Good morning. Go ahead and get started with the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission regular meeting. It is September 7th, Thursday, 2023, 902 AM. Clerk, will you please call the roll? Commissioner Peterson. Commissioner Sandy Brown. Here. Commissioner Johnson. Here. Commissioner Montecino. Here. Commissioner Hernandez. President. Commissioner alternate Schifrin. Here. Commissioner alternate Quinn. Here. Commissioner Koenig. Here. Commissioner McPherson. Commissioner Kristen Brown. Here. Commissioner Pegler. Here. And Commissioner Rotkin. Here. And Commissioner. Oh, no, I'm going to miss. So you're Olaynick. Sorry about that. Okay, we have a quorum. Are we is Commissioner Peterson online or is that a just cause request? Do we have any AB 2449 just cause request for you? Commissioner Peterson, who was not here in person, might be online. And Director Preston, are there any additions or deletions to the agenda today? No additions or deletions. However, we do have a few handouts. We have a handout for item 24. That's a staff report. We also have handouts for items 16 and three. Thank you. Not proceed with oral communications. Any member of the public may address the commission on any item within the jurisdiction of the commission that is not already on the agenda. The mission will listen to all communication, but in compliance with state law may not take action on items that are not on the agenda because our requested to state their names clearly so that it can be accurately reported in the minutes of the meeting. Here in chambers wants to address the commission. We have a mic for you over here at the podium. No one. Is there anyone online? Yes, we have a few hands raised. Mr. Brian Peoples. Hi, this is Brian Peoples for trail now. I think Kerry Pico is going to make a statement. And I just wanted to thank Kerry on the great work he has done for our community and identifying the details of the legality of the Coastal Corridor with private properties. He's done some phenomenal work. And I'm hopeful that this commission really respects and listens to what he says. Historically, this commission hasn't listened to the experts. Case in point, we didn't listen to the executive director guy Preston over the years where he was recommending the Trump trail. So I'm hopeful that we begin to do that. And then I do want to take a moment to talk to item number 23 because I won't be able to attend and I'll just make a comment that that the cost of the segment five, the North Coast Trail, is it a great example of how in the old tracks there is preventing the use of that corridor. And it's very hurtful for our community not to be able to use it. We've only built 1.2 miles of the trail over a decade. And that delay on segment five is going to continue because what the Coastal Commission did is they've only given us a temporary retaining wall, which I do not believe was contained. We'll have to replace that. And it's not in the cost analysis. I'm not sure, but I would suggest that you double check that that you would have to remove that in the future. But again, I just want to thank Kerry again and for his phenomenal work. And I'm hopeful that the Coastal Commission listens or the RTC listens to his expertise. Thank you for your time. This is Kerry Pico. Can everybody hear me? Hello? Hello? Can anybody hear me? I can hear you, Kerry. Okay. Anybody else in the audience is? We can hear you, Kerry. Okay, that's that's what I want to hear. So here I'm starting out and I'm going to make it very quickly. There are miles between the Boardwalk in Watsonville of the rail corridor that is not exempt from I mean, that the RTC does not have full ownership over. And I'm just going to go quickly. I was I didn't expect to have a presentation this time because I'd forgotten to send it in. Property taken by condemnation by private company deeds with a granting clause that states conditions. And you should know that a trail on the railroad easement requires compensation to the owners. Next slide, if you could. I'm going to zip through. So next slide, just click on. Yeah, there we go. So this is California, you know, you guys, I'll just say it's property taken by condemnation, which is miles through Live Oak in Capitola. There. Yeah, just leave it there. There's an example of it is further ordered that certain parcel land is taken and look at the very bottom is hereby condemned. And so there's many, many properties in particular the Live Oak Capitola area of that. Next slide, please. Also, if the courts have have stated that if you have a condition inside the grant agreement in the grant clause of deed that situation is respected by the courts as an easement. Anyway, so what I'm trying to say is that there are numerous properties. I've been contacted by property owners asking what should they do? And I look at their deeds and they have conditions within the granting clause. It says it's a right of way in large portions of Aptos, Soquel area or Capitola. Is it so I'd rather not see people get picked off one by one, which is what's going to happen, but you may have a large line lawsuit by, you know, breaking the right of way. Yeah, thanks for starting before I even heard that anybody wanted this. Hi, I'm Rick Longinati with the campaign for sustainable transportation. And I wanted to suggest a future agenda item. This would be an idea to add value to the auxiliary lanes that are under construction. We know that the auxiliary lanes, you know, in between 41st Avenue and State Park Drive, some of them are long as long as a mile and a mile and a half. And when the road is congested, say, in the evening commute, we know that, you know, motorists are going to move into the auxiliary lane, even though they need to weave back into the through lanes to get to their destination. And that weaving is going to cause congestion. And we see that already with the last auxiliary lane that was built between Soquel Drive and 41st, I mean between Morrissey and Soquel, which is quite congested in the evening commute. So in order to avoid that and actually allow buses to have a bit more space in the auxiliary lane to make some headway, some signage, perhaps some paint, you know, to really get the point across to the motorists that these lanes are for exiting the highway and not for weaving into and weaving back out of at the next interchange. And I'm really appreciate if you put that on your agenda. And in the meantime, check with Caltrans about what would be the optimal strategy, whether it's a red paint on the lane or perhaps just a thick stripe in between the auxiliary lanes and the through lanes. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Lajanotti. Mr. Michael St. Yes, thank you, Chair Koenig. Good morning, commissioners. Michael St. Louis CFST. On August 26, CFST hosted a transportation justice conference with over 50 guests in attendance. After Rick Lajanotti's opening statements, which emphasized the futility of highway widening and the Oxlanes project, we did not mention highway widening again or Oxlanes the rest of the day. You might ask yourself, why not? Well, the purpose of our conference was to educate and focus on projects that will provide our county with sustainable, non-polluting and a non-automobile eccentric transportation system while providing benefits for our disadvantaged communities. Our present Oxlane hybrid bus system that is projected in the future does not count any of those as part of their benefits. I would like to thank the following speakers and attendees for being part of our conference. Michael Tree, Santa Cruz Metro CEO, Lonnie Faulkner, Equity Transit, and also candidate for first district supervisor. Linda Marin from Citizens Climate Lobby, Sally Arnold, former board chair of Fort, and specifically for attending Commissioner Kristen Brown, also capital vice mayor, capitol vice mayor and district two supervisor candidate, and especially RTC commissioner and supervisor Felipe Hernandez for participating as a panel member during the conference. Thanks to all for making this a great conference. Real quickly, I'd like to thank Commissioner Rotkin last meeting on August 3rd for questioning the staff during the RTC meeting about agenda item 28, which was called for projects. Commissioner Rotkin's concern was that the list of projects gave little concern for our climate change crisis, which appears to be getting worse every year. Thank you for your time and all your hard work on the commission. And have a good morning. Thanks. We have former mayor of this commission, Aurelio Gonzalez. Hi here. Hi. Good morning. I just wanted to say thank President Guy for his service to the RTC. Unfortunately, I was able to make it there in person. But again, I just take this moment just to thank him, thank his staff, his leadership in moving forward with transportation needs for the region. And thank you for your time. Online or anyone else here in chambers will need with items five through 18, which is sent agenda. Any comments, questions on the brown? Thank you, Chair Koenig. I have a few questions on item eight. This is the rejection of a bid for repairs. And I guess I'm I understand the rationale and I am also concerned that the work is continuing to be delayed. That the it's likely that the cost for this work is going to continue to rise. So I don't know that delaying is going to necessarily get us a cheaper bid. And potentially compound because the longer we go, obviously there's going to be more to resolve. So I just just wondering in terms of I again understand the rationale for today, but in terms of how we move forward to try to figure out how to get this work done, at least the crucial parts to avoid additional, you know, disrepair, more costly disrepair would just be helpful to hear, you know, what you're what the thinking is for how we proceed.  These are things that we discussed about in depth. We rejected the bids last time. We bid again and got a higher bid. So it didn't work in that particular instance. We've queried our contractors that's why they did not do the very time restriction. I think we're more competent. We'll get more. So we talked about the various locations and why we feel we might need to go this year on some locations versus others. And there's really one location that we are most about. And it's a location between about San Andreas Road and Manresa Beach. I'm not accessible from the road. A bridge, very low clearance. The silt has built up almost the profit right up. If we were to get an early storm and that area was receive a lot of water, worried that that could wash out. So our plan is to get that as an emergency contract. There's more flexibility with that. There would only be one location that the contractor wouldn't finish a tight time frame. And we believe we'll get multiple bids without location that would satisfy our needs. You think with the other location having more time and more flexibility. Also, with the rail, measure derail funding, hot beans, rain, not having received all of the approvals for all of the patients were worried about our ability to get first for all locations without doing that for sure, in the cost down our best risk. So after having this deliberation, we put this plan that we'll get this one location done here in the last class manner. We also feel that one location that we will get done that will be the most contractor that has been bidding on it last time, not have experience working at all, at least for access. Thank you. I appreciate that. I saw it reflected in the agenda report, the multiple bids question. And it's good to hear that you those conversations led you to that conclusion. And I've taken that ride with you. And so I know that that site. And I appreciate hearing you're focused on the most critical pieces. So yeah, it just feels like with the bid estimates that projections, we're, I mean, this is something that public it happens with public agencies all the time. And it's a dilemma because we have a limited amount of funding. And most bids come in over, but to kind of have this experience twice now is disconcerting. So just wanted to check. Thanks. It's just concerning for us to, as I mentioned, it was. Yes. Thank you. Mr. Brown, there comments or questions for commissioners about the consent agenda? I think none. Any member of the public wish to comment on the consent agenda online from Michael St. All right. And I see a second comment with various coming up next. Commissioner Connick, it looks like the folks on Zoom are having a hard time hearing all of us who are not speaking directly into the mic. So if we can do that, please. I think if you'd like to comment on the consent agenda, go ahead. Okay, thank you, Chair Connick. Yeah, item seven, which is the final design work on Highway one to Freedom Auxiliary Lanes. CFST feels you are risking $300,000 by doing design work before completion of the EIR. Also, the draft EIR is seriously deficient. There is significant doubt as to a final EIR can become a valid document. This project is tiered from the HOV project back from 2019. This EIR has been set aside and invalidated by the courts. Also an EIR tiered from an invalid EIR, which is happening presently, is considered invalid, not valid. CEQA as of July 2020 requires highway expansion projects to be analyzed for their VMT and be mitigated if it increases VMT, not being done. Although you advertise reducing congestion, the draft EIR concludes that the congestion northbound will actually worsen according to the draft EIR. And the southbound congestion relief will be short-lived. CFST requests that you decline to authorize this expenditure of the taxpayer money on a project that is seriously problematic. Thank you. Mr. Sain, Mr. Barry Scott. Good morning, commissioners. And thank you for always having these meetings available by Zoom. I wanted to speak to item 8, the rejecting a bid that came back higher. And I think it would be helpful if the reports in the agenda and to the commissioners included an explanation of why this bid came back higher the second time around. More importantly, it's a recurring theme that the 8% of measure D is inadequate to do all the work that we'd like to do. And I remember, and some of you will too, that it started out at 15% was knocked down to 14% and then all the way down to 8%. And whether we like that or not, that's unfortunate. Obviously we need more money than the 8% provides. Interestingly, 17% is for the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail. 17% plus 8%. 25% of measure D funds are for that corridor in one form or another. And I think to avoid perpetual, we don't have the money because of 8% to avoid that. I think we need to start thinking of the rail corridor property as the work site for the trail and be willing to move funds from the 17% active transportation bucket to make up for shortfalls when rail corridor work like this is needed. I'm disappointed that we're going to take the risk of another winter storm series coming through. And I pray that what work is done is adequate to survive the storms. But next year, we're going to need to figure out how to fund all the work that needs to be done to protect both the rail project and the coastal rail trail. