Okay, let's call a meeting to order. I have to get the date right. It's harder during this pandemic to remember what date. Day of the week. Day of the week is a bit. So we're going to open the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District Board of Directors meeting, regular meeting for January 22nd, 2021. And we will begin with a roll call, please. Actually, no, I should be for that. We better, we better swear people have a quorum. Thank you. Okay. Let's, I guess I'm turning this over to Julie. Alex, Alex, Alex. So I'm taking on a new role here. So for those that were swearing in, let's see, let me just run down the name because we have new board members and we have returning board members. So we have. Let's see. Board member Dutra. Henderson Johnson, Konig, Pearson North cut. And Pearson. Mr. Peggler would be on the list, but he's unable to. Participate today. So we'll swear him in next month, I believe. So. I think Julie should I have them all raised their right hand. Yeah, raise the right hand and just repeat after you. Okay. And then. Immediately after I say, I, if you would all chime in and say your name. I. Jimmy Dutra. On eukonic. Shebra Calantari Johnson. Bruce McPherson. Okay. I think I heard everybody. And then please. Yeah. And please continue to repeat after me. Do solemnly swear or affirm. Do solemnly swear or affirm. That I will support and defend the Constitution. I will support. And the Constitution. Of the United States. Of the United States. And the Constitution of the state of California. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That I will bear true faith and allegiance. True faith and allegiance. To the Constitution of the United States. To the Constitution of the United States. And the Constitution of the state of California. And the Constitution of the state of California. And the Constitution of the state of California. That I take this obligation freely. That I take this obligation freely. Without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion. Without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion. And that I will well and faithfully discharge. The duties upon which I am about to enter. The duties upon which I'm about to enter. Congratulations. Welcome aboard. Welcome. Thank you. Okay. So. Now I can do a roll call. Thank you. Here. Dr. Now I can do a roll call. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Dr. Here. Dr. You're. Mr. Peggler. All right, here, Myers is here. Sorry, I was on mute. Thank you. Peggler is not, we know. Director Peterson. Here. Director Rothwell. Here. Director Rockin. Here. Exefficio Director Henderson. Here. Exefficio Director Northcut. Here. We have four. Thank you very much. We are getting, we now have a number of new board members, but we're saying goodbye to some people who've provided tremendous service to the public over a number of years. Trina Kauffman Gomez, Ed Botthorff, and Cynthia Matthews all been board members and performed admirably in the role. And we don't want to let them leave without thanking them for their public service. I don't know if people realize how many committees our board members all serve on and the work that they put in for the board. And you spend time meeting with constituents, there's work outside of the actual meeting board time and just reading the packet alone, which is a hefty little piece of work, will take at least two or three hours of your day before we come to the meeting. So, and then of course, if you're a responsible board members that I can tell you these three are, you also end up calling people from the staff from the transit district to ask questions about the board items and prepare for the meeting. So I really want to thank them all for their service. It's been tremendous. They've served on committees and played a key role on those as well as on the general meeting. I don't know if anybody else would like to add any comments but the public have been well-stirved by Trina Kauffman Gomez, Ed Botthorff, and Cynthia Matthews, other comments. Yeah, Mr. Chair, this is a McPherson. I want to say these are the best of the group in my opinion.  And we've had some real rough road in the transit district, every transit district has under the COVID and the adjustments we've had to make and what we've done. And where we are going now with the Downtown Santa Cruz Center with the facility by Dominican for the disabled community and so forth, it's really something that these things have taken years and they have been right at the front of the charge to make these things happen. I can't, we're going to really miss them because they're knowledge and it's been just, you can't overstate how important it's been. And I know like Ed, one year he was chair of this Metro as well as the RTC. A lot of time and effort and we're moving onward and upward and forward. So it's really due in big part to what they have done and they're steady progressive movement. If that's the right word to use these days, I don't know. But anyway, for what they have done and made Metro the solid facility and operation that it is, I'm going to thank them really for their years of service. Can't be overstated how important they have been to the operations of Metro for many, many years. So thank you each and every one of you. Other comments? Yes. Donald. I want to echo what Bruce had said. It's just been a pleasure to serve with each of you. And Ed and I had worked together on a few different committees and projects and Trina, as Alex has said, had come in and shared information and concerns about our pension obligation and really has just been a delight to work with and everyone has been so hardworking and such teamwork. It's been a pleasure to serve with all of you and we'll miss each and every one of you. Thank you. Anything else at this point? I'm sure we'll be having many private conversations with these folks afterwards. And again, I really want to thank them all. Maybe if they have some parting comments, they could make them at this point. Cynthia, did you have a comment? I do, yeah, I just want to say we all serve on a lot of committees and boards. And I was a relatively short timer on this just three years, but for all the really big issues, both the service and the infrastructure, facilities, legislation, finances, et cetera, this is a highly functional group.  Everyone brought, really represented their constituency well and really focused on the metro delivery service. And I really was so encouraged at Pete Buttigieg's comments about the importance of public transit for transportation equity and the importance of getting resources down to the local communities. I think it's going to be, if that's going to be so welcome, obviously. And maybe I'll, I think I'll speak for the others as well, but you know, if and when you need help and support on things, we are a phone call or an email away. Great, thanks Cynthia. Yeah. Trina, do you have any comments for us? There we go, good. Yes, it's been a pleasure to serve this board. Not only has the management and the staff have been very resourceful, very, very transparent with what's happening with the organization and very professional about it. It's agreed with the functionality of the board because there are some boards that there's a lot of friction and differences of opinions in this particular board has no focus of the common goal and how to reach it and how to reach it respectfully with all of the members of the board that get their concerns addressed and work through the system collectively instead of divisively because it's very stressful to be on a divisive type of a board. It's unproductive. And this one has been to show the most professionalism of one of the boards that I've been on and served alongside of many of the leaders in this community. So for that, I really appreciate, have been a member and participant here for this organization. And I look forward to the endeavors in the long run here as it relates to our public source of transportation for this community. And particularly those in the underserved community where we have still quite a bit of challenges to overcome for the quality of life of those that are using the public transit and getting to and from work and providing the services that this community needs. So I wish you the best to get through this pandemic and start bringing back the service robustly for this community. And again, thank you all for management staff and my fellow board members. Yeah. Thanks Trina. Ed? Yeah, thank you, Mike. You're breaking up, Ed. All the new elected officials. I believe there's two new mayors, Donna and Jimmy for sure. Ed, stop from it. You're breaking up. It's kind of, you're breaking up. It's kind of a sound issue there. I don't know if you're in the wrong place or what? Start again.  Oh yeah. Well, if that's the case, I'll keep it. No, now we can't hear. I'm gonna stop the video because sometimes, is that that? Now it's much better, much better. Well, that's the way you fade out gracefully as you get rid of your picture first, okay? You know, what I wanted to say was I started on this board six years ago with a fiscal cliff and I ended in a pandemic. So I don't know if I was bad luck, but in the middle there was a lot of good things that got done. What I started to say was I wanted to congratulate all the new members that got elected and the new mayors, Jimmy and Donna and the other elected officials. I hope you've enjoyed your time on Metro as much as I have. The first thing they told me was that Metro was a family. I truly believe that, you know, with a family there's good times and bad times. So be aware that that will happen. You really become part of this job more so than I felt like, you know, working in the city. There's just a lot of good things. I wanna thank all the union reps that I had numerous meetings with. They were always passionate and respectful. All the staff was always helpful. There's certain names in the past. I just gotta throw out a, I gotta say a name like Siro and a name like Barrow. And I hope someday Daniel gets a building for his people because they've been in that lousy building for years. I did have a couple of memorable experiences with Metro and I just share those before I go. And that is one, when we were trying to get Cabrillo College on board, I remember walking the streets with the bus drivers and I really felt like team effort was there, trying to get everybody on board to help Metro be as good as it could be. And last, you know, I was fortunate enough to go back to Washington DC twice on a lobbying trip, which I believe were really fruitful for the organization. And on those, I got to personally interact with Bruce and Jimmy and Chris and Mike. And it was good to be productive, have some interaction and I'm gonna miss that part of the job. But the rest of the part of the job, I leave that up to all of you. Special thanks to Alex for always preparing us given this information so that we could make the decisions we need to make. And Julie for always keeping us in the boundaries. And Gina for always making sure that I always have the paperwork. So I'm gonna miss you all. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ed. Thank you all as well. Let's have a round of applause for our retiring board members. I will say, make a final comment about this. When most people enter a new office, they're always full of ideas about the things they'd like to do, the new service they'd like to provide, the things that the public don't have that they ought to. And these board members all served in a period when they started off with this, having to cut $6 million out of our budget. And the point is that was done in a way that did not devastate this district. We had good leadership from the staff, but it does take a board that's prepared to make some hard decisions. And these three led that charge at different stages of that difficult process of getting ourselves whole, which we are today despite the pandemic and all the other is going on, we're in better financial shape than when these board members joined the board. So that's a sad commentary about the state of national funding for transit, but it's a positive comment about their contribution and keeping this community whole. Thank you again for your service. Okay, our next items, are there any other announcements? Board members have, this is being brought, today's program is being broadcast by Community Television of Santa Cruz County. I'm not sure who our technician is, is it Greg Willis? I wanna thank him for his work if he's the one doing this for us. It's Kingston. Kingston, thank you very much then. Okay, any other announcements from staff? Then we're gonna move on to the board officers and committee assignments. You in your packet have got a sheet that provides you with the possibility of various slates for the various appointments. As the chair, I have the opportunity to make a nominate a first slate, but you don't have to completely disagree with the entire list. I think it's unlikely you would of everything I've nominated, but you can, if you think in one of these positions, I haven't chosen the best people for that job or for whatever other reason, you can nominate your own slate and our decision on this is gonna be made at our next meeting. This is giving you a heads up. In some cases, you'll see on that sheet that I didn't know who, for example, I think I wrote Watsonville representative at some point not knowing who Watsonville was gonna appoint to the transit board. So that should be filled in with, I think, Jimmy, if that's in fact the case this morning, apparently. So in one more thing I wanna say, in making the appointments to the RTC, the basic principle that I looked for was making sure that when I made new appointments to that, that I made them to represent interest in South County or at least to say Capitola and South to make sure that we didn't end up with a totally North County representation on the RTC. So that was my logic and the people that I appointed to that board.  That's the CIC? That's it. So I don't even remember what the exact name that it stands for, but I'm gonna tell you the function of this committee that you've been appointed to in some cases. Santa Cruz Civic Improvement Committee. Committee, thank you very much. Well, when a public agency like the Transit District wants to float a bond, they're apparently through federal law not able to do that directly themselves. They have to work with a nonprofit, 501-3-C organization that in effect funnels the money to the district. A long time ago in the past, we floated a bond for this district and a small one, but we needed such a committee and we created it. Takes, took a lot of money and time, legal advice to create that committee and we didn't want to disband it and have to pay that again. So that committee has been in existence ever since that bond in ancient history for the Transit District. And we simply need five members to serve on it. It's kind of a ministerial function because the committee doesn't have a choice about the spending of the money exactly or even where it's being applied for, but they do have control over the terms of the bond and to make sure to protect the public in terms of the bond rates and how it's being repaid and so forth. So that's a committee that people serve on and we rotate people through it. It meets once a year. The year that we floated the bond we actually got a lunch out of it. But since then, it's usually a five minute meeting just before our regular meeting once a year. And the total agenda of that meeting is to take, approve the minutes from the last meeting to roll themselves over for another year and adjourn.  