Okay, we should be good to go. All right, well, welcome, everyone. Let's call to order the January 2023 meeting of the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District Board. And our very first step is I'm going to turn over to Julie Sherman to swear in several of our new directors. Julie. Don, are you able to screen share though. Oh, no, I had given that to Michael. I thought Michael was going to be doing that. Okay, let's see. Is that electronic? Maybe Michael could screen share or is it a hard copy. I just have a hard copy here. Sorry, I didn't know there was going to be a switch. Okay. I think I can probably find it pretty quickly. I don't know if I can find it. I don't know if I can find it. I don't know if I can find it. I don't know if I can find it, but then I can read it. It just may be helpful for them to have it on the screen. So they can. I agree. Repeat it. But let me see if I can quickly find it. Elizabeth, do you by chance. Are you able to pull that up by any chance? Let me see if I can find it. Okay. I don't have everything right in front of me. Yeah. Don't know. I found it. So I can share my screen. Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay. Here we go. Please repeat after me. I and then state your name. I Mike. Do solidly swear or firm. Do solidly swear or firm. That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States. And the Constitution of the state of California. And the State of California. Against all enemies foreign and domestic. Against all enemies. Farm domestic. that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. And I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of California, and the Constitution of the State of California, that I take this obligation freely, that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter and I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter. Thank you. Welcome and welcome back. Thank you. Thank you. There we go. Thank you, Julie. All right. Moving along, we get to an actual roll call. Donna. All right. Director Brown. Present. Director Downing. Present. Director Dutra. Here. Director Colin Terry Johnson. Present. Director Koenig. Here. Director Lynn. Here. Director McPherson. Not seeing him. Director Newsome. Present. Director Pagler. Here. Director Rockin. Here. Exofficio Director Northcott. Here. And we hope to swear in Exofficio Director Henderson and the Watsonville rep at our February meeting. We do have quorum. Great. Thank you, Donna. All right. And under announcements, I'll note that today's meeting is being broadcast by the community television of Santa Cruz County. Thank you for that effort. Appreciate your work. Item five brings us to my nomination of board officers and committee assignments. And in your packets, you will see in item five, three pieces. One, part A shows who our current officers and committee members are. By B is simply the summary of the current SEC IC members and five C is my proposed slate number one. Now, I want to note that other slates are welcome and there are certainly slots there for up to four. The primary changes. Let's see if I can blow up something on my screen. I will note just summary. I am nominating Jimmy Dutra as chair, Chevro Calantari Johnson as vice chair for the coming year. When we get to the committees, I've asked Jimmy to take the seat that was previously occupied by Donna Myers on the capital project standing committee, joining Bruce McPherson and I and continuing in that role. I've also emailed Scott Newsom to ask if he would be able to attend as the project that Pacific Station certainly involves the city of Santa Cruz and Donna's role in that was very helpful in keeping communications flowing well in the early stages of that project. The finance budget and audit committee pretty much remains the same with the same four officers renewed personnel and human resources standing committee. The change there is that Donna Lynn would be stepping off as past chair. I'd be filling that seat and if the officers are approved, Jimmy Dutra and Chevro would serve as current chair and vice chair. The SEC IC reps. I'm nominating Bruce McPherson, Chevro Calantari Johnson, Manu Koenig, myself and Rebecca Downing. And when we get to the RTC representatives at this time, that third primary seat, following Kristen and Mike, Ari Parker seat is still open. I'm waiting for the nomination of Watsonville's additional representative to the board. I've proposed that I serve as alternate one that Chevro serve as alternate two and Donna Lynn continue as alternate three. And that's a quick run down at the slate. Now Donna might step in. We will not be voting on this until the February meeting. Any directors can submit additional slates. I believe they submit them to Donna or we can talk about it here. It will certainly be discussed in February. I see Donna Lynn's hand. Donna. And I when the time's appropriate, I would like to present an alternate slate. Any other questions from directors? You might just go to Donna. Go ahead, Donna. Take the ticket. Well, I would like to propose that I'm the only changes I would they would propose would be for chair and vice chair and that would be for Chevro Calantari Johnson as chair and Kristen Brown as vice chair. And my reason is that neither of them have had an opportunity to serve as chair. Several of us have and Jimmy had in the last time that he was in 2017, I believe when he was last on Metro and prior to cycling out. So I just feel like it would be an opportunity for others who have been serving to be able to serve in the chair and vice chair position to have that that opportunity. Any other comments? Directors? Donna, Donna Bauer, is there any other process? Should people submit these alternate slates to you for consideration in February or? If they have something else they would like to submit, yes, please and then that will be in the February packet. Okay. Okay. So Donna Lynn, thank you and I imagine you will be submitting a slate. Mike, I see Mike. No other changes to what I yeah. Just the two officers. Those two. All right. Mike Rock and I see your hand. Yes, I just want to make a process suggestion. If there are no other alternative slates that we find a way to have us just two votes in effect. You know where the whole thing that everybody would agree upon is one and then if there are different slate opinions do that separately rather than being forced to have five or seven votes on every other slight issue. Very good. I appreciate that. That will make for a much easier February. All right. Any other comments on this item? I like the comment. Jimmy, go ahead please. Thank you. And thank you. I'm Larry for your nomination. I really appreciate it. And you're in the past you know the way the past processes is that you know people the vice chair becomes the chair and you know and then last year when that process came, you know, there was a choice between me and Bruce. Bruce would have been on the same path. So it's really interesting that Donna is choosing to you know make that argument when Bruce would have been in line for to be chair this year. But I do want to remind everybody that as of right now you see that I am the only voice from South County sitting on this screen and you know a vote did go to the board of supervisors to try to feel to try to get another representative from South County to have their voice in here. That did not happen. So I remain I right now I'm remaining before someone else gets appointed. There's going to be two of us. But right now I'm the only one in this meeting. I've been very faithful to this organization. I you know I was one of the only very few people that went to the barbecue to support our bus drivers. You know I stay really active and you know the processes that are being you know implemented here for our transit because I realize how important it is for South County and and being the second largest city in the county. A lot of a lot a lot of our residents utilize the bus system. So you know I I take this really serious. So I and you know I would hope that my voice remains on you know the executive team which it is now you know I when I show up to the meetings and the breakfast meetings on my voice is you know representing a part of this community that you know wouldn't have a voice and so I hope that is you know being considered when we move forward and I you know I would love to work with Shabra and Shabra would be the chair you know the following year and you know I would and maybe Kristen can follow in after that that'd be definitely something I could support but you know right now you know the way we've been doing it in the past is there's been a process of how you know people become chair and you know I to have Donna Lynn want to circumvent that I just have an issue with that but you know if we can keep with that process and you know maintain the voice that we have and if you think about it you know there's not going to be no representative on the RTC from Metro from South County you were basically getting pushed out again so I hope everybody can you know keep that in mind when they're voting thanks. Thank you Jimmy I'll reiterate Jimmy that I'm hoping that the new appointment from the city of Watsonville may serve as our third RTC primary rep for Metro. Donna Lynn I see your hand please. Yeah and as as Jimmy mentioned last year Bruce was vice chair and would have our prior year would have stepped forward and he he actually said I'd rather see someone who hasn't had an opportunity and and had suggested that Larry or someone who hasn't had an opportunity to be able to give that rather than him stepping forward and then he agreed I think at Larry's request to stay as vice chair to help mentor and guide but even at that point he said you know I've been chair before and I think it would be good for others to have that opportunity so that that didn't happen last year either and then of course the vote removed him as vice chair but I give you know I I actually think that that's one of the times that I I thought about it when Bruce was mentioning that several people had had repeat terms and others said had none. So that that first got me to think about that happened with me as well. John Leopold was supposed to move into chair and didn't and wasn't re-elected and had said hey Donna hasn't had an opportunity. So that was my first time to serve as chair. So I have served once and I know others have as well. So I think it's something that is only fair that that is I mean I could plead for North County you know to I think that all of us on the board are representing our communities and it doesn't have to be in the chair position that we all serve equally and I'd like to see others on the board have that opportunity and I appreciate Jimmy service. Yes, I was at the barbecue. There were very few of us and he is definitely been supportive. So it's nothing negative as far as Jimmy just an opportunity for others. Thank you Donna. Alta did you have a comment? I did I've I've been noticing just as an ex officio and I am representing Cabrillo. So I go from North to South County and I live in South County and so it'll be nice to have a voice on this committee on any of them actually that had lens to what our students are saying who are traveling across counties and not just you know is separated in theirs and so I've noticed just a pattern and I just wanted to point it out that it seems that anytime Jimmy or a South County resident rep is appointed to something there is a reason to change the rule and I just wanted to insert that as my observation. Thank you Alta and and I will underscore something Donna said which it isn't really a rule I guess because I became chair last year so here we are. Any other comments? Seeing none on this item I would move to Board of Directors comments do we have any comments from the board on other items Rebecca good morning. Good morning. I just wanted to express my gratitude for the invitation to the Bay of Life reception last Saturday. The ecology of the Monterey Bay was one of the reasons my family moved here and it was really heartwarming to see this incorporated into the Metro campaign and Michael your comments and the use of the podium to share our latest work in ridership goals with the community was quite inspired. He made big impact and thanks to Danielle the project is off to a fabulous start. The buses parked out on the curb that night with Mountain Lion and the whale tail were very big and bold and looked even better than the renderings that you had shared with us earlier. And I got to visit with Jesus Garcia who is the perfect choice to welcome guests to the first two works part that will be rolling out the program. He was a great ambassador. So thank you all. Great. Thanks for