Sister Cities

Sister Cities Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes July 13, 2023 In Attendance: Amanda Logan, Chloe Doucette, Laura Combs, Jim Francis (City Council), Rae Moss, Cindy Ozaki Absent: Lisa Armstrong Resigned: Catherine Smith- will confirm with the Mayor that they would like to replace Catherine with the new Director of the Idaho Falls Downtown Development Corporation I. Action Items 1. Roll call and confirmation of quorum-5:35pm 2. Approval of June 28, 2023 Meeting Minutes ▪ Correction- Brad Cramer not in attendance- correction will be made to minutes ▪ Rae- Motion to table approval of minutes until next meeting because they were not available to review far enough in advance of the meeting. ● Laura second the motion ● Motion passed unanimously II. Discussion Items 1. Update of FY23 and FY24 Budgets, if applicable ● Amanda- clarification on reimbursement of expenses- the city would like receipts to come through Amanda who will then review and pass them on to Carla to get the reimbursement done. Please send all receipts to Amanda who will promptly process them. o Amanda and Cindy should touch base in mid-September to review any expenses that might take place in Oct. ● City has started the budget review process. The Mayor presented her budget at the last City Council meeting and she included exactly what the committee recommended for the Sister City Organization for FY 2024 ($15k). Too early to know if it will be approved. o Fine to just spend down the FY 2023 budget since that was pre-planned. o Jim- Mayor didn’t go into great detail on the Sister Cities budget, but clearly stated that there was a proposed increase 2. Report from Sister Cities Adult Association ○ Cindy- Nine people are coming from Tokai for sure. They will have another meeting this week to confirm. There may be up to an additional three delegates coming and two of them are interpreters. Don’t know yet if we will have to pay for the interpreter’s hotels. Do know that they’ll be  paying the breakfast meals at the hotels. Price of hotels have jumped so high. ■ They’ll be staying at the Hilton Garden Inn- hotels are harder to get to commit. Hilton gave a discounted price, but still $186/night. The delegation was given choices and they chose that hotel. Last time was less than $100 including breakfast. ■ The delegation will come in on evening of Sept. 28, will leave very early in the morning on Oct. 5. (Thursday-Thursday). Will be home staying Thursday-Saturday. Sunday- Wednesday will be hotel stay. ■ Still working on the schedule for different things they’ll be attending and viewing. ■ They’ll be doing the community reception on the night of Monday, October 2nd. Don’t know where they’re holding it yet. Will know in the next week. Most likely will do it at the Art Museum. ● Chloe- if the Art Museum is unavailable, perhaps Museum of Idaho would be a good spot? ○ Jim- please make sure to send any scheduling/ city requests through Jim and Kevin. Make sure not to double contact anyone or it will get confusing. ■ GIFT is good to provide transportation free of charge for the delegation. 3. Report from Sister Cities Youth Association ○ Preparing for trip to Japan. Youth Association will be there July 26th- August 6th. ■ Meeting tomorrow morning at the garden. ■ Trip group has been getting together to zoom with Japan. Meeting again to ensure that all the logistics are in order for the trip. ■ The committee requested that they share photos while they’re there so we can share in real time via city social and website. ● Amanda and Jim will speak with Eric to see if he would be comfortable amplifying or posting on city accounts. ● Cindy- may need to get permission slips. Japanese are very cautious about privacy, so getting photos without their faces in them or texting over to the hosts ahead of time to request permission would be a good plan. Either way, make sure that the hosts approve the images and that they do not get posted until approved. ○ If we want to do a Farmer’s Market day when the Youth Association has Japanese visitors in town, they will be here August 16th- 26th. (Saturday, August 19th would be the most ideal Farmer’s Market date.) 4. Upcoming Outreach Opportunities ○ We have $1k to spend for outreach for FY 2023. ■ Farmer’s Market booth on August 19  ● Annual fee is $85 for booth rental space; we will also need to produce some banners/ signage. ○ Rae can focus on the graphic aspect to get a banner done. About $100 for a 4ft x 8ft ■ The design should be general enough so that it could either could be used for the association or for multiple kinds of outreach activities. We include a QR code that links to whatever the associations want us to link to. ■ Jim- can we create an additional banner that includes a map of Tokai and Idaho Falls? ○ Chloe- Perhaps we could also make the booth a fundraising opportunity by purchasing canvas market bags for people to buy and press with gyotaku art. MOI has gyotaku silicone fish so we would just need to buy paint, brushes, and canvas bags. ○ Jim- could be a good test to see if we could borrow something from the collection at the library as well so that people would be attracted to the booth to learn about the historic connection and relationship. ■ Cindy suggests that we borrow the koi kites. ● Amanda will reach out to Catherine to see if she can help her get in contact with the Farmer’s Market organizers. ● Rae will work on the banner and sourcing the bags. ● Chloe and Amanda will volunteer to help staff the booth in addition to Laura and her Japanese visitors. ● Jim will follow up on the borrowing process with the library. ■ Jim- need to label the modernistic photos that are hanging in the council space. When the remodeling is done, they need to be identified. Adult Association would need to help with producing the signage since they have the info. ● Minimal cost to produce the signage. Jim will work on this with Cindy/ others in the Adult Association. ■ Amanda- Oral History Idea ● Jim had talked to her some weeks ago about that and then to Andra Hansen. Professor at BYUI that works with a program called “voice”. A bunch of my students would love to learn how to do oral history. Jim thought of that with  the Remembrance Day. Museum of Idaho is willing to do recording and storage. ● Suggested list for who to contact for oral histories first: ○ John Ochi ○ Patsy Sakaguchi ○ Shelly Campbell- was on first youth exchange ○ Linda Milam-Linda was made an honorary citizen of Tokai, Japan. Her picture hangs in their city hall. ■ Chloe- Signage for the Japanese Garden could make a big impact, because the current signage is not very prominent. Many people are intrigued, but don’t know why it is called the “Friendship Garden”. Signage could be no more than 100 words, serve as an introduction to the garden, and perhaps even could have QR codes with people reading the signage or sharing a greeting in both Japanese and English. ● We would need to talk to parks and rec about enhancing the signage and to get their recommendations on vendors. ○ Does the city have requirements on that? ● Jim will work with Parks and Rec to answer these questions, Amanda will see if it is realistic cost wise/ timeline wise to include this in our budget for this year. ○ Ribbon cutting for this could also get us media attention and increase awareness of the program. ○ For our next meeting, let’s think about what we want to do with the entire budget and vote on a path forward. 5. Date and Agenda Items for Next Meeting ○ Will formally approve cost of booth/ cost of bags/ cost of paint for gyotaku ○ Will get info for cost of signage at the Japanese Garden ○ Exact same agenda, but will be approving multiple meeting minutes. May need more time for Youth Association to report back on their trip. ○ Meeting will be the 2nd Thursday of the month: August 10th at 5:30pm. Will confirm that we can use the same room at city hall. ○ Welcome to reply to meeting thread on email to share information regarding outreach costs since we will be discussing in the next open meeting. Meeting adjourned at 6:29pm