Arts Commission Regular Meeting

26. Let us call to order and roll call, please.

that out. Yeah, I had some things printed out for each of you so we can give you a little hint of what I'm doing. I'm not a public speaker, so did you make my time already?

Don't worry. You've got plenty of time.

Okay. I'm going to read what I want to share with you. My name is Gail Childress and I am a member of the Ojai Studio Artists, a non-profit organization. First off as a member of the Ojai Studio Artists, I want to thank the commission for the grants that we have received This year, as well as the years in the past. But I'm here tonight as a past art commissioner to remind this commission of the Percent for the Arts Ordinance.

This is important to me personally because this ordinance took three years while being on the Commission to get it passed through City Council. It's a law now. In the handouts are important articles within the ordinance, little reminders of public and private development that the 2% for art over $1 million of development goes towards public arts. 1%. 2.

2% under a million, 1% over a million?

Thank you. Hopefully it's over a million so it'll be the 2%. That

would be the 1%, under a million is 2%.

That's what I'm saying.

We'll just let her comment, okay?

Sorry.

You just took my time.

No, no not at all. You can have as much time as you want.

Thank you. Okay now get back I had the article where it said 2% when it had a million dollars of spinature, 1% over the million dollars. OK. I would like the Arts Commission to please remind city council. Woo-hoo! That's sweet. Thank you. To the percent of the arts ordinance when developing the park in back of the city hall and the homes, the tiny homes for the homeless.

Also I'd like to make a recommendation to the Arts Commission when the first call for any art for public places, the first call should go to all the artists in Ojai Thank you. I'm almost done. So, I mean that's the first important thing too is the Ojai artists should be the first ones to be alerted that there might be a place for their art. As a member of OSA, I would like to invite each and every one of you to the opening of the Ojai Studio exhibit at the museum tomorrow night Five to seven.

And in my opinion, which is who knows what that is? I think it's the best show ever that the artists have put up so we'd love to see you all there. Thank you.

Thank You Gail! We're looking forward to that. I'm gonna be there

Thank you, Gail. I appreciate those comments. I agree with you that public art is very important and I congratulate you for the Public Art Ordinance which exists. I've studied it in great detail and I've worked on public art matters for many years and I think there are certain aspects that would benefit public art in this town that this commission should consider bringing forward to the council And thank you for that reminder. It reminds me to push that with my colleagues here.

Thank you, Commissioner. Newsome Hall has public comment.

Pardon? Thank you. I'm here just to touch base with you guys. We haven't spoken we've just had the opportunity to meet and I'm looking forward to coming to Take this strategic lens with you in preparation for that. I'm going to suggest meeting with Each of you, there's been a lot of change. A lot of new ideas, new freshness and sometimes when you meet in a group well there's some depth that I'd like to mine and draw from your experience make the most of the time together by having individual interviews with you and possibly you might suggest maybe an after action interview with Pamela and whomever you think might be helpful to present just a nice deep understanding of today, I mean the strategic review is an opportunity to step up on a mountain.

Nice meeting you. To step up on the mountain and take a larger lens And that doesn't mean, did we do everything we set out to do last time that we looked at five years ahead. It's really a strategic lens on the future of arts in Ojai Valley. So that's us. That's who was here now. That's the next generation. So it's taking a look at what's going on. And so this is a kind of horizon lens and I'd like to have a deeper understanding by meeting with each of you in person beforehand.

That's it. So I hope that's OK with you guys, and I look forward to working with you.

Thank you, Nusa. So we all have your call to look forward to? You'll call us, right? Yes. OK.

I'm taking my daughter to London, and I'll be back at the end of September. Yeah. And she's going to go study.

All right.

Enjoy London. Yeah, performing arts. Thank you for coming.

Thank you, Nusa. All right, our consent calendar is two of the minutes. I think it's April and March. No wait, May and March. May and March was a whole last time.

April and July.

April and July, yeah. And if you haven't reviewed

it...

