Council member Johnson? Here. Council member Kovatsky? Here. Council member Kim? Here. Council member Naker? Council member Yang? Council member Bowie? Chair Jost? Here. Four present, three absent, with three being excused. The first item on the agenda is minutes 20 five-twenty eight, approving 06/04/2025, library board minutes. I'll take a motion from, council member for Virodzki to approve the minutes. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Four in favor. Zero approved. The minutes have been adopted.
The next item on the agenda is up for discussion. Staff report twenty five-one hundred and fifty four, Summer Teen Engagement Library and Parks and Recreation. Great. So, I'd like to welcome Director Hartman. And, we have some guests with us. And this is going to be presented by, Natasha Obiphone, who is who is here to speak with us today about our teen engagement program. So thank you so much for joining us. Good afternoon, Chair Jost, library board members. With no further ado, I wanna turn it over to our incredible, RightTrack scholar and group of RightTrack workers,
who are gonna tell you about what they've been doing this summer. Fantastic. Well, welcome. Hi. All right. Hi, everyone. Thank you for your time. And today, we're going to be going over the Teen Engagement Research Project, which has been a collaboration between Saint Paul Public Libraries, Parks and Rec, and RightTrack. We are still getting through some of the data. So what we have for you guys is a short summary. So the surface level goals of this project was to understand the needs, challenges, and general perspectives of St. Paul teenagers. And we also wanted to target a population of 14 to 19 years old,
really focusing on those older teenagers because the demographics on either side of this age range are generally well addressed already. And we also wanted to reach a variety of teen friendly spaces. But the deeper goal of the project was to, help SBPL and Parks and Rec create offerings for teenagers that really resonate with them. And they wanted to use design thinking principles to create these programs. So instead of creating programs without their input, ask them what they need specifically and then create programs from those anecdotes. They also believe that having youth lead the process would encourage the participants to be
a little bit more authentic in their feedback and also help us get valuable experience with outreach, public speaking, and research. So our team is composed of supervisors and team engagement interns. For supervisors, we have Rebecca Ryan, Gina Abraham, Austin Von Bergling, and Theresa Little, who helped us understand the scope of the project and give us some direction. And for our teen engagement interns, we have Dulce Armenta, Aaron Sanders, and Avery Junior, as well as Yekuba Tiozenge and Rose Vang,
who did the actual outreach in going out into the community. And then for me, Natasha O'Bafin, I'm a mix of both. So I manage the, like, the everyday endeavors of the interns, but also received a lot of support from the other supervisors. So how we went about this project was we chose to create a physical survey that measured teens' social habits, their library and rec center usage, their hopes and stressors, as well as some demographic data. The teenagers were incentivized with goodie bags that were filled with sort of relevant items.
So, phone accessories, keychains, things like that. And the items in these bags were also designed to, prompt them to use the library and rec center. So for example, we had enamel pins that had like, enamel pins of, like, baseball and sports themed things. And we also had, like, wooden key chains that prompted them to be used at, our CreateTech locations and things like that. And at the end of the project, we were able to reach about 164 participants. So these are some examples of the questions that we had in our survey.
There were about 15 in total, and these are shortened and simplified versions of those. So we have things like, where do you go when you're not at home? What barriers keep you from visiting? How often do you visit? Why do you visit? What do you love about your community? What makes you feel anxious? And what do you want to achieve? To actually collect the data, we went to a variety of locations. So these are some examples of the libraries and rec centers we were able to to visit. And these are examples of the generally teen friendly spaces that we were able to visit. And we really wanted to prioritize going to a good mix of both to combat,
sampling bias. And we really wanted to hear the perspectives of people who don't currently go to the library or the rec center because those perspectives are very important to us. And this process of data collection took about two and a half weeks. And now I'll turn it over to the engagement interns so that they can speak about their experience. Hi. My name is Dulce Armenta. And today, I wanted to share with you guys, about my experience as a community researcher. I'm currently going to Highland Park Senior High School. This experience taught me that research is more about facts and asking question.
