calling the October 26 2018 order director's meeting of the Santa Cruz metropolitan transit district to order in this lovely city of Capitola mr. Votorf is welcome this open arms we will first of all I well we can we can take a roll call we mess let's swear on our first our new ex-officio member all the nor cut if we would you would you please take the honor make do the honors please and look that way that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion without any mental reservation and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter the duties with that now we will go have a roll call please here she's here she's here I'm ex-officio director here a couple of announcements Carlos Laundervere will introduce his Spanish language interpretation good morning Carlos how are you good morning. Buenos días doing well. Thank you for asking Carlos Laundervere your interpreter. Para las personas que prefieren espanol o necesitan traducción al español voy a estar en la parte de atrás thank you very much. We have do we have any board director comments items are not on the agenda Yes, Mr. Hagen. I Would just like to add to the idea that We do need to invest I know we're trying but we need even more so to invest in personnel for the para cruiser drivers There I came this morning and I've had this young lady as a driver before but The pressure that they're in is I feel and I know you do a to Alex unreal And I told her that I would mention this publicly for her and for all the drivers of para Cruz She's running on a every day ten and a half hours And she says I come I finish very very tired and it's beginning to worry her As she Gets to Fridays So please on their behalf and on my behalf is one of the recipients I'm not a board member now. I'm a right and one of the clients that we have but please do everything we can to Get new drivers more of them. Thank you You know, we might actually use this moment we're on television to say to the public we're looking to hire drivers for both para Cruz and for our regular buses and You would think there would be more people lining up for these jobs They have really good benefits and the pay is really good and They require a high school degree and a clean driving record basically if I must I misunderstand anything That's really what you need an ability to sort of take the training, but it's a really good job It's a really good career and hopefully some members of the public will Step up and think about working for the district in this kind of job Thank you. Mr. Clifford. Sure. Mr. Chair. Thank you to the two directors for that shout out We definitely need help and this is a great venue where we're televised I will just say quickly we have that on your agenda today We'll be giving you a little bit more insight into what we're doing to try to resolve that problem Thank you. I would like to mention that mr. Lynn Dutton is the our technician from community television Televised in this meeting today. Do we have any? Oral or written communications from the board that wasn't on the agenda From the public any oral communications of items that are not on the agenda Okay, any written communications from the Mac, you know Labor organization communications any other communications? Okay, we do not have See we have companies to distributed I Guess we're supposed to announce that item 12 the unified corridor investment study today We have item 15. We do have some job fair cards that we were just discussing shortly there Item 17 an oral update on a special board meeting and item 22 public comments regarding the park and ride You see we'll get to that and we have some agenda news clips as well We will now move to the consent agenda There's Four items on the consent agenda Is there anybody on the board that would like to comment on items on the consent agenda? Anybody from the public would like to comment on items on the consent agenda? Entertainer approval of the consent agenda second moved in second to approve the consent agenda all those in favor All right All those opposed so ordered unanimously We'll go to item a regular number 11 on the regular agenda presentation of employee retirement resolution for Pete Legoreta Legoreta He has been with us 1988 to 2018 30 years It's yeah Would you come up just say hello we want to see who you are and Chair I would move the resolution Honor of him. Oh, thank you. We have a motion to approve the resolution to honor him Mr. Batorf and his home city of Capitol were presented to you officially and There you go Well, thank you very much for your 30 years and you could speak from there Do you have any comments brief comments that you would like to thank you for your 30 years of service to the Metro? And I reflected back Reflected back on my my career here with the Metro I remember I started this place I was thought it was just going to be a step for me to get an education and then move on to a different job I didn't realize what an incredible employment opportunity there is here I've been here 30 years. They've paid me. Well, they've challenged me. They've given me a nurturing You know fertile garden there for my family to to to succeed We have five bachelor degrees We have two master's degrees that all my family has has we've been able to do that because of Metro because of Metro Because it gave us the opportunity if I wanted to work a lot and make more money I could I was one of those workaholics. Thank you, Manny Martinez He showed me the way the man would work all the time and he told me that you have if you want to make more The American the dream can be done here. You just got to work more You think you want to work for me will work for you But if you want to work more and get more you can do it and so I did And so I did I think back to Judy Suza. I want to thank all the people who have gone before me and have Passed or have retired and I think about Judy who who was so Encouraging and everything she did and she actually made me a supervisor I was an operator for 15 years and then a transit supervisor for 15 years and she thought that I was something special and I could never see why but you know what? Thank you. Thank you, Judy Thank you, Bryant. Thank you, Siro. Thank you, Anna for your friendship for letting me sound off on you and Telling you what I thought needed to happen and Taking that in thank you to my union memberships either UTU or SCI you for working hard Working hard to give us that living wage also to the board members Mr. White who was an incredible rainmaker Those of us have been here a long time remember when we couldn't get a raise I think we went like Larry Manjuli said look it's we haven't had a raise in eight years And it was tough times because of the earthquake and everything else that happened and we had a closed Watsumov Which is where I lived which was three minutes from where I lived Had to drive to Santa Cruz and you guys all know what that But you know once mr. White came in it's like it's like the sky is open the economy Improved and all of a sudden we are where we are right now with wages we have a living wage here, which I appreciate and I said the challenge you work everything that's happened for my family I owe all to the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District very very very grateful to all of you because you guys Continuation of the board all semester Clifford took on a very very tough situation when he came He's got to make this place to continue to be a going concern, which is what I want Because all you need is a high school diploma You know thanks to this place to to come in get trained become something you actually can grant You know you gain traction here You can gain traction here, and if you apply yourself you can pick yourself up and your family so Thank you all very much to everybody. Thank you. I think you're the poster child for Metro, okay? Yeah Yeah, yeah, that's our poster guy right there. We're gonna that's for new drivers. That's great. Thank you Applications can start pouring in We also have a sense your own Sanchez 1984 to 2018 34 years, but he is not here my understanding But we want to thank him and we will present him with the resolution as well Do we need a separate motion? Why don't we go ahead? Yeah, I would move both resolutions Move to second it to approve both resolutions all those in favor. Hi pose so ordered Now we're going to have I think a presentation from the mr. Emerson Barrow Emerson about the Unified Corridor and Investment study update All right. Good morning board chair Board members staff and public Today we have RTC staff who are involved in the Unified Corridor Investment study here to give an overview of the current status of the project and The upcoming important dates following their presentation I'll return with just a few words about Metro's perspective on the project and how we will continue to provide input to you the board Specifically at our November 16th Metro board meeting which will be the day after the RTC staff Makes their staff recommendation to their commission. So until then we'll It's a pleasure to introduce ginger die car the ucis project manager and her peer grace Blake's Lee from RTC Good morning chair and members of the board and the public. My name is ginger die car I'm a transportation planner here at the Regional Transportation Commission and project manager for the Unified Corridor Investment study My co-worker grace Blake's Lee and I will be presenting the draft results of the unified Carter study to you today There was a handout that was provided for this item It's a really handy handout to have as we go through our presentation this morning I just want to take a minute to thank you for providing this opportunity for us to present the draft results of this study to your board and also mentioned that the RTC staff has worked very closely with the Metro during the process of this study with Certainly any assumptions and project descriptions that we've made With bus transit for every different scenario that we're evaluating transit options So to get started the objective of the unified Carter study is to identify multimodal transportation investments on highway 1 so Cal Avenue Drive and Freedom Boulevard and The Santa Cruz branch rail line to serve the community's transportation needs. I Don't think I need to remind you the level of congestion that our residents and visitors and all of us are Experiencing on our roadways and particularly highway 1 and so Cal and freedom and with the acquisition of the rail right-of-way in 2012 Which has unused capacity and the question has Come up how best can we use this rail right-of-way that provides a parallel transportation facility to highway 1 So Cal Avenue Drive and Freedom Boulevard And to address the transportation needs of our community So as you see here the project study area map in the unified Carter study We're evaluating the rail right-of-way from Davenport to Watsonville and beyond to Palo station. We're looking at highway 1 also from Davenport to the Monterey County line And then all of so Cal Avenue so Cal Drive and Freedom Boulevard into the heart of Watsonville The process for evaluating these transportation Approvance are a performance-based planning and a scenario analysis approach The first step was to identify the goals of our study and what performance metrics We would be used in order to determine how best to advance these goals All of these steps of this pyramid here were approved by our Commission over the key milestones at these key milestones of the project So the next step after identifying the goals and performance measures were what projects Were we going to be evaluating in this study on highway 1 so Cal Freedom on the rail right-of-way Once these projects were identified they were grouped into various different scenarios We first started out with six different scenarios for the step one analysis where we took a look at qualitatively of these scenarios feasible The step one Recommendation from staff was approved by the Commission in December 2017 to then Hone down to four different scenarios that were evaluated in the step two analysis To look at a much closer look Quantitatively at our performance metrics to see how these various different scenarios compare So again, this is your handout that was provided It'll help be helpful as we go through the slide and I will just run through what are the different projects and the various different scenarios so scenario a The projects there are h o v lanes on the highway And as a reminder all three sets of auxiliary lanes that are funded by measure D are assumed in all of the scenarios There's already funding programmed for those projects. And so that's underlying all of these scenarios Scenario a has the full set of each of the lanes on the highway It has a BRT light on so Cal on freedom And a trail only on the rail right-of-way in scenario B There is bus on shoulders on the highway And there's also ramp metering in addition to the three sets of auxiliary lanes from measure D on so Cal There's our BRT light also buffered or protected bike lanes and on the rail right-of-way The assumption in this scenario is passenger rail service as well as a trail in Scenario C We are looking at bus on shoulders for the highway with an additional set of the additional three sets of auxiliary lanes Which would bring the auxiliary lane projects all the way down to San Andreas So the full set from so Cal all the way to San Andreas Road And then BRT light on so Cal and freedom and then on the rail right-of-way is a bus rapid transit Option as well as a trail in scenario a this is the HOV lanes on the highway buffered bike lanes on so Cal and Freedom and on the rail right-of-way is passenger rail freight and a trail Just to go over the goal goals real quickly for the project We looked at safety reliability and efficiency environment and health economic vitality and equitable access all based on the triple bottom line of sustainability The first goal that I want to present to you today is the safety goal The metric was to look at the number of collisions for baseline 2015 we The average number of collisions in the project study area is 110 if The no-build that the no-build is if you're not familiar with that that's projects out the What would happen if no transportation improvements were implemented? but population increase and land-use changes for 2035 and Let me just emphasize here that our forecast for all the scenarios are 2035 time frame So the no-build because of increased population and therefore increased traffic volumes number of collisions would increase on the order of 1211 but with transportation improvements evaluated in the various different scenarios You'd see a decrease what we found here is the ramp metering projects as well as the trail separated from the Autos but for bicyclists and pedestrians as well as education and enforcement were some of the top Projects that would reduce the number of collisions Along with the number of collisions. We also have as a performance metric the cost of collisions There's tangible and intangible costs associated with collisions and injuries and fatalities We as a community spend about 500 million a year on the cost of collisions. It's substantial So anything we can do to reduce the collisions Benefits not only our residents, but also the community and the services that are provided for addressing collisions It's up to the discretion of your board I don't have Think it might be smoother if it's at the end. Yeah, thank you We also looked at The speed on a on our for a performance measure. This is a reliability and efficiency goal This is a county-wide auto speed You can see with scenario a and scenario e with a chove lanes project There's a increase a slight increase in the county-wide average speed We receive feedback as we've been going through and