So that's my logic and I'm pointing those committees. If anybody wants to, I'll stop when I get, if I get to five people wants to talk to me about these appointments or has a question about them, please feel free to call me. And as I said, after I get five people calling me there'll be a Brown Act issue and I won't take any more calls on that. I'll make an announcement to the whole board that I'm Browned out, Brown Act out of them on further discussions about this. Okay, are there any questions about this at this point? Okay, our next item is oral and written communication on the board of drill chair. Yes. I'm sorry, I believe on this item you have recommendations one, two, two A through D. Is that right, Julie? We need to take action. That's correct, you need to take action on those. That also includes installing board member Lynn as the vice chair who plays supervisor Leopold who resigned from vice chair in November. Thank you, yes. I intended to do that. I forgot where it was gonna be on the agenda. So we need a motion to affect that. We have a motion. I'll move that the item. This is Donna. Donna Myers moved. I'll second that, Mike. Any questions about it? Any member of the public have a comment on this item? It's board organizational issues, not general, great public interest. Okay, all those, we have a roll call vote on all things under COVID conditions. On the motion to appoint Donna Lynn as vice chair at the resignation of director Leopold. We have a motion by director Myers and a second by director Rockin. Roll call is director Dutra. Yes. Director Gonzalez. Can I just clarify? Is the motion for the entire? I was trying for an omnibus motion, if that's... Okay, so it's for the entire report. Okay. That's what I, yeah, that's what I intended would be the recommended action in the packet. Thank you. Let's see, director Gonzalez. Yes. Director Calantari-Johnson. Yes. Director Connick. Aye. Director Lind. Aye. Director Peterson. Aye. Director Myers. Aye. Director Peterson. Aye. Director Rothwell. Aye. Director Rockin. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you very much. Now we are to oral communication. This is an opportunity for any member of the public who's on this call, the Zoom call, to give us comments, up to three minutes of comments on anything related to transit. The floor is open. Please raise your hand by your head so we can actually see that you'd like to make a comment. Mr. Chair, you have Brian from Trail Now. Brian, peoples. Go ahead, Mr. Peoples. Hi, this is Brian from Trail Now. Happy New Year, everybody. Soundcheck, you can hear me? Yes. Yes, you're good. We're a local organization that supports Santa Cruz Coastal Trail Now, building it now. We actually are a big advocate of Metro. For example, when Measure D came out, with the language, the way it was written, actually the major millions of dollars went to a new competitor to Metro and that we did not support. And RTC knowing that if we didn't support the Measure D, it was a good chance it would lose. So what the RTC did was they actually moved millions of money that was gonna go to this new competitor train to the Metro. And so we got on board and supported Measure D, so we were really excited about Measure D and supporting Measure D. I myself, I've been in transportation policy for over 20 years. I actually wrote a state assembly bill 15 years ago, a tax law that provided employers incentives to give their employees money to take transit. So I'm an engineer in my day job, we have a passion for transportation. So I think the main message I wanna deliver here is Trail Now is a big supporter of Metro. We're excited about the new faces and looking forward to continuing to build upon how great your organization is doing. Thank you very much, happy new year. Thanks for your comments and happy new year to you. Next speaker, I'm looking for hands. I don't see any, but... I'm seeing any hands, Mr. Chair. Okay, I don't believe we have any written communications this morning. Next is the opportunity for labor organizations to give us comments. Anyone from the labor organizations are unions and the people they represent have a comment this morning. You have three so far, Mr. Sandoval, Rios and Ms. Jeffries. Let's start with Mr. Sandoval. James, good morning. You're muted, James, I think. Still not hearing you. All right, I just got the option to unmute. Can you hear me now? Yes, hear you fine now. Good morning, Mike, thank you. Good morning, board of directors and welcome to the new board members. My name is James Sandoval. I have worked here at Metro for eight years and I've served as a general chairperson for the last two years. Our union represents the fixed route and paratransit drivers at Metro, as well as the paratransit drivers at Lifeline and Watsonville. Our union has been working with the transit district since 1980. We always try to have a cooperative partnership with the transit district because we are all vested in public service. Today, I need to bring a matter to your attention. Our general manager has been making it a point to correspond with this union in a condescending manner. The union has response emails from the CEO general manager where he used terms when addressing the general chairman of the union, you need to mature as leaders and this is not rocket science while using a degrading tone in a non-professional manner. This level of disrespect has created additional problems when it comes to communicating with Metro management in order to come to resolutions. The level of disrespect has been shown to the union and our operators by Metro management has caused problems with our relationship. This union has always been committed to a harmonious relationship and to the business of the transit district. We the drivers are the face of the public transportation system and we should be treated with respect. This has been an ongoing issue that needs to be addressed immediately. We will also be speaking to an item later on the agenda. Again, welcome to the new board members. I apologize we have to meet under these conditions but I would really appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation with you as to who we are as a public transportation union. Thank you. Thanks for your comments. Other comments? Joan, Jeffries. Okay. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, your voice is fine. Great. Okay. So a good morning. I am Joan Jeffries, the president of the SEA chapter of SEIU, which is the second union that is here at Metro. And on behalf of SEI, I would like to say welcome to our new board members as well as our returning board members. And this morning we would like to address the board and Mr. Clifford regarding Metro's office staff being able to continue working a split schedule meaning half of the week at home and half of the week at the office alternating with our office mates. So all Metro staff are scheduled currently to return to the office 100% of the time starting February 1st with possible one week extensions of the split schedule based on weekly evaluations. However, Santa Cruz County is still under a regional stay at home order which states that office workers should be allowed to work remotely unless it is critical. The ICU in Santa Cruz County currently has zero beds available and 72 COVID cases. We need to be at 15% capacity in order for this order to be lifted and the county does not anticipate that happening anytime soon. Our schools will not be opening the rest of the school year for most of us. So parents of school-age children continue to face the challenge of how to manage their family's needs as well as work. Being able to continue to split schedule between home and office has been a huge weight off of their shoulders. We are requesting to continue this benefit through the end of the school year. Splitting time between home and offices has allowed us during this difficult time to take care of our families while still meeting our obligations to Metro. But not only would this continue to benefit parents with school-age children but all office staff at Metro. As to date, none of the administrative staff has been diagnosed with COVID. We would like to continue this trend very much. Thank you very much for your time and we do appreciate your considering our request today. Thanks for your comments. Thank you. And the, sorry, I really apologize. I've forgotten who the third person was. All right. Mr. Rios. Michael Rios, go ahead, sir. Sorry, Michael, I should not have forgotten. We're not hearing you. You don't appear to be muted something along with your microphone, perhaps. Michael, you'll maybe, I'm not sure what to recommend. I'm not hearing your voice. Try unmuting now.  Michael, I'm going to give you an opportunity to speak at some point later in the meeting. Perhaps through a phone call to Gina you can figure out what the issue is and you could be able to make your comments this morning. But we can't hear anything right now. So we are going to move on with your kind permission and we'll hope that you'll be able to hook up with us later in the meeting and share your comments. If for some reason you're not able to we certainly can accept an email with your comments and could go to the whole board. I'll make sure it's distributed if you send it to me. Okay. That's unfortunate. I don't believe we have any written communications from the Metro Advisory Committee. Am I correct about that? Correct. No communications. Okay. Do we have, we do, do we have the additional documentation for existing agenda items? I believe we got a legal memo from our legal advisor and people should be aware that it was not part of the original packet. I think when it came, it just recounted the service that's been provided and the price, the costs involved in the provision of legal services for Metro, every board member should have all received that. Yeah, Mike, that's a confidential memo, but every new board member who was sworn in today, I will be sending that to you. Thank you very much. Next on our agenda is the consent agenda. These are items 10, number 10 dash one to 10 dash 13. We will be taking all of these items in a single motion unless some member of the board would like to have us pull them off. And members of the public can request such a examination in more detail of a particular item. Let me ask if there, first of all, any members of the public are interested in any of these consent agenda items for further comment. I'm seeing no hands. Raise your hand by your head if you're interested in that. No hands on the board here. I see none. Okay. Let me then ask are there any board members who would like to pull an item for further consideration or make a brief comment. I'm also seeing no hands. Move approval. Second. That motion was from Donna Lind and who seconded it. Sorry. Bruce McPherson seconded any further comments. All those in favor, please say aye. Actually roll call roll call vote. Sorry. Okay. Thanks. Okay. The motion to accept the consent agenda as presented. Was by the motion was by Dr. Linde and the second was by McPherson. Roll call. Dr. Dutra. Yes. Dr. Gonzalez. Aye. Dr. Calantari Johnson. Aye. Dr. Koenig. Aye. Dr. Linde. Aye. Dr. McPherson. Aye. Dr. Myers. Aye. Dr. Peterson. Aye. Dr. Rothwell. Aye. Dr. Rockin. Aye. Motion passed. I carried unanimously with all those present. Our next agenda item is item number 11, which is the presentation of employee longevity awards. We have a number of. Well, actually there's one this morning. Retirement. I'm going to read you some information about this long serving member. Of our community and our. Metro family. Eileen Wagley served 20 years. As the paratransit eligibility coordinator. I want to say before reading the comments in front of me that. This is really an important position for the Metro district. This is the person who makes. Fords people with disabilities. The opportunity to figure out how they can make the best use of our system and our service. It takes huge, you know, sensitivity and ability to work with people. And often communicating sometimes harsh truths to people about the limits of what we can, cannot actually deliver. And this job has just been done superbly by Eileen. She started working at Metro as the administrative assistant to the planning and marketing director. When Metro transition from contracted to in-house paratransit service, she took on the role as paratransit eligibility coordinator. She brought a varied and broad range of experience to her current position. Eileen has worked as the assistant to both the Johnson city, Tennessee medical centers director of oncology. And Salinas Valley Memorial's hospital director of volunteer services, specializing in file management, federal reporting, staffing and service training. And public information and marketing. Her public service employment history includes Kent state university's career planning and placement center. And the university of Tennessee department of research and technology development. And the US depository map library. Eileen was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, grew up in riding Cleveland's RTA route 22 from her West side working class neighborhood to her job downtown. She holds a bachelor of RTA. She's a graduate from Kent state university. She has one son, Victor, currently completing his degree at Northwestern gritzker school of law. She was witted in 2015. She currently resides in live Oak with her cat. She earned a second degree black belt. In. H. O. Law. Widow. Sorry. In. K. U. K. M. U. S. U. L. Soul and Taekwondo and spends her free time teaching and training. Korean martial arts academy. With grandmaster Jen. Want to thank her for her years of service and recognizes that she's getting a longevity award from the, from the district. That'll be some more money, which is, I think, welcome. Always. Let's have a round of applause. Secondly. We have some retiree resolutions and these are usually done in a public meeting accompanied by plaques, which I believe are still being delivered, but not. Not through our, not in cyberspace. It doesn't work so well. First of all, we have. Retiree resolution. I'll take a motion on these when I'm done reading the. Descriptions of the people who are retiring. Zero Gary was our CEO. We started as a mechanic in 1980 at Santa Clara. Santa Clara VTA promoted the supervisor in 1986. Then division superintendent. He was hired as a manager of operations here at Metro in 2006. He assisted in the 2019 union negotiations. He oversaw nearly three quarters of the industry. He assisted in the 2019 union negotiations. He oversaw nearly three quarters of the employees in the organization as a whole to include all bus operators and supervisors. All pair of crews employees, the facilities maintenance group, the vehicle service workers. And the revenue and non-revenue fleet maintenance group. He oversaw the security contract deployment of security personnel on the security camera system. You led the way to evaluating and procuring Metro's first zero and the construction of the charging infrastructure, which we've all seen. He oversaw Metro's conversion to narrow banding and the land mobile radio upgrade as required by the FCC. And frankly, desperately needed by this district because our buses were often had a contact before he completed that project. He also oversaw the purchase of all Metro vehicles, revenue and non-revenue. As you can see with the retirement of zero Gary, we're losing a really valued employee who did a tremendous amount of work for this district. And I'm looking for a motion to approve his retirement. Actually, let's do this as a joint motion when I'm done with all three. Secondly, we have the retirement of Angela Akin, who was our CFO. Angela Akin started with Metro in January of 2007 as the finance manager during the management class and comp. In June of 2018, she was retitled as the chief financial officer. She oversaw the finance department of seven employees. She helped resolve the 2014-15 fiscal structural deficit. Played a key role in that. Led the effort to create a board adopted reserves