mentioning them. Donna Linda. I see you. I want to thank you Rebecca it was good to see you there and it was an outstanding event. I really I wanted to commend Danielle and Michael both both of you just represented Metro so well and it was it was a wonderful event and I I mean Metro was certainly credited throughout from the various speakers for our support and participation and that you know we need to thank our staff for Michael and staff. Great job made all of us proud. It was it was really wonderful to be there. Very good. Thank you. Manu I see your hand. Yeah I just want to add my commendation as well for Michael and Danielle the new buses with the raps look really good and I think they're going to catch a lot of eyes around the county and I mean especially just highlighting the fact that these are zero emission buses. I think they're going to start to get people thinking twice and and wanting to ride the Metro and that's of course exactly the purpose. So great job and looking forward to also seeing more buses roll out with these wraps. Thank you. My graphic at the risk of extending this. I just want to say thank Danielle for the not only the idea and pulling the stuff together but for the publicity that we've gotten about this in the Sentinel and other places. I was I was aware of it and had seen that information before but I was on extra out of my bicycle had on the west side of Santa Cruz and I saw I think was on the 20 route 20 on one of these buses went by at first like what's that and I look at it they're just amazing beautiful and they go by you they're really stunning and you can't help but notice them and it's a great way to bring attention to public transit. So thank you Daniel for your work on that. And I will echo the same appreciation. I thought it was a terrific program. I haven't seen one of the buses in person yet but I'm looking forward to it. I also want to acknowledge the Metro staff who assisted during some of the storm emergencies. We saw information about our bus operators who moved some students from a camp in Boulder Creek back down the Scots Valley so they could get back home safely. I know Michael was filling sandbags down in Watsonville at one point. I think some other of our staff were and I did observe a Reddit post of a bus driver who assisted someone whose car had stalled in the middle of the 1 9 intersection and help them get it out of the way so traffic could move and then got back in the bus and that kind of support for our community is most appreciated. And I very much want to thank everyone who's had a part in that. I see Bruce McPherson has arrived. Thank you Bruce. Hello, I've been I've had a tough time getting in here. So I heard the conversation conversations. I want to thank everyone who's in this storm related but especially Michael. We ought to we ought to know this as a board that he he contacted me and his church had 150 people who wanted to volunteer and record them to the volunteer center. They got out there front and center. I mean, he's putting Metro out there with all his colleagues at his church so and so forth to and and as far as the event went, it was just great to be this celebration of this Bay of Life book. I don't know. I didn't get to hear everything, but it's phenomenal and boy, that was a great effort to have the bus right with Jesus, one of the drivers with us right out in front of the museum. It was a tremendous event. So thank you very much. Thank you everybody, but thank you especially Michael for getting 150 people out there help people respond to the storm related action. That's great. Thank you for that, Bruce. All right, any other comments? Seeing none, I think we're going on to item 7 oral and written communications to board Donna. I don't think we had anything new. You're muted. There you go. I'm sorry, Larry. That's okay. We just back up and make a motion to approve the nomination slate. Oh, fourth for consideration at the February meeting. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'll move. We approve that those nominations to and but there would note that there'll be others possibly added. Yeah. Second, we have a motion from Rockinus and from Koenig. Can we have a vote please? Director Brown? Aye. Director Downing? Aye. Director Dutra? Aye. Director Cullentary-Johnson? Aye. Director Koenig? Aye. Director Linn? Aye. Director McPherson? Aye. Director Newsom? Aye. Director Pagler? Aye. Director Rockin? Aye. And the motion passes. Thank you. There we go. Thanks for the reminder, Donna. You're welcome. All right. Oral and written communications. I don't believe we've received any additional written materials. We have not. All right. Oral communications. I'm looking to the public here. I see one hand from a Rohan. Rohan, you're welcome to speak please. Hello. Yeah. So for those of you that don't know me, my name is Rohan Chuli. I'm a fourth dirt econ and electrical engineering student at UCSC and I want to provide a comment about Metro's response in agenda item 7.1 to 7.4 choose a written comment about overcrowding on the UCSC routes. So in Metro's response, it says that the reduction service hours prior to UCSC service was 15.4 percent. But I calculated service reduction using the GTFS data and I got 32.7 percent service reduction compared to the service in 2019. And I'm so I'm really curious what the methodology that Metro used to get to the 16 percent number was since the number I got was so different on the methodology I used was that I looked at I downloaded the GTFS feeds for both the current service and service from the winter of 2019. And for each day of the week, I summed up the total run on every trip on the UCSC routes and 2019 is different because today is the week that there was extra like you say first day surface on the 15 LC on the 22. But I all these up and then for weekend service as well and then for total week that's 32.7 percent. So I just want to make sure that that that number is correct. That is in the in the in the board that and that's going to be in the public record. And the other thing is so in in that metric response, one of the things they say is that there is a, you know, metric not every surface to UCSC because there's a significant driver shortage that makes sense. Right. You can't pull new bus operators on the thin air, but there are definitely some key changes near term changes that metric make significantly improve the surface without feeding any additional operators. One of the ones is making sure that the surface operates and even had ways with different corridors. For example, there is two to three times more ridership on mission Western corridors compared to upper bay. The upper bay has more service and it's on upper bay is not even right. The 15 and seven minutes behind the 19 and then there's a 23 minute gap and it seems to me it would make one more sense to provide the 19 every 20 minutes run the each every 20 minutes down. Any of those four doors are way time would be less and there would be more surface in the areas of UCSC West Side Network where it's needed most. Right. Thank you, Rohan. I'm going to ask our planning staff if they're available to comment on on on this item. I don't know. Well, I'm John. Go ahead. There you are. I'll just comment very briefly. For the data we compared current service levels as scheduled versus pre covid service levels. Rohan has my number. I have his we can coordinate and future conversations related to the data. I also want to point out that this month we kicked off our reimagined Metro effort, which is a comprehensive operational analysis of all of Metro service and routes as part of that there is a specific effort to recruit focus groups at UCSC to which we have invited Rohan particularly and the community at large to participate in this will. This will be this will kick off an effort to plan better service at UCSC that meets meets the community's needs over the next 12 to 15 months. Very good. Thank you, John. Next member of the public. I see Jessica Corona. Do you like to speak Jessica? There you go. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Yeah, my name is Jessica Corona. I'm a mom of a San Jose State student. We live in Ben Lomond. He wrote an email to the board, I believe back in December about the Highway 17 service. And he's just started back this semester on Wednesday and is that class today?  Anyway, that's the whole background about the Highway 17 Express. We are hoping that that there could be buses stopping in Scots Valley during maybe the commute times, maybe six to nine a.m. And say four to seven p.m. When it skips Scots Valley and goes straight to Santa Cruz, then he has to hop a bus from Santa Cruz back up to Scots Valley, which he had been doing before. But now, as you know, the Highway 17 bus on the other way from Santa Cruz to San Jose State now does not go all the way. It stops at Deridon. Then you have to get a VTA bus to San Jose State. So there's just, there's so many pieces and just in this time, like he's having 12, 13 hour days and could maybe have 10, 11 hour days makes a big difference. He's also working and things. It's just, it's become one more complication. So if you could look into that of maybe having more of the routes stop in Scots Valley, especially, well, not only on their way back, but also to get there. And that's it. Thank you, Jessica. John, would you like to comment? Yes, thank you. Thank you for the comment. We understand the convenience that service change on Highway 17 caused this winter. We did it out of necessity as we've been for trying all along. We're, we're very short on operators and the operators that are working are working lots of overtime. But given some recent success and hiring, we are planning to restore three AM commute period trips and three PM commute period trips that will serve both Scots Valley and San Jose State and that'll start March 16th. So that should improve that situation for that. We also did reach out to San Jose State who pre COVID used to fund two late evening trips for Metro to operate. They did not get back to us in time for this bid for the spring service change, but potentially again given operator resources, we might be able to add late night trips in summer or fall. Very good. Thank you, John. I see you end up from Garfield. Yeah. Garfield. Here you go. Yeah. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. So I personally had a mission. So our person would like to describe the dimensions we dropped and then the increasing buses that walking the faces on the disaster. I personally have encountered multiple times of the bus for 18 or 19 having buses drop. I would check to measure.com and the time schedule would take the correct time, but no buses with this picture sent out as the time is great out and there's no active buses put in UCSC around that time. During this experience, I will calmly check to measure.com to see if there are any buses. This issue has presented to me around 9 p.m. on a Monday during winter fall winter all quarters this year. I was finishing off a meeting and wanted to get on my next call school. I checked to measure.com and it prompted that the next bus will be around 9 45 p.m. or so. And it was around like a 30 minute wait yourself. And I said, I could take an Uber and I would be I would arrive home faster than the bus. I said the time I waited for like five, 10 minutes because I was assuming that the bus could be delayed the bus to be late. So I waited a few minutes here and there. I saw no single bus. So I decided just to call an Uber just to get an Uber and get home as soon as possible. However, once I would call the Uber and the Uber arrived, the bus is right in front of that Uber that I was planning to take, but I already paid for the Uber. Well, I had to deal with the consequences. Next time is that I've had an experience with buses being a frequent both during the weekend and during the weekdays, both on campus and off campus. The very first time I encountered this issue was around when I was living on campus. It was usually a weekend. I had to go somewhere and I figured out that I can go there. It took me a 30 minute walk for a 17 minute bus ride. My first thought was I'm going to test the bus. So I got up 30 minutes early in the city. I'll write to the location 30 minutes early because it was like every hour during the weekend. I'll be like, that's fine. I'll just arrive the 30 minutes early. I'll be fine. I can just do other stuff over there and then I can just hang around there. And then I waited. I'll be waiting at the bus stop 10, 20 minutes and then I would still arrive at the location 10 to 20 minutes when I was planning to go and then I figured I can just walk to the location and walk 17 or 30 minutes and be much more accurate than