baseline agreement that is up for your consideration i'll present some potential ideas for how to fully fund the project and conclude with a schedule update now for a brief coastal rail trail overview starting with some background in context the monoray bay sanctuary scenic trail or mbs st is a multi-use trail project that extends around the entire length of monoray bay and santa cruz and monoray counties the rtc led development of the trail master plan to identify a trail network in santa cruz county that would serve as the mbs st and meet the goals of providing new active transportation facilities and foster appreciation of the coast the rtc as owner of the santa cruz branch rail line which extends 32 miles between davin port and the northern part of santa cruz county to paharo in monoray county identified a trail along the santa cruz branch rail line as the spine of the mbs st network this 32-mile long trail is referred to as the coastal rail trail the mbs st master plan was adopted by the county of santa cruz and the other jurisdictions through which it passes in 2014 and 2015 the master plan organized the trail alignment into 20 segments with logical beginning and end points so that it could be instructed in pieces as funding became available this slide provides an overview of the coastal rail trail project development the areas shown in red indicate that the project is funded through construction and areas in green have been completed i want to point out two projects in addition to the segment 1011 project that the county is involved in at the northern end of the map is the segment five project which is being led by the rtc the project is out to bid and bids are actually being opened today i believe at 2 p.m the county has entered into a maintenance agreement with the rtc to maintain the project once it's constructed the second is the segments eight nine project roughly in the center of the map which is being led by the city of santa cruz but a portion of the project is in the county's jurisdiction county staff are currently working with city and rtc staff on a three-way cooperative agreement which will outline the roles and responsibilities for delivery of the project this agreement will be brought to the board for approval once all the details are negotiated you can see from the map that the region is advancing a significant portion of the coastal rail trail which will transform the community's bicycle and pedestrian network this is in large part due to recent competitive grant awards by the county the city of santa cruz and the rtc the segments 1011 project just to the east of segments eight and nine represents roughly four and a half miles of the almost 18 miles of coastal rail trail that are funded through construction and will connect people from davinport to aptos once built at the southern end of the county the rtc is now engaging with the community to develop segments 13 through 20 as part of their zero emission passenger rail and trail project this will also include the trail and rail alignment over the capitola trestle shown as segment 11b in the center of the map now going to move to a focused overview of the segments 1011 project this is a map showing segment 10 in green which starts at 17th avenue and goes to 47th avenue the capitola city limits are overlaid on the map for reference in dark gray segment 11 shown in purple starts at 47th avenue and passes through the city of capitola in new brighton state beach before ending at state park drive all told segments 1011 are 4.7 miles long the project includes a phased approach to trail development under the phased approach there are two different ways in which the rail corridor could be developed with the trail the ultimate trail and an optional interim trail both of which are included in the environmental impact report as part of the proposed project and therefore analyzed at an equal level of detail the first way to develop the trail is shown on the screen and that is to proceed directly to building the trail next to the rail line which we're calling the ultimate trail configuration this is consistent with the mbsst master plan and is also the configuration for which the county applied for and received atp grant funding with the ultimate trail configuration the existing rail line is preserved the trail is built next to the tracks maintaining the required offset distance from center line of tracks the trail is generally 12 feet wide but is reduced in some areas due to concerns and widened in others where there is room fencing is required on the side of the trail next to the rail line and on the far side of the trail where grade changes make it necessary for safety like shown in the image on screen on the right under the ultimate trail configuration the project is 4.2 miles long and would include new bicycle pedestrian bridges the second way in which the corridor could be developed is to implement an optional first phase as part of the project where the existing railroad tracks are removed and an interim trail is built on the rail line this approach would require rail banking of the corridor in order to be able to remove the railroad tracks under this scenario the trail is generally 16 feet wide but is reduced to 12 feet in several areas due to constraints fencing is not required with this option except where grade changes make it necessary for safety under the interim trail configuration the project is 4.7 miles long because it includes half mile of trail across soquel creek on the existing capitol atresl the existing rail bridges would be converted to bicycle and pedestrian use if the rail line were later reactivated the optional first phase would be followed by future parts where the interim trail is removed the railroad tracks are rebuilt and the new trail is built next to the rail line in the ultimate trail configuration there have been a number of questions and comments from the public about why the project includes the interim trail given the results of the measure devote in june of 2022 and the county included the optional interim trail because it was requested during the eir scoping process which occurred in november of 2021 prior to the results of the 2022 measure devote and further the county included the optional interim trail in the eir to provide maximum transparency to the public and decision makers about the environmental impacts and the design of the two alignments but now i'm going to get into more detail on segment 10 the project includes a new north south crossing of the rail line between shanaclear and corcoran to bring prove bicycle and pedestrian connectivity in this neighborhood the trail will also connect to thompson avenue on the north side of the tracks at rodeo gulch the ultimate trail will feature a new bicycle pedestrian bridge and the interim trail will convert the existing rail bridge to trail use there will be new trail crossings at 30th 38th 41st 47th and 47th avenue which will have cross bikes and activated flashing crossing lights to alert drivers and i'll show an image of those improvements in a couple slides