Arts Commission Regular Meeting

All the standards and we have rubrics, and we have individual rubrics for each kids what needs to be worked on. And then also group rubrics and what we're aiming for. We have worked with OUSD with Kim and John Hoye for intern hours. We had a choreographer who got intern hours We have a future student that's going to get his tech hours with John Hoy, with drama. So we have a real good relationship with them I think.

What is the specific need? We feel like half of our cast is probably diverse, whether it's neurodivergent or whether it's ethnic divergent or whatever. It doesn't matter because what we do is that we accept them where they are and we have them go right along with us. We create the audition flyers in Spanish and in English, and it's made to every parent available. We even placed an ad in the Ojai Rec Center, that magazine that goes to every place—you probably would not find a theater ad but it says, hey want to come new to theater? We let you do it. We try to budget and keep in timeline. We borrow from other companies, oh yes, and we exchange costumes a lot. I borrowed costumes from Camarillo School, from Calabasas High School, from Irvine Parks & Rec.

Our timeline is we start in January, in which we choose one show. We only do one show a year. Many other associations and other companies do more than one. Then we rehearse a couple of nights a week Early enough so they go home and first of all, they have dinner at home and then they go rehearse on then they go home. So if their first priority is get good grades in school and graduate we know that once schools out then we kick into four days a week.

Is it my time? Okay well I would love to say We have 25 out of last year's students, we had 25 students. 16 were returnees. So I think that says something for us. Now you can look at these pictures. I do not need them back. But you will see these wonderful tissue paper flowers made by parents and students. And have any questions for anything there? At all? Give it to Bridget. Thank you, Bridget for your help.

For this year, we did one in the first two weeks in August with Seussical Jr. It's a beast of a show, can I say that? It has two pages of dialogue and the rest of it is singing so I did my thing with directing and the vocal director took over. We don't know what our show is going to be next year only because I put out a little secret ballot but the ballot says which ones would you What to try out for, which ones would you like to do tech for. And then we gather those together and then I look at the rights. The rights are going up. This is why I'm coming to the Arts Commission because Smitty knows, I think, and other people know that the rights for royalties before we can even hand out script or start rehearsing, the rights run anywhere between $2,000 and $5,000 just for the property.

We understand, playwrights need their money and publishing companies need their money. But it's really affecting us I think because the rights jumped I think this year quite a bit.

Any other questions? I think you answered my question but it was specifically that what is your grant request targeted toward? I'm going

to say my grant request is for royalties rights and also for paying honorariums to these parents who work Every rehearsal and the lowest honorary I gave was to a kid who did follow spot with $75 this year, and the highest was $500 for producing and directing. And that's another place where we have three former students who grew up through the program now they're producers. So we're helping grow the artistic side of not only acting but producing and directing etc. Anything else?

Thank you, I appreciate that. Thank you for letting me present. Thank

you Gaye. Give our best to the Arts Center. Rivers next. Mandala Medicine Movement. Hey River!

Hi, I'm so happy to be here. I'm glad that I paid attention and knew the meeting was happening this year. Last year, I missed it completely till months later, so I decided this year I was gonna pay attention. So I wanna first of all say thank you for supporting the Ojai Day Mandala in previous years. And though it was really challenging last year to not have my grant go through here, it did As you saw fit, provides opportunity to go to the city and be funded by the city. And I hope this year that it can be a line item part of the yearly budget.

But the mandala medicine movement is created also to have a legacy piece. And i'm just assuming everybody here is familiar with the Ojai Day Mandala? And what I'm doing, so I don't need to explain. You're not.

No, I'm

not

quick either.

Okay, so for 30... This will be the 34th annual Ojai Day Mandala painting and what we do is we create a design. So this is something I've actually been working on all year because I'm also team building with the younger generation. I just turned 70. I ain't gonna be here forever And I wanted to continue, it's a beloved Ojai tradition. And so what we do is we create a design that is in a sense a skeletal structure. It's a beautiful design and then we have places for people to paint pictures and then we have places for people to do what we call wallpaper which is a pattern in specified colors, and then we have fill-in painting. And so we have a cohesive design. We have so far painted with people from one year old to our eldest has been 84.