policy. Took the lead in the management and SCIU class and comp study. Assisted in the 2019 union negotiations. Functioned as the agency's disadvantaged business enterprise officer. She assumed additional responsibility for oversight of the purchasing parts department. And project manager about eight employees. She was running like three departments at one point. To be honest. Temporarily oversaw the human resources department. While Metro recruited a new manager. Temporarily oversaw the customer. Service department. While they recruited a new manager. Oversaw the leasing of Metro commercial spaces. Assumed responsibility for various tasks and projects assigned by the CEO. Representative Metro on various professional organizations. Stakeholder meetings and other professional groups. If you put together. Ciro and Angela's work for this district. You realize what we're losing at the top of our management. And they'll be big shoes to fill. I want to also say about. Angela that she and her team. Did a superb job of presenting the board with slides and financial information in a way that was accessible to lay people. And allowed us to make decisions. It would be a lot more difficult to do. And of course she does not do this alone. So it really is credit to the people working. That she worked with in her department. And that overall work for the district as a whole. Next we have retiring George. Coaline parts and materials clerk. Georgia's career with Santa Cruz Metro totals over 34 years. It'll be 35 years. By March. He was hired on March 5th. 1986. As a vehicle service worker one. On January 21st, 1988, George began working in the parts department as a parts clerk. George was a dedicated Metro employee who constantly displayed the following characteristics each day at Metro. Friendly. Always wanted to help anyone organized and detail oriented. George took great pride in keeping the parts room. And warehouse sparklingly clean. He also has an amazing, skill on a forklift. His supervisor, George Willis, commented many times that George could use a forklift to perform surgeries. He was so accurate. Georgia's contribution to Metro will be missed by all that. The pleasure to work with him. We all wish him the best in his retirement. Next to retiring. We have Patricia Cummings, bus operator. Patricia will miss her job working with the public and is grateful for the opportunity she has. Has had working with Metro. Patricia enjoys spending her time with her pets. Her love for animals has given her the opportunity to rescue and find great homes for many of them. Patricia was the first employee to purchase an all electric vehicle. She loves her cats as well as her ponies. And looks forward to spending more time with them. Next, we have the retirement of John Daugherty, accessibility service coordinator. John served as the customer service representative. From August 1989 to December. He was promoted and then served as the second accessible services coordinator from December. 1998 to December. 2020. Last month. He represented Metro on the SCC RTC elderly and disabled transportation advisory committee. The pedestrian safety work group. And the ad hoc intersection design committee. Before working at Metro, John was a UCSC graduate with the BA in American studies. Central Coast Center for independent living employee from 1985 to 1987. And board member from 1991. 2012. And a commissioner of Santa Cruz County commission on disabilities from 1988 to 2000. And then again, from 2009 to the present. While serving Metro, we've promoted writing Metro fixed route in the Metro Perico services. He worked with and supported the independence of older adults and people with disabilities. Managed individual mobility training and group orientations. Broad operators and buses to new and prospective riders. Organized and delivered Metro operators and other staff training on accessibility in Americans with disability act requirements. Organized new operators training with community members. I have my personal comments that John is well loved in the disability community. Provided a tremendous service for this community over many, many years. Many people are able to get to the places they need to in their lives because of John Daugherty and the way that they help them make it, get access to our services. We either fixed route or repair transit services. Last but not least. We have retiring Brian McCail bus operator. Brian never had a bad day at work. His infectious smile and laughter was what his coworkers saw every day. Brian has an amazing green thumb and grows beautiful. Dahlia's every year. Brian was a strong supporter of his wife's business making decisions. She makes delicious desserts and candy. We always look forward to what Brian would bring in for us to sample. Brian will be looking forward to spending a lot more time outdoors. Gardening, kayaking and traveling with his wife. We're losing some very, the district is losing, not our community. The district is losing some very valuable employees who provided a tremendous service. I want to recognize their contribution. Let's start with a round of applause for their many years of service to this district. And then let me ask if we can have a motion to approve the, the. Resolution. I'll move. I'll second. No, who made the motion. I'm sorry. Donna Lynn. Quick with the motion. Once again. And seconded by Don, the other Donna Myers. Any additional comments? Just, I'd like to just. As Ed had that, and as you said, Mike, that we are really losing so much history and. Some dedicated. People that are going to be very difficult to. You know, to replace or to fill those shoes. They've really done a great job for Metro and. In all areas. And just wish them. All the best in this next chapter. Thank you very much. Can we have a roll call vote on those? I'm at resolution. A motion to accept the retiring resolutions. As presented. Motion by Lynn. Second by Myers. Dr. Dutra. Absolutely. Yes. Dr. Gonzalez. Hi. Dr. Calantari Johnson. Hi. Dr. Konig. Hi. Dr. Konig. Hi. Dr. Konig. Dr. Konig. Hi. Dr. Konig. Dr. Konig. Hi. Dr. Konig. Hi. Dr. Lynn. Hi. Dr. McPherson. Hi. Dr. Myers. Hi. Dr. Peterson. Hi. Dr. Rosswell. Hi. Dr. Rockin. Hi. Motion passes. Mike, I think we might have some of our retirees online, but I don't see any hands. Let me ask if any of these retirees like to make parking comments. They are certainly welcome to do that. I see John Dardi's hand in zero. John, John Dardi, go ahead, please. Am I unmuted? No, you're fine. Yes, we hear you fine. Okay. Well. Good morning, directors. Good morning. It's all out there. Colleagues, co-workers. I just want to offer. Basically just a big thank you to John Dardi. John Dardi. John Dardi. John Dardi. John Dardi. John Dardi. John Dardi. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Basically just a bit of background and just. Some hope and expectation. A bit of background is that yes, as chair Rockin has pointed out, I started serving Metro as a customer service representative. Back in 1989. approximately 22 years. And I still remember in that position what outreach could be like. I remember that the first person I worked with, with help and assistance, including working with our operators to bring a bus out, was helping a senior, Cassandra Fox at La Posada more comfortable using a new wheelchair to get in and out of our buses. And also last year, the last person I worked with, a young man just out of high school, who was getting comfortable to use the bus to go from his home and apt us to a job in Capitola.  Sometimes a busload at the time and just about every working day, one person at a time. I hope, I expect that Metro will find a way to continue to provide ways for people to get their travel training or mobility training or just, you know, realize that the bus and the bus operator are, you know, our choices that a lot of the people that we, you know, serve, you know, can continue to be independent or in some cases for students can become more independent using the bus. And so I hope, and if I was, you know, I expect that Metro should find a way to be able to continue to offer that service because it's really important especially as we're going from a time like no other and looking ahead to a time when we can, you know, see more of each other outside on the bus and in the Metro Paracruise van. I also want to just offer that I've had the pleasure to work with a lot of people. I also want to offer appreciation for Metro's first marketing manager, Katie Hath, who hired me as a customer service representative. I want to offer appreciation to Metro's first accessible services coordinator, Dr. Pat Cavitio, who lives in Scotts Valley for his encouragement throughout the years and also want to appreciate all the customer service people have had a chance to meet and a chance to assist, you know, when there was a customer who had a question about how to use Metro safely. I also like to give a quick thank you and congratulations to Eileen Wagley, who's, you know, gotten things in such a good shape that our Metro Paracruise setup is, you know, very accessible and friendly and people realize that they have choices, you know, not being able to drive perhaps or looking at giving up driving doesn't have to end a person's world. So thank you for this opportunity and thank you for the recognition. Thank you, John, for your many years of service to the public. Is Ciro on the light? I don't see his picture, but he was. Ciro, you here? Hello. Yes, you're on. Thank you. Josh, thank you for the acknowledgement. Congratulations and well wishes to the newly appointed directors. And thank you to the outgoing directors. I really appreciate everyone's support during my tenure at Metro. I'd like to just take a short opportunity here to thank Mr. Les White for offering me the opportunity to serve as the operations manager back in 2006. To me, he was just a walking encyclopedia of transit. I just, I was amazed at how much knowledge he had about the history of transit and how it came to be. And I really appreciate the opportunity provided to me. Next, I would like to thank Alex Clifford for giving me the opportunity to serve as the Chief Operations Officer. I've always respected Alex's business prowess and his leadership qualities. I think he continued to show me different ways of how to look at particular problems that were, in my mind, probably unsolvable, but in his had a recourse, which I really appreciated. I learned quite a bit from Alex. All the directors and managers that helped allow me to do my job. And with their focus in the departments and with the direction that they gave their staff, it really made a difference in how we delivered the service. And I really appreciate that because it allowed me the time to concentrate on other things. The staff, supervisors, staff, everyone, it's been just a unique privilege and honor to serve as the COO for Metro. I'm going to miss everyone, but life goes on and we change and turn the page. It's a very interesting career that I chose. I don't ever regret it. Every day was an exciting day for me to get up out of bed and figure out what was going to happen today. And I hope that as you continue the work in promoting transit that you don't lose the focus, part of what actually attracted me to Metro and Santa Cruz was back when I moved here in 97, some family members came and we decided to take the bus ride to downtown Santa Cruz. And it was just very unique. I'd never experienced something like that before in that the operator had his attire as a Santa Claus. And he's saying Christmas carols the whole way when he picked this up all the way to downtown Santa Cruz and had everyone on the bus singing Christmas carols. It was a unique experience. I never forgot that. And when this Bonnie Moore, the chair of UTU, saw me board the bus as I was commuting to BTA, she just asked me, would you be interested in working for Metro? We need an operation manager. And that's what started the ball rolling in that direction. So 14 years later, I think I had a very rewarding career with Metro. And I thank everyone because everyone made an impact in my life. All of the employees just working with them getting to know them, some of them getting to know their families and such. It was just a very, very rewarding experience for me. And I want to thank everyone. Thank you for your many, many years of service. We really appreciate everything you've done for this district. Okay, our next item is the CEO's oral update, general comments. Mr. Chair, directors, thank you. Happy New Year. I have fairly lengthy presentation today, obviously, with our new president. I'd like to talk a little bit about what we think is occurring in the next year relative to transit and transit funding. But before that, we always like to talk about our new hires and promotions. And since you last met, we hired Juan Lipei, Ulster One, Kathy Downs, senior financial analyst. She fills Christina's position Christina promoted into the deputy finance manager position. Robert Guzman, vehicle service worker one, and Alejandro Randeras, custodial service worker one. And we're proud to announce also that we promoted Rena Solorio, who is also on the call today, to our first customer service manager position overseeing all of the customer service function. So congratulations to her and to our new hires. Thanks for that, Alex. Welcome on board to the metro. And welcome to your new promotions as well. We're really proud of Rena. Okay, under the remainder of my CEO presentation, like to talk a little bit about the Biden-Harris administration and what we know so far as it relates to transit, you may have read that the CEO and I guess now former CEO of Santa Clara DTA just over the hill, our partners in the Highway 17 computer service, has been appointed by the president as the acting deputy FTA administrator. So the way that this works is as president comes in, makes appointments, people go into the deputy or the acting deputy position pending congressional approval. So she will, once she makes it through the congressional process, she should be the FTA administrator. So we're really proud of that. We've always had a good relationship with Santa Clara VTA and with NERIA. And we think that will be good down the road. So congratulations to NERIA. The president is proposing a significant economic package you've probably heard about. It's a 1.9 trillion with a T emergency relief package. That's 1 trillion in direct aid, 440 billion in community support, 400 billion in pandemic response, 10 billion in cybersecurity. Included in that is 20 billion under the direct aid category for what the president calls the hardest hit transit agencies. That phrasing worries us a little bit because that begins to look like your larger agencies like New York, MTA, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, are going to probably capitalize big time on whatever new emergency revenues might go to transit agencies. So to that end, just like we have been arguing about really or advocating on behalf of Metro since March, we want to get our fair share. Economic problems related to COVID are all relative. A 40% loss of fair revenue at New York MTA sounds big when you talk about billions of dollars, millions of dollars, but a 40% loss of revenue at our end of the small agency is equally devastating to us. So we want to make sure that we continue to advocate as we have through the past two rounds of funding that all agencies need to be treated equal. We don't know when we're coming out of this economic crisis that's related to COVID could be many years. And so we need to participate in future rounds of funding. And we will continue to advocate for those rounds of funding to be the same as they were for CARES Act. They were somewhat in the last round, but we think CARES Act had it right, which is usually established federal formula programs and