Good morning everybody. Let's like to bring this meeting to order. Thank you for coming to the beautiful city of Watsonville on this cold chili brisk morning We are excited to have you guys here, and it's always a pleasure to host So before we begin I'd want to I just want to make a couple announcements First off good morning Carlos Carlos is going to be our translator this morning. He'll be translating into Spanish I don't know if he wants to say a few words or I know he's translating right now, so Thank you so much Carlos Good morning. Mr. Chair directors. Buenos días Carlos Landaberri brief announcement in Spanish para las personas que necesiten traducción al español Tenemos audífonos aparatos de interpretación están de este lado a su mano derecha Gracias. Thank you I just want to know some people probably like oh who's the lady in the front row well today Julie Sherman is not going to be here with today But is it Shayna van Hofton Shayna van Hofton will be filling in for her today, so thank you Shayna for being here. I We are going to Where's Gina or is Gina here? Oh, you're gonna do it Okay, well Gina's on jury duty, so we are gonna do a swearing in of one of our directors Dan Rockwell, will you please take your oath raise your right hand All enemies foreign and domestic it's always so strange so we're sitting here and I have to get sworn in every like time You know it's the seat expires Well, I think it catches us all by surprise Also, I wanted to announce that the meeting is today is being televised by community television and The technician today is mr. Lynn Dutton, so thank you and also From the city of Watsonville mr. Doug Mattis. Thank you for being here and being our technician today as well Oh kiddoke I It's time to take roll call here here Here, thank you very much. Oh kiddoke. Well, we're gonna get to the First item of business, which is I'm electing our new chair and vice chair to the board of Metro I Just wanted to say a few words beforehand if I don't if you guys don't mind I just wanted to say I thank you for the privilege of serving as your board chair for the last year I can't believe this year is up and it flew by I really appreciate everybody that participates with making Metro the Form of transportation up and down the county for so many people in this community I want to say thank you to the staff who works so hard to Make Metro You know what it is today, and I want to say thank you also to my union fellow people who You know I have had the opportunity to work with over the last year as well it was definitely a team effort and we did accomplish a lot and Just because I will be not the chair anymore. I will still be very actively involved with Metro as a Director and I will continue working on the important issues that Metro faces and we do have a lot as I have been working over the past three years on as a Metro director We see what we are now facing with this new administration and the effects that it is having on us, so We need to continue to fight for transportation and for public transportation This is an important part of our community. It is it it serves the people People from disadvantaged communities it serves students It serves people of all walks of life people who are just wanting to save the environment and not get a vehicle So we definitely need to continue to work to preserve this great Organization that we have here and we need to continue working on you know the things that make at least in Watsonville You know we're working on our station and over the over this past year We've been able to accomplish a lot and we were able to bring in a customer service rep I think that was in this past year and We are working on a mural that will be erected on the wall. We have been Working hard to get the new buses Watson was getting its first is Watson was getting the first electric bus So I'm excited about that. I was hoping it would have been during my year as chair It didn't happen, but it will come I'm told The electric bus will come so we are looking forward to Starting you know the after iron out all the kinks for when you're when you're transferring over to a new type of technology I mean remember when we used to look at the big TVs that were bit the big tubes And then the thin ones came out and we were like oh some of them work and then finally now it's mastered Well, it's kind of the same thing for a bus. So we're waiting for that bus to be mastered and I know Aaron It's just probably like every time I'm like when's that bus coming? So but so thank you very much to everybody I am going to be passing the torch over really soon And I look forward to continuing to work hard for Metro and and of course if you ever need anything Please come to me as well. Thank you Jerry Jimmy Okay, yes, Mike. Thank you. I want to as a member of the board. I want to thank you for your services chair You've done a magnificent job. I know you've been incredibly engaged Having served as chair before Maybe the public is not so aware of it that you spend as the chair a lot more time working more directly with the staff They need to have a sense of what the board is likely to do about issues and sort of plan for things and to know What kind of information we need and you've been playing that role I think in a really really positive way, so I want to thank you for your service. It's really helped the people of this county Thank you. Thank you, Mike Thank you, dad. I just wanted to second that and say I think you've done a really magnificent job And I think that that electric bus or Watsonville should be the Jimmy Dutra bus Yes, I have lived in Watsonville since 1966 and I watched a lot of transformations and We are in a process constantly on the board and in the management of transforming some aspect if not all of our tremendously wide-ranged Metro system and yeah, you did a good job. Thank you I appreciate it as a citizen in Watsonville and a writer every day of the buses Thanks, Norm. I appreciate it. Thank you Okay, whoo man I used to taking that Okay, so let's move on to got my eyes are watery. I can't even see through the paper And I'm getting older I think Yeah, I'm trying to find the chair sheet where is it Yeah, no, but I want to look at the sheet. Oh the sheet There it is. Okay Here we go. So we are going to elect the new chair and the nomination sheet is as Follows when I find it. Here we go. Got it Okay, so the nomination for next year's slate will be Bruce McPherson will become the well when elected Bruce McPherson will be the chair We only have one slate to vote on just to let you guys know Cynthia Chase vice chair capital projects standing committee Ed Bortorf Cynthia Chase Bruce McPherson the finance budget and audit standing committee John Leopold Donna Linde Cynthia Matthews and Oscar Rios The personnel human resource standing committee Bruce McPherson Cynthia Chase Jimmy Dutra Norm Hagan John Leopold SCCIC Representative Cynthia Chase Norm Hagan John Leopold Bruce McPherson Oscar Rios SCCRTC representatives at Bortorf Cynthia Chase Mike Rodkin SEC are this the alternatives are different right For the same body the all oh my gosh. I'm gonna get the wrong lot. I'm look at the wrong line. Sorry Jimmy Dutra Donna Linde and Dan Rothwell CEO goals and objectives ad hoc committee The chair will appoint so Bruce or the elected chair will appoint that Legislative ad hoc committee the committee approved was approved at the January 26 2018 board meeting The chair will appoint Mac the Mac ad hoc committee the committee was established March 24th 2017 this committee the chair will appoint. Whoo. We have a lot of positions in this board So anyways, that is the first and only slate. Does anyone else have a slate they would like to offer at this time Okay, with seeing none then You should ask if anybody else has a nomination or a nomination for a slate Seeing none. I will move that we adopt the slate as proposed And all those positions Okay, we have a first and a second Can we do all or does have to be an individual vote? Okay, all in favor I oppose abstain Congratulations Bruce. Yes Stay right there. You're all right. I'll just keep that mr. Chair. I just want to make clear I'd be willing to serve on both the CEO Service committee and on the Mac Committee so those are appointments you'll be making but I'm willing to serve on those two either or both of those two committees Okay, and I would that would be great. I would do it now. Yeah, I know I would appreciate it if any board members Would let me know what their wishes are if they would like to serve on one of these ad hoc committees That'd be great. So we can move on. We won't make that Public until next month. I'm for sure. Okay. Very well Okay, we will Move on to let's see the additional Well, first of all, let's We'll move on to Board of Director comments. Are there any comments from the board of directors? Okay, seeing none Communications that we have any written comments from Mac Mac. No, no, okay labor organization communications Labor Good morning board Michael Rios PSA chapter president SCI you I just want to thank Jimmy You know, thank you. You've been a big help for us and your open door policy was was huge for us And I just want to thank you and Look forward to still working with you in the future Bruce and Cynthia congratulations And we hope that we can have the same open door policy with you that Jimmy had or you guys can have with us That Jimmy did and we look forward to working with you. Well, thank you Good morning My name is Juan Garcia VMU president Thank You Jimmy for all the help you've given us and as well Congratulations to Cynthia and Bruce Thank you. Okay. Are there any other Jim comments from labor? After in there too Joan from chapter SCA Jimmy. Thank you as well. We have I feel like had a good working relationship with you and we've really appreciated that and Congratulations to Bruce and Cynthia Thank you. Any other comments from labor? General comments from the board of directors. I asked that But the general public as well any other general comments that items that are not on the agenda Sure Thank you Brian peoples with trail now I'm here to express our displeasure our concerns with board members from this board Continuing to advocate for the train over buses with the recent sentinel article by a board member That's truly unacceptable. I want to remind this board that trail now supported measure D and We held off We didn't support measure D until they moved millions from the train to the bus system We did that we supported it along with Greenway supported that move This board has not been advocating for Buses at the RTC meeting and it's evident from the recent sentinel Editorial that advocated a train. So I'm hopeful That this board starts to work for what they're chartered to do Which is support buses not trains? Train studies been going on for 30 years It hasn't it doesn't work and the evidence is true The corridors been sitting for seven years as a vacant lot we estimate that that corridor when it's opened up and Used as a transportation resource. It's two to three million dollars a month an Economic benefit to our community Where people who don't have a car can ride their bike? Where it will allow the mom not to have to drive her kids to school she can her kids could ride to school so We believe that when that corridor gets open it will be a Significant economic benefit and I want to remind you that we believe it's going to be a transportation trail Not a recreational trail and we're not trail only we're trail now So when we talk about how we use that corridor it doesn't We don't dictate that no mass transit vehicles. We're not on that page. We're supportive of ideas that Support Metro We know a train doesn't work if you have a train all the money is going to get sucked away from your buses and I'm hopeful that the union and your Writers start to pay attention to what you guys are doing at the regional transportation Commission Because you continue To advocate a train Over buses I go to all those meetings. I'm there We're watching and I'm telling the public Board members from this organization are sitting on their hands been sitting on your hands for seven years Actually, you're not sitting on your hands. You've been advocating the train over buses. Thank you very much Thank you. Yes, ma'am Could you did you want to speak you come up to the podium, please? Morning My name is Sophia Gomez I come back because I want to make the petition here again for the running buses early Santa Cruz to Wasan beer 71 in 91 I do in 2006 the proposal California correlation check it out, please everybody say $40 no more no less for the right for Cabrillo for the college in general So I made it a proposal. I remember it was Some people it was here. I was in the committee thought if we pay obligatory fees now in 2016 or 2017 What happened? They even don't include the senior people from the straw center So we wanted for the everybody disabled senior students everybody using the buses So it's two hundred thousand five hundred thousand dollar almost three hundred thousand dollar from Cabrillo for the $40 for each Students so we're asking from Wasan beer to Santa Cruz you can check in the different between we have a lot of assets Wasan beer to Santa Cruz. What is Santa Cruz? Don't deserve on this $40 obligatory for each one people heads like you know, like I bought Even though I was doing the proposal. I was the one in 2006 to something in 2007 and go all the meeting before maybe someone was here before so it was Obligatory so now it's obligatory now we have this money running up over there And they tell me case no have a money kid already got it in the morning. Where is the money goes? Please? We asking Santa Cruz people in the community disabled or disabled Families to the children we deserve one early bus. It's only seven six forty five seven one We wanted one early bus and also the 91 one a more every bus to adding more more choices Coming late because it was a seven twenty five. I can't running for my enduring lead Frost in my hands to coming for you meeting today I asked in the good will the good spirit. It doesn't matter the political thing It doesn't matter the the budget right now is what is the $40 in the budget? So I don't want to be a bring the California co-regulation. It's the law. Let's go by the law with the land Let's go to the California co-regulation $40 for each student from Cabrillo. Where is the money's girls? It's a good job It's our job the community see what happened we asking we have a we have a petition here Some people because they are seniors on some people because they are walking the can coming But we need a bus. It's not because they don't want it coming be here should be here the whole community So only me mrs. Gomez don't tell me kind of angry lady complain lady because I always working Voluntarily for many many years for different projects in my heart is with the community my heart is going each one with you people I don't want a boat. I don't want a Give me the glory. Just only we want a early buses for everybody for the community. I feel Grateful, I want to ask him good will good spirit enlightening a spirit Open your spirit open your heart open the budget for early 9171 Santa Cruz to wasn't be open the pocket open the budget, please before the May 7th as the new sketch I appreciate it. Don't forget that because I don't want to be the voice in the deserts. Thank you very much Appreciate it. California co-regulation. Thank you, ma'am. $40 each people at Cabrillo and please. Thank you Thank you so much. We'd like to address this for you want a more Use not on the agenda Good morning Becky Steinbrunner. I'm resident of Aptos and I just want to bring to your board's attention You have the opportunity right now to act on this woman's public comment I hear all the time at meetings like this You