And so we can do this largest public art project in Ojai with people of all skills and all ages. And it's our... So I wish I could show you pictures, but we do have a website. But before I start, I guess I better do this pretty quickly here. Over the years, I've come to understand that we're actually working with foundational principles and I just want to honor Gay because so much of what she was talking about are things that I learned when I worked with Illusion Children's Theater through the 80s. I worked with them for 10 years and learned these kind of principles of all ages working together, so we have that same theme here as I stand up here after Gay. So our principles are inclusivity, love meaning we're all friends, respect-we start with respect, honesty-we're straightforward in our communication humility, nobody's better than anybody else no matter what your skill level or age, cohesiveness so we guide everybody to work well together, creativity because everybody is creative.

One of the things we hear over and over I'd like to paint, but I'm not an artist. And we just look at each other and laugh. And then freedom and improvisation. So we have an improvisational aspect. People can come and they say, I want to paint a picture so we talk with them and they can create it on the spot. And we've had a lot of wonderful things happen from that. Generosity, everything that we do when we do our event is provided for free for the public. And then also we are able to be generous because of the generosity of our funders and our volunteers. The spirit of place, we're putting a foundational piece of beauty into the space and it really makes people feel like they belong.

Peace, a peaceful atmosphere is promoted. I'm the mama bear so I make sure of that and then wisdom because we can actually make decisions and take action keeping the good of the individual and the group in mind. We apply our experience with knowledge and sound judgment it is actually possible and then legacy. And so what I'm here to talk to you about is one of the legacy pieces that I want to create, and it's a video course series, an educational, to teach people how to divide a circle into different parts. One of the things I've found out over the years, I might need a tiny bit more time here. Sorry.

And people are very... A lot of artists are afraid of math and we actually took my assistant and I took a video course. We're lucky to take a video course in learning how to do instructional videos. I have my first one on the website scribing a circle the power of one and it's in the public Comments there. May I? I'll just make this quick, okay thank you. So course two is dividing the circle into two four and eight which is polarity foundation and infinity. Course three dividing the circle into three and six harmony and rebirth.

Course four dividing the circle into five and ten life essence in the world Course five, dividing the circle into seven. Sacred seven. Course six, dividing the circle into nine. The nth degree. Course seven, dividing the circle into eleven. Intuition. Course eight, dividing the circle into twelve. Dozens. Course nine, dividing the circle into thirteen. Thirteen moons.

And that's the first course and we'll figure each Video course, we want to make it as short as possible and we bring in obviously some philosophy color theory quotes by people and make it fun so that math and art go together and people are not so intimidated. Thank you.

Thank you very much. The final product is of course like online or... Yeah, on

our website. We have the first one up right now. I mean the production quality isn't perfect but so far the feedback I've gotten from maybe 20 people is oh, I didn't know all of that

Thank you for that, very interesting. If I understand correctly this is not about the Martindale which is going to be as it was last year we hope a line item in the city's budget. What you're looking at is a very different matter which relates to the video that you are producing. So what do you, my question is what do you need the money for and are you doing it as an individual or do you have a non-profit?

I'm in the midst of consulting to be a nonprofit. I'm hoping by this time next year we will be. This is what I'm calling the legacy work because I've learned so much doing this over the last 30 plus years The circle has so many implications to it, and I feel honestly right now our world needs this. We need this to bring together... we've had people of all kinds of people come in. So this piece is an educational piece for other people who are coming in because I want the Ojai Day Mandala to continue forward

Right. I'm trying to get a sense of nuts and bolts, or rather dollars and cents. So it's production for

the video? It's production of the video, yeah.

Okay.

Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Ms. Steiner, any other questions?

Thank you, Reverend, for everything that you've done for our community. Thank you so much.

Yeah,

thank you. Thank you for a little extra time too. Appreciate

it. Amazing.

Yes, please. That's six minutes. So should we just make it six minutes? We'll try five. It was for Brad's benefit. He didn't know what the mandala was. But thank you for your interest of fairness and brevity. Andra, you're next. Andra Belknap. I don't have the name or your project so...