distribute the money that way. And that takes into consideration ridership and population. So we think that's the fair way to do it. And they should continue to follow a successful model. So we will advocate for that. Agencies such as Metro who manage their resources well should not be penalized and should continue to receive their fair share of new emergency relief funding. And as I pointed out, we don't know how long we're going to be in this economic crisis and when we'll come out of it or when ridership will return to pre-COVID levels. So we need to protect the future. Alex, on the interrupt, you just asked, in terms of lobbying the federal government around that very point, the fair distribution of the resources going to transit, is there something specific that various cities and the county might be able to do in support of our issue there? In terms of lobbying both our local congressional representatives, but just directly to the president's administration as well. Yes. So definitely talking to Congresswoman Eshu and Congressman Panetta when you have their ear and advocating for this continued philosophy that any new emergency money go to the agencies through established formula programs, they have been good advocates for us to date. So as this process in Washington, D.C. continues to evolve in the coming weeks, there may be opportunity for board members who have access to promote those points. And then next, I just again talk to our federal advocate, Chris Gileo, this last week and reminded him that as soon as we see an opportunity to do some sort of probably in these days, Zoom contact with key people in Washington, D.C. around this point, he should schedule that meeting. There is a possibility that APTA will hold their legislative conference in May in Washington in person. I think that's still a big question mark, but that could happen also and be valuable to this process. Thanks. Continuing on, the president has communicated through his acting chief of staff quote, the president Biden has been clear stronger infrastructure is a key to building our country back better than it was before. There's been talk about the fast accurate authorization as you know, that was that sort of expired but was extended another year into 2021. He's been talking about infrastructure program. There's been some hints that he liked the invest program invested in America act program that the house passed under the Trump administration, but that did not make it through the Senate. So he apparently he likes some of the things that were contained in there. Similar to the cares act, the invest act had $5.79 billion that would flow to transit agencies via established formulas. That part we were okay with, but we did send a letter on behalf of Metro advocating for that to be increased to 24 billion. And then of course, they continue to talk about similar philosophies as they have with the last two rounds of emergency funding, which is 100% federal. And what that means is that you can draw down the money without having a local match. And that's important to us too when they say 100% federal. So we'd like them to continue to do that. So the invest act also would have reauthorized the fast act, which again is our funding sources for transit for another five years. It would have increased transportation funding by 62% as you can imagine, that's pretty substantial. And then a program that we often seek grants for and have obtained grants for, which is the bus and bus facility grant program. It would under the invest act, it would have gone from 809 million to 2.15 billion. So again, if he's picking up these kinds of similar philosophies and incorporating them into his $1.9 trillion package, good things could happen for transit. President Biden has expressed that he wishes to get the United States back on track with greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals and supports a desire to fund zero emission buses. But unfortunately to date, he's only tied that to large cities. So we want to advocate for him to think more broadly, because small and mid-sized agencies are also buying electric buses and need federal assistance in order to continue to move into the zero emissions forum. There has been some talk about earmarks returning. And as you know, since they went away every year, there's some talk about earmarks returning that may get a little bit more serious this year, because they've even gone so far as to talk about things like to avoid the controversy of the bridge to nowhere, bridge earmarks might be limited to something like $15 million, for example. So to that end, we are preparing a sort of an elevator speech or a walking, one-page walking document that we will use. As you know, we are on our new paracruise facility. As you know, we're going after a bus and bus facilities grant this year, but we also think that's a shovel-ready project. And if earmarks come along, and for example, if we don't fare out well in the grant process, an earmark for that paracruise facility might be a valid way to go. So we're trying to cover both bases. The recent round of funding that you all heard about, which is Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021, or the CRSAA, was $14 billion. Again, less than what we were advocating for earlier, but still a substantial amount of money that passed and was signed by President Trump. Out of that, Metro will receive an estimated $13.7 million in combined 5307 and 5311 funds. So we were one of the fortunate ones. I will tell you, over 500 small and mid-sized agencies across the nation got zero. I will tell you that it's pretty easy to figure out why we got money under this particular sort of revised formula that they used. It is because we have an enormous commitment by our community to this agency in the way of our dedicated half-cent sales tax and our Measure D. That combined has allowed us over the years to provide more service, having a public partnership in that. And because of the way the numbers work out, that is the single biggest reason why we were able to make achieve funding in this particular round. Because had we not had that, and you pull that out of our equation, we would not have qualified under the 75 percent formula that they used in this grant. Going forward for emergency relief, we're advocating that they no longer use that 75 percent because if they continue to use it in the fashion that they did this time, any future rounds will result in us receiving zero dollars. So we need to make sure that when they use that formula that they, and actually if they're going to continue to tie it to your 2018 operating expenses that they get the 75 percent part out of that so that we can continue to qualify for funds going forward. Finally, what does 2021 fiscal process look like, potentially look like, underscore potentially? So in February and March, the House might take action on the President's emergency relief package that could be certainly discussing and debating. It could be an actual action. The Senate, however, might not rush to take action on that. And all projections are you might not see the Senate look at that package or whatever package comes out of the House until somewhere in the Julyish type of timeframe. And then, of course, you have to deal with the reconciliation process. If the House passes one thing and the Senate passes another and they look, they're not the same, then they have to go through an extended process to sort of reconcile that before they send it to the President for signature. Along the journey, they have a little bit of a problem, maybe a substantial problem, in that they have to take action to increase the debt limit in order to do what the President would like to do. The debt limit will have to be increased, at least a one-year increase. And then a bill that could possibly come out of the Senate and be reconciled could go to the President sometime in October. So that's kind of what the process would look like as we see it right now. And before I move on to your COVID update, I'm happy to answer any questions, Mr. Chair. Are there questions of Alex at this point? Looking for hands by your head if you're interested in speaking. Mr. Chair, you do have Mr. Peeples requesting to speak? Okay, go ahead. Brian, people, go ahead. Hi, this is Brian. Good morning. I hear you. You hear me now. Thanks. This is Brian from Trail Now. Again, we're a big advocate of Metro, a local transit. And so one of the things we want to emphasize to the Metro Board is think locally. We passed Measure D. It's a lot of funds coming in for our transit. And a lot of your resources come out of the governance by the Regional Transportation Commission. So the Metro has three members on the RTC Commission. And so it's really important that those members represent Metro. They should be going in with focus on how are we going to get Metro more money? Do we want to waste money on other future competitors of Metro? No, that's really not what we want. We want to make sure that the Metro continues to get funds. You know, for example, over the last 10 years, the RTC has spent over a $40 million on maintaining the old railroad tracks. Brian, you're going a little far afield of the CEO's talk. I appreciate that, Mike. But the point is, is if you're talking politics, you're talking funding. Your organization has to work as a team representing Metro. Metro drivers, Metro riders. When you go to that RTC Board, you don't go in and think that you're going to invest in other competition. But I thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Over. Thanks for your comments. Other first members of the public, if there are others, who'd like to comment on the CEO's comments? Nothing for hands and not seeing any. I see none at this point. Okay, board members, do you have any questions or comments of the CEO on his comments about federal funding? Mr. Chair? Yes, go ahead. Bruce. I just want to thank Alex for that presentation. I mean, there's a lot of a lot of different things going different ways, but I will probably all culminate in the fall. But first of all, I want to thank our representatives for supporting what are our needs. Also, I want to just say thank you to the RTC and many of the members of that as well for allowing Metro to really be part of the discussion in our future transportation needs in Santa Cruz County. It's really been an improved coordination effort in the last few years. And I want to thank Alex and everybody who has allowed that to happen. And I just can't go without saying, and Alex mentioned the value of what our voters, our people in Santa Cruz County on way back in the late 70s, which would be sales tax, asset sales tax, and then measure D in 2016. Without those support systems from the general public, getting a two-thirds vote, we would be really stymied looking to future with some real hope. But with the new administration in Washington, D.C., this is going to fit very nicely. The opportunity is much better today than it was back in those years and those ministers that have administration. So I want to thank Alex and his whole team for keeping an eye on the ball of what our needs and the needs for all our friends to be in the solution for public friends throughout this county, the state, this nation. It's really important. And I really appreciate his keeping his eye on the ball and his communication with those in the federal government and state as well. So thank you very much and thank you to the folks in Santa Cruz and for RGC for letting us become a real voice in the public transit situation we have from Santa Cruz County. Other comments from board members or questions? I'll just add my comment. One of the real joys of serving on the transit board is you get a real education about the federal government that you don't necessarily get from city or county positions. And as our Washington D.C. representative once said several years back, maybe it's an unfortunate sports metaphor, but talks about Santa Cruz punching above its weight in the sense that we're a very small transit district. But because of Alex's position on a number of boards at the state and federal level, and I mean at half that we're talking about or the state transit advocacy agencies, we are really doing a lot to sort of affect way beyond just our district alone, but actually having some impact on what the federal government does in these big questions. And that we shouldn't take that for granted. I mean, you know, we're a small town in a small county in the jail of the United States federal government decisions. And yet I think it's been demonstrated over time that we really made a difference. And some of our funding, for example, comes from federal programs that we helped us play a key role in establishing like this transit intensive districts bill that brings us millions of dollars every year. So it's really good to hear about what's going on in D.C. And I'd allows me to actually triangulate or maybe extrapolate into other issues federally with this sort of base of understanding what the government is up to. And frankly, it's a much clearer picture than you get from reading the newspapers or watching the news on TV. So thank you, Alex, for that presentation. Appreciate it. Now on to the CEO's COVID update. Okay, if we can bring that update on screen, our CCTV folks are going to do that for us. Gina, do you know, are they online? Oh, yeah, I'm here. I'm just looking for the right slide. Okay. Should be labeled 14.1. Kingston, it's agenda item number 14 and the slides after that. So 14, I think is a yes, we have it. Thank you. Okay. So Alex, you'll tell him when to advance. I think he's going to go full screen here. Yeah. Okay. All right. So this is the presentation that I gave to the finance committee. If we can proceed to the next slide, please. So as of December 30, 2020, Metro had eight employees that tested positive. That as of today's update is 23 total employees. We exclude from that count that we had two temp employees that tested positive. They go into the count for the temp agency, and the temp agency is responsible for reporting that. And then also excluded from that are three employees that initially came in with what's called a presumptive positive. And a presumptive positive is really an inconclusive positive. But we still had to have the employees quarantine until they could immediately go back and retest. And those three came back negative. So that was good news for all in that. But as of today, our total count agency-wide is 23. And the first Metro employee tested positive on August 3. And to date, no COVID positive test has been traced by us or by the county back to transmission in the workplace or between customers on a bus and a bus operator or bus operator to customer. All employees have recovered and returned to work with the exception of the most recent cases, which are still in quarantine. And I think as of today, I think we only have one person still in quarantine. Next slide, please. On December 2, 2020, this is just two days after CalOSHA adopted their new regulation. We hit three COVID positive cases in a 14-day period. And if you have three COVID positive cases in a 14-day period at a particular work location, this isn't agency-wide, it automatically triggers the immediate need to go to weekly COVID testing of all employees assigned to that work location. So the first part of it is you got to do it immediately. And then you have to do it weekly thereafter until you go 14 days straight without a COVID positive at that work location. So we worked real hard, Margo did a great job, our COO in contacting doctors on duty. And at great expense, doctor on duty came in within, I think, two or three days of when we asked them to, and they performed 150 on-site tests. That also gave us a little bit of time to breathe and coordinate the next week's 100% testing in which we asked all