So official right here, man. Let's go. Oh, now did I start too early for you? Is it okay? Oh, we're good. Awesome. Yay. Thank you, IV guy. All right, Jordan, could you do our roll call, please? I'm assuming Tom
will just come running in the door. Um, yes. I did see Tom in the building. Um, so Tom Sonic currently is not here, but I believe will be here soon. Um, Carrie Neto, that's me. I'm here. All right. And then Amanda Black, she's uh, yes, she is not here, but I
believe she will be coming shortly. And then Sharon Clark Williams, I am here. Raquel Sodto here. Laura String here. Eliza Verma here. Orosco Garcia here. Troy Woods here. and our staff member
Jordan L layman. Did I say it right? Yeah, Layman. I stumbled over it 13 times. Yep. And I am here. Yay. Okay. Uh did everyone have a chance to review the agenda? And do we have any um things you want to pull off or change or things to
add? Pretty comprehensive. I would love a motion to approve the agenda if anyone's got Motion to approve the Thank you, Sharon. To adopt the agenda.
Okay, perfect. I second that motion. Excellent. All in favor? I I. Any opposed? Okay, great. Approval of the minutes. I once again think these minutes are great. I can't believe you do these
without AI, Jordan. Do you use AI for this? No. Very well done. Um, any edits or changes? Nope. Oh, here he comes. Oh, good. I'm glad you got to have a conversation. We're just reviewing minutes. Did you have any edits, Tom?
Started. I have uh nothing to add. Okay. Anyone else? Oh, any motions to approve? Motion to approve the minutes. All right, Sharon. Thanks. I second. All right. Thank you, Raquel. Uh, all those
in favor of approving the minutes? I. Anyone opposed? Excellent. Great job. We approved the minutes. Meeting open to the public. Tom, it was so exciting. We had two people here, but it turns out they were here for a zoning meeting, so they left and they'll come back. Came to the wrong
place. Yep. Wrong. Uh, I don't think we have any public hearings. Okay, great. U, at this time, I'd like to turn this over to our chair, Tom Sonic. Y could keep going if you want, Krie. Commission business action items and recommendations. National night out discussion.
Yes. So I put that on the agenda since this is the last meeting we have before the national night out um where the commission plans on giving out the take-home snowies. So, I guess staff is just kind of looking for direction or just general planning on like what how many tables you guys think you need or
if there's any supplies and just kind of generally getting the um the idea of like what's going to be going down and then also who is going to be present um at National Night Out. Wonderful. I think the three of us were planning to be present. Is that right? Yes. So,
Raquel, Laura, and I will be present. I believe we thought we would need one table if we could use one. please from the fire or city. And then we were hoping to get some of the supplies from the art cart. Guess there's plenty of
paint. I don't know if we want markers or what the extent of the supplies goes to. Yeah. Glue. I mean, there's a lot of those little foam puffs things. Yeah. I don't know if people want to glue those on there because we going to have people
painting there, right? We're giving people the option to decorate at the event if they would like. And so I think Ewed might take a couple with him and see if he can get some examples painted before the event. Oh, cool. Um, here is our sample. That's so neat. A, it looks
like a Christmas cookie, right? Sugar cookie. It's got a little steak if you want to put it in the ground or you can hang it on your door. So $5 each on the website. Everybody order yours. Please don't sell on eBay. So, I'm wondering, okay, so if we're going to have all
these people, you know, we're going to give them the option to decorate their snowy. Maybe we have maybe more than one table. Okay. And like one table's like a paint table, one table's a marker table, glue or something. Okay. And then
probably have chairs so that people they can sit down. And I don't know how the fire department usually sets that up. Yeah, I think I'd have to discuss with Ava, but yeah, I can ask her how many tables like we can do and then chairs and such. I'm assuming at least a couple
tables would be good, but I'm not 100% sure. But I can definitely follow up and ask for that. Just somewhere where they can sit down and do their little project and you know, we should make sure the fire department's copacetic with that. So, if we have painting and I don't know if we're going to need drop cloths
because we wouldn't want to get paint and stuff on the We have plenty of tablecloths in the art cart to use. Okay. Like plastic, we could throw it away after. Good. Good. So, would you be able to make time to um visit the art cart and grab like brushes
and tablecloths and whatever else? Yep. Before August 2nd and then I have that paint I got at the um reuse center. Do you think we should just buy a gallon of white paint? I wonder if a lot of people are going to want white. There's a lot of white paint. I don't know. Spray
paint or something? Yeah. As a base? Yeah. Could we Could we request, Jordan, that you uh requisition some white paint as a base for these snowies? Is this in the art cart or It's not in the art cart. You'll have to buy it. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Yeah. No, that's fine.
Okay, cool. I know. Last time I tried to buy paint, it didn't go well. Would this come out of the uh public arts budget line item or art? Okay. Public arts. Okay. Yep. Anything else we should buy to have?
Well, it'd be good if it if that paint were like a exterior latex then, you know. So, yeah. Or maybe people are going to have these things outside. Yeah. Or if they want to at least that paint. Oh, sorry. What was that? Exterior latex preferably. Y the type of paint. Yeah.
