Hi, everyone. The meeting will now come to order. If we can just pull up the agenda. Perfect. So first,
roll call, I guess, is this new? Should we ask everyone to? Oh, yes. That was something that was brought
up a lot. I think, Adrienne, you mentioned this. And maybe Nick did. But to start the meeting, we have
to do a verbal roll call. OK. Start with me, or? Sure. All right. So I'm Neda. I'm the chair.
Gerard Panathok, president.
here. I'm Becca Pio. I'm present in here. And this is your first meeting? And this is my very first
meeting. You're welcome. I'm Rebecca. I'm Rob. Hi. I'm Rob Shakespeare, who's present. I'm here, Betsy
Stewart. Paul Anderson. Christina Elam-Hugh. Staff. Staff. To change. And Jane Coopersmith, staff. OK.
Do we have to do that with just folks that are in person or? You do it for everyone. Do you have anyone
online? OK, just want to double check. No, I think it's just us. All right, great. So that's our first
thing on the agenda. Second is approval of the minutes.
The minutes were distributed. Are there any corrections that anyone has here? No. Okay. There are no
corrections. I move to approve the minutes as distributed. Can I get a second? Second. Thank you. All
in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay. Okay. The minutes are approved. Thank you. Betsy as usual.
All right. Next, we will go over
the BAC financial report. I think that's our folks at the city. Yeah, and there's no activity to report
this month. We did pay out a 2024 grant that for some reason hadn't been paid out and we had to iron
out some contractual challenges. So I guess technically there's 1,500 that had to come out of the 2026
grant allotment, but
It should be fine. I don't think that will be a problem. Sorry, it's not notated here. But otherwise,
the other arts activity was all outside of the BAC budget, but we have been moving money along. Hi.
Hello. Hi. So yeah, so that's it for financial. Okay, bye. Great. All right, so I guess back to the city.
If you guys have any updates? Do you have any other updates? I wanted to give a hiring update and just
say that we have an accepted offer and potentially a start date of 526 but HR doesn't want us to announce
until it's official so we'll wait but we're really excited and looking forward to onboarding that person
and introducing them to you all.
Yeah, I think it'll be good. And then I think Christina had an item that she was going to share. Um,
yeah. Do we, do they need to say the roll call? Yeah. Well, we can just say for the record that Gretchen
and Nal and Austin. What? Yeah. No, I just was double checking. Did this start at 515 or 530? 515.
Yeah so the item that I had was just the boards and commissions in general so Jennifer Crossley she's
the dedicated person on city staff that does all things boards and commissions and so what she's doing
is doing a training for not only the city liaisons but also she'll be doing a training for all members
and it'll be
you go through this annually, like an annual thing. And then there's a lot of things that are going
to change as far as rules and how we meet and all this stuff, just like technicalities. But I did want
to say that there's also going to be changes towards requirements around attendance, quorum,
things like that. So the member trainings will start in June.
you know, be mindful of that and they'll reach out so you can kind of schedule a time to come in and
go through all of that. So, okay. Do you know what the duration of those sessions are? The session I
went through was like an hour and a half. Okay. Yeah. And the three of us were off in December. Should
we still do that? Betsy, Rob, and I, our turn is up, isn't it?
I would say yes, just because you're still a standing member now. We've got Rob through, oh, 131.27.
Yeah, same for Betsy, same for Gretchen. Oh, no, no. 27. January 31st, 27. Yeah. So coming up. And honestly,
I think there's a rule that if there's not a replacement appointment, I think you can come after that date.
We can look into that since three of you are going off at the same time. Yeah. I think I'm overhearing
something. I think it's like 30 days or something like that. What would we do? So we don't,
I don't know, but I'll find out. Okay. Yeah. So that's my update. Great. Thank you. All right. So I guess,
Next is public art subcommittee chair, but currently vacant. So I guess, would you be able to give an
update, Christina? Sure. So public art, the only thing that came up so far was just the convention center.
So we did the public feedback. We were able to go to the farmers market, as well as Blooming Foods.
And then we had the online portion.