It's about communicating with people and getting to know the world around you. Through this experience, I was able to learn how to communicate better, learn, and sorry. Oh, you're good. You're doing great. You're doing great. And look at the problems from different angles. All of those skills that I mentioned in the past, sounds like being a good listener, time management, are skills that I will probably be using at work, school, and even everyday life. I would truly appreciate every single one of my coworkers, Natasha, and everyone that is here today for forming part of this internship and this work.
Thank you, you guys. Thank you. Hi, everyone. My name is Aaron Woods, and I'm bought into my second year at Saint Thomas University. And I just wanna share my experience as well of working with parks and rec and libraries. I would like to start off with going out, and, like, interacting with, like, the teens at, like, the malls and, like, Como Zoo and, like, all those places and, like, getting to see, like, their feedback on, like, the rec centers and libraries in their community. And, just, like, the things that, like, I took from like,
away from this experience, like, is definitely, like, communicating and going in and keeping an open mind always. That's, like, the two things that really stuck with me. And also because I'm going into or, like, my major is business, and I feel like those are some things that I'll, like, really need in that, like, business field. So, yeah. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Hello. My name is Avery Junior. I'm going to, Saint John's University in, Minnesota this fall for my first year. I would say, one thing I learned about during this internship,
it would definitely be the community and, learning how or why they aren't going to rec centers or if they are going to rec centers and libraries. Another thing I enjoyed was, connecting with my, coworkers and the community and learning what they think about the rec centers and libraries. And, that'll be it. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, guys, for sharing. Thank you. So now we'll go into some significant findings we have for you guys. Like I said, we are still getting through some of the data,
but we have three major points that we'd like to share today. So for some demographic data, again, we were able to reach about 164 teenagers across St. Paul. 40% of those were boys, 55% were girls, 4% were non binary, and the rest chose not to answer. Most of our participants were 15 to 17 years old at 62%, 26% were 18 to 19, and twelve percent were thirteen to fourteen. And the top ZIP codes recorded are 55117, 104, and 116. So for our first question,
what keeps teens from visiting libraries and recreation centers? You can see here that for libraries, the top two reasons are my schedule is full in the red and I don't know anyone who goes in the purple. Whereas for recreation centers, the top reasons are, again, I'm too busy in the red. I don't know anyone who goes in the purple and nothing in the pink. And I think from this, we can infer that teens are just busy people. They have to deal with, athletics and school and work.
And we did have some specific answers that said that they were being served by their school's gym or their school's library. So it's likely just a matter of convenience for them to go there instead. And I think that this is consistent with another finding we have, which is that most teens find libraries and rec centers to be welcoming environments. We found that 64% of teens found libraries to be very welcoming, and 70% of teens found rec centers to be very welcoming. And across the board, an average of 98% of them found these spaces to be at least somewhat welcoming.
So from here, I think it's important to think about how can libraries and rec centers get more involved with St. Paul public schools. Maybe start going to them instead of having it be the other way around. Now, for our second question, what would make libraries more welcoming for teens? You'll notice that we don't include rec centers in this question. And that's because the overwhelming majority of teens did find rec centers to be welcoming environments, we chose to omit that question to prioritize having a shorter survey because we noticed that the longer it was,
the less people would complete it fully. So having this question for rec centers was just one of many that we had to cut in order to prioritize just completion of the survey. So from here, you can see that we have a pretty even mix of responses. And I think this just speaks to the personal preferences of everyone who responded. But most of them are saying snacks and drinks being allowed, cozy lounge spaces and seating, and seeing other people that they know there. And while I know that there are some challenges with allowing food and drinks inside of libraries and rec centers,
libraries in particular, I think what these answer choices speak to is that teenagers today need a third space. They need places that they can go to outside of school and work where they can exist that aren't behind a paywall and where they can just sort of, be amongst themselves. And so, yes, while there are some challenges with allowing food inside of libraries and rec centers, I think if we can create this space for them in these facilities, that's something worth taking a look at. And then furthermore, we need to think about how we can create that space visually or otherwise.