presenting these draft results that this really doesn't tell the picture enough So we also are providing this additional Information about speeds on highway one I just want to clarify that this data is available on the highway one draft environmental impact report that that study was Took information to a more detailed level in the tools that were available for them They not only use the travel demand model But use an additional tool that can really dial into the travel speeds travel times on the highway So we don't have a perfect match for all of our scenarios But the data for scenario a and scenario e with the HOV lanes is fairly representative So this is on the highway. It's the average speed during a peak hour This is the northbound AM and it's between San Andreas Road and Essentially highway 1 17. That's but it's right at the branch of 40 over crossing You said at the beginning you started with a sort of qualitative analysis of Which scenarios sort of were possible or feasible? I think it's a term used And I'm looking at this chart and it's listing A and e both list HOV lanes, so I've gotten calls from people who don't I don't they must have just moved here yesterday That's a probably unfair comment But they they go why don't we pick a and e look how much faster the traffic moves? Well, because it cost a half billion dollars to do HOV lanes. We tried it and gave up so What why was there a decision that we want to present to the public this option of a and e? I might pick a or e if I thought I we could afford it or that the public would support it But isn't it I mean am I am I mistaken and thinking that we tried we went down that path tried it And I'm just trying to figure out those if you understand if you look at these charts You think well any they look great all it takes is an HOV way. Hey great There seems to be a continual conversation in our community about the highway and how to address some of the issues that we're all dealing with we also have a metric in our Analysis for the unified Carter study of cost information and that will be presented by Grace Blake's Lee so we're trying to bring all the information together to Have an informed decision-making process. Okay, so it'll be there and people will make a judgment I mean about whether they think a any or feasible you didn't cut you didn't cut that out of the qualitative analysis you're gonna use the Metrics of the cost of it people will then be able to make a choice based on that So there is a metric for cost information and that the commissioners can make a decision based on All of these different metrics including cost Ginger can you just say what scenario B plus is? Yes, so The information in the highway want EIR as I mentioned is more detailed Information on speed and travel times and that represents a scenario a and E very well In the if you recall then the draft environmental impact report not only the HIV lanes but an alternative transportation system management Alternative was also presented and evaluated in detail and that includes all the sick six sets of auxiliary lanes as well as ramp metering We don't have a scenario that is exactly that and that's where this B-plus came in so it's scenario B Which has the six sets of auxiliary lanes from measure D as ramp metering and then if you add on the additional three sets of auxiliary lanes That's what we're calling B plus I thought it was my high school career The reason we didn't present this earlier was because it's tricky there's a lot of caveats with presenting this information But we had enough comments from people that they felt we felt like it was important to show the data That is available from the highway one EIR so people can realize the Benefits of the HIV lanes more directly on the highway I don't know if this is for the audio for the TV so that they can hear my question The EIR it's in draft format now Correct and where is it available for people to to review it because I haven't seen the EIR But we're making reference to it in this presentation So I'd like to see where we have access to taking a look at even if it's the draft format at this point it's available on the RTC website and has been since it was Provided and I believe it was at least early 2017 if not prior to that It's also in our report reference in our report, and that's how we addressed it initially Was that the information and the EIR provides the best information on speeds The other one of the other metrics for the reliability and efficiency goal was to look at the peak period transit travel time this is in the PM from 4 to 7 we looked at Santa Cruz to Watsonville for the various different scenarios With the HOV lanes on State Route 1 there's if you look at transit as an express service between Santa Cruz and Watsonville The time is just a little bit over a half hour the That's evaluated in scenario a and scenario e Scenario b and e are looking at the rail right-of-way the travel times are on the order of about 41 minutes. So the the two sets of options transportation options that provide the fastest transit travel times are the highway 1 express service with HOV lanes and the The rail service on the rail right-of-way the mode share change by scenario so we saw that all the scenarios provided an increase in transit bicycling and Walk mode share and a reduction in single occupancy vehicle as well as carpool Scenario b offers more transit options and therefore that option shows the highest transit mode share 3% is the Approximately the current amount of transit in our community at the current time So an additional 3% is a doubling of the current transit mode share Another metric this is for the environment goal is the county-wide vehicle miles traveled Scenario a and e with the HOV lanes has a slight increase in the vehicle miles traveled with the capacity increasing projects of the HOV lanes versus scenario b and c which are More operational improvements on the highway We also looked at the annual transit vehicle miles traveled The you can see that the current baseline is about 3.3 3 million Vehicle miles traveled for transit So in all of the scenarios we're looking to increase transit by a substantial amount and scenario b with not only rail transit offering transit connections to the rail bus transit to have that cross East to west distribution and connections to destinations Shows the largest increase A metric that we looked at for our equity goal is the household transportation costs What we found that the household transportation costs are very much in line with the number of vehicles that people own The typical number of vehicles that people own in Santa Cruz County are two vehicles per household and every time There's a vehicle with each vehicle that a household owns It's a over $5,000 per year and that's not even if you drive it The average number of miles that people that a household puts on is about 21,000 miles per year So if your household owns two vehicles and drives the average amount, then that's about $44 per day What we found That is that there isn't a huge difference in the the scenarios The Results if we if we the each of the scenarios are evaluated as a two vehicle household From where you really get the difference is if you provide enough Opportunities for people to get around in other ways besides driving their vehicle So other options that are safe and reliable to allow them to decrease the number of vehicles in their household Another metric for equity was the share of investment benefit for the transportation disadvantaged population We have approximately 14% of our population that is transportation disadvantage This is based on the data that is available to us to look at it's a income based as well as minority and For all of the scenarios evaluated we see a greater benefit to the transportation disadvantaged populations Then the percentage of population in our County With that I'd like to turn it over to Grace Plakesley Good morning directors Grace Plakesley staff to the Regional Transportation Commission. Thank you for having us today I know we have presented this to many of you. It's a lot of details. It's good that people are diving in So thanks for having us this morning This is the level of public investment performance measure It's separated into the capital into the operating costs What you see in front of you is the sum of the total capital costs for each of the scenarios The way that we have calculated the level of public investment is not just presenting the cost But then also bringing in the anticipated revenues that may be able to be used to fund those costs and Showing them the community and the board what new public level investment would be required to implement these So you can see the part that's the darker shade on the bottom is what we think could be funded based on Revenue assumptions very consistent with the regional transportation plan and also taking into account new information We have about some of the SB 1 competitive funding programs as you can see the amount differs between scenario a and Scenarios B C and E for the funding estimate that's largely due that is due to the additional revenues We anticipate that could be available for rail in these scenarios That would not be available in scenario e if there was not a rail or bus on a fixed guideway so that would not be provided in scenario a as director Rockin was pointing out the higher costs in Items and are the H o V lanes as well as passenger rail as well as the trail So those are some of the bigger cost items in each in each of the scenarios a Similar exercise was completed for the annual cost of operations and maintenance for each of the scenarios We are representing this information on an annual basis It includes the cost for all new transit services and vehicle operations and vehicle maintenance It also includes maintenance costs for trail projects as well as maintenance for a bus rapid transit on the Rail right-of-way and scenario C It also in reflects the cost of facility maintenance on state highways Although those funds are assumed to be continually allocated by Caltrans similar for local jurisdictions and we did that to try to reflect the really the total cost to the Community for operations and maintenance what's not shown here is what ginger was mentioning Which is the cost of owning your own vehicle and running your own vehicle? Another piece of a measure another measure We use to address the economic vitality goal looked at the overall economic benefits that were provided by Transportation improvements So for each of the scenarios the unified corridor study evaluates the changes in visitor tax revenue and other economic benefits Including impacts on property values business location decisions development potential and business performance This analysis was conducted by a firm strategic economics that serves as a sub consultant to the Kimmel E. Horn team Who are working with on this project in order to conduct this analysis? They really looked at four different items which are listed up on the slide They look at the area impacted by the transportation improvement Who's benefiting from that transportation improvement if the improvement created a new transportation route Which is really relates to the projects that would be within the rail right of way And then if the creation of a new amenity and so in this case We're looking at transportation improvements that would also serve as a visitor attraction. So that would be an excursion Train service and the trail were both treated that way in this analysis So for the visitor tax revenue The the the metrics that were used was a looking at the transportation occupancy tax and the visitor related sales tax As you can see if you see the baseline on the left-hand side of the screen That and then compare it to the no-build which is on the far right that we largely expect that there's going to be an increase in the occupancy tax and visitor related sales tax that follows previous trends and that the transportation improvements would only Be responsible for a marginal increase in those Transportation occupancy and visitor related tax There's just there is some difference called out there But I mean what you're seeing is that based on historic trends and transmit occupancy tax and visitor sales related sales tax It is going to be there the other visitor attractions that we have and that will largely be the Moving the needle Well, I think there's still something to be said for an increase from 39 million to 40.1 I mean there that's additional revenues that do come to our community that we could use for services So it may be small amount, but we certainly are always trying to squeeze all the money out of our Make make the most of all the revenues that we do we do have But I you do understand so we are looking at it as the overall access that visitors might have based on highway improvement changes Any changes in use of the rail rail rail right of way as well as those two visitors amenities And what this is showing is that or what what strategic economics communicated to us is that they do think people may extend their stay while they're here to Take the excursion train or visit the trail and they may have additional expenditures associated with those activities But by and large the improvements to the system wouldn't attract new visitors This table Really brings together the relative economic benefits of each of the scenarios based on the four categories I mentioned that were evaluated under other economic benefits and those are shown on the left Changes in business location decisions changes in development potential and property values changes in business performance local tax revenue and user benefits so one of the to conduct this analysis strategic economics looked at the different project level impacts and then Translated that into an assessment of the overall relative benefits for each scenario So for example Improvements that eats access these access for businesses would be expect to have an impact on business location decisions So that would include a key highway improvements that might improve access to businesses jobs Services it would be expected And you if those improvements could attract businesses to that to that area the analysis also those Associates the most significant change in business location decisions with those projects that include all new transportation options So you've heard me say there's a couple of times that really providing a new Transportation option on the rail right of way would help people to access new areas that pretend potentially they couldn't access now or they don't access easily because of congestion Access to freight is also expected to influence business decision locations for uses that do rely on freight and trail projects could also impact Business location decisions do on the due to cluster customer serving kind of clusters of businesses For property values Research so that again providing new connections and new access are likely to have the greatest impacts on development and values So new transit services that connect new destinations are expected to have a relatively larger impact on development potential and property values And a project that include improvements to local access including bicycle and transit facilities are also expected to have impacts on property values for business performance, it's largely similar to them the What's considered in the business and location decisions except one difference is related to Localized improvements so intersection improvements in particular are associated with improvements in two changes in business performance Local tax revenue and user benefits are largely tied to the others We have been doing a ton of outreach It's been really great to hear from the community and from the city councils and from our stakeholders and our