uh my wife has been in a play herself lately and so I've had and the kids are out so I've had lots of time to just watch TV that I want to watch okay so it's 6:30 welcome to the April 2nd 2025
North St paul Arts and Culture Commission meeting uh call to order and we'll take the role jordan you want to take role for us yes I can um so Tom Sonic here carrie Neto here amanda Black here sharon Clark Williams here laura
String here raquel Sodto here eliza Verma here urosco Garcia here troy Woods here full house and our staff liaison Jordan Layman welcome everybody glad everyone can be here today um so we're
going to start by adopting the agenda um if anyone has any comments or anything you want to add edit change please let me know otherwise we'll look for a motion to adopt the agenda as is so moved moved by Carrie seconded second
by Amanda okay all in favor say I i i opposed agenda is adopted approval of minutes everybody get a chance to take a look at the minutes i know it looked like there was a lot of activity last month some good uh discussion happening um anything anybody want to uh
edit change add in the minutes if not I'll look for a motion to approve the minutes as is i make a motion motion by Raquel second second by Sharon all in favor say I i i opposed okay minutes adopted meeting
open to the public she doesn't look very interested public hearings we don't have any commission business action items okay so uh let's start with we have item A here community craft project ideas discussion uh Jordan do you want to set
us up for that one um I honestly don't know a whole lot about this community craft project other than what's down there in city hall is last time we did like the little painting yeah and Amanda I think you know about this one do you Last year's community craft project was
the painting the small canvases that we then assembled into the larger one uh I have some options here that I'll pass out in a second um this year I did want to focus more on a take-home project for people rather than something we'll hang publicly um focused on more a teen or
adult crafts because we will have the art cart for children okay um trying to find something that doesn't take too long and also doesn't need a ton of instruction so here's some options great and this to
to be clear this is for the community craft to be done at the Autumn Arts Festival yes uh take one pass it down i might not have enough 99 bottles would be I'm going to pass it to them sure
uh so the first one you'll see here is leather cord bracelets we could do uh leather cords with some beads these are probably the simplest project in this list um so we they honestly very simple
tie some knots and put some beads on the cord next page uh felt coasters sorry the the costs the 45 what 45 all of the costs listed are like the total cost for all of the supplies oh jeez yeah that's it
that's it yeah how how many bracelets would that be uh so if you look down here the leather cord listed it's a 2 meter pack and I think I was approximating three of those so 6
mters and various lengths for people i don't know i didn't do that math hey I love it yeah it's great and I assumed 1,200 beads would be enough uh next page we have the felt coasters
this one would be weaving strips of felt together to create the coaster we do need some glue basically um maybe hands-on instruction needed to explain the weaving um what was I going to say about this one we might want to consider whether we
want people to cut the felt themselves or if we want pre-cut strips and they can just grab those next is the mosaic tile this one would be the most expensive and most instruction needed i kind of left it open to see if we choose this we can go
into further discussion um whether it's glass tiles or in the bottom there the picture you'll see is colorful beans i know we did the mosaic like things last year at the art cart and that was not as successful because of
the time consuming so that's what I was thinking about if we can find a no grout solution or something for this um so that could be explored finally we have yarn bowls wrapping yarn around a cotton cord
and create the bowl shape this one fairly self uh explanatory just maybe need instruction for people on how to create that bowl shape as they're going i love it i think we should buy all of these and just pick one i was going to say you know what I mean though like we could have it for the art cart for
future you know the felt coasters i feel like you could get some um you could do some needle felting on cardboard just to help you know if you didn't want to go the glue route that would be something that should have supervision if kids are going to do it but that's something that I've done before the mosaic my son did
one with the beans at Brunup Farm for one of the camps he did and they just put the beans on and didn't even grow it and it looks great it's still holding up 10 years later so I think these are all amazing ideas amanda thank you so much for coming up with these
i really like the idea of doing like either like the leather cord or doing like I am partial to like the bean tile mosaic just cuz I feel like it's easier it's you know I worry if there's glass involved depending on ages so I'm like
yeah but these are all really good ideas um when you said it's going to be the art project for the teen to adults do you anticipate it saying like at the door this is the art project for teens to adults we have the art cart for
children to run wild not necessarily um I just wanted to find projects that were more geared towards an older audience some of these kids could still definitely do and I don't think we need to put an age limit on it okay yeah I think if it's encompassing of all
ages maybe not the glass but definitely the beans well and I did see some uh glass tiles that if we didn't get a tile cutter right and you just have tiny glass tiles that probably wouldn't create as much of a hazard
but yeah still a lot of stuff to consider with that well the bigger thing when I look at some of these projects I think about okay so most likely it's mom has brought the kids to this event how long does she really want to
sit there and watch this get completed cuz I know how I would have felt on a Saturday afternoon um having to go to work again on Monday got laundry got other things and so I want this to be a relief for people i
want them to come and not feel like it's a second burden and so I like this mosaic tile but I kind of think that that's something that it's almost like an art night project yeah where people can relax and have time and then you
don't um have people mixing up the colors or the beans or whatever right right and so I like the leather cord bracelets because um it it's a fairly rapid but probably not as rapid as they think it's going to be project
but I really I really like that and I like the price point because it it doesn't tie up a lot of funds i'm not sure I understand fully what goes into making a felt coaster by weaving strips together i have made woven uh I mean
everybody's made the woven placemats whatever and it's gone fairly fast i I see that as like a really positive cute possibly rapid project because you want people to get a positive feedback really quick from it and I mean that's what happened with like the little squares
when people were painting it they were happy i mean it was instantaneous i dipped the brush i put it on the board and woo I've got something so and I don't know what go is involved in wrapping yarn to make a bowl those look really cool though i'd like one please if you're making one but um that's kind
of what I thought i I don't know what the time constraint that's not a project I've ever tried it'd be longer for sure than like the leather cord bracelets or the um felt coaster um yeah so that's just all I have to add
about him though but thank you those are such cool ideas great that was amazing well does anyone feel of these options are there any where we say "Yeah that one for sure." I
think the bracelet for sure yeah that just I'm not drawn to that people honestly I thought the leather cord bracelets were not going to be as popular oh no i think people really want those gentlemen like are wearing leather yes yes that and that was one thing I thought of too is that it could be
anybody what do you think you um me personally I feel like the leather cord bracelets would catch my eye obviously the tiles catch my eye too but a quicker one and something where it's inclusive to all ages and everybody would be the