Thank

you.

I will tell you, so I thought I had three minutes so I wrote remarks. So I'll just go ahead and read what I wrote and then I will be happy to answer any questions. My name is Andra Belknap. I am an Ojai native, and I write artful long form journalism in commentary for the Ojai Valley at ojailocalhero.com. My professional work centers around democracy and storytelling. I began my career as a campaign staffer to President Obama, and held communication roles in national government and politics. After some time in DC, I followed my passion for public policy right back here in the community where I've spent many years artfully documenting topics ranging from The future of Ojai citrus to the great pickleball debate, to local ice enforcement, to local homelessness.

In addition to self-publishing I published work in every one of Ojais various magazines and publications, I think. My work is extensively researched, creative and humane. I like to help people understand people and I like to help people understand and access our governing structures. I'm passionate about telling stories that increase empathy and increase engagement in democracy.

So let me tell you about the project that I would like your support on. My primary focus over the last three years has been on homelessness in Ojai specifically the people of Ojai tent town I watched as the population of our City Hall campus grew during 2023, and out of curiosity because I'm here a lot, I began wandering around and interviewing campers. One thing that surprised me was how many fellow former Ojai Unified School District graduates and students that I met.

And I wanted to understand how they ended up camping at our government center. So that's what kicked off this three-year writing and research project that I'm seeking your support to continue. In 2024, I was excited to report the news of Ojai's $12.7 million state grant to house the residents of Ojai Tent Town. I've since examined how national and regional trends have conspired to create California's housing crisis, analyzed relevant Supreme Court cases and maintained a focus on how locals cope with the daily realities of living in a tent.

So far, I've supported this effort with a small community of paid Substack subscribers and a collection of part-time jobs. I'm asking Ojai's Arts Commission for support to continue, expand, photograph and podcast this work and to compensate my local creative collaborators. As you may know, Ojai's 30 unit permanent supportive housing project is currently scheduled to open in July 2027 Though I am not personally convinced that that deadline will stick, and I am dedicated to telling the story until the residents of Ojai Tent Town are housed. So in conclusion, I'm hopeful that I can earn support for what I see as a uniquely Ojai creative project, one that is intended to inspire empathy and engagement.

I'll confirm that I am engaged with a local non-profit regarding fiscal receivership And again, all of my work lives on ohilocalhero.com, which is a reference to the old bookstore for folks who've been around for a long time. Thank you for your consideration and for all the work. I'm happy to answer any questions.

I have a question. Thank you, very interesting and certainly the housing crisis is one of our most important crises to resolve. I'm trying to get the arts angle here. Are you looking to write a book?

I could. The artful angle is, I think you need to read the work because it's long form creative writing and I do see it as an art project as much as I see it as a journalism project. I'll just give you an example. For example, in this reporting work, I've interviewed a lot of our Ojai town residents. I've engaged a local photographer who has volunteered her time to photograph these folks and I think of that as a creative endeavor, the interviewing and the documentation.

I'll also, so I also write my stories. I describe my stories as kind of inspired by the content that you'd read on in The New York Times Magazine or in The Atlantic. Something that not only is engaging but kind of is creative that pulls you into the narrative that helps you learn along with the writer. So an example that I like is in order to learn more about homelessness and Ojai for the past three years, I volunteered as part of the point-in-time count which is basically you count all the homeless people in the country like every community does this around the country. And so for the past three years, I have participated in that usually done a ride along with local law enforcement Find people to meet people, and then those stories filter into my journalism of course you know respecting everybody's confidentiality.

And that is that's a creative endeavor to me it's it's documenting, you know lots

That makes sense to me and certainly one prong of our mission is literary, although we don't emphasize it quite as much. And long form journalism certainly falls within literary. I was just trying to get a sense of whether as this progresses because the book seems squarely within our charge.

I've thought about that and this work could be that. I've thought about this work as a book as like A window into the California housing crisis via Shangri-La. It's really, I think it's just an unbelievably interesting story that we have this community living here at our government center and the fact that we've received all of this money to house them and all the ensuing political debate I think is very revealing and very interesting.