of our employees to schedule at one of the county facilities their test and do so in seven-day increments. In parallel with that, we started the process of onboarding with the state's new Valencia program. And we completed that program and now have gone through two and maybe now three weeks of on-site self-testing. We get these kits from the Valencia program, the employee self-test. We send them back and within 48 hours we have the results. Next slide, please. So I talked about the employees going direct to the county facilities and I talked about the Valencia labs. Next slide, please. And then so a little bit about the omnibus bill that we covered earlier, omnibus meaning that a lot of things are happening all in one bill passing, right? And included in that was the corona relief and the 2021 federal budget. So I'll give you a couple more details that we didn't have in the previous presentation. Next slide, please. So in the area of the COVID stimulus dollars, and the name keeps moving around on that, as you oftentimes see at the federal government, when this slide was written, we weren't completely sure about how much we would be receiving, but as you heard earlier, the amount actually came in better than we thought up at what we anticipate to be $13.7 million for Metro. Next slide. And then in the budget part, we have this so-called tax extender, which because we operate compressed natural gas buses, what we call CNG buses, we are entitled to an alternative fuel tax credit. It's an extender, which means it's there for now, and then every year it must be extended in order for us to take advantage of it. And oftentimes they don't get to it, you know, for a year or so later, and then we recoup the money. So this, they have extended it for another year, and that will result in about $300,000 for Metro, and we typically use this money for capital. We don't put it into our operating budget first and foremost because it's not guaranteed money. Then in the area of plus ups, so the FASTAC establishes minimum thresholds for appropriation under these various programs, 5307, 5311, and 5339A programs. And over the last couple of years, Congress has been kind and has said we understand transit has great needs, and so we're going to add additional funds above what the minimum threshold is in the law, the FASTAC, and so we call that plus ups. So on the programs that we receive money for, they allocated another $198 million nationwide, and that will result in about $205,000 more to us, which we use for operating in capital. That's good news. And then in the competitive discretionary programs nationwide, they plus up the bus and bus facilities program, another $125 million, and the LONO program, $125 million. Well, that's good news. You might recall that in 2016, we received a LONO grant to buy three electric over-the-road coaches, and we now have more vendors in that market for over-the-road coaches, and we are now proceeding this year with putting out a procurement to spend that money. The federal government was very generous in allowing us to keep that money until more vendors came into the market. So that's good news for us. And we're eyeballing this program possibly for the 2022 year or the 2023 year to go after funding to do a demonstration project on hydrogen fuel cell 100% zero emission buses. So this is good that they're paying attention to this program. In the bus and bus facilities program, the plus up for this year is important to us, because as we spoke about earlier, in another month or two, we're going to apply for a grant under this program, bus and bus facilities, to fund the construction of our new paratransit facility. So good news all the way around. The more money, the better the chances are we can receive an allocation or a grant. Next slide, please. And then, of course, we always like to close with all Santa Cruz Metro dedicated employees, our frontline heroes delivering essential services. And we thank them for helping us do that. That concludes my remarks, and I'm happy to answer any questions. First, are there questions or comments from the public? Looking for hands by your head, if you'd like to speak. I don't see any hands, Mr. Chair. Chair, board members, some questions or comments? Dan Rockwell first, then Jimmy Dutry. Yeah, I was just curious, Alex, when you said that there's no cases of COVID transmission at the workplace on the buses, et cetera. How exactly do you know that? You said, for instance, that there was no indication that the COVID cases, the 23 cases came from any of the riders and so forth. How would you know that? How would you track that? Through the contact tracing, we've had nothing traced back. So, for example, the first stage is when we're notified that we have a positive, the Human Resources Department calls the employee and goes through a contact tracing. We're required to do that. Oftentimes, actually, the person will say, you know, I don't know where I would have caught it. So, one can speculate, but it was not traced back to transmission in the workplace. Then similarly, the county goes through their process and we've not been notified by the county to date of any contact tracing that led back to transmission in the workplace. So, to answer your question, it may have happened, but we don't have any confirmed cases that were the cause of the transmission. Yeah, I was just wondering if some of the cases were, well, we actually don't know for sure, but there's no evidence showing that it was actually transmitted at work, but it still leaves out the possibility that it might have been. We just don't have the evidence for it. That's what I was curious about. What you said is exactly accurate. Yes. Alex, you should correct me if I'm wrong, right away, because I don't want to false rumor going out there. But my understanding is that, and without identifying any of the people involved, that the infection rate that we're facing at the district and where people live, there's a much higher rate of transmission in Watsonville, for example, than, say, Santa Cruz or North County. And that the ratios that we're getting appear to be that more of the people who live in Watsonville are getting this, which is, it's only circumstantial, but it's some evidence that people maybe has to do with what's going on in the community where people live, and they have to do with economic factors or other kinds of issues rather than it being transmitted between two people at work. Again, that's not final absolute proof or something, but those stats suggest that it has more to do with the other things people are doing in their lives outside of work time. And Mr. Chair, I would characterize it this way. If you go to the County Health Agency website, you will see all of those demographic pieces of data, as you alluded to, that what you discussed about the higher percentage is true. It's on that website. And generally what I say is our numbers are tracking pretty close to what the county experience is. Again, we suggest has more to do with what people do in their life in general than their particular time at work. But again, it's not absolute proof of that one way or the other. Other, Jimmy was next. Thank you. I just want to make a comment really quick on that before I ask my two questions for Alex, but in South County, we do have generational housing living with multiple families. So our caseloads are a lot higher. We have a lot of essential workers that live down there, people on the front lines, farm workers who are put in situations and circumstances that it's easy to have COVID be more flowing through these groups of people than in other areas. So I always say I'm very privileged to be teaching, living at home, and working from home. A lot of people aren't, and a lot of those people do live in my community. Jimmy, thank you for making those comments. Before you move on, thank you for making those comments. I certainly do not want to imply it was something genetic going on there. There are definitely more essential workers in Watson, particularly farm workers, as you point out. And again, the way people are forced to live in more tight living conditions and stuff for economic reasons, no doubt is what lies behind the differential between what's happening in Watsonville and other parts of the county. Oh, absolutely. I wasn't offended. I was just trying to, because a lot of people, Mike, don't know. They don't understand. They're like, oh, why is it so high in Watsonville? And so it's really important to make sure we clear it up so people understand. Thank you. Second of all, I had a couple questions, Alex. One was what departments was this one department that the COVID positive cases were coming out of or was it throughout multiple departments? So this is the number that I quoted as agency-wide. The majority of those come from one department, which is the department that triggered the weekly mandatory testing. And that would be those employees that work out of our Judy K. Susan building, which is operators, supervisors and some admin staff. Okay. And then you see, you had to do that three days. So you had to quarantine people, I would imagine, right? How many people did you have to quarantine at that point? So we don't, we haven't had to quarantine any others other than the employees that came up positive. So here's the interesting thing about that testing. The mandatory testing has actually revealed a number of employees that were asymptomatic. And I'm pretty grateful that we're in the weekly testing right now because we're able to catch the asymptomatic folks and get them into quarantine and out of the mix of potential of infecting other people. So that's the scariest one, right? Somebody who's walking around in is contagious but shows no signs of being ill. Right. The non-symptomatic, asymptomatic. Okay. Then thank you for that. I have two, oh, actually two quick questions. One is you were talking about the Valencia program and the self-testing, the self-testing kits. How effective are they? Because I've heard and read that they aren't very, they're not as good as if you went and actually got tested by, at a facility. Yeah. This, this program we're told is, I want to say, Margo, do you know, is it CDC approved or it's supposed to be a very good program compared to the ones that you talked about? It's CDC and FDA approved. And that was why we chose this program to make sure that the rate of positive or negative was correct. And it's a really good program and it was recommended to us through the state of California, actually. So do other, you know, bus organizations throughout the state use this, this Valencia? It's available to all of them. The governor started this program or started work on this program. We're actually one of the early adopters because he deemed that there was insufficient testing facilities throughout the state and he was hearing over and over again that people wanted to get tested and they couldn't get a slot to get tested in. So he created this, this relationship with this Valencia group to use their test because it had a very, very good outcome compared to some of the ones you referenced, which are the ones you buy it at a typical pharmacy or you order online. Okay. Thank you for the clarification because I was, I didn't know that and actually it makes a lot more sense and I'm sure they did their thorough background checks on this, on these kits. And then my last question, just because we're new, Alex, and I was a little, I had a question earlier. Joan made a comment saying that everyone's coming back February 1st to be working in the office and I guess maybe we should probably have individual conversations, you know, just to catch up with where we are with a lot of things, but was there a process for that or how, out of curiosity, how did that, how did you guys get to that date? Yeah, let me just give you a quick overview of that and then we can certainly talk offline about more details. But just in general, the way that I've handled this is when COVID hit heavy in March in our county, anybody that I could put out on some sort of remote commute kind of format, which is predominantly office personnel types, I did so pushed everybody out 100% every day, until such time as we could learn about COVID more and understand prevention measures. And then the CDC and the state produced guidance on the return of employees to the workplace. And so we carefully went through all of that guidance and implemented it here, in some cases that was education materials for employees, but it took great expenditure for us to do things in the office environment, like adding HEPA air circulation fans, if you will, HEPA HEPA fans, all throughout the facility, not just our facility, but a number of facilities, increasing airflow in inside outside air exchange in the building, increasing the heights of cubicles, which was a recommendation. And then we offered our employees that if they wanted us to put clear curtains up at the openings of their cubicles, we would do that. So once we got everything right, and followed all of the guidance for people to return to the office environment, I started phasing people back to the office environment. And so then we got to a point finally, where I think it was October, where everybody was back in the office environment, and we had all of our safety measures put in place. And then in late October, when things were not looking good in this county, following Halloween, we saw the numbers start to climb, particularly the one that I watched, which is the seven day average number. So at that point, then I pushed everybody back out to sort of what I call thin the herd, so that on any given day, there was about half as many people here in an office environment as you normally would have. And then, and I set a return date. So now that was back in, I think I want to say early November, then I set a return date, which was something like January 19th. But I put in there that depending on the numbers, I would monitor that carefully and potentially extend that. And so I've been extending that, I just extended it yesterday, another week, and I just watched the data. Now the data in the county is doing pretty good for now, big, big asterisk, right? If you look at the seven day average, it's actually plummeting, that's good news. So I'm monitoring that they could be back in early February, or if the numbers turn and go the other way, I may continue to keep them out. So that's the thought process. Just please call me and I'll fill you in on a lot more. I appreciate it. I thank you. You were very clear right now. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Thanks for your question, Jimmy. Anyone else with questions or comments from the board? All right. Next. Mr. Chair, you do have a hand for Mr. Sandoval. Go ahead, James. Hello, everyone again. I just want to say that, you know, majority of these COVID positives are bus operators, and it has been offending and upsetting drivers to hear that metros minimizing are the fact that we're exposed to the public every day, you know, just like these agricultural workers, you know, we're on the front lines exposed to the public. We just have no idea where this virus is coming from. So I just want to make sure it's on record that, you know, we need to stop saying that it's not coming from work because there's a good chance that it could be too. Thank you. Thanks for your comment. I will say that nobody underestimates the service being provided by drivers and that they are essential workers. And I think we maybe we could do more, but I think we've tried hard to make all of our comments to be clear to the public that we believe our drivers are providing an extraordinary public service here. So I want to thank you and your members for the work that they do. Any other members or members with a question or comment? All right. Now, John Ergo, our planning and development director is going to talk about the launch of an on demand micro transit service. Mr. Chair, John will give you an overview of the item you have before you. And then he'll punt that over to me for some closing comments before you go to the board and audience, please. Sure. Great. Good morning, directors. And welcome new and returning directors. John Ergo, planning and development director. So this item provides an update on staff's plans to initiate a demand responsive public transit option for the general public. As I'm sure many of you are aware Metro currently operates a demand responsive service called para cruise for customers with disabilities. This is our complimentary para transit service is mandated by the Americans with disabilities act. It's operated entirely in house by Metro employees on Metro vehicles. Metro also has an existing contract with a technology provider called eco lane and which provides a dynamic scheduling and ride matching software for para cruise and also allows customers to book their trip to be a mobile app. And so the the idea behind the proposal before you and described in the board report is to take advantage of these existing resources. And the fact that since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic ridership on para cruise has decreased about 60 to 70%. So pre pre COVID para cruise served about 300 trips per day. And today the average is closer to 100. We haven't reduced the para cruise workforce, which means there is available capacity within the service. We think to serve additional customer trips. And so rather than start a program from scratch, there's an opportunity to make better use of existing resources by simply expanding the eligibility of para cruise to the general public under certain conditions. Those conditions are that general public customers wishing to make a non-demand trip must have that trip start and end within one of several zones as outlined in the report. And the rationale here is that the service is really intended to serve shorter trips. So a para cruise customer could book a trip, say from Watsonville to Boulder Creek. It takes a lot of time. What we want to do here is provide an opportunity for the general public to book, say a neighborhood trip of 15 minutes or so, or connect into a transit center to the fixed route network for completion of a longer journey. And the second condition we're putting on this is that the general public will only be allowed to book trips beginning 24 hours in advance to on demand. So you might be able to book a trip within, say, five to 10 minutes of when you want to leave. But you can start to book 24 hours in advance. And the idea behind that is to ensure that para cruise customers are still given first priority within the system. Para cruise customers are asked to book their trips 24 hours in advance. And then once all those trips are booked into the system, we would open up booking to the general public. Nothing else in this proposal changes para cruise operation. The service remains, the service area remains three quarters of a mile from a fixed route. The service hours are the same. They mirror whatever that nearby fixed route service hours are. The fairs, fair structure is the same. It's four to six dollars depending on whether the trip would involve a transfer if it were taken on a fixed route. And the booking method is the same. So customers can use the customer service call center or the eco lane mobile app. And of course all vehicles are accessible for customers with disabilities. I wanted to add just a short personal note. So for several years in my previous role at AC transit in Oakland, I developed a similar service for the general public. And I know from that experience that not to oversell the promise of demand responsive transportation, this really has a limited application to areas with very low trip demand. And in almost all cases, a fixed route bus will perform better than a non-demand vehicle. But I also know from that experience that this can be very popular with the public. And it can also fill gaps in the fixed route service network that are important to do. Over the past several months, staff has met with representatives from smart local 23 year para cruise operation on at least three occasions. These have been very collaborative meetings where we've shared our intention behind this program and accepted and were provided very useful feedback from the union, which we've incorporated into the rollout. So I'd be happy to take any questions, but I want to pass it back to Alex Clifford. Yes, Mr. Chair. So I would just point you first of all to page 15.3 in which talks about the six different service on demand service areas. You can see that John has gone to great extremes to try to distribute the service areas across the county in a fair fashion. I think he's done a very good job of doing that. We've been talking about the possibility of on demand or demand response service for or sometimes called microtransit and other names for quite some time. And from our perspective as staff, we always envisioned that to be something that probably would be contracted out much like other agencies have done throughout the nation in creating a new service like that. But in the COVID environment, entering into the picture, we saw this as an opportunity to try to integrate it, you know, on a pilot project into the service that we have available. And I want to say the excess capacity of the service that we have available to paratransit. Right now we have about double as many drivers in that category as we need. And as you know, and as I talk about quite frequently, very transparently, I'm working very hard at all levels, locally and nationally to try to do things to avoid laying off and furloughing our employees. But we have too many employees for now and into the indefinite future in our paratransit group. As a matter of fact, we've pushed them out into what we call the A and the B group for the last several months in which 50% of them work one week and the other 50% stay home getting all of their full pay but not performing any service. And then they alternate on the A and B schedule. We can't keep doing that. And so this became a really nice fit. We have all of this excess capacity. We were doing everything we possibly can to avoid furloughing and laying off employees. And why don't we instead of going the direction that we thought we would over the last couple of years when we brought this to you, instead of going a direction of contracting it out, let's see if we can do it in-house directly operated. And that's the approach we took. As a matter of fact, in 2019 in the union negotiations, in this particular area, new contract language was added. It was not the language that SMART saw because the language we were able to negotiate into the contract was devised to protect Metro's ability to contract this service out. What the union wanted to do in those negotiations was to have in writing in contract that Metro could never contract it out and it would only be operated in-house. That's what they saw. They didn't get that ultimately because we would only agree on language that would allow Metro the flexibility to either contract it out or directly operate it. But ironically, the fact is that we are offering today a program that actually meets the goal of what the union was proposing back in 2019. So I'm a bit befuddled, if you will, by the email that you received from Mr. Sandoval this morning. It's an 11th hour thing, as John had told you. We've been working with the union in a very collaborative process, lots of back and forth give and take, incorporating suggestions that they had. Never once was this represented as an article 9.06 discussion, which is the article that they're referencing that we're violating. Never was referenced as that was never referenced as a negotiation. It was a collaborative effort to move towards a very positive thing that was a win-win-win. A win for Metro, a win for our drivers and a win for the community in the county of Santa Cruz. So we were a bit befuddled, again, to see in the 11th hour a demand that we sign an agreement under the auspices that we had some sort of negotiation process, which we did not, and demanding that we sign this agreement, which has a number of different protections in it, including things like how long the pilot project would go, which is a board decision to make, not a union or management decision at the end of the day. And then trying to tie the determination of the program to certain things that might or might not happen on the fixed route side, which is just, we just don't understand that. So I've shared an email with the chair last night that I sent to Mr. Sandoval, just laying out a number of reasons why this does not fall into article 9.06 and actually is consistent with what the union sought in 2019. We are trying to protect jobs. We are saying that under this pilot project, we're going to operate it. Metro is going to operate it. It's just, it's all good. And I'm just, again, befuddled. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to you and happy to answer any questions. I'm going to make a comment and then I'll open it up to the public first and then to the board. I think it's the way to go here. This is context for, particularly for new board members. Back in the 1980s, before the ADA was passed, the American Disabilities Act, this district was the first district in the United, transit district in the United States to have a fully accessible bus, fixed without buses system. Every one of our buses had a lift. That was not the case generally in the United States at the time. Since then, that's been mandated and all the other districts have followed in our wake. We had hoped that if we could, and we tried, we lobbied nationally to try and get other transit districts to become fully accessible as a way of perhaps not having to create a completely parallel transit service for disabled people, but making sure that our buses were accessible. As it turns out, the ADA passed, it mandated a separate paratransit service, the complimentary service for disabled folks that we created. Since that got created, the share of funding that goes to paratransit out of our overall budget has steadily increased, not rapidly at first and then slowed down a bit, but it's still increasing all the time. Frankly, the reason that that's a problem for the district is, whereas I don't know how these effect numbers, but it costs something like five or six times as much to carry a person on a paratransit vehicle the same distance as you would carrying them on a fixed route bus. It's an expensive service. There's a virtue in that. It is providing a real service. And there are some people who could not probably use fixed route service, even if it's physically accessible. People with cognitive disabilities, for example, and others. So it's a good thing we have it. It's a good program that's going on, but the ride is so much more expensive than a fixed route thing. And over time, and that's no matter how well you run the service, this is not a question of like not being functional or efficient in our service. It's just a more expensive service to carry a person in a small van from door to door then to run a fixed route service that people enter through one of the doors in the bus. Well, if you look at a trend of this over time, we could be an eventually in a place where the paratransit service draws so much money out of the fixed route service. And of course, every time you withdraw money out of fixed route service, you cut back a route that reduces the three quarter mile window around our routes, which means you end up cutting back on your paratransit service as well. So it's a kind of a formula for eventually failing public transit service, both in the fixed route and the paratransit service, if you continue in the same way. That background is important to understand when we talk about what we're looking at right now. This is a model program, but it's a pilot program to figure out how would you run an on demand service more locally scaled and so forth to find out how it works in Santa Cruz, whether for example, John did pick the right areas where people actually want to go in terms of these things, maybe circles may be drawn differently and so forth. How much does the cost to ride? Are there operational problems in trying to integrate non disabled riders with disabled riders, making commitments here that we need to keep and we want to know how this might operate? But there is virtually, this is my own personal view. There's virtually no possibility of us continuing in the long term to run a microservice of delivery through these little buses in some efficient way, unless we get some new outside source of funding to make it happen. Because once we come out of the pandemic and we have a return of the demand for paratransit services, we'll use that capacity and we will not have the excess capacity we have today. And this district will never be in a position to shift additional funding from fixed route service, you know, at one sixth or one fifth of cost into the paratransit service. That's not where this is going to go. So I think a lot of what's going on in this issue about like where this is all going, it must be modeled on the notion that somehow we're trying to move service from fixed routes to a paratransit service, that would make no sense for this district. I can't imagine any board approving that kind of a shift. So the only question would be, this is our pilot. Let's see how it works. Let's find whether we can carry people, whether anybody's interested in this service is the cost acceptable to the public to make it function. Can we actually operate this in some way? Can we mix together a paratransit service with on-demand service for the general public? And at the end of the day, when our regular service on fixed route and paratransit returns to its former level, and I'm quite convinced that that will be the case, it'll take a while, but it will happen. We're not going to be running this service out of our existing sources of funding. We're going to have to have some additional new source of funding to be able to carry on a micro transit service for the public. I just say that because I want to try and lower the temperature on the idea that somehow we've got designs here on shifting away from fixed route service into paratransit. I just can't see the district doing that. It'll be an additional service that happens, not something taken out of our fixed route service. I'm now going to open this up first to members of the public. Please raise your hand by your head if you'd like to speak. You have Nate Abrego? Nate, go ahead. If you must be muted, Nate, I'm not hearing you. Can you hear me? I do now. Go. Hi, good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the board. I'd like to give my welcome to the new board members. My name is Nate Abrego and I have been a paracruise van operator for 12 years. I'm very proud of that fact and I consider it an honor to have an impact in my community in such a direct and clean way. A feeling that is shared by all my colleagues at the paracruise. I've been a union representative for smart local 23 for four years and I'm a senior vice chairperson at paracruise. I'd first like to note that the concerns the union has over article 9.06 is not with the language that was added in 2019. It is with the language that has been in article 9.06 for over a decade where it speaks of metro equipment operated by metro employees will not negatively impact fixed route service. All we are asking for is for a written agreement to give us that assurance that that is not the end goal. We're not here today to discuss our concerns with the microtransit program. We have already come to an agreement with the members of metro management that were