can't take any action can't comment because it's not on the agenda. That is not true Under the Brown Act and I have a copy of it here from the League of California City's web page What happens when a member of the public raises a subject not on the agenda While the Brown Act does not allow discussion or action on items not on the agenda It does allow members of the legislative body or its staff to Briefly respond to comments or questions from members of the public Provide a reference to staff or other resources for factual information or Direct staff to place the issue on a future agenda in addition even without a comment from the public a Legislative body member or staff member may ask for information Request a report back request a plate to place a matter on the agenda for a subsequent Meeting and that's what you need to do here Subject to the body's own rules of procedures ask a question for clarification Make a brief announcement or briefly report on his or her own activities so I Come to a lot of these meetings too And I'm always dismayed when people like this woman and others and myself get up and take the time To come to you and bring you our information and our questions and it's like it goes off in thin air You don't respond There's no action take and there's nothing even discussed It's like we weren't even here and you have the opportunity you have the legal ability under the Brown Act to Acknowledge and to at least have a bit of discussion and to put things on the agenda right now And I'm asking you to do that with what this woman has brought to you So that's one thing I wanted to talk with you about here. I also want to bring up the Inbound 71 Aptasa village bus stop relocation, which has not yet been activated I would like to ask when that stop is planned to be activated. It is very dangerous Now it is constructed. There's the lane striping's on It is clear that the bus will not be able to exit the lane of traffic when stopped the bus bay is too shallow There is no railing along the sidewalk the 100 foot long 5% grade sidewalk That will make it very difficult for people with mobility challenges to access this new bus stop There is no a shelter that was promised when this idea was approved in concept by the elderly and disabled Transportation Advisory Commission in 2013 To my understanding mr. Montecino has never seen the specifications And I'm asking you to put a hold on opening this bus stop until there are future improvements And finally the portola pleasure point meetings last night were abysmal There was no representation from Metro there to discuss the bus stop in the Reconfiguration of that traffic lane. Thank you Yeah, what she said about the bus stop We attended a meeting of Commission for Elderly and disabled Where a gentleman was Describing the new bus stop glowing description of How nice it was going to be But kept referring over and over and over again as to the tight spot that it was going to be in Yeah, it's a tight spot. All right He said something about on the You know get off the bus and you head up there up toward the upper level About how there are going to be all these nice get off and rest spots. There's none There isn't one get off and rest spot for somebody in a wheelchair or in on crutches It's a steady incline as a matter of fact the incline Increases as you head toward the top It starts out as an incline and it increases as you move up So I want to know why and I said this at a meeting at the meeting that we attended Why trade a perfectly level centrally located bus stop for that one the new one in a tight spot?  It's a very dangerous situation and I want you to go out there and take a look at it And let's get rid of that bus stop and put it Leave it where it is or move it in that area to a more desirable spot But that bus stop that they have built there is Dangerous and people are going to die there. Good morning I'm Dan Stevenson. I'm a driver for the metro I just want to make a couple comments about the the proposed or maybe it's Passed as a pilot project the code of conduct the passenger code of conduct When I was at the meeting last the last board meeting it was the first I had heard of it and So I I'm maybe late in making these comments But if you're going to revisit it in the future, and maybe you can take this into consideration I have some concerns about the code of conduct. I haven't seen what it actually says but any code of conduct I have concern about with guard to passengers because One thing that we need to be aware of is that as drivers if we're going to be enforcing a passenger code of conduct We also need to be Reconciling that with the fact that when our obligation as our license and public servants to honor civil rights of Individuals on the buses and if this code of conduct is being stimulated by Complaints from passengers about other passengers and their conduct those people that are complaining don't necessarily have the same kind of obligations and responsibilities we do as drivers to honor everybody's individual rights and So, you know if we're going to be in a posture where we're going to be enforcing a code of conduct We also could be in double jeopardy in terms of also violating a person's civil rights in terms of How we handle that so I just want you to be aware that's a very sensitive situation Simply putting a code of conduct together That requires passengers to behave in a certain way because other passengers have complained Could get us into a situation where some drivers feel like they have now the authority to act as police officers and and Exercise excessive authority that then could end up in a lawsuit Against the the metro because of somebody's civil rights being violated. It's a very very sensitive situation When it comes to kicking somebody off the bus or handling separate behavior We have an obligation to give people the right to access public transit and we basically do that right now. We basically You know allow a lot of things that maybe make some other people in the public uncomfortable And so we just have to be aware that the passengers that are on the bus are not necessarily aware of our civil rights responsibilities and so when we respond to Complaints of the public we need to respond in a way that takes that into consideration. Thank you Sure, what else it would like to address us Not on the agenda today Hello, my name is Kate hit. I'm a PV USD school bus driver I happened to be the one that was in that accident at Trout Colch the woman tried to pass me on the right The lanes are too narrow We can't turn right or left on to trout Colch safely People are not obeying the law. They're not waiting back behind the tracks. I don't believe the tracks should be used for a train They should be used for Pedestrians and and cyclists. It's way too dangerous for a train there I Drive to Aptos every day in my 40-foot bus I go to Valencia school Aptos junior Mar Vista I'm stuck in that traffic Every single morning and do I see any buses? No, I don't see any 71 I don't see anything out there because they're all stuck in traffic. The last two years have been pathetic We need to do something and what I suggesting is that you provide shuttle buses for neighborhoods And you instead of having single hubs you have routes going through neighborhoods picking up people We transport almost 9,000 children Imagine if every single one of those children had parents that had to drive them to school We are offering a bigger service than Metro So you need to step up to the plate and provide more Door-to-door services for people so they can get to work locally they can get to hubs easier and Get off the road Because this is becoming a very serious situation Thank you Thank you. Yeah more 71 buses to Watsonville absolutely more Express buses from Watsonville and back More for seniors. They're people that live in Aptos. They cannot go Home if they want to go grocery shopping because there's only one bus a day That's absurd So this is my feeling and by the way, I'm the publisher of Becky Taylor's Tell me the number before infinity. So I'm very a very savvy About this county. I've lived here for almost 30 years. Thank you. Thank you Is there anyone else from the public that would like to address us on items not on the agenda? Good morning board members and welcome to the house a good government built I'm gonna thank Chairman Dutra former chairman Dutra for his hard work on this group, you know It's not an easy task at all and he and he's really done a fantastic and marvelous job So thank you very much. I also want to thank mr. Hagan for his long long service and Continue to be an activist in our community for public transportation. I Also want to thank mayor Rios for his long interest in this body and certainly mr. Rotkin has a wonderful history not only in Santa Cruz, but in Watsonville as well I remember when he used to ride his motorcycle down here with his guitar on his back and Serenades at the mellow center. And so thank you. Thank you all directors for your hard work and and dedication to try and make public service and Public transportation available to our residents so I Want I want to pledge our cooperation from the city of Watsonville to do whatever we can to assist you and providing safety and bus stops and and the the remodel of the The transit station and and whatever we can do with the cooperation across the river with our friends in the Monterey County and Tamsie and and we thank Eduardo Montesino for his work and his willingness to Be appointed again to our as our representative to Tamsie So congratulations on the fiscal turnaround. I know that money is always very very tight and many needs that need to be taken care of but you you've manned the boat Physically and congratulations on that. I will ask you about the traffic report from the north today because I Know that you saw what was going on In the other direction if you came down from the north and I think that's really one of the big issues that need lots of cooperation and and it's true the buses cannot move any faster than the cars or The cargo trucks or all the other stuff that clogs and congest the roadway And that means that the elderly and the disadvantaged and a low-income folks They they can't get to where they need to go either and so congratulations with the electric bus the bus stop safety the news station, but let's all work together somehow to Improve the services that we can do and I also want to thank the employees because it's it's really the workforce that Moves the people in this community and so thank you all and and thank you for your public service Your councilman Hearst Appreciate it from Watsonville straight from anybody else would like yes, no way to work on the public When you're done anyone else from the public who would like to address us on items not on the agenda Give a comment. I do. I have a couple of comments. I'll make them quick First thanks to Lowell Hearst always appreciate hearing from Lowell and support for our work To miss To mr. Stevenson who's a bus driver? I just want to say you should read the code of conduct because we Created it for the just the reasons you're talking about so I appreciate the concerns that were expressed there that we Don't want to capriciously throw people out of public the right to use public transit but We have to go very carefully figure out How do you get rid of a troublesome passenger who is making in the ride impossible for everybody else on the bus? And that's what I think we've done So if you find problems in the actual code of conduct not Abstract problems about having a code of conduct, but how it actually has been written Please let me or other members of the board know we're happy to look at those I read it carefully and I think we've done a pretty good job of balancing the right of each passenger to be on the bus As long as they don't make it impossible for other people to enjoy their ride at the same time, so Again, I welcome comments about any problems with it rather than the concept, but the actual way it's written I have to say To mr. Einbrunner from aptos that The bus stop issue and I mean She raises that there are concerns about it I assume I like our staff to get back to us about the concerns I assume this stop does meet ADA requirements. We wouldn't be operating if it didn't I know a lot of this fight has to do with a fight against the Project across the street and the issues that are going on there that's what it came out of and There maybe it's that doesn't mean there aren't issues with the bus stop that need to be addressed, but I get concerned that we're Being raising questions about this bus stop when at least we had an earlier report on it And one of the things that you had said that she had said was that you know We don't get back to people But I know that the last two times you were here people got back to you because I was part of Forming the answer to the questions you've been asking so we go out of our way to respond when people get up in front of us The other comment we had was about not spending more money on a particular route. Well, we have limited resources That's the reality that we're facing here and again The it's not that what they're asking for would be a not a good service or something We wouldn't want to provide but I want to know what we're going to take out of our service to make that happen because we're using every nickel We have on public transit. We don't spend it on anything else We're not a for-profit company. It's not like we could take it out of our profits We use all the money to run public transit and I think we've got the best mix of services We could have the argument that we should have a different kind of a system that uses pulse that Buses run on routes in the neighborhoods or deliver people door-to-door We've studied these things three or four times in recent in the last decade to say nothing over the last 30 years and Found that the system we're operating is the most efficient way we can run a system given the limited resources that we have and Anybody that looks at this place from outside realizes we have a tremendous public transit system for a community our size You find me in other community in the United States that has 260,000 people that runs a bus system like we do I'd like to know about it because I don't think it exists Finally as a point of personal privilege to the first comments that were made about my editorial I stand by the op-ed the Editorial that I wrote in the Sentinel and if you read it carefully you'll understand it's not an argument for rail it's an argument for preserving a transportation quarter and I think the best way to do that is to make sure the rail stays there and I'll make the argument again Anybody that thinks if you take a tear that rail out and turn it all into a bicycle and pedestrian path that somehow you'll ever get it back again For a busway or for a serious transportation quarter doesn't understand the politics of this county once that's made into a park It'll be a park forever and never transportation to say nothing of the money We have to give back because we bought that right of way with transportation money So I stand by the comments that I made they're not portraying comments They're comments about preserving a transportation quarter which may have a train on it might have a rapid bus rapid transit system We're some new technology that combines rail and on-the-road service No, we don't that exists in the world now There are buses in Europe that run on rails and get off the rails when they get to certain intersections and so forth So I don't know what that Quarter is going to be but the idea that we're going to preserve it for transportation by making it into a bike way And I say this is someone that doesn't own a car I ride my bicycle over the place that we're going to have a bike system that people are going