The other creative component that I want to mention is my fiscal sponsor runs a nonprofit podcast studio so If I were able to receive funding, I would be paying to utilize a podcast studio and also turning what is going to be four years of reporting into an audio story as well. And that's...I think of that as a way to just kind of make the work more accessible and more digestible.

Thank you, Andrea.

Just quickly, I don't know how many of you have read her substack. It's fascinating and I highly recommend reading it. It is individual journalism and it's really interesting because it takes our small town to a higher level in terms of what's going on so I highly recommend it.

Thank you,

Brad. Cool.

I just wanted to say sort of to Commissioner Steiner's point when I was living in Western Mass Smith College was just starting a department within their writing group that was called Creative Nonfiction and it was really interesting because creative nonfiction is sort of a juxtaposition and you know sort of a paradox But there's a whole sort of litany and I would say framework around creative nonfiction. So, I think this is where that sits.

Definitely. Thanks Leslie. Cool.

Very cool. Thank you

Andrew. I'm going to leave a little bit of information with Bridget if that's

cool? Just leave it with Bridget here as the appropriate way. I can't stop but think of alternative facts. Pamela Grau, welcome home!

Hi

everyone it's interesting being on that side for a change. Let me catch my breath here So I'm going to read this because I timed myself and I thought I had less time. Anyhow, thank you for the opportunity to present this. I'm presenting a new program that I've created called Art Through the Ages and it was stimulated by my role as art commissioner creating enrichment programs at the museum And I will begin to read. I've spent most of my life making art, studying art, teaching art and being part of creative communities.

One thing I've come to believe very strongly is that understanding art changes the way we see the world. Unfortunately, art history, art education have gradually disappeared from our educational settings. I created Art Through The Ages as a way to bring some of that experience back into our community in a way that's accessible, engaging and fun. Art Through the Ages is a 12-month art literacy program that combines monthly art history lectures related with hands on workshops.

Each month we'll explore different period, movement, idea in our history. Each month the lecture provides a story, context and the workshop gives participants an opportunity to experience some of those ideas with their own hands. For example we might- and this would be- the lectures would be at the Ojai Valley Museum. The workshops would be in my studio at Chaparral School And I have a thing in my throat, so it's a little hard to talk. Sorry about that.

For example, we might begin with cave painting and early human expression. We will look at why humans began making images thousands of years ago and what those images tell us about ourselves. The accompanying workshop would be mark-making, natural pigments, texture, and primitive surfaces. So there'd be a lecture, and then it would be followed by an experiential workshop.

As the year progresses, we'll travel through other important periods and movements from ancient Egypt and the Renaissance to Impressionism and the development of modern art. The lectures will be presented at the Ojai Valley Museum making them accessible to a broader community and they'd be free. The smaller hands-on workshops will take place in my classroom at Chapparal.

The heart of this project is simple, learn about art then experience it by making something. I believe art history is really human history. It tells us what people valued feared celebrated questioned and dreamed about and when we combine learning with making those ideas become more immediate and memorable My hope is that art through the ages will reach people who already love art, but also people who have never taken an art history class or consider themselves artists. No previous art experience will be necessary and curiosity will be enough.

This grant will allow us to bring knowledgeable speakers, materials and meaningful hands-on experiences to the Ojai community and create a program that can grow beyond its first year. For me this project is ultimately about connection connecting history to the present knowledge to creativity and people in our community to the remarkable human story that's told through art Thank you for considering this Any questions?

Thank you, Pam. And thank you again for all your contributions to our community here in Ojai. I might have missed it but what is the age range for these classes? So

the lecture series at the Ojai Valley Museum will probably be for adults It will be scheduled once a month and it falls at a time when kids are just getting out of school, like 3.30 to 4.30. It's going to be on a day when the museum is closed and they're very excited about having an outside project come in. It's something that they don't have to pay for and somebody else is doing the work.

What they're hoping the museum will be about. Nice. And then the workshops will be smaller, and depending on if I get a grant or no grant, whether that'll be a fee to take a workshop or not, I'm hoping to keep the price very low. Yeah.

