September 17, 2026 · 8,448 words · 15 speakers · 140 segments
. Out of respect for those who are basically on time, let's get ourselves started. First of all, I want to thank everybody. Look at our ladies. Is my mic not on? It's on. Am I not close enough there? You'd think after about a bazillion years I would learn how to do this. Okay. So anyway, thanks to everybody who is participating today. and we appreciate everyone being here. A few little housekeeping items before we move on. We have several people here and a few who aren't here who have been serving on this committee for some time and who have moved on, and we want to be sure to thank them publicly. So once I find my list, I will do so. So Ms. Garcia Berry had to resign to deal with her husband, and they decided to have a life separate from us. I don't understand. But anyway, she's moved on, and so we want to have the record show that we publicly thank her for her service. And Ms. Nikki Patel has been appointed to replace her. So welcome, Nikki. We're glad to have you. Thank you for being here. Also, Rick Lee, who has been our capital architect, capital complex architect, has also moved on. And so he has left our committee. And Sheila Jackson is currently acting in that capacity. But Rick has served on CBAC for about 300 years, or maybe not quite 300. So we want to thank him as well for his service. And we want to relatedly welcome Caitlin Culver as a new staffer for our committee. And if I can remember her name, it's written right here, so it should help me. to thank her for joining us and working with us. So all of that said, oh, but there's one other person who's going to be leaving us, I think. Yeah, when the administration...
You have one more meeting.
All right, then I'm not going to say thank you. I can say thank you twice, though. Isn't that okay? I'll say thank you twice. So anyway, we appreciate the service you've given us, Danielle, and we look forward to seeing you next time as well. So with that, shall we take roll? Committee members Clifford.
Here.
Contaguglia.
Present.
DePrince.
Excused.
Lindbergh.
Here Excused Mandel Here Excused Mendel
Excused. Ben Mourick.
Here.
Oliveto.
Here.
Patel.
Here.
Riley.
Here.
Here.
And Madam Chair. I'm here, theoretically. So thank you again all for being here. Thank you for those who are going to present to us today. It's really not a terribly full agenda, but let's go ahead and get started. Our first presentation, oh, is about the 150th anniversary tapestry. Very exciting. So shall we get started with that? Please come forward to the table. be sure that on the table the button is pushed so that your mics are on. Then pull the mic close to you so everyone can hear you and identify yourself as you give us your presentation.
Hello. We are the Colorado 150 Tapestry Project. I'm Castle Cersei with Hayhue Art Consultants.
And I'm Deanne Gertner with Hayhue as well.
Anita Wesley with Sturm Family Foundation.
Emily Ahrens also with Sturm Family Foundation.
Well, thank you ladies for joining us.
tell us about our tapestry. We're happy to be back and we have a lot more information. Just a reminder, the Colorado 150 Tapestry Project goals are to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Colorado statehood. We were here on Colorado Day kicking off the tapestry project and we want to create a meaningful on-ramp for engagement with Colorado history. Here's a reminder of where we're hoping to be in the Capitol across from the Women's Gold Tapestry. And here's some images from the community fabric dye event that we did on Colorado Day at the Capitol where participants from all over Colorado dyed fabric swatches that will then be used in the actual tapestry. And then after the state capitol, we went on to Fort Collins and Leadville to continue the community dye projects.
I can take this one. So our updated timeline is that we've selected an artist. We've done the community dye events. we've begun fabrication on the tapestry. That's going to go until about mid-January. We'll get the piece framed and ready for display in February. We plan to tour the piece around the state first for one to two weeks in each of the eight regions of Colorado, the tourism regions. And so those will be in select creative districts. And once that is done we will be installing here permanently should you accept the donation at the Capitol just on the other side of the Women Gold Tapestry So we can have a dedication on Colorado Day 2027 which will be July 30th for a full circle moment where the project started here and ends here.
Would you let us know all the locations you're taking it to, please?
Yes, we have that later on, and we can skip ahead to that or just come back to it when you're ready.
Great.
