple items here related to the library's CIP. And as folks who have taken their seat, Miss Graham, good to see you. Miss Hawes, good to see you. And then we've got OMB and DGS. I'll turn it over to you, Mr. Ambider. Good morning. Today for the committee's consideration are three of the four items that the county executive originally transmitted as recommended amendments to the FY25 to 30 CIP, the fourth item being the amendment and supplemental appropriation for noise library, which the council approved earlier this month. The three remaining items are the library refurbishment level of effort, Clarksburg Library and 21st century library enhancements level of effort. If the committee would like I'm happy to go through those one by one and discuss them. Yeah, before we do that, I'll just see if our director has anything she'd like to add, Ms. Graham, as opening. Well, good morning, Council Vice President Joando, Council of the Meank and Council member I'm going to be open to the next one. I'm going to be open to the next one. I'm going to be open to the next one. I'm going to be open to the next one. I'm going to be open to the next one. I'm going to be open to the next one. I'm going to be open to the next one. I'm going to be open to the next one. I'm going to be like to say just one thing to open up. And it's really to address what's happening on the federal level. I know that libraries have faced many challenges, book challenges, diversity and programming challenges. But one that we recently heard of last week is the Defunding of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Appropriately sold for this conversation here because some of the resources that we get from our 21st century help to fund innovation when it comes to technology and programming and providing innovative services to our community. Again, I think one thing we've learned beyond COVID is the importance of introducing new technologies, upscaling information science, making sure all of our communities have access to really, really important technology, leaving nobody behind. And I think now equally more important, we're saying high record usage in our collections, especially our digital collections as well, because of the fear of being in some of our spaces now. So I just wanted to lean a little bit into that as again, this is timely because of the news we got last week. So thank you. Really appreciate that. And important as we think about the modernization of the libraries, as you said. So if anybody are wrong, we start with that. The first project took to begin then with the 21st century library enhancements. I'm sorry. This is a project that's as Director Graham mentioned intended to keep technology current in existing libraries. This is item number three on page three of your packet. The county executive's original transmittal recommended a shift of $31,000 per year from this project into the MCPL operating budget on the transmittal subsequent to the transmittal of the operating budget reflects a further reduction of $200,000 per year beginning in FY26. Since this subsequent reduction would be in current revenue, Council staff's recommendation for this particular item is to have the for the committee to defer a formal recommendation until consideration of the operating budgets since the current revenue would come out of the same pot. Appreciate that. I did want to ask questions. So, you know, raises, always raises an eyebrow when you see a decrease like this. So, wanted to know, so it's beginning to underspending, right? So, what do we attribute the underspending to? I think there's been some underspinning as the organization has been looking for a new CEO and giving them the opportunity to come in and look at what technology looks like now. Kind of survey Montgomery County for what our community needs. And then I'm going to turn it over to my assistant. Maybe she has a little bit more on what the undersp understanding was. I was going to say also the Damascus project went out a little longer than expected. So that pushed things back because if you look at what the budget, what the budget part is, that's $475K for that, yeah. So not that you're not gonna need? I mean, they're clothes and we're dismantling the library as we speak, but it was supposed to have been done in the fall, but we stayed open longer so that the elections could be held in that building in November. That's important. Yeah. That's helpful. Any questions from colleagues on this? Okay. Yes, Mr. Anybody? I'm just to clarify a little further, the 21st century library enhancementments level of effort, which is Project 3 in the project is the one that has the $200,000 reduction, the project number one in the packet, the library refurbishment level of efforts, since they're both level of effort projects, I believe is the one that pertains to the Damascus refurbishment. Right. Okay, yes. So that we it, I'm sorry, we went... So you explained the Damascus issue for the level of effort. Because we were supposed to close back and on coal well, September on coal, but we actually ended up closing at the end of February. Got it. But I think think so in regards to the library enhancement, so the technology, and I understand how that could be impacted there too, I just want to be clear. The director you mentioned, kind of making sure we had the new director, so we know what direction we're going to go in for the technology, so it kind of held off on some of the money. Yes. That's kind of what I heard. Yes. And additionally we had a little bit of hiccup in our current materials handle it one of our locations. That's a part of the cost here. So we need to step back and do another research and look for another vendor for that project. Again, I just want to underscore, UCIS has increased dramatically, and I think the need to even get an automated materials handler is because we're trying to keep up with that demand. So that was a little bit of delay in spending as well. Yeah, and that's why I mean, I'm trying to jive that sometimes people can see a decrease in all the needs not there, But when I'm hearing you say is that we do need to move and invest in more of this technology, but we have to settle on what we wanted. So as we move forward to the full CIP next year, we might see something different than this. Okay. Okay. So I think we'll defer to that since it's related to current revenue and go back to the top of the list. Great. So moving to item number one at the top of page two of your packet is the other level of effort project, the library refurbishment level of effort, and this is the ongoing project that provides for the modernization in turn of all 21 library branches over time. The county executive has recommended an increase of $1.86 million over six years, which is a 6.8% increase over the six year period in the approved CIP, which reflects, as Assistant Director Haas mentioned, a cost increase for Damascus Library, which is currently undergoing refurbishment. That's