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Scott. But first, we'll be discussing corridor maintenance further in item 23. There's actually, if you look at the expenditure plan for measure D, some shared responsibility between both the active transportation portion of measure D and the rail portion of measure D for corridor maintenance. Alright, seeing no one else. Go ahead. Who's your mic is over there at the podium? Hi, I'm Sally. I'm Sally Arnold and I'm I'm the representative for Friends of the Rail and Trail today here at the meeting. And I just want to say that though, obviously, we're concerned also about number eight, you know, the trail maintenance continually being deferred due to high costs. We do recommend approving this item because we understand that measure D money is limited. And of course, we want to have enough money to build more trail and plan for rail. But as Commissioner Brown mentioned, you know, these repairs aren't going to get any cheaper. And leaving aside this particular bid in this particular location. This is a chronic problem that how are we going to complete rail maintenance for the entire section? And it seems like that might require some creative thinking to but it's it's an ongoing problem. And in a lot of times I hear restatements of why it's a problem, which I appreciate. But but Friends of the Rail and Trails were interested in kind of what's the comprehensive plan to overcome those problems for the whole whole corridor. But we do support the staffers recommendation in this case for item number eight. Thank you. Is Arnold right seeing no other hands raised online or here in chambers or turn to the Commission for action? Before we do that, I wanted to ask staff about item seven. We some regularity here that EIR on that project was teared off the HOV lane project. And my understanding is that it wasn't so I'd like to get a response from staff on whether any tiering was used for that. Yes, and you've asked this question at a previous meeting. My answer remains the same. The projects were not teared. That project was not teared off of the programmatic document. Stand alone environmental documents. I think it's important to get that in the record again, since it keeps coming up. I also received a letter that was essentially read by the testimony about the lack of hurdles analysis and VMT analysis in the EIR. I did review the EIR. It's a confusing document in a way because it's both a federal document in need, deep as well as a secret document. And I found sections that did talk about alternatives. It find a discussion of VMT as well. So I think that both of those concerns, they may be people with concerns may feel that the discussion was not adequate, but it is definitely there. So I just wanted to make sure that my understanding of what the EIR did. Thank you. Your understanding is the same as mine. Thank you. Thank you Commissioner Schiffrin. Commissioner Roxton. Prove approval of a consent agenda. I'll second it.  I think the costs are going up. There's a lot of infrastructure projects in our in our area, especially well after the flutter currents, the fires, you know, even City of Watsonville is having a hard time getting any, any bids on their RFPs that go out for big infrastructure projects, even our own infrastructure projects go out to bid, they come back, we get them in the middle of the project, they go up in costs and we're scrambling. And so I think we have to face that reality at some point that the costs are just going up, you know, and accept these bids at some point. But I just wanted to point that out with second. Commissioner Rockins. Thank you, Commissioner Hernandez. I have a motion from Commissioner Rockins, a second from Commissioner Hernandez. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? The abstention. Motion passes unanimously. We'll now proceed with item 19, Commissioner reports. Does any commissioner have anything they'd like to share with the whole commission? Thank you, Chair. I guess on behalf of our city council and our citizens, I want to welcome you to Scott's Valley. We usually have a lot better weather than this. I don't know who brought this, but we're happy that we're able to host the RTC. For those people that had a little bit of trouble finding parking spots, our apologies. We are the only city in I think the county that doesn't have parking meters. So there's that. With our budget, we should probably rethink that position a little bit. I do, you know, I've been I've been here for a while and, you know, I've heard a lot of the lament of sensible transportation folk and everything. And every once in a while, I will ask by a show of hands because there are people who have legitimate climate concerns, but do they act upon them? And, you know, we have a bus 35 that is, and I've measured at 285 yards from here. Anybody wishing to kind of follow their position on climate change, always welcome to take that bus. And I'm just wondering, did anybody do that today, putting people who are anybody?  And so and with respect to, you know, only having 8% or 17% or whatever, everybody here who represents their communities knows that the projects that we do have, and we do need to do are essential for the lives of our citizens. Sometimes that's asphalt, roads, thoroughfares that have, for example, from San Lorenzo Valley, 35,000 people a day use Mount Herman Road. Okay, so when we fix that road, because of all the traffic that we in the same month, Scott's Valley Drive and I was 17 and so forth. So just wanted to kind of, you know, point that out. Thank you, Chair Koenig and fellow commissioners. I just have a couple announcements to make today. It is Cal Trans Planning Grant season, and I'm happy to announce that RTC applied for and received $1.9 million for three new sustainable transportation planning projects, studies. And I'm happy to announce that RTC applied for and received $1.9 million for transportation planning projects, studies. These three grants will provide planning studies that focus on rural highway safety, as well as transportation and management, coastal resiliency along the North Coast Highway 1 corridor. First, RTC will receive $285,000 to develop the Santa Cruz County Rural Highway Safety Plan, enhance roadway safety for users throughout the county on our sixth conventional state highways. They include Highway 1 North of the City of Santa Cruz limits, Highway 9, Highway 236, Highway 35, and the rural sections of highways 129 and 152. Through data driven analysis, the Rural Highway Safety Plan will identify locations and patterns of crashes in order to generate and prioritize measures to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries on these highways. This data driven approach will help identify where resources are needed. Having such a plan in place will help RTC apply for future grants to implement safety related projects on state highways across the county. Thank you to RTC planner, Riana Goodman on her good work in leading the grant application. Second grant is for $362,000 developed the Santa Cruz County North Coast Traffic Demand Management Plan, which will analyze transportation management strategies for 22 miles coastal highway from the City of Santa Cruz Northern City limits to the Santa Cruz San Mateo County line. Traffic demand management plan will identify strategies that address visitor transportation needs, safety and operational challenges on the section of Highway 1, high demand for parking and access facilities. Ingestion and demand is only expected to increase, but the opening of Paddy Derry's National Monument in the RTC's North Coast Rail Trail Project. The plan will also consider alternative modes such as bicycling and recreational rail service on the North Coast. In addition to identifying safety improvements, the project will also identify ways to reduce vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions. Thank you to RTC planner Grace Lakesley on her good work in leading this grant application. And finally RTC will receive $1.25 million in Cal Transplant and Grant funding to develop a plan for coastal resiliency along Highway 1 corridor at two locations, Waddell Creek and San Vicente Creek. The preliminary investigations indicate that the existing Highway 1 bridge over Waddell Creek and the Santa Cruz branch rail line in future Monterey Basin, Jaurie Scenic Rail corridor over San Vicente Creek are vulnerable to coastal climate change impacts. This project will identify short, medium and long term actions for viability and resilience to climate stressors on these transportation facilities in tandem with ecological restoration of Waddell Creek and San Vicente Creek ecosystem, including nature-based resilience solutions. The RTC will partner the Resource Conservation District of Santa Cruz County, Cal Trans District 5 on these two project locations. Partners are looking forward to this, looking towards the success of previous work at Spots Creek, also on the north coast as a model of how to address these climate challenges and move them forward to project delivery. Thanks again to RTC planner Grace Lakesley on her again good work leading this grant application. RTC staff is excited to get started on these important planning studies and will provide more information regarding schedule and public participation opportunities over the next few months. Finally, I have an announcement on the county's new wheelchair accessible on-demand rail ride service. You may remember that at our last RTC meeting the commission authorized RTC staff to enter into a contract with community bridges who operates lift line to implement a new program of on-demand ride service for passengers who need wheelchair accessible vehicles. Community bridges has announced that starting September 18, county residents requiring wheelchair accessible rides will be able to schedule a ride on-demand ride at a flat rate of $5. The service expansion has made possible due to $115,000 in funding from the California Public Utilities Commission, new transportation network company access for all program. Funding is generated through a 10 cent ride fee on regular on-demand service providers such as Uber and Lyft. Thank you, Community Bridges, for your strong participation partnership and for the excellent service you provide to our community. My appreciation also goes out to RTC planner Amanda Marino for her work in administering the TNC access for all program. That concludes my director's report. Thank you Executive Director Preston. Are there comments or questions from commissioners? Yes, thank you. First of all, I really want to congratulate the staff for getting the planning grants. They're going to be very helpful and the work that's been done is really appreciated. I have a question about the $1.2 million grant. Is that related to the commission's segment five project at the Davenport parking lot where as part of the Coastal Commission approval, the commission agreed to follow up trying to work on the long-term problems with San Francisco. Is that kind of the follow up to that? It's the first step or actually the second step of many. The first step was to program a long-term project in our regional transportation plan which we did and we went after this grant so we could start doing initial planning work and meet our commitments to the Coastal Commission. So essentially we're carrying out our commitment to the Coastal Commission to move forward with a long-term solution to the problem in that area. Yes, we are very committed to meeting our commitments. I think that's you know it's really great. I want to thank our staff and also thank Caltrans for moving the grants to the mission important and I'm really looking forward to the work that's being done given the increased use by the public of the North Coast. I think it's desirable moving in direction. Thank you. Commissioner Schifrin for comments or questions. Commissioners being none. Is there any member of the public who wishes to comment on the director's report? None. We will proceed with the Caltrans report. Morning commissioners my name is John Olanek from Caltrans District 5 Transportation Planning Manager in behalf here today of our district director Scott Eads and I just want to start with we are equally thrilled about the results of the Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant process and the results. Not just besides those mentioned already our district-wide we receive 10 grants amongst our five counties and locally Ambag the MPO they received a grant your neighbors to the South Monterey County received some funding for some study work as well so just we get to reflect on the fact that great projects have started with really good planning efforts so we look forward to working you know with staff and communities carry forward those planning efforts. Other announcements just briefly to mention some activities going on in the in the area in the in the county having to do with construction enclosures as you can imagine not just because of all the storms but just our projects in general there's a lot of activity going on throughout the county so just I want to highlight a few points these have been sent out through press releases but just for the benefit of our group here today there's going to be a closure a rolling closure on highway one north of Santa Cruz for the Iron Man bike portion of the of the event so it's a rolling closure starting this this Sunday the 10th and CHP and everyone will be available to help manage that closure another item to note for activities and construction is that we've we have a series of construction projects in the San Lorenzo Valley highway nine highway 236 leading the future even another one highway 35 to help you the long term cleanup and repair work and the storms but something a project more starting to happen more sooner is one starting on the 14th starting next week it's going to be on highway Ben Loman and it is going to be a full closure but it's going to be night work so again this has gone on press releases but just for the benefit of sharing here and please feel free to pass on information that you receive through our social media accounts as a way to let the public know and and detours are available emergency vehicles will be able to get through if they need to but this will be night work we're doing our best to scale our work we would like to work longer hours throughout the day but understanding the needs and the traffic patterns we're doing our best to shorten our work window the start later and sooner just so that it's it's the best scenario to we're both accomplishing our work and keeping the traveling public safe next I wanted to mention also of a of a project it's actually happening in district four in Santa Clara county but it will be a significant project just want to share for the benefit of everyone here in the constituencies on it's going to be in the city of mountain view on highway 101 on Saturday this weekend the ninth so Saturday night to Sunday morning it's going to be a full closure of highway 101 mountain view so knowing the proximity there might be those that yourselves might be going or others you know might be going so i want to that went on in a press release just want to share that for