This is the consent calendar as the minutes, yeah.

Yeah, we either approve the minutes as they're written or we make changes.

I'm going to give you a minute just so you're not embarrassed if you didn't read it without pointing anyone out like myself.

I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes for April 16th and July 16th.

Can we do them together?

I second.

We can do them together. Thank you. Second. Discussion? That's not really consent, is it, if we just have a discussion. All right. All in favor?

Aye. I'm sorry. Who

seconded

it? Was it? OK. Thank you.

All right. Discussion item number four, arts grant submission and timeline. And we save paper by doing it on the two backs of the two pages. We're going to turn this over to Commissioner Wright to lead us through.

Thank you, Chair West. First up is the arts grant submissions and timeline. This is a very basic report. The timeline is on the back. This is a proposed timeline, especially when it gets into the last few dates. Those are at the City Council's discretion obviously. I wrote now for the press release announcing grant applications will be available. That has actually gone out, so as of yesterday? Two days

ago. It was Tuesday and I gave a copy of it to somebody there if you want to... Sorry Chair West if you want to look it over.

So we can disregard that first one. I would propose that we send it out again if anybody thought that was worthwhile

We will also be putting it on all of our social media and you are more than welcome to share that press release with any outlet you'd like to

Do the commissioners have a copy of the updated one?

No,

but I will send it out to you

You want discuss as we go through these or would you rather go through them and then come back?

Discuss as we go through.

Okay,

so September 1st obviously is application is available on the city website that is outlined in the press release Our September meeting is traditionally when We present the ad hoc committee to the public and that meeting September 17th And then September 30th The completed applications are due

Before you move on, do you have enough time to do that in September? To garner your ad hoc committee and get all the applications in. Does that

give you enough time? I am optimistic it does seem a little tight right now but I guess if I can't announce on the 17th then I don't announce But that's

a

whole other discussion.

And what we know is that the application itself has been adjusted, fixed, is now user friendly and thank goodness what a lot of work for you and Bridget to have done to get that together.

Bridget and I were working on it last week a bit more doing some further corrections and we're going to work on it a bit more at the beginning of next week to make sure that it's going to run smoothly.

Currently, it's not available online. It just says will be available September 1st so until what I mean

is it's user-friendly

and all

those bugs are

fixed?

Yes. Great! I do note here, I think on our application instructions. I think we say due at City Hall by 4 or 430. I don't know where this proposed grant cycle timeline is going to go but those times should match. October 9th arts grants applications distributed to ad hoc committee and Arts Commissioners This is a estimated date. The grants application closed on the 30th, and then Bridget has to download everything and organize it on the OneDrive.

Bridget was able to do that within this type of timeframe last year. We're going on the same schedule. And then our October meeting is when we invite grantee applicants to come and describe their projects. Last year, we did this. I suggested at our last meeting what about this idea of inviting people to come either to our September 17th meeting or our October 15th meeting to present Giving them a larger window and more flexibility in terms of their own schedules, and allow for maybe a shorter night in October.

I like that idea. I like it for two reasons. The first is there's more breathing room among applicants as you point out. And also some people can't make certain dates. I think that's a really good plan.

Is that something we would put on the website? I brought this up last year. How do we communicate this to people, in case they're not watching this meeting? You are welcome to come to September 17th or October 15th

meeting

for public comments.

Who, everybody? Yeah. Or the applicant? The applicants are going to be in an email database. They're all together.

Since they know to go to that website to get their grant application, I will make sure I announce it on that page. That they can come to either of those dates. Right. And then we will, like he said, as soon as I get well, I don't know how many emails I'll get before September 17th but- Not a lot.

I think reminder, reminder,

reminder. We could do an email to previous applicants or add it to the press release and send the press release

We'll wait until the applicants are in, I think.

No, excuse me. I'm sorry to say that but—I mean, I'm sorry to disagree, but the problem with sending it to the applicants is that it then privileges prior applicants over other applicants and that is not fair. We should be doing it to everyone so I think it should be a part of the communication and a general email blast, social media blast

Oh, this is before the deadline. Is that why? Yes. I got you.