involved with the meetings over the implementation of the pilot program. But when it reached the man behind the curtain, it was unequivocally denied. A tactic he has routinely used that has unnecessarily prolonged any sort of negotiation between the union and metro. Most notably the 2019 contract negotiations. We have provided a copy of the agreement between management and the union for your review via email. The agreement that the union has put together is basically stating and memorializing the meetings held with metros management. We're not asking for anything other than the right to renegotiate at the end of the pilot program if metro wishes to continue microtransit or if paracruise ridership goes back to pre-COVID levels or if metro lays off drivers. The general manager CEO is refusing to acknowledge this agreement despite our collective bargaining agreement obligating him to negotiate with us over the implementation of microtransit and the change in working conditions. Paratransit operators have only been required to transport ADA qualified passengers and are now being asked to transport the general public. The terms our union came up with do not carry any financial impact for metro. Again it only memorializes what was discussed and agreed to during these meetings. The general manager has implied layoffs if he does not get what he wants without signing an agreement of what was agreed to and discussed. The transit district is sitting on 18 million dollars in operating funds from COVID relief dollars with potentially 13 more million coming in for the purpose of keeping us employed as he has been noted insane several times at this meeting in fact and in the finance budget committee meeting meeting minutes and I quote that show has been extremely lucky and being able to draw down the CARES Act and to dedicate revenue sources to COVID reserve funds to bridge the anticipated deficit gap until we return to pre-COVID environment. We want to do everything possible to avoid furloughs and layoffs. Alex if this is really an effort to avoid layoffs excuse me excuse me excuse me I need to interrupt you keep making your comments but direct them to the board as a whole not to Alex thank you. If this is really an effort to avoid layoffs then we ask that you put this pen where his mouth is and he signed this agreement just give our labor for give your labor force the assurance that you are looking out for them and not just setting them up for more to do more for less in the future. Thanks for your comments are there other members of the public like to comment this morning? Mr. Sandoval. Go ahead Mr. Sandoval. So we sent the contract you just cut out you started but now we don't hear you. Can you hear me? Now we can go okay all right so we sent the contract language to the board of directors before this meeting but I'll read it out loud for everyone here and this is in the para crews collect the bargaining agreement if new technology such as automated vehicles and micro transit vehicles operating as part of metro services is considered for implementation metro agrees to meet and bargain with smart over the implementation and and the effect of that implement implementation later on in the same article metro taxi type equipment or para transit equipment shall not be used in fixed route service the use of metro equipment operated by metro shall not result in the replacement of fixed route service of Santa Cruz metropolitan transit district with a dial a ride or demand response service for the general public metro has already cut some services that will now be operated by this micro transit service and micro transit is available for the general public also known as fixed route ridership that directly speaks to the replacement of fixed route service with the dial a ride or demand response system also known as micro transit we have had various meetings of negotiations the union has already agreed to this one year pilot project even though we continue to harbor reservations of the possibility that this solicitation of fixed route customers could impact fixed route ridership which has already seen a massive decline metro has produced a flyer to the union that they intend to send out to the public stating that Santa Cruz metro is introducing a new transit service throughout Santa Cruz county that lets you book rides on demand rather than wait at a bus stop rather than wait at a bus stop this highlights our concerns about how it can impact our fixed route ridership and goes against the concept of mass public transportation however we are willing to try this service out for a one-year pilot project to see how it goes our union is fed up with the metro management dealing with our union and what we believe is in bad faith metro management has agreed to a few of our terms via email unfortunately our general manager ceo is unwilling to put it in writing and sign off to memorialize it he is also ready to impose this micro transit on us starting February 1st without an agreement signed we ask you all as board of directors to address our concerns before the relationship between metro management and our union is beyond repair the board of directors should recognize that this being a public agency the employees of Santa Cruz metro work for you and you decide how this agency functions please tell metro management to bargain in good faith or our union will take all necessary actions to resolve our dispute thank you thanks for your comments are there other members of the public with comments i'm looking at your chair no other i see no other hands of the board board member responses let me just say i'm not sure this is a item we should be discussing openly in our meeting let me ask our attorney whether this is an appropriate item whether or not it's should be negotiations whether it's an appropriate comment for to send us into a closed session at our next meeting or before our next meeting thank you we can certainly it is appropriate for a closed session if you'd like just to agendize one for next month i don't think there's anything wrong with you offering comments you know on the program or if you said you know the board said yes we agree that this is a one-year pilot and after that one year you know it'll be a new discussion you know at the board level you know to decide whether they want to continue the program or whatever but if you'd like to agendize a closed session it's it's an appropriate subject for closed session and before that let me ask if you may decline to do this in public but to offer your interpretation of the language we just heard suggests that if we came if it were a pilot program for a year which is what we're intending here at the end of it if we don't specify at this point that we are or are not willing to negotiate over the continuation of the program you believe that that language that's in the contract would be operable then a year from now in other words without any additional commitments from the district at this point wouldn't the union be protected from the an ongoing program like this if it becomes regularized beyond a pilot program at some point so um I haven't looked at this in any detail because the correspondence just came out last night right um my understanding with the little bit of review that I had is that the MOU does address this subject generally and and should protect you know each of the parties if there was to be a permanent program put in place but I could certainly you know dive into it and get my labor council involved and and get back to you okay well then I I would like to see this as the chair have a schedule for closed session at our next and our February meeting so we can understand the legal implications of what's involved here all the members of the board including particularly new members may not quite be up to speed on what the implications of this are the I think the comments have been heard for sure from the from the union from from smart and its representatives and uh we're aware what your concerns are and the board will be discussing that in a closed session coming up in the month from now any other comments from board members are welcome at this point but as I say I don't want to open up a full resolution to this problem at this point it's probably not appropriate a really yeah thank you chair just to clarify is that it require a motion or it's just a direct no I can I can simply refer something to our next agenda that'll happen unless I could be overruled by a majority vote but but otherwise I can simply send this off to a closed session okay thank you that's what I wanted to make sure uh Donal and then Bruce McPherson you know it's it to me it seems I'd like to hear um Julie's uh you know uh legal advice on this matter and and so it seems appropriate to have that time to be able to have her review and and research it and give us her opinion so thank you thanks Donna Bruce McPherson yeah I just want to thank uh John Redo and uh and the district for uh really putting this you know forward because I think it's a real welcome addition or will be uh will a great an expansion of our service to our for our ridership so in general it's unfortunate this last minute thing came up I think we need to all wait and see but overall I think this is a great idea for expanding services to those uh most in need so uh we'll just wait until next week or next month to discuss it further I guess any further comments from board members I do want to respond to one comment made by one of the public speakers um the desire both by Alex and the board as a whole to uh protect against layoffs is sincere and it's not meant as an empty or a bail threat of some kind about anything and the fact that we have a fair amount of money and that we've managed the district money well and that Alex has done a great job of helping us get some additional funding from the federal government um and from the state government actually over the last two years so that we're in the situation that we're in now it would be a big big big mistake to make the assumption that somehow uh we're not going to find ourselves up against a new fiscal cliff at the end of several months who knows how long this pandemic is going to go on there's new strains we don't yet know if the existing uh uh in uh inoculations that you get help against the new strains or other ones that are still coming and so I think it's very smart of us and I'm appreciate that Alex has basically managed this in a way that will guarantee that we're not going to lay people off not just today but three months from now or five months from now because we're not in a fiscal fiscal crisis right now but we could easily be in one six months from now and so the idea of protecting our our keeping people employed even though they're only working every other week that they're getting paid both weeks uh I think it's actually pretty extraordinary I don't know how many other agencies in the industry are basically you know keeping people on payroll when they're not being asked to work we're doing that um I think that we're doing our best to make sure that we do not lay people off I don't certainly want to be a board member who's in a situation where we have to make a very hard decision to lay off either fixed route or a pair of transit riders uh uh drivers and so to me it's kind of critical that we try and protect this reserve that we have it's not uh it's not money we're rolling in and that we know we'll never have to worry that we're going to be up against another drop so I don't that I think the public needs to understand that we're not withholding funds because we don't want to provide maximum service to the public we're withholding them because we don't want to sort of cut service even further six months from now and lay people off I'm going to say we're done with this issue you have two directors with hands up director Henderson and director conic director Henderson go ahead on Delta thank you um John could you um expand upon what was considered or what factors were considered when establishing the zones um you know I have a interest in that in the program as a as a whole but obviously a vested interest in um why UCSC is not really part of it um not challenging it just kind of wanting to know more sure uh so UCSC we didn't envision including although we it's possible to expand the zones at any time but we didn't anticipate it because one uh 50 to 60 percent of metros operational resources are already geared towards UCSC around that and two the the demand when when classes are in session anyway or you know pre-covid times and probably even now from students is is too high it would just overwhelm this type of operation uh you know on-band uh service can carry maybe three to four uh passengers per revenue hour and at the height of demand at uh at UCSC we maybe see 70 uh passengers per revenue hour so it just wouldn't work there's there's nothing but a fixed route uh solution that would work at UCSC um so that's why we didn't envision including UCSC uh the campus is part of this and um from what I understand there are but paracurs does serve UCSC um and from what I understand there are other on-demand transportation options for students for students with disabilities that that the campus also operates it's also worth noting that at the campus has something like seven or eight minute service unlike anywhere else in the entire district so it's not as if people are safe they are if even if one wants to characterize waiting at a bus stop is a horribly negative experience which I don't necessarily think it is but if they want to characterize it that way you're not waiting very long at a bus stop at UCSC for the next bus to come by right thank you yeah and this is really meant to fill in the gaps where throughout the district where service is more on the 16th I'd say uh headway range than at UCSC like let's sell the beach with two hour service or something exactly other comment and as far and as far as the uh establishment of the other zones um was it just a matter of kind of what made sense looking at a map using you know ocean and west cliff kind of off the west cliff obviously but um uh but was that kind of it just the ocean was a like a natural delineation or what was thought yeah so we we tried to look at markets and distance so we wanted to keep the zones to about three to four miles across again the idea is short trips um as the chair mentioned we don't know that we got it right and we'll be able to adjust this as we go through the program once it starts and actually I've even we've even rethought us the zones a little bit since what we included in the in the report to expand them a bit so I think we we may have proposed two in Watsonville we think one that would serve all of Watsonville makes more sense so you kind of see this as these pilots roll out they generally start small demand isn't as high they expect as agencies expect and the zones expand um so I'd imagine a similar thing but we we do still want to try to limit the trips on the shorter side um that that's really the rationale and try to focus on what we think are markets and also around uh transit centers so have them anchored at scott's valley pacific station capitol and Watsonville so so those customers that are needing to take a longer journey can transfer to to a fixed route service copy thank you okay that's a comment I wanted to um thank the gentleman from smart for bringing those um concerns up I do want to caution us against being so strict and strategic in our ways of operating because the truth of the matter is after we have um kind of been cleared of this pandemic services will change the need for those services will change and the desire of the community will look differently and so it's our best interest in my opinion to start exploring these kinds of pilot projects to identify where we can keep people employed what we do need