the trail alignment the ultimate trail is located on the inland side of the tracks for the entirety of segment 10 and then switches to the coastal side of the tracks at 47th avenue where segment 11 begins the ultimate trail configuration also includes relocating the railroad tracks for almost the entirety of segment 10 from where they are currently located in the center of the corridor which is shown in red on the plans on your screen to between five and a half to eight feet towards the south or the coastal side of the right of way in order to fit both the trail and the tracks in this narrow corridor these are two views of the 41st avenue railroad crossing looking east the image on the left is existing and the image on the right is with the ultimate trail in the relocated track in the image on the right widened sidewalks have been added on both sides of 41st avenue which shortens the crossing distance and improves the visibility of trail users as they wait to cross the street as with all the crossings green cross bike pavement markings and led flashing pedestrian crossing signs will be added to improve safety these will be similar to the existing intersection improvements that are already built on portions of the rail trail in the city of Santa Cruz here are two views of jade street park and 47th avenue looking west existing is on the left and the ultimate trail shown on the right crucially the existing redwood trees will be retained and there will be no fencing on the park side to provide maximum permeability to this important community asset on the bottom of the screen the trail switches from the inland side of the tracks to the coastal side of the tracks at 47th avenue and there is an expanded sidewalk corner being added to the southeast corner of portola and 47th which will in effect slow cars turning from portola onto 47th to improve safety for people using the trail and there are green cross bike markings at the trail crossing segment 11 shown in purple starts at 47th continues on the coastal side of the railroad tracks to opal street where a new improved and widened concrete staircase and formalized rail crossing connects to opal street in the dual box neighborhood the plans for the area are shown on the right of the screen in the image the formal rail crossing will be subject to cpuc approval but we think has a good chance of being approved due to the high volume of historic use this is also where the ultimate trail transitions to using existing sidewalks and bike lanes through capitol a village and the interim trail continues over the capitol a trestle which i'll describe on the next couple slides under the ultimate trail configuration the trail ends at cliff drive and trail users will be directed to use existing surface streets bike lanes and sidewalks through capitol a village and up to the monorail and park avenue intersection where the trail restarts a new trail bridge over so cal creek was excluded from the ultimate trail configuration due to the infusibility of canner levering a trail bridge from the capitol a trestle like was done at the san lorenzo river as well as a difficulty of constructing a standalone trail bridge due to the limited right of way next to the existing bridge so due to these constraints the rtc is proposing to replace the existing trestle with a new combined rail and trail bridge over so cal creek as part of their zero emission passenger rail and trail project the segments 1011 project will be improving the existing bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure along the route shown on the screen in green through several methods methods most significantly the project will be restriping a roughly 350 foot long section of cliff drive from the end of the trail to the start of the existing sidewalk and cliff drive in order to create a separate or foot wide pedestrian path next to a five foot wide class bike lane creating separation between cyclists and pedestrians where currently there is none similar to other portions of the rail trail like in segment eight in front of the boardwalk where there are existing bicycle facilities that are part of the trail the project will be adding green paint to the existing class 2 bike lanes and class 3 bike sharers to improve the visibility of cyclists and better delineation of the bike infrastructure and the project will also be installing rail trail branded wayfinding signage through the village to help trail users navigate from one end of the trail to the other alternatively with the optional interim trail configuration trail users would remain on the rail alignment over the capitol trestle and continue to monorail park this would involve removal of the tracks making necessary structural repairs to the trestle and then conversion of the structure to a bicycle and pedestrian bridge in addition the conversion of the trestle to a trail bridge is included as part of the ultimate trail configuration under design option a in the eir under this hybrid scenario the ultimate trail would be implemented up to opal street and then transition onto the alignment of the existing tracks which would be removed the trestle would be repaired and converted to trail use just like with the interim trail configuration and then the trail would transition back to the ultimate trail on the coastal side of the tracks just past the monorail and park intersection the inclusion of design option a provides environmental clearance under sequa for the trestle conversion as part of the ultimate trail project and therefore maximizes flexibility for decision makers to determine the best future use of the trestle moving east out of capitol village from monorail avenue segment 11 passes through the narrow rail cut to grove lane and along the park avenue bluffs at coronado street a new ramp will connect the trail to the park coronado intersection and the new brighton state beach parking lot the project then crosses new brighton state beach access road on either a new bike ped bridge for the ultimate trail or a converted existing rail bridge for the interim trail and then passes below the state beach campground across new brighton road traverses the porter says an open space to estates drive and continues into the c-cliff neighborhood where a trail connection is proposed of poplar drive and the project ends estate park drive segment 11 includes new trail crossings at grove lane new brighton road the state's drive and marvista drive which similar to segment 10 incident cross bikes and activated flashing crossing lights were needed the ultimate trail is on the coastal side from monorail to marvista and switches to the inland side from marvista to state park drive it includes several viaducts over the stream crossings shown on the map in red and large retaining walls in several places to deal with the adjacent steep topography speaking of steep topography from monorail to grove lane the the steep hills and abundant trees in this area make this one of the more challenging portions of the project the design team explored three different alignments for the ultimate trail in