This is our selected artist, Elnaz Giovanni. She is an assistant professor of fiber arts at Colorado State University, and she is an amazing fiber artist who shows nationally and internationally, and we're really excited to be working with her. Okay, so we're going to show you the design. Drum roll, please. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Oh, we have it printed just to protect the artist's copy, well, not her copyright, but just the design from anyone trying to copy it or make AI versions of it, just because it's a work in progress. We want to kind of keep it a little bit close to the chest until the final tapestry is complete. But you can come up and look at it if you'd like for more detail. But the project is really trying to explore themes of adaptation, belonging, community, diversity, history, identity, landscape, like the layers of everything that makes Colorado Colorado and how they all come together. and this idea of stewardship, so the things that everyone is contributing, the things that they leave behind, and then the ways that we protect those elements and contributions. So the project statement is that it shows Colorado as a place constantly formed by the people who arrive, stay, adapt, and contribute across generations and who continue to leave Colorado's evolving identity. and the tapestry can be read from left to right as a timeline so if you look on the left side that's long ago history and as you move more towards the right side it's generally more contemporary history that's not a hard rule across the tapestry but in general and then if you look at it as a journey through different landscapes, different histories, and across different peoples. So instead of representing individual people, we thought it might be better and more inclusive to represent archetypes of different types of people. So there's land keepers, people like those who are in the indigenous communities, conservationists forestry workers then there's water keepers who like the earliest ones are the asakia builders who made some of the first irrigation systems ranchers and farmers just engineers who help us you know figure out where all the water is in the state and who gets to use what builders like the miners people who built the railroads and all of our iconic tunnels that we all the time The makers like artisans artists arrivers immigrants refugees people from other states caretakers like teachers and healers dreamers scientists or students So really it's very broad in breadth. There's a lot of specificity in actual places. You can see there's the Eisenhower Tunnel, Colorado Trail, the sand dunes, Drop City. So like really iconic moments and places in the state. And it's representing several industries like agriculture, the creative industries, outdoor recreation, technology. And there's plenty of wildlife with the aspen, different birds, bison, the gray wolf, wildflowers. So we'll have a key that explains what all the pieces are for viewers, and they can engage that way.
Do we know what kind of fabric, per se, the artist is going to use?
I assume a variety. Yeah, she's using cotton fabrics, so there's a couple different types of cotton fabrics, and then embroidery floss, and she will use glass beads. We're not 100% sure on the quantity of class B. It's just due to the weight. That will be at this scale. We think we have to do less than we originally thought. But that will be a combination of those. And they're all archival materials. We'll have museum standard framing, which we'll talk about in a second.
Great.
Here's examples of the work-in-progress embroidery. Yeah. So you can see the craftsmanship and the detail. There will be applique, which is the background fabric. So here you can see in these mountains, that's the applique that's made with the fabric that the community dyed. And then there's embroidery for some of these detailed pieces, like the wolf and different people. And then you can see here's a combination of the applique, the embroidery, and then some beading. We are still working out the display. We heard last time we don't want to drill into the wall or the floor. We want something that's freestanding, that's movable. And so we're still working with different designers and fabricators to figure out the best solution for that. But we won't be making any holes, and it will be safe to stand around. So you can kind of see if we do have like a freestanding wall, this is what it would look like. It would be placed in front of the, what are those called?
The little alcove.
Yeah. And we have all the specifications from the Capitol to follow.
Exactly.
And then for the framing, oh, was there a question?
Yeah. Thanks, Madam Chair. um so just on the uh that then the way that you've scaled this mock-up looks different just to confirm than the way that the original that the original tapestry is installed in the capitol on the other side the women's gold yes it's smaller so the women's gold is 12 feet high and
nine feet wide um and it has a lot of negative space in it there's not not every surface is embroidered or sewn this one will be every surface is sewn or embroidered and it is slightly smaller. I guess for what I'm saying though
is placement. So like right now this looks like it's lower to the ground because I know it needs to be on something that's movable and so that is different just confirming than the way that the current
tapestry. Yeah the current one, the frame is part of the stand and so it's probably off the floor is it about a foot 18 inches off the floor so we would want this to still be the center of the piece at eye level so especially for shorter folks like the fourth graders they can still see plenty of it thank you and then the art itself will be eight feet by five feet. And then we're going to just make sure, working with Amanda, that we're doing everything to the highest museum standards, using a white oak frame to match the wood that's here already, using museum plexiglass, so it's UV protectant, anti-glare, anti-scratch, filters the UV light, and that it would be much easier than the women's gold to access and maintain if we need to do anything. And then the maintenance on this piece should be minimal as long as there aren't extreme temperature fluctuations or there's some kind of pest infestation, but we don't foresee that happening. So it should be minimal maintenance. And then we also, as part of the donation, will be creating several narrative deliverables, and these will be part of the donation. So creating signage, a project catalog, brochure, audio guide, et cetera, things for the fourth graders to engage with when they come. So it will be a really rich experience and learning opportunity. We've talked about this previously, and it's something that is unfortunate, We want to be sure that it is as vandalism-proof as possible.