We did have another question that asked them what makes them feel relaxed, and I believe they said, most of them said low lighting and light music were, things that made them feel relaxed. That's something to think about. And for our last question, what do teens want to achieve, specifically within the next ten years of their lives? We are still getting through the data for this question because it's a free response question, and those are harder to deal with. But all of the responses we got fall into the four broad categories of career, academics, financial stability,
and family. And these are some examples of the things that they said. So stable career, buy a house, learn more about myself. I think when it comes to creating programs for teenagers, we need to focus on things that deal with these four broad categories and that are led by people not much older than them to, sort of create sort of, like, a better rapport, I guess, I would say. Another general thing that we noticed with our responses is that there's just a general lack of awareness. A lot of people didn't know what the libraries are or what they offered,
or they had specific needs that libraries and rec centers do have. So I think more work just needs to be done to, one, correct the perceptions of these places in teenagers' minds and also maybe more aggressively promote the things that we have to offer. Thank you for your time. I'd love to thank the team engagement interns for all of their hard work, all of my supervisors for the support they gave us, and all of you for being here to listen to us. Thank you. Thank you. Great job. Well, that was a wonderful presentation. I guess I'll open it up for questions if any of my colleagues have any
questions or comments. Councilwoman Johnson? Yeah. No questions. But I'm also just really excited to see young people in the chambers today and actually talking about the work that you guys have been doing, all summer, I will just simply say how impressive it is. I'm like actually, I think, you know, I'd go as far as saying that, you know, sorry. I apologize to to the staff, but this might be my favorite presentation. But, I think just coming into the piece of just how, you all are able to just relate and, I think, represent in what you've been hearing, I just want to say how valuable that is and how that continues to lead
even the work that we do. And so I'm glad that you were able to work with our, our library staff and our rec staff because, honestly, there is so often, I think, a need to just continue to think about the future that we're building in our city, and it includes our young people, who make up such a large part of our city's population. And I'm also pleased to see on there and kind of I was laughing a little bit on the because I don't know anyone who goes there piece, because I think often, you know, as I'm I'm 30 years old. So, for some of you, that's, like, 10, 11, you know, twelve years older than than.
But, I'm like, wow. That's a lot. But also just, I get asked a lot, like, what do we you know, how do we engage with young people? And I tell folks all the time about how intimidating it is to invite just one. And so just having a chance to hear from folks to be like, Yeah. Maybe they'll come to the library or the rec center. If they know someone who goes there or they have a friend that they can go with, I just think that that's so important, because it's always intimidating, even now, to walk into spaces and know absolutely nobody, or to walk into spaces and maybe not get spoken to when you're there. And so I'm glad to hear that people think it's a welcoming environment. And I also just really appreciate the honest feedback of just,
hey, you know, if I know somebody who goes there, probably likely to go there. If my friends hang out there, I might hang out there as well, because it really is about, continuing to do the outreach to young folks in our neighborhood and keeping folks to come in and, you know and the the the food and the snacks piece. That's tea. No. Appreciate appreciate all of the things that you guys are doing. So great work. Thank you. All right. I'll go to Council Member Koretzky and then Council Vice President Kim. Yeah. Thanks, sir. Just I would echo a lot of the comments, Council Member Johnson just mentioned. I think for council members, we're actually all young, but that's because the standard for council member is just fairly fairly old.
But even I am, like, your parents' age, basically. So, like, I would have no like, by elected official standards, you know, council member Johnson is the youngest of the four of us, but we're all, like, fairly young, and I would have no idea what teenagers want. Or, like, if I suggested things, you guys would just be clowning me all day long. So I think in particular, the the I don't know anyone who goes there or it showed up in a couple of different versions. I think it's just so the fact that you wouldn't assume that's a like, actually seeing it in the survey results is helpful because once you say it, it makes total sense. It's like, well,
I'm not gonna go to a place where I think there's literally no other teenagers there. It's all little kids or adults renting like, getting books, and then I'm the only teenager in this entire building. Like, that's gonna suck. And so but seeing it in the responses and even the food and drink stuff, it just makes so much and I appreciate what you said about having third spaces that aren't paid. You know, like, for someone you know, even even for adults, we say the same thing of having good, healthy third spaces that aren't just, like, bars or restaurants where you're spending money. And that's what makes these places so valuable as they are accessible and they are
are free and all those things. So, yeah, I'm super, super impressed with what you guys did and just very appreciative for it. Definitely one of the most fun presentations we could chat, so yes, love it. Thank you. All right. Council Vice President Kim. Thanks, Chitra. I have a data question and comment. Can I ask why the Northland Community Center wasn't included in your your study as a location? I did see Como on the list, but that's the only Ward 5 location. And Ward 5, like 7, I believe, has the like the greatest population of young folks in the ward. I think our awards lead in terms of that kind of age group.
