2 pm um go around and introduce ourselves since we've got visitors here I'm Sarah mcmanis trustee and chair I'm Sue mclone trustee I'm Michael Gary I'm Jenna Larson with the library
friendsy I'm Andy Larson or Andrea Larson at with Library friends here Amanda St John Library director and this is Nancy share hello hello all right we'll start with the approval of the consent agenda which includes the agenda minutes thank you
Ryan and the payment of bills make that motion I'll second a motion in a second any discussion all those in favor I I any opposed motion passes unanimously and that brings us to our
friends report thank you so much for being here great thanks for having us yeah we're um very happy to be here and I think uh probably Stacy mentioned that the suggestion was that we come monthly
and we thought maybe we could come quarterly so Stacy will be probably the person that comes in three months but if there are reasons for us come sooner than that we just hope you'll let us
know true yes so I'm uh Joanna and I am new pretty new to the library friends I think I started September 2024 so that's that's pretty
new so I'm still kind of figuring out um how everything works but um I have taken over the treasurer role that Dan Smith was operating in and so um yes I've just
been excited to get to know more about the library friends and how we can help the library and um I also volunteer in the book room over at odds and ends usually just a few hours a
week and yes well maybe okay turn it over to you um again I'm Andy Larson and I have been with the library friends for about three to four years those years slip around a bit
because and especially with pmic and things you know time frames seem to alter a lot um I think we have nine people on our board we're so lucky that we have some new people Joanna has joined our board and so has Kelsey
Rogers Kennedy Kennedy Rogers so those um are the two new people we we had some uh adjustments because Jan who was the chair had some um medical complications with family and whatever so she's taking
a leave of absence until June and then uh and Stacy's been replacing her but we're not sure exactly how that's going to go this summer but Joanna stepped up Stacy stepped up I am the secretary at this point but we're sort of straddling
to make sure we can kind of keep things afloat and uh we meet monthly um we um we try to have as many we have rep we try to keep the the board enlarged enough geographically so that we have
someone that's reflecting the school and Grand forage or and and also Bridge grow so along um the shore here um and I also work at odds and ends um I live
primarily in grar about 90% of the time but I go back and forth um and we had a number of volunteers when we made this huge shift to collaborate with odds and
ends selling books and that the some of the some of those folks have either left for the winter or they have decided that they're going to do other kinds of volunteer Pursuits so Joanna and I and
Carl and Jack Miller and um sometimes volunteers for odds and ends help us with the books we've made some big changes this past few months because of um of sort of being allocated a better
room to sort books and so we've made a big move with our books closer to the major room that we sell books at odds and ends um and that has been a wonderful perk because we're getting
much more efficient about how we take in books and donations how we pack things up how we send things off to Savers we were able to do that this year into Harvard at Goodwill but they no longer can take all these
books so we depend on volunteers and volunteers can earn up to two hours and they take them down to to um to delu um the room is always changing we've been getting lots of great compliments
because we're getting cleaner and neater and uh in the sense that we're disposing of books that just can't be easily sold and the improvements to the building itself with means that it's a much
lighter brighter area and it's very cozy because it's it's collaborative kind of like this library in the sense that we now have furniture so people can come in and sit realse look at a book um and we have
um we're really encouraged for that because that's a wonderful um it's it's the same very pretty much the same format as first and second with regards to how volunteers can designate their volunteer hours in terms of making
contributions to the to library friends and then to you so we're eager to learn what kinds of things you would like um and you think are priorities for how we offer
our contributions to not only grar a library to virtu into GR Portage and then GS and 60 cents thank you so much and um Andy if I can add um I the same list of priorities
that I use with the board to show you what I was thinking we could be working on for example air source heat pumps um that information has been shared with the friends too so they can have a look at what we're doing where we're trying to head um and that they can see where their dollars have supported these
projects and um if I can segue just a little bit Andy in this year we're going to be working with tan tap rot Landscaping Alissa Burns and if I could just if I could just take a moment to acknowledge that Andy has been working as the volunteer for our gardening in
front of this library for years and we so grateful to had your passion out there in the front it's a great labor of love and if I could segue just make a little segue I do go out to odds and ends quite often and take a look at the
books and the book room is really wonderful and then I I have a little suggestion for you to put in the back of your head if ever Savers gets to the point where they won't take your books anymore I don't know if there's a Half
Price Books in uh Delo but Half Price Books in the Twin Cities will take almost anything and I know this from experience because we did personal downsizing before we moved up here and they will take just
about anything and what they do is those the books get ground up so that they are recycled and used to make new paper which is an honorable end for books yes so that is just a thought because I can imagine that Savers at some point will be like Good Will and
say we're done thank you we can gladly pass that yeah yeah it's it's no small feat to transport books you know we take what we can sell what we can and then you
know it's getting to be kind of a large percentage of you know older books than things that just don't move in the book room that we then transport to savor so yeah and as older people appear downsized and perhaps go back to live
with families elsewhere I think you may see more of that we we try to educate the donors to because it's very generous that they bring the books but um I or other Library volunteers are glad to hop out