And I'm assuming that the kind of glass and whatever all we're doing to it, and of course we have cameras and everything, but just...
Yeah, like the plexiglass is anti-abrasion, but if you did enough force, you could crack it. But hopefully that wouldn't impact the work much.
Good, good, good, good. Okay, thank you.
So we're also going to be creating a custom sign to go with the artwork that matches the signage here at the Capitol. Ideally, we'll have a short description and a QR code so people can access that audio guide or go to a digital location and make sure it is easy for the team to move because that's the main issue with the women's gold.
what else do you need from us to accept this donation well i just i'm still interested in the
location sorry so here's the map of um the state in the different regions so we're hoping to be in sterling in the pioneering plains in aurora for denver cities in the rockies trinidad for the canyons and plains, the San Luis Valley, oops, the San Luis Valley, San Luis outside there, Durango, Salida, Steamboat Springs, and Carbondale.
Great. Looks like we're going to cover the state pretty well. And we're working with, I assume, the Historic Society, get all these set up.
We're working with Colorado Creative Industries to get the creative districts involved. and yeah and History Colorado too Yeah they participating Jason is one of our committee members and we also have the state historian Susan Shulton who are advisors
But for the exhibition part, the creative districts have their own venues,
and they are a little bit more flexible than some of the History Colorado locations.
Okay.
So, Jeanette, please, Ms. Chapman, please remind me if we have previously accepted this or do we need to go on record accepting it today?
I think you – thank you, Madam Chair. Jeanette Chapman, Legislative Council staff. There are two pieces that we need. One that they are currently working on, which is the application. That's just essentially a legal document that says they are giving it over to the state. It becomes state property, and we've agreed to take it. The other thing that you should do is vote essentially to say we accept this, from this group to be placed in this location inside the state capitol. And then probably, I don't know, maybe we can plan for you guys to be at, like, the dedication or something like that if that's of interest. But I think those are the two main things that are left to.
Is it acceptable to have those both in one motion?
I would just move to accept it. Okay. And call it a day.
All right.
And the location probably is a good idea.
Okay. Do I have a motion?
Ms. Cotagulia? So moved. Acceptance.
Is there any objection? Seeing none, thank you. We accept your donation and look forward to seeing it all over the state and in the Capitol.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Thank you so much. We're excited.
All right. Our next item on our agenda is the Capital Building Advisory Committee financial update. And somebody around here, I'm sure, knows how to do that. Theoretically. It's good to see you, Mr. Kurtz. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much, Madam Chair.
My name is Stuart Kurtz.
Thank you. Yeah. Even better. Ta-da. Thank you.
Again, my name is Stuart Kurtz, and I am the controller at LCS, and I am presenting to you all today Okay. The reports for the periods ended June 30th, as well as an update through September 14th for Project Gold Fund. And the Project Gold Fund is charged with managing the gift shop. And so I just wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about the gift shop and how that's been doing. Let me remind the committee that everybody should have these available at their desk.
Okay, great. Thank you. You're welcome.
Continuing right along, still Stuart Kurtz. I was told to do that every time we go along. So the gift shop has been doing quite well. Now in the year ended 2026 there were in sales but there were in expenditures hence leaving a net profit of And lest we get too dug in on the $332 profit, I just wanted to kind of let you know how the accounting for this works. and basically the way it works is we buy inventory and then we sell the inventory. So there are times where we may have bought the inventory in period one and sold it in period two. So if we then move over to the September 14, 2026 report year to date from July 1st, we can see that our net sales are $6,923. I'm sorry, $6,647, and that's out of $6,923 in gross sales. So what's happening here is we have a profit now of $6,647. in the second year, and that's like basically all the sales are now profit. So in essence, the inventory that came in towards the end of last year that we expensed now sells in the next year, all good. So you're going to get a fluctuation in up and down on that. But the other thing that I wanted to just note is that, again, last year's sales were 17,927. So this year we've got $66.47, which is over a third of the sales from last year, but we're only talking maybe two, two and a half months. And it's two and a half months during interim. So my thinking is that means we should be on our way to having a pretty good year in the gift shop.
Yeah, because the holiday season is coming up, and we usually do really well during the holiday season as well. with our ornaments and all those people who come through and legislators and staff and everybody who likes to have a little memorabilia from a given year. I went up there the other day just to kind of prep for this with Natalie, and they had ornaments there and things of that nature.