So just sort of curious because we have a brand new team zone there with two giant televisions and Xboxes and games galore and sewing machines. So I'm just sort of curious because, I think to Council Member Foretsky's point, it's like, right, I don't want to go if it's like a taut lot and and adults hanging around. So just sort of curious about that, and then I'll save my comment for when you're done. Thank you. Could you repeat which center? North End Community Center. I I'm honestly, there's not a I tried to send them to places where I felt like there
was a good amount of also, like, teen family spaces around. So I guess it's just not something that I looked into, but that would have been a really good idea. Yeah. There's, no. No. It's not a criticism, but a curiosity more than anything. Mhmm. So I appreciate that explanation. And I do see, Comal Park And Zoo is on here, so that's obviously fantastic, more so because I would love and I will use this data to help kind of inform the types of programming that we offer there. The Rice Street Library is directly across the street from it. And so just keeping cognizant kind of like the message and the information that you
want us to impart with and how we can improve better, improve city services for teens. And then the data point, I just want to really commend all of you for the set of the data set and the questions that you asked. I think adding nothing is not a data set that I would collect myself. But I think it's really funny and interesting that you did because sometimes it really is just nothing. And so I think it speaks to sort of like the language in question that a teen would ask a teen, right? Someone in your age would ask someone else. And then the other thing that I would just really encourage us to carry on
from this study is I really appreciate the fact that you're asking for gender identity, but you're offering a non binary option. Right? So when we think about libraries being inclusive, so it's great to see that it's being collected, but also that across the board, everyone, regardless of gender and age and zip code, folks are feeling welcomed at the library. So I really appreciate that data set. I think more and more as we think about how we're creating inclusive spaces, understanding who's participating at the library and the many intersections of their identity is just
super important. And I think there's no better place that illustrates that than our public libraries. So thank you so much for the presentation. I'll just pull down. It for sure was one of the best ones we've had in the chamber. So thank you so much. Thank you, everyone. If council member forgot to get Thanks, chair Jones. Actually, vice president Kim's point made me remember I wanted to really commend also the way you did the the survey locations and the locations you chose. We regularly, when we're doing engagement at the city level, deal with sort of a structural self selection of if you ask we or to put it a different way, I remember a presentation,
even I think about the library, where we learn a lot about why people come there. And by default then, you know, this is answering the opposite question of how can we get you to come. And to actually do the the mall, you know, Rosedale, MOA, Maplewood, the non the non library rec center locations to the point of mixing up is so huge because, like, answering the question of why people don't use something is so much harder than having the sort of selected sample of people are using the people who already know how to do a, b, and c. And so it's a it's a very difficult question to try and figure out why
people aren't doing something. And that selection is part of why we got some good answers. So that's really cool. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Well, any other questions or comments? Well, I mean, I just really appreciate the comments from my colleagues. I think I, you know, really again, this is one of the greatest presentations we've we've had. I think just, the value that you bring to helping us understand, you know, what is it that brings teens or does not bring teens to the library. When I looked at your survey questions, like, those are not questions that any of us are gonna be able to come up
with that are gonna provide us with the feedback that we really need to to create, spaces that teens do want to come to. I it made me think about when when I was a teenager and we would go to the we went to the Lexington Library after school, but I went with a group of friends. I'm not walking over to the Lexington library by myself to study. That's not fun if no one's there. And so even just you know, it's not something I thought of now until I heard that you, Natasha, bring that up. And so I really appreciate all of the work that you did, and I appreciated hearing what you learned. And I'm glad that you, that you really enjoy your experience and gain so much from it,