everyone here too and then lastly we you know we work with our partners the chp our county partners our regional planning engine partners on on programs that promote safety and a recent one that's a chp is rolling out is one called it's a it's a program for electric bike safety it's a training program so you might look out for that or you might mention to those you know who are electric bike users or there's going to be an education campaign associated with that and so it's it's one of the many new realities that we have amongst our district our counties in our state and it's it's good but you know the electric bikes have their own set of challenges as far as knowing the rules of the road and whatnot so we're glad chp was able to pick off this effort and in general as far as noticing and finding best access to caltrans i always encourage folks to test themselves to our social media accounts our twitter facebook our instagram and our put in our quick map postings it's the best way to keep right on top of what's happening with our activities when we know something's going to happen it's usually just within a few hours that we're able to post it so that everyone knows what's going on as well i found myself needing that this morning traveling here today so i could work my way around if there was any collisions and congestion and such so they are useful and helpful and i always try to encourage everyone to do that so thank you for your attention and happy to take any questions thank you for the excellent report there are comments or questions from commissioners are you sure Montecino? yeah i yeah i i don't have any questions on on the projects but there's a safety concern in our area in the city of Watsonville where there's a sidewalk issue of detachment and potential a need of a retaining wall because the sidewalk is tilted tilted in sideways and it's just safety concerns where someone's going to you know fall through the cracks or or go on on the on the side of the road between on main street from clearford and before you get to main it's a small portion of sidewalk but it's the only side of the sidewalk and that is just the safety because it's it's tilted sideways and it looks like a it looks like a way so i don't know share responsibility i don't know but thank you maybe after the meeting we could speak briefly and i can get the exact location i do know we do have several projects that are under development you know in the area in Watsonville so it's possible that that's the correction is part of that but we can talk thank you thank you thank you commissioner Montecino commissioner McPherson i want to thank calatrans for its attention it's given to Santa Cruz county in particular Santa Rosa Valley which was mentioned we all have budgets and government agencies and then fires happen and storms happen and there are emergencies and serious closures we've calatrans has corrected one it took a lot of patients from centerans valley residents on highway nine and now we're talking about another one by jay's crossing in ben loman right near the senior center there in ben loman highway 236 is another one highway 235 or 35 there's a lot going on and a lot that has been committed by calatrans to get this done as quickly as possible and as Mr. Lenick said that there will be night work on highway nine when when it starts and i i just want to say thank you for giving immediate attention i know it takes longer with these slides because you can't cut into them where you're going to get more slides they've experienced the same thing at big serves in Monterey county but really calatrans has come to the table to help people of Santa Cruz county in particular Santa Rosa valley in some serious serious situations and i really appreciate it i know you're doing it night work so that'll accommodate many people as possible to do their regular traveling but it's much appreciated in Santa Cruz county and particularly in Santa thank you thank you commissioner McPherson all right seeing no other commissioner comments or questions we'll take questions or comments from the public former commissioner Aurelio Gonzalez thank you chair and again apologies i haven't been doing the zoom meetings in two years so i apologize if i spoke earlier out of the agenda items but anyways i do have a question for calatrans and it is referring to what our mayor Eduardo Mucino was saying on the section of the green valley between green valley and cliford on highway 152 right in the area of the slu it's apparent that that section of highway is slipping because you could see the road is buckling in different areas and is sinking and so my question to calatrans is that are they going to be waiting for emergency repairs on that section of highway before it completely collapses or are we going to have to wait as a community for that section of highway to collapse for the state of california to move forward on repairing that i'd like to answer the question go ahead sure thank you through the chair thank you for the note well i'll note the location again maybe with the commissioner here today we can talk about that a little more we in no way want our you know facilities to collapse and so we we are very proactive and monitor and manage slide activity stormwater flows to keep the facility open that ultimately it's our goal to keep the road safe and open for everyone so if there's issues then i'm glad to highlight like those to those who are responsible in our maintenance divisions to do that thank you very much sounds like there will be some further discussion about this offline after the meeting and going forward so great for thank you for raising the point and addressing it all right seeing no other comments or questions from the public thank you again for the caltrans report we'll proceed with item 22 which is presentation on scott's valley transportation projects from interim public works director steve yasberg morning chair conning commissioners happy to be back in front of the commission this time scott's valley and i'm capitol it's up in your four weeks and so the presentation tonight it's going to be a lot of lists and i apologize for that i know i tried to give more graphics but my unfamiliarity with the projects kind of led me to this position so anyway next slide please for everyone all right there we go the first is a list of our measure d projects i'm having trouble reading that unfortunately it didn't bring a copy first project is our bean creek road phase one project which i am happy announces 99 percent complete just have a few bunch list items to take care of i have some pictures of that which will be forthcoming in this presentation that these first slides are all measured d projects that also had some rstpx money and gas tax money in it next would be a scott's valley drive slurry seal we hope to get that accomplished uh this fall we're currently just advertising an award at a contract that includes some of that work so we're moving forward with that again that's measure d and sp1 money following that oh much better back one slide again there we go is just overall street maintenance we're going to do some pothole filling and road failure repairs throughout the city that contract was recently awarded and we anticipate moving forward with that as quickly as we can and try and get it done this fall going into winter again that has measured d sp1 and gas tax money in it next one is the glennwood drive slurry seal that is in a future project it has 23 fiscal year 23 24 funding in it we are just initiating design and putting plans and bits bit packaged together on that so that will be going out on the streets next spring following that we will do a mount herman road improvement project this is a combination access transportation active transportation project and traffic management project where we're looking to signalize the traffic signals there as a measure defunded project at this time coming back with another phase of the bean creek project which will take it from its current limits to the city limit north of the city here that is funded in 27 28 and 28 29 or 26 27 27 28 with measure defunds we will need additional funding for that project that we'll be looking forward as we get closer to those dates then we have two small paving projects at the tail end of the five-year plan for measure D one on Lackwood Lane and one on Janice way that we'll be moving forward as those come up with funding next slide please so these are other transportation projects that don't necessarily have measure D in them and the Mount Herman corridor improvements we're moving forward with that I kind of recovered in with the measure D projects we're also going to be using traffic impact fees for a lot of that the active transportation portion of that we have the granite creek overpass project which is rstpx funded an sp1 funded project this is right now scope to be a pavement repair project we'll grind and replace the pavement from scott sally drive to the intersection with santa's village road we are looking to try and make some improvements pedestrian improvements with that and also some visual improvements of that overpass that we'll be looking at as we move forward with that project plus the last two are storm damage repair projects one on green hills road the other one being creek these are result of storms last year we're moving forward after some delays and trying to figure out how to fund these projects that we were eligible for fhwa emergency funds so we are now moving forward as quickly as it can to do some emergency repair work before this winter most likely we'll go into winter but we will have contractors on site as we move forward with this to protect the road and keep those two roads open they're both critical roads providing access to properties that if we can't keep them open long detours for the property owners next slide please so i just had some photos of the bean creek project phase one one that's like i said 99% complete some before and after so you can see this one it's a little hard to see on the before picture which is the photo on the left there's a big gap in the sidewalk that tied to the Montvale resident area so we filled in that gap I think it was a critical gap a lot of people walked from that neighborhood into capitol area to king's village and area so filling that sidewalk gap was a huge part of this project next slide please midway in the project there's a rather sharp turn there where we had just warning signs before we've now installed a full guard rail I think I was told that three or four cars have gone over the edge there over the last two or three years so this is a huge safety improvement on that road next slide please and it's also a popular bike route for recreational purposes and so we did install plenty of sharrows and they now have a new pavement and striping to ride on on that project and that's what we hope to continue with phase two in a few years I believe that's the last slide so at this point I'd like to thank you for your time and answer any questions I may Mr. Jesper comments or questions from commissioners here Mr. yeah I just want to say congratulations on doing some really critical safety in particular but I think in relation to the comment that was made before I saw that many of your projects are measure D funded or support some are through or three years away from being started so there's measure D you know really filled the everybody got something almost a transportation but nobody got what they enough of what they really want to do so that's part of the story that we have it's reality and I just think that planning ahead for what you want to do like other agencies have done is very commendable and thank you for the job that you've done Steve thank you Pearson Mr. Rockin just wanted to thank you for the work on Dean Creek Road it's not just serving the residents of Scott's Valley I ride my bicycle up here it's one of those beautiful bicycle roads in the county thanks for that work it makes a big difference it is I was amazed how much traffic when we're inspecting the project there is on that road so I'm happy to get it done thank you Mr. Rockin Commissioner Johnson thank you chair and we're just thankful to have Steve he came at a very critical time for our city and he's doing a great job so far and thanks for showing up today and also thanks to the RTC and the funding measures that have helped our city in such a critical way thank you Commissioner Johnson I'll just echo the things on the Dean Creek Road workhouse of bike on that road all the time and it's beautiful and now it's safer too thank you so much thank you well I think we'll take public comment if you're any member of the public comment on the Scott's Valley report I think I want to hear in chambers I will go online Mr. Michael St thank you chair Koenig thank you Mr. Jesberg for the presentation just a quick question as they do over the hill a lot of times when they're doing these paving projects which kind of basically look like the majority of money was was going for just putting asphalt down which I realize is required because our roads have been pretty much ignored for several years do you have a consideration or maybe a priority I would hope to before you start laying pavement down to look at the possibility of putting in protected bike lanes or bike lanes with green paint or actually widening the road a little bit to give safer bike routes around Scott's Valley and that's pretty much my question thank you you Mr. St we have any other members of the public who wish to speak all right seeing none would ask you the question Director I might answer yes you have kind of a quick bill I'll protect you yeah so when we we do do our design work on pavement projects we do look to do complete streets as best we can on those streets like as we're doing the Glenwood or Granite Creek overpass we are adding widening the bike lanes widening the sidewalks and adding green bike lanes where where it's called for so we do do that on a slurry seal probably not so much but when we do an overlay project we would be looking at trying to make complete street improvements great thanks again for the report thank you pleasure to be here in your beautiful city all right we now have a special scheduled item I don't think this is reflected on the agenda but we did learn at the last meeting of our current executive directors spending retirement at the end of this year and so the commission has begun a search for a new executive director and the first step in that is that we determined we would like to hire a consultant to assist us with recruitment and we now have scheduled interviews with the two top submissions that were given to the commission in response to the RFP that we put out to hire from and we wanted to we also formed a subcommittee at the last special meeting of this commission to review applications and the two firms that we are that the subcommittee recommended move forward are Ralph Anderson and associates and CPS HR Excuse me did we do 23? No but we do have so if you let me finish we determined that the subcommittee responsible for first suggesting which which applications to move forward with for a recruitment firm determined that it would be best to have