Okay. Okay, good job, Jordan. And I feel like Amanda, you recommended a sealant last time just so we could recommend that to people as they pick theirs up and want to decorate. There's a lot of different products that you can use, but there's like a spray sealant that okay
is good. Um I know Laura Greenley Karp um she recommended us a sealant and we were thinking that maybe we can make cards for everyone like on like how to decorate if they don't want to decorate it in person like best kind of paint um and sealant or even like the tape pickup
table just taping like an instruction guide on the table. So I would love that's great. Did Laura make these? Laura made these. Yeah, that's not surprising. I think she's pretty crafty. She is. Yeah, she makes some cool stuff. Yeah.
Uh, does that cover all the questions, Jordan? Um, I think so. Okay. If not, um, Ava can email us at any time or call, whatever. Should we check with fire to make sure they're happy with us or is that something? Um, I think I can do that. I
can. Yeah, I think we didn't we check when we were kicking this idea. I feel like I remember this, but I'll double check just to it's all good. I think before paint certainly to pass out, they were cool with it, I think. But good point. Good call out. I have it on my calendar, too, to be there. So, Oh,
wonderful. Thanks, Tom. Anything else on that? No, we're good. Okay. and subcommittee updates. Public art project. Oh, we talked about that already. You already did. Yeah. Yeah, that was it. Um, do we have an
update on our um concrete stamps? Yeah, the stamps. So, um I would just like kind of in general for every subcommittee to have um any kind of structure or guidelines um ahead of putting that project through um because
we have news on another one as well. Um so I don't want to move forward with anything else until I have more parameters to kind of live within there. Yeah. I And that's great. I think we'll we'll talk about that a little bit more too. Do you want to do that now or do you want to? Um, we can. I mean, I can
This is kind of uh go into a couple of our subcommittee updates. Uh, I just had a um I did it forwarded your email, Sharon, to uh city manager and then he just caught me as I was coming in and we talked for about 10
minutes about um both of those things. So, one was the utility box situation and then the other was the um the passport. And uh so from from the city manager perspective, just the city perspective,
they're always looking at things like, you know, when you when you begin working for the city, I think Troy, you're probably starting to feel this. You start to get a sense for what's going to raise the temperature among residents and what won't. You know what?
Like and so and so I think as Brian saw um the the design with the hands with the as the colors were added behind that and saw that in a residential area that's where his you know Spidey sense started to tingle about that that he's
going to get complaints about this just because it's, you know, it's brighter. It's, you know, it's it's it's bold, right? Um, and so I think that's with that as we were kind of discussing the last time we met. I think we should
probably try and put something together and maybe with the help of Troy on this. So when it comes to utility boxes as an example of what you're talking about here. So okay, here's our list of utility boxes. So communication wasn't clear from the outset. It's like,
okay, here's all the utility boxes you can do stuff on. So we're like, great, we can do designs on any of these things. And it's like, okay, so now we're learning as we go through this, we should be more specific. So it's like, okay, if it's a utility box that's in a residential area, we want to do designs
that are more blank. If it's a utility box that it's in a downtown area, we want to do things that are blank. If it's in a park, blank, whatever, you know. So maybe we start to, you know, maybe we could even draft up some parameters of what we think that could
be and then go from there. When it comes to the utility box, the heart hands project for that specific location. There are two things that I think we can do there. One is we should approach the neighbors on that or the residents on that block, not just the one that's uh
that whose house is the the yard is in the thing is in their yard. Um, and just get some feedback because it's it's and maybe everyone will say it looks great. I love it. Or maybe they won't. We don't know until we ask. But what we don't
want to do is do it and then have everybody get angry after the fact. So for that one, I did create a little bit of a presentation. Um I didn't have the thing with the whole like the binder look or it would have looked way more professional. Um but I
did that and it's short. Um, and then for the um taste and tour uh passport um that as well kind of needs more direction. So, we're just kind of in a holding pattern and I didn't want to make any moves. So, I think um
I'm not reading this whole thing because I can't read that fast, but I think this type of thing is really great, you know, because look at these pictures of people doing it and what was involved and what went into this. This is really, really cool. And I think this is something we could maybe even put in an email or in a
letter or something to residents on that street and say we're just asking for your feedback by a certain date. Um because and I I'm not sure what all the language says, but I think we want to say that that they do have a voice in
this, right? It is um it is important for residents to have a voice in things that affect their direct living space, you know, and a lot of times we're having, you know, open meetings for residents to come in and
have public hearings on stuff like that. We're not going to have a public hearing about a utility box, right? But I think we could at least try and get some feedback on that. And I think something like this goes a heck of a long way because there might be some people who would see the design and say, "I don't want that." And then they see that and
they go, "Oh, well now I understand that. I might want that." So I think so that's one thing we could do. The other option is to just look for a plan B location. You know, is there another box somewhere else that's in a park or something like that where it would also be a good location for the same thing?