bracelets because it's not like oh only a guy can wear this oh only a girl can wear this oh only teens can wear this everybody can wear it and I feel like me I would like to make one of these great all right it'd be easy too bracelets are in
uh I will send some information to you and Ava about where supplies I found and then maybe um yeah a couple different options for that so what about anything else on these so we got the yarn balls we have the tiles
two different kind kinds of tiles and the felt coasters because I think we're thinking more than one thing right do we feel right some options could I throw an idea in that had um she was there's something like called you have like these wooden fish and everyone decorates
their own however they like and you make like a school of fish like on a fence or something like that um if you like look up you can like kind of look up Yeah like fence wooden fish or school of fish community craft project and you get some really cool images and that's something Ava was thinking about and just wanted
to throw it out there a potential option i have not thought about this as much as Amanda has obviously so I do not know what like price points would be or anything okay yeah and I was trying to look um I forget how much Ava has set aside in the budget for this project it's certainly more than the $45 I had
allocated for the bracelets well and we could potentially take from art cart or something if you need it if there's money I know Ava still has plenty in the budget I believe okay oh I thought you meant supplies like beads and stuff from the art cart oh
just draw draw from that budget you know I think we you know we've always got probably more than we need in the art cart and I think that art cart is jammed full of stuff right so
oh for the last one that's what I was thinking uh the bowls I didn't look too deeply into cost because it depends on so many things as far as the yarn definitely um and assumed if people are like me and have
stuff hanging around from projects they didn't need as much yarn as they thought they needed then we could take donations as well yeah for sure and I wondered like what's your guess do you think Amanda on the time to complete some of these like the yarn bowl versus the felt coasters or
something honestly the felt coasters would take five minutes if you're being meticulous oh really yeah and that's if we cut strips ahead of time okay if you've ever like woven paper Yeah it's that but with felt and you just have to
glue down the ends um so that's fairly quick the yarn bowl i guess I've never done it i know um the thought process behind making it
those are pretty simple yeah it's simple it's just about like um like big long piece of foam and you start spiraling it together yeah it's a cotton cord that I was looking at and you wrap the yarn around the cotton cord and as you work
your way around in this picture you'll kind of see where the yarn dips down into the row below it the colors that's tying those together and that's how it creates the bowl shape so probably a little longer for that one yeah yeah uh I I do like the coasters cuz I can
see making one like to put on my desk like for work you know what I mean this is what I did this weekend i I think people would do that and if it's like five minutes I I think that's definitely something like I said I'm looking to the parents and what of
children and what is it that they can actually do and get done and look at what look after their children simultaneously and the first two definitely seem to fall into that category and as you had said uh the first one
that appeals to everyone so that would bring in our teen crowd as something to do and we don't have to decide obviously the second but that that's just well part yeah part of the sort of do um a AA
is working on plans and so she wants to start getting the supplies purchased and I'm I'm intrigued by this um school of fish idea but I wonder if we I'm sorry I'm leaning into the snowman um but you know if we if we had a bunch of little
tiny ones and we put them all on that fence next to where the big guy lives I mean that could be cute that could be a nice community art project but you know maybe back pocket it's intriguing i like it good
job Ava as usual or even like I like the idea too because I think of fences um that are around ball fields or something like that yeah you could do something like that mhm i sometimes people I know they like just
take like pieces of fabric and they'll write out words or something on a fence yeah or those um solo cups you see them there's one on Mcnite where they've like be nice in solo cups in a fence yeah okay so that's an idea yeah um so is there
anything else that Do we want to say yes on felt coasters now to help Ava get that going or do we want to wait to make decisions on anything else here i really love all the options so whatever we don't pick could we consider for like
art carting and seconded or art night right yeah i because that's what I see the mosaic tile is more of an art night where you've got you're relaxed and you've got time to create something
fabulous but I I love that idea so then would we wanted So I like that because I agree with you Sharon that the the cord bracelets and the felt coasters those kind of shorter things nice for people that don't really want to commit much time or can't um but would would we want
to have the yarn bowl then for people that can and do want to commit more time is it too much i think maybe fewer options like that sounds like super contradictory but like you know like it kind of takes away choice fatigue and
also it allows us to maybe have more folks to supervise if needed so it's not like they're being spread too thin but Okay and I think if we're concerned about um time and you know parents this being a relaxable
setting maybe yarn bowl might not be the best option that is a little time consuming yeah that's and that's what I was saying is maybe if you wanted something that's more timeconuming if you don't have kids with you or something like that you wanted to but you could make a whole set of coasters
yeah so do do we want to say leather cord bracelets and felt coasters i think those projects go together nicely because Okay so action item to take away is to give that to Ava to buy the supplies for
those two things then yeah and then save these other ideas for future possibilities yes everybody feel good about that okay amanda yeah yeah good job Amanda appreciate all the visual aids too yeah it really helps
okay so what we have next is subcommittee updates so let's go to our plan here um so public art project so we had
Raquel Laura and Carrie on that uh any any new thoughts or ideas about that one yes oh great and I think actually Troy has an update oh oh the stamp uh yeah so I talked So one of the ideas
that was brought up last week was uh about with all the road construction which you talked about earlier going on and having to redo sidewalks and things like that for that the thought was could we do a stamp that gets or create a
stamp that gets stamped into concrete yeah uh in the concrete concrete sidewalk so he can say "Hey yeah you're in North St paul because there's a snowman or you know something in the sidewalk." Um and I talked to the city manager about it and he said "Yes that is an option he's on board with it." So
he was going to start looking into it oh I love it yeah i know we've talked about that before of whether it was permanent or not permanent but I love those that you see those around i know in St paul they got a lot of that yep um yeah it's a great idea yeah and last week we tal I
mean the thought was you know I guess kind of the conundrum was do we do like a phrase or something like that and it's you know how many times can you see a certain phrase before you it just you don't but you know with us being North St paul and kind of leaning into the snowman with everything I think the
snowman makes most sense yeah i don't know how those things work you know like if you were to because I've seen like poetry that they do so I don't know if it's like a printing press kind of thing where you can move letters around and so you can come up with different phrases and put different things in different
places but I'm guessing there's probably different types yeah so but yeah even even just to have a snowman would be cool i think so so um Troy we had met as the subcommittee on that and um I was looking into the 3D
printer option for a Snowy to stamp do you think that that would work if we like washed it after each use and everything or do you think it needs to be metal um oh I don't know i guess that's a good question i probably a better question for um I will talk to