waiting for a bus. And then it happened again on campus when I was riding to a certain place and I figured out that riding to, riding when I was trying to ride to the place, I missed the bus by a minute and I was able to walk to my location faster than the bus was actually going to take. And this is on a weekday. And the problem has made me as a writer doubtful that the crew measure of the company can provide a reliable service as it has been commonality that all routes are laid 5 to 10 minutes from this kind of time. In addition, the constant need to check please much.com as wasn't maybe cancer result without the weather knowledge and would have to proceed to wait around an extra 30 minutes an hour depending on the time. Thank you. Thank you Garfield. All right. Any other comments? I'm not seeing additional hands. John, do you have any additional response or I would just invite the speaker to join our pre-measurement remember that again is kicking off this month that you see to see and countywide there will be opportunities for the public to weigh in and how we can make Metro fast frequent and reliable for everyone who wants to. Very good. Thank you. Mike, Rob, can I see your hands? I just want to belabor the point that this is not a good model for getting people to make become lifelong transit users. I have students like late to my class two of them at the last class and as you can hear from our last speaker. I mean, at some point people just decide this isn't working for me and they start to decide they're going to become car users forever and we should be moving in the other direction these days for a whole range of reasons. I don't need to elaborate, including climate change. And so I know I'm not blaming anybody for this. Our staff are doing their best to hire new people and so forth. But this is not a small consequence of having people just feel like transit is just not working for them. And you can't blame them.  But at some point you just decide this isn't working and you make a different life choice that doesn't just affect you while you're a UCSC student, but eventually for the rest of your life in terms of how you get around. So we really need to double up our efforts to hire more drivers and try and fix this problem. So again, I don't I think our staff are doing their best. I'm not saying anybody's doing anything wrong here. But people just need to be aware that this is really tragic on some level. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Donna Lynn. You're muted, Donna. I thought I might be. All right. The one thing I thought about too that we might share is the app that will help with the on time app being able to be another resource that could help. Obviously, as we struggle with staffing and drivers, you know, there's that's an issue, but maybe it might be a time to talk about that app as well. Good point. All right. Any other comments from public or directors? Seeing none with that, I'd like to go on the item eight and ask if there's any communications from our labor organizations. I see James James Sandoval. Please welcome this morning. Hi, good morning, Larry. Good morning, everyone. James Sandoval here, chairman of Smart Local 23, who represents the bus operators and ferry transit operators at Metro. I want to thank you for your leadership, Larry, as the chair. You didn't change one bit. You still showed up to our spark meetings. I still saw the passion from you and you did really great. So I just want to thank you for everything you've done. Scott Newsome, welcome to our board. It's going to be I'm looking forward to meeting with you. I do have a relationship with everyone on this board. So hopefully one day we could sit down and talk about transit and what your goals are being a board member from Metro. I also want to speak to the slates that were being proposed. I will say that both slates. These are all great people, but I do have to lean on the fact that the concerns were brought up not too long ago about Watsonville's voice. And as Jimmy pointed out, he is the only board member here from Watsonville and Watsonville does represent half the population in this county. So at least if we could figure out a way to make sure he's on the executive team because from my understanding, we might have development happening in Watsonville for another location for another yard and that kind of stuff. So just to make sure someone from Watsonville has a voice on the executive team. And I do want to say that Mike Rockin and I, when those concerns were brought up, not too long afterwards, we did get to sit together and talk about all the issues that were brought up and figured out together where the communication breakdown was happening and how we both could do better moving forward to make sure that we're collaborating on issues. So I just want to thank Mike for his time and making sure that the relationship is still there and that we're going to continue working together. And the last thing is talking about the floods. I just got to give a shout out to everyone at Metro that came together understanding how important it was for us to be there for our community and our drivers working around the clock, making sure that all the calls were being responded to and getting people out of the places that needed to be getting out of them dealing with their own issues, having to evacuate out of their own locations, even being trapped at homes because the bridges collapse where they were living. It was crazy and Michael Tree's leadership getting us through that too was great to see. So he's going to probably speak to some of the specific stories that happened. I will just want to share one story real quick and it is from one of our newer drivers here, his name is Carlos. And he was one of the Highway 17 drivers that was stuck with his passengers for over five hours. And he couldn't go down 17 because of the mudslides. He couldn't go through 101. He was trying to get back from Santa Cruz. There was basically no way for him to get back other than going up to Half Moon Bay and going down Highway 1. And he was with his passengers for so long and everyone was starving and he actually had his wife meet them somewhere along the route to bring them food and take care of the people on his bus. So not only did we get people where they need to go, we really took care of them. So I just I really appreciate everyone here and making sure that we took care of our community. Thank you. Thank you, James. And thank you to Carlos and his wife that's above and beyond all the duty. Brandon Freeman, Brandon. Right now, I think Mike had something to say. Mike, did you want to go before me? I'll just say quickly. I want to thank James for his comments and just point out that it's not easy to be a union rep. And James does a really good job of fiercely representing his members, but still putting putting the transit district right there in front and center in terms of what gets done. So really a good model for what how people can be union activists and still really make the commitment to their employers. And so I want to thank James for his work. Thank you. Go ahead, Brandon. All right. Good morning, everybody. Welcome, Scott. Welcome to the board. Introduce myself real quick. I'm Brandon Freeman. I'm James the second. I generally fill in for him if he is not available. Got a few things to go over first one. Just going straight in door slate one. I like everything that I see on there. I totally get it about trying to bring new people in. I'm not sure that this is the time to bring new people in. We got a negotiation coming up here fairly soon. So you may want someone who's been through that before at the helm. In addition, Jimmy is someone who kind of goes above and beyond over what I've seen out of some, you know, other others. I'm not trying to put anyone down, but dealing with a lot of the scheduling stuff for the union. Jimmy is very easily accessible. Always there to make sure that the input is there. Having his voice heard, making sure that his people are taking care about in Watsonville. And he makes a lot of extra time to do that outside of, you know, regular functions to meet with us and make sure that his opinions and the voices of Watsonville are heard. So definitely want to endorse him for the next chair. As far as some of these scheduling issues and our staffing, I think it's important to let you guys know if you haven't realized that the number of operators we have this January is exactly the same as last, even though we've hired so many classes. Our attrition rate is severe. We are re-adding service not because we have extra operators, but because we are taking more work on with the ones that we have. This is why our attrition rate is this severe. As of last week, you had 16 people hitting their maximum 80 and eight. We do not have the ability to run any more service. Now, I know that UCSC has been an issue. We've been having some pass-ups, but I think Michael has a really good solution with that, looking at some of these articulated buses out of San Diego, trying to push these hydrogen articulated buses. As of right now, we own four. Only two have been alive in the last month and a half. We have shortage of mechanics. These buses are very old. They're 2003s. They're past their life. If we get our entire university fleet running in articulated buses, we should be able to take care of a lot of this pass-up stuff. And I know that Michael has found the opportunity to do that. And we're sending people down to San Diego to check those out Monday, I believe. So hopefully, there will be some relief coming out of there. As far as the buses dropping, bus dropping, I mean, nobody wants to drop service, right? We really don't want to have to do that. But when we do, we have to take a look at what's dropping and where in terms of the overall picture. UCSC has 10 routes an hour. They go to campus. Other places have one. When it comes down to what we're going to be dropping, it's still better to run nine routes there to university and cover that one that may be going into Aptos or that may be going deep into Watsonville or maybe crossing the county. Like I said, nobody wants to do these things, but these are things that we have to do. The more we increase the service, the more we take care of the people who want to go downtown San Jose who want more university service, who want to go wherever it may be, the less buffer we're going to have for when things happen, especially now COVID is still a thing. People are working longer than ever. They're being more stressed out than ever. They're going to use more sick time than ever because they're just going and going and going. It is inconvenient to have to wait 30 minutes for a bus. It's additionally inconvenient to be a driver and not get out of that bus for six or seven hours. That's what we're doing currently. So we are doing everything that we can to try to alleviate some of these things. Trust us, we definitely know where the issues are at. John and I probably talk way more than either one of us would like trying to figure out these different problems that we got going on. So, you know, I just want to make sure that you guys know it's not being ignored. It's not like, oh, well, there's nothing we could do so we stop talking about. No, we're constantly, constantly, constantly looking at other ways to try to figure this kind of stuff out. And then the last thing that I wanted to talk about was actually from my good friend, John Urgo, with the free fare for the youth. That's something I also want to endorse. I think that that's something that would be really good for the youth of our county. I know a lot of times, especially for myself, a lot of the work that I do with the school kids is up in Bonnie Dune or up in Boulder Creek. It's not always easy for them to come up with fare. It's not always, you know, maybe one person has it. Maybe their friend doesn't. I mean, at this point, does it really matter? It's not, it's not a whole lot of money. And these are kids, right? I don't propose that we go fare-free all the way out. But for the kids, I think that's something really solid that we could do for them and try to get them on the bus because I see them out there. You know, maybe that next time, if they know they can show their ID and get on that bus, that pack of 15 kids you see walking home, they might be on our bus. So I think it's in the best interest of everyone for that. I want to endorse that. Like I said, slate one, and we will continue to do everything that we can to try to get this service where it needs to be. Thank you. Thank you, Brandon. Mike, I see your hand up. Sorry, I'm talking a lot. I'll just say quickly. We, we, we did, I think a good job that the transit district did a good job of trying to address the issue, finding a way to encourage more hiring of new bus drivers. But Brandon brought up a point that I hadn't really not thought about, which is, you know, the issue of attrition on the other end. We do have bargaining coming up.  