Yeah. So it kind of does make things slightly more complicated. But I think if we have it where the application button is or we could even add it to our instructions page which has the deadlines and we can include that right there. OK. Well, I think we should do that. Good.

Anyone can interrupt.

How many applications have we received in the past on average?

Well, on average-

Last year we got 30

right?

30. That was due to the increased budget from $30,000 to $100,000. The prior year it was 15 or 16 so I expect we'll get at least 30 again if not more. And also what I like about if we could get people to come to the September meeting is it would be nice for me because I won't have already read all their applications. So they come up here and they tell me what their grant is about, I already know. So it'd make the meeting a little bit more interesting.

So anyway, that

was always the grant that Them appearing here is not considered part of the application.

It is not it's it's like coming for public comment optional and I brought this up before and Something we should keep encouraging There's no reason why? They aren't coming throughout the year to give a public comment about a grant idea or about a grant That they've already done

And we'll make a point of making it a public invite as well, because that's our most exciting meetings. Our only exciting meetings.

But I do think that's a matter of communications, and who is in charge of communications in this group?

Is that you? I'm right now. I've been

handling it. Okay. So get to work. We should be seeing articles every week.

You should.

Okay.

I have been writing them. It's just you don't do ... Who has been watching my articles?

I am very impressed with Smitty's two most recent-

Take more time

please. Facebook posts which I think should be Become articles in the Ojai Valley News.

Yeah, Facebook schmace book. I mean Yeah, this should be a different kind of communication

okay boomer

oh Those are fighting words You know maybe we should say You're invited to the September – I mean, I'm just wondering how we can divide it up into two different evenings of presentation while also trying to keep that energy and excitement that is garnered at

that one meeting where

all the people are together in that room.

Bridget can figure that I thought it seems like you just have two pages if it was on paper two pages and And then you invite and then the first ones who encouraged to come to the first one if they can

yeah Or they can sign up there could be a sign-up sheet. You can pick this date or that

I like the sign-up idea because then we can kind of get them in an order and you can

run in here really quick Put my name

in

so that's again, that's communication. Oh

Yes, I will make it for a sign up to present at. And that way it's going to be kind of first come first served that way as they email me. I'll put them on that list and then we'll spread them out.

Perfect.

And I'll put it on Prodigy.

There you go.

Who remembers prodigy? I

don't even know what that is. Me neither. Just don't put it on truth social.

Oh, I'm sorry. Cuneiform!

I kind of skipped over the ad hoc because that is the next agenda item. So we will discuss that more on the next. Right. It's the discussion item on the back. Yeah. Okay. Where is that? I'm getting confused, so I've got my minutes there. Okay. So moving on... We got that and then... So then the way it works... Oh no, here's trouble. Carolyn knows, but Brad in case you don't know all the applications go to the Ad Hoc Committee for review and then they go to the Arts Commission. So this November 19th Arts Commission receives and reviews ad hoc committee recommendations That is our November meeting when we all vote on it. Presumably, you would have a chance to look at the grants prior to that meeting so you could educate yourself.

Are

all grants presented? Is there a winnowing out of them?

Yes.

So the ad hoc committee will reduce it let's say from 35 to what like

33.

Close, really wonderful.

How

to make a person feel bad?

Yeah, it does kind of feel that way because the disqualifications are based on incomplete applications... Basically incomplete applications that encompass all kinds of things, no fiscal sponsor, no financial data Not a not-for-profit, et cetera. So luckily not very many people are disqualified right off the top and then that's when we'll vote right before Thanksgiving and then December 8th I believe is that first City Council And last year they were very quick to get it on the agenda and get it passed through. This year is an election season, and in the prior election season this December hope was bumped up to January even into February. So we keep pushing for that, and hopefully we'll know by the end of the year who are getting the grants, and everybody will be notified in early January.