The meeting with the CIB for them to vote on who they want to choose would be tomorrow, and that's where
they will discuss the results from public feedback, so I'm not really aware of the results from that.
But from the in-person, got a lot of interest, and people were engaging. It felt like the Benjamin Ball,
the snake, got a lot of popularity. Forsteria. Forsteria, sorry. Forsteria. Snake. I'm sorry.
It gives me like a reptilian vibe. But yeah, Wisteria and the How to Sosa got a lot of popularity. That's
the one with the bridge and with flowers and had two spots in which it manifested in the Convention
Center. So that was from Public Feedback and then the
Public art subcommittee met yesterday and we kind of deliberate and give our recommendation to the CIB.
And we, it seemed like, not me, but seemed like it was unanimous around the same, the Benjamin Ball
wisteria installation. So, yeah. Can I say, we also took our sandwich boards on the road to the convention
center during a big economic development conference and then to first Friday at the Waldron.
So it was really fun to get it out in the community. And we had a date for Kroger, but it didn't work
out with the timing of the CIB, so. Yeah, well done. Yeah, but next time. I mean, it's great to know
that Kroger will let us do public engagement there as long as we're not selling stuff, so. Yeah.
And Rob, you were able to go to all the interviews with the artists? I did. Yeah.
And it was very insightful. And they all went back into their history and showed lots of very successful
projects and then put the presentation of their project in context for Bloomington, their site visits,
and what they responded to. So each one of them gave excellent presentations
Did all of them come? All of them did come, right? Well, there was one disqualified submission. Oh,
there was? So we had four instead of five. Okay. It had to do with engineering, so. Yeah. Oh, I see.
Okay. And I don't think they did all do site visits, but. Yeah. I thought all of them won. Well, besides,
I don't know. I thought maybe the groundhog didn't come.
I think that's right. Right, and you got disqualified, or they got disqualified. So, yeah, so that's
kind of the update on Convincing. Okay, great. Thank you. Also, I realized that I have my agenda mixed
up. I guess the chair agenda item is before the subcommittee, so I'll just go back to that. So for me,
One, I want to say welcome to our new commissioners, Becca and Austin. I know Austin, you were here
in the last meeting, but since I wasn't there, welcome anyway. So first, welcome. And then we also have
subcommittee assignments. So both of you express which subcommittee you're interested in. And Becca,
you are interested in public art. Austin, you're interested in the grant subcommittee, which is perfect for us.
So first, I guess we need to vote to approve the new assignments. And also, Becca volunteered and is
interested in being subcommittee chair for public art, which we love as well. But I wanted to give Becca
a chance to just kind of share why she's interested in the position, and then we could probably move
to get them in there. All right, go ahead. Yeah. So hi, everyone.
So I, excuse me, I have an art administration background, so I'm working on getting my art degree. I
also have a studio art background in photography, so I love art, love being around public art, so I
would love to just kind of be more around public art and just kind of steering the committee, if you
would let me. So that would be my first time doing it, and yeah,
would just love the opportunity to kind of get my feet wet on that in front of it. So what do you currently
do? Oh yeah, I work at IU. Right now, I'm an assistant director of on-campus recruitment for the O'Neill
School, which is SPIA. And I'm working on hopefully getting a job
either at the museum or I just recently applied to the Eskenazi school, which is where I graduated from
with my undergrad. So we'll see if I get a call back for an interview next week. So hopefully trying
to get my way back there. So SPIA runs the Arts Administration? Yeah, they run the Arts Administration
program and I graduate next spring, so any year. So yeah.
In arts administration. In arts administration, yeah. So I'm currently on a student advisory board for
the Eskenazi Museum and I'm going to be an inaugural leader of that board come fall because it's very
unorganized and not structured and there's no governance of that board. So I sort of volunteered myself
to run that. I'm getting a nonprofit management certificate on top of my degree.
So I really love community engagement and advocacy. So that's really kind of like why I'm also here
as well. So, cool. Perfect. Yeah, exactly. I think you're a perfect fit. So, OK, this is my first time
doing this. So how does the process work? Do we just? Can you just ask the board if anyone would like
to make a motion? I move to accept her as head of public policy. Approve. OK, we'll start with Becca
then. OK, thank you. I guess we need a second.