But as far as the needs of the district, we might think about issues about longevity pay or other. I don't know what it is that, you know, would encourage people who are thinking about possibly leaving, leaving earlier or earlier than they otherwise would to stay with us. And but that's something we might want to think about. It made a big difference in our hiring when we increased the initial starting pay. We found a clever way to do that without increasing overall costs in any, you know, in a bad way. But maybe there's some ideas come up about ways to deal with the attrition problem. That's it. Thanks. Brandon, thank you for mentioning the additional articulated buses we're going to be getting from San Diego that I hope will help with many of the capacity issues on the West side. Jordan Vasbonis, I see a hand. Would you like to speak? Jordan. Right now. Good morning, board of directors and welcome Scott to the board. First off, I just like to say start off by saying I want to endorse late one. I have an existing relationship with Jimmy and I know he's great to work with. So with not with negotiations coming up, I think that that's going to be a good thing. And then second, I just want to say that as the representative of like the administrative staff here at Metro, I just want to say that I can see a lot of movement to kind of improve service. And you know, I just want to say my heart goes out to the students. I know there are a lot of people who who see how you get passed up and you know, have routes that don't quite work for them. But I can just say the admin staff are doing the best they can and they have some good challenges and I'm definitely seeing steps moving forward to improve service. A quick shout outs to HR for all the recruiting they're doing for operators and mechanics planning. They're doing the best they can with our operator shortage. You know, we have the COA study that's going to give us like some really good information. Another shout out to marketing. We know the buses look great and that's definitely making people's head turn. My own department, it we're working on getting new technology on buses. So I just want to ensure the public that we are definitely making big steps on improving service. That's it for now. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Jordan. Brandon, I think your hand is just still up from your previous. I did have one more right ahead. All right. I forgot. Larry, obviously, you know, because you join us quite often. Service planning and review committees are open to the board members. I am now formally inviting you. Second Tuesday, 12 to two, we need to move it to zoom to make sure that you guys can get there. Please do come so you can see kind of the inside of what's happening with our planning. It's a it's a meeting that has been longstanding. The contract language does say that we're supposed to invite you. So you have all been formally invited to join us in the service planning and review committee. And Brandon, I'll add on that. I'm hoping in my retirement from chair to encourage many directors to come in and ride buses so that as we go through the COA process, all of us better understand the actual experience of our riders on the routes in our areas and across the county. So I'll probably be tapping you to help plan some of those. Whatever we need. We'd always love to see you guys out there. Thank you, Brandon. Jimmy, I see your hand up. Right. Thank you. All right. Maybe Donna, can you work with Brandon and those of us that want to get it on our calendars and the links that way we can have an easy access to those meetings. So if you can add it to mine, I'd really appreciate it and maybe work with any other member on our board who wants to add it to their calendars as well. Thanks. Absolutely. I'll note that Rebecca and I are general attendees each month right now. Thanks, Jimmy. All right. Any other comments from our group? I see no hands in public. I see nothing from our panelists. I think that takes us to item nine. Donna, I don't think we have any additional documentation. There is none. All right. Thank you. Then we have a consent agenda that's relatively long. Are there items in there? Anyone cares to pull or in a motion to approve? Ask directors. I'll move. Shebra, I see a hand. I can second. Well, I don't know who said I'll move. I can second. I think it was Jimmy was the motion. Yes, the public. Yes. Thank you. And I'm also looking to the public if there are comments or questions on any item on the consent agenda. I'll give it a moment. Show your hand if you'd like anything adjusted. Not seeing any. So I think we have a motion and a second. Donna, a vote please. Director Brown. Hi. Director Downing. Hi. Director Dutra. Hi. Director Cullin Terry Johnson. Hi. Director Koenig. Hi. Director Lynn. Hi. Director McPherson. Hi. Director Newsom. Hi. Director Pagler. Hi. And Director Rockin. Hi. And the motion passes. Thank you. All right, moving to our regular agenda. The first item is a presentation of Employee Longevity Award to Michael Miller 25 years working with the Metro. I don't have any other information. I don't know if he is here, but I am very pleased to congratulate him on 25 years of service to the Metro. And I do need a motion and a second to adopt this presentation. I'm not going to believe. I'll move. Not on this one. No, you don't need a motion. Not this one. Not on this one. The next one. All right. Thank you, Donna. All right. Well, Michael, we very much appreciate your work. Thank you very much. The next item is a retiree resolution of appreciation for Catalano Vasquez. And there I do need an action. I will move approval of that resolution. Mike. Second. We had a motion from Rockin. I didn't see the second. Donna. Donna Lynn. All right. Motion and a second for Catalano Vasquez. Roll call vote, please. Director Brown. Aye. Director Brown Downing. Aye. Director Dutra. Did we lose Jimmy? Okay. Director Koenig. Aye. There he is. There he is. Okay. Yeah. Uh, director commentary Johnson. Sorry. Aye. Uh, and director Koenig. Aye. And director Lind. Aye. Director McPherson. Aye. Director Newsom. Aye. Director Pagler. Aye. And director Rockin. Aye. And the motion passes. Thank you. And Kat, enjoy retirement. Thank you very much. That brings us to item 13. John Ergo is going to tell us about the Youth Ride Free Pilot Program. John, turn it over to you. Thank you, chair. Good morning, directors. John Ergo, planning and development director. Uh, I'm excited to bring this item, uh, which again is a recommendation to approve a 12 month Youth Ride Free Program, uh, waiving metro fairs for regular service for K through 12 youth. In recent years, the concept of free fair transit has been gaining momentum, uh, both at the state legislature in California and among transit agencies statewide. Many of these programs have targeted youth specifically in an effort to encourage mode shift in the short term and build lifelong transit riders. In 2021, for example, the Orange County Transportation Authority began offering free rides to all youth ages six to 18. And in 22, they made the program permanent. Santa Rosa city bus launched a similar program the same year, uh, and saw youth ridership exceed 125% of pre-pandemic levels. The Sacramento Regional Transportation District has seen similar youth ridership growth compared to pre-COVID levels and a study released in 2021 found that the program not only increased transit ridership and school attendance, but demonstrated a significantly a statistically significant decrease in automobile usage, especially for those who used to get a ride, uh, in a car to and from school. There are many other agencies throughout the state in Los Angeles, San Diego and San and San Francisco Bay area that are planning or have watched similar programs. And given the success of these programs and numerous other studies that have documented the link between exposure to transit at an early age and continued use in adult years. Staff is recommending that the board consider and approve a 12 month free fair youth pilot program here at Metro beginning in March 2023. The intent of this program is to support Metro's goal of increasing transit ridership to 7 million trips within the next five years, expanding access to opportunities and resources for youth and support equity by eliminating the fair burden for youth, many of whom come from low income households. The program would allow, as it, as its name applies, youth in grades K through 12 to ride local Metro service free anywhere and anytime Metro operates excluding Highway 17. And in order to facilitate an easy and expedited rollout, given that we're beginning this in the middle of the school year, we do not plan to require a specific fare card or any special documentation. This is common among other agencies as well. And basically youth grades nine through 12 would be asked to show a student ID when boarding the bus, youth grades eight and under, maybe asked to identify their grade level or the school they attend to the driver. And if the school provides an ID, we'd ask them to show that upon boarding. And that's it basically in terms of proof and eligibility. We estimate a financial impact of the program to be between $68,000 a year using FY 22 youth fare box data and $245,000 using FY 19 youth fare box data. Either number is roughly 3% of fare box revenue. Going forward, staff will look to identify sustainable funding sources to move beyond the short term pilot stage and the state legislature has actually made this easier for us. In 2022, the legislature passed Senator Josh Newman's SB 4942, which makes it easier for transit agencies to use low carbon transit operations program funds for fare free and reduced fare programs. Metro receives around $1 million annually at LCTOP funds and FY 22, we committed these funds to the operation of the zero emission Watsonville circulator for two years fare free, but future funding years could be dedicated to the youth ride free program. Other sources could include funding from local jurisdictions of the cities, the county, school districts, Sacramento, for example, the transit agency partnered with local institutions to fund its ride free RT program. SFMT and uni received $2 million appropriation from the city of San Francisco and San Diego Metropolitan Transportation partnering with the county of San Diego and sand ag on a former year long pilot for youth ride free. Besides the anticipated fare revenue loss, there is the potential that the program could result in ridership increases that require additional buses or drivers and Metro may face pressure to reallocate service from other areas or increase service at a time when the industry and our agency itself is facing an acute labor shortage. We've talked about this today already. And so we want to make clear that at this stage in the program, we're not planning nor do we have the resources to expand any school for focused service. We'll monitor ridership and performance and we'll take up school service planning particularly as part of the reimagined Metro comprehensive operations analysis that again kicked off this month. If the board approves this program will begin outreach to the school districts and I believe Michael has already done that to share information with parents and to help spread the word that beginning in March this program will kick off with we've already received very positive support for the idea and I'll just wrap up on a personal note. Some of you may know, well, I've been coming to Santa Cruz since the early 1980s. I actually grew up in New York City where I had a free transit pass my entire school age life. I know that experience shaped me and my experience as a transportation planner. It's why I'm here doing this job and it's also led me to seek out car free and car light lifestyles where ever I've lived much to my wife's this May. There's certainly a cost associated with these programs but the benefit of building lifelong transit riders in this county would seem our way. We of course need to have the service there. That's fast, frequent, reliable for people to take it but reducing the fare burden is certainly an early step and getting our youth in the county riding early will build future benefits for the agency itself. So I'm happy to take any comments or questions. Very good. Thank you, John. First hand I see is Donna Lynn. Well, I'm thrilled for this program and I know there's some challenges involved but particularly with the changes in the school times that the state's mandating schools start at 8 30. I know all of us in all of our jurisdictions are hearing a lot of concerns and complaints about traffic congestion around school time and if we can as we move forward be able to be a resource and take some of those cars offset road at that time and and they have students feel comfortable taking the bus and this being alternative that will I think resolve a lot of issues throughout the county. So thank you and even though there's maybe some work to be done. I just think this is a great program. Thank you. Thank you, Donna. Next I see Monu, Connor. Thank you, Chair. I just can't overstate my enthusiasm for this program. You know, I met with some Aptos high school students just before the holidays and the first thing they asked me for was free metro rides because they've just experienced challenges with their own school bus service, particularly in Pajaro Valley Power Unified School District. And so they were saying that a lot of time that they fall back on using our metro service. So I know this will mean a lot to them. It also just makes so much sense in terms of encouraging the next generation of metro riders. You know, I know we've looked at providing free bus fares off to our community as a whole and just doesn't work out financially for our organization, but I think this is really something we can do that's it's going to make a big difference.  