And then thrown in there as a December 31st, just as a reminder that grant summer report for the 2026 grant recipients is due.

If I may say, I think the speed with which city council approved it last year had less to do with the fact that it was an election year the prior year and more to do with how organized you were in putting it together last year. Simple for us and you made it very simple for the council. And that was not the case in earlier years, so I would fully expect that with your continued leadership that it ought to smooth sailing here and likely also with council.

Well, that would be great. But let's just keep that in mind. Thank you for that. So that is the timeline.

Nice work. Take

no action. Provide alternative

Is there any reason that we can approve this as a template for the future too?

It

is. This

is based on last year's.

Well, I meant so we don't have to do it every year. The only thing

that

changed was the dates. We should

do it

every year. The days change and everything.

We just change the dates.

All right. I mean typically... Ten minutes a year will carve out for this.

Technically, do we need to vote on approving this calendar? Yes.

We don't have to take a vote. You can all just agree.

Anyone have a problem with this? This looks nice. There doesn't need to be a motion first. I'm confident that council will get it on the December meeting if everything goes smoothly. Because it's election year, they'll do it.

I do need a motion though. Just a motion. You do need a motion? Thank you.

I guess we do

need a motion. OK. And then a second? Second. All in

favor? Aye. Did you make the motion? Yes, I did. Well,

Bridget is after my

hammer. OK, Wagner.

OK, we'll move on. Keep the floor,

Commissioner Wray. OK. Moving on discussion number five, establish 2027 Arts Grants Art Ad Hoc Committee. Again this is almost verbatim from 2026 where the city did ask us to include a discussion item For full transparency of our ad hoc committee formation in public. So here it is Part of our five-year plan is engaging the community and one of the ways to engage a community is to form this ad hoc committee and I think that's great.

Conversely, I don't think it's great. We all review them. We are five people. We override the ad hoc committee's recommendations. So for me, I can go either way on whether or not to form an ad hoc committee, FYI.

Carolyn, you were on the ad hoc committee last year. What do you think?

I like the maintenance of the ad hoc committee. It provides another level of review and engages other members of the community with different kinds of expertise. I thought last year the process went very well so I see no reason not to continue.

Who else was here in the room? Go ahead.

I like it also. I mean, I agree with you that it engages a broader swath of community. For example, Carolyn was on the IHOP committee last year and now she is here with us and you have many other members as well. I was thinking about your point that there are in certain instances, I wouldn't call it overruling but a difference of opinion between the ad hoc committee and this body. Similarly there could be a difference of opinion with the council which we saw one other year. Typically that wouldn't happen if we do our homework well but that's an important point.

But, you know, that's what happens with opinion. So a trial court can be overruled by an appellate court, et cetera. So I don't think that insulted or dissuaded the Ad Hoc Committee from doing its good work. Carolyn, you could weigh in on that? Yeah. Okay. So I think everyone does their earnest best and I know having served In both situations, with and without an ad hoc committee that I can say we make certainly far more reasoned and thorough decisions with an ad hoc committee review than without it.

How are the members of the ad hoc committee chosen, and who chooses them?

They're chosen by the—the tradition has been that they're chosen by the chair of the committee. You choose them. No, not the chair. The head of the committee. Got it. By me?

And

do we have any qualifications that we use or what's the criteria for choosing

them? I try to have a diverse group that has some expertise, knowledge of art, arts administration. Arts and culture, I guess we're saying creative. And try to keep it balanced with administrators versus real artists. That tends to be the combination. Like myself, I was an arts administrator for 25 years And so then bring on an OSA studio artist who has their pulse on the local art scene.

Pull in a art professor would be great, pull in a writer who writes about the arts here in Ojai, things like that.