our consultants from the name of the company escapes me but the company that helps you know that helps manage the the roads and things like that um and see what their thought is because I would say that when they when they stamp concrete you know like
when you the stamps that they use to put a pattern in concrete those are usually made of rubber or silicone or something like that so I don't know if that that's what it would be but they're easier to clean they don't Right right
well that's great yeah um we had we talked about some other ideas actually one of our ideas was started with Hueed and his letter to join this commission um the idea of having a Snowy that people could take home and decorate according to their own culture so we've
um been kicking around the idea of bring snowy home um and we've been exploring different materials um whether it's wood concrete 3D printed um what we could create that people could have like a
little snowy that stands next to their front door that they could decorate according to whatever it is that they want to decorate it cuz Yeah and do you know do you know does anybody know who is makes those cuz I know some people there you can buy those and people have them out in their front yards right now
they're like I don't know two or three feet that's who does it okay yeah metal one um so it would be would it be like in that vein like it would be something like that but then people could kind of decorate it their own way yep yep and so we're trying to find what material would work best the ones from Graphic Traffic
are $45 so we're looking at not that option because we want to make a lot of them but um that's what What else do we want to add to that so I reached out to well Carrie told me about the some local
woman a team were making um like door sign skellies for some movement i forget what the story was skele [Laughter] um so anyway I reached out to the lady that makes them her small business is
called Cali Soda Girl Creations um and she told me that she can make a max size of 18 by 23 um without distorting the snowman she's got like a
laser a laser bed and so same thing it would be made out of birch and she said she could add a steak um they're about like a quarter inch thick um but that idea was you know we could
have her laser print a bunch of you know snowmen's on stake and people can take it home they can paint it dress it up or do what they want with it um pricing she said TBD um she brought up maybe doing
them out of acrylic um so depending if we wanted acrylic or wood um that would kind of determine pricing and I told her that one of us was working on getting a quantity um so I'm not sure if we
reached out to Ava i did yeah she didn't know how many um we were trying to um repeat the number of air purifiers that they had that they were giving away at the last arts festival we were like well how many did they have for that that's a good number so I don't know but she didn't know how many so whatever we can
come up with I think but and then we were kind of kicking around do we want to do like an event where we have people come and pick it up and decorate it there or do we want that i think that would be a great like community thing so that you have a thing where there's an event and then people take and then it's
like okay now take it home and and put it up in your yard and then people start to see them all around town i think that's a great idea so yeah we basically depending on qu quantity then should give pricing she
did say that she does require 50% non-refundable deposit um upon you know going with her and then um I forgot what I was going to add but again next week so and then how would
the funding for this work so would would we have a item for this we have $5,000 request which I believe was approved yep this is the $5,000 project we were thinking between the stamp and
this we could we would be okay we were thinking potentially having them by June 13th which is the big truck night okay and then we could give them out there um they're free or people purchasing this noise or is it that was
the other dilemma price point so if they're too expensive then we'd ask for a small fee so it's like they're contributing to the cost but um yeah like to be able to give them away as part of the project so especially if it's an event right
i would suggest not to go with the acrylic because it's more difficult to decorate and then keep it like the paint will come off yeah keep it lasting through the weather mhm okay yeah that's a good call
we also thought it would be fun to do um a kind of like build your own snowman out of household items um and display it in your yard and then maybe we could have like the community voting like we do for Christmas lights for the best town snowy just to get people driving
around or walking when the weather's nice and seeing all the snowies so could be like old tires or whatever you've got that's roundish to create a snowy i forgot about that yeah can I just stack my children in the front yard
well done what about should should we try and co-opt the skelly gate and I mean people decorate skeletons it's already happening it's a thing we could just engage cultural phenomenon for St paul yeah i think that's a good like
Halloween project but okay SK do you know about it okay so a woman had a 12-oot skeleton in her yard maybe maybe two do you know of a chick and ones of a human skeleton and
they're very large and someone wrote one of those like scribble letters that people can't tell your handwriting like you are satanic and everyone hates you and you're going to die a sad lonely death not exactly but I'm paraphrasing and so
actually said "Have a nice day." But so then she shared it on social media and everyone's like "That's ridiculous north St paul is not about hate speech or evil letters that you get in your mailbox that no one has the balls to sign we're all going to put up our skeletons again
in solidarity." And so people are putting up their skeletons cali Soda Girl Creations has made um uh door hangers and things you can put next to your front door that are Kenny the big snowman with a skeleton inside of him so it's kind of an embracing of the snowman
and skeletons and being an individual so now you know thank you i was out of the loop this has become a thing now people are videos i saw somebody driving down the street with a motorcycle with a skeleton on the back hanging off of it so oh and there's a woman Rachel
Thompson who is amazing um who lives in North St paul every winter she does do you ever do her um the presents for the families in need oh no i know about that so she she did a whole thing where um people could Venmo her and she raised $2,000 for the North St paul food shelf
as part of this Skellyygate so it was on the news and it was on the news good job Ava so I wonder even like with the public art so if we even if we just do the snowies and people paint them their own
way I I like the idea of having some kind of like event around that so whether it's you know so we say so an event to kick it off you know so that people pick them up and they don't have to paint them there but there's at least an opportunity and we have supplies
available but then what about a timeliness or something with the displaying of it like I don't know you probably wouldn't have that many of them but would it would it be like "Hey and make sure you have it out [Music] during every Friday during the car show
or you know I don't know something like that that there's that there's kind of a timeliness to it rather than just it becomes like a competition thing like with the lights." Yeah maybe we put that message out there like "Hey we're going to hold this contest have it done by
this date and that's when we'll vote on who's got the best like snowy all summer or something like that." And so it's like and so on snowy summer yeah and then so like on the 4th of July you pick the winner or I don't know something so that there's kind of like a because that
you know having a time uh a time bound thing to it not that people couldn't keep them in their yard all the time if they wanted to but that you could say you know definitely around this time because this is when we're trying to drum up the interest and and and have it out in your yard and send us
your address and we'll come and look and I like the idea of there being a time if we're judging things if we're not judging I would say to just they you do you do what they're snowy what they want maybe they just want to display it inside their home so Right it wouldn't be Right