Because

there's going to be materials and things

like that. Would the speakers at the...

They'd be

paid. They're good?

They would be paid.

Good.

I mean, that's what the grant is for is to create a budget for speakers and for teachers. And yeah, it's...I'm excited. The Ojai studio artists are going to be my fiscal receivership. Is that how you say it? A lot of the artists there are getting pretty excited about the idea of it.

Great idea, Pam.

Thank you.

Thank you, Pam All right David are you ready? I'm ready

hello wow this is uh Pretty impressive group here of artists. As an Ojai citizen, I think they all sound great just for what it's worth. I'm here for the Ojai Film Society.

Wait wait who are you?

Oh my name is David Bell and I am a board member of the Ojai Film Society. So, we'd like to first of all say thank you to the Arts Commission for your continued support. You've consistently been a supporter of ours and a champion of ours. We program films in the Libby Bowl, the film series in the Libby Bowl. There's an...we have an 11-member all volunteer board The Ojai Film Society was founded in 1988 to bring independent, foreign documentary and classic films to the Ojai Valley. It's kind of an older organization We've got support from the city of Ojai. In 2022, we sort of revamped the Ojai Film Society and launched our summer film series.

And since then it's become the largest free event in the Ojai Valley with six screenings each summer outdoors in the community at the Libby Bowl and all free to the public. So, our goal is to continue to share high-quality cinema that's accessible to everybody. We hold six biweekly screenings at the Libby Bowl and we usually get anywhere from 300 to 700 people to come to the screenings.

They're organized entirely by our volunteer board Subcommittees in collaboration with the city, local partners, sponsors were publicized through social media. The Ojai Valley News street banners signs that we staple to every you know staple and taped every window In Ojai, and so it's a kind of a lot of you know a lot of work to sort of get the word out. And we'd like to thank the city of Ojai in the Arts Commission. This has been this is our fifth season this summer. This summer we had 2700 attendees across our seven screenings. Including we had a fundraiser at the Ojai Rancho Inn.

It's been very successful, so also we conducted a survey. We found that 70% of our attendees live in Ojai. 69% of them had attended a Film Society movie before and apparently 100% of them think it's a benefit to the community which is not surprising. The 2026 series this night, generally we try to have a theme. We had like Shoot for the Stars. I can't remember what it was last year.

This year it was a theme called Wild is the Night which I'm just going to read this. It reminded us that when we bravely step beyond the familiar, we open ourselves to wonder possibility and the kind of magic that only happens after dark. Part of it is, and to sort of go off script a little bit, one of the best things I think about the Ojai Film Society is that it's kind of...it's a committee right? And so you have an idea for a theme or I have an idea for a theme. I'd love to be able to just show movies that I love in the Libby Bowl but the fact that it is this community community structure of sort of not only picking the themes but the movies. I've actually pitched several movies, there's a few movies I've tried every year to see if I can't get them on there and I think it's that sort of the idea that it's not this sort of just one person's vision of what it is, it's a community vision This May we had our fundraiser at the Rancho, we had director Sara Dosa showed her movie Time and Water which was a documentary about the melting of the glaciers in Iceland sort of narrated by this poet.

It was just a beautiful movie sort of creating a time capsule based upon the melting of the glaciers As compared to the life of his family, it was really beautiful. At Libby Bowl we did six movies. We started off with Hunt for the Wilder People which was a movie I was surprised that a lot of people had not seen before. It's a terrific movie about a rebellious misfit youth and his grumpy foster uncle. They go off into the New Zealand wilderness. Our next movie was Selena y los Dinos Director Isabel Castro. I couldn't make that one but I think she may have been there, but it was a documentary about Selena.

Can I get another minute just to get through to the end of it? Sorry! One of the best ones we showed this year was a documentary called Cookie Queens Which I believe debuted at Sundance. We had the director there, it was about Girl Scout cookies and the 800 million dollar empire that they're a part of. We had the director, we had some of the Girl Scouts that were in the movie with the local Girl Scout troop come. We showed Best In Show which was our biggest hit. And then we did a movie called Arrival which is one I did pitch about communicating with aliens and finally Jurassic Park.