and the people that are working there to accept donations are thrilled that we're there because not only does it keep a connection going but now I have my um my Spiel down that is you know we we we're not discriminatory about the books but
in terms of what we can sell so we will take the books we can sell but that means we can't take moldy books or books that are reference books or um can't think of anything else at the moment but
yeah just National Geographics because then we just we're just over it's overwhelming and we don't have the space for the storage nor do we want that space we want to get books
out to read and then I would just say lastly that our goal has been through working with odds and ends to meet kind of that 10% of sales through the book room and it regularly is each month the books
generate 10% of their total sale so it's it's really a win-win it seems for us and for them to have that book room so it's been a very positive you know collaboration yeah I think that the Big
Goal um that is advertised a lot and we try to encourage people that come to the store to understand it is that we're really trying to save things from the land so the more we can recycle the better thank you so much for coming and you're
welcome to stay we're happy to have you for the rest of the meeting um can see how our board operates be great thank you like that thank you it's so nice to see you both again all right that brings us to
Amanda's report okay um the first thing I want to talk about is the Minnesota public library annual report which we internally would call the mlar this is a report that's required of us by law and it happens
every February and has to be submitted by basically the end of March and that process is uh that I go into an electronic database and I answer a whole lot of questions about the output of our Li how many people have visited how many
books have circulated how large is our children's collection and so on um the my part of the work is all finished and we're getting our so Kim vanbeck from
the city who is our financial adviser she does um she has given us the December expense report but she has a little bit of reconciling that happens after January and so as soon as she's got those final numbers she does a final check and a little bit of revision and then
that report comes to the board for the next meeting and you all get to uh vote to approve and adopt this work the library board president president will sign off on this um work that we've
created and it will be delivered electronically on schedule so um we're right where we need to be with getting the work done and and you'll you'll get the report at the next meeting the air source heat pumps are
now installed you can see some behind you they look good they do I'm very excited about them um I set the propane based heat sources down and set these uh to 68 and we can come in
with temperatures in in the 70s so we're doing really good and it's going to take a little getting used to what the settings in the building can be for the most efficient use then to optimize the electric the electric heat Source um and then with the weather fluctuations we've had this year that's
been a that's been an extra bit of fun um the the fan unit you'll see one right outside of this window and also one outside of our emergency exit and window over here they are creating like
ice dams that leak out I don't think this one's going to be a problem but we are talking about putting an emergency exit in over here and so that's been on my mind um in terms of the decisions that we would be making about the location of that door um you can't really make it
not make water and and ice but we can attend it with sand and salt and um potentially with some kind of something around the bottom that it'll just take take a while getting used to
um this unit here and the one in the back of the building that is existing they are underneath the roof line I had talked with Donald Holm construction no I'm sorry about twin ports custom Climate about mounting this and they couldn't do it because our rock is
facade it couldn't hold it it couldn't hold it so it is um it is going to need some a roof of some kind the old units that were out there they were dented in and so you could see that there is that impact from the snow coming off the
building these units have technology all the way up to the top so need to do something Donald Holm is looking at some solutions for us and then um I need to look around locally to see if there are
some little roofs that can be made and and then come back with some proposals we had to do some electrical work we were checking to make sure that all the outlets in this room that get a lot of use are creating a secure connection I
have reallocated some of our staff room work room space so uh I have put staff in different places in that room and so we needed to do a little electrical work um to avoid the safety hazard of plugging one thing into another into
another um was something oh and there were some exposed wires outside with this air source heat pump that I took care of as well uh Ryan and I committed Grand Murray Public Library to participate in a region-wide community R that's called
the Nea big read um who harbors and Silver Bay are taking the lead on managing that Grant but it is a massive situation with academic libraries and um I think a jail Library prison
jail uh Library involved and so we're waiting to see this April if our grant was approved and if so then it would be centered on the book I cheerfully refused by Le anger good
book have any questions for me thank you yeah all right under Communications we've got the receipt for the air source heat pump work the fund statement and a very interesting article
about libraries as a public resource thank you for sharing that Nancy you're welcome um under old business the director's review so last month we looked at a couple review tools we
decided on a evaluation of the library performance as opposed to a specific HR performance review of the director Nancy had put together a really nice list of goals and priorities to evaluate the director on or the library on and then Amanda put it
in um a format that would work well for the city We Believe As far as sharing information with them um so hopefully everyone's had a chance to look at that do we have any questions discussion thoughts well no I just an observation
um on let's see it's page seven actually it's the one two the third page under successes I think Amanda added number two significant accomplishments this year and I think that was a very good
addition and I did want to make that and I also really want to thank Sarah for bringing up the the whole thing because I think this will a wonderful tool first of all and secondly we did manage to I think