interviews with the two top applicants in public because we recognize that of course this decision will impact the entire organization as transparent as possible and as open as possible and provide opportunity for everyone to hear the response of the two applicants and ultimately be able to comments and ask questions as well so I believe we have for starters Fred Wilson from Ralph Anderson and associates on the line if I correct Yeah, thank you thank you, Chair Koenig Mr. Ralph Anderson associates is being represented during the review process this morning by their CEO Heather Renschler and then the second and the commission has this Renschler available for the interview for a 30 minute time period and then Pam Derby of CPS HR consulting is available for the second interview this is part of the consideration that the commission has as item 24 on your agenda which is the selection of the recruiter and with that this right this Renschler is available the chair has copies of the questions the committee thought it was appropriate that both applicants receive the same questions so that the commission hears the hears responses to those inquiries the committee members and I worked on the questions that Chair Koenig has available and is being distributed I have a point of order doesn't the commission have to agree to take this item out of order we had item number 23 on the agenda we haven't heard it and this is number item 24 I'm willing to do it but I think it should be a decision of the commission that we should be here rather than just ignoring that we actually have item 23 on the agenda are we going to get to item 23 is that the tension what is the the intention is we the committee thought that it would be appropriate for the mission to be able to interview the two candidates we had to coordinate with the candidates to be able to schedule their availability and in conversations with Chair Koenig we did schedule them and the expectation was always that we would come back to item so the commission would do the interviews then come back to item 23 then go into closed session then make a selection I'm fine with that I just think it should have been announced the commissioners different all right well and if there's no further questions we'll proceed with the first interview Ms. Wrenschler do you want to write any sort of opening statement or introduction yes thank you very much and I'm sorry that Fred Wilson is not available today he happens to be taking a little R and R at the moment so he is unavailable via Zoom so he asked if I would step in on his behalf Fred Wilson has been a member of our team for a number of years now he's a former city manager and more recently he's been also doing specific work with various transit districts in California and so we've presented our track record in the proposal that was submitted I'm happy to answer any questions again I'm president and CEO of Ralph Anderson Associates just so that you know Fred and I often work on projects together so if he is taking the lead on that he would be meeting with the search committee and eventually the entire board he would be taking the lead on the screening and evaluation of candidates but with my involvement I'm also helping to assist in identifying candidates and using my network I've been with the firm since 1985 so it's it's a very detailed network that I have both in-state and nationally so I'm certainly open to any questions you might have okay thank you we've got a list of questions here for you I'll ask question number two vice chair brown I'll ask questions three and four and Sandy Brown to help prepare the question I'll ask questions five and six so number one would you please describe your past experience conducting recruitment for senior management position transportation agencies in California yes I do believe we submitted a listing of agencies to you in the proposal and we have certainly worked with some key agencies along the way for example Metropolitan Transportation Commission in Northern California we also work with Southern California Association of Government within their the regional transportation agency we've also worked with the Riverside County Transportation Commission we've worked with the San Francisco MTA and Ventura County Transportation Commission those have involved bringing in either the executive or a high level member of the management team some of those clients are ongoing clients for us for other support positions but we believe we have a good network we've done some out of state transportation transit agencies as well and depending on your reach we would certainly be able to tap into that but our focus primarily would be within California yeah second question is what competencies and or quality should a strong candidate for the RTC's executive director position best and why? well I think we look at the basic pillars of executive leadership so we look at individuals that bring that strategic viewpoint of the service delivery to your constituents and being able to do that in a very cost effective method so understanding the delivery of services and those that are using it and making sure that we can also take into account those underserved areas so we look at someone's leadership ability their management of staff and resources we certainly also look at their understanding of the fiscal related aspects there's oftentimes other outside funding that we want to make sure that there's an understanding of the rules and regulations for that so we're looking at what would be a career experience that is transferable and those attributes and those qualities in those executives that make for someone having a servant leadership approach to the entity good communication skills and to work well with the board to make sure they carry out the policies that are established the question I have for you is about developing a candidate profile would you develop a candidate profile for this recruitment and if so how would you develop the profile and do you have any suggestions on what should be included in the profile yes thank you for that we do spend a lot of time at the beginning of the recruitment cycle to make sure that we solicit information from each board member and we can do that with approval of council typically in that we would solicit that information in a one-on-one meeting or if need be to call together the search committee or the full board to solicit that information if possible because it is one sided that we are taking that information from each board member that helps us to get a sense independently of what the issues are we look basically at three areas what do you as a board member want to see in that candidate's experience what do you want to see in that individual's personal attributes much like the second question what are those leadership qualities what are those attributes that they bring the third area that we ask you to contribute on would be what are the challenges that this person is going to face in this particular position so we take that information and we synthesize it we collectively massage it and put it into a brochure that that text comes back to you for final approval before we open up to basically go to begin the search process that timing of the brochure development we typically will do that within I'm going to say seven to ten working days of when we've completed the interviews with the board I know based on timing we would want to be able to at least get started on that perhaps mid month so that we could be able to get that stood up and put into the marketplace we usually keep that brochure open for 30 to 45 days and so we will add our expertise to that text that we've developed but this is basically your product that we are helping to assimilate so that it's a marketing piece it's a piece of collateral to put out to the interested candidates great thank you and then in terms of interested candidates what would your advertising plan or your recruitment plan include to ensure that plenty of well qualified candidates are applying for this position again another good question certainly we will do all the typical advertising that is done in that particular market and so we did include in our material some suggested locations for the ad placement but I can tell you our best candidates come from having a personal phone call from either myself or Fred Wilson to let them know about the opportunity to let them know that we have met with the board here's the situation with an upcoming retirement may we send you our brochure to a personal email address so that targeted outreach is much of what we will rely upon as well and having had some recent experience with some other agencies in California we have individuals we can call that not only might be a candidate but they might also nominate individuals for consideration so we use kind of a double track and that is doing the standard advertisement for those people that are looking for jobs but then we also take the second track and that is to very proactively reach out to individuals that perhaps don't even know the position is available and we introduce it to them in that capacity all right I have two more questions okay and I'll start with number five this is on screening and I want to ask you what screening criteria you would recommend be used to determine the best the most qualified candidates for this position okay well I'm going to refer to the recruitment brochure that becomes our guiding principles so to speak it's a schematic of what you want in terms of attributes in terms of career experience education we would also be comparing budgets and types of services that are provided so we use that brochure to help us through the screening that we do the screening first starts on paper based on what their submitted information would be so they will have an evaluation done typically Fred would do that and then I would be involved in kind of a devil's advocate so to speak in double checking and contributing what I might know about some of those candidates but he certainly has access to the databases that we've maintained over the years as well so that screening criteria on paper and then candidates are determined to be qualified or an alternate maybe a second tier or those that we would not progress further with if we're working with a search committee they're made aware of where we are with that candidate pool we will also do preliminary video interviews with those candidates and solicit additional information as our client we come back and review that with you and again we're staying to the guidelines that we've all agreed to through the recruitment brochure and so that criteria is going to guide us and stay with us each step of the way as we move through this process thank you okay last question in the this is about staff involvement in the past RTC staff have been involved in their recruitment and interview process for the executive director position and RTC staff representatives have advised us the commission of their interest to be involved again can you describe some of the processes that you have incorporated in prior recruitments to involve stakeholders including staff in this process well certainly we look to the commission for direction typically about what you feel you want to do but we certainly have included a variety of stakeholders in different capacities for different positions but I'd like to speak to the staff involvement and I think we feel very strongly about a collaborative approach to doing this make no mistake it's the commission's decision who they would bring in but we both have the same end game we want this person to be successful and it's not just a one-sided decision this candidate has to make sure that they also want to join the organization so there is a curiosity and an important level of review that they want to do based on their own needs so I would say that we would work through the search committee through the initial stages of screening then we would do interviews with the full body once we bring that down to a core number perhaps we have two or three top candidates then I would be certainly very interested in having a staff have a meet and greet with the candidate with some pre-defined parameters they might submit questions in advance to Fred so Fred can screen those but to allow an interchange not just for staff to ask the candidate question questions but for the candidate also to dialogue with staff we want to make sure that there's a good match all the way around and so if we were to involve other stakeholders that may be something that you would want to do up front with some of your local partners so we can blend that into the brochure but from our perspective the commission makes that final determination but they certainly can solicit input from different sources and also from staff this market that we're in the typical closed interviews are done in an executive session without releasing the candidate names but staff would be introduced to the candidates under the knowledge that this was a confidential process so that we did not have the risk of losing a candidate it's a very tight competitive market now and we want to make sure that we do everything we can to keep candidates in your process and also not to have any seepage or leaks prematurely that would diminish the candidate pool but we want a collaborative successful placement and we certainly would work with you to develop something that works for your team thank you thank you commissioner sandy brown those are the end of our regular questions want to make sure we ask both uh both applicants but now if any commissioner has other questions or comments they'd like to make morning chief after i'm afraid i was not able to hear you can you hear me now i can hear you now so in in screening your web page chief of police can you hear me now yes chief of police seems to be one of your most frequent positions for which you've recruited i have to assume that consensus building is a requirement there yes this job there's a lot of hot topic issues in a very divided constituency how do you screen for the ability to build consensus in your applicants well the most important ability to do that is track record of what they've done in their most recent or current position so we are not just looking at their paperwork that was submitted we're going to look at the activity in the area any of the controversy anything that hits the paper and we'll be discussing that with the candidates as well so we ask for examples and those examples are things that we again try and confirm that they in fact were leading that discussion or involved in that discussion and we try very hard to make sure we make sure that the individual that is speaking to us is actually the one that has been facilitating those discussions and a active participant with those stakeholders and so we do that often whether it be a campus environment and in fact we just worked with UC Santa Cruz on their police chief search and so we're familiar with the area and the housing market and things like that but we like to get the input early on from candidates in terms of where there have been similar situations and controversies so that we can see if there is a good match and then we validate that