So again, I've got a lot more to go here but we'd like to thank you for your support. It's been really instrumental. The money goes to the screenings. You have to license the films. We have the equipment, the big screen comes. But also we have an artist spotlight where we spotlight a particular local artist And the money is going sort of directly to the local artists through that program. So, sorry I went over a little bit. Does anybody have any questions or?

You know us well and you've probably heard us say time and again that very quickly The Film Society has become the centerpiece of Ojai's summer so thank you for that but indeed we know the good work you do

Thank you. Yeah, I mean it's great and I say, I'm always a bit surprised at just how fantastic every showing is. I really think the Libby Bowl is one of the greatest places to see a movie. It's like the Chinese theater or something. It really is amazing. You know what I mean? It's just a fantastic venue for

that. And you're able to get your dates?

Well, I mean that's a thing. There is a bit of a push and pull. It's a public venue but we're engaged in the discussion. We got our dates this year. They weren't the ideal dates. They weren't our first choice but you know... If we

could help again, we tried to last year. Great. Be a liaison on that.

Exactly. I'd really like to see those dates on the weekend

Yeah, I

mean

Friday's I think a better date for us. Kids come and

for the community because it's summer

and it gets

late.

And as Smitty said we helped last year and we're here again and I'm sure the City Council would agree as well.

Well we really appreciate all your help and we're working on it ourselves and we're committed to doing it into making it happen so thank you very much anything else? Thank you so much.

And our final presentation is from Paula Power with Miners Oaks Park. I'm so glad you're here, Paula. Oh, you have a...

Okay. Here we go. Thank you for the opportunity to come and talk about the Miners Oaks Park. So my name is Paula Power, and I'm the president of Miner's Oaks Parks. We're a 501c3 nonprofit we formed in 2022 We're working directly with the county to create a community park in Miners Oaks at the old car wash. So we're converting abandoned commercial property into a vibrant park that everyone can enjoy. So here's a map of the property. This is El Roblar here, and this is Highway 33.

And it's a nature-focused park, walking path, lots of native trees, native plants. There's an area for children to play ages one to five. There's a lot of features around the park for older children to explore and play on. So one, there's a parking lot. There's going to be the first and only bathroom and drinking fountain in Miners Oak so we're really proud about doing that it's really a pain in the neck but it's gonna be worth it.

And

that's paid for?

Yes.

Well, I mean, I'm saluting you because I know you got a grant

for that so one of You know, this was this big idea that I had in 2021. I'm a retired Park Service biologist with the National Park Service and I'm an Ojai native and My parents were artists in Ojai. And so for me how could I possibly do a park without art? So a couple of years ago I saw a notice, a call for proposals from the California State Parks for planning Art in a Park. So I applied for that grant, and I got it.

And so we did a sculpture competition. And we advertised as broadly as we knew how to advertise. And we had over 20, I think it was 24 submissions. Then we had a jury of four people. One was a woman who's now a curator of art, and she went to Oak Grove Another is an artist in Ventura and another was, his name is Noel Corton. is in the art world in L.A., but his son lived in Miner's Oaks, and his son worked for the Forest Service, so he has this connection to Ojai, and then I was a fourth one as a community member representing what the non-artists think is nice, so that was interesting. Anyway, we made our final selection, and it is a piece...

It's this, Just take this off the board and pass it around. And then I'll explain to you what it is. What I'm going to do is read the artist's description of what it is, so I don't have to make this up. So it's called Hive Mind, and it's a honeycomb-shaped sonic structure designed to magnify the sounds of plants, humans, animals, and insects It'll be interactive and encourage park goers to tune into the natural beauty of Miner's Oaks Park through a heightened sense of sound and bodily awareness.