And also the staff made sure to tell me that all of the tours that are made available have been sold out. So there are going to be people constantly coming through there. And again, this is my first year, so I'm not going to swear to that. But from what I get, that's pretty much going to be the case.
Well, I think that our tourism office, that's not what we call it, our visitor's office, What do we call them? Visitors, I think. Visitor Center. Visitors Center. Whatever the heck we call them. Thank you to everybody working on all of this because it really, it matters, A, that people want the mementos of the capital, and B, that they're able to bring in revenue for the capital.
And, you know, my memory is that the diversity of items available has been expanding significantly. When I was in this building I think there were maybe four or five things down there And so it really been an ongoing value to the capital and to the community that we keep improving all of this.
So thank you to everybody who's working on that. Great. I agree. Yes. Ms. Contagulia.
Thank you. This is a very – I've been on this committee a long time, and why it did not occur to me to ask this question years ago, I don't know. But is there a markup on the inventory or when you have the sales and the expenditure equalizing, my question is how do we make a profit? I'm still new at this.
Hi, thank you. Amanda Claplum, Visitor Services. To clarify, we have at least a 50% markup on everything that we bring in. And so certain things like the mile high marker, the large one, the desk ornament, is quite expensive. So we have a smaller markup of only 50%. But then we brought on stickers recently, and those have about a 75% markup. So we make quite a bit more money on those. But we try to keep it fair to the consumer as well as make profit where we can. And just to reiterate what Stuart said, we, just with the stickers and the postcards alone,
have in a calendar year, not the fiscal year, already doubled our sales from last year.
So even though the accounting is a little different because of the fiscal year close in July, we've done quite a bit better with the smaller items. And we buy them from the vendors who create them, correct? Correct. We have also tried to move where possible to Colorado vendors. So our stickers come from a Colorado company. The postcards are actually made in-house by Michael Lang in our Prince shop. They do an amazing job, so it's very high profit on those. And so everywhere we can, we try to do local.
Great. Thank you.
Mr. Hurts?
Thank you. And so the total fund balance at September 14th, unrestricted, is $47,011. So I'll note that the beginning fund balance at the beginning of the prior year was $48,445. So moving along. Yes, right ahead. The other things that I will note for you that I also attached were, I'm sorry, excuse me, was for the CBAC account, which is the legislative cash fund, CBAC, which is part of that. And the reserve that is left in that account is $56,584.
Oh, we're rich. I'll take it.
It's, yeah, so, because that account is essentially funded to the tune of about, well, it's about $10,000 a year. Started out with 100, well, it's accumulated 101, 404 and there have been 44,000 in expenditures, so there you end up with $56,000.
Does anybody have any questions?
No, I think that, you know, I'm really thrilled. This is a program that just keeps on improving. And again, thank you to everybody who works on all of this, because it's a great opportunity for the public, and it's a great opportunity for the Capitol. Thanks a lot.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, everybody else.
Any questions or anything? All right. And Ms. Chapham, we don't have any action here. We just report. All right. Thank you so much.
You're welcome.
Okay. Moving right along, if I can find my agenda. There it is.
Ms. Clapham, we still have more.
Awesome. Thank you.
Amanda Klopham, Legislative Council Staff, Visitor Services. I'm sure you guys are all a little sick of seeing me, so I appreciate your patience. I really felt like it was important after all the stuff that we've done as a building and as a committee for Colorado Day that we do a little recap for you guys. It was Colorado Day was an incredible success, and that's in no small part to the work that this committee did. Sorry. So I'm recapping Colorado Day itself and the programs overall that we've done for our 150th anniversary as a state. So on August 1st, Colorado Day, we kicked off the event on the West Steps with speeches and music. We were really lucky to have the lieutenant governor, the governor, one of our volunteers dressed up as our first governor, John Rout. That's him in the top hat there. We had two high school bands performing, and we had our state bagpiper, as well as a lot of legislative involvement. A lot of legislators came out to celebrate with us. We also placed temporarily, as you all know, our mile-high marker. and on the upper left there is our friend Brian Shaw from NOAA who was able to come out and speak and then Representative Nguyen and Luck were able to place they were our emcees for the event and they placed the temporary marker and it was really cool everyone really loved it lots of people took pictures with the marker afterwards. We wrapped up our West Steps theme with the cake cutting we had a lot of Colorado bakeries donate cupcakes, cakes, all kinds of stuff, as well as some good old Costco cakes in the front there that the governor did the official cake cutting with. And we were able to give out hundreds of pieces of cake to the public. We were so sticky. Sugar highs all around. You'll also notice the governor's really great outfit there.