with what we're seeing through the process and also through the internet and article searches and then later on confirming that with references or the question Commissioner Quinn questions commissioners all right seeing none thank you Ms. Ranchler did you want to like to make any kind of closing comments or statements you're welcome to well thank you thank you very much for allowing me to step in for Fred Wilson I know he would have liked to have been here but this was certainly pre-scheduled and we thought video would be possible but we realized that it was too risky to take that chance so again I thank you for your time today and best wishes as you move forward and I'm available over the next few days should you have any other follow up questions Fred will be gone for another week or so okay great thank you so much thank you I'll sign off now our next applicant from CPSHR and we are we're emailing her right now see if she can schedule well in that case we could take a five minute break and come back at N31 I appreciate you joining us on relatively short notice and helping us to keep this process moving moving along want to start by giving you an opportunity to make any opening statement about your application experience certainly well my name is Pam Derby I manage the executive recruitment function at CPSHR consulting for those of you who may not be familiar with us we're actually a joint powers authority here in California we're a full service human resources consulting company but only for the public sector we can also do non-profit work for our charter but most of our work is all local government and at the state level we've been in business as a sole entity as a standalone entity for about 37 years now we were originally part of the state personnel board starting in the 30s so our mission has been an ongoing one for now almost 100 years I mean as I mentioned I managed the executive recruitment function I've been at CPSHR now I'm in my 20th year I joined CPSHR from Uda County where I was the aide to the board of supervisors and so my entire career has been in local government and non-profit lobbying association so closely tied to state and federal lobbying previous to my county work I have done many of these executive director and GM recruitments and I did conduct Mr. Peterson's recruitment previously so I'm well-acquainted with the agency great thank you yeah and you mentioned that you helped for director recruitment for our current executive director Preston I'm wondering if you could Preston pardon me yeah if you could speak to a little bit more of your past experience conducting recruitments for senior management positions at particular transportation agencies within California uh so it with both MPOs and transportation agencies it's rather lengthy I do all of MTC's chief executive recruitments I've done the last two executive directors general counsel chief financial officer I'm just finishing the executive director recruitment for Solana for Sonoma County transportation authority I have we work very closely with AC transit we're doing all of their executive recruitments at this time I have done the executive director recruitment for sand egg I'm now doing there I'm just finishing their independent performance appraiser auditor we've worked with Sam trans I've done many recruitments for the DOT and San Jose we have also I've also worked very closely with SFMTA over the years so have done you know literally you know probably between 30 and 50 recruitments of one type or another for either MPOs transit authorities transportation authorities their commissions great thank you and what competencies or qualities should a strong candidate for this type of position possess your view well you know some of that depends on what the board is looking for for the direction that the commission is headed obviously Mr. Preston was an engineer planner oftentimes their planners but you're looking for someone who is collaborative is good at working with the board good at working with stakeholders there are many stakeholders hopefully they understand the funding streams for transportation have had experience melding funding streams and are innovative in that way that they do understand project management large projects that they're good with staff that you know and the last recruitment I Mr. Dondara was known for you know was beloved by the staff and that was something that the board was looking for so it's a mix of things typically but a lot of that also comes out of where as I said the board is looking for the condition to move into the future we need to have those conversations with each one of you to determine what the competencies are that you're looking for great thank you Vice Chair Brown will ask the next couple of questions thank you the next question is would you develop a candidate profile for this recruitment and if so how would you develop the profile and do you have any suggestions on what should be included in the profile so yes we absolutely do that as I mentioned the first step is we would like to speak with each board member individually each commission member individually have a conversation with each of you to determine the things that you're looking for oftentimes organizations will want us to do some stakeholder engagement so speaking to some of your major stakeholders speaking with staff as I recall I spoke to the entire staff in groups I spent a day in Santa Cruz the last time speaking with groups of staff members to determine what they were looking for you know the things that were important to them we also have done online surveys we'll oftentimes do that if you have you know certain community groups that you'd like us to reach out to but I think that you know the profile you want to include the question that we get from candidates is what are they really looking for and we want to make sure that we have portrayed that in the Canada profile that we're putting in the marketing materials that's why we have those conversations we don't want your marketing materials to just say the rote language that they oftentimes do and oftentimes many of the things that you're looking for are the same as another organization but there are always some of those pearls that are things that we want to include to make sure that the people that are reading it understand that this commission wants this executive director to have these characteristics and so we think that the profile needs to include not only you know what are those minimum requirements what's the education what is the you know experience level what are the certifications etc but it needs to include all of those characteristics special characteristics that are unique that are going to make the next executive director successful for Santa Cruz County RTC great thank you and then also what would your advertising plan or recruitment plan include to ensure that plenty of well qualified candidates apply for the commission so every recruitment we do well we do have a significant ongoing database of candidates that has well over a hundred thousand individuals we do do research new research on every position that we do so some of that comes out of the conversations that we have with the board is it important that they have California experience is it important that they've worked on projects over five hundred thousand dollars do they need to be an engineer coming up with the most important thing is coming up with the outreach plan and our initial outreach blast would go out to our entire list of the types of individuals that you're looking for across the country but then the most important thing is that our aggressive follow-up outreach with individuals that you know we know from the profile we've determined from our conversations with you are the type of people you're looking for so then that then includes social media LinkedIn my I have a terrific staff that does all types of social media they're doing videos we get quite a bit of LinkedIn traffic however we do do analytics and we know that 65 percent average 65 percent of our applicants from our direct outreach to people and so coming up with that plan and who are the individuals that we're going to make sure we follow up with that we're talking to to try to encourage to apply obviously we are going to place advertising as well but analytics show that that really just gets it in front of people when people click through to apply it's usually typically less than one percent of the individuals that apply that click through those links seven percent come from LinkedIn and 65 percent are from that direct outreach but that is always determined by our conversations with you thank you so much I have two more questions and then we'll we're going to open it up my next question is what screening criteria do you recommend use to determine which are the best qualified candidates for the position so all the applicants apply directly to CPS we will screen any candidate that meets what you've determined are the minimum qualifications so we're going to do a comprehensive screening interview with those candidates the question that's of those candidates are you know there are going to be those typical housekeeping questions we want to make sure we know what type of budgets they've managed you know what size of staff you know we're going to talk to them about their leadership and management style we're going to talk to them about you know their collaboration skills have they worked with electives have they worked with boards what types of presentations have they made you know do they understand funding streams etc but then there's always two or three questions that are behavioral and that are around those things that the board indicated are the types of unique qualities that they're looking for in these individuals so we want to have some of those fit questions in that process as well and so then we're looking at when we're doing those interviews we're deciding do these individuals meet the qualifications that you're looking for you know how do they do in that interview process have they done their homework what do they actually know about SECRTC do they really want this job I mean it's important for us to determine all of those things so that when we come to you with our client report we can honestly say you know these five or six people interviewed very well we have done media checks on all of them there's nothing negative that's come up or this there is something negative and we've talked to them about it but the reality is is that when we get to that point the if you're going to use the executive committee whether it's going to be the full board commission or the executive committee for this first part of the process we're going to share with you the resumes of all of the candidates that met the minimum qualifications we will recommend after our screening process who we think should move forward but that really is up to you and sometimes there are candidates in group two that possibly we've screened out for one reason or another but you're aware of them there is a political reason that we need to do that you need to interview them you know that's up to you there's nothing set in stone we also are oftentimes we're asked well so do you have a number and we do not it's about how the candidates perform in the screening interviews we're not going to cut it at five seven eight whatever the case may be and so that screening criteria is really again you know it needs to be about what you're looking for so those are the types of things we do in the process though and then we also help with coming up with all of the questions that then probably the executive committee and then the full board will use for your processes we help you decide what those processes are going to look like and then we facilitate those processes for you and the candidates thank you okay this is our last prepared question I want to ask about staff engagement in the process so in the as you know in the past staff have been involved in the recruitment an interview process for the executive director position and RTC staff representatives have indicated to us that they are interested in being involved again meaningfully so if you could describe some of the processes that you have incorporated in prior recruitments to involve stakeholders mentioned stakeholders but in particular staff in the recruitment process certainly well in your last recruitment we actually had a staff panel that interviewed the candidates and gave feedback to I believe it was the executive committee often times that is the process that's used I definitely I think it's most important that we speak to them in the beginning to get their feedback about you know how they're feeling about things what they're looking for what's important to them so that we can share that with you we do recommend that whether you choose for the staff to actually have a panel or we do a meet and greet type of situation so that it's a little more informal that the candidates come in and and can mingle with the candidates for say 45 minutes to an hour so that people can more casually ask questions that they don't rank candidates that they provide you with feedback and inevitably they are going to tell you this is our favorite candidate but you don't want to be in a position we don't feel that you want to be in a position where the staff is able to tell you we didn't like that person at all and that's really who the board wants to pick because this is your choice while we feel that the staff should have some input and you should understand the things that are important to them and that they should have some contact with the candidates we don't want to put you in a situation where it appears that you're going against a staff recommendation and so there are several ways to do it as I said we've done the meet and greet type of situation we have been actual staff panels I don't suggest that staff is part of the board's interviews I just I feel and that it can lead to some of those again some of those situations where the staff can maybe be pitted against the commission which is not you know the outcome that you're looking for great thank you there are other questions from commissioners or Quinn well good morning thanks for your time I noticed on your web page that you posted for leadership position with Sonoma County Transportation and one of the qualifications there is their quote a relationship bill and you also have a posting in Utah where you say quote you're looking for neutrality and objectivity how do you screen the candidate make sure they have a proven record be able to achieve those objective so for I believe for the neutrality probably was talking about the public policy analysts that we're doing for UTA and my questions my screening questions to the candidates you know I asked them about the types of policy positions that they'd worked on and you know asked them about had there been a situation where they felt that the their electeds whoever it may be that they were producing policy for where they had felt that you know it should you know that and people were opposed to it and what did they do in that situation and those are those behavioral type of questions that I mentioned that you know that's