Sounds like that sounds like a more difficult task than actually reviewing the art itself

It's if I may because I was on the Commission before we did it this way and then it was actually Nigel's year that That we started doing this and I can so if I'm speaking for myself personally, I'm not the detailed person I think I'm a good commissioner but I wouldn't be a good ad hoc. I wouldn't want to be on this because it is I get bored when I get down into the nitty gritty of things. And so, I appreciate that especially because we have a rubric and if we have a diverse selection committee, I don't want the council to think that their commission needs to be like grant reviewers.

They need a more diverse spectrum of the community for the kind of political decisions they're looking for expertise across the art world from us. And so I like the idea and I've always pushed, and I think we've always had someone from the community that's actually headed up a grants review process in one of the service clubs or something in town as well. So I can say that I just personally like that and when I think about The scheme overlooking it, they're the ones you notice when we got them last year. They came, I'm speaking to Christine, they came. You know the A's, the B's, you know the 90 plus on the rubric, the 80 plus on the rubric, and we actually kind of made that helped frame our decisions and we knew it was based on real objective or Well, as subjective as it can be that you had done.

So I think familiarity breeds contempt a little and it's because you've done such a good job that you think it's easy but I know it's tough for me so I like the idea but I like that we review it every year as well

And also, Brad, I have used some repeat ad hoc commissioners which has been very useful because they have done it before. Sure. So this year obviously Carolyn can't do it but I might go back to a couple of the members that were on the Ad Hoc Committee last year and see if they might want to do it again second year It'll be even easier for them and then kind of fill in the gaps.

So I'm always open to recommendations, people are also welcome to contact us that they want to be on it and I can consider that so that's ad hoc committee of these two separate motions because we have to talk about the...

Didn't we? I thought we voted out of ad hoc didn't we last meeting? This is the approval of me forming an ad hoc committee tonight. So I'll need the Commission's approval to do that.

Obviously, we've been using this 100-point rubric the last couple of years. Based on our discussions last time I added to the rubric which is on the next page, the last page of your packet.

Do you want to do a motion? Make the motion separate, do a motion on the... Let's do a motion on to use an ad hoc committee and then come approve the rubric after that. How does that sound? I

so

move. Second? Discussion. One other point that I thought of is because the year we got a triple raise from council, We went back and did what we had done the year before even better. Maybe we'll get another triple raise, and we'll do it even better. You know what I mean? I'd like to not make—I like the idea of not changing our Our process that we use as we head into there or hopefully we just started this curve of grants for the creative economy. I agree, I agree.

All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Aye. The motion passes

unanimously.

Thank you. Rupert?

Okay. Commissioner Wright? The rubric, these are based on the grant goals and we've used this the last two years. I did tweak the actual essay questions a little bit you might recall to even better address the grant goals for this grant cycle. So I'm looking forward to that. One of the suggestions we talked about was adding this bonus point, which is the last segment there. This is usually in a box but so the bonus point I just threw this out there for discussion if we wanted to add Five points, four points, three points, two points, 1.4.

New applicants versus repeat applicants since we voted last time that you can apply and receive funds unlimited. So this is a way to distinguish new applicants or newer applicants against applicants who have received money four to five times in a row. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on how we can I

have thoughts, Mr. Chair.

Yes.

I think it's a great idea and it does actualize our last discussion about how we account for the fact that some people have been repeats and that means that they're getting more money from the city than some others. Of course that brings in the question of worthiness so for example The Ojai Music Festival, of course they are worthy and they have been worthy.

My worry about bonus points is that it's a first time applicant. They're relatively untested right? But say they would ordinarily get fair, so say they hit 69. They're in the fair category meaning they're already very, very weak but then you bring them into the good category when in fact they don't deserve it. Now what I've seen in Oh, you know litigation over discrimination cases. There's something called the quote plus factor and you wouldn't necessarily accord it certain points.

So instead of bonus points I would call it quote plus factor and then I would leave it to the ad hoc committee to rationalize whether to apply a plus factor, and if so how much. And you might account for it in a different kind of place, organizational capacity for example or whatever but at least you have that ability to do a little bit of an add on without it being so formulaic and also so inflexible. And arbitrary.