So I could go on and on, and I think if you would like, I can just give you her description. But it's this really cool, we thought very elegant design. And you can move it around so if you want to listen Kids over there, you want to listen to the birds or the chirp bells. You can move this around so This project is about a 1.5 million dollar project we have raised over a million dollars for it and The art in California parks had a second call for implementing Art projects and by a miracle we got that also, but they had to like cut back what we asked for in order to fund more projects so We originally asked for a hundred and $39,000 and they gave us a hundred and ten. So we're twenty nine thousand dollars short And that's why I'm here is asking for money for support For the sculpture so since I have I think I have some more two seconds

I Grant you at least two seconds ago

I didn't know that there was this whole thing about murals in the city of Ojai, kind of like in my own little world over there in Miners Oaks. And so our board selected an amazing studio that the artists live in Miner's Oaks And they're working with the school district to... They do the design. It's kind of a paint-by-number thing. Not to interrupt you, but she spoke

with us a couple of meetings ago. So I know your time is tight so we're not going to...

Sophia right?

If I understood correctly, you have received two grants. Is that correct? That's correct

we got the planning grant and now we have the implementation grant so they liked us enough that they said boom you've got it but not everything we asked for

And you're 501C3, you're separately raising funds. Is that correct?

We are. We have money from the state of California from completely separate. We have money from foundations, grants and private donations. Okay. Thank

you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you. It's very exciting.

If I may say one more thing, I am new to the Arts Council but I'm not new to Ojai art because my parents were members of an organization called the Ojai 20 and I don't know if any of you remember that but they were a group of 20 artists in the East End back in the 60s so they were like a precursor to the Ojai Studio Artists which my parents were members up too. So I'm new to you guys but I am not new to you.

Thank

you. Thank you so

much. Chair, did you want to take a break after this or do you want to keep going?

I have no need for a break.

Okay just

checking. But I did oh so we can like greet them or something yes but I'll just make some closing comments and then we'll take a break how's that sound so that we can greet them so let me make my closing comments what are they Oh, I did want to say you guys are welcome to stay but it's just sausage making regular government. But thank you so much for bringing this joy to our monthly meeting and it's so cool when I think about because at the end of the day it's council's money or council is your money and council is your elected representatives that decide how it's spent but it's so beautiful to see it just come right back And then see, you can fill a pothole and we should fill our pothole. But I think we should see doing your projects just as important as filling a pothole.

Even if they're 200 yards outside the city limit for example on Miners Oaks Park. We do have both of we have gotten exceptions for our Commission and for our grants to be able to award anywhere in the valley And because we recognize that art, you know doesn't know those boundaries. So thank you very much So we'll take a short break and say goodbye

to you I'm gonna set a timer for 10 minutes item. I'd turn out all the five minutes five minutes What do you think?

In closing, I just want to thank everybody for coming and if it were up to me and it was a single vote, I would fund everybody for everything. It was amazing. It was really, really just to hear... Thank you so much! I feel almost artistic, but thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, I think we're ready.

All right. We're live let's get started again here. Consent calendar has one item just a minute. I have reviewed them.

I

think we're live. Okay, thank you Any any Any corrections or ideas on the minutes from anybody? I Make a motion we accept the minutes and Thank You secretary for submitting Do I have a second? All in favor? Thank you. All right. Ad Hoc Committee, been looking forward to this. Commissioner Wright.

Bradley second, sorry. Oh I'm sorry. Taking the minutes. Hello. Where is this? Should I just jump into this or

do you want me

to summarize the administrative report? The city asked that we go over the ad hoc committee composition and confirm its role, the timeline and scoring of the rubric So I would first like to introduce my ad hoc committee for the 2027 Arts Grant Cycle. And I think this is news to everybody, right? You guys... No, no. So it is my pleasure to introduce the four wonderful members of our community who have agreed to serve along with myself on the Ad Hoc Committee for the 2027 Arts Grant Cycle.

First, we have Elizabeth Herring who served on last year's Ad Hoc Committee. She is an Ojai-based artist working in photography, sculpture and installation. Her practice explores the intersection of historical narrative material and American consumer culture often through unexpected and humorous combinations of found objects, images and characters. Her work has been exhibited nationally as well as in Berlin, and her photography has appeared in publications including the Editorial Magazine, Sleek magazine, Esquire and Vice.