All right. We've also had our friends from the DAR come out and speak to us in this committee,
and they came out for Colorado Day in full force, and they rang the Colorado Day banner or the bell, the Liberty Bell, 150th times for our 150th year, which was incredible. Then, sorry. Uh-oh. I have too many things going on Uh I stuck Okay there we go There we go The huge part of the success of this event was that everyone in the building was participating, and I'm just going to apologize. I didn't have a picture from the lieutenant governor's office, so they are represented, but I wasn't able to grab a picture on the day of. the House of Representatives was playing on their screens a vintage Broncos game where we definitely won but I can't remember which game it was the Senate was here with some awesome custom shirts and also they came with their cool hats the governor's office was open for the public to just walk in and view which people were thrilled about and the treasurer as well was open to folks and a lot of people signing up for the great Colorado payback, as well as seeing some of the treasures. They were showing off some of the coins and some interesting things they have there. Colorado's official dance is square dancing, and we had the Colorado Square Dancing Association out to give some lessons, and if you haven't seen their skirts, they're amazing. You should come see them. We were also really lucky to rededicate the Women's Gold Tapestry, which was donated for our 100th anniversary as a state, and that gentleman there in the white shirt that was speaking, that is Eve McIntosh's son, and she was the creator of the tapestry. And so he came out, and one of his comments was, my mom's still bossing me around from beyond the grave. So it was very cool. And then also Representative McCormick and Representative Zokai came and spoke at that as well. Aside from the West Steps, by far our most popular event was the Lego House and Senate. We had about a thousand people participating. You can see in the top two pictures the metal bins full of Legos. People came out and did a small portion of a tapestry that went for a larger picture of maroon bells, and then they were also absolutely blown away by the House and Senate Lego, which is still on display in the West foyer, so please go down and see it if you haven't. You already saw many pictures from the 150, but we did that as well, and that's our team in the bottom dying our pieces. We couldn't wait to dye pieces for it. This picture, alas, was before the 150th celebration, so it looks a little bleak, but it wasn't that bleak. We added, as part of our displays for the 150, a mini Denver Nature and Science Museum model that's in the south foyer on the first floor, and people are really enjoying it.
I don't know what it is about models. People love little things.
We also...
Legos. Everybody loves Legos. The Legos were super popular.
And as you all remember, we installed last January the exhibit Inspired to Serve featuring all 100 of our legislators. It has been a great success. We've got a lot of feedback from teachers who come in here every year and they were thrilled to see something specific to Colorado. A lot of visitors were really interested. They didn't realize that we had 100 legislators, and they were really able to learn and experience our legislature a little more fully, and the kids' pictures, the pictures of the legislatures as kids has been a raging success. Just to give you some ideas of the numbers here, my colleague Mac Jordan put together, does all the social media, and so I'm not going to describe this in granular detail because I don't, like, I understand the rules. broad strokes But so this is we pulled some social media data from our Inspired to Serve exhibit We did three posts at the beginning of the exhibit and we had more new viewers and new demographic viewers overall So those numbers in the top there, in the three black boxes, those are new viewers. Overall, the Inspired to Serve posts on Instagram and TikTok had over 10,000 engagement and views on just three posts. and the content was pushed organically to the viewers which means it wasn't just people who follow our page already so it was people who were kind of interested in this sort of thing the Colorado Day numbers are pretty impressive first of all there were 1600 people that came through the mags that day we just had the south entrance open and that doesn't count almost equal numbers outside that didn't come in So we had a huge reaction, a huge turnout for it. It was so great. So for Colorado Day for the social media, we had on Instagram and TikTok 26,000 views. This only includes July because Instagram doesn't go back that far. So we estimate about 10,000 more views than that. The viewership for this time period was up 1,000%. and TikTok views alone were 83,000 and across all platforms about 120,000 people engaged with it. So again, this content got to people organically. We don't, alas, have 83,000 followers on our social media. But one of the things that we heard several times on Colorado Day was people came because they saw it on social media, which was cool. and one of the things that I have been following the commission the 150 commission quite a lot through this process it's not just Colorado Day it's this whole year and so we really want to round out the year celebrate keep it going all the way through next August because this is our 150th year it just started on Colorado Day so one of the things we're working on and we don't have confirmation yet, so don't get too, too excited. But we're working on model trains in the Capitol for the holidays, some displays. And or, yeah, Jeanette is real into this. And or our Lego friends have a lot of Colorado-specific Lego builds that they would be interested in displaying during the holidays as well. And I'm not fully ready on this yet because I'm working with the Colorado Mountain Club, but when our Inspired to Serve ends in December, I am planning to pitch to you an exhibit on Colorado's 14ers. In 1976 and 26, all 56 of our 14ers were scaled by teams of Colorado climbers. I don't know if you know this, but Colorado has 56 14ers. The next closest is Alaska at 22. So we are by far the coolest state. I can't say that officially, but we're really cool. So I'm working with Colorado Mountain Club because they organized both climbs and so they have all these super cool pictures. That one in the center, you can see them holding up the picture from 76, which was so cool. So that is our kind of what we're thinking about doing to go forward with Colorado Day. And that's it. Any questions?