right but I understand the whole idea is to create a sense of urgency around it so people will actually complete the snowman and then by making a choice it brings um it it brings it into a community event so we're not just doing
something as a commission to say "Okay well we need to pick up something so let's hand out snowies." We're creating community around an idea and so I think that's part of our mission right i did have another um source that
I looked at we also talked about trying to replicate the polar bears that White Bear has m um and so I found the creator of those and it was SVJ Creative Designs
they're in Kellogg Minnesota um and it seems like they can do it out of various med mediums so um maybe concrete or iron i reached out to them um haven't heard anything yet but that's another thing we
talked about um so have any thoughts on that size i don't know how big if it was like a hollow concrete or something or is that just like a terrible idea the the polar bears are not hollow from what they are heavy yeah this is a separate
from the last event so now the separate idea is that we're to distinguish our community people have an option of purchasing a snowman to put out in their yard year round like the people have the bear in their yard year round
okay but I think still along the same lines of being able to decorate it and do whatever you want with it yeah okay but this is they would obviously purchase it yeah they would probably because it sounds expensive and um but I think that's really cool i always wanted
that i would want one like have like a little snowman out in the yard you know yard school and yeah I don't know how big we would you know if that was something we pursued like I mean what would be a good size you know how big is too big 12 to 15 inches you
don't want it so tall that it's going to tip and a snowman's already tall and slenderish yeah i think the other question we had too maybe this is a good time to bring it up is um June 13th we were doing the cards right Jordan
is June 13th the big truck big truck night yeah so we didn't I don't know if we do this as well does that take away from the cards or is that just extra fun i think there's a lot going on June 13th and maybe don't add on to it okay so we could maybe do like
a different car night where we just set up a Yeah a space a different night yeah i mean just so we get a lot of the community there or be a separate event that we put on and try to draw but we talked about national night out oh yeah
um making our own like snowy night out and having like a little community get together to distribute it and or decorate if that's what we wanted to do yeah could we have a table in the fire station for their national night out
yeah can we Jordan i can ask yay thanks that'd be great cuz they give away things too and then it's not like too much going on i don't think cuz the truck night would be I think it's pretty hectic on Yeah
and you had came to our committee meeting too thanks for coming yep uh I have a question about the snowy uh the take your take your snowy home mhm uh what did you guys make the big snowies out of
oh they are fiberglass I believe some kind of resin yeah it's a Those are hollow inside do you guys think you guys can make like a smaller version of those we did not make them ourselves the company that made them so it's a
mold so they'd have to create a whole new mold there's a huge process involved with that I would say and it's probably more expensive than we're looking to spend okay i like where your head is though it's a really good idea it is yeah um anything else on public art project a
lot of great progress i love it oh that's really cool laura Raquel Gary good all right murals uh Sharon or Carrie do you want to talk about this one or I can
kick it off i we have made tremendous progress I feel on the mural issue we've reached out to the historical society and let them know that we're you know we are ready to move forward and these are the
parameters yay they responded and they have um let us know what type of mural they want they want to go ahead with it which makes me very very happy so now that big wall next to the cannon park can have a mural on it
which I think people will enjoy and so they have given us their ideas of how they would like to see their mural expressed not too garish something that's historically related
and I mean it all makes sense so we are at a point now where we're going to start moving forward with a call for artists and so that's our next step is coming up with an outline for our call for artists so I am very very excited
about that and thanks for all the work you guys have done it's great and so I think maybe a question here um whether it's just for our subgroup or the greater commission so we have
$12,000 budgeted for murals um the intention here I don't know if this was talked about last month um but with the historical society because of its mission and purpose um that we would be willing to fund the full cost of the
mural for the historical society so that is not a blanket statement for any kind of nonprofit organization that we would do that um but because our our approach for the mural projects is that if there
were a a private business or maybe another nonprofit that we would be willing to participate financially up to 50% of the cost of the mural but that the business owner would also have to pay some of that cost as well with the historical society being so unique in in
its purpose we felt like uh we could fund the full cost of the mural for the historical society and also they are not able to participate financially in the cost themselves so that's another factor um does anyone have any concerns
or objections about that approach no objections um I think you know we're writing this into kind of more standard policy and procedure for for murals as we move forward so that when we do reach out to other people we can give them
kind of you know it's it's not it's not really that complex we've gone around on this a couple times um but just to kind of clarify for people how this is involved but I think what we will have to do and what I' I mean what I'd really like to do in our call for artists is
say this is the budget you know you will receive this much money and you have to do you have to take care of all of it right and so that is that's what we did with the Silver Lake with Silver Lake was different in
as far as taking care of the whole thing because remember public works was involved etc and but then when we did the garage what did we call that the dumpster garage or something um the garage downtown we put that one out there and
said this is inclusive of everything you know so we didn't want to get public works involved and having to you know prep the building and all that kind of stuff um how do we feel i I really wouldn't want to have the public works you know to try and approach them for the historical society building either
do do you think that's okay um because then I think you know we bump up the the uh budget a little bit more you know the you know I the bathroom building budget for that mural was I
think ridiculously cheap i mean we got away we got a great piece of art for very little money on that one um the dumpster building uh we we paid a little bit more for that one but public works had did not have to be involved the art artist took care of everything um and so
the historical society I think one of the things we'd want to do is have that artist you know talk with the historical society go there see what their thoughts are you know kind of do a little homework on that um and then take care of the the building prep to paint and
everything else so um with the $12,000 budget how do we feel about what kind of fund we would want to put forward on that one so I'm thinking probably at least in the neighborhood of $6,000 again I think that was what we
put down for the garage building was 6,000 sounds great um square footage wise um and I'm happy to help you know we can I can go out there with a tape measure myself too and and make sure we have the square footage
correct because the total square footage that the artist did for the bathroom building I would have to think it's pretty close when you consider you know three to four sides of the bathroom building versus one side of the historical society um and say you know here's the total square footage but you
know here's the dollar amount um and that'll probably be predict you know how detailed they want to get in their art as well but Sounds good we want to go six yes and that would