So that's that's the other thing. So, I think when it comes to I I think you're spot on, Laura, with the idea of that we should probably I if we're going to have ongoing um efforts with stuff like this, and we
tried to do some of this with the mural project, although even that is not that specific, but I think with any of these things, we should be um creating some parameters for ourselves that we can refer to in the future, you know. So, this is the precedent that we set now and here's
what we're going to use as we go forward. And if we if we get that precedent approved by, you know, council and the city manager, then I think that's going to help us a lot, you know, because then we're saying we're following parameters and precedent that
that everyone had was on board with. And I and I think having something like that also on the website would be really impactful because not only are we showing, you know, people can walk around our city and see the kinds of things that have been built with our hands, but we can be like, "Hey, look,
we did this amazing project. This the story behind the art behind it is so huge, you know, and so many I mean, even just building this commission, you know, we looked at other cities and how people had had started their own arts commissions and there was just not a lot of information out there. So having more
of a a blueprint might help other cities have their own arts commission and I think being more transparent in our process of how we make things happen. Yeah. And so another thing I'll say too is that um I think we and before we send this let's just we
can run it by Brian and see what he thinks. I I'm going to tell you Brian has been a huge supporter of this commission and I think we're really lucky to have that and that the city manager supports this work. you know, but he's also the city manager and if so
somebody's going to call and complain about something, it goes to him first, right? Or maybe Troy, but um so he's just got to he he's got to kind of balance both sides of those things. So I think the the more we can get on the same page, the better. And I guess it's
understandable that we would have situations like this because all everything we're doing is new. You know, we haven't done this before. So, we're going to run into some snags, but we'll keep going. So, I have a question. City is very um
the age is higher. Yeah. The median age is a lot higher and the residents are wildly engaged in in some ways, you know, and for for better or worse sometimes, right? And I think that
so that's just it just creates another you know something that you have to consider. So I have a question. So when we are, you know, making new subcommittees, going, you know, starting new projects, is this something where we
should right away just sit down with Brian and kind of go through our ideas and set parameters from the jump because then, you know, now like we're halfway through. This has been Yep. It's it it was supposed to be done. Yeah. And now
we're on hold. So yeah, you know, to prevent that, is that something that we just need to do going? I would I would say it just depends, Raquel. And I think we'll we'll have to see. I think that's something we can maybe just weigh out. And Troy, with your help representing here that you could say, hey, is that
maybe this is something we should run by city management and see what they think first just to get everybody's buy in. Um that said also so I I also wanted to talk about the um the passport project.
So apparently we got some push back from our lawyer our city attorney about that. Um I talked with Brian and I just said I just disagree with our attorney and and that's okay. We can do that. I mean,
it's our city attorney's job to illustrate wherever risk may exist for whatever we're trying to do. They don't get to say that we can or can't do something. They can advise one way or another, right? So, we can say,
"Well, we're comfortable with that level of risk, right?" Um, I don't really see hardly any level of risk with the passport idea. It sounds like this was Ava's idea to start with and she came to us about this and so we're executing
very well I think on on this idea. Um and so um Brian is going to um call our city attorney back and say you know we really do want to move forward with this and see what you know let's talk about um where any risk may exist. You know, I
think the city attorney felt it's something the passport idea is maybe something that's more befitting of the EDA. Um, and that's an easy argument that it could might fit better under the EDA, but the
EDA is not doing it. Um, does it matter who it's under? Like, well, right, that's the thing. That's a it might be it might be more fitting for the EDA, but that doesn't mean it's not fitting for the arts and culture commission
because I think the the city attorney was leaning on that the art commission is really focused on public art. And I'm like, it's not just public art, it's also cultural expression. And there's probably no better expression of culture
than food, you know? And in our city, we have a lot of different cultural expressions of food. Um, and whether it's village pizza or it's the is it blue Nile the name of it? Yeah. So all of these they they're both cultural
expressions, right? And so it's all important and I think to our involvement in that way as a arts and culture commission to artfully put together a program and a passport to try and you know serve this purpose I think
just makes a ton of sense and I don't I don't I think it's I think it's a great idea. I think that you all have been doing just outstanding work with it and I don't see that the arts and culture commission should stop moving forward
with it. I think we I think we should and um and so our city manager is going to continue to push for that in that direction. There may be some considerations that we have to think about. Um like if there is a prize or something because then all of a sudden
it's city funds that are promoting it's taxpayer dollars that are being spent to promote the usage of particular businesses in the city or something like that. So there could be some issue there that we have to consider, but we'll see
where that goes and if if there's something we maybe need to change that way. So that's the that's the update from hot off the press just from walking in the building here tonight. Um
so I think there's a few takeaways. One, Laura, you're absolutely right. we should think about what kind of parameters we set up for our own subcommittees. Um, two, uh, the city manager is on our side, and I think we've also got an
excellent council representative. I'm not just saying that because he's sitting right here, but I think we have a really strong council representative. Um, and so the city is on our side, but they're balancing out other interests. Um, and three, I can't remember what the third thing was, so I'll just say it was
two things. But, you know, we're gonna run into stuff all the time. And that's okay. You just keep going, find another way, you know, and we'll just So, I, you know, this is this is just an incredible
commission for this city or any other city, I think. I mean, everything that this commission has done already is uh pretty impressive. So, um I I don't want anybody to get discouraged about any kind of push back that we may get time
from time to time. I think that's just part of working in an organization such as this, especially when you're working with government, you know, you know, and it's not necessarily a slam against government. It's just how these things function. Yeah, you
would get used to it. Yeah, just think as president of the United States, you're you're going to deal with all kinds of issues like this. It'll be a story of your life. You're going to be you're going to be wishing for those days back on the arts and culture. So, um, any other thoughts or questions
about that? I know I just spewed out a lot. Okay. So, um, next steps then on the utility boxes. Do we want to I mean, I can edit this if anyone wants to give me suggestions on how to edit the verbiage.