advisory Committees advisory committee meetings. So we held similar to the step one process We held a meeting with our stakeholders, which includes representative from City of Capitola And Metro we also had our RTC advisory committees, which is our elderly and disabled transportation advisory committee Our inter-agency technical advisory committee as well as our bicycle committee We held two public workshops one in Santa Cruz and one in the city of Watsonville They were both very well attended We have our presentations to our partner agencies the city councils in Metro We have the only agency we have not presented to so far a city of Capitola, which was coming up We also had a board meeting presented to our board at our October 4th and October 18th meetings We will also have we also had focus group meetings that Invited members from the business community as well as neighborhood advocacy groups and environmental groups to meet with us and Provide their input. We have one more focus group meeting to be held in the city of Watsonville On next Tuesday, and we've invited another folks from the chamber Rotaries as well as educators We expect to present our preferred scenario to the regional transportation commission November 15th That is 6 p.m. Meeting in the city of Watsonville and ask our board to take action. I'm December 6th at 9 a.m We have received a number of questions on the report which shows that people are digging really deep and that's really great We've prepared a frequently asked questions document to provide responses to those Questions we expect to provide another update if not trying to get one out today to answer more questions So please encourage people to send us start their questions and if you have questions yourself We are really asking our we do expect to ask our board to take action at the December 6th meeting So we can really provide direction to staff and how to move forward and implement some of the priority projects for this community We've had questions about deadlines for comments And the thing we'd like to point out is any comments anytime are always accepted and any written comments are all provided to our board I'm in terms of in having your comments considered in the process We'd like to ask people to have their comments to us by November 2nd If they'd like them to be considered in preparation of the preferred the staff report for the preferred scenario And by November 20th for consideration by staff in the final recommendation on the preferred scenario And any comments received up until 12 noon on December 5th will be provided in written form to our board That concludes our report and then we do have our website up here for people who are on TV Please send your email your email our comments written comments to UCS at SCCRTC.org Director thank you. Thank you for your presentation. This is the second time I've heard it So I just have a few questions because you guys did answer a lot of the other questions in a follow-up email that we had So thank you. Thank you for that. I appreciate it Mine are gonna be the three questions that I have are related around transit and the buses so when the last time we spoke when you guys came to speak to the city of Watsonville I think it was I think it was you Grace that said we were gonna increase the bus routes Coming to because you're gonna have to work the bus routes with the train system And I know and I and I said then, you know, we were faced with a fiscal cliff And we had to really kind of cut back a lot and scale back with you know our frequencies and you know, we did have to Eliminate some routes With what metro the bus what we faced with a bus situation And I guess this question may be towards Alex is it feasible that we will have the funding to Increase all the routes that will be needed to Work with a rail. I I think the answer to that is to be determined I think through this process they If if rail for example is the the choice We would move into a stage or I'm sorry. Let me digress For it is determined that rail is a choice there needs to be a part of the process that looks at exactly what you're saying Where are the existing bus routes in relationship to proposed stations? What is the reality that those stations will in fact occur any any place you propose a station? You're gonna have some sort of community process. They may want it They may not want it and then we would look at what we would do to Have for for metro to be able to service those future stations We don't run a lot of north-south type of service So these this would be new service diversion of existing service all of that has a cost Who's going to cover that cost so before final decision is made? Hopefully that will be looked at And and determined in addition to that There's been some indication that if rail comes to be in this county the RTC will look at Discretionary monies under their control that today come to Metro that that might be diverted in the future to Rail if that conversation evolves and that is the case How do we provide more service in an environment in which potentially we have less revenues coming in? So a lot a lot of analysis I hope they goes way beyond what this study has done to get into the financial aspects before any such decision is made because the Impacts on us Financially could be monstrous right and that's kind of what I've been saying the whole time is that I'm I'm really concerned that You know I feel that and I said this last time I feel monies will be diverted away from Metro in order to You know fun to train that may or may not work And so I just want to make sure that we work so hard that Metro is going to be healthy So will that do you think that that is a? Something that you guys will do before December to do this exactly what Alex was saying There's a couple pieces to that I think one is we have had a number of questions From you in the city of Watsonville as well as from members of the public about the revenue assumptions So we're working to prepare an additional appendix that lays out all of the revenue sources That were assumed and behind some of the tables we see here So and I think that will help to facilitate this conversation in terms of the the new service that was identified to Connect to rail and create a transport a transit network throughout the county that could integrate the two The route changes that were identified Work did come from Metro staff So we're working closely with Metro staff and and I assume as Mr. Clifford pointed out There'd be a lot of details there to continue to evaluate I don't expect that those details will all be worked out as part of the unified corridor study And we are moving forward looking at a set of assumptions Making those assumptions very clear and having people to make the decisions based on those assumptions Knowing that details will still need to be worked out if the scenario under which mr. Clifford described was moved forward Okay, and then I'm the last two questions one is I remember and I can't remember the exact price But you said it was gonna cost how much oh for the Soviet assumptions for the rail fare Trip trip So we are the way we the assumptions that we made for the unified corridor study We're using a zone system similar to what the smart system used so the base fare would be 350 for a trip We could may have up to three zones. So so an average fare may be 550 And how much to be charged for us for trip? space fair two dollars two dollars and We may be looking at fair increases at some point, right? It is an ongoing discussion as the board might recall we started that discussion and then put it off for a little while Well, we worked on some other pressing matters, but Especially depending on what happens here in a couple of days with Proposition six right that discussion may come back sooner rather than later. Okay. Great. Thank you and my last question is and this is something that I really am supportive of is the You know bus on shoulder and I know we've had discussions on the bus and how the auxiliary lanes could work And and I would really hope that that would be included in the discussion at the RTC that we move forward with such a Such a project and I think that I forgot how I spoke to on the board But you know having when the auxiliary lanes go you'll have like, you know Gates will open and buses will be able to drive right through so that was a straight path through highway one so I think that's you know really important Not is it's for that for the health of Metro to be able to you know continue to get people well to start getting people On time to places where they want to go and they don't have to wake up as early to leave South County to get to North County because of Of the traffic and and we just become more efficient of an organization So I hope that I'm you know the scenario whatever scenario gets chosen that on bus On shoulder. Well, that's what I'm calling it, but it could be in the auxiliary lanes You know is is a priority for it. So because I think it's very it's what we need Can I add something to Mr. Clifford? That's a really good point about the November election and proposition 6 the assumptions that we have in Included do expect that SB 1 stays in place So we would expect about 40% of the funding that we show would go away Thank you Dr. Kaufman Gomez Thank you One of the concerns that comes up, especially in the South County is to make sure that we're getting out to the Hispanic population I It's very difficult. I think culturally for them to show up at these meetings. I think they're on the road They're trying to get with their families. I Really want to make sure that we're doing what we possibly can't copa is one organization that we actually had a meeting in Watson the last evening that may be a helpful resource and that's through the churches with some of the Hispanic population that meets there And we brought up transportation is as a really how a big housing dilemma because it's not only housing it's the transportation component of housing and We I know that there's also a barrier with getting more people from Watsonville in the input and The suggestion of going to where they're at instead of having a workshop that everybody's going to show up to I'm hoping that we have more opportunity to get out there to where the where people are actually at go to go to where They're at instead of ask them to come to where you need to be So that we actually get more Feedback that comes that way because as as you know People will come that may not necessarily be from the neighborhood that you're presenting to And it makes it very difficult to to feel that the comments that you're getting are actually from the neighborhood So I just want to make sure that we're doing as much emphasis there I also took a visit to the website and I think we need to have a bit more enhancement there for it to be in Bilingually, I don't know that there's I don't think that this particular study is Fluently in in Spanish on that site But maybe there are some highlights that can be made maybe an executive summary of some sort that allows it to be Translated in in Spanish and a reference to staff that may be able to Respond back to anybody that is using the website that that is going there and reading this in Spanish We really appreciate your comments. We are Translating the FAQs as well as the performance and dashboard and I'm like ginger provide an update on that The only other comment that I would make is that I believe we still have on our website the translator in Spanish That is automatic. I know it's not a perfect system But there is that that option for people who would This is kind of a vague question, but it's I think it's an important one when we started this process I remember director Leopold saying you know if people think when the study comes out It's just going to be obvious one choice versus the other and everybody will all agree because the study will prove what's correct That's not gonna happen. There's gonna be Continuing debate about what it means and how to interpret it in which choices and so forth. I think that's accurate I have another question, which is When we're done with this we'll make a choice that RTC will make a choice based on input from the public and This agency and other groups and so forth and they choose whatever scenario gets chosen Would I be right in thinking that the public would misunderstand if they think that decision will then Just deter that that's it. Our path will be clear when we've made that decision. We're gonna do scenario letter x whatever it is and That that tells us what to do and we'll start investing to make that stuff happen Am I right in thinking? Yeah, you'll choose one of these we will choose one of these scenarios or the RTC will choose One of these scenarios, but in the end Let's say for example bus on shoulder. That's described a certain kind of process what it's gonna look like the current what we understand currently is there's at least two places or We're not gonna replace The bridges for bus on shoulder so you the buses will be able to go under the bridge But the traffic won't but there's two bridges the railroad bridges near apt in optos. You can't do that You're gonna have to get back in the lane of traffic But that could be changed in the future even though this study is not gonna answer that question or tell us what that would cost or make It happen one possible one possibility is you choose a scenario with bus on shoulder You could spend not a half a billion dollars, but you know many millions of dollars Just change those two bridges leave the other ones which are expending very expensive alone Those are you know bridges that modular bridges that could be put back So this study is not gonna tell us exactly what's gonna happen It's possible. We would choose the train On the rail quarter, but in the end put bus rapid transit on that same Even though we made the decision for the train based on all the metrics and everything else Ten years out We might decide based on how much it costs to service the train and the cost of rail versus other kinds of things We might decide to not do the train and an action but having preserved that quarter have bus Have a bus rapid transit solution of some sort am I right in understanding that this doesn't Lock us in to exactly what we're gonna do for the next 20 or 30 years. Do I do I get this right? When I get these challenging questions as staff I always say that we are staff providing information to the Commission the Commission's are is the decision makers and So as we bring this information forward and decisions get made the Commission can decide what is RTC policy to help staff move forward and direct projects that are priority for our community and That that can look a lot of different ways Director Hagan One of the things one of the concerns I have is the lack of communication to the Hispanic population in Watsonville The use of the Spanish TV and the Spanish radio. It's almost non-existent. You talk about your website the people that are using The metro system I'd say good 60% are Minimal if not lack of English speaking and we don't communicate with those people I know I get questions all the time and I've had to improve my Spanish simply to communicate with these people and there are so many of them Many of them are citizens They're very limited English speaking enough to get their citizenship but You talk about the website my community in Watsonville Bay Village They may have a cell phone or even a tablet but they have no idea how to use websites There are people who are seniors. They're the ones who are using the bus system and yet The RTC They have no idea of that communication For coming from you about this or other things that are more basic And I just say we need as or and as the RTC Extensive effort to communicate through Spanish