and really wish all of you the best. It sounds like you've got, you know, exciting things ahead ahead. And I just want to thank you guys for presenting to us. So thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you. Council members, would you be willing to come up with a photo? Yes. Sorry, Natasha. Say what you were going to say. Oh, just thank you. Incredible. Can I get your project team come up if we just could take a minute? I don't know if that's over here? Out of order. You all decide. You wanna take it over here? It's got a seal there. Yeah. We can do it over here. Oh, really? It's here. Yeah. I thought it was a nightmare. Yeah. Good job, everyone. Okay. Nice work,
Krishna. Oh, this is great. Okay. That's a pleasure. Bring this out to everyone. Okay. Well, that was so wonderful. So now we're going to transition over to a transforming libraries update. So Yep. So the final item on the agenda is Staff Report 20 five-one 155, Transforming Libraries update. So I'll turn it over to, our, Deputy Director, Josh Schafer and Marika Stalock to give us a presentation on transforming libraries. And I think the friends, Beth Burns is here too. I think she's gonna share some share some things as well. Yeah. Thank you. Good afternoon,
Jacobs, library board members. I'll just start by saying I knew I shouldn't have followed them. It's gonna go first. Well, now you get the really big one. So we're here to talk a little bit about, just an update on where we're at with the transforming libraries. I know we've been here before to present this work and share with you the goals, aspirations we have for it. So we're gonna talk about the three libraries and the projects we have as components of that project to date as well as some library updates we've been doing that are corollary to that. First is a little bit of background on transforming libraries. If you'll recall, it's the building of the Hamlin Midway Library,
which is currently under construction. Regan is going to share more about that. It's major renovation of our Hayden Heights and our Riverview libraries to bring those up to date, add some more functional community space, and it's enhancing the spaces in all of our locations through updates to our play and learn spaces and to our tech rich spaces. Just a little bit of a reminder, again, this is a community informed vision that we've put together here in Transforming Libraries. We surveyed over got input from over 3,000 people through community surveys, focus groups, community meals,
a whole variety of different engagement strategies to ensure that we were hearing the most voices possible and asking those voices, what do you want out of your library? What we heard was that people want spaces that are accessible, they're flexible, they're environmentally responsible, safe, and they're reflective of the cultures of the neighborhood where they exist. We know that's different throughout the locations that we have, and they include elements of history. And that goes particularly for our Hamlin Midway Library where we're replacing an older building with a new building. To get into the transforming library's work,
I'm gonna pass it off to our library project manager, Marika Sealer. Hi. Thank you so much. And I just I have to I I'm still wowed by that presentation we just had, and it was phenomenal. My job before this was, working with teens. And part of the input we got was from teenagers. And I'm realizing now that that was four years ago. And so we need to and that's the problem with working with teens is that you grow up, and then I have to do it again. And so, yeah, that was so hot. I was, like, taking all these notes of, like, what we need to be doing. So, I wanna talk to you a little bit about the Hamlin Midway Library.
Right now, it is a really exciting moment if you've driven by, even since we made this PowerPoint. Now, the footings have been poured. The foundation is complete. The drilling for the geothermal heat cooling is complete, which is a way cooler experience than I have ever knew about. It goes about 500 feet into the ground, and they they have to do all these soil scientists to figure out that they hit down to get far enough to heat and cool with the it's just so neat to learn all this stuff. And so that's completed. And now the steel framing has begun.
The beams are up. It's so it it, like, looks like a building. You can see the outline of it, and it's really exciting. And we will be opening by late twenty twenty six. We are continuing to make updates to the design too. We just added another, calm room. So just continuing to, like, make sure that we're really continuing to listen to community feedback, as we as we're moving forward. We did have a groundbreaking ceremony, which we called laying the first stone because the actual, lot is very small, and we would have all had to wear hard hats and probably, like, galoshes because it was all mucky at that moment.