what's important is to find out how they've actually behaved in those situations and so if you put them in that scenario they can give you an example for Sonoma County I think a good example is one of the candidates that I spoke with I said you haven't worked you know this would be your first this individual it would have been their first opportunity to report directly to a board and I said so what do you do if a staff has a feeling about a position that you know that the board commission is is opposed or they're not on the same page what do you do and their response was well I guess then we just have to have a really long workshop session so you know the meaning behind that being we're going to get we're going to get them to our point and it was never mentioned that but at the end of the day it's up to the commission they make the policy and so obviously that individual was not ready for this role and hadn't had enough exposure to working with boards and the understanding of how policy works to be able to determine we may have a position as staff but it's our job to implement the policy that is muted out by the board or commission and so those are the ways that we talk about those things you know relationship building obviously is talking to them about the types of stakeholders they currently work with what are some of the types of of projects or or types of initiatives that they've been working with individuals you know what does their network look like obviously some of that are some some of those questions also are things that we are going to then that when we're doing their reference checks if they're one of those two or three finalist candidates I'll just follow up quickly obviously there's some hot topic issues here in Santa Cruz I would you gauge or prep a candidate to be able to address those well I think that it's important that we do talk about issues and priorities in the marketing materials so that upfront candidates are aware that these are the issues and priorities that are important to the commission and then I also believe that they need we want to make sure that they're reading the media that they're looking at you know I always tell candidates if they in their screening interview I real they have done some homework so I know that they're really interested they're looking at those types of things I mean I love it when somebody says in that first interview I went back and I read commission minutes etc but those are the types of things that we let them know they need to be doing they need to make sure that they are reading the media they need to make sure that they're looking at board reports it may be that there are certain things we may have in your last recruitment both of the finalist candidates did a presentation that there was a scenario that we gave them that was based on a current issue and then they did a 15-minute presentation to the full commission so those are the types of things that they need to be doing to prepare themselves but I do think it's important obviously there are some things that are procession items there may be things brewing that really cannot be conveyed and so those are things that once they become are appointed that then the commission is able to share with them but certainly we want them to know what the commission believes are the current issues and priorities and the things that they're going to be dealing with and we try to be as transparent and honest with them as possible but it's also our job to make sure that they can see as this position in the best light possible the commissioner Quinn I just had one additional question you had mentioned of course and we're aware of your recruitment of our current executive director but I'm wondering if you could speak to your experience in recruiting for positions in Santa Cruz County generally and your familiarity with the housing market specifically in this region and how you would share information about that with any interested candidates so we haven't we do we've done considerable work in Monterey County Santa Clara County we do extensive work for the city of San Jose Santa Clara Valley water district and so our work in Santa Cruz has has been a little more limited but the reality is we're facing the same housing situation you know we do a ton of work in San Francisco and the housing situation is similar in you know the greater Bay Area obviously is it's it's not plentiful it's expensive um that's one of the things that comes into play typically with our follow-up outreach is that we really are try to look at people geographically you know if somebody applies from Kansas who is you know qualified we're going to speak with them but the first question is going to be okay have you actually truly looked at the cost of housing and the availability of housing in Santa Cruz County because most people in the Midwest are not going to be able to make the jump you know what we want to hear from those people as well I'm actually from California originally my in-laws live in Santa Clara County or Santa Cruz County or Monterey County and so we're very aware and you know we have we have means to come back um so it's something that we deal with in frankly and many many of our recruitment and we just need to vet candidates and to make sure that you know we don't want to get down to the end when somebody has said oh I can do it and then they they back out on us because they then they've really looked at it I mean it's really up to us to vet the situation and and make sure that they truly understand whether it's that we need to send them Zillow link etc we have done that frankly we have helped candidates for a recent recruitment for the city of San Francisco we set the candidate up with a realtor you know we set them up with parent groups to talk about schools so we try to go the extra mile in making sure that people can make the leap any other comments or questions for me sure all right thank you very much Mr. Derby did you have any closing comments you want to share with us well I just wanted to say thank you so much I and I appreciate your flexibility I again pardon my lack of video but we very much we feel that Mr. Preston's was placement you know was a five-year tenure was is is always a good mark and that we very much appreciate the opportunity to work with you again but we just appreciate the opportunity to speak with you and I hope that you all have a wonderful day Mr. Derby thank you for joining us on short notice and being with us today thank you all right we are yes question from Mr. Montecino have a question but it's you know we're going to put guy Preston on the spot what was your experience you know that's one of the with CPS that we recruited so I had a good experience with with CPS HR I very enjoyed much enjoyed working with M. Derby I thought she was very helpful she wasn't just looking out for what was best for the RTC she was looking out what was best for the candidate so that they could provide a good fit thank you that question thank you all right we are now going to take item 23 we will return to item 24 in order to take public comp in order to take public comments on the process of finalizing a recruitment firm then we'll go into a closed session to have any private discussion needed among the commission about hiring a recruitment firm and then come out with our decision of the after the end post session hopefully that clarifies it for everyone I will now be with item 23 Grace Blakesley presenting and good morning commissioners this item item number 23 is to discuss the agreements for maintenance of the Monterey base sanctuary scenic trails segment five also referred to as the north coast rail trail project as part of this item I will also provide information about the measure the active transportation program funding commitments and remaining capacity the north coast rail trail project extends from wilder ranch to Davenport and it is there's a picture of it up on the screen it's highlighted in red it will provide a seven and a half mile dedicated bicycle and pedestrian facility along Santa Cruz counties north coast trail construction includes rest areas at viewpoints with interpretive panels benches bike racks trash receptacles as well as wayfinding signage the project also constructs two formal parking moths that include bathrooms at Davenport and yellow bank panther peach beach and those are shown with red boxes and white peas and them on the map you can see that the segment five connects to the city of Santa Cruz and other segments of the coastal rail trail vis-a-vis the multi-use path along highway one in Caltrans right of way and therefore extending its reach all the way to downtown Santa Cruz area and the wharf area and once other segments are completed it will extend its reach farther south at your meeting earlier this year in May you approved approved entering into funding agreements with the federal lands access program to fully fund this trail project since that time this project has completed final design and I'm thrilled to report today that we will receive early construction allocation this project is now scheduled to go out to bid this October with construction beginning early next year the construction period is expected to be a two-year length once segment five is constructed and open to the public there will be costs associated with maintaining the trail and ensuring a positive user experience as the project sponsor and per RTC's funding agreement with the federal lands access program RTC is responsible for maintenance and operations of segment five and the associated parking lots in October 2022 I presented you with trail maintenance per mile cost estimates to lever developed as a coordinated effort between the RTC city of Santa Cruz city of Watsonville and the county of Santa Cruz staff cost per mile for maintenance range from 32,000 to 44,000 per year depending on how long the trail had been in operation the north coast rail trail project is located in the unincorporated area of Santa Cruz county and RTC staff has been in conversations with the county of Santa Cruz parks and recreation department and county of Santa Cruz public works department regarding maintenance costs and the option of having the county of Santa Cruz staff perform the required trail and maintenance parking maintenance on behalf of the RTC RTC and county staff used the previously developed per mile cost estimates as a starting point and just did those estimates to account for a number of unique aspects of segment five including the number of active farmer rail crossings that need to remove sand from the trail in certain locations and the parking lot maintenance which includes regular maintenance to the restroom and finally the number of new trash receptacles and recycling receptacles that will be installed RTC and county staff estimate the annual cost of maintenance on the north coast will be approximately 260,000 per year and just under 300,000 for the first year when there is a one time expense to purchase a maintenance vehicle dedicated to segment five maintenance activities will include regular sweeping vegetation management litter removal monthly trail inspections trash receptacle dumping graffiti removal encampment cleanup comfort station servicing and signage fence bike rack and bench repairs as needed the cost estimate does not include pavement preservation which is anticipated to occur between 11 and 20 years after trail operation commences nor the cost for trail pavement rehabilitation because the need for the significant rehabilitation will likely not occur till after the expiration of measure D 30 year sales tax in 2047 next slide so RTC and county of Santa Cruz staff prepared the draft segment five maintenance agreement that's included in your packet whereby the county of Santa Cruz would perform maintenance activities as described in the north coast rail trail maintenance and operation plan for a period of five years after it's open to public use the as I mentioned the maintenance agreement is attachment one exhibit a in the packet and the trail maintenance and operation plan is a referenced in that maintenance agreement the maintenance and operations plan describes allowable trail uses patrolling and how incidents and issues will be addressed it also describes mail trail maintenance activities and their frequencies how trail closures will be addressed emergency access natural resource protection and the role of the trail manager it also talks about the regular inspections that will occur to document debris on the trail trail conditions erosion vegetation trampling and the condition of the trail amenities and signage the draft segment five maintenance agreement stipulates that the RTC shall fund a hundred percent of the actual expenditures to implement the trail maintenance and operations plan up to the amount shown in the latest approved measure D five year plans except for the costs associated with graffiti and little removal which will be paid for by the county of Santa Cruz the cost sharing works out to be an 80 20 split cost paid for the RTC and county of Santa Cruz and the current adopted measure D five year plan of projects provides funding for three years of the segment five trail maintenance the total estimated cost of the five year maintenance agreement is 1.3 million with RTC measure D active transportation funding providing just over a million unlike the proposed draft segment five maintenance agreement RTC has other existing maintenance agreements with the city of Santa Cruz and the city of Watsonville that I wanted to remind you of in those instances the city of Santa Cruz and city of Watsonville are the project sponsors not RTC and they are responsible for trail maintenance also the term of trail maintenance with the agreements with the cities is indefinite with the city of Santa Cruz and as a 30 year time period with the city of Watsonville so far longer than what's being proposed here in addition the city of Santa Cruz and Watsonville agreed to fund 50% of the anticipated maintenance cost up to the annual programmed amount in the measure D five year plan we have seen recently some of the invoices from the cities for the expenditures for fiscal year 2022-23 and they are coming in fairly close to what we've estimated for RTC expenditures but a little bit under so these are estimates and we'll need to adjust as we have more information the county of Santa Cruz staff had also requested the five year term to align with the proposed RTC funding commitment and to allow both parties to review the effectiveness of the agreement in the shorter term so in addition to the segment five maintenance agreement RTC must enter into an agreement with Caltrans for the portion of the Davenport and Yellowbank Panther Beach parking lots located in Caltrans right of way this generally includes portions of the parking stalls and the entrance and exits to the parking lot and some of the pedestrian access points once the segment five project is constructed RTC in coordination with the county of Santa Cruz we'll need to continue to coordinate with Caltrans to attain the encroachment permit prior to entering the Caltrans right away next slide although segment five maintenance agreement is a five