leave some budget for That leaves half of our budget other projects and like you said it's just the one wall and based on what we have spent on other mural projects that's what North St paul spends for murals and we we can't help
it i mean if that that's what our budget allows for and I think it's reasonable okay so if you think that's okay I what I'm thinking is we could put I could put together another When we did the call for artists for the bathroom building we
had a like a PowerPoint mhm um and it just showed pictures and said "This is the idea this is kind of where the feel that kind of thing and then we sent that into to an email to known muralists." And that's what we would do again and I
think our list of known muralists has grown considerably right because we've been working with a lot more artists over the last couple years um so again to just send that out and uh see if what kind of responses we get um the city uh
staff was uh wants to be involved in the final selection of the art right um and so I think the selection process may may take a little bit more time because then now we've got kind of several entities you know we got the arts commission
we've got city staff and then we've got um uh the historical society themselves who are going to want to have a big say in in what it looks like or which which artist to choose so um but I think it's I think it's exciting get one more one
more mural right downtown that would be good but feel okay with that approach love it okay they are so impactful we need more yeah they look great i totally drive by the dumpster building all the time now i don't even go down Margaret anymore i
just turn and go down i check it out i'm like this is what I need i Well I see the Silver Lake one all the time i just love it we should get them back and paint the front side of it too don't push it you drive by the blank wall
well I walk I'll I'll walk around the lake or you know I got my little routes that I do and so but you can see it from all over wherever you're at okay um anything else on murals then we'll get this historical society
one going and then we can dig into some others uh utility box any updates here yes we are making progress um you want Sure I'll go first um so the heart hand the heart hand images um have been
edited with the colorful backgrounds so we went back to the original idea to have kind of the primary and some secondary color backgrounds in the mosaic um so those uh have been edited and the images are being compiled not by me but someone that is more skilled with
um Photoshop um so I didn't I was hoping to get it tonight before the meeting but I don't have it yet but it will be done this week and then um Sharon and I were talking about moving forward planning a template style call for artists to have on the web page um to have like annual
utility boxes projects so these are the ones we're doing this year this is you know what we need these are the sizes and then a blanket call for artists um on the city website for future years let's kind of model it after how uh we
saw other cities join it out west is they typically do like three to five boxes a year these are the type of images we want early in the season they send out the call for artists make the selections and then it's it's kind of a self working process right instead of
the individual one by one so she found out how it worked at other places sharon does not want to recreate the wheel well I just when I we drove out to California there were so many of them i'm like how are they doing this and
this one it ain't one at a time no and so I investigated the maybe six or seven cities is how is this happening and I think that's the methodology we like best because there's you know a variety of ways to do it but I thought that is a cool way of Yeah we're going to do these
three or whatever okay so So Casey like heart hands what our timing on that we're getting pretty close to that one yep so we'll submit it um hopefully the end of this week and see what their timeline is to wrap okay
yeah weather's probably still not right at Too yeah yeah got to be a little warmer out too I think or so we have other box in progress would be for the veterans park right now um where we are
on that is right now the the veterans park group they're going to meet on next week and I will be going to that meeting we have um decided what box is going to
be approved to be done so that's done i've drafted a call for artists i've handed that off to Jordan to get that approved by the city to make sure like whatever else I need to put into it yeah I've got a list of artists so we're just
waiting for these last few factors to come together and also with the call to artists when I meet with the veterans committee they can let me know like okay I hear your wording for what we're let want can we add this can you know take
that out we're not interested in this anymore because I based it on what they told me several months ago this is what we want now they've had time to simmer with the idea once we get it done then it's going to be hopefully a quick turnaround because I'm not asking for anything that dramatic it's we're going
to just put it out there have people come back we'll we'll pick somebody and then we'll give them just a week or two to get the artwork created okay they'll know in advance because it'll be in the call that this these are the dates these are the critical dates okay so the goal
still is to have it done by August 15th for the 10th anniversary of the Veterans Park okay and so hopefully Cool and Jordan can tell me where the document I gave her have you heard back yet um I did actually hear back from
Brian he I wasn't here yesterday and he wasn't here today so I wasn't able to talk to him verbally but he sent me a document that I did send to you like an hour before the meeting so assuming you have not got a chance to look at it um but yeah I think the uh call artist that you sent I think there's a few edits
made on it but what the document I sent you should be good to go okay fantastic sweet i like it um and I like that that we're just doing a call for artists on these things now rather than trying to wade through you know pictures on Google
images or whatever that's great um any any update on the Rodies one are they involved yet or we do not have updates on No there nothing and um which is why we're moving forward to have a simpler process for getting the um boxes done in
the future gotcha um anything else that's it great progress all right art cart amanda Raquela any updates here so we're going to have first art cart showing will be at the uh car show city the the truck night right or the city night whatever they call it that's
correct gotcha uh I don't have any updates unless Raquel has No okay not yet our our next project is to organize the art cart and then kind of take inventory of what's there right um art night we have one coming up right carrie Amanda any updates on this
one yeah I think um Sorry did you want to No go ahead jordan has done an amazing job scheduling our art nights so I think those are all on our calendar um we've got volunteers set up for all of those um Laura brought back I have a Jordan I
have a bag and in that bag are surveys and pens and one of the things that I like to do as part of the art nights is survey the crowd at the end of the event if I Yeah it's great um so if I give you the survey can you print some more for me please probably yeah yes so and so we
have all the artist leaders the all the artists are set we got all the nights they're on the website they're being advertised you can only sign up for the first one right now but Art Night is all green love it am I things to add nothing okay i'm
excited it's going to be great yeah so you but adding like a a feedback survey for people that attend yep i love it and what is this first one that Swatha is doing um terracotta pots so like painting painting the pot that you can
plant a plant in i got posted on Facebook a little while ago I think sorry cuz I was sharing it with people and saying it's been in the email a couple times too yeah yeah I've seen it on the in the email today I think
um Autumn Arts Festival i don't really have any updates other than the community craft project that we Yeah this is kind of an event thing um yeah it's mainly in Ava's hands at this point okay i think if I'm read I'm looking to Jordan
because I don't know if she's in this ava sent me a spreadsheet as far as for contacting artists and if I'm reading that one correctly we have about 30 artists signed up oh oh for the uh Yeah