Wonderful. Yes. Ms. Chaplin.
Can you talk a little bit about the ghost tours which I know isn inherently Colorado Day specific but speaking of like engagement and Instagram and all that kind of thing I personally push the stuff on my page And I recommend doing that because it's usually really funny and clever and whatever. But I saw the ghost tours and thought maybe you could tell them a little bit about that.
Absolutely. So Mac Jordan, our colleague, is a ghost tour aficionado and was horrified that we didn't have one ourselves. So they put it together. And we tested it out last year. And I think we did like four or six tours. And we had real light social media just sort of letting people know we had it. And they've done a bunch more social media posts leading up in September to October's tours. We've had great engagement. And last year, every single tour had at least 20 people on it. We only did a few, and we kind of just mentioned it to folks. So we're going to offer Thursday and Friday two tours a day all through October. People love specialty stuff, and we also made a little sticker that says the spooky tours so that people can have a little takeaway.
And just to clarify, Stuart's information was slightly incorrect. We don't sell the tours. They're sold out because they're full, but we don't sell the tours. All the tours are free to the public. Thank you Madam Chair
Ms. Clapman do we have anybody that comes on the ghost tours that like talks about their ghost experiences in the building because you know we have that capability
That's a great question we are all for that so we reached out throughout the building to have people tell us their ghost stories and we also were pretty choosy that we kept things historically accurate. So if someone had a, you know, a ghost story that we're like, yeah, that's not really like, you know, we tried to keep it also informative to the Capitol, essentially. So yeah, but if there's people who have ghost stories, we are always looking to expand our tour. So reach out. I will send them your way. And as a follow up to that, just as
kind of put it into context for us, we are also going to be doing an oral history project at the mansion on the ghost stories.
And so we may want to think about looping in the Capitol to that too. Yeah, that would be great.
So what is the most haunted part of our building?
Probably the sub-basement, but we don't take the guests down there. But they get to hear about it. Room 357.
I would have thought Mr. Brown's attic maybe.
Well, that was put in in like the 2000s. So the haunted parts are back behind where our lovely attic space is. Come to 1.36 after dark.
Good to know. I have one question which I'm sure is impossible to answer, but do we have any way of having quantified how many of the people who have participated in everything so far are Coloradans versus tourists?
It's just anecdotal.
Do you know?
I could tell you overall in the summer we tend to get a tremendous amount of national and international visitors more than Coloradans in the summer. During the school year, the demographics typically shift to more Colorado-based folks.
Colorado Day in general while we did have we actually had a guest book out just a regular old you know blank page book and we did have international visitors
But it was mostly Coloradans on Colorado Day.
And it was. It signed up. Yeah. Yeah.
And there were also huge events at History Colorado, the Art Museum, all over. And I do know they showed their numbers. The Art Museum had like 7,000 people. History Colorado had like 5,000. So it was a huge overall event for the state.
Great. Well, do we have any other questions about ghosts or otherwise? Thank you so much for your presentation. That was really fun. And again, I'm very impressed with all the work that the visitor services crew is doing. And since your boss is sitting in the back of the room, I want her to note that we are very proud of all of you.
I knew you would be.
Okay. Ms. Van Moorick, we're going to talk about your treasure hunt book.
All right, Madam Chair, let me get my computer going and then I'll start. I am here to share with you the two-year anniversary of the children's booklet, which I have here, show and tell. It has been a tremendous success that we wanted to share some knowledge with you and also some fun videos that our team has put together. Jonathan Brown has been busy celebrating our anniversary and also particularly doing this time lapse. So I'm going to share this with you, and hopefully technology will work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. So, Madam Chair, isn't that clever?