And you see it during during holidays. I remember speaking with someone at the Watsua Farmers Market who said, you know, she commutes from a Romus to downtown Santa Cruz and a lot of time it takes her an hour and a half. But if it's spring break, hey, it only takes her 30 minutes, 45 minutes. So this is definitely a great place to focus our efforts and you know, after speaking to those high school students, I reached out immediately to John and Michael and said, hey, we got to do this program and they were already working on it. So I think it just goes to show our staff are really riding the wave and cutting edge. And I can't thank you enough and I'm looking forward to supporting this program however possible. Thank you, Monu. Next I see Shepard Kalantara-Johnson. Yeah, I'll echo Commissioner Koenig's comments. I also met with some youth groups and reached out to Michael right after and you're like, yep, we're on it. So really, really happy to see this come forward. That was the various groups that youth groups I met with throughout the county. This was one of their top asks. So it's going to be significant. I think it positions us well as we see state legislation change on this and as we shift the culture in our young people than like you said, John, that bodes well for future writers. And I think it's an opportunity to educate the parents of young people who will be taking advantage of this opportunity. I did have a question comment. I saw the outreach efforts that were listed in the agenda report and you mentioned that we've already started on these outreach efforts. Wanted to ask who are our stakeholder groups and are we connecting directly to young people themselves? I think it's great that we're connecting with schools and school administrators and parent groups, but I think it's important to get this information directly to young people. Get in front of them, share this information because that's how it'll spread. They'll use whatever apps they use and and share it among their peers. So question, comment there. Yeah, they're well, at least over the past year, there have been two youth groups, one based on Watsonville and Land-Santa Cruz that have contact us directly requesting free therapy programs. And so we'll certainly reach out to them directly. As I mentioned, Michael has already reached out to a number of the school districts. I will say, you know, we're just trying to maybe do a softer launch for the rest of the spring and we'll kind of gear up for summer and really do a stronger launch for the beginning of the school year next fall. But we look to the board and community leaders to help us support the outreach efforts for sure. Right. And if you don't already have the questions. Yeah, contact us if you have. Please share them with us. Yeah, and I'll just say right now and I can email you Kopa Youth Group and Youth Action Network are two youth groups that have wide reach, but I can email you later. Thank you for these efforts. I'm looking forward to supporting this. Great. Thank you, Shebra. Next I see Mike Rotkin. Yes. First, I have to say this is the most common request from the public in my over 30 years on this board for free transit for youth. I do think it's important to make sure we also say the unhappy comment that John Ergo made earlier, which is we really are not in a position to begin totally readjusting our routes to serve schools and become a school bus system. We just don't have the funding. It'd be great if we did, but we don't have the funding to make that happen and people should be aware of it because pretty quickly after we implement this, we're going to start to hear pressure for how come we don't have a route that goes from my house to my school. And we want to make sure that people understand the limits of what we can do here. I also think we should think seriously about applying for grants both to Air Board and to congestion relief organizations for funding for this because it'll make a huge difference in the morning, particularly in the morning, but in the morning in the afternoon, can you times or not? It's not work to be times, but for the school times in the afternoon, but particularly in the morning when the streets are just full of people driving one child to school in the morning to have to have them able to where they are able to take a bus to school make that happen. I don't see any reason we shouldn't apply for discretionary grants of a variety of kinds to deal with that congestion. And obviously it's going to affect the air quality if we get a bunch of people out of single use occupancy cars and have people taking the bus instead of driving there again, one child to school in the morning. So we should be alerting our funding staff to begin looking at apply for grants from those kinds of agencies. Thank you very much for this program. Thank you, Mike. And I'm sure want to move her that he's observing today. Next, we see Jimmy Dutra. So I want to first I'll say, wow, Michael Tree, you've come in and you're doing such amazing things with Metro with one ride at a time now to this. I mean, it's really nice to be giving positive programs to our community in a time that so many people there's so much they feel there's so much doom and gloom. So, you know, these programs and these these steps were taking forward to make the lives easier for people is really important. I don't I think I have a question. I I'm not sure if you've already spoken with PV USD, but you know, I think that this will help. We have a we have a school bus. We have school buses in our school district. So this would actually probably offer more routes for students to get on a bus to go to school. So I'm not sure if you coordinated with them at all or if they know it or I'm not sure how they would feel about it. But I did speak I did go visit on Wednesday a school called Sabah in Watsonville and they have 500 students and we were just talking and we actually talked about this program and the school actually pays for annual bus passes for a group of their students because you know there the students take that that they use Metro to get to that school because it's not part of the the school district school bus system. So maybe if you can reach out to them, you know, this also saves the school's money they can put back into the education and back into the kids. So I think this is really important. So I think for schools like that, that's going to be very helpful. So again, I want to say thank you. I'm really looking forward to this and you know, maybe if you can connect with that school and and you know, maybe reach touch base with me, you know, later about PVUSD with those conversations will look like so that we can maybe create some sort of you know, relationship or conversation with them. Thanks. Thank you, Jimmy. Next, Rebecca Downing. I just wanted to echo what everybody else said. No need to repeat it. It's so exciting. Like John, I grew up in an area that had really good bus service. I didn't have a free pass, but I rode the bus everywhere. It was relatively inexpensive for youth. I wanted to ask if there's information that you were talking about that you that you shared with schools. Is there information you can provide to us as board members that we could share just with the general public I mean, we know the benefits, but sometimes you have reluctant parents who want to know more before they put their kid on a bus and and that sort of thing to just help us improve and increase this because the more the more of these cars we can get off the street, the better the traffic is and also it'll be some people's very first ride on a bus and I think you want to make it really exciting and fun and that way you will get more adults riding the bus too. Maybe they ride the bus with their child on the first try or whatever it is. So I think anything you can give us to help other people get rolling would be great. I also wonder two things clearly if we have increased ridership will that improve our bus service times if the traffic is decreased and if there's any way we're going to measure that and is there any way on a whole that traffic is going to be measured? I think of these morning commutes like Mike was talking about. Is there any other entity that's going to measure general traffic patterns because of this during the school year? Like clearly it won't be happening during the summer. That's all. Larry, can I just say one thing to Santa Rosa Valley? The combination on measure D, the Highway 9 improvement from Felton to the school is going to be immense. It probably won't happen until 2024-5, but it is going to be a great asset and this is going to help a lot to get those kids to school in Santa Rosa Valley. It's I just can't overstate how much improvement this is. I foresee this is going to be for the people in Santa Rosa Valley. So thank you very much, Michael and team for putting this in order and let's get it going as soon as possible. Thank you, Bruce. I'm glad you pointed out the work already underway on Highway 9. Michael Treet, Michael. Yeah, I'm super excited about this project and really appreciative of board member Downing and her comments because I think this will be for a lot of folks taking advantage of the pilot their first time on the bus system and they and their and their parents for sure, you know, I think would appreciate materials and to that I just wanted to make the comment Danielle and I met yesterday to look at the marketing plan for this pilot and it's really robust. You're going to see a lot of media attention, a lot of information going to the school districts and the students and even some ambassador type programs at the school districts with the students themselves promoting the past and helping others, you know, learn how to ride the bus system. So it's going to be fun to watch this. We did Fairfrey in Livermore Dublin in Pleasanton where I was last serving and if you walked around the community, you know, I did on occasion and just ask people what's top of mind about the bus system there in that area. It was the student pass and they really felt that that had a huge impact on traffic around the schools when those buses would roll up completely full. So I'm excited. Very good. All right. I see no other comments or questions from the board or the public entertain a motion. I'll move. I'll do that. Oh, whatever. It was at once. Let's see. I think that was right. It's everybody. Unanimous motion. Jimmy Dutra. I think was the motion. Shebra, I think was a second. That's okay. I don't know who spoke up. It's a matter of the second boxes are lighting up on my screen. It's hard to tell, but. All right, we have a motion and a second Donna. If we can. Donna's still here. Oh, maybe Elizabeth is taking over and I'll be doing the last roll. Thank you, Elizabeth. Director Brown. I director Downing. I director Dutra. I director Colin party Johnson. I director Coney. I director Lynn. I director MacPherson. I director Newsom. I director Paikler. I and director Rockin. I and the motion passes. Terrific. Thank you everyone. This will be quite a program to watch. I'm excited that we're putting it in place. Our next item is the metro advisory committee. Semiannual update. And I know that James von Hendy and the vice chair are unavailable, but I see Michael Passano among the public participants. I don't know, Michael, if