Okay, those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say nay. All right, perfect. Becca, you are officially
the subcommittee chair for public art. Thank you so much for volunteering. We really appreciate it and
I think you're gonna do amazing. Okay, and then now Austin's turn. So Austin is going to join the grant
subcommittee. So can I just make a motion? Can somebody make a motion? Yep, okay. Can I get a second?
I second. OK. So many seconds. OK. Are you a musician? Yes. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed,
say nay. OK, great. Austin, you're in the subcommittee. Thank you so much. Thank you. And the work is
about to begin. I know. Just in time. Yes. OK, great. So I think that's all I had.
on my end, so let's move to the next agenda item, which is from Gerard and Paul for grant subcommittee
co-chairs. Can I just say something? Yes. I'm on the committee, and I want to thank these two gentlemen
for their fantastic organization of all of this stuff. For real. Because it is so well done. And I mean,
because just adjudicating all those grants,
You guys did a great job.
Gerard did all the work. Thanks, Gerard. Thanks, Gerard. I did all the organizing, but Paul did a lot
of the mental work. Well, the mental work is important, too. Very important. Yeah. I think also Jane
and Paige and Christina, as well, I think helped us get all that stuff organized on the back and on
the staff end. So yeah, it was definitely good. I think there is. Paige, Paige. OK. Sure. Well,
it's great. OK. Thank you, Betsy. Appreciate that.
Well, yeah, Paul, I have a couple things to share and then we didn't collaborate on our report. So I'll
just I'll say my stuff and if you have anything to add Okay, so yes the Arts project grants I think
I think this was included in the in the midpoint email, but we got a lot of them I I think maybe more
than ever I know I know last year we had like
I think before that we were somewhere in the 60s, but yeah, we have like 78, I think, grants,
which is a lot. And so thanks to everyone here for hopping on board to help us review those. It kind
of makes a more manageable load for everyone. So yeah, this is just a reminder that those reviews are
gonna take place next, I messed up the dates, next Monday and Tuesday.
And so yeah, make sure you're starting to go through those. Make sure that you're doing the first and
second readers that you're assigned to. I think everyone on the committee, so me, Betsy, and Paul,
and Austin, you weren't on the committee previously, but you are now. And when the four of us have grants
that we're viewing on both days,
I think Gretchen, you are just on Monday, and Rob and Austin, you are on Tuesday. So you can check there
for your assignments. A thing I want to emphasize as well, and this is gonna be really hard to do, I'll
qualify it there, but we're gonna need to move pretty quickly through these. In order to accomplish
all this in four hours across two days, we're gonna have to keep each review to about three minutes,
which means first reviewer kind of gives a very succinct kind of report on their scores and the sort of
general project description, second reader adds some context, and then there's maybe a little bit of
time for feedback and discussion there. And yeah, we'll rip through and do our best to stay on time.
So yeah, so all that's to say is make sure that you've sort of like prepared those, not like form, like
just have a sense of what you're gonna say at this meeting.
Those meetings are going to take place here in McCloskey, I believe. Well, I just noticed that we were
kicked out of McCloskey for Monday. So how many people are there? There will be five, six.
Kelly is available. It's small, but we can have it. Or it's also, I'm sending an updated
Thank you all. It's also possible to reserve a room at the mill as long as we advertise it. So if you
want me to look into that, if that feels like it would be more pleasant. Kelly is fine. It does get
a little hot, so. Where is it? It's next door to ESD's suite. It just has one little conference table
in it. Okay. Where do you park there? Same. Here? Yes.
after five? Well, no, I mean, the Kelly Conference Room's in City Hall. No, I mean for the mill.
For the mill, you would park on the street. Or up here. You could park here and walk up there. OK.
Just sorry, not to make it out of complication. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it can get kind of stuffy,
and we'll be moving kind of quickly. I think if there is an option to have a nice room, that'd be good.
I'll see what I can do. But if not, we can make do. Would you be using video?