to ride somehow from Watsonville The Santa Cruz is absurd and I'm going to say that as clearly as I can so I stand by my comments in that op-ed Thank you Dr. Dr.. Thank you. I just wanted to make a quick comment on the code of conduct Informate piece that the gentleman spoke about you know I'm it's completely supportive this Supportive of this because people don't have the right to infringe on other people's civil rights. There are homophobes There are racists there are people who sexually harass people every single day So without a code of conduct you put those people at jeopardy and there's that will never that is something I can never stand with so I I stand that we need to protect all people and if you Don't have rules and guidelines then you put a lot of people at risk of you know being harassed so I want to say that that's where I stand the code of conduct. Thank you The other comments, um, yes, I Happened to be one of the individuals who you can see rides around in my wheels here And I yes, I have gotten off at that stop and yes, it is fine. I do not have any problem with it I've done that two or three times. I've ridden the bicycle walkways from the library and Aptos all the way down to Beyond that stop and I have no problems with them. I hear my Comments are the comments constantly about handicap. We need this and we need that Yes, we need a lot of things But this is not one of the changes that is adversarial to Me and my wheelchair quite the contrary. It is safe. It is functional. It has a Signal that I can get across the street again without getting hit and I Refrain from saying anything because I don't want to add more fuel to the fire. However When you refer to quote the handicap You might try writing in the wheelchair to find out what it really is like. Thank you Okay We'll get that. There's no more comments from the board or okay. We'll move on to The additional documentation and supportive there are some in pages 12 9a 1 and 3 pages 19.1 and then an item 25 that we'll get to on the highway 17 new trips flyer We will now move to the consent agenda We have items number 12.1 to 12.10. Is there anyone from the Board that would like to pull an item from the consent agenda. I have a quick comment on the consent just on item 1206 which is the report on paratransit service. I want to note that the Paratransit rides that arrived within the window that's Expected our goal is to have 95% of those within that window. We're not at that goal We're quite far from that goal. However, if you look at it carefully You realize we're far from the goal because we're off by three minutes or five minutes We're down. We have very few buses that are 20 minutes later a half hour late or something Nonetheless, I really think people have a right to expect that they're going to get the service when they were told it's going to Deliver and it's very frustrating my son who's disabled has sometimes waiting for paratransit service and when it doesn't come on time Means they're going to be late for some appointment or something. It's very very frustrating when that happens So I just want to say we need to keep up the effort in really moving back to that 95% Effectiveness or we need a bigger discussion of whether 95% is not reasonable anymore Maybe the shared ride program has made that that was our goal for a very long time Now that we have more shared rides Maybe it doesn't work and we need a bigger discussion about what because we should be able to tell the public This is what you can expect. We can't deliver perfect service. We know that but we shouldn't be telling people It's going to be 95% of the time is going to be there when it's not there in 95% of the time So I want to congratulate people for the improvement in the service But we have a ways to go still on that one other than that unless there's others I'd be happy to move the consent. Hey, I do want to find out from the public if they have anybody from the public would like to Comment or withdraw an item from the consent agenda. Okay, we have a motion to Second all in favor. All right. Okay, so consent agenda prove unanimously We have a presentation of an employee longevity award for Pete legoretta. Is he here? Peter here. No, okay Well, we want to thank him for his 30 years of service. So it's quite an accomplishment. Thank you very much We really appreciate those who are sticking with the transit district Okay, we will move now to item number 14 except in file the year of today to monthly financial report as of November 30th 2017 and Jalekin finance manager will comment on that morning Good news. Yeah, all right. Got money. We need some Yeah, okay, so the financials that we're showing to you today are the ones that we have closed through November That's that mic on As you can see here just as a snapshot our operating revenue is about $58,000 above budget. That's a good thing And operating expenses are about a hundred and forty thousand dollars under budget, which is also a good thing Majority pieces of that and that was just for the month of November year to date We're three hundred twenty seven thousand dollars ahead in revenue. We're about 200 or nine hundred sixteen thousand dollars above under in expenses, so We're saving ourselves on the expense side that tells us to about a million to so far this year Here's a graphic that shows you the actual versus the budgets The first one is your passenger fares we are behind on our passenger fares Our ridership is not what we were expecting it to be So we're down by about two hundred thousand dollars on passenger fares, but our sales tax is coming in pretty strong We have higher receipts of almost five hundred thousand dollars I just got the report for this past month and we are actually at about five percent increase and we budgeted I think two and a half is what we budgeted for this year Other revenues we have more ad expense or more ad revenues that are coming in and Because we've have more money in our coffers right now. The interest is more than what we're expecting We have some other operating assistance $11,000 that came in above what we thought we were going to be budgeting on the expense side You can see here if I push the button labor and for the regular labor the overtime and the fringe benefits take those all three together and The variances as I can show you up there. We've had some vacant positions, which we always have We've had extended unpaid leaves, which is something that is reoccurring But the two big things that hits this is we have much lower medical insurance premiums than we thought we're going to have We haven't gotten into all the details as to why yet But the medical providers have charged us much less than what their estimate was a year ago when we were putting our budget together And so we've had significant savings on our fringe benefit side along with that. We've also had significant workers comp savings This past year when I was in the HR department and with our new HR manager We have been working our worker comp cases and we've been able to settle a lot of them much lower than we thought We're going to be able to That's under services on this chart the fringe benefits You twit I'm looking at the chart in front of us Where's the savings you just talked about in medical for example would be under the $808,000 savings fringe benefits. Thank you On the service side we have some Projects that we have not started yet this year That's why we have been have some savings under the service area for professional and technical fees MoMA materials and supplies those ebb and flow depending on when we buy the equipment Mainly in the facility and fleet area and on the other expenses. That's mainly our Settlement account we straight line the budget of $150,000 that we have in there for the year so far We have not spent what we expected to spend on a monthly basis But you never know when something's going to be coming through on that on the capital budget side Our year-to-date we've spent $659,000 of our $19 million capital budget these are the different Revenues that we would be spending the next page shows you the items that we've bought So on the miscellaneous side, that's basic basically we've gotten into contracts with the AEDs that we bought We on the construction side that's related to security projects and the operations building closeout The IT projects for 3,000 revenue vehicle replacements. We have the electric bus some charges in there for that Bus engines that we're redoing. We spent about a hundred thousand dollars on that and bus repaints We spent about twenty thousand dollars on bus repaints on the non-revenue vehicle side We have a budget in there for that We have the majority of those non-revenue vehicles in but we still have a few more coming in Questions on the budget so far on the ridership The economy is coming back. Is that a normal trend? I mean we had an estimate The economy goes up people get back into their cars Generally, and is that is that a an indicator so to speak of an economic recovery? Shall we say? I'm actually going to be presenting you an item in a couple of minutes when I speak to that so maybe very good I'll wait. Thanks So the additional information that I usually provide for you is the unemployment rate As you can see it's still went up a little bit, but it's still pretty low five percent Our gas though is still climbing. You're at three point two three back in November our monthly ridership as you can see here the total is about two hundred fifty thousand and our local service is around 190 some Highway 17 is around twenty six thousand and cambrios around 31. So this is where we think we stand today This is our preliminary for January our operating expenses. We're still Behind on our labor. We are over on our overtime and our fringe benefits are behind for the same reasons that I had said before Our non-personal expenses were behind by seven hundred thousand dollars It's not that we're not spending it. We just have not incurred all the expenses at this time So our top total operating expenses right now. We're about a million five behind But we're saving that much money. That's good Now I'll go on to the risk piece. So keep that number in mind the million five If SB1 does not prevail through the Political waters that it's in right now. We would lose a million two So I'm very happy that we have about a million five into the good right now But it is at risk that million two For this current year and next year it would be a million seven That's how much it's worth to us in our operating budget on the capital side It's worth an additional six hundred thousand to almost seven hundred thousand each year So it's about a two million dollar to two and a half million dollar Revenue to us if that SB1 is repealed and that that'll that'll be a measure that's There's signatures being trying to be gathered to have a referendum the legislature passed Senate bill one last year I get the new gas tax the measures on the bow or the Efforts being made now to collect signatures to Wipe that out in the November election that would take a majority vote to do that in essence SB1 says That you could not increase increase taxes for transportation without a vote of the people statewide in this and a statewide gas tax That'll kill not only this transit district or not kill it But it'll hurt it very much but everything else that we have in local roads in it as well Mr. Clifford yep, yes, thank you for that mr. Chair and we'll have an item a little bit later on Agenda in which we'll be asking the board to pass a resolution on those two matters Angels gonna put this slide back up when we come back to that discussion so that we can really make the point about the importance of SB1 not being overturned the other point I want to make is when you look at our budget in our and how well we're managing the budget in the underruns a Lot of those underruns related to some vacancies think of an underrun a favorable variance in any given month or year as one-time money You can't program that every year You know if you have a favorable variance because you have vacancies Once you fill the vacancies that money is expended the money that Angela shows you in attachment a that's real Recurring money we lose that we have to rip that out of our budget through the entire five-year program And it's devastating Okay, thank you go ahead Thank you That's just comments from the public any of the com is are there any comments from the public About who do we accept the report? Move in second that we accept the report all those in favor. Hi pose carried unanimously. Thank you We will now move to item number 15 To consider the issuing of a formal Invitation for bids for roof and window replacements at the Pacific Avenue station Any discussion or presentation? Yes. Go ahead. Good morning directors Aaron Alvey purchasing manager this item is for issuance of Two IFBs one for roof replacement one for windows replacement at Pacific station we are asking for Not to exceed value of 350,000 PT MIS EA which is The public modernization modernization improvement service and enhancement account program, which is a state program That you're familiar with and and we're We're talking about the fiscal year 15 allocation and we've been talking about this for a few years now, so As you know, we are in talks with the city of a possible partnership for A new or reconfigured transit center. We were we're still going down that path. However today the roof leaks Windows leak every time it rains This is a 20 year old roof on there. That's been patched several times and we feel that We're still going to be using this transit center for at least three to five years no matter what we do and we want to make sure we have a safe and Healthy environment for staff and the public to conduct business at this location I Did want to add if you want to walk through the PT MIS EA allocations in the back. That's sort of The discussion that we've been having we've had it in the capital standing committee meeting as well Back in 2015 we had I'm sorry 2014 we had put an amount of Almost six million dollars on Pacific Station as sort of a holding place For for various projects under consideration at Pacific Station Over the last few years. We have reallocated that money to the Metro base project for the Judy K. Suza operations facility And then we've also used it for grant matches, which are very important So I can I can walk you down Basically of this the six million We have about one point nine at this time Parked on Pacific Station and we're asking for 350 for these repairs Again, that's not to exceed 350 and I did want to add That we can also look into repairing again patching the roof more and Replacing the windows in a in a more simple Version more of a repair than a complete replace replacement and that would obviously cost less than the 350 so we're looking into that So so that's what we're asking for today. We would really like to Make these repairs and get the transit center in a good state of repair Thank you. Any comments from the board? Yes, Mr. What kind of a roof is on there now? Is that a composite roof? It's a membrane. So it's It's it's sort of a plastic membrane When do we start repairing it? How many years ago because you said that it's been there for 20 years 20-year-old roof so it was brand new 20 years ago repair was the year after it was built There was a repair a year after that is built I mean that seems really odd to me It's it's the kind of roof that you you can cut out sections and kind of if you'd never want to do it again, right? Yeah, it gets complicated after you've you've repatched it and if you're familiar with the layout of Pacific Station It has many different sections and and it's not just one overall roof Eddie our maintenance manager can probably elaborate Good morning board chair Our roof is a it's a PVC membrane roof We can Prolong the roof One of the one of the issues we may have in doing that is once Once we get into the roof. I don't know how much damage is under the layer of the PVC membrane Basically that's that should be all plywood But if that's all rided out and then the structure under that is rided out then of course that's gonna get into some Additional expenses, so would that be more than the 350,000 that you're asking for yeah, that's included in that Okay, we're not gonna be using the same material though For this new roof We're gonna try something different it would be the same it would be the same material that was repaired after the first year It's a common material that she used it would be the same material Of course new but it would be the same type of material it was an installation problem in the first year No, it was it was not the nature of the roof here There was an installation problem which we had a fight about it. Yeah, okay Thanks for the clever comments from the board. I have a question. Yes, Dr. Chase So I was also looking at item 30 where there is something that references repair Pacific station roof from fiscal year 13 There's fun. It looks like there's funding allocated for that there. How is that related to this? All right item 30 item Sorry, I'm 12. I apologize. Yeah 30. That would be a different agenda Thank goodness. We don't have 30 items today Well, I apologize 12 point what? Oh, let me see. Hold on. I have to scroll around O5 B It's the Caltrans 5339 Scrolling back and forth between two items O5 B. Yes, exactly which page It's you're looking at the consent item 12.05 Okay, Dr. Chase, what which page are you on on that one? I'm scrolling Back and forth between two items Yes, I know it is an argument for hard copy, but that's not as good for the environment. So I'm scrolling Yeah It's 12.5 B5 B5, thank you. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Okay, so that item, okay So that is a $15,000 item That is a patch that we had intended on doing a small patch. Okay, and Once we got up there and looked at the roof and and just walking through the buildings You can see all the stains on the ceiling tiles from the leaks throughout so We we actually are hoping to repurpose that money into another one of these line items and and do an entire roof replacement instead Okay, so that wouldn't be included then in this repair No, no Why not? Well Like I said instead of a patch we determined that the entire roof should be replaced Instead of just this $15,000 patch That would have only taken care of one small section I think the question might be correct. We use $15,000 less PTM ISCA and use this money We'll definitely look into that. That's a good observation if it's allocated for that It seems like that could combine. We'll look into that right about you double check that the way the grant was written It allows us that kind of latitude. Yeah Other questions from the board Comments from the public you please come yes Hmm Again just to make it one comment So I hear a lot of things about the ground opportunities if 12 0 5 more grams are here Three thousand three hundred thousand dollars to build the building the roof and then and the metro bus But I don't want to hear and again any scenes about the 71 bus and I Know I hear about the boat. I know we know that I make it just the little comments On the Robert law he say any comment for the public so my my my my Concern is see the roots is falling down the buses we hear the other comment the lady we need more buses for the community If we asking one more bus 71 91 so the money is over there. We have a the money here California Corregulation so don't forget Keeping in the budget keeping in the agenda keeping and you and your mind each one The two people one more bus, okay, thank you That's your pay I got it pay we are paid Okay, thank you Thank you just not me community. I got okay More comments from the public a good morning chair board of directors Clare Fleasler city Santa Cruz Transportation planner as you know, we've been working diligently between metro and the city since at least 2001 on a partnership project to Re-imagine and rebuild Pacific Station When we first started the source of funding PTM ISCA had five point eight million dollars in it and it's been steadily spent on other needs including new rolling stock used for grant matches and we understand those needs at this point we have Some concerns that a portion of this money is being now put forward to be spent for Things that seem more like routine maintenance and repair so roof repair and window repair Our hope was going to be that this would be a source of funding used for a much larger project in partnership That we could move forward on so just as a point of concern there And we are committed to moving forward on a partnership project here and look forward to continuing to work with you. Thank you Any other comments from the public? Bring back to the board director Botter Yeah, I'd like to ask for the board's indulgence on this one as a member of the capital committee We haven't had a chance to meet and discuss this item And I know we've created these standing committees with the intention of coming back to you and providing some guidance and We did receive a PTM ISCA Presentation understanding how these funds are going to be allocated But I feel remiss because we the standing committee has not had a chance to meet and bring you back a recommendation about the expenditures whether we go ahead and fund these repairs or whether we You know to completely do the whole new roof new windows repairs And I just feel like at this point I would like to make a motion to table this till the next meeting until the standing committee can meet and Come back to you and actually do our job and make some kind of a presentation to you. I'll second that Second Mike director Rockin would there be a problem waiting a month? It seems to me like it would I mean it's been going on for a while now It seems like a month would be all right. I'll support the motion week though Yeah, watch it pour next week, right? Yeah Of course next week this money wouldn't have been spent fixing the roof I would probably be open to be repaired would probably be a summer repair anyway, okay? We have a motion to second to postpone this We'll have the capital committee improvement committee look at this and come back to the board presumably next month Motion second all those in favor I Post so ordered unanimously Thank you. Thank you very much Okay, we'll go to item number 16 to prove a consideration of an award of contract to Proterra for purchase and delivery of zero emission electric bus and related equipment not to exceed one million six 66,500 eight dollars to be exact Jimmy Dutra electric bus There you go So we've been talking about this bus a lot this is for the Watsonville downtown Circulator it will be the first electric bus placed in service. So we're very excited about that It has taken some time Today we're asking for Permission to award the contract and once we award the contract We can issue a purchase order place our order look at the HVIP voucher and and get a discount on this this bus and I the way that this contract will be structured is this is for now for a single bus We have funding for that through the LC top program which is for aims to curb climate change and Emphasizes new and expanded services for disadvantaged communities So we have funding for this first bus But this contract will also have nine options So there will be a total of ten buses we can purchase with this contract and we'll come back as we receive additional funding and and and make sure we go through the process with the capital budget and and approval I Can answer any specific questions if you might may have a of the staff report Thank you. I just want to just say these buses are expensive one million dollars And I think people need to be aware of that We have a fleet that is in great need with 60 buses or so But this is our first electric one and thank you mr. Dutre. You can talk about it. I'm excited. I mean This is gonna come in 2025. I don't know. I'm just kidding So what have we worked out the kinks or the problems with the the electric bus? I know that we were having with you know in the past is this going to run efficiently or was that just the over the hill buses So we're having more performance issues with the over-the-road coaches. Okay, that's what we've been discussing with this bus Should be able to run the current Maximum route, which is almost 300 miles per day Without midday charging we will charge it at night. It'll come run the circulator route downtown and should make it back to the depot So this this bus is a little bit different than the over-the-road coach Will there be a charging station here at the Watsonville station for don't anticipate needing one here at this point But we are Looking at that while we're planning our infrastructure for electrifying the entire fleet by 2040. Okay, and then what? I hate asking this question, but I'm going to What's the timeline? So if we get our order in shortly The bus is going to take approximately a year to manufacture We've been in close talks with Protera. They're they're ready for our order They've promised they're going to get us in the production line as quickly as possible. So I would say About 18 months would be the goal 18 months. Okay I'm saving this recording Okay, thank you director Chase Yeah, I appreciate that we've actually been sort of joking about the timeline on this little bit because we keep talking about it And I actually think it's really helpful for the public to understand both the timeline and the cost for this because a lot of them I have been demanding electric buses Why don't we have more and the more we talk about the realities of finding the right infrastructure actually Manufacturing the coaches. It's it's a helpful public education for people We're working really really hard to try to get these electric buses every time we can I appreciate that you're finding matching funds and and finding all these grants and opportunities to purchase them And and I think it's good we should keep joking about how long it takes because That then lets people know that this is the reality of what we're dealing with to try to replace an aging fleet Which is clearly a priority of this board, but there's all these other influences well outside our Ability to control that are limiting our capacity to do that So I really appreciate that we've got this happening 18 months at least we have a we have a goal there one question related to this though is that Actually the PT MIS EA which I got right saying I almost never get the letters, right? So with the portion of that that that would go to this bus We're reducing the budget from 1.9 to roughly 1.1 million right or 1.5 million So on the previous item this 357216 is included in the 1,000,000 To 244 that's the other grant matches. It's already in there. Okay, so 1.9 stays then several years. Awesome. Thank you Yes, sir Clifford mr. Chair directors just want to double back to Remind the public that's no doubt watching on TV. This is our inaugural electric bus we don't have any and We've tried to be very careful Putting our foot our toe in the water on our first venture here and not make mistakes We're trying to spend we have been for two years now spending a lot of time learning from other properties that are ahead of us How this works the last thing we wanted to do was place an order for a bus Even if we could have earlier place an order for an electric bus have this big beautiful electric bus arrive on property And have it sit there for months on end while we while we prepare the electrical infrastructure needed to recharge it So we're you know, that's been a struggle We we're analyzing the yard and how to design that infrastructure and that has challenges too Because we don't want to design the electrical infrastructure for this one bus As a matter of fact because of carbon I'll talk about that later in my CEO comments We're gonna have to be a hundred percent electric by 2040 So we need to lay out that yard and design the infrastructure and how the power arrives to our facility and the size of Transformers and how you distribute that throughout the yard such that it's expandable so that we don't have a bunch of throwaway work So once we get through that very difficult process Our hope is that the two will be in sync the bus arrives We can do great exciting ribbon cutting and put it on the street the next day. That's our goal You any other comments from the question for Alex actually You just said that we're gonna I know you're gonna talk about this later at 2040 But so should we be investing into CNG's like we are or should we really now be focusing on okay? We have 20 years to come into compliance. Should we start really focusing on getting electrical instead of maybe You know, we were like thinking oh, let's get as many CNG's to you know Replace the buses that are catching on fire. What's your opinion on that? Yeah No, it's a great question and I'll use my phrase that I coined before we're chasing the money So if the money is flexible money We'll tend to buy CNG buses today If the money is dedicated money like a federal loan no grant that can only be used for zero emission buses We'll go wholeheartedly after that money at the end of the day The reason why we have to chase the money is we have to maximize the number of buses We can buy given our deficit of 62 buses that we need So still today if we can buy two if the money's flexible and we can buy two CNG's I would recommend that to you before I would recommend one electric bus just because of how much we have to catch up Now the other point that you're making is is this mandate that's coming And so what will happen that's still being sorted out But what will happen is progressively between now and 2028 We'll have to buy more and more electrics with each procurement So that's how we get there and then under the current proposal at 2028 and there after we no longer buy anything But a zero emission bus and if you match that up over over time in a spreadsheet out to 2040 We can get there if the money's available We can get there under the plan that you adopted actually last year Which has us phasing out of CNG's by about 2028 2029 and being a hundred percent electric at 2040 In general, what's the difference in the cost between CNG and electric a bus? Well, it's just for the public to know kind of well kind of it's in the range of about $300,000 to $300,000 If we get the H-Bip money and we can't take that to the bank till we place an order And then we have to hope the state has enough of that left over to give us the hundred fifty thousand So if if if if we get that that offsets that 200 to 300 thousand by about 150,000 It's still a more expensive bus and then add in the incremental cost of the infrastructure to recharge it You know the questions from the board down, mr. Dr. Warthorne I'm just wondering if we can somehow You talked about you know communicating to the public, but I see a connection between the effort that's coming up to try to bet basically get rid of the SB1 money and What that's going to do to our budget and then the fact that I don't think Pretty much anybody in the county knows that an electric bus causes costs a million dollars I didn't know before I got on this board how much buses cost and when I heard how much they cost I just about fell out of my chair so I'm just wondering if we can somehow communicate that maybe through the Sentinel Power onion To the public how much this is costing and That if we lose that money from SB1 it just means it's going to be that much more difficult for us to meet those goals And to do what I think most people in this county would prefer Which is that we have low or no carbon emission? Transportation