Well, good morning everyone. Today is Thursday, June 3rd, 2021. We welcome you to the regional transportation commission meeting. Just to start off, let everybody know again, good morning. This is the RTC meeting and it's the June 3rd, 2021 meeting. For all the communication, there will be only allowed two minutes and any item on the agenda also for oral communication will be added only two minutes. With that, could we have roll call, please? Commissioner Bertrand. I'm here. Commissioner Brown. Here. Commissioner Johnson. Here. Commissioner Montecino. Back to him. Commissioner Caput. Commission alternate Schifrin. Here. Commission alternate Mulher. Here. Commissioner Koenig. Here. Commissioner McPherson. Here. Commissioner Peterson. Here. Commissioner Gonzalez. Here. Commissioner Rotkin. Commissioner Rotkin, you're on mute. Second. Here. Sorry. I don't know if Commissioner Montecino came back, but we do have a commissioner Hearst. OK. Yes, I'm here. So we can continue with him for the closed session. I don't I think Commissioner Montecino is trying to come in. I've seen him trying to come in. So he might join you in a closed session. OK. So now to the public just for the information, we're going to be going to closed session and then we will be turning back to the meeting. So we'll see you folks in a bit. Mr. Chair, the commissioners receive the closed session link from Ian Berry this morning in your email. We need to take public comment on closed session item. Oh, yeah. Thank you for reminding me, Mike. Is there anybody in the public that like to speak on the closed session item? You should maybe announce what the topic of that item is. Closed session item A1 is public employee performance evaluation and closed item 1B is conference with labor negotiators. OK. The public would like to speak on those and either those items. I'm keen. Rocklebank. G. Oh, yes, I'm here. I'm I'm sorry. I thought the I'm confused. I thought oral communications came before the closed session. I wanted to speak on oral communications. I'm very sorry. No, that's quite all right. This is we just have an item that we put first and then we'll be coming back to our communication. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Commissioner Chair Gonzalez, if I may please. The public may not be aware that there was a revised agenda that was posted to our website. So if you haven't seen that yet, you may want to be revised agenda, which shows items 1A and 1B in closed session. So there are there are no other hands up commissioner Gonzalez. OK, so we did make an announcement that this is a closed session and this item 1A and 1B that was added to the agenda. And those are revised agenda. So hopefully everybody understands we will be coming back to oral communication. So I'll give one more opportunity for anybody that wants to speak on a closed session item, which is the public employee performance evaluation of the executive director and the conference with labor negotiations. Chair, well, well, the original link when we come back to the open session will still work? Yes, it should. Yes. Good question, Randy. Thank you. Never know what technology. OK, so folks, we'll be back. We're going to go into closed session and we will turn it hopefully properly. Are all the commissioners back in yet? I'm missing. I've seen Patrick, but he disappeared. He's here. He's his camera's not on, but he's back. OK. And Eduardo. Eduardo's back on. I don't see him. I don't see him. Commissioner Gonzalez. I neglected to call Commissioner Scott Eads when we did the roll call. I want to make sure it's on the record. I'm here. Thanks. Oh, Scott Eads. I'm in front of the desk. Of course. OK, well, welcome back, everybody. Today's RTC meetings, June 3, 2021. We're going to come back from closed session. Steve, do you want to? Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. There are the commission met on both closed session items. There is no reportable action out of closed session. And we will have a separate closed session on different items at the end of this meeting, Mr. Chair. Thank you. OK, with that, we're going to go back to the open session. Oral communications, just a reminder for the public. It is a two minute time limit on oral communications. Anything that's not on the agenda, no item that's on the agenda. Now it's your time to be able to speak. So we can go and start with oral communications from the public. We have Matt Machado and Ben Vernassa. Chair recognizes Matt Machado. Good morning. Can you hear me? Yes. Great. Good morning. My name is Matt Machado. I'm the county's deputy CAO and director of Public Works. And so good morning, Chair and commissioners. I want to start by thanking you for your continued investment in our region's infrastructure. I would also like to share a high priority for county public works is to pursue improved bicycle lanes and pedestrian facilities on both urban collectors and critical rural corridors. These needs are largely unfunded, but nonetheless critical to our entire community. They are the connectors of all of our citizens and communities throughout this county. I'm planning to regularly share the details and magnitude of this need. And I'm hopeful that working together, we can find a solution to funding these improvements. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Thank you, sir. We have Mr. Ben Vernassa, then Jean Brocklebank. Chair recognizes Mr. Ben Vernassa. Good morning, Ben Vernassa here. I want to talk about the item 17 on the agenda and congratulate him. You should wait for items for the consent agenda then. On the consent agenda. Yeah, that'll come up in a minute later. Okay, that's what I'd like to talk about. We'll wait till later. Thank you. Thank you, Ben. Jean Brocklebank. Chair recognizes Jean Brocklebank. Good morning, commissioners. I want to take this opportunity to spell a myth, a rumor and some lies about those of us who support Greenway's goals are, lumping us into a category. My husband and I are not young. I'm 76, he's 71. We own no property anywhere. We are low income residents who have no pensions, living on less than $28,000 a year in a rent controlled mobile home park in Live Oak. We own two used bicycles, which we use for errands, not recreationally. Also, we are primarily daily pedestrians, transporting ourselves and our purchases. We do not invest in the stock market. We are not Republicans and not associated with the Koch brothers. Lastly, and most importantly, we are environmentalists, both of us. Both of us have been active environmentalists for over 50 years, both Michael's 50 years and my 50 years. We are very conservative environmentalists, but we are probably the most radical environmentalists there are here in Santa Cruz County. So I hope that as you read in the public media or elsewhere and hear the rumors that are being perpetuated about those of us who are not active with Greenway, but who support Greenway's goals, some of us are not what we are made out to be by the rumors and the myth and the lies. Thank you so much for understanding we too members of the public. I do not see any other hands up commissioner. Oh wait, one of them just went up. Ryan Tarnatora. Chair, can I do this, Ryan? Yes, hello. This is Ryan Tarnatora from Live Oak. In your packets, though I submitted it last time you'll see a little bit of information on segment seven B which is currently potentially going to be major construction project. And I spoke about it a little bit last time and I think that in light of the fact that there's a more distinct possibility that the tracks are no longer gonna be needed in their current locations in the near term and that trails are going to be built. I think an examination of the environmental impact, the environmental damage that will happen as a result of the current plan is really warranted. And I do hope that you folks put this on your agenda indeed to try and intervene with this. I understand that there's many millions of dollars worth of spending that would come out of this and that could be a goal in itself but if you take a look at the final product which is going to be the removal of a large number of trees, the removal of a natural grade and instead the installation of retaining walls up to 20 feet high and whatever kind of hazards those have. And then you take a look at it from the point of view of a hundred years from now where whatever that infrastructure is is going to need to be maintained, whatever dangers there are if somebody falling 20 feet from onto pavement are still going to be there. Again, I'm just urging that this particular area be reexamined as the moving target of what happens in the corridor changes to what I believe to be a much more rational path. Thanks. Thank you, Ryan. Lowell Hurst. Chair recognizes Lowell Hurst. Thank you very much commissioners and thanks to the public for tuning in today. Here I am on the west side, the west side of Watsonville basking in the fog but I still like to go places. I don't go as many places as I used to but I still like to go places. Recently I went to the rail trail right there in Watsonville and had a wonderful walk and bask in the sunshine and the fog along the rail trail and thought that, hey, this is so interesting. Let's see where these rails go. So my wife and I went to Moss Landing. Well, we actually went to Elkhorn Slough and guess what you find in Elkhorn Slough? Yes, there's otters and all kinds of bird life and the wonderful botanical species but there's a rail line that runs right through the middle of Elkhorn Slough and I thought to myself, gosh, if you can put a rail line through this pristine unbelievable wetland, one of the largest on the west coast, certainly, and people actually ride on it and there are trains that run on it and they actually are going through Pajaro, right through the Pajaro Valley. So a stone's throw away, all kinds of possibilities there. I just asked the commissioners and the public to continue an open mind on all these subjects. Hey, and let's have the RTC keep us moving, get us moving and keep us moving. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Hearst. There are no other hands up commissioners Gonzalez. Okay, I wait for just a bit just to ensure that nobody had difficulty logging in. We're gonna go ahead and move on to item, all the additions and deletions to consent and regular agendas. We do have some handouts and some replacement pages that hope everybody received. Yes, Chair Gonzalez, we have a revised agenda, replacement pages for item 30 and handouts for items 16, 29, 30 and 31 which are posted on RTC's website. Thank you, Executive Director Gray. We're gonna go ahead and move on to the consent agenda. Now it's with that guy that wanted to comment on it. Should you come back? Yeah. So anybody from the public, they'd like to speak on a consent agenda item now at the time. Mr. Ben Vernasa. Chair recognizes Mr. Ben Vernasa. Okay, I'm on. I wanna talk about two items, 17 and 19. First of all, regarding the software, I think that's wonderful. I think you're really going in the right direction and it's gonna be very helpful when I talk a little bit about item 19. You may or may not heard of GASB, Government Accounting Standard Board. They're coming up with new regulations, standards that CCA must follow in government audits. And it's gonna be a significant change. Basically, the accrual basis will come in to the statements. And it's very important to understand how that's gonna work so that your budgeting can take care of picking up liabilities that you already have. So what I'm proposing is that after June 30th, Mr. Preston and the financial officer and the oversight committee meet with the auditors regarding what these changes might be, they're not gonna affect the audit for the year ending June, but it will be effective for years after that. So we can plan ahead for these changes and how we keep our books. One other item is the superintendent of schools for the county of Santa Cruz has got enthusiastic support from all high schools in the county to start youth and fly program next year. Thank you. Thank you, Ben. Mr. Bryan Peoples. Chair recognizes Mr. Bryan Peoples. Yes, hi, excuse me, this is Bryan Peoples from Trail Now on item number 16. I just wanna raise awareness. It was very confusing to Mr. Mendes' objective. He has an objective person under the overall work program to find a recreational train service along the entire rail line from Davenport to Watsonville. That property was purchased for transportation purposes, not a recreational train. We've tried that, been there, having a train that creates more smog, more traffic just as an amusement park ride really is not appropriate for taxpayers to fund that. So it's unclear why staff would have an objective to have recreational train service in the objective. It's 2022. So I think we need to have clarification on that. Surely that's not the charter of this organization. We need to use that corridor for transportation, transit, transportation, not a recreational train. Appreciate your time, thank you. Thank you. I do not see any other hands up commission or consultants. We have Barry Scott. We just got Barry Scott, yeah. Chair recognizes Mr. Barry Scott. Thank you. I'd like to, this is Barry Scott, I live in Aptos and I'd like to speak to the points that Mr. Peoples made regarding recreational service. It's part of the, what's called the ACL, the contract for rail services includes excursions and third-party services. And that's part of what keeps, I believe, the county in compliance with Prop 116 funds while we pursue rail transit plans that use of the rail line for contemporary so-called tourist services or excursion services keeps us in compliance but it also uses the line, which is a good thing, both for the rail carrier for business and for the rail line itself physically. So I'm grateful that the RTC is taking care of that rail line that's part of, I think, your charter and something else about excursion services. You know, in a town like this, an excursion, even a temporary excursion service would become a regular, at least in part, commuter service. You have, for example, I lived in New York for a while on Roosevelt Island where there's a tram. Some of you may be familiar with it and it's used by tourists, possibly more than by residents of Roosevelt Island. I used it to get to work in back but mostly it was tourists on this thing. So it's not just A or B, sometimes it's A and B. If you run something to Davenport and back for tourists and cyclists, people are gonna use it to commute. If you run something between Capitola and the boardwalk or the west side, there's gonna be tourists using it that people can use it to get to work too. So there's no such thing as exclusively tourists, right? Another example would be the Staten Island Ferry which gets a lot of tourists running it but it's really a vital link for people who live on Staten Island. So, and I just wanna thank you for all the work you're doing on the rail line. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Scott. Do not see any current hands up. That's an opportunity for anybody to like to have. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner McPherson here. I just wanna verbally acknowledge and thank Congresswoman Anna Eshoo for submitting two projects to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. She's asking for funding for the Boulder Creek Complete Streets Improvement Project and the Scott Creek Coastal Resilience Project. Thank you very much. Those represent my district and your congressional district yourself. So I just wanna verbally thank Congresswoman Eshoo for bringing us forward. Thank you. Thank you, Chair McPherson for that. Last call for the public. Is anybody in for the public? They'd like to speak on any item on the consent agenda. If not, I'm gonna go ahead and close that and I'll bring it to the commissioners. Any commissioner, they'd like to speak on any item on the consent agenda or pool any item on the consent agenda. Move approval of the consent agenda. Second. We have a motion for approval of a Mike Rutkins and a second from my entity, Schifrin. Do we have a roll call? Commissioner Bertrand. I agree. Commissioner Brown. I. Commissioner Johnson. I. Commissioner Hurst. Alternate Hurst. Yes. Commissioner Caput. I. Commissioner Alternate Schifrin. I. Commissioner Alternate Mulherr. I. Commissioner Koenig. I. Commissioner McPherson. I. Commissioner Peterson. I. Commissioner Gonzales. I. And Commissioner Rockin. Passes unanimously. Thank you. We're gonna go ahead and move on to the regular agenda items. Commission reports, oral reports. Is there any commissioner they'd like to have an oral report or communication? Seeing none. I will just make a quick comment. You know, last year before the pandemic hit us, we were hoping to have a demonstration by the light rail service provider, TIG. And I just want to know where we stand with that. And as if anybody is interested that this demonstration continue on. I'd love, I mean, yeah, you're asking if we're interested. I'd love to see it. It'd be interesting.  Like you can't go over several of the bridges and so forth. But no, I'd love to see how that thing operates. And I don't, it's not a, I hope it's not a political issue about, you know, how we feel one way or the other about when rail should come and what, whatever. But just to see how this light rail stuff operates would be great. And if we're not, it doesn't cost us anything. Apparently they're bearing the cost of it, of this demonstration. So I'd love to see it. Okay. Is there any, I don't know if you'd have to make a motion to put it on next agenda item as an agenda item for approval. Does it require further staff? Do we do, does the staff, that's a question to our executive directors, does the staff need, we already authorized this. Do we need additional authorization for you to invite and work out a date with them when they would come and make sure they're paying for all of it and so forth? I'm actually over a year ago before the pandemic, the commission did authorize me to enter into a temporary license agreement that would allow this to take place, you know, due to the amount of time that has passed. I wasn't sure if the commission still desired to do so. So having today's input is helpful, you know. So really no additional action is needed if that is the desire of the commission. Chair recommends this job, commissioners, the time. Thank you, Chair. Since our next meeting will be in August, I was wondering if we could consider going back to regular meetings or at least some sort of hybrid. And I asked staff to make some recommendations. Oh, that'd be good. Thank you. So back on this other question, does anybody, if nobody objects, we don't need to vote and staff will just go ahead with it. I understand we're talking about, you know, three days or a week or something. This is not a long running operation. They're gonna come to town, put it on the tracks, give people a chance to ride it, whatever. And then they'll go away after about a week. Yeah. Chair, recognize the alternate commissioner Lowell first. Thank you very much. On this subject, I think seeing is believing and a personal experience is really important. You know, it's great to theorize things and see pictures and films and all kinds of other stuff. But when you actually experience something, then you can really get a feel for it one way or another. And so I endorse the demonstration. The demonstration. Thank you. Commissioner McPherson. Yeah, I just want to mention, I think this is gonna be the last meeting for Patrick Mulherr who is not on the screen right now, but he's going to be moving to the Carolinas and he's been a valuable member, alternate member for Supervisors Act friend on this commission for years now. And I just want to thank him for his input and everything he's done and said for this organization. And very much appreciated. He's been a really tremendous asset for the Regional Transportation Commission. And I suggest a round of applause for him. We all appreciate his work. When is Bruce, when is Patrick going to leave? Or Patrick, maybe you could tell us. This is a big surprise to me. Yeah. Let's see. Maybe to Patrick too. I have a question. When are you leaving? I was at Patrick when I was interned with Monnings. I was working on my master's in public policy. And so I first met Patrick many years ago and had a great relationship with him. So this is quite a, boy, this is quite a blow to the area as far as I'm concerned. Yeah. Well, Patrick, sounds like you're going to be missed dearly. Wish you the best. I don't know of these. I am aware that Patrick has already started his other job and I know he's doing double duty today. So I mean, he may have had to drop off the line for a moment. So that's why he may not. We'll congratulate him at the end again. But he plans on being back shortly. Okay. So we'll move on. I guess that was enough direction for staff to move forward with that request. Did I understand that correct? That's what Guy said. Guy, you're being asked a question whether you have enough sufficient. Yes. Now that said, there are several things that PIGM still needs to comply with in order for me to issue a license agreement with them. And those things have not been completed out this time. So if they're able to get those things completed and including authorization from Progressive Rail based on today's discussion and the previous authorization that was provided to me over a year ago, I can issue a license agreement for them to do a demonstration. Great. Thank you, Executive Director Guy. Okay, we're going to go ahead and move on now. I don't see no other fellow commissioner wanting to make a report or communication. We're going to go ahead to the director's report. Thank you, Chair Gonzalez and commissioners and members of the public. I'm going to start off with highlighting an item that just got approved on the consent calendar. Item 21 presented the fiscal year 1920 Measure D annual report. The report is the primary task for the Measure D taxpayer oversight committee and demonstrates accountability, transparency and public oversight of the Measure D funds. The report highlights any of the accomplishments of the RTC and its partner agencies in delivering the Measure D expenditure plan. My special thanks goes to the oversight committee. These are members of the public who donate their time to ensure we keep the public's trust. RTC's communication specialist Shannon Muntz with our lead staff in assisting the oversight committee with their work. I have an update on the Highway 1 program, the final environmental impact report, environmental assessment for the Highway 1 State Park to Bay Porter bus on shoulder ox lane project has been completed and is available on the RTC website. This is a major delivery milestone that was completed on schedule. RTC's consultant Mark Thomas and associates is continuing their work on the final design plans to be ready for construction in about a year. This project was fully funded as part of last year's successful $107.2 million grant from California Transportation Commission. The project is expected to actually break ground in 2023. RTC's engineering manager Sarah Christensen is our lead staff in managing the consultant's work. I have an update on one of the 2017 storm damage jobs on the branch rail line. RTC completed construction of the 2017 storm damage site three along Sumner Avenue in the Rio del Mar neighborhood. The project improvements include repair to damage slope and bankments, regrading of the drainage ditch and the installation of a new culvert. RTC's engineering manager Sarah Christensen is our lead staff in managing this work. I have an update on AB 43, the traffic safety and speed limit legislation. Earlier this year, assembly member Laura Friedman introduced AB 43, which would reform the way speed limits are established and give Caltrans, cities and counties more flexibility on setting speed limits on local roads and state highways. Currently, speed limits are set based on how fast people currently drive, which has resulted in steadily increasing speed limits over time. Think that. While not completely eliminating the 85% tile standard, the bill would allow cities, counties and Caltrans to consider areas such as business districts and schools and the safety of bicyclists and pedestrians with increased consideration for vulnerable pedestrian groups, including children, seniors, persons with abilities, users of personal assistive mobility devices and the unhoused when setting speed limits. The bill was approved by the state assembly on May 10th by a vote of 65 to three, and will be making its way through the state Senate committees later this year. The RTC is on record as supporting this bill strongly, which is consistent with the recommendations and RTC's Highway 9, San Lorenzo Valley Complete Streets corridor plan and the RTC's 2021 state legislative program. Congratulations and thank you to RTC senior planner, Ginger Dicar. Normally, we would do a call out after 10 years of service, but we missed it, like many events due to the pandemic. Nonetheless, 11 years is better than 10. Anyway, Ginger started with RTC as a volunteer intern. Her initial work was to assist Corey Coletti to produce the countywide bicycle map. Ginger had such great skills, education and dedication that once there was an opening for a transportation planner, she was immediately hired in May of 2010. Ginger immediately set up RTC's GIS tools and trained others in the application. Ginger also managed the freeway service patrol program and was the staff person to the safe on 17 task force working closely with the CHP, CalPRounds, multiple local jurisdictions and members of the media, including Mr. Roadshow, Gary Richards. More recently, Ginger has been RTC's lead staff on some of our most challenging assignments, including the 2040 regional transportation plan, the unified corridor investment study and the transit corridor alternatives analysis. She also managed a number of RTC grant applications, including the successful federal lands access program application that awarded over $6 million for the North Coast Rail Trail and last year's SB1 grant applications that awarded RTC a total of over 107 million for Highway 1 and Soquel Drive. Ginger never says no to a challenge. She has a key eye for detail, is very organized and a pleasure to work with. Congratulations on 11 years of service. Thank you, Ginger. Yacenia has a certificate for Ginger marking this milestone accomplishment. You're here. Thank you. Great work. And I would also like to thank Patrick Mulhern for his work on the commission. As stated by Commissioner Bertrand, he first began serving transportation community as a field representative for then assemblyman Monning, assisting with the implementation of RTC legislative priorities. Since then, Patrick has been very involved in RTC's work, which has included regular participation at both the Budget Administration and Personnel Committee and these commission meetings. Patrick stays well informed, asks pertinent questions and has been a dedicated and valuable member of the RTC community. Thank you, Patrick. There you go, Patrick. One more time. My report. Thank you, Patrick. Good job, Patrick. That concludes my report, Chair Gonzalez. Thank you, Executive Director Guy. So are there any questions for the Executive Director? Just a quick comment. I have a question. Hang on, Commissioner Johnson. Thank you, Chair. So under the new proposal by the state, which takes away the authority of the state mandating certain requirements before you change things like speed limits and so forth. Guy, do you see unintended consequences like every neighborhood where right now it's 25 miles per hour, but there's gonna be a hue and cry for neighborhoods to say we need 10 miles an hour because of, and you fill in the blank. It's always kind of been my understanding that there's a reason why people go certain speeds and even if you put up a 10 mile an hour speed limit, sometimes people just automatically go the speed that they think is safe. Is that a concern? Well, that is why the 85 percentile legislation I think existed in the first place, but it didn't allow for exceptions. So this legislation doesn't eliminate the 85 percentile requirement. It allows for certain exceptions due to certain circumstances and those would need to be granted by Caltrans. I don't expect that those exceptions would be granted indiscriminately. Commissioner, is your mic rocking? So it's on the same issue. I wanna appreciate what they've done. I don't know how many of you in your local jurisdictions have had the following problem, but the citizens come to you, the people are going 40 miles an hour on a little neighborhood street and you go, well, we'd like to help you and put some enforcement on that. And then it turns out the only way you can actually get enforcement is to start by saying that before you can even do anything to send any officers out there or radar or anything else or a sign telling people what speed they're going and slow down. The first thing you have to do is raise the speed limit on that street to the 85 percentile that was just talked about. So let's say they're going 40 miles, the average speed is 35 miles an hour on a 25 mile an hour zone. So the first thing you have to do is raise the speed limit on that.  The first thing you tell them is, okay, we'd like to help. And the first thing we're going to do is raise the speed limit on your street from 25 to 35. Then we'll be able to enforce stuff.  