year term there will be an ongoing need for trail maintenance that extends through and beyond the life of measure D so as not to oversubscribe measure D active transportation category specifically on the long term RTC should consider commitments to fund not only the trail maintenance but potential cost increases on trail projects under development and funds needed to implement additional trail segments as well as ongoing corridor maintenance as you know that measure D active transportation category received 17% of the measure D revenues and is currently which is currently estimated to generate 178 million over the 30 year life of the tax measure next slide please so in the staff report I've prepared two tables for you table one shows a remaining balance of measure D active transportation funds of 68.3 million based on existing funding commitments so what's in the approved five year plan anticipated corridor maintenance costs over the life of measure D so through fiscal year 46 47 and assume financing and debt costs so this table assumes that the RTC will finance 19.5 million in fiscal year 2526 at a debt service of 33.3 million to date 49 million of those program measure D funds have been dedicated to segment five segment seven segments eight and nine segments 10 and 11 and segments 12 in addition approximately one million is already programmed to trail maintenance for those segments that are either constructed or expected to be constructed in that five year period and then here you'll see the expected cost of corridor maintenance over the life of measure D is estimated to be 46 million including the nine million already expended our program and I think commissioner Coting mentioned this earlier in oral communications but there is a difference between when I reference the trail maintenance costs and the corridor maintenance costs corridor maintenance covers costs such as in the rail ride away such as drainage and slope repair maintenance some of the things you were discussing under item eight whereas trail maintenance is specific to the trail but could include trail drainage just wanted to differentiate that because they could be confused so while over 18 miles of trail are advancing towards construction are completed reconstruction project development work has not begun to advance another 14 miles of coastal rail trail and based on planning level estimates of those remaining miles staff estimates a minimum of 65 million in local funding is needed to leverage state and federal funds that's assuming a 20 percent grant match is what we typically try to aim for or exceed based on expenses in the estimates you see here we anticipate that the remaining balance will just barely be cover that 65 million dollars needed in local funding but it's important to note that this table does not account for the cost overrun that may occur on already program projects and it does not account for ongoing trail maintenance costs beyond what is already programmed in this five-year plan so table two next slide please brings that information into the analysis and shows that with considering trail maintenance for trail maintenance over the life of measure D for projects and assuming that trail maintenance begins immediately after the trail operation opens for the different segments that the total cost of trail maintenance for the life of measure D could come up to about 30 million dollars per year once all segments are constructed and available for public use these estimates are per mile cost not a percentage of trail construction cost maintenance activities here are assumed to be the same for all segments but we recognize the cost could vary based on how the different segments are constructed largely related to the cost of drainage or maintenance of retaining walls and graffiti removal so these estimates and looking at this table indicate that measure D active transportation program will ultimately not be able to develop and maintain the remaining trail segments without additional funding or a change in strategy for cooperative funding and maintenance agreements we are looking today for your input future short-term and long-term programming recommendations and funding strategies as we are also currently developing the measure D strategic implementation plan update so getting your input on this today would be valuable nonetheless a maintenance agreement is one of the last remaining milestones needed to be able to advertise the segment five project for construction and staff is recommending a five-year maintenance agreement term to address this while I have focused on measure D expenses and remaining capacity I also wanted to take the opportunity to note that measure D active transportation funds have leveraged over 150 million in other state and federal funds to construct portions of the trails and to advance pre-construction activities so my last slide is my staff recommendation and actually before I go in the staff recommendation I wanted to thank County of Santa Cruz staff Rod Tidmore's here who helped with the cost estimates as well as Jesse Williams who have gone out on site and looked in detail at what type of maintenance activities we can expect on the north coast really appreciate that collaboration so today there's a number of actions some staff is recommending we recommend that you adopt a resolution authorizing the executive director to enter into the maintenance agreement with the County of Santa Cruz to perform trail maintenance for the Monterey based sanctuary scenic trail segment five project we want we request that you commit to programming funding measure D active transportation funds to the segment five project for the five year term agreement using the 80-20 cost split mentioned also allow us to enter into a maintenance agreement with the California Department of Transportation that assigns RTC responsible responsibility for maintenance of the parking lots associated with this project as I mentioned we're also seeking your input on options for programming funds for trail maintenance in the measure D strategic implementation plan and to provide direction to continue to program funding for corridor and trail maintenance responsibility on a yearly basis as part of our measure D five year program updates and to seek additional local funding sources for segment 13 through 20 trail construction and trail maintenance thank you that concludes my report very much senior planner like slay are there comments or questions Mr. Rockin I may be in a somewhat unique position that unlike the majority I don't but commission I don't represent a city and I only raise this question I raise it some trepidation I'm happy with the agreement and support it I think we should move forward with it it's exciting a lot of different ways but I can't seek a little bit more transparency about how we come to these agreements about you know the city of Washington and Santa Cruz are paying 50% of the costs the county's paying 20 I mean some of this may just be arm twisting and or begging that goes on behind scenes that can't that there's nothing specific can be said about but I would welcome any kind of information you could make that would might clarify a little more about you know I'm sure the commission I'm sure that the staff fought for the most we could get for the commission but anything you can enlighten us with would be very helpful to me to sort of understand how we come to these sort of agreements in the end the fact that it's five years is comforting to me and that why I would support the current recommendation but five years is going to come up pretty quickly and then there's the issue of what happens next so where we're going with this so it's a very open and vague question maybe it can't be summarized or whatever it can but that's my question yeah well I think you you know that we went into it trying to leverage our measure D funding to the greatest extent possible and partner with our local jurisdictions and essentially what we heard from the city of Watsonville and the city of Santa Cruz is they could enter into agreement with the 50-50 cost share and using their local funding sources and what we heard from the county was that they were not able to provide additional resources to meet that funding 50-50 funding commitment and I do want to recognize that the county really understands the at least from my perspective the desire to for measure D to go as far as it possibly can with all of the trail projects and we appreciate their efforts to really look hard at where they could contribute and to contribute the funding for the little remover and the graffiti to get us to that 80-20 split follow-up question I could add Yeah, I'm going to start off A lot of others can do that or commission it we can have it burn and then commission it quit Yes, it would go to the board of supervisors when we discussed this we thought we'd bring it to the commission first It's not sustainable in terms of getting the trail constructed all the way to Watsonville and so I support this recommendation today because I don't want to hold up the segment five process which is really a federal process and they're going to move forward and we need to do everything we can to support it but I do think when it comes to the board of supervisors and when it comes to the various city councils those are the appropriate for to determine what the commitment is to the rail trail or to the trail period and what the commitment is to taking on responsibility for maintaining bike lanes essentially these are bike lanes the county maintains bike lanes throughout the county the city does as well these are additional bike and pedestrian routes that we all say we need but if we're making it impossible to achieve them I think we're not following through on the commitment so again those are my comments I want to hear from the public but I do intend to support Stafford thank you Commissioner Schifrin Commissioner Quinn my comments follow up on Commissioner Schifrin's and being from Aptos it's pretty discouraging if I'm understanding this correctly that the segment of the trail ending at Rio del Mar construction funded and maintenance funded and everything south of Rio del Mar is up in the air we're out of money that's a message to the public it's not a great message their comments are questions commissioners I will tack on a comment here to address some of the points raised by Commissioner Schifrin I mean I think especially as a county representative we ought to acknowledge the extreme financial hardships that the county is facing less than 10 percent of our total budget in reserves right now that's dangerously low meanwhile we have 130 million dollars in emergency repairs we're trying to do throughout the community because of the 2023 storms on top of close to a billion dollars deferred maintenance between culverts that need repair and resurfacing projects on top of consistently getting less than our population-based share of state and federal monies to repair county roads I mean believe me I would love to direct more county funds towards this project but we can't sit here and design the limousine of trails and then say that oh in order to build this thing when you take money away from someone's only access to and from their home that is just not responsible and so again I mean let's have the conversation of the board of supervisors I think there's a representative of every board member here but we cannot take money away from county roads from people's lifeline to and from their home and put it on the trail so I think I'm sorry I think it's the best that we can probably do I'll just make a quick comment here I do represent one of those jurisdictions not the county the city of Santa Cruz and I have advocated strongly for city to utilize the funding that we also benefit from the measure of funding helps support this maintenance and you know while I'm glad to see that we've achieved a 50-50 split I actually believe that we have a responsibility to do better in the long run and so I am not going to speak to the county's fiscal situation and the trade-offs there but I do think that it's important that we think about the RTC has very limited resources we do not and I recognize that's true for the county and for all jurisdictions but we are trying to build you know a trail along the entire length of this rail corridor and we want to be able to address the parts of the trail that haven't been developed and it's I think it's an equity question as well for South County so you know I want to see the local jurisdictions put in as much as possible on these agreements moving forward and I'm going to support again after hearing from the public I intend to support this I'm glad it's a five-year agreement and that we'll have an opportunity to continue this conversation Commissioner Brown are there any comments? Yeah I'd like to hear if there's anything else that gets down to money and what's what's reality what we can do I'm going to be supportive of this plan because I think this is what people want I think this is what we should do but let's get real this is we're rolling the dice on this and that's not to to criticize any of this recommendation because I think it's the right one this is what we want to do but in reality with what facing transportation requirements and needs that we have in this county we ought to recognize this is going to be very difficult pain but I don't think we should back away from it either I think we should have a plan of attack as presented and a very good one but this was mentioned by my chair Tony we have so many needs that we're facing in this county that we're going to try to match and it's going to be difficult to be so dependent on but other sources of funding to the Senate thank you Commissioner McPherson for another comments or questions commissioners I'll open it up to the public Hi I'm Sally Arnold I'm representing Friends of the Rail and Trail very excited to hear about the accelerated pace of construction for segment five that's just very exciting we support making sure that these maintenance agreements can move forward we support this maintenance agreement so that we can move forward with trail construction for segment five and we do appreciate that the staff report mentions the need for care when negotiating these agreements so we don't use as some people have mentioned all our major D money maintaining the bits of trail we have and then we don't have money to do a future match for future trail construction including the trails that would connect Aptos to Watsonville and so we appreciate that some people are talking about how are we going to think about this in a long term how are we going to create a sustainable flow here and we do support the suggestions made by commissioners Schifrin and Brown that the local jurisdictions look at this it's just like they maintain other asphalt in their jurisdiction this is a strip of asphalt that needs cleaning up too and it should be maintained by the jurisdictions see I was excited to see that in the presentation something about seeking additional funds for this kind of work and particularly what kind of funds might be available for not just the trail maintenance but the corridor maintenance kind of harkening