and we can't do that if we start Taking money away from the budget by repealing SB1 so That's a suggestion you're here Yeah, the question from the board One oh, yes on on this the topic of buses It's come up and in a couple of means I've attended the questions the number of buses for the highway 17 route And I've heard conflicting Numbers as far as how many buses we have right now operating on the highway 17 Can someone 19 19. Thank you And how it is inclusive of the spares, okay, and and but how I'll can then the other question would be how many Trips over 17 how many options on that? Trips per day. Yeah per day That's been discussed in a couple it's over 30 in each direction the total 65 I can't remember it's 32 33 and then on weekends in that range that that that's Good information for me to have thank you You know the comments from the board look Public any comments from the public issue? Comments again say I wonder is the wheel no can have a morning for 71 bus early riding Today 2018 can we have a more buses? My concern let me finish my concern is buses for the hospital We don't have a yes only one bus to go to the hospital a few buses little buses So thinking on the jubilee all there's all people here like me 60 65. We need a okay, thank you, ma'am we want to stick with the This this issue on the agenda. I I understand I understand we this is we must stick with the item on the agenda. Thank you Okay, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you for your comments Okay, thank you No, ma'am Please stick with the item on the agenda Ma'am ma'am, please. Thank you. Okay, we well, I'd like to make the motion on this I'm excited that it's you know, this is coming to Watsonville the first electric bus So if you guys don't mind, I'd like to make the motion on this one Thank you and norm. Okay, my Person, okay motion second all those in favor Opposed passes unanimously Can't wait for 18 months to get Okay, it's a long haul. Okay, we're going to item number sir lining up right now Yeah, right going to item numbers. What's that? Just one slight comment I have lived in this county since 1966 and for Watsonville to lead in the electric bus program To me is a life long situation that I want to say thank you all Thank You, Dr. Hagan We'll go to Item number 17 approval to add a second customer service coordinator position to accept revisions to the current job description Jolene Church Good morning board. Jolene Church human resources manager. Yes. I'm here today to Ask for the approval of a second customer service coordinator and we have revised the job description Similar to bringing descriptions in the past to you We've looked at our description to make sure that we can Appropriately attract candidates and so we meet we actually just made a very small revision and took out That transit specific supervisory skills as you know a customer service Assistant manager would basically be what what this would be equitable to Would need some sort of customer service Experience not necessarily transit the history behind this is that When para crews and the customer service call center split apart a few years ago There was some thought into the management and supervision yet with the expansion of customer service Call center hours over for fixed route throughout the weekend We now have a seven-day a week situation where we need management and supervision of those call center staff And we don't have that so we have currently a one customer service coordinator Serving as that management supervision and so we're asking for a second so that we can Adequately cover the management supervision of our call center staff Any questions very much needed comments from the board and director Dutra. Thank you I just have a couple questions maybe concerns as well with this one is you know, I think that the Direction that you know Metro would like to take or what I what I you know kind of Feels that we'd like to hire with from within our company I think adding this soup, you know that you have to have a supervisors, you know a customer service general And they have also a supervisor. I guess experience will kind of Move get a lot of people will not be able to qualify that currently work for Metro for this position because they either don't have the supervisor title or well because they don't have the supervisor title so And to me that's kind of you know I like I like being part of organizations where we you know take hire within and this will definitely eliminate a lot of our current employees Opportunity for reaching this position because they don't have that supervisor title And then my second concern is that you know if you hire someone just with customer service Experience and not having transit experience I think that you're gonna be doing a lot of training and sometimes you know when people have been in this position for a long time I mean it just becomes it's like when I when when I became a realtor I was like, oh my gosh, am I ever gonna get this like I this is so much to do and then it just becomes you become a professional because of years of actually just practicing it and So I think that when you bring someone in like, you know, who's a customer service for I don't know Some other organization, they're not gonna have the knowledge of how it transit works So those are my kind of concerns and I maybe you can comment on on my what I just said or yeah, maybe I'm right actually I have considerable experience in customer service call center arena and Having worked myself with about 85 call center staff and recruiting for those positions What I found is people coming from All walks of customer service call center have a basic skill and competency set To supervise and manage a call center specifically That actually does have a front-end component, which would be our booth You have cash handling that that that person who not only is working in the customer service rep position Needs to have some sort of competency in but in the In the call center arena. There is that skill set and competency So supervising those staff involves bid schedules That's not unique to transit that happens in call centers anywhere And so bringing in someone with with supervisory experience that has had that type of environmental Experience where they've worked with both the forward-facing the customer-facing booth as well as the call center aspect That's really the skill set that we're we're looking for however to address your concern about Internal equity and and promotional opportunities Metro currently has in place a wonderful structure that in the past has not been exercised And that is a customer service rep up the career ladder would be a senior customer service rep where you would gain the customer service Supervisory skills to then promote into a customer service coordinator Good news is in next year's budget. We have unfunded the senior customer service Rep yeah Authorized I'm sorry. So authorizing it is unfunded. However that that exists in our structure. So that's exciting It's not like we have to create positions in our career ladder So currently we have in place in our SCI you contract a method where we can work people out of class So I can actually offer when someone is out on vacation Who is a supervisor to be able to cross-train and help build that skill set So they don't have to have that supervisor title per se to qualify to For the to meet the minimum qualifications as long as they've they've Can exhibit that they have supervisory experience of one year then they can qualify to To meet the minimum qualifications expected for the job of customer service coordinator So prior the job description said three years of customer service experience and or one year transit supervisory Experience and so now we're proposing that it's three years of customer service experience And which includes one year of supervisory experience. We're not saying specific supervisor title And you can get that in in many many ways, but if we were to say or Then our what we already have in our structure that senior CSR Would that qualifies you're telling me that a senior CSR Qualifies as a supervisor That's where you would gain the experience up the career ladder as you as you grow in your job You typically go from say that entry level to the journey or senior level and then on up into the coordinator rank What we have done is within this particular case is Made an agreement with SCI you that in this case we would waive For our internal staff That have met the minimum years of experience as a customer service representative They would automatically qualify to take the test for the customer service coordinator But in all fairness to those applying from the outside as well We wouldn't guarantee them an interview unless of course they pass that test. So we've kind of addressed all the equity for our internal staff as well as for Those who would be applying from the everybody who's currently hired has the opportunity to test for the senior Position coordinator but the coordinator position just a coordinator position How do you get it become a senior coordinator so you can get the experience of a supervisor in order to become this position? We have built into also into our SCI you agreement the promotion a Promotional way of doing that promotion by qualification. So once they have met the minimum qualifications for the next Position then they can they can bring that Proof of qualification up and then that is built in that's that's something that we've already have built into the SCI you contract For promotional opportunities. It just hasn't been exercised in the past and that position hasn't never been up So it's coming up. So that's going to be now a new position that you guys are going to be funding I'm assuming well, let me just try to clarify so even though this senior customer service rep Position has existed It hasn't been authorized for some reason. It's just sat out there. It's never been authorized and so I need board authority I have to have it authorized which we're going to put in the budget next year In order to have that position available So the way that customer service representatives in the future will be able to gather the supervisory experience is In filling out of class that cuss senior customer service representative position How do they fill it out of class? Well the customer service coordinator the person who's doing this sort of pseudo supervision that person Will take vacations will be out sick whatever from time to time and that will allow us then to reach down and have CSR's customer service representatives fill the senior position and then and then be able to act as that coordinator So though what will happen is they'll it'll patch a hole in our current structure Allowing them to cobble together some of that supervision experience over the years so that the next time a position comes up They'll be in a position to be able to compete because they'll have the skill set You're saying that two weeks is worth the whole years of Training like if they're gone for a week of vacation and a week of being sick Well, you'll have two two people who will each be gone using their vacation any number of times throughout the year Plus unfortunately people get sick and that'll happen Any other questions from the board Questions from the public Hi, good afternoon or good morning. Sorry. My name is Olivia Martinez as you staff representative, and you know, jone We're actually in support of this moving forward because we actually work really closely with Angela and julene to make sure that our current members um That want to apply for this position can apply so we worked a lot of details with them and went back and forth So we're in support of this moving forward. Um, so thank you very much I second that um, you know, I know that there have been concerns with some of our members and We've spoken to them at length and spoken to management at length and we hope that we've come to We feel that we've come to a good solution at this point So I am in support of this. Thank you You you identify yourself and you represent represent you didn't represent the sea chapter. Okay. Thank you Uh, any other questions? Um comments from the audience? Okay, bring it back to the board. Uh, director botto Julene that's a great presentation. Thank you. And especially has a corroboration of everybody. So I make a motion We uh approve the second customer service coordinator position and accept revisions of the current job description second Moved by bottoff second by rodkin all those in favor. Hi Close carries unanimously Go to and don't go anywhere. Ms. Church Item number 18 approval of reclassification of lead custodian to a working title of custodial coordinator Yes, this is an exciting one for me to be able to bring forward because this Started long before I came Reclassification request for our lead custodian came in well over a year ago Actually in 2016 Took some time to go through The incumbent was out for for a short spell when I came in I waited for him to come back when he did I was able to do a desk audit which actually brought all of the work that had been done prior to where we are today bless you and It it was actually in doing the desk audit and understanding the day-to-day operations of of how this lead custodian was Performing his job that led me to this conclusion That he has indeed been working out of class. We don't have a structure Currently that that would we would be able to support moving him into another supervisory position Fortunately because the fact that we have this customer service coordinator We have within our own org structure designed this supervision in and so what we've done is While we're since we're getting ready to do that sei portion of the class compensation This is somewhat of a of a Temporary fix to permanently fix this and that is we verified the reclassification request that this needs to be done providing retroactive pay as per the seiu contract and then will permanently Revise the job description for this incumbent to Accurately reflect the duties that he's doing and address our structure as a part of the classification Compensation coming up. So this recommended action is just to approve the reclassification of this As per our agreement with seiu And give him a working title of a custodial coordinator Which is the anticipated title that we'll have as a result of the seiu class comp study Thank you any comments from the board Comments from the public. Sorry the guys sat there Olivia again from seiu. I I really need to thank jolene and metro for doing this Our member is really grateful about this and this was true Collaboration so we we strongly support this It's it's been a long road that we've been on with this reclass request And we're very thankful that we've finally come to this really good resolution and um, yeah We just are very appreciative of it. Thank you jolene any other comments from the public Bring it back to the board Approved by mr. Rutkin second by dutra comment from mr. Dutra quick comment I just want to say that was I when I first heard the story I I was really moved by it and I'm it just really shows Where metro has has their values and to be able to you know, take care of this gentleman for all the service I I I personally that thank you guys and everybody working together to make this happen Motion to second all those in favor I opposed carries unanimously Item number 19 except in file a metro system a ridership report for the second quarter of fiscal year 18 Mr. Barrow emerson Good morning new chair board members staff and public And my primary goal for this morning is for it to still be morning when I finish the next six items Sorry Prove unanimously we can move on All right, so very quickly I'll try to move through them concisely, but they all deserve a little discussion And that's why they're on your regular