And over some period of years, eventually we'll get this traffic slow down on your street. People look at you like you're crazy. What do you think? Well, you asked you to slow the traffic down and you came and posted new speed signs at 35 miles an hour. So I'm so happy to know that there can, you know, again, not everywhere. And we have to have the backbone to stand up to people that want to reduce their speed limit which Randy raised a good point there. But for me, this opportunity to actually, you know, police and reduce speed limits on streets where there's really dangerous behavior going on without raising the speed limit as the first step is really a welcome relief. And I'm not in public office anymore, but I remember that as some of our worst public hearings. Oh yeah. Thanks for coming down. We'd like to raise your speed limit on your street because you complained about the speeding. Is there any other commissioners to have a question for the executive director? And I want to provide a clarification. You know, I mentioned Caltrans on the state routes. The counties and cities would have authorization to make exceptions on their roads and streets themselves. But I expect that those exceptions wouldn't be made indiscriminately either. One of the topics on that issue just really quick and brief was, you know, our chief of police indicated to us that we can reduce the speed limits, but we can't enforce them. There's an area where there's 40 miles an hour and we want to reduce it to 25. We can do it, but we wouldn't be able to take it anybody until they go over 40 miles an hour, which is kind of not very productive because if you can have a police officer sitting there and everybody sees a vehicle is going over 25, but under 40, they get really upset. So I'm glad that this is moving forward. It's good for the state and it's good for our communities to have a little bit of cool enforcement. Okay, with that, is there any other fellow commissioners? One more last time? No, seeing none. I'm going to go ahead and take this to the public. I know we had Brian's people hand up. Did he have any comments on the executive director's report? Does anybody from the public like to speak? Mr. Peoples. Mr. Brian's Peoples, would you like to make a comment on the executive director? Yes. This is Brian from Trail Now. I wanted to, can you hear me? Yes, yes. Okay, great. Hey, I wanted to recognize the RTC and staff and Sarah Christensen on the work they're doing for Highway 1, widening and getting that EIR on schedule. It's not often that public agencies are able to be successful because there's so many barriers. The public doesn't really see all the barriers. So this is a huge deal. And Highway 1 is the main corridor that goes through our community and widening that is critical to reduce traffic, not just on the highway, but on our surface streets because everybody, as we all know, they take shortcuts, just like you're talking about speeding through neighborhoods. We need to open the highway to get heavy vehicle traffic moving on that and not using our surface streets, making it safer for pedestrians and bicyclists. So congratulations on the work you're doing on that. Now, in addition to that, I wanna remind the commission that when we begin or the community begins widening the highway and the construction, it's going to be really a nightmare. And I'm not really seeing the efforts being made for mitigation, the word mitigation of how we're gonna mitigate that. And there's other major traffic issues gonna be taking place such as the Harbor or Murray Bridge, just gonna be under construction for two and a half years. So I'm hopeful that this commission begins communicating and planning how you're going to mitigate the major traffic problems we will be having over the next five years during all this construction. Thank you very much again and thank you, Sarah, for great work. Thank you all. Thank you, Mr. Hebels. Is there anybody else in the public that'd like to make comments on the executive director's report? I don't see any hands up at this point. I don't, you're not either. So we're gonna go ahead and not seeing any, we move on to the CalTrans report. Scott. Right, good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the board. Again, Scott Eads here with CalTrans. Just have a couple items for you. The first is just to let you know that the California Transportation Commission is thinking ahead and preparing for the next round of SB1 competitive funding grants. And those are the local partnership program, the solutions for congested corridors in the trade corridor enhancement program. SEC, RTC has recently been successful with one of those programs in the recent cycle. And so this is really gearing up for the next cycle. So just to let you all know, there's some workshops that are being planned for the coming year, beginning in August. You do need to sign up in advance. There'll be a lot of information posted on that. And then they'll be basically monthly from August into 2022. They intend to adopt the guidelines in summer of 2022 and then adopt the programs that come out of that call for projects in summer of 2023. Your staff is well aware of all these movements and we'll be watching it closely, I'm sure. Next item I wanted to highlight is that also a CTC related item is that there was a recent, if the recent May CTC meeting allocated $924 million statewide, a huge amount of money, about half of that was Senate bill one funds. And in district five, we had five projects that were allocated funding to move forward. And one of those was in Santa Cruz County on State Route 17 near Laurel Road. This is the Wildlife Undercrossing Project. And later in your agenda on item 29, Project Manager from Caltrans, Aaron Hinkle is here joining Rachel Marconi to talk about this project. So I won't get into details on that, but that's exciting news. $2.3 million were awarded to construct that coupled with other funding sources. That concludes my report. I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you, Scott, for that report. Thank you. Is there any commissioners that have any questions for the representative from Caltrans? Is there any comments from the public from the Caltrans report? Mr. Brian Peoples. Chair recognizes Mr. Brian Peoples. Yeah, hey, thanks. This is Brian from Trail Now. We lost you. Brian, you there? We lost your audio, Brian. Your audio's been lost from Brian. Now it's right, it's out, okay. Anyways, Scott, a few months back, you asked for us to the public to submit comments. About transportation improvements across the county and we advocate for that. And wanted to see, you know, one of the things that we're really promoting is a protected bike lane between Soquel and Highway One from Aptos Village, up to Rio, Del Mar, and then up to Freedom Boulevard. It's between when you're riding the highway. And really trying to find out how can that be incorporated into Caltrans plan when you widen the Highway One. So that, I don't know what the process is because it's not real clear and I'm throwing it back at you because you had asked the public for more input. So just throwing that back to see if there's any guidance you might be able to provide us. Thanks again for your time. Over. Thank you, Mr. Beavills. Mr. Ben Vernasa. They're recognizing Mr. Ben Vernasa. Yes, I'm curious about the Tressel with the fence that hang over. We've talked about this since last October. It's a distraction for those in the South Lane looking up at it as they go through that very narrow space. Please, let's get it done. Bye-bye. I don't see any other hands up. Commissioner Gonzales. Yep, no, neither. Okay, good. Thank you, public for those comments. We're going to go ahead and move on to item 29, the Highway One 17 wildlife crossing measure D project update by Rachel Morakoni. Good morning, commissioners. Rachel Morakoni of your staff. This morning we have, as Commissioner Eads mentioned, CalTrans project manager, Aaron Hinkel, with us to provide an update on the Highway 17 wildlife crossing project, which will connect two core wildlife habitat areas along Highway 17. As we know, highways can be a barrier for wildlife and mountain lions, deers and other animal routinely try to cross Highway 17 near Laurel Curve based on several years of studies. This oftentimes results in collisions with motorists. And so the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County, the Regional Transportation Commission, CalTrans and the community made creating a location along the highway where animals could cross safely without interacting with vehicles was identified as a priority. And in 2016, over two thirds of the voters of Santa Cruz County approved measure D, which included $5 million designated for this project. That funding is being matched by $3 million from the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County, as well as significant amounts of state highway operations and protection program funds, which were used by CalTrans during the pre-construction phases, as well as providing the support costs for this project. And so at this time I'm gonna hand it over to Erin and just recognize that there was a handout for this item and that we also have Dan Mediaros from the Land Trust available to answer questions after Erin's presentation. So with that, I'll hand it over to Erin if you wanna turn on your camera. Give me, can you give me a minute? Cause I do see Mediaros hand up. And I don't know if she had it. Oh, that's okay. I was just waiting to speak after the staff presented. Okay, go ahead. Sorry about that. No worries. Good morning to the commission, RTC staff and the public. I'm pretty excited that we're to where we are today. It's been a lot of work. A lot of people from your community and your constituents really raised this to help us get it to where it is today. But we actually are moving forward. I have to apologize. I'm three days off on my schedule. Originally I had it to advertise on the fourth of this month. I missed it by three days. It's going to advertise on the seventh. Bid openings will be the 15th of July. So we should pretty much be on schedule with being able to move into construction late September, early October with the project. The fact sheet that I hope you all did receive kind of gives a history of how we got to where we are and what's going on with it to date. But we were able to achieve getting what we needed for the construction support dollars. And thank you to you on the land trust and your constituents to add the construction capital dollars to cover those. And I'm looking forward to seeing this in construction finally. I know the land trust did a lot of work to help us out. Rachel's been amazing to help make sure we keep this thing on track and work with me for everything that we needed to get done. So I really appreciate everything everybody's been doing. So there were a couple of little hiccups that we did have during the design phase. We had to shift it a few hundred feet further up Highway 17 due to potential liquefaction. That's why we're a few days later than usual than we expected. But we were able to overcome it. The design team, Mike Day was amazing and our right away people and everything have been really good to work with and everything. So I think we're on track to be able to get everybody out there then. In your packet as well, we sent you basically the title page to kind of show where it is. And then the layout sheet to kind of show how it's going to be designed, how it's going to be built and things. So just a little bit of an overview of what to expect when we're under construction. We are keeping four lanes of traffic open. So two lanes of traffic will be open in each direction, the majority of the time. In the evenings, they may close down to one lane in one direction or the other. They will build two lanes at a time of the new bridge on the existing soil that's there today. And so they'll be built in three stages. Once the new structure is built, that's when they'll remove all the dirt from underneath it for the wildlife crossing to be able to help transmit the animals from one side of the structure to the other. And then we'll come back in and we'll do planting as necessary to the area. So you will see slower traffic on Highway 17 because we will reduce the speed a little bit. And hopefully people will slow down because I know that there are a lot of collisions on Highway 17 and coming down that hill, people really get going on the speeds. So those are things that you can see coming probably maybe late fall, early winter. I'm not sure when construction will actually set any K rail up or the construct contractor will start work. They won't wanna open anything up in the winter time. So they may just go into winter suspension because we don't want to start digging when it's wet and then the contractor can't do anything. And then that makes people even more upset when they can't see anything happen. So more to come on that. But I'm very excited. I've been talking to my PIO people to maybe look in then to doing a groundbreaking ceremony for this project. I know our state legislators from up in that area have been very interested in this project moving forward over the years. And so this is an exciting time. And I'm very happy to be bringing it to you and saying we're this close to being into construction and hopefully we get good bids and can award the contract with what we anticipate. With that, does anybody have any questions or anything that they'd like to ask of me? Thank you for that report. Thank you for your work, Russell. I guess- Well, we got the questions. I would like to remind the commission that this is a Measure D project. It's included in the Measure D expenditure plan. There was $5 million earmarked for this. And we're also trying to make sure that Measure D funds get spent as quickly as possible. So we're providing a loan from the highway program that advanced the funding since all $5 million has not been received. This is a 30 year program. So that loan will be paid back with interest to the Highway 1 program. Thank you, Executive Director President. Commissioner McPherson, do you have a question? Yeah, that's half. This is on my district. I just want to say this a really welcome contractor construction project. One of a few of the special items that we put in Measure D. And I especially want to thank the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County for its participation. They gave a lot to this. There's, I think there's what it says on the project information. There's 460 acres of undeveloped land of both sides of the highway that's traveled by what almost 62,000 vehicles a day. It only has to take one incident where some wildlife gets in the way of an automobile and we've got big problems there that we've experienced over the years. So my thanks to everybody, the voters who supported Measure D, the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County in particular and for us to having the foresight to say this is an important project not only for motorists but for our wildlife in the area as well. So thank you very much to everybody. Thank you, Commissioner Beftran. Thank you very much, Chair. I had a question, Erin, about liquid faction. I'm familiar with liquid faction in like Bayfield, San Francisco Bay Area or Phil or next to rivers like in San Lorenzo Valley which we experienced at one time. But on a hillside, I was wondering if you could explain the nature of the liquid faction there and what caused it. My question really pertains to is this a potential danger to the highway and the future? I don't, I'm not a geotechnical engineer so I apologize, I don't know. It doesn't appear at this time that there's any risk to the highway. They just recommended that to, for the structure itself to move it north by about a hundred feet to miss the area of potential liquid faction. And the, that study was based on when they built the viaduct there from the geotech drilling from back when they built the viaduct. Other than that, I don't have any other real specific information of why or anything because it's on the side of the hill. I apologize. Thank you, Erin. Can't answer every question, but if on review you think it is a potential issue for the highway in the future, make that decision yourself I suppose and bring it back to the board if you can. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you, Commissioner Gautran. I'm going to go back to Daniel Medredo. Sorry about that. Yes, that's right. Daniel Medredo. I'm the projects director at the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County. And I just wanted to thank everybody, especially the commission RTC staff and Caltrans region five staff. This project really is seen as an unprecedented project statewide in the model about how this work should be done across the state. And when we started this project in 2011, we had no idea that it would ever be successful. And then we, regardless, we went out and I did $5 million of land acquisitions to even create the possibility of this project. But with your support and the support of the voters from Measure D, it's just amazing how this has come together. And so I just wanted to say thank you. The Land Trust has secured $3 million from the community and private donations to support our portion of the construction cost. And that funding is available whenever it is needed for the project. Thank you. Commissioner Lutkin. I just wanted to follow on both Daniel and Jacques earlier comments and Bruce's comments to really thank the Land Trust. I mean, Measure D, we have to thank the public for their contribution, but this project would not have happened without the Land Trust. They initiated the project. They organized it. They raised, I mean, it wasn't just like, here's a good idea government, go do something for us. They helped fund this project in a significant way. And we really need to appreciate that that without their support, this just simply would never have happened. Thank you so much. Let's say one more thing could we thank John Laird, who is the Natural Resources Director of the time, who is essential for getting this project through Sacramento and getting funded. Thanks for letting us know about that. Thank you, John. We'll give a shout out to John. Let's send it to John Laird. There you go. Is there any other fellow commissioners? They have any questions or comments? Commissioner Johnson. Yeah. So I think the public would probably want to thank the Land Trust. There's nothing really more heart-wrenching to be driving along and seeing an animal dead on the road, whether it's a deer, a raccoon, a hawk. And I would imagine, especially if it was a cougar or mountain lion. So congratulations on making progress and helping us avoid those kind of confrontations. Thank you, Commissioner Johnson. Yeah, I'll just make a quick comment on that. Oh, Commissioner Schifrin, alternate Schifrin. Yeah, thank you. I think the Land Trust certainly deserves a tremendous amount of credit for their work on this project and their support of this project. But I also really think it's important to, and I really want to thank Caltrans. This is not the kind of project that Caltrans likes. It's mucking around with a state highway that has a huge number of cars going over it. It's going to cause delays. It's going to cause some level of danger to when the work is being done. And my sense is this is one of the reasons this is such a unique project is that it really represents a change in direction from Caltrans from opposing these kinds of disruptions to a state highway and now being willing to work with the community, work with nonprofits, and figure out a way to make it happen. And it's been a long road. It's a complex project. It's a complex construction project. But I think, I really think Caltrans deserves a good deal of credit for their willingness to do their share to make this project happen. Thank you, Anthony. You're here. I'd just like to thank all parties, the Land Trust, Caltrans, RTC, and the public in Measure D. Because this is really important, right? I got to work on that retaining well many years ago. And trying to flag cars to slow down is crazy. But it was a really dangerous curve. And so it's going to be good that we take care of our environment as we take care of our community. I think we go hand in hand. We need to watch over all beings in this area. So with that said, I'd like to thank you. I'll take it out to the public for any comments. Mr. Brian Peoples? Yeah, hi. This is Brian Peoples. I actually am not representing Trailnail in this comment. So in 1980 and 90, or actually 1989, the earthquake, the whole hillside fell down right there by Lauren Curve. I don't think, I don't know if everybody remembers that now. I mean, that was huge. So when you talk about liquidation of the soil, yeah, major concern.  So I don't want us to, I wouldn't want to say that this should be overemphasized other saints protecting pedestrians and the critical need there. And I would also say actively involved in the measure be passing. I don't think that this was on the public's major reason promoting for this. So I don't want us to claim that measure D. This was successful. Yeah, it probably brought in the land trust to support measure D, but in general. And then finally, I think we need to really step back and think about the future of vehicle technology and how that's going to change, how vehicles operate and get hitting objects, hitting animals. They're going to be virtual train, basically operating where they will help control and minimize those. I often will tell motorcyclists they're going to be much safer because they will be hurt by the cars as much. So anyways, I just wanted to point that out again. Anyways, appreciate your time over. Thank you, Mr. Bevels. We have Brett Garrett and then Sally Arnold. Chair recognizes Mr. Brett Garrett. Hi, this is Brett Garrett and Santa Cruz. And I just want to say that I really appreciate the RTC and the land trust supporting this project. Yeah, it's important and I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Garrett. We have Sally Arnold and David Van Brink. Chair recognizes Ms. Sally Arnold. Hi, can you hear me OK? Yes. Well, I've been following this project for many years and really excited to see that it's going to happen. I really agree with the comments of Chair Gonzalez about caring for others and that Commissioner Johnson mentioned about it's not just about protecting the wildlife, it's protecting the rest of us from the dangers when we might hit that wildlife. And I was really struck by something that the Caltrans representative, Mr. Madero, said. He pointed out in his comments that when this project began, they didn't know how they were going to do it. They didn't know about the engineering. They didn't know about the funding. They didn't know about the land acquisitions, but they thought it was a good thing to do. And so they proceeded. And so you proceeded. The commission also proceeded. You didn't have to know everything about exactly how it was going to work. You decided that it was a project worth doing. It was important, and that you would trust that as you went along, more would be revealed, and you would learn how to do it. And I just want to say that when big projects are happening, it takes big time, and it takes a big commitment. And this is a wonderful example of how that can happen. And I hope that you will use the same spirit in other very important large transportation projects in our community. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Sellevon. Sorry about that. Mr. David Van Brink. Dear organizers, Mr. David Van Brink. Hello. At the risk of using more time, I just want to just give unconditional kudos to this project. It brings tourists to my eyes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Van Brink. Is there anything else from the public that'd like to make a comment on item 29 on the agenda? I don't see any hands up at this moment. I do not either. So with that, I will be moving forward to item number 30, the Highway 1 State Park to Freedom Auxiliary Lanes and Bus on Shoulder Project and Coastal Rail Trail Segment, 12 Professional Engineering Service Contract Award and Edition of Intern Trail Alternative. We will have a staff report by Sarah Christian. Thank you, Commissioner Gonzalez. My name's Sarah Christensen. I'm the project manager for the Highway 1 quarter investment program here today to recommend the approval of a new contract with Mark Thomas for the remaining scope of work for the environmental phase of the Highway 1 Auxiliary Lanes and Bus on Shoulder Project. I don't know if you can hear me or if you can close, but. Excuse me? Everybody close on my screen. I'm on Auxiliary Lanes and Bus on Shoulder Project, which includes the Coastal Rail Trail Segment 12. Just a note, there was a replacement staff report provided on Tuesday, as well as a handout provided on Wednesday for this item. As you all are aware, there was an item on the consent agenda where staff recommended terminating the contract with Kim Lee Horne, who was the previous Professional Engineering Services Consultant. That recommendation was approved, so officially the contract has been terminated. Staff made the recommendation and issued the notice to Kim Lee Horne back about 30 days ago and issued an RFP reason. Being that the scope of the project has changed significantly since the initial procurement was conducted. And so we released an RFP at the beginning of May. We received one proposal, the selection panel who consists of Guy Preston, our executive director myself, and Matt Machado from the county. He's a public works director. We reviewed the proposal. The firm is well qualified. We have a lot of experience with this firm. Mark Thomas, who's the Professional Engineering Services Consultant on the other two projects, they have a lot of familiarity with the corridor. And so the selection panel recommends that we award this contract. The scope of work for the contract is to complete the environmental phase of the project, which includes the environmental analysis, as well as the preliminary engineering work. The scope of work also includes the interim trail. This was recommended by the PDT to add to the scope of work for the overall project for segment 12 of the Coastal Rail Trail. The PDT project development team is made up of RTC staff, county staff, Caltrans staff, as well as the professional consultants that conduct the work. We made this recommendation because of the potential delivery risks of the project. So as mentioned earlier, we're targeting the congested quarters and local partnership program Senate Bill 1 funds for this project. We were successful in cycle two and securing $107 million for three projects. We're definitely looking at the same program to potentially fund this project. And there's deadlines for the application. And adding the interim trail alternative at a later date would potentially put us back a cycle. So that would delay potentially two years of having the opportunity to fund this project. Also, if in the future, we decided to add the interim trail alternative or study the interim trail alternative, say after the PAED phase was done, then it would require us to essentially redo the environmental analysis. And for that reason, because of recent occurrences that have happened along the Santa Cruz branch rail corridor, the PDT recommended to add it now. And that way, it has opportunity to go through the full public process of an environmental analysis and reduce the delivery risk of this project. So that concludes my staff report. I know Guy Preston would like to also chime in on a few other items, Guy. Thank you, Sarah. I would like to emphasize and clarify that if this contract is authorized, the interim trail would only be an alternative, along with the trail adjacent to the rail alternative. Staff believes it would be prudent if these two build alternatives be studied as part of the environmental review for Highway 1, segment 12. Today's recommendation is not a strategy called rail banking as recently reported and does not translate to the railroad track being temporarily removed, with bridges being temporarily repurposed. Although a decision to rail bank the corridor is not included in today's recommended action, it is relevant and important information that appears to still be misunderstood by many. Rail banking is a strategy to preserve the rail right away for future reactivation of freight rail. Freight rail is regulated by the surface transportation board, that's the federal board. And only the STB has the authority to authorize abandonment of a freight rail line. Rail banking is part of the abandonment process, but it stops short of full abandonment in order to preserve the rail right away. If a rail line is abandoned and not rail banked, underlining property owners of easements for rail purposes may be able to claim back those easements, resulting in the loss of a continuous rail corridor, such as the branch rail line. Rail banking does not require that the tracks be removed and a trail be built. However, rail banking, along with future actions by the commission, could allow that to happen. Rail banking would also allow the trail to be built adjacent to the rail line, with the rail line staying in place and active for non-STB jurisdictional rail, such as electric light rail. The provisions of rail banking prevent direct threats of lawsuits by property owners who may claim that the trail, whether on the rail bed or adjacent to the rail line, is either a change in use or an expansion of the use of the easements granted to the railroad for rail purposes. As for today's action, staff seeks commission authorization to continue producing an EIR-EA for a project that has broad commission and community support. Our proposed consultant has a solid environmental team, which is being overseen by Caltrans as the lead agency. Mark Thomas and associates just completed the final design plans on the 41st to Soap Health project and the EIR on the Bay Porter to State Park project that I've reported as part of my director's report. They also provide RTC with assistance on our recent successful SB1 grant applications. I have the pleasure of working with key staff from their environmental sub-consultant, ICF, when I was working for the California High Speed Rail Authority on two fairly large EIRs. They also have added Harrison Associates, which has done and continues to do very good environmental work on various rail trail projects for the RTC and our partner agencies. I'm confident with this team, we will get a solid and defensible analysis. Our consultant understands the ultimate plan for the corridor and has several ideas how to address it. Potential impacts of the interim trail alternative on a future proposed rail transit project will be addressed, likely as part of the cumulative effect section of the EIR. Our goal is to ensure we have a defensible document which addresses the commissions and the community's concerns. Today's proposed action will provide staff with the resources to do so. And we'll also keep this project on schedule and well positioned for future competitive grant opportunities such as those mentioned by Commissioner Eads earlier today. In addition to RTC staff, Caltrans District Five Office Chief of Environmental, John Lucheta is with us today to help answer any questions you may have. With that, I hand this item back to the commission for questions. Thank you, Executive Director Guy. Is there any questions from commissioners? And I see alternate commissioner Andy Schiffin. It's simplistic to say that this is a complex issue. And there's kind of a tendency for people to hear what they expect to hear. And I think in a way it's unfortunate that the staff report spends a lot of time talking about issues that from my perspective are really irrelevant to what's before the commission today. So I just wanna ask the director a couple of a few questions just to really clarify and particularly in the light of many of the emails I've received and I'm sure other commissioners receive. Are we being asked today to approve an interim trail alternative? No. Are we being asked today to approve rail banking? No. Are we being asked today to include the consideration of an interim trail as a potentially feasible alternative in the environmental documents that are being prepared for this project? Yes. I think that's really what comes down to it. From my perspective, what's before us today is a legal issue. It's not a policy issue somewhere down in the future if we get through the process as optimistically as the executive director projects or if it takes even longer the commission's gonna have to make a decision but CEQA requires that before making a decision we look at potentially feasible alternatives. And given the length of time that rail may be need to take to make rail feasible given the financial uncertainty on this time I think legally an interim trail is a potentially feasible alternative. And if we don't, if the commission doesn't consider it it's not like we're just gonna have to consider it later we're gonna be soon grabbing an inadequate environmental document. So I just, before we hear I just wanted to get those questions answered because it's just so, it just is so much public concern about what we ultimately do that it colors what we're really being asked to do today which as far as I think staff is saying and I think it's the case we're just being asked to incorporate in our environmental documents for this particular project a potential interim trail alternative. So thank you for responding to my questions. Thank you to commissioner alternate Andy Schiffer. I see commissioner alternate Felipe Hernandez I just want to make a clarification as alternate commissioner Hernandez now officially replace the commissioner Caput. Yes. Go ahead and ask. Quick question. I appreciate the clarification questions from Andy Schifrin. I was kind of leading that direction but a quick question for staff for those that probably didn't get some of the updates that happened the other