That is just so fun. Yeah, Jonathan did an awesome job with that.
Since we launched this two years ago, we have had approximately 2,500 people use it. We know that because we've been keeping track of how many books we have gone through in this process. and we have welcomed hundreds of kids into our office and made them honorary senators. And it's not just the kids, so I wanted to show you this as well. Even today, we had two gentlemen, and they gave me permission to share this with you all, come in with their kids' booklets and say that they finished the treasure hunt and we swore them in as honorary senators. So it has been absolutely a successful program. While it began as a tool for our younger guests, as you can see, it certainly has been a pleasant surprise to have so many adults come and enjoy it as well. Parents tell us that the booklet really changes the entire visit. It turns a simple walkthrough into an interactive, hands-on exploration, and kids are really enjoying that. Whether it's finding clues throughout the building or standing at the press room podium, as Jonathan did with his thumbs up, visitors of all ages are finding a new connection with the building, which is really exciting for us. The treasure hunt is now fully ADA compliant, ensuring all of our guests can participate in the experience. And in fact, it also isn't limited just to Colorado. We've had the pleasure of hearing from visitors who have taken their booklets with them to their own state capitals. And in fact, one of the gentlemen was a legislator from New Hampshire. He brought it to his state capitol, and they are trying to implement a similar program there as well. It's just really rewarding to see how beneficial this has been. And for us in Senate services, it is always the light of our day to have folks come in and celebrate, and the little kids are so excited. And you saw Matthew Rivera, our Senate services clerk, throwing his confetti. He doesn't do confetti every time, but he brought in a hype button that the kids just love to push all the time, and it's just been absolutely wonderful for us to have this experience. We wanted to share a little bit about what our visitors are saying. For example, this treasure hunt took what was otherwise just a tour of a pretty building to a whole different level and turned it into an experience It a wonderful thing that you doing this for the children Bravo to the team that put this together My grandchildren and sons all loved it I'm very excited to become an honorary senator. This is a good surprise. That one is actually from this morning. And it was to, I would say, middle school to maybe freshman high schoolers who were getting sworn in this morning, and the mom was so excited and said, you guys are even getting officially sworn in. So daily we have these interactions with the kids where they're really just enjoying themselves. Even the president has chimed in, the Senate president. I'm going to share with you another thing that Jonathan put together that we're putting up on our Facebook page where the president is looking at the book at his desk in the Senate chamber. They say the Senate floor is where the big decisions get made, but I'm starting to think that the treasure hunt is where the real magic is. In celebration of our two-year anniversary, the president has sent individual letters to each participant who provided us their address. We're giving you a copy of what that letter looks like, so they actually get a letter from the president in the mail, which if you're a young kid, That's really exciting. So we wanted to share that with you. That has been a really fun project that we've been working on for this second anniversary. In addition, again, kudos to Jonathan for putting together this video to celebrate our second anniversary. Oops, wrong one. No need to see that one again, although it was really good. Here, it's this one. Thank you. Thank you. So I wanted to share this with you just to celebrate our anniversary. And every anniversary, I think we're going to try and do something a little bit different to celebrate the anniversary and keep the project going, given that it's such a success. And like I said, it's also very rewarding to our Senate staff because, you know, those days do get long, but then to have the joy on everybody's faces as they're getting to participate a little bit in the Capitol and, you know, understand from us the passion that we have for civic education, that's certainly been very, it's instilled a sense of pride for us in the Senate. So we do always ask the participants for their favorite part of the Capitol, I have to say, nine times out of ten it has been the president's portrait gallery and I know that we currently have the beautiful inspired to serve temporary exhibit there and about the 75th General Assembly And my understanding is it was intended to remain hanging through the end of 2026 I would like, I'm going to look at Jeanette here, an item added to our next meeting's agenda on November, I think, 19th, to consider rehanging the President's Portrait Gallery back in the third floor rotunda. So if we could please consider that, that would be much appreciated. It's certainly a unique gallery. There are only two capitals in the nation that have this presidential portrait gallery. So while I don't mean to diminish the Inspired to Serve, which I know is super successful and also wonderful, and there was a lot of great feedback on it, I do really hope that we can consider that again and hang those back up. Before I wrap up, I have to give a quick shout out to Cindy Markwell. She is the creative mind who built this program from the ground up. And Cindy, thank you so much for all of the hard work and passion that you put into creating this. If you didn't know, these are her grandkids that are in the book. So this is a project of her deep from her heart. And we couldn't have done all of this without her. So thank you to Cindy for all of her hard work and for giving me the opportunity to pass along that work over the next few years. So that's all I had. I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, Ms. Van Markwell. I'm glad you brought up Ms. Markwell because when I served here, I worked with her, and I remember when she created this, and it was such a clever idea. And so we really want to go on record saying a heartfelt thank you to her for creating that, and thank you for mentioning it. The other comment I want to make is watching the video of going around the Capitol. During the years I was in this building, coming into this building every day just made my heart go pitter-patter because it is such a gorgeous building and the opportunity to work here for the people, whether it's as an elected representative or as staff or, you know, through the governor's office or whatever, It's such a privilege to be able to be in this building on a regular basis and that this program helps the children and the adults appreciate the beauty of this building and the unique opportunity they have to come through it and experience it. It's just a wonderful program. So thank you for the presentation. We appreciate it. Are there any questions for Ms. Benmorek? Seeing none. and thank you for your presentation. Ms. Chapham, do we have any other business today?