the branch currently being refurbished. The library shares a building with the Damascus senior center, and so there is some additional costs involved with the refitting of the building's HVAC system, which have resulted in some cost increases. The building is currently scheduled for reopening in fall 2026, and I'll just note as well that as a result of the cost increase in corresponding extended timeline for Damascus, the next libraries that are scheduled in this project, their refurbishment has been delayed slightly, beginning with McGee library in Silver Spring, followed by Twin Brook and Rockville libraries. Council staff's recommendation is to approve this amendment as recommended by the executive. Anything to add Mr. Dice? Hi David Dice Director, Department of General Services. This reflects what we're experiencing across the board on all our projects. Prices are going up, mechanical systems in particular are going up with long term leads. We have rebid this project because initial prices came in much higher. The Damascus project. Yes. We've also done value engineering, which is a euphemistic term for cost reduction, strategic cost reductions by eliminating certain parts of the scope. But I've cautioned staff on both the senior center as well as the library. We can value engineer to a certain extent, but not at the jeopardy of the program and the ability of the departments, our lieutenant departments to operate their programs efficiently. So with that, we know we're going to, we have these cost increases despite all those efforts. And obviously, great to see Rob and Riley here who's very interested on the senior center side. And this is a very well-loved, well-used building or set of buildings. And what we're doing is going to make both buildings much more efficient before it was basically treated as A-building. And the only thing the two facilities share is that central area if you're familiar with the facility. So we're going to make them so that they operate more efficiently and independently. I'm always remember when I was leave for libraries and how Councilor McKis, I did my library tours and the biggest one we had was at Damascus and it kind of crossed over people were in both sections. It seats in the crossover section there and everything. How is it going to impact the McGee library? So the timeline, I know this is, we're modeled this off of, well, now recreation is modeled at off of libraries. But this is something that we've always done. People love these openings, just a sense of the timeline of the next few if we can stay on track. It pushes each month back about a year. We've already been in McGee and done, sounds kind of strange, but we've tinted the windows in the McGee library. I also look for the fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror and putting some lifters in it whenever I think of window tinting. But we have just speaking of the cars that I used to have to used to. I have been trying to stop people from getting pulled over for that. It's good to know you used to drive them too. But we actually, people have been in McGee and patronized the library. I know that it can be pretty warm in there. And so we've actually gone and tinted all the glass and are already seeing positive results from having done that it's probably not discernible to the average person to see, but knocks the building down by at least five degrees. So that work has been done. The balance of the work is designed and will follow, McGee, or followed Damascus, right on cue. So figure about a year, push in the schedule. The will recover. Got it. Great. One of our most efficient and well-loved programs, when you have those refurbished openings, it's like a brand new library opening when you're there. So, colleagues, anything? No? Okay. So, without objection, we'll approve the adjustment. And then the only other project in this report at the bottom of page two is the Clarksburg Library. This is just a shift of $180,000 from the Clarksburg Library CIP project into the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA, I apologize for the typo compliance CIP project. So Council staff recommends approval of this technical adjustment as well. Appreciate that. This is another one where it's like going to be a big, big deal when it opens in 27. And I was reading in the packet. I just think it's people forget like in 2010 it was a 13,000 population in Clarksburg in 2025. It's 40,000 plus I mean it's just amazing growth in a short period of time and so this library will be immediately it'll probably need to immediately go into the refurbishment line after it's built, but it'll be a great space. Anything you wanna add as we close out? Well, I just had a great misfortune or fortune to attend my first community building meeting at Coxburg and I will say very invested, very excited. We are looking forward to bringing a 21st century library space to Montgomery County and making sure that our spaces are responding to what our teens need, especially, looking at the demographics and the family unit and that community and how important it is as they spoke out, which was very nice to see some of our youngest customers. Speak up about what they wanted to see in their libraries. And again, just to close out, if I can, David, I just want to advocate again for continued investment in libraries. more important now than ever before and that is being supported by our usage. Our community are responding to what is happening in the world and still looking for a safe place. That last place where civic engagement happens where they can just be, where we don't ask you any demographic information or card you to get in but just open the doors and say come on in. So that's what I have. So thank you. Appreciate that and we'll talk a lot more about that back for budget but this is spaces are important to that too. Councilmember Arvinov. Thank you. That triggered something. It's a little random so I bear with. But I attended a really interesting meeting in the District of Columbia a couple of weeks ago. So there are within the behavioral health space and overall health and wellness. There's real conversations going on right now about how we can more strategically use space, both architect but also with furniture's fixtures and equipment to enhance the experience for constituents resident stakeholders who come in with the behavioral health lens lighting the type of furniture pods these are safe places where people go for reprieve and they're free. And that's also great for the staff too, who particularly our front facing staff are under duress and have a lot more stress and different kinds of stress than other front phrasing staff of course, this is true of my colleagues and friends at the Department of Regoration as well. You all are absorbing the stress that our stakeholders are feeling in a myriad of ways, which is also raising safety and security issues. And so to the degree to which we can, think creatively as we