agenda and and particularly this item the ridership report as you know This ridership report is traditionally on the consent Calendar, I know you all get to read it But I thought this was an opportune time to bring it out into the regular And I've been telling you for a few months we would do so for two reasons First of all, this is the first quarter More than a year following the service reduction So it's the first time we're able to compare apples and apples for the last year I kept telling you hey, we're down, but it's because of the So now we can start to talk about apples and apples Secondly, it's important to bring to your attention The disturbing trend nationwide of public transit ridership, so I'm going to get to these things here So first of all in that topic nationwide between 2015 and 16 Public transit ridership and that's both bus and rail Is down 2.3 percent. However Bus ridership in communities of less than 500,000 people is down almost 6 percent So that's a real problem and I'll go on to mention So trains are doing better than buses I think there's a general logic in that big cities massive discretionary riders commuting to mass employment So I won't go too far with that But there are many factors contributing to the decline Increased car ownership is on an amazing climb nationwide since the recession Including lower income consumers who are the people most likely to ride buses More folks on the lower income end Have the ability to own cars now With that background, I want to just provide you a quick profile of metro's current ridership The details of which I'll let you look through in attachments a1 a2 and c All right Quarter two system ridership increased seven percent compared to last year We should be jumping up and down and going through the roof. We're bunking the trends But there's some facts behind that that kind of Tempor that the fact was ucsc's ridership was up almost 17 percent over this quarter last year But they also had 13 percent more school days So again apples and apples are always a little tricky But ucsc and cabrillo's ridership is helping us stem the national tide of shrinking ridership Highway 17 decreased 3.2 percent just about the national average for bus ridership loss Growing congestion on highway 17 along with a straw economy a strong economy and relatively low fuel prices Our inability to meet the demand during the peak hour full buses is pushing discretionary riders who do Have the option to drive a car back to the car. They don't want to stand over the hill Now to start in a very minor way to address this problem We have reallocated during the day the 30 some one-way trips in each direction And we've moved additional trips into the peak of the peak. So starting on march 8th There will be a new service that starts in scott's valley. I will forget the exact time six something Going to san jose the problem previously the bus from santa cruz arrived at scott's valley Full and there were 20 people waiting to get on. So I think we've made a really good move there In companion with that there will be a new trip leaving san jose in the morning with the ability to get people to jobs In santa cruz by nine and get people at ucsc to the 920 class start time The flyer on the back table about that if people in the audience are interested Thank you very much Yeah, so thank you. Thanks for that Now the rest of our fixed ridership the non-use csc Down 2.9 percent for all the reasons mentioned early But let me throw out a couple of california and local things that really make this a problem for us in california after the passage of ab 60 Which allows undocumented residents to acquire drivers licenses the number of drivers licenses per capita in california increased 25 percent from 2014 to 2016 from right before the passing to a year after the passing That driver's license per capita had been stable for many years Whole bunch of people went out and got cars so Locally in the past five years and this is a little bit coincidental both highway 1 and 17 have seen a 10 percent increase In average daily traffic levels. That's astounding in five years giving the 60 or 70 thousand vehicles a day that are on those roads. So it obviously increases congestion Um, and again, we're caught in that congestion. Everybody knows that we have no transit priority facilities in this county to beat the traffic I did want to touch on the question raised earlier by chair mcpherson As you saw back in the finance report employment is great unemployment is very very low Therefore people have more discretionary income and relative to all costs in a household income The cost of an automobile versus the bus is not a Is is not as huge a step as it would have been in a good economy Lastly the gas prices are starting to climb again But they haven't reached what some of us suggest there are thresholds that are symbolic to the public I've got to stop buying gas at four dollars a gallon as it creeps up It's like the frog in the boiling water. You just don't get it. All right So although f y 18 quarter two showed a total ridership game as I told you this is primarily due to the strength of ucsc and cabrillo ucsc is Is compensating for that amount as a matter of fact over the last five years ucsc ridership is moving a sort of a two and a half percent growth every year Hence the issues larry and I have in trying to meet the demand from ucsc And another important thing to remember about the ucsc service without it We wouldn't have very much or very good bus service in central and western city of santa cruz That service level is way beyond what would ever be earned by a place of that size. It's lucky coincidence It's right between downtown and a 20 000 person university. So Reinforcing the nationwide trend of declining public ridership Locally attachment she should attachment c shows you the last 10 years of ridership in this county And we're down 12 percent over the last 10 years Although we did cut the service by 6 percent very that period of time But it's still on a downward trajectory again the university Mitigating the big impact of that So staff hopes that with the introduction of service improvements including the additional peak hour 17 trips The growing demand from our college partners the introduction of the watsonville circulator in 2019 And many other initiatives that we're working on as we've told you We told you a couple of months ago what we have at each three month horizon going out for the next couple years Whatever we can squeeze out. We will hope We'll address this problem and maybe this can allow us to sustain and possibly grow our ridership So that's my presentation on the ridership. I appreciate the opportunity to make it a regular item this month Can I ask one question director rathwell? What's the ridership with garyll college? Is it up or down? It varies from month to month because they have their days, but it's in the 30 000 range for any month that they have 20 school days You'll notice in the financial item There's a bar graph and you see it drops significantly in the summer when they offer less in shorter classes But we had 270 000 in the first year and that was only a 10 month year And we're looking at over 3 to 305 to 307 this year. So it's it's over 30 for a regular month My question was actually related to that. It looks like it was higher Most more recently than it's been in the past for career. Is that that just because of the school days? Um, anecdotal Anecdotal, um, as you know, we unfortunately had to have a second election in two years And you know, it was an overwhelming success and less to do with our effort than the fact that the students took it on I've told you before I went to the clubs At the colleges and also in those clubs were out beating the bushes. The turnout was radical the success So the students have gone to bat for each other now the awareness is up As I work with my larry, uh, counterpart at cabrio They're going crazy Handing out student ID cards that they never used to hand out Before the bus pass came along they had less than 35 percent of students ever bothered to pick it up Because you don't need it at a junior college. I don't know the new statistics. I'm waiting for them to finish But it's it's increased their work at load extensively. So it's just the awareness popularity and the pricing is unbeatable Great, that's encouraging. It's a start Okay Questions If we accept the report, okay. Is there any are there any comments from the public? Um on that report The question is is we don't have Esophelia Gomez again See we have a song writer sheet information besides cabrillo at the university because the people use the buses also for the communities Yes, no families, etc. Walkers people's awards So we have a song information about the ridership besides cabrillo I also have a more I like a more More information in the future about cabrillo about the writers sheets So they have a song information, but we want a more I just say waiting for more reports about how they're using the the buses cabrillo But I'm also separated a little bit of people that know it's from cabrillo that use the buses So we have a song ridership because this is part The the necessity used for the community to be planning and getting More ridership more buses that we need it if I can respond to that quickly just We don't have the ability to know where everybody gets on or off the bus We are hoping to get that in the next year It's going to cost about a million dollars for the system that we they would allow us to do that We have accurate numbers for ucsc and cabrillo because they have their pain For each ride that and so we know that information But for the other the community riders you're talking about I agree with you completely We should know more about that but we can't get that information until we have a system that allows us to You know account where people are getting on and off the bus all we know now is how many people would you know wrote on the bus somewhere But we don't necessarily know who got off on this stop and who's the difference between a cabrillo rider and a community rider We we have no easy way to we can tell you how many people are not cabrillo riders But where they're going or how they use the bus the only way we can do that So the fairly expensive survey where we actually put people out on the bus with clipboards And we don't do that very often because it's very expensive and you and you can only do it on a It's like you do it for a day and hope that's like other days, but you don't really know that So getting this new system is going to be very important for us to get the kind of information you're asking for It's a very reasonable thing to ask for No, no, okay mean is we know how much people pay for the ride two dollars three dollars So that's what we don't for the money that they got it from every day They know how much money you got it for they may Approximately how many people they use in the buses? But we don't know we don't know the We're meant to address at some point probably they will have to address it at some point I think we're nearing a crisis in terms of the dependency on the automobile and the impact of it at the same time And What you know, I've gone to the rtc meetings on the corridor studies and things like that I would really hope that this body Do what they can do which is to really strongly advocate for HOV lanes any way That we can have buses Raise their profile in relationship to the utility they have relative to an automobile It's going to be helpful I don't think in the end that mass transit is ever going to reach the level of utility That an automobile has but we factor in the impact that automobiles have It anything that we do do could you know make it competitive so Maybe This body might consider forming a task force on some of these big big picture issues To form resolutions that we we submit to the state and federal government to to You know prioritize some of these things, you know even even Changing the way buses are designed so that You have one side open for shopping bags and things like that so that people can Carry more things onto a bus because that's one of the things that automobiles have right now And are totally Advantages over buses as you can just carry a lot more stuff in your automobile and store it there You know just we need to start thinking along these lines Because I think this trend is not an accident I think you know like I said even even poorer people are going to prefer if they can to To to have an automobile and and we need to try to figure out a way to change that long term. Thank you You don't want you to come are you so I will we accept the report? Item number 19 I've been moved in a second that we accept the report all those in favor. Hi Opposed accepted unanimously. We go to item number 20 the consideration of a water contract to dan boil and associates for a downtown sanitary transit operations analysis not to exceed 49,890 dollars I'm very happy to be standing here today get this project started This project has been a long time in coming as a result of collaboration between metro and the City of santa cruz staff as the board members are quite aware this consultant engagement is part of an effort to determine the best Long-term plan for metro operations in downtown santa cruz The goals of this analysis include the following To confirm the level of metro service which is needed in downtown santa cruz number two Are there other ways to distribute the bus bays in downtown other than in a hub as pacific station provides today? And can that be done in a more service oriented or more cost-effective manner? number three our metros current assumptions for Today's and future bus requirements relatively accurate this question includes consideration of whether Automatic vehicle locating technology and other features that support it could help reduce bus bay requirements While sustaining and enhancing customer legibility and convenience I can't emphasize more any more customer legibility Particularly with our customer base But anyway as a companion piece to this project is a conceptual layout exercise to establish the bus bay And metro ancillary services Capacity on a plot of land that includes the current pacific station and the immediately adjacent city-owned properties Which include the nyak building and their small parking lot which faces pacific avenue An rfp for this project was released last month and proposals will be due next friday These two projects will generally move in parallel the one you're hopefully approving today will take a little longer So it's getting a bit of a jumpstart. It's always be planned that they generally finish in about the same time late summer or early fall In terms of the contract put forward to you today dan boolean associates were deemed by an anel By an evaluation team comprised of city and metro staff To be the most qualified from among the three candidate firms to provide the services requested In the scope of service the value as the chair said the value This contract is 49 890 with the cost being shared equally between metro and the city of santa cruz That completes my presentation Comments from the board Like a director chase. Yeah, I'm just really excited about this I think it's been a great collaboration to get these things going forward. Um, the cities of santa cruz is a Really enthusiastic partner with metro on this not just for looking at the downtown pacific station But really the whole transit system and seeing how we can make improvements That'll increase ridership and increase the customer-facing experience. So it's just great to see these happening I think we're going to get a lot of really interesting information to help us as a board Determine how we want to move forward as a district Thank you I reckon you know When does that happen But we like it