But here, we had, several 100 community members come out to get excited about this new library. So thank you for your patience and your excitement for this new library. We are thrilled to get going, on on building this library. K. This was taken last week, and already now it looks completely different. So, I I encourage driving past. It's very exciting. This is what it will look like, a brand new space. There is a team space involved in there. And I wanna say, like, we are right now in the process of purchasing all the furniture, and I will be talking to you about what we should be getting in the
teen space. So moving on to Hayden Heights. We are so grateful for Congresswoman McCollum for, the EMRIC, dollars 500,000 federal EMRIC in 2024. We're right now submitting funding requests for the CIB process to fund this fully. We are right now working with LSE to get the construction documents fully ready so that when we are funded, we will be shovel ready, meaning we can get going right away. So we're right now providing the necessary environmental reviews in order to use the federal
earmarks. And yeah, we're very excited about the Hayden Heights Library as well. The Riverview Library is very similar. Also, we have the earmark, federal earmark in 2024. We're also working on, we submitted for the request for the CIB funds as well. And right now, we're conducting the historic reviews now before that project begins. We know that, that earmark, we want to spend it. So we're looking at discrete projects that we can spend it on until we can move forward on the full project and work on getting that going as well.
And then our play and learn spaces. So just a reminder that this is going to be in all of our libraries. We are really trying to elevate what play and learn spaces can be. We know that a lot of our spaces already have really wonderful toys and things like that for families. But what we know about play and learn is that, families come over and over and over again to the libraries. It's not like a children's museum where you attend once and and that was really fun for the day, and then you go back in a couple months. Sometimes they're there daily or weekly, and, we need to have a space that grows with a child,
that is flexible, and can really, have that multigenerational aspect of helping families play together. Also, helping families maybe, access their own laptop nearby while the child is playing, that kind of thing. So we are, we've selected a vendor to help us, develop a design guide for all of our libraries, and they will help us plan that, dollars 2,000,000 in renovations to all the play and learn spaces. The sun Sunray Library is gonna be the first one that we, really dig into with that design, and then we'll have a demonstration space in 2026 so that we can show you
all what that what we mean when we talk about play and learn and how that is elevated from what we already have. This design guide is going to help support the integration of literacy and play because we know that play is the work of young children, and that is how they learn. We want it to be quality space. Again, talking about free space as families that don't need need to pay to be in that third space with their young children. And the last part of the transforming libraries project is the tech rich spaces. These updates are facilitating the work and the collaboration and virtual,
needs that we're seeing from the community, especially since COVID has really turned a lot of things, virtual. So a lot of what we're learning about TechRich is not just the technology itself, but the spaces involved in having private spaces to take those meetings or to take to have collaboration happen. So a lot of this is facilities, upgrades, of creating study spaces, meeting rooms that are appropriate, having the technology, available for the public, of course, and then also having privacy, soundproofing, correct furniture, things like that. We are right now working on demonstration spaces that will be completed within this year,
calendar year, at, Rice Street and Merriam Park. So, those meeting rooms are being brought up to scale. Rice Street had some significant soundproofing issues that we needed to address, and same with the Rice the Merriam Park Library had a, partition breaking up the meeting room that was not soundproof. And we're just we, did some feedback from community members that used the meeting rooms and learned kind of how to make these more appropriate for, all sorts of meetings that might be taking place in there. The ones that have been, going this this demonstration space has been funded in part by the Shavlik Family Foundation.
So thank you so much to the friends for getting us going on this project and funding this, this initiative. It's been really lovely to get going on that. And I'm going to turn this over to Josh to talk about the other transformations outside of this project. Yes. So we've got work continuously happening that isn't necessarily what we would describe as the transforming libraries project. That's a unique project that covers everything Marika just talked about. But these other elements of updates that we're doing are both informed by and in turn informing what we want to do with these transforming library spaces.
The first of those that we want to highlight is these Nicholson Room study spaces. This is a new addition over in the central library that's on that Second Floor Nicholson Room. We have been hearing from a lot of people in the community that that space dedicated to being able to take a meeting by yourself, have a one on one conversation or group conversation in a quiet space where you know you're not disturbing others is really valuable. And it's it's a high priority, but it's, you know, limited quantity that we have of that offering throughout.