We don't have any other business. My main update for you, as Esther mentioned, I think the portrait gallery, the current, what's in there right now will sort of lose pertinence post-election, given the changing of many House and Senate members. And I think the understanding and the decision that the committee came to when we agreed to put up this display was to discuss at the end of the year what to do next. Right.
It was my understanding that the motion, yeah, that we made was that.
I will absolutely be on the agenda for November. I might also have some things to talk about in terms of other projects and meetings. We have a sense of how much money we have and don't have, thinking about that going forward, how to apply it to whatever projects we are going to do.
So apparently Representative Clifford has a question.
Well, again, my memory is that the committee said that we would do this for the centennial, and then we would go back to the Presidential Gallery. So we'll get there.
I know. Oh, yes, we have a question.
This was this predates my time on this committee. I know we are refurbishing the elevators. Was there any discussion about the signage? The signage in the elevators, if you hop in the elevator when you leave today, it's hard to read. And I suggest when we redo that, that we have it done so that third floor is the top, second floor is in the middle, first floor in the order that most elevator signage is done. So if you guys will take a look at that and see if we might add that to the agenda, if it needs to be added or if we can just fix the signage.
We need to add that Ms Chapman So the I happy to spend hours talking about signage in the Capitol building and around it if you would like The issue with the signage in the elevator is a known situation I think CBAC's role in that would primarily be to if someone from the legislature, from leadership, said we are willing to spend however much money it would cost to replace these signs, come to CBAC, say this is what we want to do, CBAC would say, great, and then move on. It's probably, I don't know whether the committee would want to prioritize that for how they would spend their limited funds, but that's certainly a conversation that folks could have. But yes, signage is an endless source of entertainment if you really look at it the right way. So maybe that can be on our November agenda to have that discussion. We can certainly think about that moving forward. Yeah. Love that.
And Jeanette just wanted to let you know that there's a sign out on the south side that was damaged recently. So I sure you know that already Yes Maybe we can have that as part of that discussion too I think that needs to be in conjunction with exec committee because the signs are extremely expensive I would like to update the sign that's outside of LSB so that it accurately reflects the new public entrance and the ADA requirements therein. So there's a lot of work that could be done on signs. The issue is where the money comes from to make it happen. So maybe that's signage in general and or specifics.
Oh, it's absolutely within your purview to consider. I just think that we don't have the financial wherewithal to support the upkeep of the signs.
that's always madam chair when we got the new signs that are the that we're now talking about that are damaged the the gold and black ones that are outside how what was our budget for that do you recall it was a lot yeah um i recall that too it's been five years i want to say 2019-ish i think it was like 2019 or 2020 yeah yeah and we've um i've looked into at the request of others the cost of individual signs something like the standing signs can be in the realm of say or more That helpful But I happy to chat with you or anyone else about a particular type of sign and how much that would cost roughly We have a lot of pieces in place where it really is just a matter of saying this is what we want to purchase and making it happen.
Speaking of updates, the governor's office has been being remodeled and updated. And so maybe that's for November as well as an update on what's been happening in the governor's office. Because I don't think we've discussed that for several...
Yeah, we did a tour with, or an optional tour with some members. And yeah, it was mostly completed in April or May. But more than happy to do a full overview of everything that was done. That would be helpful for the committee to hear.
Happy to. Yeah, let's do that on our November agenda as well. So anything else for the good of the whole? Seeing none, we're adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. All right.