Um, or I can just send you what I've got. Yeah, if um if you want to maybe Laura, could you do this? Why don't you I again I didn't read the whole thing but if you could include some language that we want to hear your feedback
before we move forward with this something along those lines. Um and then maybe if you want to send it to I don't know Troy you and I and and then we can maybe discuss and then get it to Brian
and then talk about that approach. And then in the meantime, I think if you could also if I don't know if does some do we have a list somewhere of all the utility boxes? We had a list of I don't know six or nine or something. It was a short list. It wasn't all the boxes. Yeah, we
have a list of the ones that are downtown just off of downtown and around North High School. Okay. Because I know one another box that's I think similar in size that Brian mentioned is in Casey
Park that's at we used to call it Little Casey but it's off of like Gerald and I don't know what that street is right there that comes in there but um like the back parking lot area. Yeah, it's at the what what side would that be? Like
north northeast side of it. Um, so I don't know if anybody if you want to go and take a look at that box as a as another potential opportunity or anything else that you know of around the city or something that's on the list. The only thing I like about using
a different box depending on the box would be having it in an area where people can walk around it and look for their hands and things like that. Whereas in somebody's yard it feels a little bit intrusive to have people walking around that.
Good point. Yes, I can do that. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. So, uh um anything else then on the utility boxes? So, and then we'll jump back to the murals, but um Sharon, do you have an update on the Veterans Park one? I think. Yes. The winner has
been selected. Oh, wow. Uh Gino Oko. Oh, nice again. Yeah. and he has completed it and submitted the template to Jordan. I believe I still need some image files, but hopefully we can get that sorted out before like early next week and then I
can get his contract submitted for the council packet deadline. So, is he going to do a painting on it or or he's already created it and then it's digitized and then that is created into the wrap? It's going to be a wrap still. Okay. Yep. No, he's not painting
directly on the box. Some people do that. Yes. Um, well, that's great. Anything else on utility boxes? Yeah, this is nice. Excited to see. I like his design. I'm excited to see Oh, I haven't
seen it. Yeah, he's super nice guy, too. Um, okay. Let's um jump back then to murals. Um, Sharon or Carrie, do you want to give the update on this one? I forgot what we talked about last time. Well, I think just that we had were we
just still reviewing with the historical society the different artists. Yeah, the um we were going to I was going to go meet with the artist and with the historical society and that took place. We met with the artist and discuss the
design. She's verbally fleshed out the design but we don't actually have a sample a mockup. So, that would be the next step would be to get an actual mockup of what it's going to look like.
And also, uh, one consideration we hadn't taken, a thing we didn't take into consideration was kind of interesting was this side of the building's textured. It's got it's made out of protruding bricks. So, that's going to be one additional challenge for the artist in creating it. But, she was
very enthusiastic and hopes to incorporate the public in the creation of this design. So yeah. Cool. And so have we notified the other artists or
is this has this artist been the final selection or is it still in consideration? There is no contract. Correct. Yeah. Because there has to be a design still. There is no actual design. So we have worked with one artist and there is no
final design yet. There's no there's no final selection of the artist. I I get the impression the historical society doesn't want to commit to this one final artist until they see an updated rendering, which I understand, but it's also, you know, the busiest time for
artists. So, she was traveling for June. Now, she's got a summer camp she's running. So, um hopefully we can come to a resolution on that quickly because I don't want to keep these other artists, right? But we do know that the historical society has voted that they do want to move forward with a mural.
They do and they do want to work with us on it. Great. They I think it's more to they want to see an actual representation of her work in hand because it was an AI generated work from which she they had selected
her as an artist and so it's like okay wait we want to see what this is really going to look like. Okay. So, that's the mural update that we are also Oh, Carrie, I think between last meeting and this meeting, we met
with the Yes, we met with the people who run the Gateway Trail, which was very exciting. I've already Pam and some p another person and they were lovely. Um, and we talked about the possibility for putting some murals or some other art
along the Gateway Trail, but they need to check with their liaison at the DNR. and we wanted to get some other ideas going and more to come. But they also have they've engaged with an artist to do like all the tunnels. Yeah. Um and
that's the person that did this snowy welcome to North St. Paul, right? Yep. And so, but there's potential there for us, especially if we wanted to use uh residents, you know, especially kids and help paint something, we could maybe
take over one of those tunnels from the artist possibly. Yeah. because it sounds like the Gateway Trail has like what 11 tunnels did she say or 17? It was a a crazy number of tunnels on the Gateway Trail. I had no idea. So perhaps we can adopt our own tunnel, but exciting,
right? Yeah. So potential there. Okay. Utility boxes, art cart. Any update here? We're hoping to open it one day. Yeah. Yeah. The last took shelter in it. Last two we got rained out so they got cancelled.