So as we transform these library locations that are on that list, that's very deliberate addition that we're making to those spaces. And as we have the capacity, we're making those additions to our existing spaces. This Nicholson room work is again comes to us, funds coming through the friends from the Richard and Nancy Nicholson endowment fund. So that's really important work to us. We get approximately how much annually. About 65,000 a year. So we're able to build these spaces with that. And the next phase of that is adding some more community meeting space on that
balcony level in the Nicholson room. What we really wanna focus on too is can we get some of these larger meeting spaces that the facility is built out to support bringing people in and the technology is built out such that people want to come and use our space. We want it to be like a desirable community meeting space so that our internal city partners can hold meetings there, our external partners can hold meetings. Members of the community can book that space for any event that they have. Other transformations that we have going on are just some major capital maintenance and improvement
projects. This is happening a lot through our CIB deferred maintenance fund. Every two years we get to apply for those dollars. We are fortunate enough to have some major funds dedicated to our St. Anthony Park location, which had a non compliant ADA entrance. So we know that's a really big liability for us and it's a really big disservice to anybody in the community who needs to use that entrance. So we put a lot of work into that. That building has been closed for the summer, but it will open again on August 18. So we're really looking forward to that.
What's that? I thought maybe I got the date wrong. The George Latimer Central Library, we've been doing significant work to that. We know it's what are we at? 108 years old there I think. So We've been working for the last couple of years actually on some major energy efficiency improvements that include all new LED lighting throughout, updates to our HVAC systems and then a whole full scale integration of a new building automation system to ensure that what we put in place is operating at peak efficiency. Finally, we've got some safety infrastructure investments. We're very thankful to this Board and your role as the Library Board and the
City Council for allocating funds to us for public safety investments. So what we've been doing so far is ensuring that we've got updated and secure sharps containers installed across our facilities. Safety updates that fit with concepts of crime prevention through environmental design. So that's been some examples of that are some of the fencing we've put in at the Rondeau library as well as the continued pressure washing of the sidewalk upfront to make the space seem more inviting. Vapor monitors in public restrooms,
we've got in a couple of our locations. Now we're doing the assessment of all the rest of our facilities to see which of the bathrooms are compliant with that system and will allow for installation. Likewise, we'll be doing automated locking installs at the locations where that's feasible. So that's I can push a button, close the doors when I know I've got a situation I wanna keep outside. Our camera systems are under review with a consultant right now who's looking at the current state of what we have for on-site servers and hardware and then giving us a recommendation which we'll be able to implement in 2026 to be able to be
sure that we can integrate with the rest of the city, with the Office of Neighborhood Safety and with all the systems as a whole. That's what I have. We'll stand for questions, and then I'm gonna ask Beth Burns to come up as well and talk about what the friends are doing. But first, if you have any questions. Alright. Great. We got I just wanna do a time check. We got, like, nine minutes before HRA, so let's check. Yes. See how we're doing here. But just, if anyone has any any questions, we also have some information from Beth Burns too that she can share. Okay. Well, thank you so much. I'll leave it at question. Yeah. Hi. Very happy to be here today.