you have any comments you might care to add, but we have a two page summary and item 14 of what the metro advisory committee has been doing for this last half of the year. They do this report twice a year. And I encourage you all to take a look at it. It gives a good summary of the focus of their attentions and efforts. And I think we might, do we need to accept this? Michael, Elizabeth, do you know? No, we don't. All right. We do accept it. We don't need to vote. We accept it. There's no action. No, no action necessary. All right. Well, thank you. With that, turn it over to Michael for his CEO report. All right. Listen, happy 2023. It's our first board meeting of the new calendar year. So excited to be here. Excited to welcome Scott Newsom onto the board. I really look forward to meeting with you and to talk about metro and all the great things that we have going and all the great employees. Let's give this a quick report. Well, the technology is not what we need it to be. If he had to be frozen, at least he's got a nice expression. I've been. I'm texting him if that helps. He's like that famous doucher, the thinker. Yeah, right, right. He wrote down. That's great, Jimmy. Well, I won't steal any of Michael's thunder, but just until he comes back. I wanted to note that the equity transit's doing a number of things next week in celebration of Rosa Parks date. And I think Monday night there's a panel discussion that Michael Tree and James Sandoval, Justin Cummings Adam Miller Ball, who is a professor was a professor at UC Santa Cruz and now teaching at UCLA. And I think Vanessa Quirrell's Carter are on and that's believe Monday night, 6 p.m. at the Resource Center for Nonviolence. So there's some other activities going on next week as well. He has we'll get Michael back on here. I know he has things to tell us about storms and give him a moment very soon will be meeting in person and these kinds of drop offs probably won't occur. Or if they do be a pretty grim situation, let's say, shocking across the room and suddenly my brother is gone. Did someone call him or text him and let him know I just texted him, but I'm worried that if his Internet doesn't work, his his cell phone is there there and there is. Okay, we've got him back and just unmute yourself. Michael, there we go. All right, I am Elizabeth Rocha for a few minutes. Larry did mention the equity transit stuff that's happening. So that's something you could miss if you were planning to talk about it other than that. Go for it. Great. Did did Julie chat for a second about the Brown Act? We were going to talk about just what we foresee. No, I haven't I texted you to see if I should go and then you came back. Gotcha. You want to just take a second? Yeah, I'm ready. Would you like me to screen share that document? Do you think that'd be helpful? I'll leave it to you as to what you do. It'd be best there. Okay, maybe a show of hands because you all may have gotten a lot of this information from your pointing jurisdictions. You know, as you know, after February, the governor is planning to lift the covid state of emergency, which means the virtual meetings you've been having under AB 361 are going to come to an end unless that is extended. And so you may have already heard there's an alternative teleconference statute that was adopted that went into effect in January. And I am prepared to go into some details on that if you all would like. And I can screen share I have this little sheet where I kind of summarize the main things. If you think that'd be helpful if you want to use, you know, raise your hand. I can put that up. Otherwise, I can just talk it through with you. And if you want more information, I can send it to you. Yeah, to your email. I would certainly appreciate. Yeah, I would appreciate it. Go ahead. Okay. All right. So let me see. I think I've got this. Let me know if you're seeing it. We see it now. Very good. Okay, great. And now I just have to figure out how to get my view of life. My view is not showing for some reason. Again, this, this won't happen in March. I cannot see it. So if I scroll, is it moving for you guys? Yes, it is. Okay, cool. So just a reminder, before we had AB 361, we had the traditional Brown Act teleconference rules. And these are these weird rules where, you know, you have to put where you're going to be on the agenda. You have to post that location, you know, at your hotel room, you know, wherever you are at a conference or whatever location, and it has to be accessible to the public and you have to allow the public to attend at your location. Super very antiquated. What AB 361 did is it suspended those rules for the last three years essentially. Excuse me. And then during that three year period, there were a lot of efforts to get new legislation that would change these traditional teleconference rules to give board members more flexibility in being able to teleconference without necessarily inviting the public into their homes or their vacation hotels or whatever. Unfortunately, those efforts were, I would say less than successful. We got one bill AB 2449. It started out as a really good bill. It was supported by most public agencies as it went through the sausage making process. Most, if not all of those public agencies went through their support from the bill because it just became, I guess I would say it's not a complete done, but it's a lot less than people wanted. So, but this is the new bill AB 2449. It is now an alternative to the traditional teleconference rules. And there are two instances in which board members may participate remotely. And that is for just pause for an emergency circumstances. In both cases, you have to inform the board as soon as you know that you'll need to take advantage of this. If for just cause absences you have to announce at the beginning the reason for your participation, remote participation. You know, I would say that in my view just saying you meet one of the just cause circumstances would be fine because I don't think you need to disclose private, you know, health related reasons. And just cause is defined as one of these four circumstances and a lot falls into that. And for example, we had a client last week that there was a contagious illness and we got to use this. So being on the beach in Maui is not a just cause. It is not just cause. You would have to do the traditional teleconference rule for that. There'd be a beach in Maui may not be public accessible. But anyway, you know, we can work through those those questions as they arise. And then if it's not just cause it may fit into an emergency circumstance which is a physical or family medical emergency. Now, so far it's it's not too bad. You don't have to put it on the agenda. You don't have to worry about the 72 hour rule where you have to have the location on the agenda at least 72 hours in advance. And a lot can fall under those, you know, a lot of valid reasons for needing to call in fall under these definitions. You may only use these twice a year total for just cause and emergency. Doesn't make a lot of sense. You can't plan emergencies but you only get two emergencies per year. And you would get it per body that you serve on. So if you're, you know, you're obviously a board member but if you're also on committees you could use it for the committees as well. So you would get two per year per body that you serve on. So it can be helpful. And then there are these bullet points here are things that the agency will have to meet for every single instance of these just cause emergency circumstances. There must be at least a forum in person and an accessible location. We have to have a two way system to allow members of the public to also be remote. And I think staff is working or has that technology. We have to put on the agenda the teleconference information. So what we would do is we would make sure we put that agenda out the revised agenda as soon as we knew one of these circumstances was there and it could be in the morning of the meeting if that's the earliest we know. And then these other rules the teleconferencing member has to be on both audio and visual. You can't just be on the phone. And then if there's anyone over 18 in the room with you you have to disclose that. So like I said it's it's not a complete dud of a bill but it's a lot worse than we were hoping for but it will give you some flexibility to teleconference a couple of times a year. And I'm happy to answer in session. Any questions for Julie Mike I see your hand. Yeah how does this relate to our ability or desire to have hybrid meetings in the sense that we're there in public. Let's say all the board members show up and we're having our meeting like at the RTC the Regional Transportation Commission they take comments from the public on oral communication and every item both from people who are in the room but also who are calling in and get covered that way. Are we planning to do that or is that not part of what we think about in our future. Are we going to have hybrid means or just show up at the meeting in person and that's it. So so I'll let Michael talk about the plans for the future but in terms of the legal requirements. You can offer a hybrid meeting and you can have staff you know call in you know video and any board members that teleconference and underneath the traditional or the alternative rules. And but you have to and you can allow the public to use those virtual rules but you do have to allow the public March 1st to be allowed in the boardroom with you because it has to be a public a publicly open meeting. Right but I mean let's say we do a meeting since we're in public people show up as an audience spread in some room somewhere the County Board of Supervisors me or the Council chambers or something but will people be able to watch us on TV. I mean they can watch us now on TV but we don't know they're there. I mean they're sitting home watching TV. We're going to actually have our actual attendance by remotely is that going to be something in our plans or not. That's my question. I'm not pushing for that. I just like to know the answer of what staff are thinking about at this point. Yeah Michael wants to address that. Michael. Believe it or not my internet connections unstable here so everything's kind of warbly so I didn't catch all of that. I was just asking if we plan hybrid meetings in our future where we'll be there in public with the exceptions that Julie just noted but will the public be able to comment on items say remotely and have us see them on a screen or something I don't know how it would work. You know I was looking perhaps just for some some guidance as we go along today. I don't think we have a hard and fast on how we envisioned moving forward with that director Rockin. Well I'll just say my views. I'm not pressing hard for it. I know it will be difficult for staff to arrange that how you know how do we get to see the people who are calling in or hear their comments and or see them. Maybe we're not quite ready for that but I would leave it to staff to see at this point I would say look into the maybe Isaac and others look into how that might work and at some point if we feel like there's a model that's not a complete you know nightmare of terms of actually operating and stuff to present that to us but I'm not pressing it me to do that tomorrow. Obviously some members of the public would feel better about attending our meetings if they could do it remotely and not have to drive to wherever the meeting is. All right Jimmy I see your hand next. Thanks I just wanted to come on what Mike just said I you know we at the city of Watsonville we've been back in person for a long time already. I probably it's been over a year and we don't do we are in person only we don't we don't have a hybrid system and we're working on upgrading our our system here and we have a nice chambers most of you have been into it so we seem like we're functional but we're not at that level of being able to bring the public back in and it's very very very expensive I mean to offer that it's and so that's an investment we're looking into to making here but I'm telling it's I don't know if Metro has that kind of money to add for upgrades to that kind of system so I think that is something that you know maybe a further conversation to have if that's an investment that this board wants to make or Metro wants to make into upgrading their system I mean Michael is having a hard time right now just staying on so you can imagine how frustrating it would be for the public to to kind of you know put both the in person and the teleconferencing and so I that's just my comment on that I wanted to also say maybe aim to Julie Julie is this currently right now not so right now through