clarify uh what kind of board we are in the process of doing this so I think that that was that we are an Advisory Board rather than an administrative board and I think that was important too so would we like to adopt this tool and
use it this fall and do an evaluation of ourselves yeah yeah yes I think so right I'll second it have a motion and a second any further discussion are we moving to adopt the the version
that's in the city's format this one yes yeah yes thank you good clarification thank you all right all those in favor any opposed motion passes unanimously
thank you everyone for your work on that only took us years to get done use it what are we doing at this point I feel like the best thing is to use it and then adjust it it's good
yeah it'll make a whole L sense yes all right under new business Manda do you want to go over computer quotes for us absolutely so just winding back so we have the whole picture here the uh computers that we
have in the library are five and six years old which is the typical um replacement time period additionally we had trouble with the computers updating to Windows 11 we were able as a strategy to uh do an update on the public
computers that would allow them to stay in service for longer the staff computers were replaced first they're older they can't have that update and we should probably move forward to make sure the computer stay functional anyway we have three quotes for
replacing the library staff computers one is from cdwg which is an online technology retailer for businesses with discounts applied for educational and government organizations like our library and I also pulled from
amazon.com a quote for a machine similar to something that we have now I have a strong preference for the suu technology uh Jeremy has been working with us for the implementation and the execution of the whole computer
replacement strategy these are machines that he is familiar with and comfortable updating the machine that we've selected is um it's not an all-in-one computer has a separate hard drive and because of
that can replace parts and upgrade and update and do things like this that we won't we wouldn't be able to do with the public ones which are allinone um but make a much nicer cleaner presentation when you're sitting down to just get online at the library
if that makes sense yeah so um long story short would you move to adopt to choose one of these clol I questions for me I would like to move that we uh adopt
sundu technology I personally have worked with Jeremy uh he is a he he's wonderful he knows a lot he is uh his service is great and he's local it's nice to keep things local yeah sure I
would second that he he did provide the lowest bid which appreciate although it's amazing the bids are fairly yeah yeah but it isn't really a going with the lowest bid I think it's
going with the the best service yep right we have a motion and a seconds there any further discussion all those in favor I any opposed motion passes unanimously thanks for getting these together forend up
sure and then we have the emergency exit Cotes us we so as I mentioned in my memo we received two recent decoin and one proposal the you can just do the thing one proposal from um Donald H
construction this group did the roof on the city hall building and was generous in stopping by to discuss the project with us um The Proposal would give us an emergency exit door in
the center of this space over here it completes the wall and the wall painting it it does the um concrete pad outside and also the lighting that are requirements for operating an emergency
exit and it also addresses some concern I have about the proximity of the um portical roof directing snow right to the face of the door the so it's considered a turn key project a couple of thoughts about this
quote one um there's a typo that I have an email correcting that it says it it provides for necessary Tools in labor but it should say materials so those are included in the quote it's right at the
top um does it it it should say labor I mean it should say materials it should say materials and not tools oh okay I think it would be perhaps a good thing to have them send you a plain copy with that so you have it on I would definitely do that before
accepting um before signing a contract with them so as I looked at this um my question first of all was who else have they worked for but you say they worked on City Hall okay then I would say that's a
good recommendation and then I looked at the bottom it says we do do not include disposal of any known or unknown hazardous materials or abatement which is the removal of hazardous material and
I'm just do we know would this be needed if it's needed who does it those are great questions and I can ask them for us yeah I would think given that this is the newer part of the building that it's
not going to have aestus or blood paint or something like that that they would need to deal that's I think that's a good assumption but worth ask yes the church has had to have a bait here in our furnace in the last two years so I
can scare that up too if you needed oh that would be great Kevin thank you David Mills would like to ask I should say who would like to contribute he felt that this bid was high and he would be interested in
pursuing um a couple more quotes he has one company in mind I'm sorry I didn't catch the first part of that who was it that thought the bid was High Commissioner David Mills oh okay well he's in construction so I
do keep getting another bid would be ni yeah something we're just we have no context for this at all that's right the part of it that I do like um and I think we should pursue
another bid but what I do like is that it's a turn key um and depending on the cost yeah because I you're right no context it might be worth paying a little more for
turn key as opposed to having to get multiple contractors do different part exactly right but again we need more context did Dave indicate that he might um know contact he did there there's
something called gardeners yeah I don't know who they are are they local Mike yeah I mean they work here they're not located here they do work at this area okay and there's also a company in duth called Johnson Wilson that's going to have some construction projects going
on up here in the summertime I can reach out to them again and see what's the possibility of getting them up here for the quot so this is a step but we have a couple more to look at then and see it
makes sense to me okay so if you could get us more more data quotes some more context on what this would look like that would be great okay all right is a motion
needed to get more quotes I don't think so we just don't move on it and that's more information right anything else we are adjourned we will meet again March
27 thanks everybody thank you so much and will not