I am Beth Burns. I also just have to give props to this presentation. So you guys are a very hard act to follow. But my role is president of the Friends of the Saint Paul Library, and we are the nonprofit support organization that is currently involved in fundraising, advocacy, and programming on behalf of and in support of the work of Saint Paul Public Library. So as you are hearing about transforming libraries, we over at the Friends, our team of 16 staff, 48 board members, are all focused on what we're calling transform our libraries,
discover our possibilities. That's our capital campaign. We have a long history in Saint Paul of realizing visions like the Transforming Libraries project through public private partnership. We now know that the scale of the investments described here are going to cost us $35,000,000 And the friends, through our own feasibility study, has committed to raising $10,000,000 toward this project, with the city's responsibility being $25,000,000 We are, I'm super excited to say, as of today, at $6,100,000
toward our goal, having not even started yeah. I know, Gabe. It's very exciting. Also, very daunting because the next four are gonna be the toughest. But, I want to express to you how powerful this vision is when we are in conversation with private funders. We have received the two largest individual gifts that the Friends has ever received throughout the history of our organization, toward this vision. And we have a really exciting mix of both individual contributors and foundations and corporations
who are contributing. We believe that in the long term, this is also going to increase our capacity as an organization because we're meeting new people all the time who are excited to be part of this vision. The part we're in right now is called the quiet phase of our campaign. And that means a lot of the work we're doing is in solicitation of what are the major gifts to this campaign. When we hit a certain benchmark, we're hoping between 8085% of our goal. That'll be $8,000,000 and we're hoping for that sometime in the next one to one and a half
years. We will move into a public phase of this campaign and invite every member of the community to participate in this vision with us. Because in the same way that the library opens its doors every day and welcomes in the community and adheres to this vision of radical hospitality that invites all of us in to find and seek what we need. This campaign has to mirror those values as well, and so we are looking forward to engaging every member of the community in every
civil single ward of the city, and inviting them, whether it's a $5 gift, a $50 gift. Dollars 500,000 is just fine too, but to be a part of it so that walking down the street, success for this campaign will mean every person in Saint Paul can take a look at a library and go, I helped do that. Mhmm. That is what success looks like. I helped make that happen. And, to be at six point one now is great, but as you know, as an organization, we are both doing fundraising and advocacy, so I would be remiss in my responsibilities if I did not close my remarks
saying the partnership is imperative. I've had the opportunity to have individual conversations with each of you over the last month. The CIB recommendation that is currently out there, and will be part of this year's budget process, there is a wonderful allocation and recommendation for allocation to the Hayden Heights component of the project and then in seeing the recommendation from CIB reach all the way to the finish line and help move Hayden Heights forward and begin the investment that will also bring us the full renovation to Riverview so that we can continue to have one of the strongest and
best and field leading library systems in The United States. Thank you. Thank you, Beth. Alright. I'll turn it over to council member McGratsky who has a question. I I will try and be quick. Thanks, chair Jost. I just need to note, you know, Midway is the library that's going to be opening next, and it was it's very exciting, and it's we're finally at the point where you can see the beans, and it's so real. But I just wanna note that by the time it opens, it will have been even just the phase that I've been aware of will be just shy of a decade that it took from community conversation and engagement to opening
that branch. And it involved it was honestly it's one of the most there were parts of it that were some of the most brutal, like, times of my time working in city hall of getting through the engagement, the way staff were having to battle through some of the dynamics, the way folks at the Friends of the Saint Paul library were having to battle through some of these dynamics. And it has been it just being able to experience that in Ward 4 and seeing what it takes to get this new, accessible, equitable space that will serve people in a more real, modern way just makes gives me such an appreciation for what it will mean to
have it at Hayden Heights, have it at Riverview. To see what it is right in my neighborhood and to see all the work that so many of you had to put in to make it real just gives me such an appreciation for what it will mean in every other neighborhood as well. And so I just wanna name just how much blood, sweat, and tears goes into it. And by the time it opens, it'll be the Third Ward 4 council member who has been in office during the discussion, multiple library directors, multiple deputy directors. Like, that's the longevity of the fight it takes to get these new resources. And so to have all of you partnering on that is just so significant and
just has to be noted. Thank you. Anybody else? I'll just I'll just close by saying, Beth and, Director Schaeffer, and Reika, thank you so much for your presentation. I really enjoyed hearing the update. And as council member Hrabatsky said, this has just been such a long process that, you know, I I just joined last year. But in order to see this vision through, it really does take all of us and our partnership with the friends, all of our all of our staff, and everyone in our community to to see this through. And I'm excited to see the progress that we're making.
I, love seeing the update to the construction. You know, as an engineer, the one of the only other things that bring me brings me great joy is seeing buildings go up and, you know, beams getting installed. So, that really is exciting to me, and I'm I'm just really grateful for all of your work. And so we're here kind of at the end. Our next meeting is gonna be, September 3 next month. I just you know, we're we're very much toward the end of a meeting, but I want to acknowledge, Council Member Perovatsky, who, served with us this summer here. And this is his last meeting. And I just want to thank him for all of his work here as a
council member and, as he mentioned, in his time at City Hall, to to, support our libraries and the vision that we all care about so much. So thank you so much, Council Member Veratsky. All right. Well, with nothing else to come before us, we are adjourned.