Yeah, so that was actually a second question I had here is, will we have any tech support? Because I
know these meetings have to be public. To my knowledge, no one is joining on Zoom. Everyone on both
days is coming in person. So I don't know what our obligation is in terms of making it available via
Zoom. But it can certainly be open to the public. And kind of like what Christina was alluding to earlier
is that we're having more stringent
requirements with accessibility in a meeting so we'll on the item of just making sure you guys have
what you need okay and you'll have a staff member there okay and we obviously won't participate okay
and I think it will get denied but I'm asking for permission to purchase food but I'm pretty sure
If you get denied, just know I'm trying. Sure, that's fine. I mean, yeah. That will definitely get denied.
That sounds great. Just some stuff to keep the blood sugar, like popcorn and something like that. Yeah,
something. I mean, Cheez-Its was kind of our tradition, but yeah. Just something simple, yeah, if possible.
OK, yeah, so that'll be Monday and Tuesday. The plan is to kick off right at 530. And hopefully, wrapped
by 730, we have a little bit
on those reservations, I think we have rooms held or soon to be held from five to eight, but. And I
just want to say, what Paige said about this process is that you were super valuable in getting things
organized and working on that, the eligibility guidelines and stuff, so. Oh, yeah, Paul and I.
You and Paul. Yes. Yeah, so. I just wanted to bounce that back your way. Yeah, thanks. Teamwork. Yeah.
And that, well, that,
is a great setup for the next item on the board, is that the artistic advancement grants are on the
horizon. And I think we have some similar work to do in terms of, I think, adjusting the rubric and
some of the things there. I know, I think we were initially set to open those up in end of May. We might
need to push that back a week or two just because of, like,
scheduling conflicts and getting folks on board and things like that. But just just to note that that's
that's just around the corner. So yeah I know I know Paul and I were in a little bit of I think a crunch
to get the project grant sort of like up and running and out the door when we did. I think if possible
it'd be great to get the committee more on board for the artistic advancement grant.
So, yeah, we'll have an update on that timeline and kind of the needs there shortly. Paul,
anything else? Thank you. All right. Well, yeah, I'll simply reiterate, thanks again, everyone, for
answering the call to help us out with these, because, yeah. Can I say something? Those grants, if you
haven't started, they took me hours to read.
Oh, no. I mean, I'm just saying maybe don't wait till like that morning to try to do it. Yeah, yeah.
They're pretty wordy. OK. Yeah. Is there a way we can limit the amount of words in these applications?
Is there just laborious? OK, yeah. And they're repeating themselves a lot. And maybe it should be like
200 words. Yeah. Sure. You can say that too. Any question can be answered in that. And every question
seems like they're repeating themselves.
There are a couple questions where I think we we do have have Suggested word limits on them, but yeah,
it's true. We don't have it. We don't have them for all of them and Yeah, maybe have a character A character
or word count on this. Okay. I also think coming from a grants background myself sometimes and knowing
that I've been on a review board for the NEA NEA reviewers tend to say
just sometimes it's helpful to know that they provide guidelines to be consistent throughout grants.
So they always say to be something that I've known just from being on the back end of like an NEA grant
and then also arts commission grant that they say to be consistent throughout grants. So when I've helped
like people, I've helped people submit grants before, not for these grants, but like,
they say to be consistent throughout. So there'll be people repeating themselves throughout all of the
grants, just FYI. Oh, okay. That's advice that's given to applicants, okay. Yeah, so. Okay, but yeah,
thanks for that, Rachel. Thank you. And thanks for that.
other thing come to mind but it was no it was it was not important and I think okay sure okay so next
we have upcoming events and important dates okay so
I guess we don't have anything from May. Anybody have anything coming up they want to share? This is
not the document. I feel like this feels wrong. It is not the document, right? Yeah. Huh. I feel like
there was other stuff on it. We had trouble finding it, and that's what turned up under that name. But
let me look for it. OK. Let me look again just to see. If you go to the midpoint email, I think it should
link to the direct, yeah, that link.