day, Tuesday, Wednesday updates but if staff can clarify what are the updates from the previous agenda to on this item from the previous agenda to Tuesday and Wednesday's agenda. Sure. This is Sarah Christensen. I made a few edits to the background section to just reorganize and make it a better staff report. So there's that. We also added the consultant contract section of the staff report because at the time that we posted the original agenda we did not have a negotiated contract at the time. So we filled in the essentially replace the entire section of the consultant contract section of the staff report. So it includes the name of the consultant as well as the cost proposal which is $2,080,839 for the proposed contract with Mark Thomas. We also made updates to the fiscal impact section because we did not know what the fiscal impacts were going to be when we posted the staff report originally we updated that entire section as well. Thank you. Thank you. Alternate commissioner Felipe Hernandez. Is there any other fellow commissioners? Yes. Commissioner Rotkin. So my question to executive director Preston is I'm looking at section three of the actual contract with Mark Thomas and associates that the proposed EIR consultant. Do I understand correctly that when we're back we get these all alternatives back we'll have a clear idea of in terms of our choices for what to do about, you know which alternative to choose or how to proceed with this they'll have a clear idea of not only what the possibility is of proceeding with the initial proposal which is a rail trail bridge on some level over this over highway one or bridges actually I should say but and also the interim trail option as another option but understand what the impact would be in the long term of both of these alternatives or some combination of them in terms of its impact on the future possibility of rail in other words issues about how the bridge might be constructed so it doesn't have to be completely redone if you choose the interim trail alternative. So I'm asking a question about what you believe this study the EIR will give us in the way of information to make the decision we have to make that and issue from what's talking about in the future. Yeah, this is something that would be addressed. Our consultant has a lot of really good ideas about how to do things to make sure that we don't neglect that aspect of RTC's future plans but the rail line is not part of the project per se so the impacts of any of these alternatives on RTC's future plans would likely be analyzed in the cumulative impact section of the report but they would be addressed. Thank you. Thank you, commissioner Ruckin. Commissioner Sandy Brown. I think my question was just answered. Thank you. Just trying to understand the relationship between the study and all of the different elements. I guess another question I have that I'll just ask now is with respect to the overall study includes the highway widening piece and my understanding is that we would need to do so repurposing the current bridges is not gonna be sufficient for highway widening. So is that, it just sounds like it's suggesting to me the highway widening piece is pretty far down the road as well, is that what my, I'm just trying to understand if we actually were to move forward to study an interim trail to then actually construct an interim trail, it's a shorter term project but it isn't that short term. So I guess I'm just wondering how that intersects or what the implications are really for the highway piece of the project. And I think that my other question was answered with commissioner Ruckin's question. Thank you. So you're correct. We did make significant progress in our with our previous consultant, especially with respect to the highway elements. The highway crosses under two railroad bridges and those two railroad bridges are not long enough to accommodate the wider highway. So they do need to be replaced. So those bridges are not bridges that we're talking about repurposing but we're talking about reconstructing them and we are looking at ideas of, you know how that can be done both in the short term in the long term for the various alternatives to not preclude the future rail service. So that is being looked at but the project is anticipated to be constructed as one project that would include the highway and the full limits of segment 12 from State Park Drive to Rio del Mar which is the two over the highway and then two additional bridges both of which span over Soquel Drive and then one of two creeks, Alps Creek for one and Valencia Creek for the other. Those are the two bridges that would be temporarily repurposed if that alternative was in fact selected as the preferred alternative and that's a big if. I wanna also remind the commission and the public that it's really important to go into these EIRs with an open mind and not to presuppose what the results are going to be. So you're often going to hear me talk about proposed project, proposed actions. There is no assumption as to what the preferred alternative would be. I do not wanna bias this report in any way. Thank you. Can I just do a quick follow up question? Just really quickly. So because you mentioned Guy, thank you for raising the Kimley Horn work having produced some deliverables, some information that might or that will be helpful in the ongoing process. Is that information that, how is that kind of, where is that information? Is it something that we should be seeing as the commission to get a sense of where this is headed or is there information that we could get about where we're at given that that contract was terminated? Terminated, thank you. I was gonna say shut down, but terminated. Thank you. Better word. Go ahead, Sarah. So the scope of work in the RFP included kind of a status of each of the deliverables of environmental technical studies that have been either drafted or under review by Caltrans or have been approved by Caltrans. But typically those environmental technical studies, even if they have been completed, we'll definitely, adding this additional alternative have to add the description of it and do the proper analysis of it. So we will be opening those back up, but there was some really good progress made. The other thing that's really nice about adding this alternative now is that we've already established the project's area of potential effect. So before we do any kind of environmental analysis, you kind of put down like your boundary of where you're studying and we've already done that and this fits within that. We're not anticipating a huge backtracking exercise. It's really just going to need to get integrated hopefully pretty seamlessly into the existing deliverables. And hopefully that makes sense. And we don't typically have those available for public consumption until they're final and we'll be going through the, you know, draft environmental document process where it includes a public circulation and all of the information will be available at that time, which is planned for next spring. Thank you. That's really helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Sandy Brown. We're going to go ahead with Alternate Commissioner Andy Schiffer and then we'll follow with Commissioner Mike Rockins and then I, Commissioner Brad Beltran had his hand at one time. Okay, go ahead and Commissioner Andy. Yes, I was going to wait on this till after the public testimony, but since other commissioners have asked questions about, you know, how these alternatives are defined, I think it's important to raise a couple of issues around that. One of them, and I'm looking at page in a new handout, page 30-45, where it describes the two alternatives, an interim configuration, remove the trail and repurpose for, remove rail and repurpose for trail and the ultimate configuration trail adjacent to rail. I think there are a couple of points here. There have been recent cases where the under-sequel, the courts have required lead agencies like the RTC to identify a preferred alternative as part of the environmental analysis and then look at alternatives to that preferred alternative. NEPA looks at them under the environmental assessment, looks at them equally, but CEQA requires a preferred alternative. I would argue that the rail trail master plan that defines a rail trail along the segment would make that as the preferred alternative, what I think is being called the ultimate configuration. I think it's important to, you know, be clear about CEQA terms. That doesn't mean that the commission ultimately has to approve it. That just means that under the law, it's the preferred alternative. The other issue is the interim consideration, another requirement of CEQA, and I'm not going to, in the end, I don't think, I'm gonna ask that the contract be changed, but I really think it's important for the consultant and staff to think about this issue. CEQA requires that a project definition includes the whole of an action, including both direct and reasonably foreseeable indirect actions. And since the trail only is being defined as an interim, I think the project itself, the definition of the project has to include the tracks being put back. And so I think just looking at the environmental effects, which is all you're looking at in CEQA and the EIR of the interim trail is not gonna be sufficient under CEQA because the trail only is really an interim proposal. And ultimately, as an interim proposal, it anticipates that the tracks will be put back. So those have to be looked at as well. And that's different from just building the rail trail as shown in the master plan. That includes a two-stage project, which is stage one trail only, stage two rail and trail. So I'm just raising those as given how strong the opinions are and how contentious this issue has been. I think it's important to have as defensible environmental documents as possible. And I'm not sure it's going to be sufficient as the director indicated to simply look at putting the trails back as a cumulative impact. I think there may be problems in terms of how the alternative for the interim trail is defined. And just ask that the staff get some legal, some CEQA input on that. And ultimately we'll see what they come up with when the draft EIR comes out. But I just wanted to raise that issue now because I think it could end up being a significant legal issue when the project moves, when the EIR moves forward. Thank you, alternate commissioner Chifrin. Commissioner, I'm lucky. And he made my point. Thank you. Thank you, Andy. Commissioner, John Potron, did you still have a question? I'll wait until after public comment. Okay, thank you. Is there one last call for commissioners? Seeing none, I will take it to the public now. Any comments or questions? Mr. Matt Ferrell. Chair recognizes Mr. Matt Ferrell. Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. Alternates and Chair Gonzalez. Thank you so much for taking this item under consideration. I would like to support commissioner alternate's comments on the need to regard the whole of the action regarding the interim trail alternative. And encourage you to work with staff to make sure that's addressed as part of the scope of work and project description for the environmental analysis. Secondly, I'd like to request that any relevant engineering reports that have been done to date on this project be made available to the public so there's full transparency as we move forward with it. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Ferrell, for your comments. We have Mr. Brian Peoples, then Brett Garrett. Chair recognizes Mr. Brian Peoples. Yeah, hi, this is Brian from Trail Now. We first of all support approval of this measure, but I do want to comment on Mr. Schiffner's comment and it's actually true, but it's reverse. You see the major caught, we're already planning to replace those trestles with trains and that's adding a huge cost. See, they have to lower the highway. It's about $65 million according to $100 million more to replace those two trestles as trains. So you're already doing that level of effort. What we're looking at is looking at an alternative, which is a cheaper solution. We would advocate or we do advocate that we actually only replace one of the trestles, the one on the northern section and keep the trail or the coastal corridor on the ocean side of the highway. When you widen it, and then you can actually use the southern trestle to connect a bike, pedestrian protected bike lane between Soquel and Highway One, up to Rio del Mar to the junior high, up to the Freedom Boulevard, to the high school. You see, that's what we need to do. We need to look at this alternative. We need to open the corridor during construction. So again, the most important problem we're gonna have is short term with construction going on, we need to start using those existing bridges today. That's what we need to do. And this step is the legal requirement for us to start using that taxpayer-owned property. It's absolutely critical that we use it, have an interim trail established, especially during the construction phases of the highway. So again, this is not, there is no requirement for us to find add costs for reinserting the tracks. We're already doing it. It's already part of the scope of work. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Peebles. Brett Garrett and Jack Carroll. Chair recognizes Mr. Brett Garrett. Can you hear me? Yes. Ah, good. I want to suggest that your interim trail could actually become much more than just a trail. It can be a foundation for better transit. As you know, I advocate for personal rapid transit system, serving UCSC to Watsonville, providing better transit service than any train that has been proposed for this area. One version of PRT uses narrow lightweight podcars with rubber tires. So that kind of PRT would only need something like a bicycle path. Interim trail could become permanent transit. So let's accommodate bikes, pedestrians, and podcars running both ways, a bi-directional podcar system. Some people might argue that interim trail destroys transit, but I believe quite the opposite. A robust interim trail can be the foundation for a better transit system than most people have even thought about. I've often made the case that one advantage of PRT is its ability to serve destinations that are away from the rail corridor. But I think segments 11 and 12 could be a good place to run PRT on the rail corridor with an extra bridge guideway going over the freeway to serve Cabrillo College properly, something that a conventional train couldn't do. PRT could eliminate the perceived need for highway widening. Highway one is going to be congested no matter what we do. So let's invest in PRT instead to provide reliable transit all the way from Watsonville to UCSC regardless of highway one traffic. Honestly, I think the EIR is incomplete unless it considers PRT as an alternative to highway widening. There's no need for bus and auxiliary lanes if we get going on personal rapid transit. I oppose the highway widening project but I do support the idea of an interim trail for segments 11 and 12. And I urge that any trail there should be robust enough to allow bikes, pedestrians and bi-directional podcar system. Thank you. We have Jack Carroll and then Saladin Sale. I think it's a shame that the interim trail option wasn't included as one of the preferred alternatives in that study. I think it would have been the leading choice at that point. Also want to make obvious that replacing the highway bridges to support bicycles is much cheaper than building bridges to support heavy trains. In that same vein, removing the tracks is a requirement under any circumstance going forward if we see rails in the future. The existing rails have been proven to be unsafe by your own studies. And so taking the rails out and putting them back is something that's gonna happen whether we go with the interim trail option or not. And lastly on the handout, the recent handout replacement pages for item 30 right at the beginning under the general discussion, the last sentence of the second paragraphs as many of these costs were not captured in previous planning level studies. That worries the heck out of me. I wonder how many other costs for related to the train haven't been captured in studies. This is particularly important since we all recognize that the train is enormously expensive and it's unfunded now. Do we have another 100 million that's unfunded that we're gonna find out about that at the last minute? Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Carroll. Saladin sale, then phone number 3660, ask for digits. Chair recognizes Saladin sales, Saladin you there? Saladin sales. You're on mute, there you go. There you go. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Saladin sale and my house is in Santa Cruz. Overpass and bridge replacement costs need to accurately reflect the true eventual construction costs of our locally preferred public transit system. Any projected cost savings, which would be realized by construction of trail only bridges and overpasses must reflect the negative impacts on the eventual cost and likelihood of approval of our preferred rail with trail system. Make no mistake, the local trail only is cheaper slogan is just the Santa Cruz expression of the sophisticated nationwide war against investments in public transit being waged by libertarian free market conservatives who see any investment in the public good as a threat to their continuing accumulation of personal wealth. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. sales. We have phone number with the last four digits 3660 and then Jack Brown. Chair recognizes the phone number 3660. Yes. Good morning commissioners. My name is Mark Masidi Miller. I'm a professional civil engineer and 38 year resident of the city of Santa Cruz. And I wanna applaud the comments from commissioner alternate chifrin in several respects. One is that the preferred alternative should be identified as the ultimate configuration listed in the contract documents. I think that's an important point and needs to be included. I also think that the whole of the action is an important concept that cannot be overlooked. And the direct and indirect impacts must include the restoration of the tracks in the environmental analysis. I also think that while equity is not a direct issue brought up by the sequel, there is a substantial work being done around sequel and equity in this regard. And that is the environmental impacts of projects must be looked at from an equitable perspective, meaning any impacts must be felt equally by all members of the community. And that that is an equity issue. And I trust that your staff and your consultants will carefully look at that. And lastly, I'm concerned that you have a single proposal for a multimillion dollar request that was done hastily. This is a substantial cost, it's a substantial effort. And while Mark Thomas is certainly qualified, it just seems unreasonable to have a single proposal on a project of this complexity. And I would suggest that the rush here to get somebody to replace Kimley Horn maybe is misdirected and this project should be just tabled for a couple of months so that some additional proposals could be received. Thank you, Mr. Mr. Mr. City Miller. Mr. City Miller. We have Jack Brown, then Buzz Anderson. Chair, I reckon this is Mr. Jack Brown. Hi, thank you. This is Jack Brown from ATOS. One, I'd like to say I fully support the decision to give the proper research to an interim trail. Although people such as Mark and City Miller say that the recommended alternative was rail and trail, this really needs to be determined by the community through a county wide vote. And then what we know with the actual real solution is going to be an interim solution that will help us with this. And also simply the funding doesn't exist to create a train system in the next several decades and we have real transportation problems now. So we really need to concentrate on revitalizing metro, lift and para-cruise or solutions to make commutes between South County and Point Park. For example, the county office is being moved and into South County is a great move. I think to help eliminate a lot of commuting traffic but more than double what would be possible with a rail solution. And let's open up this unused rail corridor for inter-community active transportation. So thank you for that. And then one other thing, just a shout out to Sarah Christensen for the work done on the culverts between Sumner and Townsend. Everything went as per our discussion and things looking great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jack Brown. We have Buzz Anderson then David Van Brink. Chair recognizes Mr. Buzz Anderson. Thank you, RTC staff and commissioners. By now you have all heard the same old rhetoric coming from the two main opposition sides in the rail corridor debate. Hopefully truth and reality are starting to prevail. Facts are being discerned and the understanding of the issues is becoming clearer especially in regards to rail banking and feasibility. After last month's RTC meeting, Mr. Preston put out a missive explaining what the commissioner's actions actually meant. I hope that he does the same thing after this meeting, maybe even including some easily understandable bullet points. In these last few months, there has been much progress for allowing the people to start using the corridor sooner rather than later as a multi-use trail across existing trestles. Let's all hope that this trend continues and comes to fruition in the near future. Please support items 3031. RTC, keep up to good work. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Buzz Anderson. Mr. David Van Brink, Benny Lane, Ralfus. Chair recognizes Mr. David Van Brink. Hello. I want to first thank director Preston for his clarifying remarks and also applaud commissioner Andy Schiffern's efficient courtroom style questions and exposition. As commissioners Ratkin and Brown and others asked, I would also request that any analyses include the long-term impacts of undoing or redoing any effects of so-called interim uses on our way towards the preferred master plan. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. David Van Brink. Elaine. Ralfus. From Fort. Chair recognizes Mrs. Elaine. You, okay. Yes, thank you. Thank you for your work. And I just want to say that I'm supporting them both rail and trail. And I think give everybody a chance to do their transportation and their exercises in the way that works for them. So, and getting to work and all the things that rail and trail can do for people. So, continue your work as you're doing it. And thank you for all of what you're doing. Thank you, Mrs. Elaine. Mr. Ben Farnasa. Chair recognizes Mr. Ben Farnasa. Do you have the slide for me? Let me see if I can get that up. Could you start speaking, Mr. Farnasa? Comes to slide. There it is, okay. What you see there is two charts. The top one is the price of iron ore. The last five years has gone from $50 a ton to over $200 a ton. And the lower price is what's happened in the last year. It's doubled from 100 to 200 a ton. Now, this is very important if and when you approve rail banking. That takes a little time too. So, at that time, I suggest that you investigate a hedging operation to save the price, whatever it might be, that time at a cost but a very small cost so that you protect the price you can sell the rails for, which is substantial and actually might even pay for taking out and creating a basic plan. We expect the, I expect the supply to maybe meet demand so the price comes down. And on the other hand, the infrastructure legislation gonna increase the demand for steel. Now, the other thing that happened is the Senate House Bill, transportation bill went through the House, the Senate bill. And it includes less rail support and a significant amount of money for trails. So the trails can probably be financed very through a grant, a good part of the cost because of this bill. These would be passed by the House. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Vindranatham. Mr. Ryan Sanataro. Chair recognizes Mr. Ryan Sanataro. Yes, hello. I just thought I would bring up the issue of why we're having this discussion at this point rather than many years ago and why the UCIS didn't include a proper dual lane trail alternative as part of its study. And those reasons are historical but they basically go back to a pro train bias on the part of the staff of the RTC in the past. And also, and where we are now is finally reassessing this. And I think one of the things that would be important for to be communicated to the public is that if we do move to a trail alternative, what we're talking about is an investment in public infrastructure and we're investing in a public infrastructure that like Brett Garrett mentioned in terms of personal rapid transit or many other potential electrification or transportation alternatives are, require that we come up with the simplest, most effective flat trail train. And when I say train, I mean grade, train grade alternative. And so again, I think that it's really important that we're moving in this direction that the studies are now being done but what the public really needs to see is if you did put in a dual track greenway, what would be the effect on transportation? How many people would use it? What would be the effect on three-way traffic as opposed to the expense of putting in a train? And this way people would have a much clearer idea of how to approach the decision that's gonna be made on a public basis. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. May in Centaurio. I don't see any public hands up anymore. I don't either. Oh, there's Sally Arnold. Okay. Chair recognizes this is Sally Arnold. Hi, am I, yeah, okay. I just wanted to echo what some other people have said that I felt like director Preston's comments about what rail banking is or isn't and alternate Schifrin's comments about clarifying the need for the sequel legalities were really important. Like other people have mentioned and other commissioners have mentioned, this need to have a complete study. Anything that is interim is by definition going to be undone and therefore the undoing of it needs to be included in any study, both the environmental and fiscal impacts of that. And I also want, I was kind of confused by the idea that there wasn't already a locally preferred alternative. Commission voted on a locally preferred alternative several months ago, and I would assume that that is the locally preferred alternative going forward into the CEQA documents. And lastly, as a couple of other people have mentioned, it seems like there have been studies done that are referenced about, you know, that Kim Lee Horn produced a product of some kind, but the public paid for it, but we haven't seen it yet. And I think that it would be great if these things were made public for people, there'd be a lot less speculation and we'd have more complete information. And some things have just been very last minute recently and that's very hard for the public to participate meaningfully under those conditions. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Senator Arnold. Barry Scott. Chair recognizes Mr. Barry Scott. Thank you. I wanna echo what Sally and others have said and really thank staff, Director Preston and Commission Alternate Schifrin for helping to simplify something as complex as CEQA and alternative and preferred alternatives. I think it's extremely important to identify that the locally preferred alternative is for transit and trail and rail transit specifically. The 6-6 tie vote of April 1st should not be taken as a sign that we can throw away all the years of study and really science that tells us that rail transit, especially the more modern electric rail transit that is described in the business plan is a efficient, cost effective way to serve the entire county unlike a trail only alternative. Let's be sure pleased to include the cost of restoring a rail line if we do pursue an interim trail as an alternative to study. And let's remember that infrastructure nationwide is in terrible shape, terrible, terrible shape. And we have an administration in Washington DC now that wants to provide funding. We have the state rail plan that wants to provide funding. And we should be sending signals to CalTrans and other agencies that we are interested in accessing the funds that all of us are paying into now. The state rail plan consists of funds that we pay into now, we don't have to use them but if we don't use them, other counties will. Let's be sure to keep a high profile and positive point of view toward transit and rail transit specifically. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Scott. Mr. Gary Becker. Chair recognizes Mr. Berry. Gregory Becker. Mr. Gregory Becker. You need to unmute yourself. Oh, Mr. Gregory Becker.  Oh, there he is. There I am. Thank you. My point is simple. I hope that we can act quickly. There's been a lot of talk that sounds like it's going to be more delay. Whatever we do, I hope we can move this along. I thank you for those efforts. Let's just get Santa Cruz County moving. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gregory Becker. Tina A. Chair recognizes Mrs. Good morning. Or should I say good afternoon? Hi, good morning. I just want to say what the last gentleman said, let's move forward with it. And I agree that we have a great president that's in the White House. We're going to have funding for infrastructure. I definitely am for keeping the rail and trail option. I think it will serve more of the community, South County, disabled community. And I really appreciate what Mr. Schifrin, Commissioner Schifrin and Mr. Preston and others that support what really benefits the whole community, not just a very small elite part of the community that are sideless that just want to trail for recreation. They're not looking at South County and the vast majority of people that live down in Watsonville, definitely want to keep the option of a rail transit. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye-bye. Do you want to see other hands up? Any other hands up from the public? I'll give it a little bit. Okay. So I want to bring this back to the commission now. Commissioner McPherson. Yeah, I do appreciate all the comments from commissioners and Mr. Preston, the input from the public, but I will be supporting the recommendations on items 30 and 31. I think we should study the two obvious options where it's a standard practice, but it will also hopefully prevent an avoidable lawsuit that I think could be on its way if we don't act. The commission has a fiduciary responsibility to gather and compare the financial implications for the best use of this rail corridor. And I think this will get us on the road to accomplishing that. So that's my basic thoughts. I do appreciate the public comment and those of the commissioners as well. Thank you, Commissioner McPherson. Commissioner Manu and then Commissioner Hernandez. Thank you, Chair. I want to start by thanking staff for basically finding a new consultant for this contract. It looks like we'll have some considerable cost savings. And so it's fantastic. I'm sure we'll be able to reinvest those in projects to get people moving. I just want to point out one very flawed piece of the logic that Commissioner Schifrin is presenting, which is this idea that an interim trail option by necessity has to include all of the costs of undoing all that work. I think as the staff report said, I mean, we actually might in the future consider a realignment of the rail corridor itself. So instead of having two bridges, one over Trout Creek and one over Aptos Creek, we could fundamentally just build one over Aptos Creek further down by the highway. And so we really need to have an incremental approach, one where we build what we can, when we can, and get rid of all these false constraints on what the project should look like. I mean, we dealt with that during the Uniforred Corridor Study with these false constraints around scenarios, scenario A, scenario B, scenario C. And we've seen now as reality, as time moves forward, as we actually go down the path that to remind everyone in those scenarios in the Unified Corridor Study, buffered bike lanes was only included in scenario B along with the train. But we're getting buffered and protected bike lanes on Soquel Drive, no matter what. We've gotten that grant and we're moving forward with that. And so the decision on what to do in the rail corridor is going to be independent. And so this idea that we need to like falsely constrain what, you know, and burden what an interim trail option looks like today because we're not imaginative enough or can't see the options going forward is just ridiculous. You know, and the other thing I would point out to everyone who wants to say, oh, well, we've got to burden all these extra costs on the interim trail option. We've got to consider the value of time, the value of getting a trail sooner. We all recognize this in terms of the time value of money. A dollar today is worth much more than a dollar 30 years from now. And the same is true of a trail. A trail today is worth much more than a trail 30 years from now. And if you don't want to think about it in terms of money, think about it on the impact for the climate. We all know that doing something to address the climate crisis today is absolutely necessary. We can't wait 30 years. And so the value of these projects built sooner is enormous and we will have the flexibility to adapt and change what those ultimate projects look like in the future. So I fully support the staff recommendation. I think analyzing multiple options is required by CEPA. It is in everyone's best interest to have all the facts. And having the options suggested today reduce risk, prepare us for future SB1 grant cycles. And then we ultimately do decide on how to move forward. We can do so based on the best possible information. One last thing to add is, I do hope that we'll look at the separation of bikes and pedestrians when we ultimately do consider an interim trail. The final design for an interim trail option, we're already seeing on West Cliff and East Cliff that the combination of bikes and pedestrians on the exact same trail facility is problematic, especially as the bikes get faster more than being electrified. So this is my comments and I'll be supporting the staff recommendation. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Romano. Go ahead. Commissioner Felipe, alternate Felipe and then Commissioner Andy Schiffer and then Commissioner Rodkin. Well, first off, I have to say, I have to agree with one of the public comments, comments about moving the county seat to South County to Watsonville. I really do agree with that one, that comment that Jack Brown made. But, you know, with this, I realize that this is just an alternative plans at this stage and that, but at some point we do need to consider, the total cost that is at some point, the temporary trail and permanent trail and then also a fundability discussion about this, right, at some point. And then also, you know, I realize that this is also going through the process of CEQA, but at some point we also got to have a different discussion about, you know, things like equity, economy. A lot of the boards I sit on are having this discussion about, you know, looking at things through various lenses, right? Like equity, prosperity. Caltrans calls it something different, right? Through further funding criteria, right? But we do have to also look at things through the lens of equity and economy. And I know that when we go through this process, right? The bigger picture we have to look at, you know, transportation equity and especially for people in South County. And also, you know, when you look at economy, you know, the bigger picture is that people travel from North to South and to a large extent, that's a workforce that's going from South County to support the local tourism and retail economy that we have here in the County. And we need real solutions to resolve that bottleneck that exists in Highway One.  So, you know, that's something that at some point we got to look at and, you know, have that discussion. But, you know, I know, I realize that we do need alternatives for this. Thank you. Thank you, Alternate Commissioner Fidebeir, Hernandez. Alternate Commissioner Andy Schifrin. Yes, thank you. I think the points that were just brought up, particularly by Alternate Hernandez, really point out a couple of things. One, how confusing this issue is. And the fact that there really are two, as Commissioner Hernandez says, two very different decisions that the Commission is going to ultimately make. One decision is going to be on the environmental documents. Do the environmental documents meet the requirements of the law? The other issue is, does the Commissioner, what project does the Commission want to support? Now, when the Commission is looking at that decision, after it accepts and approves the environmental document, that's when it will look at equity. That's when it can look at, you know, other transportation issues. That's when it can look at the, you know, the financial issue. CEQA really is not concerned about what costs more, what it's concerned about. And I think this is responding a little bit to Commissioner Konegg is that the argument for why the interim trail alternative in the environmental documents has to include the long-term replacement of the tracks is not, has nothing to do with the finances. It has to do with whether there will be potentially significant environmental impacts as a result of that project alternative. And that's what I'm concerned about, that that needs to be looked at, irrespective of what costs more, what costs less. Those are different decisions that the Commission is ultimately gonna have to face. So I appreciate Commissioner Hernandez really focusing on those other issues, but they're not before us now. What's before us now is what's gonna be in the environmental document and making sure that that environmental document will meet the requirements of the law. And because of that, I'm also going to support the staff recommendation. Thank you, alternate Commissioner Andy Schiffen. Commissioner Rutkin, thank you, Rutkin. So first of all, thanks, Andy. That's half of what I wanted to raise is a question that won't repeat any of it. I do wanna make a general comment since my colleague, Konig raised the broader issues of where this is going. I wanna say that we're working in a kind of a vacuum here around a very central question because we don't know the ultimate alignment of where rail would go sometime in the future. We keep making sort of piecemeal decisions about stuff. I mean, and I'm gonna support the staff recommendation in this case for looking at segment 12, effects 11 as well, but 12 primarily, because I don't think we have much choice. Otherwise we'd be holding up the highway project, which I think would not be smart. But for about $20 million, and that's a staff estimate. It's not detailed, worked out or something. This is in reference to what had been thought of earlier is the $17 million that was falsely reported as available without local match from the state turned out not to be the case. But for about $20 million, we could do what's known as a 30% engineering design for an alternate, because we're gonna build it tomorrow, but for the ultimate alignment of the rail and the trail on this corridor. And with that information's background, we would be in a lot better position when we come to each one of these other individual decisions about the Capitol Bridge, about what we're doing with segment 12, what we're doing with 7D, things that are coming up pretty quickly and actually mostly funded and ready to go. But we don't know what the alignment of the rail ultimately is gonna be. And so the question of, could you tear out the tracks now, put the trail right where the track is and still have room at some point in the future for both the rail and the trail, or in which cases we're gonna be forced to put the trail onto city streets, which will happen at least in a couple of places, in several places. All of those complex questions, we don't have the information that tells us where exactly does the rail line they need to go. As you come, as you leave segment 12 and go elsewhere, is the track gonna be where it is now? Probably not. In many cases, the most efficient way to build a rail and trail would be to move that rail somewhere else in the corridor. And of course, none of us wanna spend money to go buy a new right of way or something. We wanna try and talk about how we could do this project within the existing owner, right away that we own, the public owns through the RTC. So $20 million is a lot of money, but it's not an impossible number to think about gaining. The decision to not move forward with the business plan, which I thought was premature by the way, I don't think we're ready for a business plan and I'm not ready to move forward, putting capital money into our rail project until I know that we have sufficient public subsidy to make this ride affordable to working people, which is one of the main reasons we wanna have rail on this corridor. So we don't have everything that we need to know, but not knowing the ultimate alignment of the rail and trail through this corridor leaves us making these piecemeal decisions, which I think work out okay in this highway case of number 12, I think it's gonna get a little more complex when we get to the bridge on our next item. And it's certainly gonna get more complex when we get to these segments where we've never studied, where's the rail gonna go, where would the trail go? Is there a room for a wider trail as so many people would like to have and so forth? And so I think it's unfortunate that we've kind of like decided that at least by a tie vote not able to move forward, that we are not getting the information that we need to have a much more rational planning process around all of these rail segments that are in a 32 mile corridor. And we have to make these kind of like after the fact and with partial information. Because if you don't know the rail alignment, you don't know what you need to know to figure out where the trail should be built, even if it's in a room. That's my comments and I will support them. In fact, I'll be happy to make the motion on one way till everybody has a chance to speak first. Thank you, commissioner. Is any of the fellow commissioners have any comments or questions? I'll move that we move the staff recommendation. Make a second. Sorry. Hey, I wanted to make a quick comment. Sure, sorry. Just on this matter. You know, this is an important study. I really support the highway project.  We're our county, I think the bus on shoulder, some folks may not support it, but I think it's a good way to start to move people. The idea is to get people to start using mass transit. And this is a good, a viable way to do that. And it's really critically important that we support this study. And so it doesn't deter and delay the work on highway one. But with that said, I also will be supporting this. So we had a motion on the table by commissioner Mike Watkin. Is that correct? That's correct. And I believe Jacques seconded it. Seconded by... Konig. Konig, sorry, I didn't hear right. And commissioner alternate Hearst has his hand up. Yes, I've seen that, I'm sorry. Go ahead, alternate commissioner Hearst. Thank you very much. Just under my comments that, you know, it's clear that this proposal is gonna pass, but there are some concerns that we might be creating more confusion in the public. And that's the last thing we wanna do. We wanna try and get clarity and zero in on what's feasible and what our real options are. And so hopefully there is a value to comparisons and that we can see a clear path forward and that we not be excessively delayed. It's already taking way too much time and way too much money as well. I just think we do need to stay out of court on these issues. And so, you know, and we need to learn more as well. But the fact is we need to move forward. And if this is what it takes to move forward, that's fine. But I don't wanna create false impressions or confuse the public or, you know, study stuff that we don't need to study as we move forward. Because it's a cost and a cost in time and certainly public goodwill as well. So, hey, let's do try and move forward. Thank you, alternate commissioner Lowell-Hers. Seeing no more commissioners, no hands. Can we have roll call, please? Commissioner Bertrand. I approve. Commissioner Brown. I. Commissioner Johnson. I. Commission alternate Hearst. Yes. Commission alternate Hernandez. I. Commission alternate Schifrin. I. Commission alternate Mulhern. I. Commissioner Koenig. I. Commissioner McPherson. I. Commissioner Peterson. I. Commissioner Gonzalez. I. And Commissioner Rockin. I. That's unanimous. Thank you. We're gonna go ahead and move forward now. Item 31, which is the Capitola Trestle update in-term trail alternative and amendment to professional engineering services and agreement with rail pros, Inc. Staff report by Sarah Christensen. Thank you, chair. Sarah Christensen here to present an item, an update on the Capitola Trestle as well as request a contract amendment for rail pros and approve an amendment to the measure D five year plans for both the rail and active transportation programs as well as a budget amendment. So the last time I've given an update on the Capitola Trestle was 2019. That was when we had, we were well underway with the TCAA and the recommendation was to basically hold off on this feasibility study that the commission had approved $50,000 for a measure D rail funds to conduct a feasibility study until after the conclusion of the TCAA. And the general scope or the intent of the study at the time was to analyze the feasibility of either modifying or replacing the bridge to accommodate both rail and trail. And there's many challenges with that. Specifically, it's actually five bridges put together, two concrete spans over the local roads of Warf Road and Capitola Avenue as well as two timber trestles. And finally the single span rot iron section which is about 150 foot long single span bridge over Soquel Creek. So the bridge has been under analysis and inspections over the past couple of years. The bridge has been deemed out of service until major repairs can be made. The two timber trestles require significant repair and it's recommended that the rot iron section over Soquel Creek needs to be replaced. And for various reasons, mainly because there's challenges associated with structural welding to rot iron. This is obviously a significant investment needed. And as you know, under the administration coordination and license agreement with St. Paul and Pacific, the RTC is responsible for making initial repairs which includes repairs to bridges in order to accommodate freight and recreational rail on the line. So we have provided some cost estimates and potential programs of potential funds for this purpose as well as some information about the Measure D rail corridor program. In summary, staff does not see a short-term path forward in competing for these funds nor do we recommend using the capacity of Measure D. There's just not enough to replace this bridge at this time. At the same time, the county public works is beginning the implementation of segments 10 and 11 of the Coastal Rail Trail. The scope of that project includes the Coastal Rail Trail along the branch line between 17th Avenue all the way to State Park Drive. And their project was assuming a gap at the Capitola trestle because of the significant