back to item eight earlier and so would really love to see us using major D money to leverage outside money to come in for maintaining the corridor as well as the trail and for people who I'm sure we're going to hear oppose the trail we need to remember that these maintenance costs are independent of whether or not there are tracks beside it thank you morning commissioners my name is Rob Tidmore I'm a park planner for Santa Cruz County Parks I'm also the project manager for the county segment 1011 project and our portion of the segment 89 project obviously just want to acknowledge you know hearing the comments from various commissioners the this is a very challenging issue funding you know both the construction and the maintenance of the trail and I want to thank Grace we worked long and hard on this agreement it's hard to estimate costs for something that hasn't been built and we put a lot of time and effort into it and we feel like the county feels like in particular this is a mutually agreeable solution to cover the cost of maintenance both county parks and the community development and infrastructure formerly public works are supportive of taking on this maintenance of the north coast rail trail and as other commissioners have mentioned you know the county has very challenge you know major challenges with our with our budget and our funding you know our pavement condition index is at 48 we have storm damage previously that we haven't been able to fix with the parks department and you know adding the cost of this rail trail maintenance which is significant I won't deny that to our already stretched budgets is just not sustainable from the county's budget standpoint we've searched for funds and 20% is the best that we can do I know equity has been mentioned in terms of funding the rest of the the trail segments and we absolutely support that but we also have an equity commitment to make as well our recent strategic plan update added an equity goal to the existing four goals in the plan and we can't in good conscious take money that would be used for maintenance and improvement of parks and South County and move it up to use for rail trail maintenance on the North Coast so we are you know we're committed to collaboratively working with the RTC towards completion of this we recommend approval of the staff recommendation and we look forward to you know more of a discussion on this topic at future water supervisors meeting thank you Mr. Didmore what else here in chambers is there anyone online or just a big Van Brink oh good afternoon can you hear me okay can can great um yeah it's uh of course slightly hi I'm David Van Brink I live in Santa Cruz City it's uh you know of course slightly unsurprising that a certain of the self-proclaimed trail creation advocates are as usual acting to maximally obstruct trail creation um put that aside uh wow the North Coast Trail is going to be a very popular feature here in our beautiful coastal town I support trail creation and uh of course please please move forward with this thanks Mr. Scott yes hello thank you this is Barry Scott in Rio del Mar and I'm and I'm happy to express my support for this for this this plan for maintenance I really want to see the the North Coast trail open it's a multi agency project that is is going to be a great value and benefit to the community to to those concerns and they're not unreasonable concerns that funds are are stretched then I want to remind everyone that that our RTC our grant writers and our our her but the whole program have have uh benefited from significant grants and I know that one doesn't want to count their chickens before they hatch but for all the for the measure D funds they that can match grants I think we have a lot of opportunity there and uh so I always want to thank the the grant writers for their their work and getting these remarkable grants omega grant for the the multimodal project in Aptos the the record-setting large grants in December for trail work and just a final thought remember that I believe a lot of the grants have been coming in because our rail trail is a multimodal facility with with railroad tracks being studied for transit and the trail together so I'm confident that we're going to be able to complete the entire rail trail with the tracks and that will find ways to to maintain maintain the corridor so thank you very much Thank you Mr Scott Commissioner Araleo Gonzalez All right can you hear me? Yeah All right um yeah I'm supportive of this of the south county resident I think this is a great opportunity for our county to move forward on this project for the trail I think it'll bring in a lot of needed uh revenue by the tourist attractions that it'll it'll bring and people using this segment of the trail also it'll help our community even though they say we're a disadvantage community I think we're in a community that is diverse and seek opportunities to look for recreational opportunities within our county and not have to travel outside our county to to see these wonderful sites that that are within our region so I'm in tool support of this and I and I hope we move forward and as far as the segment for the city of Watsonville our segment has been completed as far as our boundaries go for our trail so we're not going to increase in costs for the trail maintenance the remaining sections that do exist for the trail to connect us throughout the through fair would fall in the county and and I know how restricted the money is now but again we're looking into the future and hopefully the future will be brighter for our county and and I thank you for your time you former commissioner Gonzales michael st thank you chair conig I do support the motion of number 23 for the segment 5 some other areas possibility for funding I know the money is short and it is a shame that I cannot continue past the Sumner area or the real demo section for aptos I live just up the hill from that have we looked into well first of all taxes you look to Europe you look to other countries how are they building these mass transit type situations or projects it's tax money and it's government involved and that's where they put their money basically you could add a property tax or jury's addiction share of taxes for each part of the trail that runs through certain areas there's also conservancy donations or private donations for those that can afford to do something like that you could also have highway user fees go towards the rail and trail project and Carlsbad, California has presently passed a gas tax fund to fund their rail trail project and you can also go to federal gas taxes as well as part of the funding for the rail trail just some suggestions maybe something you could look into in the future thank you for your time Mr. Stain I think no further hands raised online or turn to the commission for action move to staff recommendation of course yes wait we do have a can I just ask a question follow up of course Commissioner Quinn I am torn on this because I recognize that building a trail and not maintaining is crazy but I really worry how much will committing all the funds and cuff us on trying to secure funds for south of Rio del Mar good question so right now the agreement before you is for a five-year period so you're not committing the funds beyond a five-year period that table two that I showed you is what it would be estimated to cost once all the segments are online so from a precedent setting standpoint you could say that you're committing the funds but from a programming and you know the commission action today you're committing just two or five year a program that's your question and if I can elaborate a little bit I mean your commission has graphed in and showing their concern about remaining capacity to finish the trail and maintain I'm very pleased to hear the comments that I've heard so far that they're supporting this agreement because I think it's very important to get the segment of trail under construction and have a way to maintain it for at least the first five years but if you looked at the numbers closely that we presented to you we think we're going to need about what we have in remaining capacity with us just committed to a five-year period of time to complete the remaining trails now when you talk about remaining capacity you're talking about the lifetime of the program until 2047 we're tapped out over the next five years so we don't have any of that capacity today or tomorrow we won't have any capacity until about 2028-2029 and it'll start slowly building up until we get to 2047 we also have to fund potentially any cost overruns on the projects that are currently under development we've been talking closely with our partners and they are concerned about cost overruns we've met we've talked about value engineering because they think they're going to need additional funding to complete the sections that are moving forward so even if we are successful and obtaining a better agreement with the county and the cities this is not sustainable we do not have enough funding to leverage the remaining trail segments that would complete the full 32-mile Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail along the rail line we need to all be aware of that and need to be aware of what we will need to do to be able to complete all 32 miles I've heard a lot of comments about how successful we have been in getting grants we've been successful in getting grants because we've had many available in present years to leverage those grant opportunities we also I've also heard that we could leverage many for maintenance well generally speaking maintenance is funded from local funds there aren't grant opportunities for maintaining sections of trails so that's really not an option so if you really are looking at completing the full 32-mile coastal rail trail we need to start considering an additional local fund source so we'll have additional capacity to leverage the remaining sections of the trail we should be wide eyed and aware of this as we move forward but there are other transportation needs that we have in this county that we've also been talking about including the rail line and you know a future rail project on the rail line and that is going to require local funding moving forward as well so we've talked if we could somehow combine these projects the remaining miles of trail that still aren't funded with the rail line pose something in the future to the voters that we can fund the remaining trail and also provide a rail facility but that would be an additional revenue source and it would have to be approved by the voters so you know I don't want to create a doomsday scenario at the same time that we're celebrating the fact that we've got about half of the trail funded and we could maintain it but I also want the commission to be aware that we are going to need additional funding to complete the trail thank you director Preston and one point of clarification and I'm aware we have a motion from commissioners different to second from Narodkin on the floor to accept their recommendation items three or the third staff recommendations to continue to prudently program funding for corridor and trail maintenance responsibilities on a yearly basis is that simply by agreeing to this recommendation is the commission to base simply saying that generally agree with this including this 30 million dollar line item for trail maintenance future measure planning glued trail maintenance funding or not so you're not committing to it the commitment is to request to commit to the five-year term for this segment five but for other maintenance every year Mr. Hernandez I just had some great comments you know I everyone knows I support the rail but I very much support the trail as well and I just wanted to say a little bit about funding with the county you know we have a tremendous amount of roads with the county both you know rural and from north county to south county and we only not only are there just a lot of the for maintenance on our roads but also with the recent fires and flood damage that we've recently had that we have to address and you know one of the things that I've brought up is that we also also have to bring up a lot of equity issues with our roads which is a recent recent thing that some counties are talking about like Alameda and Marin County and so you know I think that I very much support this and I think when it comes to south county I want to make sure that we do pursue active transportation grants you know talk to folks like the strategic growth council that have funds for trails as well they're looking at funds for trails right now in south county but I would want to create a you know partnership with any city that would want a partnership to get these grant opportunities I think it's cities, counties, RTC that we partnership for these grant opportunities thank you commissioner Hernandez I'll just add and of course I'm very much in support of the recommendations here as well today I don't want my previous comments to just otherwise it's simply that I think the county isn't a tough spot a lot of the comments that I hear from constituents every day are around me so whether it's maintenance of our county roads or maintenance of our parks I very much appreciate that this agency is taking a responsible outlook on ensuring that we have the funds to maintain this facility that we build that is absolutely the best thing to do I'm glad we've got an agreement here today that we live with for five years I'm very excited to see the north coast second further comments again we have a motion commissioner Schifrin second commissioner Rotkin all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed one no from commissioner Quinn the abstentions that motion passes 11 to 1 all right thank you again I've seen your planner Blasley well now proceed with item 24 this is a continuation of the process to consider an approved contract and with a recruiting firm for executive director recruitment services we did hear interviews with the two leading candidates earlier today there's an opportunity for other further comments from commissioners seeing anyone raise their hand so there's an opportunity for the public to comment on anything that they heard earlier today or they're like the commission to consider as we consider the applications no one here in chambers online then the commission will now move into closed session to have an opportunity to discuss the application and then we will our return into open session to make any decisions thank you chair Koenig we're on item 24 which is the selection of the recruiter the commission has the two firms that you interviewed this morning the appropriate for the commission to make a motion identifying the firm to select authorizing the executive sorry authorizing chairperson designing closed process you counsel do we have a motion I'll make the motion group cps that's a recruiter second motion by Christian Montecino second by Commissioner Schifrin to approve cps as our executive recruiter for the discussion done all those in favor aye aye aye closed passes unanimously just for the record there was no quarter that brings us to the end of our meeting today thank you Koenig in adjourn