the vendors yes I believe so not all have paid some won't maybe they will hope they do but yeah no we have a decent amount wow if I'm reading it right it looks like Yeah like 32 yeah oh which is very
I think that's the most we've had we've never had that many no so I'm That's exciting uh 22 25 last year um she growing this thing oh well I don't think I don't know if that you talked to Raquel about yes
she she's been a vendor for Yeah the last few years that's why I recognize that name um I might still do some further reach out as we get closer but I think it's really good that we have the number we do and we'll have to figure out some layouts oh yeah i think the
number we're shooting for is like 40ish is the number that I was hearing but I don't have to travel for work that weekend this time so that's good all right fantastic man everything is just We're crushing it see how we're just getting into this
routine i was explaining to Eliza earlier before everyone was here that you know we we just started this when what year did we start 21 don't ask me any I don't know it's been too long few years ago but we kind of got right into
it pretty quickly and now we've kind of matured where we're just kind of you can see how we're cruising here a lot of who are we meetings i remember that yeah our night on March okay so Asian night I'm hearing is possibly being called
something else now I think last time we agreed that we would do more of a like a taste of North St paul night where we invite local like restaurants to come um and like share like some food words are
hard at this time of the night i apologize um but we would have it'd be more of like a family like event we were hoping to have it be a bit more open like and free for people to come in and join us i did create like a very like on
page 10 and 11 of the packets um these are literally just ideas that are just like on the page like let's talk through any of them veto any of them but the idea is um Ava has connections with businesses in the
area that she's already cultivated those relationships um there's a new event space called Puzzles that's open so another local place that we could possibly work with um it's a very large space so we'd have to do some work to make it a little cozier um I think the
biggest thing a few big things but one of them is we were looking at dates more in the fall because there's so much happening in summer we were hoping maybe to if we move this around that time of the year maybe this could then be like that thing that happens like every
autumn possibly I guess um but yeah we just have some ideas for activities um both for children for adults kind of general um and then like some bigger event ideas could be we
could do have like a people's choice where folks can like vote on the food um and maybe even like a judge's choice where we have like the mayor or the firefighters or the commission or someone like also have like a category for that and maybe if we have it open
for free for the public we could have them sorry we could possibly have them like pay to be part of like a raffle and or possibly if we wanted to work with like the the food shelf like maybe they come
in and donate like some food or money towards that so just ideas so I love it feel free to feedback this is so exciting thank you so much yeah this is great i did learn about a new bakery um I don't know can we have
them as these kinds of a cottage bakery cottage license food home license what cottage food license yeah cottage food license there's a new bakery in town bakery Fina I think they're called that would be There's one downtown there's Sweet Nothings um I know Ava is actually
looking into like food licenses and what it will take to do that i know that you know there is like the cottage foods license which I'm not experienced enough to speak on that so cottage food license yeah like if you just make stuff in your house to sell that's a whole different
full kitchen having a bake sale or something a lot of it is baked goods and or canned properly canned stuff yeah one thing I might add it's not a restaurant but there is an African market downtown as well oh yes and so I don't know if they
would have some sort of grocery item they could bring or if they maybe if they create anything as well but and just saying we got to you got to add Village Pizza onto that list but the vendors North St paul Institution selling their their goods
right well that's where for free but so you go up to Sweet Nothing's booth and then you pay well and that's something I actually kind of wanted to ask you guys about is um possibly using like a part of the funding to pay like the
restaurants to have food so that way it's free for those folks and yet we're also like supporting them because it feels if this is going to be a community event I want folks to be able to engage with it um who walk in the door um and
if you have like three kids all of them getting a donut that can add up really fast um and that kind of goes for like all the booths but that's something I wanted to bring up just cuz there's a lot of moving parts so it could be a ticketed type event where you pay a fee
at the door per person and then when you go in then the food is comes with the ticket i don't want to say free because it's not free because you paid to get in but we do want them to taste all the things because people have their favorites so they're going to just go to
Village Pizza they're going to just go to Max but we want them to try all the things so that we're supporting all our businesses and they might try something there that they wouldn't have been open to try you know on any of their free nights so yeah we want to encourage that
my request to the restaurants would be to have small bites not not not a full cheeseburger not a whole donut even but small bites that's uh to get to Laura's idea about having them try all the different foods
um one thing they've done at conferences that I've gone to is where if you v visit all the vendor booths and get a stamp from each vendor then you're entered into a raffle kind of thing oo so you could do something like that where passport booth and try something from each booth then you're entered into
a raffle for a gift card or cookbooks that's a cool idea so encourages everybody to visit every booth at least and you know try something or at least talk to them and say hey you know what do you guys make i'm not really willing to try that but
can you stamp my thing yeah and I I'm not sure about how our like city attorney would chime into this but I think probably to do something like this the best thing that we could do is make it as easy as possible for the
restaurants to participate but by paying them directly we might run into a problem um and that's just something that we'd have to talk to legal about and see if if that's a thing but you know there are
other ways that we could make it enticing for the restaurants to to be involved though you know just and I think you know how do we make it as easy as possible for them to come in set up you know make some money well how are those food and wine events that happen
in Minneapolis all the time you buy a fee you pay a fee to go in and then you go booth to booth there there must be a standard yeah i I'm not familiar with but there has got to be an already established format of how these events
occur i'm sure part of what Tom's mentioning though is the difference in a private entity running those events and a city governmentr run entity yeah that's what we ran into with some other events that I've or things that we've worked on is for the city yeah paying a
business it optics matters because there it could be some of those events could be run by a nonprofit organization or something that's just independent of the city and they they're they have a lot more freedom so but worth looking into
mhm along those same lines as far as making it worth it for the or making it easy for the restaurants to come uh when you look forward to the dates I would suggest maybe we look at the Thursdays because Fridays can be busy restaurant nights or we're looking at just week nights for
this what What about a weekend i think it was with the thought process that weekends are busy for them and they would might lose business if they close to so we were kind of thinking like what might be their slow nights and maybe get folks out anyway but yeah like on a
