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- - CONSENSUS: Mayor Hartnett determined it was the consensus of the Council that the schedule for the remaining Council meetings listed in the subject Report will be observed, subject to change, if necessary. -- MINUTE ORDER NO. 97-188 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- B. Oral report from Councilman Ruskin regarding media centers in Redwood City Libraries; (710) Councilman Ruskin, member of the Council School Liaison Committee, along with Chairwoman La Berge and Vice Mayor Howard, updated his Council colleagues on the status of school libraries. Councilman Ruskin said the three-way partnership of the Redwood City District Schools, the Council and the Redwood City-San Mateo County Chamber of Commerce, dedicated to modernizing all Redwood City School District libraries into technology centers, is one of the truly important accomplishments over the last decade. Councilman Ruskin described the impacts of the Classroom Reduction Program, local bond measures, and grants received. The grants include: the Cowell Foundation has awarded $150,000 for the purchase of an automated cataloguing and circulation system, and a technician to install it; $105,000 from the School District for books; $150,000 for equipment and books from Simon and Schuster; and $200,000 in matching grants from the state and federal governments. ~ Councilman Ruskin advised that the City Council, as its contribution to this program, will hire the Library Media Specialist who will oversee the program for 3 years at a cost of $75,000 per year (not the technician who will install the system.) He described the original working committee and its members, and the new steering committee with Councilwoman La Berge representing the City. Councilman Ruskin said the committee is "beginning to create a detailed schedule of implementation, a day by day implementation schedule... which will determine when policy decisions will first need to be made in addition to the irnplementation schedule. That will allow us to decide when to recommend that we hire the Library Media Specialist." Councilman Ruskin said the first five schools to benefit from this program will be Taft, Ford, Roosevelt, Orion and Kennedy. The partnership hopes these five technology centers will be completed in three years. Councilwoman La Berge said they were very pleased with the progress of the program, but there was a major need for funding for books. She said she hoped that acquiring more books would become a community project, and she anticipated that fundraising activities for those books would be announced in the future. -- REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTE BOOK NO. 55 SEPTEMBER22,1997 MINUTES Page No. 541 PAGE 7