TV and Spanish radio Director Leopold. Thank you chair. Thank you for the presentation. I I've read the report. I've heard the presentations, but I always learn a little bit more every time I get it There's there's a lot of material here and For those of us who see this more than once it's actually helpful for us to reinforce this material because some of it isn't necessarily intuitive and it takes a little while to Assimilate the information. So thank you for doing that and thank you for doing it at time and time again I know you probably give that presentation in your sleep the the This study is important for us to sort of take a look at what's possible Under different scenarios and for us to judge what are the metrics in which we want to make decisions But in almost any scenario or every scenario except a no-build scenario There's going to be a need for additional funding Some of it we have some ideas on some of it. We don't have ideas on and And what we're trying to do is build some community awareness and education some Awareness and education on the RTC Metro and the other agencies to sort of figure out where we want to make investments in the future and what we want to be able to do I think this is very helpful as as we look at this menu of options That Even with these different scenarios there still be there there could be some picking of different things off the menu That that may not conform exactly to that scenario or this scenario But we might say we want that bus on shoulder and we want that BRT light and we want this We're going to be giving direction to you as staff about the things we want you to continue to investigate because Almost all of this right as we know from the bus on shoulder is that there was a study done We've heard the study it requires an investment of millions of dollars the RTC has been supportive of I think it was $10 to do the bus on shoulder we believe in it So you could pick a scenario and we're still committed to the to the bus on shoulder idea I mean we still we haven't we haven't voted for the funding yet but I know this board is is very interested in that and this board makes up a good part of the RTC board So it's hard to imagine bus on shoulder to sort of going away. So I just want to remind people that this gives us some Some guidepost It isn't the holy grail and so you you know it isn't we aren't isn't going to give us every infrom every answer we want And it's not going to open a drawer that's going to provide all the funding that's necessary. There's a lot of work There's a lot of study that you know even to do BRT light is going to take a Study to sort of figure out exactly how you wouldn't help make that happen So this is the beginning of the next phase of the conversation. It's not the end-all of the conversation I would also like to remind us all as Most of us are elected representatives some of us are appointed But we have some responsibility To to work with the communities that we represent to have them participate in this process Recently there was a housing project in the middle of live oak and We saw I saw this is very beneficial to Families in live oak especially families at live oak elementary, which was a block and a half away 60% of the school is Latino and so we work very hard with the groups at the school and we found that Scheduling it after a Zumba class and providing dinner Was a way in which we greatly increased the number of people participated We're going to think creatively if we if we if we see if we do not see underrepresented groups The RTC has some responsibility But we have some responsibility to think creatively about how we could get that done not just hey, they were there Go hold another meeting Which is one of the strategies, but how do we? bring and make what we do in local government accessible to the people who are not at the table and That's not an easy thing to do It's not I have been Unsuccessful way that I'm more than I've been successful at doing it But we have to keep on trying with the with the local people that we know with the local institutions We have and the relationships that we have to try to turn people out To participate in these discussions and figure out ways that could be that that could be meaningful I encourage the RTC To be part of those discussions and to be open To figure out how that that gets done, but also I want to accept the responsibility for us as the elected officials on this or the RTC To try to work to make that happen because we we're here as representatives not We have to move our constituencies to be involved Hi So I am from Korea. I live in Watsonville I have five cars at my house are contribute to that Estimate that you did because as you know, we're a commuter school And so a lot of our students and my own children looking for different ways I personally don't catch the bus because it takes Too long and I have to get up too early to get to it to be to work by 7 30 And so I had wanted to catch the bus my question to you all in doing this study is a Couple of things like how do you get a person like me my family on? This as a way of saying we're contributing to our own Time and and being able to use this as a resource But I'm also inviting and are wondering along with Leopold's question Have you considered the students at Cabrillo as a disgust a discussion? Point because we subsidize a couple of the routes and I'm interested in knowing If that's ever been a part of the conversation There could be a way that you've surveyed the riders between the different routes Just would have hand out on the bus or maybe a link to something that they could do while they're on the bus I'm just wondering if there's been some communications with the students between those routes that Ask about their their participation in the In for this For the initial outreach that we did in the study We really directed a lot of our Outreach towards Watsonville Watsonville leaders We had surveys and we also worked closely with Metro to put surveys on some of the buses I Don't remember if it was every single one or if there was every single one So we should have been able to capture both Cabrillo and UCSC students We've also had the focus groups which outreach to community organizations including Cabrillo Cabrillo in Watsonville was also invited to the meeting next week So we've we've I appreciate a commissioner Leopold's Analysis of some of the challenges RTC staff has tried really hard and we're always open for suggestions on how better to reach these underrepresented communities So if I can make an opportunity Available you'd be open to that Yeah Because I'm not going to do this justice having just Come into this seat and into this role and so I would really prefer to hear from those of you who have done the work Any brief comments from the The public but yeah, I want girl I want to get to YouTube any brief comments from the public Okay Brief comment, please please get up Jesus you three minutes Mr. Leopold I'm glad you like to hear repetition that things get clear on repetition because you heard this at the RTC meeting so I Wanted to talk about bus rapid transit. I'm concerned that the UCS study didn't properly analyze it I asked the consultants a number of questions for example I said what if I'm trying to go to Cabrillo in Watsonville or in Aptos from trying to go to UCSC How long is it going to take me when I have to make connections on the bus? They said well our numbers in this study didn't include that that would be part of an operational study And I would say like imagine if you were to Have made the decision about the 10 bus and the 12 bus in the 1916 going to UCSC Instead of just having all these different buses that go from different point-to-point locations. You just had one Bus or in this case a train that just ended downtown or on the west side of Santa Cruz and you had to make a transfer I think that as a bus user myself and a lot of transit users would be pretty concerned by the fact that this study Didn't measure the actual time of that without an operational study We actually don't really know what we're what we're doing here, and we're trying to choose a direction. That's a real problem I Hensher and moley the authors of the most cited study comparing bus rapid transit in light rail said that blind commitment for light rail Transit has caused many cities to overlook the potential for more cost-effective bus based systems This is a real problem that we're doing that here right now a lot of other cities have learned the hard way that this focus on a train creates an inflexibility and Some financial crises that occur later bus routes can be optimized for point-to-point service and minimal trans and minimal transfers BRT is an extension of bus service So it allows regular buses to bypass congestion wherever it's feasible So buses can take the rail court can take the rail corridor in the direction of high travel when it's happening Bus rapid transit is actually preferred over light rail travel when it's been studied a comparison by steer Davies Gleeve consultancy in not France found that BRT and their transit system was preferred overall when they did a study of the two together side by side There are issues like acceleration and deceleration that seemed like they're minor things But on the west side of Santa Cruz where the bus crosses an intersection every 300 feet Either the train is going to plow through the west side at 35 miles an hour Which is actually what one of the Consultants said would happen where it's going to have to stop and a train takes a long time to stop On some forms I've heard people say things like a train can carry a lot of people if you did this with buses You know because the train comes every 30 minutes if you did some buses You'd have to have a bus every three minutes to carry that many people and as a bus user that sounds wonderful When I was in Boulder, Colorado a couple of weeks ago buses are incredibly successful They're in part of the reasons you can walk to a bus stop and within a few minutes the bus shows up So people aren't planning their life and going oh my god. I missed the bus. So that's actually a benefit Buses are very fault-tolerant So if you have a problem on the train and you have to shut down the train system Your public transportation system just came to a halt buses can actually take detours and do all sorts of things Since I'm seeing my time is running out I'll just close with does dr. Edward Glazier professor of economics at Harvard said in his speech 50 years of Transportation economics study at Harvard can be boiled down to four words bus good train bad Actually, I think the train is a wonderful thing I just don't think it makes sense in our community because it's not flexible enough for what we have Thanks, wish I had more time because there's so much more to say. Thank you, sir Okay, and any barrel did you have something to close on? Go ahead. I think Courage comment afterwards. So thank you to ginger and grace for that presentation. That was excellent Yeah, that was good now Metro understood and supported the ucis process which included developing these scenarios of a mix of thing across all All three quarters at the same time and it ended up combining information about ridership and capital and operating costs It was a way to simply present a lot of complex data and we get that it's a pretty traditional way of approaching it Ultimately, however, from the metro perspective the moyd the mode choice in each of the three quarters is really a standalone Important decision for the countywide public transportation decision I do have to say so much of what I'm about to say and remaining you've all raised in your questions So from the metro perspective also staff is going to and currently strongly recommends that some form of public Transportation needs to be in that rail reserve The urban area between Capitola and downtown Santa Cruz live oak is the most transit oriented environment in our entire county in terms of density origin and destination combinations and a viable road network a grid road network Transit sir and to be truthful transit services and either the Soquel Freedom quarter or the Highway 1 quarter are not going to be Significantly relevant to this live oak area in terms of two things efficient access to this area from the south If you're on Soquel Freedom you're on Highway 1 that doesn't take care of this area And secondly from this live oak area to downtown in UCSC services and those other quarters aren't really relevant In order to determine the most appropriate public transit mode for the rail reserve Metro staff is continuing to work with ginger and her team to review both the rail and the BRT data Specifically comparing the various features of ridership operating in capital costs And yes, we will get into the issue of the cost or the additional Resources put to a bus feeder network to a rail system. I don't want to get ahead of ourselves I don't want to be like many players in this game over the last two years Stating a stance before the facts back it up So and another thing Commissioner Dutra touched on and someone else touched on Probably one of the most important issues in the choice between rail and BRT in that quarter Is the assumptions about the likely availability of funding to build and operate this thing? And I think we all know where this conversation goes And I plan on giving you more detail on numbers and facts in November But as a reminder and you've already said this that we all know Metro currently has only been to barely stabilize our bus service at an admittedly minimally effective level with the available Funding and we acknowledge more than anyone the need to grow our frequency and span of service on our existing routes Prior to pursuing new services. So think about that in the context of the cost Following the announcement of RTC staff recommendation to the Commission at their November 15th meeting at Watsonville The next day we have our board meeting and we will make our staff Recommendation to this body as to what we hope we see on the December 6th Decision so that concludes our part Okay, thank you Thank you. Oh, Mr. Leopold I thank you for your remarks, mr. Emerson. I appreciate the recognition about About how what areas of the community are served by by which of these Corridors it's very important for us to consider this as part of that and I and I appreciate you Making that clear and also identifying that we we can't can't give up a transit corridor We should not give up a transit corridor easily We have to seriously consider the implications and I look forward to the recommendation Thank you. I think that At our meeting I mentioned in scott's valley the Being helpful to have the PowerPoint and I really appreciate That you heard it and the very next thing I in presentation I saw that so I really appreciate the responsiveness that I've seen and other topics that have been raised that you Do listen and thank you for all your work, but really hearing us and addressing these things where you can Okay, just to accept and file this report Second second all in favor Most sort unanimously item number 13 CEOs or a report Mr. Chair directors Just a couple of items at our last meeting We talked about the fact that the California Air Resources Board was holding their public hearing on the Proposed new regulation that would have us actually have all transit agencies across, California being a hundred percent electric by 2040 and as you may recall they were holding their public hearing at the same date as we had our meeting I'm happy to report some progress has been made remember through this journey and working with Working actually with the CTA and the California Air Resources Board Executive director and staff we've made progress towards their recommend improving their recommendation. They