Sad. So we're still planning our watercolor abstracts for next cart. Weather's been rough. Next one will be music in the parks this month. Yeah. Yeah. Two weeks from now. Three weeks at the beach. Yes. Oh, is that the one that
they're doing at Silver Lake? Silver Lake. Yeah, I saw that. That's that one's coming up. That'll be neat. I gotta tell you, I went to the Jazzer size thing and it was great, but there were a number of kids that kept like I just think there's a market for the art cart if they do
this this exercise thing again next year. Just put it out there. That's it really. Okay, that was it. Art night. We had a lovely evening with Swatha. Oh,
good. Um people very excited to paint bookmarks. Um, one of the biggest feed pieces of feedback I got at the end of the night was about people finding it very difficult to find information on future events, not just with Perfect Paint
Nights, but just North St. Paul in general. And so I directed them on using the website to find future art nights. But it was just some feedback I wanted to pass along is that they said it was difficult to find even if they knew it
was happening. Yeah. Yeah. Next one is not until September. Yeah. Do you know what that project is? I don't remember. It's with again. Was that the cozy blanket? The coasters. There's coasters left and then
there's a chunky blanket and then there is the gift the cards watercolor cards. I'm sorry. I'm No, you know it better than I do. knitting a chunky blanket.
No, it's the hand hand knitting cuz they're giant like skains. Like each strand is huge. Yeah, each strand is like a rope. It's like the size of your arm. Sounds really I really want to do it. You go home with a blanket. I want hopefully if there's still availability
probably like a lap blanket, but still it's worth it. I need a kingsiz. Mhm. Um, okay, great. And then Autumn Arts Festival. So I, um, I know Ava started to send out some stuff via email, so I
don't Do you have any update on that, Jordan? Yeah. Um, I wanted to ask um or Ava wanted me to ask uh to make sure just to confirm who all for sure can be in attendance and that um, she would also like um, volunteers to volunteer at least a minimum of two hours if they're
able. Um but yeah, just getting like a verbal confirmation of who can for sure um be there to volunteer. Well, can I derail the conversation real quick? Um Troy had reached out asking if we had I know asking if we had any openings on
the commission. um and we don't. But I wonder if this is a good time for us to maybe consider having um an arts advocacy group or advisory council or some kind of community like, hey, we want to be involved, but there's not
room to be on the commission. But we could have a a group of people that can send us feedback about I mean, everyone can send us feedback about what they think about the art, but maybe if we have, you know, a specific idea of, hey, we want to do this style utility box. What do you think? or hey, could you help us with staffing the art cart or
staffing Autumn Arts Festival? I just when I've been volunteering for a long time and when you finally have somebody who gets in touch and actually wants to help and volunteer, you want to give them something to do. And if we don't have anything for anybody to do, they're
going to move on and find another place to put their efforts, which is totally fine and cool. But if they want to do art stuff or culture stuff or hang out in North St. Paul, I would like to grab them when we can. So, I don't know if that's something we can consider or talk
about or if we need need to or whatever, but I just wanted to kick it out there as an idea. I wonder if that's something we can have on our arts and culture page where we have other little buttons where, hey, for volunteering opportunities, click here and it'll take you to all the different events that
we're doing that they can then or if they simply just have feedback. Okay, here's a feedback submission box. If you have ideas that you want to contribute, put this in a, you know, a different submission box. Um, I was just thinking the same thing, Raquel. I just was going
to our page and maybe there's a way to add a little splash right here on the arts and because I know our our page could definitely be used more like a blogish type because we've got a lot of things to, you know, show and contribute
and get feedback on. And so, yeah, I wonder if we can get a page upgrade. It's kind of like the homepage of Norse Ball because they've got all the cute little buttons up top and yeah, I can definitely uh look into it and ask Ava, our uh website wizard, some kind of get
involved type of thing or something like that. Yeah, maybe, you know, if we ever have artist events or artist uh receptions, you know, we could have our special advisory group meet them ahead of time, you know, like early rope
drop at Disney. But part it's nice to see them as like a focus group for those parameters that we want to build of like city you know our neighbors essentially just giving us their input ahead of time. So we're not going doortodoor but we could you know have this focus group
to give us the input guidance or we could host an event at some point in time. Yeah. here would be I mean we host it once a month but we have a special but yeah workshop our advisory group or something yeah I I
would sometimes it's kind of fun to just hear people face to face you know didn't we didn't we one time just have like a a table or a tent at one of the car shows where it was just this is the arts commission and
we had some stuff we handed out and how to get involved and people writing down ideas or something. Oh, that was the that was when we painted it and we had we had like the big postit, right? Yeah. Yeah. It was like give us right there was that time art. I thought we did it another time too though. Maybe maybe we
did maybe at one of the museum. I like that concept though. Just just a little something because like if it was like a a car show or whatever and it was the posted idea, we would actually get some input. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. We
we might not get input on our website unless it's something somebody hates, but um people walking by in a good mood might we might be able to solicit some ideas and things we hadn't thought about because I feel like and Jordan, I don't
know if maybe you could ask around about this because I I feel like there there used to be a thing where they would have it was like city night. It it wasn't just the big truck night. there was like a city night and so different commissions or city things and of course
they gave out like light bulbs and all that stuff but um I think we were right there with the people who were like the electric because it was somebody like one of the people that worked for the city that was sitting there with us. You mean like ask a commissioner night or
something? Yeah, it was something like that. Yeah. And so you could So, but then we can have pictures and have stuff and gather information because I think we were trying to survey people or something. Yeah. Get some input. It's been a while now. Well, and I wonder too