Or it's also linked in the agenda. That's the one that I clicked. Oh, the agenda. OK. Oh, it is? Because
I was like, I saw first Thursdays for a second, and I panicked. I was like, what? It's like,
surely not. Oh, Deja Vu. Yeah. Didn't we do that? Yeah. It's in the agenda. That last first Thursday
that was. Well, you say it's linked in the agenda. Yeah. Yeah. That last first Thursday that was up
there. That makes sense.
Yes, it was awesome. You guys did such a good job. It was a big success. 620 is the Grand Balloon Waxahachie
Kathleen Edwards concert at Switchyard. So I'll say it for the room, but IU and the City Parks Department
are investing in some pretty awesome concerts this summer to try to make Bloomington really a destination
for our region. And so it's Waxahachie Kathleen Edwards on June 20th, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings
on July 18th. And then I think you should say it.
Yeah, well then the August 29th overlaps with the Secretly 30th Anniversary. At Switchard Park, Duran
Jones is, I know it was the headliner, Duran Jones and the indications are the headliner. I'm blanking
on who the supporting acts are that evening. But yeah, that's part of that whole sort of like Secretly
30th. Oh, it's the Magnolia boys? Yeah. And I can't remember who else. Yeah, but Duran Jones is headlining
at Switchard Park, and that'll kind of like wrap this Grand Full Moon music series.
I'll have to get some dates too. There's some family friendly art summer camps at the Eskenazi Museum
too that I'm helping out with that I could probably give too. I have another thing I can contribute.
The city is sponsoring some different Kirkwood activations and so there's buskets, dusk is being revived.
We can get these added. I'll just state them for the good of the order. Third Wednesday of each month,
downtown shop night, Busket Dusk, 4 to 7 p.m. So that's fun. We can put some of these other events down
there. What is it, Jane?
Activations for downtown and Kirkwood, and then the busket desk where buskers are invited to post up
at different spots so there will be music in the streets. I don't know who's playing. Did you say Family
Night Out already? Family Night Out is the second Wednesday, 5 to 8.30, in partnership with the Monroe
County Public Library, invites families to spend an evening downtown with family-friendly games and
activities, entertainment, and opportunities to visit businesses and restaurants along Kirkwood.
Will they be closing a street down for those days? It says the street will be lined with tables and
chairs for community style dining. Is there still cars running along it? So that language is kind of
ambiguous. I don't know if we're shutting it down or not. Sorry. I would imagine that they probably
have, they'll probably shut down parts of where they have the table. They may just shut the library
block down. Yeah. Yeah. So that's actually going on now.
Today's the first day we can head out. Oh, you mean till 8.30? Mm-hmm. But we can share that information
over email and get that spreadsheet populated. Mm-hmm. I think you should have access now, Christina.
OK. Yeah. Maybe try refreshing. It was shared with me?
Okay, so are you logged into your BAC email? Yeah, I think I saw true and true. Okay. Yeah. Okay, I'll
kill that other one. I don't know what that is. Okay, anything else in terms of events or? If not,
I mean, yes. So you guys have access to the document. So please continue to add things, even if it's
just like in between sessions and you're like, oh, there's this event I want to add and I don't want
to forget, just add it.
when you have a chance. All right. So next, let's move on to commissioner announcements. Any announcements
from commissioners? Okay, great. Perfect timing, George. Okay, so thinking about our project grants
and the timeline, so yeah, we're reviewing next week, and then the week after that at our
I think normally scheduled meeting, which is scheduled for May 27th. That's when we'll present a funding
package and vote on that. And then I don't think they'll, hopefully in the next week or so after that,
funding notifications will go out. Money won't have been moved by then, but at least we'll have a sense
of our budget. We'll have some financial information to report. So yeah, just to give a sense of that time.
I guess I should have said this earlier. I was unable or I wasn't present at the public art subcommittee
meeting last night. I unanimously support the reverse choice. I just wanted to get that out. Okay. If
no other comments, let's move for comments from the public. If there's anyone, there's no one here.
Anybody online? I don't think so, right? Yeah, okay, so no public present today. So we will move on.
So I think actually that's it. If we have nothing else to say, if there's no further business, I move
to adjourn the meeting. Can I get a second? Thanks. All right, all in favor say aye.
Opposed say no. Okay great meeting adjourned.