do these refurbishments, and I'm gonna follow up with you guys, because there's some specific recommendations. It was for the health and medical spaces. That's why I was there as Chair of Health and Human Services. But I think it crosses over into other spaces as well, and schools. So look forward to following up. I know it's a little bit of a tease there but nothing concrete at the moment but would love to have an expanded conversation about that. Following up on the Library Directors comments Greg Asant was led the team team with the team of design, design team that met with the community and library staff. And echo the comments that I heard from staff regarding the input of the youth that were there. They're really taking ownership of this. And if you've been to our, and I know you have been to our refurbishment openings, and you see that we've been intentional about coming up with unique furniture in particular and equipment that's designed for the ages that are in that particular area within the library space. So Council Member Avrinos, we'd very much like to hear what you have to say and inform our design team. We've got a very good architect working on this. We're only in the very early stages, so now's a good time to consider these things. And I just want to put in a, look, there are a little bit of a wet wet blanket for voting because we're going to come back to for more money on this project. This is not going to be what it's estimated to be right now but what we're going to end up with is it's always been my intent that we build buildings particularly when it comes to libraries and rec centers they're the community's buildings. The community wants to own this and enjoy it and we intend it to be a building that they'll enjoy for the next 40, 50 years. I appreciate that. So something north of 30 million will look. Okay, so we'll have a full CIP next year. So you better include his chairs in that. If we're going if the price is going up, but no, we definitely appreciate that. Council member, make, leave for libraries. Thank you. So that gives us a little bit of foreshadowing of some of the specific pieces that you're thinking about, but just wanted to give you an opportunity to say any more. That could be in regards to Damascus or Clarksburg, and what it means to be a 21st century building. But can you tell us a little bit more about what are some of those details that you're thinking about as you're looking into plans for taking us to kind of the next level? Absolutely. I'm thinking of a team studio space. We're looking at gaming like e-sports and things like that and providing spaces for like really flexible where we can change the program depending on the need. I want to just thank Council Member Albinaz. I think that is absolutely the conversations that I'm having with our colleagues in HHS. I think I've been doing at work for over 10 years now. We need to build flexible spaces where we can be that community hub that invite our colleagues and to share resources that the libraries don't offer. And I believe in that when we talk about social work in the library, I believe in that when we talk about nurses in the library. So having that flexible space that is unprogrammed, not just for the community, but also for staff. As you mentioned, our staff are on the front lines every day. They live in our community as well as work in our communities and we see all the the turmoil, the instability our community is feeling often daily and what that looks like when we turn to give our self-care. That means we want to walk into a staff space that has colors that are calming, have furniture, that is amenable for you to relax, have those intentional spaces that encourage peace and tranquility for both customers and staff, I believe, and strongly. So as we look at our refresh projects, we're going to be taking all of that into consideration. I'm a strong believer of white boxes, meaning unprogrammed space that we allow our community to come in and use that space depending on the right now and conversations with HHS about some of their social programs. I intend to expand that to a lot of our colleagues across the county. So the technology spaces I'm looking at, I believe needs to be very flexible. I think libraries have found out we build these walls and spaces and the technology change and we can accommodate that. So a generally in flexibility is what we should be focusing on when we look in at new buildings and refreshes. That's great. Thank you. And I really appreciate the conversation about HHS and the work that you're doing there. And as Council Member Rallburn knows noted, you know, it's just the importance of that. Clearly, you know, as we moved into like the height of the pandemic, a lot was just thrown at libraries for spaces, you know, that didn't, we're not prepared with staff that are not HHS and you know libraries and our library teams dealt with a lot and so now when we have the opportunity to make sure that the infrastructure is there being very intentional about what that looks like, ideally from the jump. It's a really exciting opportunity to really bring us into who and what we clearly want to be, but now designed intentionally from the start. So thank you for that. And I'll just note also to your point about how given the current climate and what's being done to the immigrant community and even people who perceive to be the immigrant community and so on that are libraries and are recreation centers, at least right now, are looking like some of the safest places that are community members can be. And so what we're seeing is most people are being picked up at their homes, coming and going from their homes, you know, your occasional work site. But when you're at a rec center, when you're at, you know, it's a library, nobody has to know who you are, you know. You are free to come and go and participate in our programs, and these are facilities that are also staffed by people who want to protect our community members. So I really urge our community members to come out and participate and enjoy the programming that we have available at our libraries. Come read a book, you know. Come to the Rec Center, continue to participate. We are working to make these places be safe and welcoming, regardless of what happens at the federal level. And also, just looking at the data, they really are some of the safest places that folks can be. Here, here, And I, we spent a couple hours at a library yesterday and I always get low anxiety when I look at, they take 30 books out. I'm like, we got a return them all. But, you know, but the emails are helpful. So thank you for all the work you're doing. We look forward to seeing you back during budget. Thank you to Director Dyson, Mr. Hassan, and the whole library's team. And OMB, the stand byter said, without objection, we'll approve the adjustment for the library refurbishment level of effort. And I think that's it, right? So with that, we're adjourned. Thank you.