if it's time, you know, we used to annually visit city council and give them an update on what we're doing. That's right. Wonder if it's time to think about bringing that back. Yeah, I know. I will say on big truck night that the city the city was the one
that hosted or was the sponsor that night the city was the sponsor for the uh big truck night and so we did have a we had a tent just around the corner from where the uh art art cart would have been. Oh, okay. Um and so we were
handing out light bulbs and stuff like that. at the electric handing out light bulbs and we were had information from the city and then uh we were the ones that like selected the car of the night or whatever. So, right. I just remember us being one time way more down in the
thick of things at the car show. Am I dreaming? I know they put us there once and then they were like, "No, we're gonna we're going to move you over here." But maybe it was at was it at Casey Lake? I don't know. Don't you have a lifetime of nurse St. whole experiences to try to
dig through. I know. But, you know, I think there's an opportunity. I mean, because what you want is traffic. You need people walking by and it's, you know, typically where where we're located. I mean, granted, you're bringing the people are bringing the kids down there, but that's the very end
of the whole car show. Yeah. On that end. And we can do the same thing with like the uh Autumn Arts Festival, too. Have a have our own tent there. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good idea, too. To wrap it back to AutoArts Festival, I'll say that I'm available all day.
Same. Yeah, me too. I emailed her. I'm a little Okay. Well, that was a long way around on that one, but I think so. It brings us back to food passport. So, you know where we're at with that from the city side of
things, but where is it as far as the actual work that you've been doing on the passport itself? Yeah. So, um um we had a lovely subcommittee meeting with Sharon, Laura, and myself. And, um we found a print shop that is, you know, within the cities, really highly
recommended, um very responsive. Um, I got a quote and after we kind of met and talked about the different numbers, um, the like better deal both cost per passport but also like for the amount once we kind of started thinking about logistics is getting 1,500 passports.
The reason being because it sounds like a lot um is the I know it's like oh my gosh um but we kind of thought like well 1,500 um the cost is less than a dollar per passport. Um, I have the exact number somewhere up here, um, after we
talked, um, because I wasn't sure how much detail we're going to get into tonight with the talk of everything. But, um, I sent those numbers over to Ava. Um, but we're thinking like the 1,500 because we were hoping to hand
some out at the truck night, which there's a ton of people, but also we're thinking at each participating um like restaurant having a number and even if we gave them like 50 um that comes to be like with our estimations right now
because we are also doing logistics of finding um ways to connect with all these restaurants. Um, even if we have like 15 restaurants, that comes out to be close to like 700 passports. So, that's like a lot. Um, so we also were
looking at um the custom stamps and everything. So, all said with total and then I added a little bit of a a buffer just for like taxes um and any like surprises with that. We're looking at about $1,700 which is within the budget
that they gave us. Um, and then I am very but also I'd like to add with the number it is approximately 10% of the population of the city. So that seems like a reasonable amount. We're not trying to get one to every house but if
one in 10 I mean just even in my own little neighborhood I pointed out that's a hundred households. So it seems like a lot but we have a lot of people here. I think that's a great amount and a great price. Um, did you look at all or is
there something that you can like a display or um something that you can actually put in the restaurant that maybe has info about the city, the commission, and then makes it easy for the the restaurants to have the
passports in for people to pick up. Those little plastic Yeah, those Yeah, that's a good idea. I did not like we didn't think of that. Yeah, we didn't price that. Yes, that's a good idea. Those are inexpense. Those are really inexpensive to get at an office supply
store. It just make it makes it easier for the restaurants, right? Keep it easy. Yeah. On them. Yeah. And for the restaurants, um, so one thing I'll say about the passports, um, with the code I got, it's using, um, I worked with
someone there about like the most cost-effective, but also to make it really nice. Um, and they came up with a like heavy like card stockish outer layer um that would be in our city blue. Um, with a saddle stitch in it, so it
actually looks and feels quite like a real passport. Um, and then as far as connecting with businesses, Ava had a wonderful point of like, all right, how do we start engaging with them? Sharon did a fantastic job of like reaching out to Ramsey County. Um but then they gave
us like all the businesses for our zip code which included Maplewood. So we have a little bit of um you know shifting around. Um Ava gave a couple ideas of some folks that we can maybe reach out to um on like the business folks. I'm forgetting the Rotary. The
Rotary. Thank you. Um and with that um also doing like outreach on our own and possibly and we haven't run this by Ava yet, so a little bit of surprise Jordan. maybe possibly putting something in the newsletter as well to try to cast as big of a net as well. And in order to get
the information we need because we wanted to have a little blurb and possibly their logo, we were thinking about doing like a small Google form that would take maybe 5 10 minutes tops to fill out just with their information, which then will make it easier for like
me to like do the formatting in the file that I have. So, am I missing anything, Laura or Sharon? Because I've been talking a lot. No, you're great. Certainly isn't to promote any one private business. It's to promote the whole city to drive money into the city which will then create
more people to witness our public art and to love what we're doing. So, and I mean to try different foods which is all about the culture. I wonder if there's even like thinking about our earlier discussion if there's like a an early page in the
passport that says something about the purpose of this is about cultural cultural expression through food and you know and see the art in North St. Paul and you know kind of brand it that way and maybe you know a
link to our website and if you have feedback or you have input like there could be a tear out postcard they can mail to us or you know what I mean just like some way to also get input and feedback. I like that we could do a QR code. I
just wrote that down. Yeah, like a QR code and then like a very shortened link that you can generate too like QR code to the arts and culture page on the website and then you had the button that says feedback or volunteer or whatever.