the end of February you can call in from wherever you want you don't need to post where you are and all the public into your home right okay and then come March 1st that changes but it's kind of going it's kind of the same it seems like you have to unless you have just cause or an emergency which you're only allowed twice a year you have to you have to post where you're going to be and open it up to the public to come into your home or wherever whatever that's going to be correct and so I think that this might I mean I think that the staff might just have to be ready for a teleconference every single meeting because if someone sick or emergency they're probably not going to find out till the night before right so so I would think that staff would have to be prepared every more every like the evening before the morning of just for those people who are going to be calling in late is that correct that is correct and they will need to have that technology ready to allow the public to do the same thing and so are we ready March 1st for that technology to be in place Michael you know I think I need to go back with Isaac and the IT team just to see where we're out with things and give you a good report in February okay I think it's going to be super important just because I mean I know how it is here and I can only imagine if we haven't started any of that it's going to be almost impossible to to be bringing in the public and missing if there's three of us out at a time I mean how you'll bring us all into the same call is there any way to indicate you know when we want to speak I mean is there a process I think that's something we need to walk talk through all right thank you Jimmy Manu I think you're next thank you chair you know recognizing Jimmy's concerns I just want to give a vote of support for hybrid meetings you know that we've been having them successfully at the board of supervisors and RTC meetings and you know even even today at our meeting here I found the two comments from the UCSC students to be extremely helpful and I don't know if we would have heard them if you know they weren't able to call in so you know I've just seen really with all the organizations I'm a part of that we are reaching more people with hybrid and continuing to support it is beneficial I've also run my own town hall meetings as hybrid meetings I mean it you know even like small organizations like the sanitation district have been doing hybrid meetings so it is possible I think you know with one of those owls even in the middle of the table I would also ask council you know as far as providing technology for the public to participate via you know a traditional teleconference meeting I mean couldn't we just a director calling in via traditional teleconference rules can we just make sure that our computer with zoom was available for a member of the public to comment on you know sort of the same way a traditional speakerphone would be available I mean wouldn't that meet the requirement yeah I mean the statute basically just says the local agency must set up a two-way system for the public to participate remotely so that's that's pretty broad I think it could even be just a phone in number if you needed to come up with that but you know zoom would be fine other agencies like you said use that owl technology and that works pretty well yeah okay thanks yeah I mean I think it seems to me my understanding of that statute as long as that the public had the opportunity to you know speak through our computer if they wanted to participate from the location that a director was at that you know that would satisfy it thanks thank you thank you mono Donna Lynn yeah similar to what mono said we've been having hybrid meetings for several months you don't see the speaker but we don't see them here either it just they our city clerk is monitoring zoom and as chair we simply ask if there is anyone from you know in the audience from remotely and they can speak and we can hear them so we certainly didn't have a big budget we were able to do upgrades and have been managing that and it's going well it's it's awkward for the chair because you have to get in the habit of asking if there's someone remotely wishing to speak and it's just getting into that habit of doing it so it's it's working well and I agree that we are getting more participation as people have learned to use to be able to to join us remotely as well so it's it's not not been difficult for us and we have a very small staff and I've been able to manage that thank you Donna Shepra yeah I'll just chime in city of Santa Cruz has also been doing hybrid for quite some time and it's been effective and I think it has increased access for a community to be able to chime in and and we have we have been able to actually I think make someone a panelist speaker a panelist so that we can see their face if that's needed so I would I would also support and advocate for us to do hybrid so that we can have increased community participation thank you thank you Chevron I'll offer a perspective from my experience with the RTC during some of the hybrid meetings where as a Zoom user I can see everyone who is online but I'm not clear on which of the commissioners are actually in the room and who the public might be that are speaking I've had other occasions where in person the use of the microphone was not always consistent and so you may not be able to hear the person in the room speaking over Zoom so those are a couple of the downsides for being remote during a hybrid meeting not just talk to them Michael are we bringing this back to you for the rest of your report or are there things we need to do with this for Julie you know I think we'll we'll take a look at the technology on our end and then we'll work with with the chair and the vice chair and get ready for the meeting coming up in February and have a recommendation to the board as far as what we can do and both short term and long term okay very good sounds good anything else for your report yes I you know I do have a couple of slides I was going to show you hoping the technology works but as long as you can hear me okay I'll keep I'll keep moving keep moving alright and I'm okay to share here I think everybody see those slides okay yes okay let me hopefully start them got it alright hey listen I first off just wanted to make sure the public knew that it's been a rough couple of months with the strike that was taking place at the university and the changes to some of the routes there the service levels and then we rolled right into the storm events and certainly we were modifying routes with detours and and changing schedules as we went along in the storm events but there were a lot of great things that happened at Metro and you know I think it's been mentioned that a lot of staff went out and helped with sandbagging in Watsonville you know just in the in the pictures there you see one to move in the upper left you use your capital project guru when you're right your grants you see Monique she's your HR guru with dawn and then in the lower picture you see Jordan you heard from him a little bit earlier today Jordan Dimitri and Isaac of the bottom three in that picture all from your IT department and then you've got Chuck your your CFO so you know I think everybody just recognized that if we were pushing paper at the moment and could set things down it would be better use of our time to get out in the community and help and so really grateful for all the staff at Metro who did just that and especially with the drivers and the mechanics and the other folks at Metro they were working around the clock during the storm event and you'll see in that picture there the flooding that came up onto the yard where we normally parked the buses here on River Street and so we were constantly moving buses around to make sure we didn't have any damage to the buses as well as just other things that we were doing to you know inform the public of the detours and the scheduling with some drivers being out because of flooding events in their own homes and so on. Let's see if I can look here. You know just one other slide here that mentioned some of the other things that took place. There were evacuations that took place on January 4th. You'll see the larger buses went up to the YMCA youth camp evacuated over 200 youth and that was a big deal. That was a pretty stormy day and I would say the roads were pretty dangerous. So big hats off to the drivers who you see in the bottom middle section, Oscar, Mark, Manny, Mario, Ron Bushnell these are the guys that went up and took the students down off the mountain and got them to Scots Valley for their ride home, ultimate ride home and also on January 4th in the evening time we evacuated 39 senior residents from the Willowbrook residential care facility to the Santa Cruz Bible Church and then took them back home a day or so later. And then I know where top of mind January 9th we also did some evacuations with the Paracruise service and the Paracruise actually this is your door-to-door service. It was open 24 seven during the times when there were evacuations in the community for folks to to get a ride and to get to safety.  Here you'll see the one right at a time event. And so if you haven't had a chance to see these in real life they are amazing. And just as a reminder this this project really has two components to it with the ultimate goal to raise money to protect the Monterey Bay and the Santa Cruz Mountains the habitat. The first component you approved a sustainability policy a few months ago that allows vendors who want to do business with Metro to set aside five percent of the contract value that could then go towards the one right at a time project. And in other words that money would flow right in to to identified nonprofits the Marine Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Foundation and then the Bay of Life which is a project that has a portfolio full of nonprofits that whose objective it is to protect and heal the Monterey Bay. And so Franz Longting and Chris Ekstrom they're shown in the bottom middle picture. This was the Bay of Life kickoff and was really great and then as mentioned you have a board member McPherson with Jesus Garcia Perez and myself taken a picture and it was really fun to see Jesus there and interacting with the participants. So a good handful of board members there. The second component of this program is really the partnership with RTC they have Measure D funds and so whenever you take a ride on Metro you're contributing via Measure D to the two nonprofits. So if you're a rider you would go in you download the phone app you'd sign up and for every 25 rides that you take on Metro ten dollars is then distributed to one of those two organizations and it's the writer's choice where which of the two either the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary or the Bay of Life. So you know just running loose estimates being very conservative knowing our contracts coming up and opportunities with vendors and our ridership you know Danielle your marketing director and your public affairs director and I you know guesstimate that probably about a million dollars in the next five years can flow into protecting the Monterey Bay. So that's a great program great to see it kicked off and really looking for great things to come. I just I just wanted to review ever so quickly the three goals that we have that we're working on really daily to pull off for you and that is to increase ridership to seven million rides a year within five years and to if we can at all help it buy zero emission vehicles moving forward. You know we kind of have the cliche that you know at Metro every day's Earth Day and our biggest goal is to not buy any tailpipes as we buy future buses. So we're working on that. I just want to show you ever so slightly in a couple of seconds how that's going and then to that third goal being to develop housing units on Metro property being that you know housing is just such a difficult challenge in the county to have affordable housing. So here's your ridership. You'll notice John almost every time you opened his mouth he talked about the importance of speed frequency and reliability with the bus system. By far those are the two biggest things or the three biggest characteristics that attract riders to your system. So just in the couple of months we've had this goal of getting to 7 million within five years we've introduced the one right at a time project which will have an impact on ridership the youth K through 12 the right free pilot project that you approved today will have a big impact and then equally big impact will be your short your long term planning reimagining Metro to find more speed frequency and