Tuesday or Wednesday mhm um the 622 Education Foundation used to do a taste of 622 where we would do something similar we would bring restaurants together and it was nice they would set it up at Tartan High School in Oakdale and what made that
nice is they could just use that cafeteria space so I wonder if um I don't know if you have a space already set up for this and we don't already have a community center available at this point in time but maybe at North if we set up within that cafeteria area
that's kind of an easy prep space for restaurants if we're trying to make it easier on them and have them all in one location i don't know what the licensing piece of that or cost to rent or whatever would be involved but just throwing that out there as an idea
yeah we me oh sorry we mentioned it to um Ava and she suggested puzzles but we can bring up possibly going back to north again so yeah I mean you know when the show choir I mean the show choir is part of the high school but when they have their uh
rock the north rock the north you can do it yeah uh when they have their Rock the North event they're commandeering that whole kitchen and cafeteria for all that food y and sometimes they've had 62 cafeteria employees helping out and
sometimes they haven't so it it wouldn't be the first time somebody's done that you know to use the kitchen space but I'm sure there's probably some you know risk involved in that too and makes sense to look at the new kid on the block puzzles and see if maybe they'd be interested in hosting it's a good
location yeah great parking right great work awesome this is so exciting look at all this Eliza you're just uh on it the new kid coming in and coming in hot impressive yeah coming in hot yeah
love it um Okay so we got some stuff in the works we got some ideas cooking so this is good um anything else on that Eliza or Laura no okay all right so we're uh done with that section we've uh got did all of our
subcommittee updates and boy uh that was a wholesome report from all of our subcommittee so we got a lot going on old business anything old business we need to cover do you know Jordan okay uh reports from staff so uh we have snowy
card envelopes you want to take that one Jordan yeah um I just wanted some clarification before I made like final purchases for these snowy card envelopes that we plan on giving out the big truck night um so I have found some colorful options where they're like you know red
green blue everything um they're $8.99 for 140 pack so I don't know maybe do two so total of 280 uh envelopes that sound good for everyone okay um I missed the idea i know I read about this so but the idea is to put like individual ones
in an envelope and then so we hand those out so like a kid doesn't know what they're getting from remember the uh Pokemon yeah it's like getting a Pokemon conversation yeah yeah more than one card per envelope i can't remember i think the initial idea was
just the one okay um I think maybe we'll just see how this idea pans out do they have orange to match our art cart pretty sure they do yeah they do have orange working all the time do you want just orange yes sorry that
was too loud yeah go for it okay um and then the one question I have is who would also like to help package all of these i volunte you know that reminds me too as I think about that so we have some new
representatives here who we need I we might have some extra uh t-shirts in the art cart mhm but we got to get everybody fitted with a t-shirt so that when they show up for the for the big truck night big truck night and everything else that everybody's looking sharp in their arts
commission shirt and I'm still working on getting in the art cart carrie still working on it getting an art cart what uh getting in the art cart art cart to look for the shirts about it oh oh okay gotcha we're on the same page we are
yeah um all right got what you need on that one i did okay budget and events calendar do we want to just take a look at that or are there any specific questions you wanted to bring up on that i would just like to point out that the art night has spent all but $10 of our
budget and we're good to go nice guided art nights we thought this is the terracotta uh yep painting right yep and then the the next thing after that
is the next guided art night may 15th yeah do you have what that is off the top of your head it's 15 oh my god that's a pretty budget page it tells you okay okay so flip it over Tom it's right here
what are you looking at if you look at art night it tells you what Oh look at that okay and candle making that sounds fun watercolors sweet is kind of a hit huh she really is yeah she's and knit chunky blanket i read about that yeah
boy we got some good stuff sign up for that yeah that sounds like a good one look at all that stuff we're doing it's pretty cool um any questions or concerns about
our calendar I guess if Yeah no I thought I had one but I don't um so just so especially for newer people here big truck night you know so we have the art cart sitting there um during the car show and just love to
have as many of our uh arts and culture commissioners there as possible just wandering around wearing your t-shirt whatever hanging out helping do stuff handing out snowy cards which will be a fun thing um and then same thing with Autumn Arts Festival those are times
where we want to have as many of the ACC commissioners there as possible um but everyone is certainly welcome to go to everything u but want to have make sure we have a good showing on those ones for sure is there going to be a parade this
year oh yeah is there i don't know does North St paul have a parade every year live here so adorable which you know the fall round up um that is not put on by the city that
is put on by the business association so I do not know it was put on by the city but then has switched it's switched yeah so um so I'm not sure but I will I can check with some people yeah because we kind of need to know if we're supposed
to be if we're going to have a toss out candy that night or do I just sit at home by myself in the dark oh or rain and get cancelled again no don't say it we There is going to be a parade and we will be in a I know i have yet to
go to come and ask for the parade yes nora will come back here very upset if there is if the parade is canled please check the weather before you schedule a parade i've already got my outfit picked out oh no um okay so let's move on we have reports from commissioners so Eliza we
start down on your end do you have anything you want to share with everybody other than my seedlings for my pollinator garden are very healthy and lovely so they're surviving so how about that and is anybody raising backyard chickens here oh my god I'm doing my
darnest to convince my partner that we got to get chicken could be selling eggs and making big money just got to get one of those it's a resounding no right now what about quail if you mention quail to them like they're like but also there's nothing on North St paul's website that
says anything about quail so therefore I mean so I don't know yeah i I fought so long for that chicken thing and I don't know if anybody Former Commissioner Stacy does have backyard chickens oh great had some beautiful eggs so far
great i know i really um Okay Amanda anything i have nothing carrie nope you sure no laura nothing for me raquel I'm good okay and I don't have anything either so thanks everybody what a great meeting and so we'll go to our report
from our uh Oh you had any Do you have any updates that you'd like to share with everybody um no anything going on at the school that we should be There's a play coming up right be coffee house acts oh uh I think I forgot but next
Friday oh sorry your house she She's there for you oh really so everyone should come yeah he's doing two pieces working with the auditions committee okay i ran for secretary of student council good did not win
no i would have voted twice if I could i was going to I was thinking about should I vote for myself and I was like "Oh no i think I'll keep this fair." What if that was one vote that could have pushed you over i know that's what I thought about after but I mean you can vote for yourself yes that's the norm
it's okay yeah best advocate i mean next year I'm going to run for president of student council hopefully the youngest i don't know i'll have to check in with advisors like I bet you will be um what is it is Peter and the Star Catcher is that the name of the show yeah so there's a play coming