made their recommendation feedback occurred at that meeting one valuable Milestone achieved is they agreed with our actually it's a interpretation that we promulgated through California Transit Age Association Which is relative to the interpretation of a small property versus a large property And you recall if we were designated a large property as California Air Resources Board was proposing to do We would have to start Mandatorily buying electric buses in any procurement Sooner than we wanted to then that would have been as soon as 2023 And if we were designated a small property it would be mandated starting in 2026 So they've accepted our approach, which is don't reinvent the wheel The federal government has defined what a small property is in a large property Under the 5307 funding guidelines They have accepted that the executive director put that forward to the board their latest version of the ICT actually now Reflects that interpretation. So if that is ultimately passed in January We will be considered a small property and we'll have more discretion you might recall Through your previous measure Staff had recommended and you had approved that we want to we wanted to take this a little bit slow We're a small property You know, we can't make million dollar mistakes here We don't want to own buses that poorly perform and we have to keep because they were federally funded for 12 to 14 years We have buses that we have grants for that are on order. You have a discussion about that later in the agenda We want to get those buses here We want to not go after any further grants for electric buses until we get them here We've got to train our bus operators on how to operate those because the way you operate it Determines ultimately the range you will get on that bus range is super important And we have to train our mechanics on how to maintain a whole different technology than they're used to maintaining These don't have combustion engines in them. So we need to take some time and we need to get experience on range range today where these buses exist is in the range of 120 to 150 miles that is not good for an agency that needs up to 300 mile range in a day So we don't want to overly invest in buses that may be improved as time goes on my greatest hope that by 2026 when we're mandated to start buying again that the innovation in battery energy Density improves and thereby the range of the buses improve and we can buy buses that will Provide service on more if not all of our routes so stay tuned We still have a lot of issues that we're trying to work through with staff The board has given some indication that they want their staff to go back and work with us the transit agencies on a couple of key points One of that one of those are that through the California Transit Association. We've been trying to say We need the board to adopt a benchmarking approach. That is we need to have a pause point in this regulation That such that over the next couple of years or so as agencies particularly large agencies like LAM TA Adopt a full-blown plan to implement electric buses We pause and we look at that data and we see if that how that data compares to the technology We use today how the battery energy density is improving and maybe most important of all The cost of propulsion the comparison of the cost for propulsion if something doesn't happen in a big way With the electric utilities whether through regulation or not regulation The cost of propulsion propulsion could be huge and that affects our operating budget Ultimately affects our ability to provide service on the street So we have to monitor that carefully and we're still pushing for a pause point Maybe what we call an off-ramp at which at some point two three four years down the road the California Air Resources Board the board Not the staff look at data and say things are going in the right direction. Let's keep progressing towards the 2040 mandate and The current mandate which would propose to have us only be able to buy electric buses after 2029 or the board looks at it and says whoa Technology isn't innovating as fast the costs are super high. We have a lot of work to do We need to revise the implementation schedule. We think that's the responsible thing to do so far the California Air Resources Board staff Has really heavily opposed that the other thing that we're fighting hard for is the HVIP funding which is heavy-duty vehicle something or other funding that provides Money for us for each electric bus that we buy sort of a credit in the in the range of about 165,000 per bus that's important because when the electric buses cost about $300,000 more than the conventional fleet that we buy today that at least helps to offset about half of that Well, the staff at California Air Resources Board is proposing that We don't get the HVIP money if we buy it in the year in which the buses are mandated to be purchased So in other words if we wait until 2026 to buy buses We don't get the HVIP if we buy them earlier than that under their so-called incentive program You can have the money and we're trying to argue. Hey, you know state you're you're imposing this upon us It's an unfunded mandate Don't take away funding that we depend on today to help offset the higher cost of these buses We're not having success with the staff at this point They they are hard-line that money was always intended to be incentive money incentive money is intended to incentivize you to do it Sooner rather than when it's mandated We're still fighting that battle. We hope to we hope to You know impress upon the board ultimately that we desperately need that money Irrespective of whether you buy it earlier buy it on time just makes common sense. We think it does Okay, so enough of that on that we did have a number of folks including myself that attended the CTA fall conference down in Long Beach this week Good sessions. I think we came back with good information We had sessions including one that I ran on zero emission buses And I think we came back with some good notes on important things that we need to consider as we implement that program here In addition, I was able to make a good contact with PG&E Aaron and I will be following up in the next week on that But as a result of a PUC regulation recently that mandated that the independently owned Utilities must create a program a multimillion dollar program to help transit properties put in the electric charging Infrastructure as a result of that mandate PG&E has a lot of money available They need to invest and PG&E would like us to be one of their first They want to investigate with us the possibility of us being one of the first in this region to take advantage of their program We need that because we're short on money to build the electric charging infrastructure in our yard So that could be a good contact and I'll give you more about that as we move along Next I'd like Barrow to step forward and introduce a new employee Thank You Alex real quickly As a sidebar Tom Hiltner your grants ledge analyst is retiring after 20 years of service to Metro So I'm here to introduce are the door I'm here to introduce his replacement today, but I do want to take note The Tom will be back at the November board meeting being noted for his 20 years of longevity and service to Metro And then we'll be back in December and January or January with a traditional retirement Acknowledgement so moving on to the new guy one to move Mengistu Has a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Addis Abba University in Ethiopia where he's from He also has a master's in social work from Andhra University in India and a PhD in social development From the University of Cape Town in South Africa, so he's the only person. I know who's traveled the world more than I have We're very happy to have one to move here with us And the great opportunity of having he and Tom work together for the next month through transition is an invaluable situation for me given Tom's 20 years of Institutional memory that we're going to try to drag out of his brain So back to one to move before joining Santa Cruz Metro One to move worked as a grant writer for the city of Pacific Grove Public Works Department and had a very successful run there He helped them secure competitive grants from Caltrans the CTC and other agencies And it was a joy for me to hear that he went out one of those one one of those active transportation planning grants We hear about the ATP he won six million dollars for a highway 68 project having to do with traffic calming and sidewalks Bike lanes he won a Caltrans planning grant for C level rise analysis and lastly he won a Tamsi grant the counterpart of RTC and Monterey County for a highway 68 environmental study So I'm looking forward to and even Tom read some of his grant application right and said wow That's great stuff. So one of them also really recently received from Stanford University and Advanced Project Management Certificate which he gained advanced tools and techniques to strategically execute projects and programs and as you know here at Metro We all don't just wear one hat. We do lots of things so more project management expertise We're looking forward to he's also taught in tutored courses in philosophy research Methodologies and critical thinking Want to move is married and lives in Marina and is hoping to move close met closer to Metro in the near future And I just like to have one to move say a couple of words Welcome. Thank you so much. I'm very happy to be part of Metro and I'll be looking forward to working with all stakeholders and thanks so much for this opportunity Thank you for being welcome here and your background is gonna be very much appreciated. I know in the years to come So thank you very much for being with us. Thank you. All right. I have a quick comment on the CEO's comments The situation where the we're being part of a program where they're pressing to have everything zero emission by 2040 which mainly now focuses on electric. I mean they're Hydrogen stuff is possible, but probably electrics what we're looking at realistically It makes me think of a famous quote from Victor Hugo who said that the greatest harm I'm paraphrasing but the greatest harm done to humanity is the misapplication of universal principles to a particular situation And this is class this is classically what we're talking about here, and they really want us to be zero emission We appreciate that that's a wonderful goal We want to be part of it, but it's possible to imagine a situation where the pursuit of that abstract goal Leads us to pushing people back into their cars because we can't provide transit service And that wouldn't be a good outcome Even though the goal was a good one and one that we support and so it's it's sometimes difficult to get people to Let go of universal goals. I mean they really care about them We care about them, and it's not like a bad idea that we should be pushing in that direction But at some point people have to look at what the real impact of actually making that decision is going to be So I appreciate you keeping us up to date and pressing that question with them rather than passively just accepting There's nothing we can do about it that we may end up with a bad situation If we don't really make sure we get people to look at what are the real impacts of a decision that's coming down here I think to summarize the message of them. Let's get real, you know would be a good message So I just want to get clarification so I you want to revise the schedule for the electric buses Is that what I was hearing so with that? For 2026 is that what you're thinking won't be our first bus Well, we're gonna wait until the the technology gets that good before we move forward And will will the grants that we have now for electric buses buses be at stake ladder question first No, those grants are good. We're those buses are gonna be coming So it's the four buses that'll be here either late next year or early the following year for pro-terras You'll have a report on that today, Erin. I'll give it to you. So those are happening. Nothing changes there We want those to get here so that we can do what I described is is get our operators trained on them Get our mechanics trained on how to maintain them and get some operational experience So we know what the range is and and where we can place those buses. We need time to do that We need to collect our own data or a small agency and The the the sort of fight that we've had to get ourself classified as a small property so that we're not Mandated underscore mandated to buy until 2026 is important to us so that you have more discretion on when you want to start buying again You can buy sooner. We can go for grants sooner my advice is that you stay with what you adopted recently, which is let's the position of getting the current fleet of Electrics here Learning about them watching technology continue to grow battery energy G-density grow and then go out and make another purchase that could be before 2026, but it may not be until 2026, okay? Great. Thank you You know the questions We'll move on to our next item the consideration of a resolution to a state I don't have a list Okay, sorry Thank You Gina yeah, okay, no attention to the woman behind the curtain Okay, I apologize I got back late yesterday here, so I'm catching up all right So in the customer service department, we have brought aboard Maria Padilla and Then we have bus operators Brandon Delas Scott Ivins Felicia Matos We have a facilities maintenance mechanic one Oscar Gutierrez Senior accounting technician Linda Lloyd You met want to move earlier grants paratransit operator Michael Pinot, I believe that's pronounced a mechanic another mechanic one Valentin Rodriguez and Custodial service worker Arturo Valdez and I got underscore That's another position. That's been hard to recruit for And then in promotions, I believe these were moves from pair crews to bus operator I didn't al bar auto Ivan Ivan Garcia Andrew Kearney and then dispatch Scheduler for paratransit Alma Gutierrez, so we've had new additions and move around the promotions. They're good Within a lot from within. Yeah, definitely. Is there anything else Gina that we should be doing? Okay, she will correct me if I mess up again Okay, now we'll move on to item number 14 to consider a resolution to establish the board of directors meeting schedule and locations for 2019 So just briefly this is a mr. Chair. This is a process you go through we make a proposal in this case We made it more challenging for you We made two proposals and as I have in the past I've tried to convince the board to hold a few more meetings at the Vernon facility than we have Recently again, that's a good opportunity for us to have more staff participate in the meeting be exposed to the meeting I do believe it saves us some costs obviously from traveling all around in the proposal that I made I believe Gina was is is be the proposal Each So the one that I'm recommending is be And I tried to be mindful of the previous Discussions about wanting to have a balance of Watsonville versus City of Santa Cruz. I've kept this both proposals have are mindful of that balance Be obviously has more meetings at at Vernon, which is something I think is important for us for cost savings for having to transport all the equipment and set up And be still allows us to move around the county and be it allow Constituents and others to be exposed to us and have the opportunity to attend meetings So we'll go with either way. I just recommend be if you're interested in that Okay, director Rackin. I'll start with a motion and I won't say anything else into the listeners debate But I move a be approached be which saves a lot of Money and more importantly staff time where people don't have to travel all over the place We can