director rothwell This is a totally curiosity question, but how did they come up with such a specific number? It says 49 890 dollars. Oh, it was put out as it was simple Did they have to keep it under 50 grand? Yes, that's the answer and having been a consult myself You sneak up as close to the not to exceed as you can Okay, but since the product is offered and they were evaluated on hours of value They're giving you you know you get more hours of value for 49 than you would have gotten for 48 And remember that I developed the scope and cost estimates of what it should cost to do this and I've done that I've done that job before Thank you any other board comments comments from the public everyone Have one Good morning, claire flea slur city santa craze again I just want to reiterate what director chase said that we're really excited to start working on this project And we've been really grateful. It's been a great working relationship working with metro staff on going through the consultant interviews getting the rfp And selecting who we think is going to be a really good team for this project So really looking forward to working collaboratively on this and coming up with a really great result. Thank you. Thank you Uh, no other comments Move the staff recommendation or second jimmy's move by rotkin second by chase Uh, all those in favor aye. Aye Opposed passes unanimously Now we go to item number 21 to accept initial fair restructuring analysis And concepts and direct staff to initiate public outreach Thank you board and I will request your indulgence with a little deep dig here But this is important. It's big and it's quite nuanced as an issue But I've tried to boil it down to just sort of a straight line discussion for today As the chair said i'm just here to give you a status report And to ask you to direct us to initiate our first round of outreach A very similar presentation to this was provided to the finance committee on february 8th Which directed staff to bring this to you a quick review of what we told the board in january A fair restructure analysis is necessary because of potential risk to our five-year budget Based on future budget projections shown in attachment a1 and a2 Metro will need additional revenue to maintain our current service level over the next five years In addition a fair restructure is a pretty typical process at a process at a transit district every five years or so next Many of our five of our bay area peers have now moved their base costs for a single ride beyond our two-dollar fair All right first. I need to clarify a mistake. I'm made in the narrative of the staff report. I apologize I said in two places in the staff report that there would be no para cruise fair increases part of this project I should have said that staff is not specifically proposing any increase to para cruise fairs And have not assumed any increased fares from para cruise in all our financial models to this point But I do have in in full transparency and clarity I do have to remind the board that federal law requires that senior and disabled fairs be no more than one half of the base fair For fixed route services So if as part of this restructure you do choose to raise the base fair You do have the ability or the opportunity at some time to bring para cruise fairs up to One half of whatever that is We're not proposing it at the moment Double it not half Double the fair sorry double. I apologize. I had senior fairs In my mind when I said that so apologies it can be up to double So moving on from that and I apologize for that mistake I want to convey two concepts today The first is the actual and relative amount of revenue that could be raised With a hypothetical 25 or a 50 cent raise in the base fair And then secondly, I want to provide you a starting list of potential targeted strategies Which we have developed To attempt to provide financial savings To some of our sub segments of our ridership who will or would be most impacted by a fair increase Number one on the topic of how much money can a fair increase raise Last year f y 17 metro collected 9.4 million dollars in fair revenue from our local and highway 17 express services To put that in context, you know our budget's almost 50 million dollars So when you hear us talk about having a 23 fair box recovery That's where that number fits and that's important because as I also mentioned at the last couple of meetings We have a requirement to maintain that fair box ratio above 20 percent or risk punishment on some of the state funds that we receive. That's very important to remember so I'm going to be referring a lot to attachment Get this right. I think it is referred to as b here Yes, it is attachment b. I'll be referring to a lot for the rest of the presentation On the top line of that you'll see under the under the category gross revenue increase Analysis suggests that if you raised the base fare by 25 percent or or 25 cents or 50 cents Metro could see an increase in gross revenue and I really want to highlight that word gross revenue Of almost 1 million and almost 2 million dollars respectively It's pretty simple math to figure out how we get there You raise the base fare and you raise all the passes at the same percentages and rates That's a 12 and a 25 increase. It creates about that much more revenue It's important and it's critically important to note that these revenue projections assume that ucsc and cabrillo service contracts Can increase by these same percentages The ability of the two colleges to accommodate these increases has not been confirmed and remember They're essentially 50 percent of our ridership and our revenue So it's very key to those assumptions that they can do so and I can't speak for them today Again back to the topic of gross revenue that number that oh, that's really exciting Almost a million dollars almost 2 million dollars, but that starts to dissipate when you consider some realities As in any retail product sold anywhere you raise the price you lose some sales Staff has analyzed previous metro fare increases as well as the experience of many of our peers around the country Unfortunately, historically most metro fare increases have come at the exact time as service reductions We didn't do that here. We tried to survive this and split them make them stand alone Therefore all the metro experiences in the last 20 years are a combination of a cut and a fair increase They're not very apple to apple specific But they sort of reinforce what we've learned from the rest of the country because our losses have been slightly higher Than cases where it's only been a fair increase nationwide peer and research including the 2010 experience of vta Indicates that recent increases of 10 percent in fares have resulted in a little bit over three percent loss in ridership On attachment b in the column titled net revenue with ridership loss Is the assumption that metro would lose five and ten percent respectively with a 12.5 25 cents or a 25 50 cent fare increase So we're fully aware of trying to not Fool ourselves or you with this great funding out. We want to keep it an honest scale All right, i'm on to the second point and this is this is a little thick But follow with me on this at the same time as we're proposing ways to increase revenue Staff has also identified some opportunities for the board to consider Which provide financial savings for various sub segments of our ridership Please follow along in attachment b and i'll just touch on each of the five or six quickly to have you appreciate What we're trying to do with that particular one scenario one I want to make sure I can reach to it anytime during the conversation Scenario one is the concept of increasing the base fare But decreasing the relative cost of a day pass by reducing the cost to two or two and a half times the single fare Ours is currently three times a single fare Transit districts range from two to three depending on the percentage of people in their system Who need to take multiple buses on a one-way directional trip that gets kind of expensive Now of course if you drop the relatively price, you're going to lose a little bit of money So for example for the rest of the document if you see the four lines in the rows associated with scenario one Depending on which proposed price fair increase and which propose reduction in the multiplier You lose somewhere between $60,000 and $135,000 Against that 885 and 1.7 million is that concept because that's really the whole concept everything down the rest of the page All right. Thank you very much The next three proposals two three and four are intended to reduce the number of patrons paying with cash Through discounts for using passes or smart cards Reduction and cash payments have the opportunity to help reduce metro operating costs as well Dwell time maintenance Delays in 12 times lead to the bus being late leads to overtime. It leads down to happy customers But internally it's got a significant financial impact. So Scenario two. Why don't we increase the base fair but hold all the current Price for the pain with the pass Well, you can see there the significant impact because they were very currently a very popular way to pay for our passes So that would be a fairly risky venture to give up A half million and a million dollars of this supposed effort to go out and gain money We need to deal with rising costs, but we wanted to lay it out there. It's kind of an example of the high end And again in those cases we'd only be Moving people to paper passes, which is only halfway where we want to go in the long term And would there be Additional costs for having to provide people with places to go buy more Alternative things than they bringing a dollar with them in their wall or you know, five dollars in their wallet Yes, there would we realize and and I was going to actually get to that with you must have my notes here Um, yes the answer to yes the more outlets for sales of passes would be better for it But look at scenario three, which is the idea of holding the current fair for payments using smart card We already know that our smart card is very difficult to get a hold of it's not sold at many places It's difficult without the technology.  And when does it run out? So the technology is a huge opportunity here So there's limited uses of these cards today. That's why it looks like the financial impact of it wouldn't be so big Again, I refer to the technology opportunity Scenario four is a real simple one. Why don't we sell people 11 dollars in value for 10 bucks? That's not really a horrible impact given today's Use of these cards now, of course This is not an exact science forecasting impacts and behavior changes The best we can do is use experiences of others and apply some common sense and professional logic to it That was number four scenario five this proposal is intended to create a fair product that staff feels Will serve a specific demand you'll notice in the financial column. It says to be determined We've been having a hard time landing on the exactly right product to meet whatever the exact Niche here. We've played with time durations number of rides I'd like to hold much more conversation of that one. We want to spend some more time I think we'll have a relatively definitive proposal in march It's a tricky one because the lack of good solid research we have as to what we're missing in this arena So let me move on Again adopting any of the above scenarios reduces that money We might make out of a fair increase, but those are judgments for the board The premise of scenario six is about creating revenue to fund increased service. None of the other ones per se We're proposing increased service. That's not to say some of the revenue couldn't be used that but it's not a direct strategy of ours However, in the case of highway 17, there may be an opportunity again your judgment Right now our 31 day pass is priced at a 50 discount. That's a great price I know of no other commute bus services that offer a 50 discount. They're mostly in the 25 to 33 discount Now having started this conversation. I want to make it clear There is no suggestion of raising the seven dollar base one-way fare at the moment We know we only did it two and a half years ago. That was a 40 percent increase. It is what it is But if you consider that we could raise the multiplier of number of trips When you buy the pass today, you're getting 40 or as many trips as you want But think about making 40 trips in 20 work days. We're selling it for the price of 20 trips Maybe it should be more like 25 26 27 up to 30 And with that range of increased revenue, you could raise from 79,000 to 171,000 more dollars With that kind of money, you could run two to six additional Round trips over the hill In a day offer more product more convenience attract discretionary riders deal with peak loads, etc Etc. So it's an interesting concept. I don't know if it's what we want to do yet Yes, we have the capital equipment to do that In other words, if we say we pick that program do we have enough over the hill buses to make it work I will say yes in the sense that we have a peak pullout of approximately 13 and we own 19 buses And as you know, we're attempting to get three new electrics. That's a very good question I guess I can't exact answer it exactly at the moment But there's the concept behind it Alrighty, so all I've been talking about is getting more money from people But what can we give the public for these increased costs? First of all, to be really direct Additional funding is needed to keep the bus service we have today I hate to say that but that's a harsh reality There could also be an opportunity to provide a small increase of services in various locations Also metro as as we all together have been speaking ad nauseam for the last couple years We want to get AVL because it's a product which provides great value to the customers as well as metro So there's an example of giving back Fair payment technology New area to get into but that's another place where the primary goal is to increase Customer convenience for how do I buy and how do I pay and don't make this any more hassle? Otherwise, I'll just go get in my car and go and Right. Okay. Sorry about that. So in the area of fair technology There's two basic areas to think about at the moment And they're sort of tiered the first one is is pretty common these days in a lot of environments. It's mobile ticketing It's on your phone You do it today on airplanes and you sporting and music events You buy it with an app and you walk up and you either show someone it or you technology tap That's a pretty interesting and I would assume will probably make some progress there The more interesting one is things called account based system where you all have an individual account So life is not happening in the transaction right there It's happening in the back room You have an account backed up by your bank account And you buy your products at home on your computer or on your phone And in real time it deducts money and it validates your ticket very interesting possibly a big Financial effort, but that's what we're going to find out We're currently doing research to determine which of these technological improvements would be most effective at meeting our patrons needs The plan is for our our team at the march board meeting when we make our fair recommendation To also ask you to allow us to release an rfp To vendors to get proposals for providing providing these products and the most important thing is How much will they charge for it and it's done in different ways? Some people have more money up front. Some people charge you a percentage of transactions Um And again, we got and the other key thing is they take differing times to implement Some can be implemented in months Some might take eight or ten months because you have