up soon at North High right i think I saw about I heard tomorrow it opens it's the prequel to Peter Pan is that right i didn't know that did not know that and I mean yeah that's pretty much all I got to say i lost an election and
Oh sad big goals for next year and I'm not going to lose this time for the stars listen to this guy wow take a lesson take a page out of his notebook yeah we got to get a picture with him too for when he's president famous and doesn't
you won't forget us right no that's in Okay 15 right now 23 years okay 23 years to be president when I'm gonna be running oh wait do you have to be 40 35 years old 35 for
president you gonna run for president yeah it's my my life goal is to become president if I lose the first one I'll go again this make sure I You represent votes right here i mean I don't want to speak for everyone else i
will try to live long enough to vote for you i'll be It depends on where you stand on things i have that feeling good people aligned how many years did you say so what what
23 23 years 48 that's what I said i'm trying to live long enough in 23 years I'll be 81 a you're going to be such a cute 81 you're going to be there if I'm 81 it's going to be great drinking mop
water be the guy from up yeah right oh and you and can be the little kid with the balloon no but he'll be 35 we'll be busy i'm doing take one night off that's how this whole thing started all right uh Troy
anything you want to tell us oh yes um no at our LA at the city council meeting last night um city council meeting was pretty short but at the workshop we had a presentation from the fire department actually was just walking by about code enforcement and all the different codes
and you know things like that so it was very interesting good yeah very interesting how like the amount of code enforcement calls that they get and about and the distribution of what they which code they have to go and you know
what are the kinds of codes that they have to look at well like parking enforcement uh the fire department does that yeah so if somebody calls about you know somebody parking on the street during the winter fire department goes out and they get the police department
involved but yeah those code people are part of the fire department but that's kind of their main thing um McKenzie from the fire department um but yeah so that and like uh sidewalk clearing after a snow things like that
um the biggest one is trash and yards that's the biggest The biggest one that you know um we talked about it and the big focus is public safety obviously stuff in your yard and it's a nuisance or a hazard to public safety or it's you
know you blowing leaves into the site into the street or something like that and yeah can block the and Troy yeah there are there's lots of city codes right about what you can and can't do with your property and things like that but the way we enforce codes in
North St is pretty much based on like if somebody makes a complaint about something then you know so I mean not always but we're not policing 100% on all of the codes we don't go around check everybody's yard to say no no we do not um so it's based off of the
public can uh report um via the city website there's a place where you can go on and uh through open gov submit a ticket so to speak um and say "Hey you know I have this complaint." Um and then the uh code
enforcement officer because they are on the fire department if they go to a place um and they know there's um they've served a a notice at some place they'll go by and check and you know have they you know cleaned up this issue things like that or if they happen to be
out driving at a call or something like that they notice a code enforcement issue they can report it too so um city employees anybody can report a code enforcement issue yeah um yeah so I don't know a ton about the codes yet um
I did find them on the website and am planning to read through them i'm sure it will be very enlightening are you leazison on to the planning no you're not you're on this one yes I am yeah but one of the things that we did talk about last night um was the one of the biggest
I don't want to say issues but one big question that has come up is trailer parking um like if you have a utility trailer or things like that it has to be you know we've recently we as a city recently changed our code to say that it could not it has to be on a permanent
surface permanent dustless surface um I think is the way the law the code is written um so it can't be it has to be like concrete asphalt or pavers I think is the way pretty much the way it's written right now um so we're we've
talked about changing that because it's not feasible for you know if you have a trailer or if you need an extra parking spot for three months of the year because you have five cars and you only have a fourc car driveway and you can't park it on the street in the winter what
are you going to how do you handle that so um can you create temporary parking spots using class 5 or one of the other commission or one of the other city council members brought up uh regrind you know things like that you know what is a better solution what is a better
option can we update that code to make it a little more feasible for residents that's cool you know I know I said I didn't have anything but my friend works in u Minnesota Department of Public Health and she did a public health ride along yesterday so all day on Facebook she's like "Okay I got up and I brushed
my teeth and I have fluoride in my water thanks to public health and my kid got off the school bus and she has busing because of what you know it's just like all these things that you don't you you just don't think about in your day that public health is looking out for like making sure restaurants are reviewed to
make sure there's not poop everywhere you know or whatever." But wouldn't it be great to do that for the fire department like like all of our departments just like 6:45 a.m it's time for the public works you know huddle or whatever and just go through the day and all that weird stuff
i didn't know the fire department did that yeah day in the life good idea for Ava yep day in the life of public works too yeah there's a lot that they do that people can see all the work that is being done that they're just really unaware of you know after you sign off
on your property tax and all well what's happening yeah and that would give us a good view of having these little day in the life vignettes to what all your tax money goes toward and city council members you know be fascinating wow thanks for that
enlightening update yeah that was I had no idea that happened that what happened that the fire department was doing all of that i thought they put out fires and Yeah they just hung out so our fire department actually responds to all medical calls too yeah so if there any call for
medical assistance they also respond to that so wow our fire department is very busy for sure yep what the thing they probably do the least is put out fires probably yeah just aren't a lot of fires no not really well thank God i was going
to say I'm like but I think that's part because they're doing prevention work yeah yeah they're checking the code to make sure it doesn't get to them yeah and they're you know going to they go into people's houses and help them with their you know their uh smoke alarms and all that stuff y and they're doing uh one of the new I shouldn't say new
things but one of the things that they're going to start doing is uh code enforcement for food stands and things like that too oh oh neat okay trucks food stands you know nice cool anything else anybody um can I I
forgot one thing I wanted to mention um Ava had an idea for um like a blog post or like a city blog post she was particularly for arts commission and parks commission um kind of as a way to promote the commission's work and kind
of engage with the community so I don't I would ask Ava more for more in-depth detail on like what this idea is but like you know the murals around North St paul or things and such but yeah I just wanted to bring that up so if you're
interested please contact Ava sounds good um uh just and thanks everybody wow this we got a full house everybody's here and there's so much going on it's really great it's really impressive and what a group so thanks everybody for being here um if there's
nothing else we'll look for a motion to adjourn motion nice you make that you're making that motion Eliza i think so you can say I move that we adjourn the meeting move to adjurnn the meeting okay do we have a second
second by Laura all in favor say I i meeting is adjourned at 7:50 p.m thanks everybody i like how