come to the meeting and go right back to work I have a comment on that I You know my my problem with be is that we're we're we're moving around the county so that the people can have the chance to come to You know Look meetings that are kind of close to them if they wanted to you're going with be adds one more One more meeting to North County and it will only allow two now meetings in South County So instead of in the past having six in North County now you guys are getting seven and Watsonville gets to in South County gets taken another so in in the in the in the Spirit of equity, I hope you guys would consider that and You know consider South County because you just took one more meeting away from the South in terms of actual miles traveled and even actual time The scenario B puts the meetings in the middle of the county and so the people who are in San Lorenzo Valley and Scots Valley Are basically, you know The issue if you move when you move to either end of the county Somebody has to travel a lot further to get to that and stuff So and again if you were putting them in Santa Cruz City Hall, I would understand the point But the city of Santa Cruz gets the same numbers Watsonville Which are more than the other two cities and I think again for us given our financial situation having our staff not required to like pick themselves up and bring all their Information equipment everything else to these meetings is a really good idea The meetings will be televised in any case for members of the public and Frankly based on our past experience the number of people that come either I mean it to the city of Santa Cruz meetings Versus the meetings of Watsonville or Scots Valley City City Council chambers. It doesn't really dramatically affect the number that show up at those meetings That's just I mean I've been in many decades. I've been looking at that reality It doesn't you think well if you move to the city at one end either Watsonville or up to Scots Valley You'd see a lot of people there from Watsonville or Scots Valley That's not the case except when you have a particular issue and of course We're still when we're holding special meetings which we do occasionally we may do those wherever we're going to do them Live Oak or some other place to bring members of the public So I don't think this is a fight between Santa Cruz and Watsonville I think this is what's good for the Metro and that's why I support well I think to call Metro headquarters mid-county is I think really off Mike Yes We set a new record last week two hours and 16 minutes to get from Metro and Santa Cruz to Transit Center in Watsonville. Yeah, it takes a long time I'm aware of that But I'm also aware of the cost in Val involvement and in this sense I have to support the board's suggestion or Alex's that we go with item B and in that sense I do support it and I'm using the system to get there too Thank you for your coffin. Go miss You mentioned cost I don't know how many staff member are In attendance that you're moving them around in terms of that cost Can you talk a little bit more about what that cost factor is for what you're sacrificing to add one more meeting in Watsonville versus? Meeting up at Metro because it's Metro plus Santa Cruz for us on the commute So even though it may be just one more for Watsonville. It's Still work. We're probably like 70% North County on what we're coming to for the attendance Yeah, so I didn't quantify this in an empirical way. It's more of an antidotal argument Maybe common sense argument. I think it is pretty safe to assume that when I have to have staff go The night before to get ready for an onsite meeting That's that's staff time that I could use better if it was back at the Vernon facility and invested there Same thing when the staff is traveling to come here in some cases early to set up and coming from their work stations to This location to be at the meeting That's all time that I'd rather invest in their work product back at the at the corporate headquarters So, you know, if they're not traveling before the board meeting They can be at their desk working and they can be back at their desk working quicker following the board meeting if they're not traveling So it's more antidotal, but it's important for me, especially in an environment Which you know, my staff is saying wow, we have a lot a lot of stuff to do and you know There's a lot of other polls on our time So that's that's kind of what I'm I'm hoping for the other the other point I would make is even under B You still have 50% of your meetings that are that are taking place abroad Which if if you look at what other agencies do across the state across the nation Some agencies don't go abroad at all Matter of fact, many of them don't and some that do do just a small showing maybe once a year They try to move themselves around their service area But many many transit agencies just have a central location that they have all their meetings six meetings a year abroad is is pretty good that's pretty good showing of Support for sort of spreading the the opportunity to attend a meeting around the county the the other question I have is can we check the feasibility of doing a telelocation so that We we can have if the South County is not going to want to move in this traffic for an hour and 15 minutes to get To the north end that we can have a designated location to be able to go to and have it The telecommute capability I know that we have some other boards that are doing that that there's a designated site to go to if you don't want to make The full commute over to the other end We have the tri-county agency that Has that opportunity so that even though you have three counties there there is one location that That people can attend Offsite but still participating with the meeting It would just suggest that that's a board policy decision we can do whatever the board would like to do I hope you would have discussion though about the value of the members being you know present in the room versus Well the the public as well as as the the board members I know Monterey Bay community power has it where there's a location that the board members are able to log in and still Participate and it's being televised for them So that it's it's like Skyping basically and it gives an option for them Not to have to leave their offices to go all the way to Monterey from Santa Cruz when they're dealing with all of the traffic Impacts and the time it takes them to leave their offices to go to a meeting Clear in another County, so it might help out a little bit of one less vehicle on the road And be televised somewhere else. I mean just I think we should consider it I mean this is a transportation agency and if we could Have something maybe explored that allows that as an option It might be a little bit more convenient and one less one or two less vehicles, maybe on On that road as well Comment You know we're gonna be talking most likely about fairer increases and I know that when we talked about The fair the restructuring of our services We did have a lot of people from South County come up to the meetings and those meetings were really important to them and A lot of them, you know it took a lot of struggle I understand we do have a board member who rides it all the time But and kind of that's just your job to be here So if you if you want to be here you do it but for a lot of these people You know if we're really going to defend the Spanish community Then we have to make sure that we're really working with them And this is going to be an important issue and if we're having a lot of our meetings in the north and They have families they do a lot of maybe they don't have cars. They have to you know work around jobs This is something that's going to be important to them and you're asking them to You know you're not offering them the opportunity to go and speak at the meetings that are going to be convenient for them So that's where I'm coming from if we're really going to take care of the community I want to be sensitive to director Dutra's concerns, but you know from a position of you know I appreciate that Metro takes and puts the show on the road. It does take a lot to mobilize staff It's much easier to have the meetings at Vernon and you know everybody to present I can look out in the audience right now and I can pretty much tell you that there's no one in Capitola in this room right now that lives here, so And that's not a negative thing because I do feel that the people in Watsonville do make more of an effort to Respond to Metro means they're there but the significance of it is is we're talking about two meetings versus three meetings and I Think that you know what we've done in the past We used to have two meetings a month and we streamlined this operation down to one And I think this is more of a streamlining just to be more efficient I know that as director Dutra mentioned, you know, he might be have a concern about Fair increases or anything else that might come up and I do know that this board and Staff is sensitive to relocating the case of a meeting So I would like to just keep that in our pocket that you know I'm going to support measure the option B But I would be willing at any time if we get to where there turns out that there is a need I think that we can anytime change one of the dates of the meetings and relocate to Watsonville, but at this time, I think that it's better that we be more sensitive to our staff and and and that's how I'll support option B Thank you, I think that when we've considered major changes to service Or even the fairs we've gone out and held lots of public meetings that the the COA our comprehensive operational analysis involved Many meetings throughout the county That weren't board meetings, but they were Meetings to solicit input from the public should we be considering major changes? I would anticipate that we would be holding something like that to better educate The public and give them a voice It we heard just moments ago concerns about the RTC process for The unified quarter study which held meetings in Watsonville But then there was concerns that there weren't people from Watsonville coming and we needed to find other ways to reach people so I Support us looking creatively about how we can reach Underrepresented people throughout the county But I'm not sure that the the location of the 9 o'clock in the morning board meeting for the metro is gonna is is it should be our Standard for how we're gonna reach those underrepresented populations. I'm not I'm not sure that no matter what we do that we will reach The underrepresented populations that way Okay, we've got a motion on the floor, so please I have been at the meetings at Watsonville where the staff outnumber by far the attending people and like mr. Bratdorf said One more meeting you might reach maybe six seven people that show up and the cost-effective situation at that point far out numbers any reason to have an extra meeting in Watsonville thank director Matthews Concurring the majority. I serve on several county-wide organizations or multi-juris to get multi-county And I think our off-site meetings are generous compared to most of those Usually it's one a year or they They go off-site less frequently so in the interest of efficiency. I do support measure B Okay, we have a motion on the floor in a second What you have a comment I would be but I would also like us to consider doing something that would look into the the possibility of doing the Skype kind of format for an option Friendly amendment if it would yes, please if that would be feasible Go ahead I Appreciate the spirit of that and the possibility And I think it's certainly the idea that the public might have some place where they could testify and we could hear their Testimony on a Skype type thing is fine. I think board meeting members need to come to the board meeting I think it's I mean, I know there's technology for it But how many times have you sat in the meeting where the there's somebody who's on the phone? Trying to weigh in on it and stuff and to do that in a public meeting like this I just think it means you're going to be completely ineffective. So you might as well stay home I mean, I think in terms of like your ability to affect the outcome of the decisions that matter to you Well, I don't mean just Watsonville for anybody I don't think that technology has reached the point yet where it really allows you to participate as you need to as a board member So I don't really support that amendment I think I don't mind staff getting into what it would cost, you know I'm happy with an amendment that says look into it and see what the cost would be and where we might be able to Do it that's not a big project, but I'm unlikely to support the outcome for Suggested board members will be participating fully in this meeting over the telephone or Skype or even with a TV Screen or anything else it just it's ineffective communication for the most part still despite the wonders of modern technology You got to be at the meeting. So if you accept a friendly amendment to look into But I don't want a big exhaustive study that like, you know, it spends a lot of money and time Do you want to just give direction to staff to look into that issue without it being in the resolution? So we just take the motion to the motion is to accept the schedule of Exhibit B with two meetings in Watsville two in Santa Cruz City Council and then one in Scotts Valley as well as one in Capitola and the rest in at Vernon Street headquarters Understood all those in favor I posed pose One opposition And then I'll make a motion that we have to strike staff to look in you know without spending a great amount of time into the feasibility of having some kind of remote location for the public to have an opportunity to speak to us and Important meetings or even a regular meeting or something find out what that would cost and how that might work Well, the whole point of this with doing what you're doing is to save money and now we're spending money to do Think about spending money on something else. That doesn't make sense I'm just saying I don't mind staff looking into what it might cost if it's very cheap and it's possible to have A TV screen and we could watch people get up to a microphone during our world communication from somewhere else I I'm let's find out what that costs and you know, not a big deal. That's that's my motion I'm trying to be sympathetic to the idea that people have more opportunity to talk to That doesn't need a motion. It doesn't need a motion. It could just be direction. It's just direction Okay, we'll go to item number 15 to accept a file report human resources department recruit recruitment update Don Human resources Rector good morning chair board and staff I'm Don Cremey deputy HR director for Metro and I'm here today to give you an update on our recruiting efforts Pretty much for the last 30 days how we've Extensive recruiting efforts in the last 30 days So it started with us getting a community Together a recruitment committee a consist of HR para crews operations and UTU We've had tremendous outreach from our helpers at UTU. We came up with a flyer for an open house that that we Did a hiring open house. I'm sorry and our UTU members were actually out handing out flyers to both of these open houses So we did an open house actually yesterday at the Metro Center And the day before that we did it at the Watsonville Metro Center We also participated in the job fair at coconut Grove last week Called access to employment job fair We were actually approached at that job fair by Cabrillo recruitment and They are having a job fair in February or March She didn't have the exact date, but she invited us to be there So we accepted that and we will we will be there as well We have social media presence