to do hardware on the vehicles So we plan on coming back to you in august and saying, okay Here's what the vendor world is telling us Even what we want to do with our fair is we suggest We pick that product that product and that product and by the way It'll take a few months to get it implemented So we've always told you that no matter what we decide this may We don't plan on implementing any fair changes until at least january of next year the technology Component might affect that suggested start date Finish up here So that's good enough on that So let me just speak to the outreach process as we leave here today And this is in some sense is the most important part Uh, we've built the model of what we're going to do based on what we did a year and a half ago on the comprehensive operation analysis As outlined at the january meeting Following the last month or so you may have seen our staff in the field You may have seen announcements through gov delivery that we have online research questions It's all have been about this fair technology and ridership patterns Which suggests which discounts might be the smartest and most effective to offer so We walk out of here today if with your approval We start sending out gov delivery texts and emails to alert alert current riders directing them to the website for more information We start putting information on buses and the transit centers including what will do at wassenville on the way back We'll be providing newsletter materials to a number of community groups who are going to put them in their local Newspapers and organization letters. That's all ready to go I will be making a long series of presentations to various stakeholder groups Including those representing the senior and disabled communities I spoke to the end attack last week and we'll be back to them in another month And we will have four geographically oriented public open houses During the next month or so spread around the county Once a formal recommendation is presented by staff to the board on march 23rd We will start a formal public comment process as we did last time an informal first cycle And then a formal cycle and as you'll remember because the oddity of our dates With our board meetings in 30 days, we will actually we will actually have close to a two month formal public comment period between march 23rd and may 18th When we will ask you to make a final decision here This two cycle process served us well during the coa And we hope that it will be equally successful at getting the word out, which is one of our primary responsibilities Regardless of what we do. It's most important that we let everybody know what we're Up up to thank you. That completes my presentation on this topic. I have a question Yeah, so director rockin is this going to go before the finance committee and if so when This this has been going to the finance committee each month in lead of you So we were there on february 8th and we'll be back to them On a date as yet undetermined early march and april march meeting. Yes, we'll do it before each of the next three meetings Thank you In the comments from board members Comments from the public Mrs. Gomez So I hear that a lot of plans a lot of good plans But my worry is one of the same one question How many services already pay like we pay for cabrillo of 40 dollar see the deal for how we're 17 How they already pay how many? 40 dollars whenever it costs of how we're 17 They pay the service but then we have the services then So one of the talk about the planning to do more trips to to the universities and who say it's a big good idea For the people that got working over there at the hill So we don't want to have the bad expectation already pay the 40 dollars cabrillo already pay my money from San Jose to go to work to go to San Jose university. We don't have the services Should we have a deserve to have it? So I have a lot of poetry and I No, I don't want to be too philosophical too political But sometimes I have this wall. I want to say this wall this phrase Sometimes we don't have it. Okay. We deserve and sometimes we deserve Have a something little more like we pay So if you wanted a hamburger to one of the good hamburger or good sandwich or good burritos or good pizza So we want to get these buses in the in the way that goes again fair Price for the seniors and disabled we get over there everybody senior and disabled and we want to see see We have a hospital be take care of that So just normally the university of San Jose university of Santa Cruz We think that the university is good But we see the services for the community like at the ridership and so kill all the middle school high school 71 It's the only bus is for children for teenager middle school high school yes 71 I come back and again from the 71 story about is everywhere everybody use it So to make sense see we try to find it. What is the ridership for at the hill down the hill found in the ridership You I I try to seek a remember Santa Cruz, please I love Washingtonville. I come in here for my hospital.  I come in here visiting But we like Santa Cruz too. Don't forget Santa Cruz. It's gonna mean the ridership mean for the community I mean low income people families senior children People can go to the school to bring the children. We want to use the buses So you get the opportunity you get the services to us. We pay Oh, by the way, we don't want to pay too much to the people there senior because we don't have too much money We get you all there So getting in the boat you get in the bus. Thank you so much. Don't forget Santa Cruz. Thank you so much Hey, wait Merrill. I think that Becky wants to come up I just want to point out the irony of Of considering a plan that will cut back Ridership after the report says seeing that Ridership is up. Okay. Thank you. That's all I have to say Thank you. Yes, sir Maritores vice chair of u2u Um, I want to know where the money's going to go to for the revenue that if you guys were to increase the affairs Also, I don't see the point of having great technology if we don't have the bus service to go with it People can know that they're going to run late without a cell phone. Thank you. Thank you Any other comments from the public? Uh, any other comments from the board? Uh, yes, uh, mr. Clifford. Yes. Thank you, mr. Chair Just to clarify. So if this recommendation is adopted, we will begin as we leave today the process of public outreach Including press releases and try everything we can do As barrel mentioned, we'll replicate what we thought was a successful process through the coa in order to get as much public Interested as we can We're not scared of having large numbers of people come to meeting That's a success if you have large numbers of people come to meeting. That's what we want And as barrel pointed out in the first bullet under the summary Um, we we are correcting that to indicate that we will also notice All of the paratransit folks about this process because at some point when we bring recommendations back to you You will have to decide whether you continue your current practice Of taking advantage of federal law, which allows you to go up to double base fare for your paratransit services Or if you wish to keep that the way it is today and do other fare structuring changes But you're preserving your opportunity to look at that on either side of the equation down the road Therefore, we will make sure we notice the paratransit customers unless you tell us otherwise Okay, mr. Rockin. Did you have a question? I got a comment Hope you're now or do you want questions? Yes, please. Um Nobody ever wants to raise fares on The people that you're serving and obviously particularly when you have so many people who are transit dependent But the reality is we're if we don't make these kinds of increases We're going to have to cut the service again And so maybe i'm belaboring the obvious But I assume we're going to do like we did with the coa presentation start off by telling people look at our five-year budget This is why we need to do this. It's not because we just you know Want to keep up with inflation or some abstraction like that It's because we'll be in a hole and have to cut service And I think when you talk to the public a lot of times if you say the choice is to raise the fare somewhat In the following way and here's how we're going to do it And as a result we won't have to cut our service or we might even be able to expand something But let's say for the sake of argument not cut our service versus Oh, the fares can stay just like they are and you won't be able to get where you want to go when you want to get there And that trade-off may make it worth to pay a little bit more for the ride worth it on some level And I think that's what the public has to understand what why we're doing this not because it's just happens or something It's because if we don't do this we'll cut service We will definitely do that and thank you for pointing that out because we we don't want there to be a perception that somehow There's just this opportunity to raise fares and we're just doing it We need to make sure the public understands what barrow talked about in the beginning And that is as you look out over the five-year projection of our budget Our costs of providing the service increase at a much higher rate Than do the revenues to support the service. I think the other important point to Put out there right now Given the audience and the availability of the the television media is to just let the public know Only 24 of the cost of operating the service is recovered through the fares placed in the box only 24 So therefore everything else has to be subsidies And we we have to ensure that we try to do the best we can do to keep that equation in balance and keep up with those escalating costs Director bottof. I said a quick question barrel. You reference a number about the level of service Some are over 50 of how much All right, if you had a cumulative number for me of how much of our ridership is ucse And and cabrera And cabrera you can include cabrera. Okay, I would say cabrera I don't want to get in and be wrong by five percent But let's say that ucse is in the 55 percent because it's been growing as a percentage obviously Cabrera, we talked last year about it being six to eight percent highway 17 I'd have to do quick math on my head that it's 350 000 boardings a year over five million 151 15 It's less than 10 percent It's probably six or seven Well, I'll tell you what it's in the same ballpark as cabrera cabrera is looking like it'll end slightly So it's more than cabrera By maybe 50 000 a year. You can almost assume that 70 percent of our ridership could be combined As a ballpark getting close. I love that you're nodding because I'm just looking for a ballpark. Yeah. Yeah Maybe 65. I just wanted to follow up on director rotkins comment Attachments a1 and a2 although they're quite convoluted were our effort to show the picture of the reality of the cost versus the revenue Thanks for that Okay, any other comments? See we asked we already had from the public Did you have a comment? Okay, please come on I must say I'd rather have a fair increase than a service cut Okay, thank you. Thank you. We'll try to make we add to the point. Yes, right. We we appreciate your comments Yes, sir. Mr. Stevenson. I think it's got a comment here, too Yeah, thank you. I was uh moving my car. So I missed part of it, but uh Thank you, baro, and I I just want to express appreciation for the process that's being engaged in here It seems very comprehensive very thorough considering a lot of things but I would put a plug in also for including You know experienced drivers or people that have worked for the metro for a long time in the process of Data collection or getting data points when making decisions like this. Let me just give you three things that Come up for me as somebody who's worked as a bus driver for nearly 20 years for the district When it comes to fares Fair increases and I think he spoke to this point, but fair increases Can be offset by loss of ridership and also, you know A lot of times people don't really have the ability to pay the full fare right now So, you know the assumption is that everybody that is paying fare With a fair increase is is you know, if you're collecting those statistics assuming that that's going to be full fare paid It's not going to be full fare paid. I mean People just don't have the money to pay the fare right now a lot of times. So that's something taking the exaggeration Just as far as the fare box and the efficiency of of bus operation relationship to fare A couple things that I've noticed one is it's that you know when we compare ourselves to other transit districts Or when we're trying to coordinate with other transit districts and riders that are crossing county lines Um, you know people are riders are very often surprised that they can't get change You know that they have to have exact change. I think that's something we need to be thinking about Changing if we're thinking about changing technology Um, you know all these things we want to do to reduce Um, the costs for people who are not paying cash Uh, I think we need to increase the efficiency for people that are paying cash Because oftentimes we don't get full fare of those people just because they don't have the ability to get change um The other factor is um Transfers, you know, we have absolutely no transfer system in our county except the transfer from Our system to mst. Uh, that's just something that people are Disgusted by a lot of times and I think it it it lowers our our marketability um, so Those are just my comments in 20 years of driving. Thank you. Thank you Any other comments from the public? Do you have any closing comments very quickly? I didn't want to mention that today because the presentation was long enough But we are working on a change card mst has when we're just working through the technology of our vehicle. That's a good idea. Great idea. Thanks. Thanks, Dan Hey Um, I think we just need to accept this report I'm a motion to accept or I don't know that needs a motion of mr. Hagen Make second second bot d'orff all in favor. All right pros. So order unanimously We'll go to item number 22 Um, and I want to appreciate say how much I appreciate being uh elected chair and the with the prospect of a fair increase the same year Thank you very much. Thank you for your service already We won't be naming any bus after you Um, we'll move item number 22 to consider resolution in support of proposition 69 on the statewide june 18 ballot and in opposition to efforts to repeal Senate bill 1 the gas tax increase that was approved by the legislature last year. These are two different um issues and there's uh There's a recommendation for a yes, and then a no So don't get confused. Uh, but thank you, mr. Burrell. You'll clarify that very well. I know I'll make very quick comments and let alex maybe add some nuance, but i'm not going to repeat the whole title Uh, the chair just said but it is an interesting thing. There is an active proposition 69 on the june ballot Which people with an interest in transportation want to support Because it will stop the ability of the state to move transportation funds to general fund problems as you'll all remember From a few years ago. I think it was prop 48 or something at the same time This is a resolution sharing our stance and our opinion at the same time. We're expressing our support for 69 We're expressing our opposition to the repeal of sp1 as we know There's a petition effort underway to get a measure on the november 18 ballot to do just that I don't I won't make a long speech. It would be catastrophic for all types of transportation providers Not just public transit The key for us the funding as angela referred to earlier and it's back up on the board These fund