And arbitrary

and I think we could with that quote plus factor For sake of information going out to the applicants would we have to Include a description. And if so, what would that description look like? because

Let's hear anyone else have opinion on this

I like the plus factor, but could you... Right. So it could be additional points for X, Y and Z. Or like we could just give some examples or also I was thinking regarding the bonus points, the bonus points would have only been available to people who scored above the 70 or above mark because obviously we don't want to bring nobody 70 and below no one below 70 is considered for a grant so obviously we wouldn't want to bump somebody who was in Failing column up just because it was their first time applying that makes perfect sense Christine So I just if anybody Christine maybe you want to you know, I would I would change

this room Before we frame it too. Did you have something badly?

Yeah, um, I Think this is kind of the opposite of what I think we'd want to achieve. It seems to me that what you want to do is give plus points to people who have never gotten a grant, as opposed to—I mean it could be somebody's third year they've never gotten a grant before and yet they're not getting that many points as somebody new It seems to me that this should be based upon whether or not you've received a grant and how much you've gotten, rather than how many times you've applied.

Well, it would be the first time applicant, which obviously is not received. And then second year will be second year getting a grant, third year getting a grant. It would only apply to people who had gotten grants in the past.

So you've had... Okay.

So that's just an abbreviated version but that's what it would be.

Well if I'm in for the first year, the first year I get five points just for being in the first year. Yeah. Okay,

I don't get chosen.

The next year I come in... Do I get the additional four points?

Right. Good question, right?

Yeah. It seems to me we're just awarding points to people for applying rather than the quality of what they've done. That

was the idea was to encourage new applicants That's kind of where the conversation came from. But only new applicants, not second, third, fourth.

Right.

Ranking them might not

be necessary. May I just sort of get my words in before? Because I can think of an argument why you get, I mean a lot of grant tours, I've seen, I've heard them say oh nobody gets it their first year, make sure you apply again next year, make sure you apply again next year, I don't know if it shows deliberation or whatever And then someone who's been a stalwart in the community, I don't want to penalize them either. So here's an idea that we want the ad hoc committee to kind of evaluate the applications and And make that as objective as you can. I think when it comes back to us is the time when we start looking at more of the spectrum, like if your admissions in a college and all these great scores come in but now you look at 60% men or women or something like that.

Broaden the spectrum so in our case it might come in that there's, oh my goodness, five dance organizations that got the highest scores and the music ones way down here. We want to balance their spectrum of hitting all the arts or we want to balance the spectrum old versus new type things and I think that's a little more mature and nuanced kind of review that I think the commission should provide after they review them. So, you can do it and I'm not going to oppose it but I'm more in favor of keeping this as objective as we can and those subtleties that you have a little more experience on the commission as to the history and the objectives for the future as well so that's it.

I think that last year the Ad Hoc Committee really did try to be as inclusive as

possible.

Because there are some organizations that we all know and love that are more mature, and their finances are more stable. And then there are newcomers, so we tried to

Right, I heard that and I was pleased to hear that but it's hard to write that into law. I like

your thinking Smitty. I don't think I'm quite there but I do agree with you. But then we are met with okay so we objectively presented you with these scores and were basing the funds on scores. So we have the 90-100. And those are...

No, we're not basing the funds on scores but we're using the scores as one of our...as a primary or at least a qualification one.

Basically it's based on the score more or less right? I can say. So let's say we have 10, 90 to 100 people. They've all had grants for the last five years in a row. We're not solving the problem that we discussed at our last meeting which was Trying to bridge this idea that we only allow a certain amount of years consecutively for people to earn grants or we don't. We voted that weren't going to have it unlimited but we still needed to provide direction on how to enable make more attractive first time grantees so that's still We need to figure out some way that those first-time applicants, and it's very rare that people don't get grants by the way, Brad. That they get something or we can bring it all back and we're not incentivizing. We don't care whatever it is you guys want but that was the idea.