to do to meet the needs of the community and how broad-based can we get with the services and the options that we have available so that those folks when we come out of this are still able to use these services I know that we're going to have a big conversation in May um at Cabrillo for students who will be voting again or rather not they want the metro and that's about a $700,000 contract that we could stand to lose if our students don't vote for it so it's in our best interest to see metro everywhere in all iterations um and I only think that it's smart that we explore what these pilots are doing what they look like at the outcome and we are in regular conversations with the unions as we are saying this was you know your idea we want to take this in we also want to match with this thing and want to see what it looks like and no harm no foul this is a pilot and so that that was all I wanted to weigh in thanks for your comments anyone else on the board with a comment or question yeah a little bit of both just wanted to comment first go ahead man I'm sorry thank you thank you I just wanted to comment it's great to see metro acting entrepreneurially and making use of underutilized resources in this case a pair of crews drivers and vans and ultimately as mentioned you know I think really this could be an opportunity to connect with more users and hopefully it'll be a good thing for all members of the organization including especially the drivers a few questions for mr ergo first I want to know how the this new program will be marketed and promoted so I think our marketing director Danielle is on line also but that that really is key to the whole thing if customers don't know about it they're obviously not going to take it and so we've developed a nfaq that will post on the website and and Danielle started working a brochure for the public and we've also talked about you know advertising through social media on board the buses carcars shelters our traditional avenues headways are quarterly publication of service changes that's that's where we've started I think but definitely that outreach and communication is is absolutely key to to getting this thing off the ground got it yeah and I'm happy to promote it through you know the channel is available to me as well as a supervisor for the county I'm curious how I was actually looking around while you're talking about for the eco pass app is it something that's available in the app store today I couldn't find it I couldn't afford you know Metro it seems like has the splash pass app I'm guessing that's actually a separate app yep yep what's the app situation the splash passes are a mobile ticketing app where you can purchase a fare for your mobile phone the eco pass app should be available I'm not surprised that it's hard to find and that's definitely something we'll need to work on with ecolain to sorry ecolain is the name of the app to get that more out there Daniel can maybe add on that but it it is available currently to Paris customers to book trips through their mobile phone I do have it on my phone but I was sent a special link from the developer so I didn't get it through the app store but definitely that'll be part of the rollout of the marketing yeah and then when it comes to the para cruise ecolain that we're utilizing now for customers I'm actually in the process currently of having it on our website so we're developing right now a page for that and tutorial materials and a brochure for that as well so in the next couple weeks we'll have more information for that on our website as it pertains to para cruise customers and then you know when and if this pilot is approved we'll have the information for that posted as well you might send a message after the board when you feel like you've reached a certain sort of plateau and getting this stuff out there so we can give you feedback over the week and find these apps often if we can't find them nobody can yes thank you it might be worth asking the eco ecolain to add something in their description on the app you know used by Santa Cruz metro so that if someone just searches Santa Cruz metro it pops up that way too in the app store um another question will I'm assumed that you'll be able to basically have real-time reporting on on usage of this and that um well it'll either be included in the regular board packet or we can request it from you mr. ago yeah and we currently do through uh ecolain and para cruise so we have i'm uh reporting uh web portal to track rides and trip times uh etc and it you know one one advantage that can come from uh doing a program like this is you see you see a trip to man that you that isn't served by the fixed route currently and can help you plan either fixed route or more service in the future um so should this get off the ground that that will benefit also the fixed route service not just on-demand para cruise service yeah that was my last question you know as uh chair rockin said you know there's just no way it's physically feasible to you know move more and more of our service to uh this kind of a model we really want to be um we want to be it really want to be improving expanding fixed route service with higher capacity so um you know is there any opportunities you know what are the opportunities here ask or let's say the trial you know we don't choose to continue it because we see a regular para cruise ridership uh go back to normal you know to what extent can this act sort of as a gateway service and connecting uh new customers with metro i mean is it going to provide visibility into bus capacity or or route changes um well we'd be able to use new app functionality to know when when we can skip stops because there's no demand um we'll you know will we allow more payment through the app i mean it sounds like there's sort of some of that maybe is available today with the splash pass um you know the the more we could sort of onboard new customers or new new riders with this program and continue on or transfer them to the fixed route service uh it would seem to be the better yeah i think that's exactly right and all of the above so the data that we get from this program will identify uh potentially markets that we're not serving both time of day um you know maybe later in the evening we need service in certain places that we weren't before and also trip so the the real benefit of a program like this is it shows you full trip origins and destinations so we don't have any of that data currently we all all we have currently are route totals so total boardership by route we are working to get automatic passenger counters which would track ridership by bus stop on the fixed route but even once we get that we don't have origin destination pairs so with this service we'll see a full trip that customers are taking and that should really enable us to plan better fixed route service and identifying new markets in the future the other thing i would add to that is is by design this program is sort of putting our toe in the water and what i mean by that is you in its initial stage you cannot board of us within one of these sort of districts or micro transit fence districts and go say to downtown Santa Cruz from from Watsonville you won't be able to do that or from Aftos or Capitola we might overwhelm the capacity we have available if we did that so by its nature you you will have a certain number of trips that will move around within the micro fenced area but really you know the possibility is great that we will try to encourage people to use it to get to the fixed route and make a transfer now what we need to learn through the pilot project is does that actually potentially drive people away anytime you start increasing the number of seats that one has to take to get from point A to point B you start pushing them away from your system they they feel inconvenience that's that's generally accepted transit logic so we may discover that we fail in this program because people don't want to do that they want to they want a one seat ride from Capitola to downtown Santa Cruz and if they don't get it they're not going to use our service we have to learn that's that's why you have pilot projects you you shake it out and you learn what you can learn and hopefully tweak it over this over a series of iterations and make it better and better or you just fail and at some point it goes away. Yeah I'll just add on that that that's exactly by design so we don't want to take away from our fixed route service for all the reasons that have been discussed you know we already serve a long-distance trip from Watsonville to Santa Cruz or Capitola to Santa Cruz and we don't want fixed route customers to to be able to book a trip on an on-demand service that would be less efficient and that would take ridership away from the fixed route that is that is all by design and for all the reasons that have been discussed it's just much more costly to serve that trip on-demand the only rationale that agencies have to do that is if they lower the cost of that trip if they say contract it out or if they you know provide a subsidy to an Uber or Lyft trip we're not going down that path with this idea we're operating this in-house um for for all the reasons that we've discussed. Thanks for your questions comments man. Anyone else on the board? Okay. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, go ahead. So thank you all for that clarification so you can't travel outside of the zones basically which hopeful I mean it would be nice if you could I was sitting here thinking to myself this is what a great it would be really good if we eventually could get there but I guess you know doing this trial within these small zones is good um and anyone can write it right it's not just the paracrant the paratransit right so the general public general public it is it more like a carpool like you know what you get in uber to do the carpool like they pick up people along the way yep yep we will we will pick up as many people as we can it's yeah it's not a taxicab right okay and then um and I actually kind of I like this because I remember when I was on the board many moons ago we had to cut a lot of um our services out in Cualitas and out by the fairgrounds and and I think that this is going to give the opportunity to um you know get people moving again in those areas so um hopefully that will that will be a positive those those we back back when we made our major cuts because of the fiscal yeah can we can we cut services to it it wasn't so much we cut all routes we just creased the service time you know from what once 15 minutes to a half an hour from an half an hour to an hour an hour to two hours and so those are places where people are less likely to take the bus it's I always think of a selva beach you know which has such as service we didn't call for service but it's very irregular uh it comes very free I can say infrequent not a regular it's scheduled but but it's infrequent so that'd be a place where this kind of service may really be useful with people to get from the selva to you know to the transit center absolutely no other public service okay we're going to move on then to our paracruz update I'm sorry next specific station update number 16 civic station John ergo planning and development director this should be less controversial so we've been working still with the city of santa cruz meeting weekly on our pacific station redevelopment plans and just a quick recap so this is a we're going for the state's affordable housing and sustainable communities grants which due to covid has been pushed back until june so we have more time but the the the idea behind the project is to redevelop metros pacific station facility in downtown santa cruz along with the city which is going to be developing an 89 unit 100 affordable housing development adjacent to the site so we're contributing our land and up to four million dollars one million one million dollars a year and we're we're deep into the grant application process and the development process now with the city you know from our standpoint this is a this is a turnkey project for metro so it's it's really being led by the city obviously we have a big stake in it but they are our city on the city side they're they're really leading the entitlement process and approvals and things are are moving are moving along so we've we've got a the developer on board the architect and again we're pushing towards this grant application which is due in june thanks so much for that update that's great that's good news right here that it's moving forward any other questions from our comments from members of the public looking for hands by your head seeing none nothing from the public members of the board any comments or questions okay thanks for that report next we have an oral parent who's update this has been done by uh by daniel there goes there you're still muted daniel there you go daniel good morning directors and welcome to all the new directors um that are on the board um this morning i'm going to give you an update on the progress of um the pericles operations test and and customer service um facility project um where we're at so far so um the architect provided an initial rendering of for metro the review staff comments were made and we returned it to the architect for some minor changes we have the size of the building which will be 4,815 square feet it's larger than what we had initially planned but now we're going to be hosting the customer service department as well and it'll be divided in three sections which is customer service will have 1,280 square feet pericles will have 2,285 square feet and then that will have a public area that'll be 1,250 square feet um our civil engineers have performed performed the boundary survey the report is due at the end of this month they've also began the design for the lot using the architect's drawings uh environmental we have the archaeology report completed we have a traffic report has been completed the soils report has been completed also for our noise report we have the data is collected and the report is due at the end of this month and we have now contracted a landscaping architect um well and then the last part of this we continue to develop documentation required for the ground application which is a feasibility study equity analysis letters of support and project scope and then hopefully sometime in February we'll have a public meeting to get the public's input on um the project wow certainly sounds like a shovel ready project to me that's great we're getting there um are there comments are there questions or comments from the general public looking for hands by head if you have to speak I don't see any board member comments or questions don't see any that's great um one thing we might think about is fairly early in this process gathering some letters of support from community groups not just the various governmental agencies but from the various groups that represent the disabled community people are dealing with folks who have economic issues and so forth that bring them on to the barricade service so that we should plan that early so when we go actually go through these grants we we have letters of support that come not just from the government officials but from community members they'd be very helpful okay well thank you all we are done with our agenda today um our next we have a closed session today no I don't see it on this today's agenda we'll be looking at that and we'll have a closed session next meeting which will have at least two items on it one of which is our discussion of our legal arrangements before you go we'll have to come back out and report our decision in public and we'll also have this discussion we raised earlier about the uh this earlier issue about the on-demand service and various kind of contraction which is related to that uh our n