Additionally, one of the reasons we hope to get it on the website to say hey you have a restaurant in North St. uh is then it's publicly a public notice so everyone has an equal opportunity and
aren't relying on us to know about your existence and then that will be more fair. Yeah, cuz I keep finding new restaurants. Like I just accidentally wandered into Village Pizza when I first like was like living here. So like I was
like oo. So, like, yeah, circle that day on your calendar, I bet. Right. Right. Thanks for having pizza tonight. Uh, one thing I want to bring up as like a consideration because I was hearing from Sarah when you guys did the project
snowies, how you guys got businesses interested was that you did like inerson canvasing, walking in the door. Um, I think that could also possibly be a good opportunity for reaching out to businesses. Um, because Sarah made it seem like that was a really successful move to do. So, maybe we can do like a
mix, you know, have it kind of I agree. I I agree. They're they do need to see our faces. Yeah. Don't they have like the North St. Paul Business Association like maybe going to their monthly meeting that would be a face toface? They're not all
restaurants, but that would get you a big chunk of them. I definitely think yeah, like moving forward with this project, if the commission would consider maybe working with the business association or possibly reaching out, I think they might have some good resources. Yeah. Um
I don't know much about them, but I've heard that yeah, this might be a good uh good thing to reach out to for this project. Great. Okay, that's all the subcommittee uh
updates. I'll pass it back to you. Oh, any old business we should check in on? You look like you have something to say. No. Okay. Anyway, no. All right. Reports from staff. Um, I have nothing to report. Wow. Okay. I just want to look
at the calendar and see if I Music in the park. You've been an indispensable lifeline. I'll report that about staff. Y good job, Jordan. Keep it up. It's so fun to see that we're actually spending money now. That's great.
I know. I was looking at our budget moving. My favorite part. It's like all still there. It's all going to get spent really fast all at once. Okay, so we got Silver Lake, Night Out, music talk about Earth Festival, art night. Art. Okay,
cool. Can I circle back on some I forgot to say my availability for the uh Arum Arts Festival. Um I should be open that whole day and I'm trying to wrangle my beloved partner to also volunteer. So I'm like all right, I will make a note of that. Thank you. I love it. Autumn
Arts Autumn Arts. Do we need any branding and communication items for our Autumn Arts Festival? You're looking at me, but I don't know any more than Tom. Some more t-shirts. Yeah. Well, we have t-shirts in the um art cart. That's
false. I did not see any. No, I don't remember seeing any. Oh, I have them in under my desk right now. They must have been moved cuz I didn't see any. Don't you guys get t-shirts? You got to get a t-shirt. Talk to Jordan. They're under her desk. Yes.
Okay. And Eliza, you need one? I do have a t-shirt now. You did get one. It is very swanky. I keep it like very nicely in my closet. So, oh, that's better than I do. Walled up in a dresser somewhere. Um, pretty cool. Any concerns about this
upcoming schedule or budget stuff? Okay. Reports from commissioners. Do you want to start us off, Amanda? I have nothing. Excellent. Sharon, nothing. Yeah, me too. Tom, I don't have
anything. Thank you. Eliza, nothing. Laura, no updates. Okay, Raquel. Nothing letter day. Ew, you got any updates for us? No. Okay. Uh, council leazison.