on Facebook LinkedIn Everything Instagram we're posting all of our positions everywhere We've also made calls into our Edd centers so that we could go and set up tables there and and speak to People that are coming to apply for Edd so that we can let them know about our openings See oh I'm sorry. We also posted flyers in our Laundromats restaurants everything Operations also came up and developed the we are hiring cards, and I believe that you all have a small stack in front of you The purpose of these cards are if you're at a fast food establishment or any just anywhere And you're having a conversation with somebody and they're giving you excellent customer service and you're thinking wow They would they would actually fit in great at Metro or they may know somebody you may get into a conversation with them And oh my my brother-in-law just got laid off and he's looking for work or my sister-in-law this or that So that's what the purpose of these cards are so that you can just say oh my gosh look here We're you know hiring at Metro not too much information on the cards But just enough information so that they know where to go where to look and Get more information So this is the flyer that actually operations developed I'm going to give them all the credit because it's a beautiful flyer and they came up with that We also had it posted in the good time, so I mean down to Where we place the ad is our things that we're looking at I have a temporary employee right now on my staff And she's awesome. She actually rides our bus every single day So it was actually her idea that we posted on this side of the magazine so that it would stand out more So we're proud of that this Advertised our open houses and this is the flyer That we posted around so that people could come to these open houses and get more information I Was I attended the one yesterday. I did have probably two really good conversations But the purpose of the open houses Weren't so much to find the greatest candidates I mean we're sitting right there right where the buses pull up and so these are people getting on and off the buses So it wasn't I mean of course if we met somebody that'd be great We were out there with stacks and of applications and interest cards But it was more to have the conversations about Getting you know getting the information out there and let people know that we were hiring We we had applications out there for both What we have posted now, which are the the para cruise paratransit operators and fixed route But we also had a book out there that listed Upcoming possibilities and then in that with specs to those jobs So we had people looking through our binder and if there was something that caught their eye We had them fill out an interest card and we told them we would hold those so that if those positions If and when those positions opened we would contact them and say hey, we got your interest card Wanted to let you know it's now posted on our website. Please check it out. So Daniels Argoza and Alex Clifford actually came up with an idea to how to reach out to our Mostly Spanish-speaking community Maybe maybe doing jobs where they don't know that there are better opportunities out there So we have an employee his name is I don and he actually started With Metro 13 years ago he used to work in the strawberry fields picking strawberries and Ended up having to get a second job ended up getting a security job in Metro. That's how he found out about Metro So within being a security guard there Paratransit operator position opened up. He applied for it got it has worked for us for 13 years And just now got promoted over to fixed route. So they came up with a really good idea so Daniel and I met with a consultant and We Had a consultant help us put together an ad so this is a full-page color ad and the Laganga Paper that runs in in Watsonville in Spanish And so they did an interview with him and then they translated it into a Spanish and had it posted this Hit last Friday, I believe it's gonna go for 30 days And I have the English version if you would like I can read it to you or our interpreter can interpret What it says to me to read it I think you can just pass it around. Okay. Okay, so it just tells his story about where he started what how he got into Metro and Talks about how it's great and to come in and be part of Metro I would also Advertise the open houses that we have any questions. I think yes, and we investigated or In terms of not just the feasibility but the bang for the buck of paying people are who from our current staff who? Recommend somebody for the job, and then we end up hiring them. They get a you know one-time cash Binders fee or whatever we have not it's it's hit the list of one of those things to talk about Because there are some agencies doing that, but we're not actively doing it. Yeah Yes, I I sent a couple questions about this indeed was one of the websites Monterey Bay help wanted calm What about our adult ed schools? I mean we have one of our council members of City of Watsonville Dr. Bilicich, which is a director of the Watsonville Santa Cruz adult school CET is another one that's in Watsonville Getting to some of those agencies where there are some adults actually attending classes for not only their their status to get their The immigration part of things to go ahead and get their Their naturalization, but maybe even community action board You have Alcance. I think that's through the community action board Might be a very good resource because they're helping out The day worker center, which is also with community action board. That's over on I believe 17th Avenue So I think there's some few a few other resources that might be very beneficial to check into I appreciate that Just seconding the recruitment bonus we've used that periodically with PD in Santa Cruz and There are benchmarks. It's not just for giving a name. It's for a successful hire and then Being retained after a period of time. So you use your own staff and and I think that can be pretty economical frankly I Had a second suggestion which is I don't know what we've done with UCSC and Cabrillo both But particularly UCSC in the early years of the district We actually had two people with PhDs driving buses making more money speaking as a former English graduate English literature graduate You know, there are people that grab they want to stay in Santa Cruz County that are graduating this 19,000 students at UCSC we might consider You know recruiting those folks and and someone that we pay well enough here and And the benefits are good enough that some people that are thinking what do I want to do with my life? They might not just come for one year and disappear. They might actually decide this is a career They want so that's a huge pool of people and a lot of them go to the career center on campus and ask, you know What are my possibilities? We might want to do some more stuff with them Absolutely, and that's why at the job fair that we did a cook and a grow We actually brought a paratransit operator and a fixed-rate operator with us And so they were there to answer any questions There was a few for example a few females that came up and oh, what are you guys hiring for and so as soon as we started Saying it they're like, oh, yeah, no, I'm okay But right behind them were our two I called them our junior recruiters because they did so well And they just ran up and oh, no, I do it and we pay for training And so we thought it was really important to have the actual people there that do the do the job So they can talk about it's not as scary as it looks, you know You you you could do it and we train you and and but we just can't train you to be nice You know if you're if you're a good person and you have good customer service and friendly We can teach you all the rest and so that's why we we had our operators with us and so they actually There was one female in particular who was kind of you know if he and I swear They talked to her for about 20 minutes And she was just in awe after that and fill out an application and she's supposed to be sending us her h6 so great north cut you have a Remember oh, I want to invite you and maybe I can take some of your materials But we also have a college and career night that's happening October 29 from six to eight, okay, so I think that's Monday and The student Senate since we are supporting the metro system. We are happy to give out some of those Flyers and our carts great. I'm happy to steal employees away from other places. That's what you're telling me I Suggestion, yeah, if they're good people Yeah college and career night is a very big night at Cabrillo a lot of the high schools have people send people there It's it's very well populated Yes Posted on the buses. I mean I know that we're limited on the advertising part of it, but we're hiring. Yeah, okay Just making sure that We're also posting it at our customer service locations just so that it's up there and it's an eye-catcher Yes, mr. Chair directors, I hope this has served to show you that we're trying to be creative The environment of recruiting has changed As a matter of fact, there was a report out last week a nationwide report about millions of jobs unfilled across the nation It's something has changed in a big way and even in a localized way You know the traditional sort of monster calm kinds of things just don't work anymore And so we have to be more aggressive in trying to figure out how to get out to the folks that need to be exposed Our information How would you not come to work for Metro the pay is good the benefits are just incredible And so you look at this one campaign and how creative it is This is mostly Daniel I'm mostly the guy who kind of throws darts at things to make sure we try to get it right But the this is tailored to an example of somebody who was doing backbreaking work in the field Probably wasn't getting benefits has found his way to Metro Has now good pay benefits for his family and has even promoted since coming aboard. That's the kind of example That we need to figure out how to put out there more and more to entice people to come here And even their campaign, I think it was zero that came up with this the little business card idea You know how many times have you pulled through a McDonald's don't admit that you eat McDonald's But how many times have you pulled through a fast food place and the person just gives really good customer service No, you can be accused of poaching right, but hey, we'd like to have them come work for us We'd probably give them better benefits than that fast food place just an example Mike. You suggested the other day to me look look at Churches particularly in the Watsonville area where you have large numbers of people coming. They probably have some sort of pamphlet or Agenda or something like that we could advertise in we're gonna look into that. That's a great idea It's another way to get get to the masses Alex on your point scuffle a PD's hired a police officer and a dispatcher from Starbucks so And they both have done very well This is the downside of three and a half percent unemployment in Santa Cruz County, right? It's it's it's a challenge Thank you Thank you very much Barrow will give us an update. Yeah We have an update on Educating the public about the benefits of Senate bill one Or you could say proposition six I guess to right this is a real quick reminder here Everyone knows that this issue is over worth over two and a half million dollars Annually to Metro and we won't get into the details of that until and if we have to deal with it but This is this would result in a need for us to make some more hard Decisions relating to providing service to our primarily transit dependent writers Just a couple of things here in terms of public education Metro like many other agencies has adopted and promoted resolutions that you all pass Opposing prop 6 we also use the last two editions of this To feature on the vehicles on the front and on the inside The explanation of where how we did it in two cycles back in the summer We talked about what we were able to do with the money and now we talked about it being at risk with you know Bruce's presentation and those press events we did so We've also contributed Information to a singular county-wide map of projects that are out there and there was a lot of planning going on for major efforts by the government agencies To to do more here But however an extensive campaign sponsored specifically us was not implemented based on a number of things discussions with our peers and their legal councils and Extensive discussions with California transit Association staff who provided input from the no on prop 6 campaign And the reality here is it is legal for us to go out and educate But there is a very strong sense among the campaign and the CTA staff that Efforts like this sort of out of the norm of our regular behavior and particularly in the last month leading up to elections Would seem inappropriate and the important point here although strictly legal educational efforts by other agencies around the state have resulted in some significant bad press related to acts Accusations of expensive public resources on campaigning for a particular result now ultimately those weren't factual But trying to play with the news cycle and tamp down the issue so It's it's been difficult Ironically the fact that there's been some backlash press against Supposing inappropriate Activity by government agency has actually handed a theme or a message to the pro 6 campaign Which doesn't have as much traction so in that sense We've got to trust that the polls are looking fairly positive and there's no need for us to The risk is higher than the reward of us getting out there and possibly suffering accusations Which can't be played back. We know the realities of media cycle And lastly as you've all received your materials about the campaign In all their testing of messages early transit is not the message you're pushing. They're pushing safety bridges Roadways we have firefighters. We have police. We have emergency crews So there's not a lot of resonance in the transit message while it having a high risk of the generic Look at those government people doing these things. So I hope the path. We've chosen has been the wise one and that's I just say nothing in what you've said means that individual members of the board can't go out there and talk to people about what would happen to this agency and Public transportation in the county if there is six were to pass It's a different issue of whether the agency is actually publishing stuff and spending money to do it and so forth But nothing stops us from going out there and making these arguments and we should be doing it We can and we are and I think what's encouraging is in all the local campaigns individual candidates and advocacy organizations political organizations have Strongly included the no one six message in the door hangers the statements the logos they're throwing on their stuff So we're getting a lot of piggybacking on other political efforts very very strongly Do we have any polling information about this? I know that it's frequently brought up of you know, we're There's statewide I've seen at least two polls that look It's Going down, but it's close, but it's going it's failing at the statewide polls I've seen two of them big big polls. We're not doing a local polling on this Local news channel last night showing Yeah, the the most recent information couple of polls It really boils down to how you asked the question and Which is pretty typical. Yeah, depending on how you ask it We're marginally winning or marginally losing so it's it's right there on the edge and you know, hopefully You know the folks watching this will understand that You know, we need we need to do our part here