reliability in your bus system. So that's where we're at with ridership and we're working really aggressively behind the scenes that is the top goal at the agency is to get more folks on the buses to enjoy Metro and to have an impact. I wanted to brief you really quickly on the zero mission vehicles and this is a really challenging project. We mentioned in the workshop we had a couple months ago with the board that you have a pretty tired fleet. In fact you have 100 buses in the bottom 30% or the bottom 30 buses the oldest ones have an average life of 20 years which which a bus generally speaking through the FTA which most likely has bought the buses that you look at you know the shelf life on a bus it's it's life is 12 years so to have an average fleet in your bottom is to how tired the fleet really is so under the progress bullpoint I wanted to show you what Wanda Moo and the planning staff and others at Metro have accomplished over the last few months we've assembled the money we spoke briefly about this at the workshop but we assembled the funding for 12 your first 12 hydrogen buses that's the one of the two zero mission technologies so you actually have in the queue at the manufacturer 12 hydrogen buses and so will be coming to you very shortly to approve formally the purchase of those buses and then move them in the queue as a formal purchase we also have five battery electric buses that were funded by the federal government and we have ordered those you've already approved those buses in a previous order a month or two ago and then you may have seen a news release this coming week just to reiterate what happened but the federal government through RTC funded for additional hydrogen buses for metro and this was a grant that was received in the amount of $30 million for those four hydrogen buses and also funding for the bus on shoulder project so that's a really really big deal it's a big award and again we're going to re correct we're going to basically send out an additional news release on that with some quotes in this coming week so you might see that hit the media again and then last but not least we've got a grant that'll be submitted on or before February 10th for an additional 12 hydrogen buses with the hydrogen fueling station to fuel the buses so you have 21 buses basically on order and an additional 12 that we're applying for in an upcoming grant so I just wanted to give you a heads up on on the fleet turned over and to steer away from anything that has a tailpipe none of these buses will have that tailpipe and then the last but not least I know are your times precious but I you had this goal of developing more than 175 housing units within the decade and that's a big challenge you do have property at your stations and I wanted to show you the three projects that were working on plus a couple of conceptual designs for the board you're well aware of the Pacific station north that's a has multiple partners including the city of Santa Cruz but we're redeveloping the downtown Pacific station it'll have 124 housing units that will be developed with a brand new metro transit center we've shown you some conceptuals of that and prior board meeting so I won't go down any further because it's still kind of moving along but we haven't got to the next goal or the next milestone on that to bring to you a new project that we're going to do and we're going to do a new project and we're working on this project very closely with the city staff at Watsonville with the community development director and her staff it's to redevelop the Watsonville transit center which is pretty tired and it's an old bank building which has kind of been renovated for our use over the years but redeveloping it will offer better spacing for the transit center and I wanted to show you what the conceptuals look like because this is a component of that grant that we're submitting on February 10th we're asking for $10 million on this Watsonville transit center redevelopment project which will include 60 housing units so this was kind of one of the reasons of what will be included in the grant to give it more emphasis this is kind of a corner look as you're looking at where the transit center currently stands there's a bank building basically as I mentioned it's been renovated on this street corner where the transit center is currently located so that would be scraped the whole property would be scraped and on the bottom floor you would see perhaps a community dental clinic we've had some interest in that from partners and then also within the bottom floor would be the lobby for metro for passengers to wait for buses and office space for metro staff and then also there would be some and then also there would be space on the bottom floor for our partner with the with the housing that you see on the second third and fourth floor so I have a couple additional views it's early on in the project another view kind of at the other end of the building you see we've incorporated some murals into the building some nice angles and looks at the building so that it's interactive there's a bike share project that we've got incorporated in the development of the building that's within the grant here's a different angle of just about the same location where you were looking on the previous conceptual design you can see that the buses will basically park in sawtooth fashion along the frontage of the street in front of the building here it says metro transit center so you'll walk in you'll see a lobby where you can wait for the bus you can interact with the customer service folks and get information by passes but there will also be a mobility center incorporated into that area which will show and teach folks how to ride the bus system I think I just have one more kind of a larger aerial type view and this one shows the different features of the project at the back of the building where it says letter L or has written letter L that would be some para-cruise parking as well as staff parking your supervisors and so on but this is shaping up to be a really great redevelopment project that will add a lot of value to the downtown area really meshes well with the downtown specific plan it's becoming a very attractive project visually and functionally and it will the identified the identified partner on the housing is midpen which stands for mid peninsula and we have had previous projects with midpen the multi-unit housing immediately adjacent to this building in the Watsonville transit center today is a midpen housing project that's on metro property so we're continuing with that partnership into this project and as I mentioned also have a dental nonprofit that works with low income and residents with need to have dental work done so with that I'll be happy to answer any questions there's a lot going on we've talked about the need to hire more operators we've got six-in training that will soon be out on the road and are operating in revenue service we've got 52 applications right now from the latest recruitment we're working through so yeah I'm with you director Rodkin that's a lot of work and a lot of work on the HR and on operations these folks are working around the clock to get through the applications and get the next class started just a quick update you've got your automatic vehicle location system which is a major capital project that we've been working on that's still on track to be done in February as promised to the board and that will allow you in real time to see what's really going on with your system and then you've got your automated passenger counter capital project that will be done in July as promised to the board and that allows us to see boardings and lightings at bus stops to be able to manage decision-making better it allows even your passengers to not only track in real time the buses but to see whether they're full or not so that they can better plan their day and then the last thing I will say only because this is just like one of those major things that's taking a lot of time with your staff is you know Chuck your CFO Chuck Farmer is leading our efforts with the triennial review and this is the most thorough review that a transit agency receives it's done by the federal government it happens every three years and they literally go through every aspect of the agency and report to the board how staff is doing with managing the transit system and so it's it's a big deal it it kicks off in February with all the materials that they ask for being do and then it culminates with the report in September to the board so I just want to let you know staff between those three projects in this triennial review your staff I think they're beginning to sleep here Chair Pagler but you've got committed people and we're really pretty excited for the future very exciting stuff Michael comments or questions from our board Mike I thought that the federal transit administration had changed the life of a bus that they would pay for replacement from 12 to 14 years is that not the case we weren't happy about that but I thought that that had been the case and that when you apply for they pay for 80 or 90% of the price of a new bus and we pay our local share and so depending on the grant sometimes we overmatch but that they would only pay for that if the bus was at least initially was 12 years but I thought it had changed to 14 yeah good question I've heard it both ways John Wondemou what is the latest on the life cycle of a bus yeah so basically you know 12 to 14 it was increased to 14 during the Bush administration but again most of of course third of our fleet is still beyond the useful life roughly the average is 19 to 21 years so it helps but still third of our fleet is beyond the useful life it is 14 then Wondemou yes yeah so we're well beyond that anyway yes all right Chevron thank you for that report I just want to take a moment and say thank you to you and the metro team and then the bus drivers for your storm response the communication was really effective and really timely and you made it really easy for me to share out through my network so just want to acknowledge and thank you for that and I want to thank you Michael for bringing the three goals and sharing progress as part of these reports I think it's really helpful sometimes we establish goals and we put them on a shelf and then three years later we're like where are we so it's helpful to see the milestones the big milestones that we're making and then I have a question I apologize if you mentioned this during your report and I missed it I know the pack station north 124 units are affordable housing units all of them 100% affordable housing how about the two other projects yeah they're shaping up to be 100% affordable housing as well wonderful thank you sorry one last thought is I imagine that one of the one of the challenges in recruiting bus drivers is lack of housing that's affordable so just the thought idea of if any of these housing units could be designated towards our team of the metro and bus drivers of the metro I don't know something thank you your comment thank you Chevron Monu thank you chair yeah and thank you Michael I want to echo great job with with the three goals you know I always tell my analysts keep it to the rule of threes it's what people can remember and so I think you're doing a great job overall with providing leadership for the organization and also making it easy to understand and easy to communicate with the public what we're doing I just wanted to comment I'm really excited to hear that I think we can get 60 units on that live oak site with the para cruise project my feelings since you know the original project we were considering was just too short I mean you know why build one story next to a highway especially when we need housing so badly I mean for the whole community but for drivers and public employees too so glad to hear we can get 60 units on there are there about the more the merrier and look forward to seeing some renderings of the project looks awesome too very good thank you monum any other comments from our board I see one from the public Michael Michael would you like to speak thank you so much Michael for the presentation and I agree with the past comments to add some for workforce housing for drivers and your metro staff would be a great help I'm sure thank you great thank you Michael alright I think unless there's other comments or questions I think we are drawing near the close of our meeting and with that I would announce our next meeting will be on Friday February 24th 9 a.m. it will continue to be by teleconference and with that I adjourn today's meeting thank you everyone thanks Larry it's your time everybody thank you again thank you everyone thank you thank you Elizabeth