Um, I will say that uh at the last city council meeting, we talked um at the workshop, we talked about budgets. Um, so we're starting the budgeting process for 2026 and um, we had a few presentations on
uh, park and wreck commission is doing some work around uh, Casey Lake and a few other few of the other parks. There's a long discussion about Gaga Ball pits and what exactly they are and a lot of people not knowing that. Gaga ball. That's a big one. Yeah. Did your
kids miss that? What is Gaga Ball? What is that? It's like Clash of the Titans but for children. It's like dodgeball except it's in an octagon but like a three-foot wooden octagon. Can you pronounce that again? You've never dog what? Dodge gaga ball. It's
gaga ball. Gaga ball. And they play it in lie of dodgeball if you played dodgeball when you were growing up. Okay. Yep. But it's in an enclosed space. So it's Anyway, so in reference to the parks, I saw some trees being taken down at the triangle area today at
five corners. Yeah. Is that for that? No, I don't believe so. I think that is in anticipation of potentially the reszoning because I think that is the next loca that is the next proposed location. Yeah. For the uh um
what am I trying to think of? Student built house. Student built house. Yes. Oh, for a student built house. I thought that guy retired and they were sunsetting. They uh he retired the person that they were working with at Century retired and now they're working with St. Paul College.
So they they wanted to pick up there. There will be a park, but it's going to be further down the hill. Got it. Back behind that. Yeah. Um but the so they are partnering with St. Paul College, which offers two benefits. Uh one, these are college students, so a little bit
more experience going into the field. Um and two, they are college students, so this is their dedicated uh time. Yeah. Um, so whereas like Century it was high school students who were doing this part-time. So they would have like this group of high school students come and do it for half a day and then
another group come in and do. So this way you have the same students doing it, you know, all the time. So um, yeah. Um, and then the other thing I wanted to bring up was the stamp uh, for the the concrete stamp that we talked about. I
talked about talked to public works and to city manager about that. um they are starting to do the work up on um up by Casey Lake around there. So if we if that is something that we wanted to pursue and we could get that done um we're probably getting close to the time that we would want to get that to them
so that they can start to stamp. I'm happy to send that if it's a go. Okay. Yeah. I don't want to do it and then they're like no we don't want it on the So in talking to them they are on board with it. They are more than willing to do it. confusion on their part about was
it something they were going to pursue and buy or something we were going to pursue and buy. I said I would talk to you guys about it and I thought it was something we were gonna pursue buy and then just supply to them and say hey here's what we want you to do and do it. So I I noticed in the minutes on that
that it said something that Ron had found a vendor that could make this. So do we need to get that vendor name from Ron? Because I worked with him. Oh, you did? Okay. But then e even still we'd have to then probably get it to Jordan so it could be purchased, right? Yep.
Yeah. So I can move forward that. I just didn't want to move forward without knowing for sure that we could, you know, do it and it would be liked by all. Yeah. I I mean in that case I I guess I will make the executive decision that I think we're good to move forward with that.
Um, one question I have is, is public works the one that is putting the stamps in the concrete as it's being poured or? Uh, no. It'll actually be the contractors, the one doing laying the concrete. Okay. Public works will supply it to them and say, "Hey, as part of doing this, just, you know, and talking
to WSB, our city engineer, and uh, public works and city manager, all of them said, "Yeah, it's going to whoever winds up doing the concrete work, it's going to take them like a minute to do. All they got to do is just it's done. So they're not going to have a problem with
it. So they understand it's not like every single section. Yeah. Like you know if we're doing a corner or something, you know, put it on the corner or something like that. Perfect. And it's not going to be, you know, based on what
we can provide them like criteria like every other concrete 5-footer, you know, put it in whatever corner or wherever, you know. Yeah. And that's one thing we may want to talk about is, you know, what is that criteria for how how many we want. Um because my understanding, if
I remember right from last time, is it's like 12 by 12, something like that. Yeah, it's not huge. It's not huge. Um so, you know, maybe it's something we do on like corners or you know, things like that. So, um that's something maybe we can talk about and figure out, you know, Yeah. figure out because we don't want
to have like a million of these things, right? Yeah. The idea of just make people have to find them. Exactly. So they're more rare that you would see it. Yeah. It's like hidden Mickey becomes Secret Snowy. Love it. You just got to That's his
name. Secret Snowy. I tried to relay that to the city manager and said it's kind of like the hidden Mickey thing at Disney World and he didn't know what I was talking about. What is that? I don't know what that is. He's got to get out more. What is that? So, at Disney World Disneyland, um there are different
images of, you know, the Mickey Mouse logo with the circle with the two circles for the ears. Um but they're hidden everywhere. So, like if you're going on like Space Mountain, it might be hidden in the flowers at Space Mountain or, you know, like something like that or it's in the background of one of the rides or something as you're
going by. So, you have to know exactly where to look and find it. When you're going through the Haunted Mansion, they have the dishes set up. So, it's like the main dish, the main plate, and then two plates, and that's your hidden Mickey. It's very exciting. Yeah. So, it's kind of a it's a
kind of like a I don't know, Easter egg. Not really. Yeah. Like an Easter egg kind of, you know, looking. It's no different than when you walk on the east side, you you stumble upon a few lines of poetry or that kind of thing. Love that. Yeah. So, that's what we will.
That's our next city meeting is at Disney World. Yeah. put that in the budget. No, don't do that. We talked We've already talked about budgets. Budgets are not set, but Oh, is that it? Anyone else have
anything? I kind of lost track of what we're doing. You're You're in charge today. To go home. So move. Second. All right. All those in favor? Hi.
Yeah, less than an hour. Good job, Carrie.