in this county and and support SB 1 and Understand that if prop 6 passes what we'll lose and what we will lose is magnified as you go across the state And we will hopefully do our part to offset What may happen in other counties that are that are not as sensitive as we are to the transportation needs Well, I think this is also in light of Making sure that we have the voter turnout out there because those that are loyal voters are normally more conservative on voting Conservatively so it's it's a really big push to say that this might not be a big huge hype election But it's still significant especially in measures like this that are on there and how it affects a lot of the agencies Okay Don't think we need any other public comment We can move on to item number 17 update on the October 17th special board meeting and I would just like to summarize that it seemed Very positive output. Everybody had a good viewpoint Wanted to add to the discussion and not deter from what we want to be doing I think everybody was on the bus so to speak and I Really appreciate the effort that was put into that. It was very worthwhile And a lot of what we talked about and what we want to do is going to be Determined by just what we discussed proposition 6 If it it does not pass we have some Opportunities if it does pass we're gonna have to be looking at some cutbacks probably so Barrow did you want to summarize some of the discussion? Yeah, and I'll do this real quickly because we will continue on with this theme But it was worthy to report back so thank you first to all of you both board and management team that participated But I'm just gonna touch very quickly on three items, and I'm not gonna read them Even though it wants to jump without me touching it There you go. So what I thought was a very helpful our facilitator Let us through an exercise at the start of the day was to remind ourselves It's not all as doom and gloom as we all talk about and there was a conversation generated above both Management team and board to all the various successful things we've done in the last three or four years And I think that's a very important Premise for when you start digging into the hard work and we do Alex directs us to do that annually at Metro And it's a good reality base to give yourself a bit more oomph going forward So I'm not gonna read them, but you all recognize the things that we spoke about I mean at the very top was things related to financial realities, but there's a whole lot of specific Project related things in there. We've built up our operational Structure here to do business well, and then we've done some very specific initiatives and again We won some grants and it's given us a chance to be successful. We've tightened up our relationship with the Colleges the Rio stepping forward with the bus stop program. So we've done lots of good things So anyway with that as a background the most important thing we did during the day was Take a first cut at what are the things we really have to focus on what a focus on what are our strategic priorities? And one of the best thing about it out as the day unfolded. I'm not touching this. I don't know why Anyway, the key point was the man the key word here is alignment the board and the management were in pretty clear alignment on Those things that were obviously most important and out of strategic big level rose above everything else at some point We wanted to debate should you have five six or seven? You know in a generic sense of priorities, but the reality is those things are all of those are vitally important to Metro Right now, and we were using a theme recently Metro has been a fix mode for the last at least the last four years We want to move on to the build mode, but we still got some tightening up to do which is why this prop six is so important So I you know without reading them safety finance service Technology rose up to this level because it's so vital to both our internal like external workings The employees that's the heart of it, and you hear over and over the 62 buses That's stated repair, and we won't make it without our partnerships around the town So as you know staff will go away and build on that and come back to you which leads to my closing Which is we told you then that that was just the first step of a process the strategic business Development of the strategic business plan is not just one day talking about it. So It's just cycling through them right so it's the point being here. It's pretty obvious to me I've run one of these before and The key point here. This is the last slide So we'll come out of next week and our reality will be encouraging or a bit of a worry So just look for us to be engaging you again It may be through one of the Friday Committee days where we can get everyone together and take stock of the reality post prop six And then as I found very important in another property where I worked The third time we'd like to come together with you once we understand the big picture Financially is you got to start putting some initiatives in play if you're going to do anything more than create a nice brochure for the wall You've got to actually do actions to pursue the changes to achieve the next time you do that is in your budget preparation for the next fiscal year When I was at Sam trans we went through this process and lead up to the next year We allocated X dollars to initiatives for the strategic plan They got costed they got a sign and you reported back the next year and the next year we did more So it's really doing it rather than hanging a nice thing on the wall. So that's my update on the process I'm really looking forward to the next six months to a year on this Thank you any comments from the board I just want to say that you know when we were in dire straits not too many years ago We we got a really good Summary of what the position we were in after the recession and I really appreciate beginning with our CEO Alex Clifford on down Or up or around that we we had a target We we had a reality check and we we addressed it And I think we did to the credit of the board and the whole all the employees of Santa Cruz Metro I want to say thank you because we got some through some really tough times And I hope we don't have to go through that kind of a situation again After this November 6th election, so I just want to say thank you to getting us into the better position that we're in Then we surely were four or five years ago and a lot of credit to our employees and our administration our whole staff So thank you very much Thank you Okay, we'll move on to Item number 18 except and file the year-to-date monthly flint financial report Good morning I know it's October, but happy new year for us. It's July 31st. That's what these financials are for today We're looking forward to having a good year our number so far Since it's the first of the month it's their first month of the year the month ending and the year-to-date ending numbers are exactly the same Our revenues are looking pretty good I'm going to detail when I get to some of the other slides and for our bottom line of our operating balances We are on the positive side of our operating balances of our revenue versus our expenses for the Budget versus Actuals we're looking pretty good here on the gold side the variance is here highway 17 We did have some higher ridership in July. So there's some additive revenues there Good pause a moment for sales tax the BOE or whatever they're calling themselves today Have decided that they are changing the way they give us our revenues are our sales tax revenue And so this in my opinion is an ex an exasperation of something They gave us this money in July and I will tell you the money that we got in August and September Art isn't even close to this. So we're not sure what's going on with them We know that taxes are being collected out there, but the way that the money is coming in is very erratic They've changed the way that they've done their schedule They've changed the way that they're giving us money for trying to get some more information Debbie said multiple conversations with them So I don't want you get all excited that yay We got a whole bunch of money in July and that should keep going just want to quantify your expectations that we did come in much Less in August and September and so if I look at September's numbers right now We're dead even almost with our budget. So director Matthews. You have a question. Yeah Our local jurisdictions having that same experience with pass through everybody's having the same thing Yeah, we have got a large amount of money in July and then it's been off all the way place for August and September So maybe in October, we'll find out what's going on for other revenue That's our advertising are in our interest income right now and we're right on track for federal operating money on The expense side we are under budget on almost all of our expenses except on the overtime On the overtime This is the one that I always tell you to take the first three Columns the two blues and the one red put that all together you get favorable a variant variants of about $225,000 between those three three buckets As you just heard we hired a lot of people but we do still have a whole bunch of vacancies right now Additionally, we have extended unpaid leaves that Employees are continuing to take and we have some lower work of comp insurance Positive things that are happening in that area right now On the service side, we've just started our fiscal year So we have some professional services that are budgeted that we haven't quite started yet on the mobile materials and supplies I think we're Missing a fuel bill on that one. That's why we're on the positive side of the fuel costs for the month of July And our settlement costs are a little bit on the bad side We have a couple of settlements, but again, it is only the first month of the year This is a new slide Want to show you the transfers that we're doing into our reserves as we as the board committed We're gonna do about three million dollars a year into our capital reserves. This is just the start of it We put a hundred seventy five thousand dollars in there the month of July again because we got that additional revenue in July We put more in there than what was budgeted for the month of July I'm going to guess to say that you'll probably see less going in in August and September because Other revenues for the sales tax for measure D being less than what we budgeted for those two months in the end We still expect to put her on two million dollars in You said three Capital budget, this is the revenues that were spent for the capital budget We have about a 17 million dollar capital budget for the month of July. We spent a hundred fifty eight thousand dollars of that These are the pots of the revenues that we spent and This is where we spent it on the non-revenue side. We bought a tow motor Sarah and Eddie can go into details if you want to know what that is on the construction related projects That's a little bit of metro based residuals and the transit security projects that were involved in on the revenue Vehicles we have fixed route buses some of the leases that are going in there Pericrew spans that we've acquired and we also have some bus repaints that are going on that are coming out of that capital budget and on the additional information piece a Year ago our unemployment was at five point five and this past July was at four point two I think it is coming down as directly appalled said it's in the threes right now on Our gas we are at two ninety nine a year ago, and now we're up to three seventy nine On the monthly ridership About the same you can see where the dots on each side of that graph are about the same area And then on the highway 17 in Cumbria again, it's approximately the same So looking forward this is just a snapshot of where we think September may end up on our revenues Just a quick look at them right now before we close the books Our revenue is slightly under because of the sales tax I just told you about but our operating expenses are way under we're about a million six under on the operating expenses The transfers of budget as I indicated are a little less than what we budgeted again because of the measure d sales tax Kind of going all over the map, but in the end for September We believe that we're under budget by about a million six and so that's You know three four months in we're we're doing pretty good so on to the uncontrollable wrist slide The biggest risk as we are all painfully aware of is going to be honest and about What ten days ten days or so and so if That passes we will lose about two point three million dollars this year if it does not pass then we can continue on with our Plan of the money going into our operating budget by a million four and the plan of the money going by about $985,000 and do our capital budget and that's it any questions Any other questions from the board public have any input this we can accept this report Maybe we should take it most have a motion move second. That's moving second. All those in favor Oh Thanks, we have a approval of a consideration of a contract to GMV chromatics for purchase installation of an Intelligent transportation system not to exceed 2.2 million dollars Is it good morning? Good morning chair members of the board I'm very pleased to present. We're back again back from the July 22nd Or is July 22nd I believe board meeting where it was approved to for us to proceed with the procurement So I'm pleased to present a proposed contract award for the installation of an intelligent transportation system or ITS as we were For going forward to our fixed route fleet So after reviewing seven received proposals our evaluation team Selected GMV synchromatics as the highest ranking firm And we really found that they were what one thing that really stood out to us with them was that they're they utilize open standards And they integrate well with other systems, and they're not proprietary among other things So consequently staff is recommending that the board authorizes CEO to execute a contract on behalf of Metro with GMV Synchromatics or this ITS in the amount not to exceed 2.2 million dollars So this additional amount of six hundred eighteen thousand six hundred fifteen dollars Beyond the original approved budget Would allow for the inclusion of the optional automated passenger counters or APC vehicle health monitoring and pre-trip inspection components for the base AVL or to augment the a base AVL and ABA Including the passenger application or the mobile application So we are seeking to fund these off additional options as they would provide Valuable features such as ridership data for planning and TD reporting which helps with our federal funding and Real-time vehicle status for our maintenance team So if the additional amount is not of authorized where the CEO chooses not to authorize it assuming it's approved We would forgo the optional features and at this point and proceed with the installation of the base system I'd just like to take a big or give a big thanks and shout out to the evaluation team and purchasing We made this they made this happen very fast considering the compressed timeline for this evaluation. I concludes my presentation any comments Well, I'm going to continue my four years of enthusiasm and support for this project We're finally moving into this century and bringing our system and district up to the standard that we should be at And I think it's really really exciting I appreciate the work that staff has put into this and finding the right vendor and I think this is really going to change how Folks experience the transit district and really improve access ridership and all the things that we need So thank you so much for your work on this. Thank you, dire