investment needed to the bridge in order to construct their trail next to the rail lines. The county has since expressed their desire to consider an interim trail alternative as part of their EIR process. They're very early on in the process and they haven't gone through their scoping process yet for the EIR and they have not released their notice of preparation. And so it's a possibility that that interim trail alternative will be included in their EIR. And having the analysis done that I'm proposing would help inform their project. So essentially if they did analyze an interim trail alternative for their EIR and we perform this analysis, it would help inform the scope of their project. And we're proposing to have the RTC's bridge consultant do this work because it would be more cost effective and it would be quicker. If the county were to wanna do this type of analysis they would have to most likely procure a new consultant and enter into either a new contract or amend their existing contract to do this work. Our consultant already has a model of the bridge because we've already done a ton of analysis on this bridge in the past. And so it's really cost effective to do so in this manner. So the analysis that we're proposing would be to see if this bridge could accommodate a multi-use path in its current condition or as a retrofit. And in order to perform this analysis, we would need to amend the contract with rail pros for $37,531 and that is the recommendation by staff today is to amend their contract. Furthermore, the funds that were originally programmed for the feasibility study, we're proposing to use those funds to do this analysis. Those funds are currently out of the rail measure D program. And because this analysis is more trail oriented than rail infrastructure oriented, we are proposing to swap the funds, basically fund this analysis from the active transportation program rather than the rail program. And the fiscal impacts of that because we're changing the program that the funds are coming from, we would just need to make updates to the five year plans for those two programs, as well as amend the budget for those two programs to fund this contract accordingly. That concludes my staff report for today. And let me know if you guys have any questions. Thank you. Thank you, Sarah for that report, that was good. Commissioner Jock, any questions? Ultron, you're muted, Jock. Jock, you're muted. Still muted. You're still muted, Jock. No, you're having audio problems, Jock. No, we're still here, you Jock, you're still muted. Let me come back to you and I'll move on with alternate commissioners, Andy Schiffin. And I'll come back to you, Jock. Thank you, I'll be very brief. As far as I'm concerned, the logic for approving the staff recommendation here is exactly the same as the logic for approving it in the last item. It's important to have a complete and adequate environmental document. This allows for that to happen. And I think it's complex because of the previous study and but at root, it's all about having adequate environmental documents. And I think the county wanting to include this, it's not just that they, you know, it might be necessary included. Based on the information we have, it's going to be required to include it. And so we might as well get the work done early on so it can be incorporated throughout the process. Thank you, alternate commissioner Schiffin. Commissioner Schiffin, are you? There he goes. Okay, thanks. Thank you very much. Thanks for that report, Sarah. So I'm just interested in timelines. I agree with Andy. We need to have some. Thank you, Jack. There I am. There you are. So my question was about timelines. Just a follow up on Andy. So I agree with his comments in terms of the report and how soon it would be available to the public. Sure. Our consultant believes that we can help this analysis completed within six weeks. Okay, that's excellent. And then that information would be passed on to the county, I guess, Matt Machado. Correct. The project manager is Rob Tidmore, who I believe is present here today. Okay. Would you be available to give a report to the city of Capitola on this? Yes. Yeah, I would be very interested in having that scheduled. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Beltran. Commission alternate lowers. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. You know, this is a very important infrastructure project and it does need full study. You know, it was built back in the old days when timber was really timber and steel was steel. And so we'll see what the feasibility of it all is. It's, you know, it has a history of carrying very heavy loads with cars of cement and certainly railroad equipment and all kinds of timber and other such heavy items. And so who knows what the real structural integrity of it is, it's good to study it and make sure that it is solid and usable. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner, is there any other commissioners? Do you have any questions or comments? Commissioner Mike. Sarah Christianson, my question is same as on the last issue. In effect, when we get this work back, would we get information that would allow us to understand what combination of replacement and or repair would allow or not allow possibility for example, can't deliver, you know, trail next to the rail. So in other words, is that the kind of thing that'll be looked at when they're trying to study various kinds of replacement and repair options? So the idea of cantilevering, you can't really modify the timber trestles nor the single span and rod iron section to cantilever. There's a possibility that concrete bridges can but it's a moot point if you can't do it the whole way. And so I wouldn't expect that, you know, a bridge through the village, you know, in its current place with rail and trail would be a major upgrade. It would be replacement of at least three of the five bridges in order to make that happen. And what I'm asking is whether that option, for example, would be studied as part of this environmental review or that's not considered as part of this particular environmental document. Well, clarification, Mike, this is not an environmental document. This is a feasibility study. Okay. And we're only doing a feasibility study if the existing structure could be modified for an interim trail. Know that the existing bridges can't be modified for rail and trail. So we would be looking at a complete bridge replacement and we're not going to get, I know it's feasible to replace the bridges. I can already answer that question now, but we're not asking the consultant to environmentally clear or design complete bridge replacement for the Capitola Crescent. Thank you, Dr. Paribas. Thank you. And answers it. Yeah. Commissioner Matkin. Commissioner Manu Konin. Thank you, chair. Yeah, I just wanted to thank staff for working collaboratively with the county on this. You know, the fact that we already have a consultant who's able to do this work and who has an existing model of the bridge is fantastic.  And for, you know, relative bargain in terms of the total cost. So I think it's essential that we do the study. We essentially owe the voters of Capitola who supported this option by passing measure L in 2018. I think we owe them an analysis of whether or not it can be done. And again, I appreciate that staff has figured out a way to get that analysis cost-effectively and quickly. Thank you, commissioner Manu. Is there any fellow commissioners to have any other questions of staff? Seeing none, I'm going to go ahead and take this out to the public for any comments. Mr. Bryan Peoples, then Brett Garrett. Chair recognizes Mr. Bryan Peoples. Yes, hi, this is Bryan from Trail Now. We absolutely support this. This is great. Thank you for doing this. We need to open that trestle as soon as possible for use. It's going to be a phenomenal resource of our community. And here I want to propose to the commission, we keep talking about the preferred option. What we're suggesting is to say, hey, maybe we reverse the preferred option in the trail, call it trail and transit, and trail getting the middle of the corridor. And we, as many of the commissioners have pointed out, we need a real plan. If we have the plan where the trail is in the middle of the corridor, and we commit as a community to have transit along the corridor as well, it's a win-win. We give the right direction to the engineers to do a design that we can all back. I think that's really what we need to do is we really need to come and say, hey, a trail and transit is really the preferred option. And that I think will get us over the hump and allow our engineers to continue to move forward at a cost-effective approach to using this valuable resource because letting it sit for a decade, spending millions on a trail next to the tracks, doing the design work on a trail next to the tracks, and knowing that we really don't have the money for those trails next to the tracks is really not equitable. We always hear the word equitable. Well, it's not equitable when we keep that coastal corridor closed for a decade, and we don't foresee it opening anytime soon. So I recommend that it's trail and transit and I recommend you move forward with this. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Peebles. Chair. Mr. Brett Garrett. Chair, Mr. Brett Garrett. Hi, yeah, trail and transit, that is actually possible probably on the existing infrastructure, maybe, using personal rapid transit, which uses very lightweight infrastructure. So I think it's very likely possible to move bikes, pedestrians, and a lightweight transit system on that existing infrastructure. I would really encourage not to just ask, can we do a bike path and pedestrian trail, but also to ask, can we do lightweight transit on this trestle at the same time? I'm going to assert very strongly that PRT is a viable option for our county and these kind of questions should be asked. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Garrett. Mr. Ben Vernasa. Chair recognizes Mr. Ben Vernasa. Okay, let us not forget, bus trail, the metro system is very important and it's very likely that if a rail is out entirely because of costs, which I think you're going to find out in the future, that bus trail between Santa Cruz and Capitola is a possibility and from there, Park Avenue to Cabrillo and from there on the freeway to Watsonville. And you can even start and come to UCSC by going from the boardwalk of Bay Avenue until High Street, until our transportation system. So let's not forget the potential on the trail of bus trail. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ben Vernasa. Mr. Mark Mercedes Miller. Can you recognize Mr. Mike Mercedes Miller? Go ahead, Mike. Good morning, or maybe afternoon by now I've lost track. Thank you for taking consideration here. I think if we're going to study the use of the capital trestle for a lightweight application such as a pedestrian bicycle trail, multi-use trail, we should also study the capital of trestle for its capacity to support an ultra lightweight passenger rail system such as the TIGM. I'm a professional engineer and I can tell you that a vehicle which has a weight of less than 10% of a freight locomotive or freight car combo is far lighter and given that the trestle is capable of supporting something it stands there, it's capable of supporting something. It may also easily support a lightweight passenger rail and that would be a far better use of that trestle than some pedestrian bicycle interim use. So if we're going to look at interim uses, this would be an easy thing to examine and a simple way of modifying the RailPro contract might be just to ask them, what is the capacity of the bridge to support additional or loading beyond the dead loading of the bridge itself? What sort of live loading could you put on that bridge? And that way you could answer multiple questions about what the best use of that bridge might be on an interim basis. As far as the comments, earlier comments that you can't weld on cast iron, you can't add a cantilever bridge to the timber trestle. As an engineer with more than three decades of experience, I can tell you there are other ways of connecting to wrought iron than welding, you can bolt, you can clamp and timber similar can be modified in many different ways. So it may be worth having a professional engineers at RailPro is asking specifically answering that question. Is it possible to support some type of a cantilevered system with existing bridges? I trust you've all read my letter. I think there's a plenty of precedent, no adopted policy for that. Thank you. I don't see any other hands. Commissioner Gonzalez. We just had one go up. Miss Sally Arnold. Check recognizes Sally Arnold. Hi, I'm just, I wanted to add into what Mr. Miller was just saying. First of all, I think that this idea of just, what's the load capacity in general for like, whatever, lots of people, lots of bikes, lots of, you know, a very light train, Brett's PRT, whatever it is. I mean, I think maybe a neutral way of framing this is just, what's the capacity? I mean, I, if even if it is a trail only for a while, an interim trail, that's going to be, I mean, can a zillion people walk across that thing at the same time?  It does seem pretty fragile, at least from what we're hearing. But also, you know, we're, we're hearing that, oh, there've been studies done and it can't do this and it can't do that, but I don't think any of those studies have been made public yet. And we're back to what I said earlier about, it appears that there are studies being done, taxpayers are paying for them, but they're not being made available for us to look at. And I don't doubt that the bridge is fragile, but it would be really useful if we could see these things. And again, it would might reduce speculation if these, these things were made available and to the public to see. And again, just like any interim use, what's the life cycle of it? You know, if you're going to undo that interim use, that's going to have a cost to an environmental cost and an economic cost. And as Commissioner Schifrin said, that would probably need to be included as well. Thank you very much for your consideration. Thank you, Mrs. Seller. I don't know. We have David date and then Barry Scott. Chair recognizes Mr. David date. You can unmute yourself, Mr. David date. You're still muted. There I am. Sorry about that. Thank you. Thank you, chair. David date from most of the beach. I think the 800 pound grill in the room is measure L. Capital residents have already decided what the use of the capital trust was going to be, and that's going to be a trail. And unless we can go and convince them otherwise and get a majority vote, that's going to be the case. There is not going to be rail over the capital trestle. It can't support rail. It certainly can't support both. And this idea that a rail vehicle toot and down the corridor at 15 miles an hour is a better use than a multimodal trail that's accessible to anyone with feet or a bike or a wheelchair is absolutely ridiculous. And the studies, the studies support that. So we need to, we need to move forward with this. We need to get this trail built as soon as possible. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. David eight. Very Scott and Saladin sale. Yeah, I recognize him as a very Scott. Thank you. Thank you for allowing two minutes to speak. I just want to mention that the, I support a study and I, and I, I look forward to the results of this. I feel that a well conducted study is going to find that this, these bridges are not. Capable for very long of supporting any, any kind of use longterm. We're making decisions that have consequences for generations to come. And I think that. I think that. The right way to go is going ultimately to be that we need transit and trail to cross that section. And that consistent with all the past studies at rail transit. It m