conjunction with the city of capitola and rtc staff to determine which alignment had the least environmental impacts we looked at the trail on the inland side of the tracks the trail on the coastal side of the tracks and a trail along park avenue at road grade the trail on the coastal side of the tracks requires the least number of tree removals and has the least impacts and that is the proposed alignment however the steep topography necessitates the use of retaining walls to hold up the slope the original design shown on the left utilized a single tall retaining wall and the latest designs shown conceptually on the right utilize two smaller walls to raise the trail above railroad grade which reduces cost avoids the need for underground anchors below adjacent private properties and makes the walls less imposing to trail users between grove lane and coronado street the project added design option b which places the ultimate trail on the inland side of the tracks as opposed to the coastal side at the request of the coastal commission due to concerns over bluff erosion at this location the project team is currently working with the rtc and coastal commission staff to determine how estimates of bluff erosion in concert with sea level rise might impact the project and influence the coastal commission's approval of the project and the images on screen the ultimate trail configuration shown on the left and design option b is on the right and these first images show how the two alignments would connect to grove lane and the existing sidewalks on park avenue the second images show how the two alignments would provide an 80 accessible trail connection to the park coronado intersection and a new formal crossing of the rail line like the opal street intersection this new crossing is subject to cpuc approval but again with the well documented existing use we think the crossing is likely to be approved the project is also working with state parks to improve the highly popular and also highly eroded informal access trail to new brighten with a concrete staircase so people can more easily get from the trail and neighborhood to the beach and then finally this last slide shows some example conceptual images of the viaducts that are proposed for the ultimate trail configuration over many of the stream crossings or where the adjacent rail line is built on a steep embankment these avoid the need to build large retaining walls that would result in greater tree removal and greater impacts to repair and habitat as is appropriate for a project of this magnitude and impact and especially given the widespread public interest we've held numerous public engagement events over the last two and a half years in order to give the public an opportunity to understand the project and provide their input these events i think there's 20 of them are shown on the screen moving into the environmental environmental review process so the county as the lead agency determined that an environmental impact report or eir was the appropriate california environmental quality act or sequa document for this project because it provides for a robust analysis and public review process the consideration of alternatives and the potential for significant impacts and now i'll hand it off to kate elliot who led the preparation of the eir to describe the project's environmental review process okay thanks rod that's a really good overview as rob mentioned i'm kate elliot with harrison associates and the eir team also includes ecosystems west for biological resources and rencon consulting for cultural resources and other topics i'll briefly review the purpose of sequa and where we are in the eir process and provide a high-level summary of the impacts identified in the eir and comments received the eir was prepared in compliance with sequa which is the california environmental quality the purpose of sequa um a sequa eir is to inform decision makers of potential environmental impacts of a project identify mitigation for potentially significant impacts and to engage the public and agencies in the process this graphic provides a general overview of the eir process with the opportunities for public involvement in the right and purposes the eir process started when the county issued a notice of preparation in november 2021 and held a public meeting to obtain input on the issues to be addressed in the eir and the project alternatives to be considered then the preliminary trail design was developed and the technical studies were conducted this provided an opportunity for the trail design to be modified to reduce environmental impacts the draft eir was completed and circulated for public review on october 16th 2023 providing an opportunity to comment on the sufficiency of the eir sequa requires a 45 day public review period and the county extended this to 60 days once the public review period was complete the final eir was prepared the final eir includes comments received on the draft eir responses to those comments and any resistance to the eir the final step in the eir process is the county's certification of the final eir so as stated this will be a high level summary of the potential impacts identified in the eir as rob already described the proposed project includes the ultimate trail configuration with an optional interim trail because sequel requires that the whole of the project be evaluated the eir evaluates both at an equal level of detail including all three parts of the optional interim trail the state sequel guidelines identify these 20 environmental topics for evaluation using the sequel guidelines the eir identified 48 potential impacts most of these impacts would be less than significant as shown for the topics in green or reduced to significant with mitigation measures as shown for the topics in gold impacts that can't be reduced to a less than significant level with mitigation are significant and unavoidable as shown for the topics in red and these impacts apply to both the ultimate trail configuration and the optional interim trail the potential impacts for each environmental topic are based on a series of questions in the sequel guidelines the threshold for determining if an impact is significant or less than significant is based on the sequel guidelines relevant regulations and technical expertise a potentially significant impact can be reduced to a less than significant level with mitigation for example construction noise impact could be reduced by requiring noise reduction measures for construction equipment used close to residences such as mufflers acoustic shelters around stationary equipment no unnecessary idling and use of electric power when feasible if an impact cannot be reduced to a less than significant level it's considered significant and unavoidable the most of the 48 potential impacts identified in the eir would be less than significant or reduced to less than significant with mitigation measures these are shown on the side here with lts for less than significant and lts m for less than significant with mitigation the six impacts that can't be reduced to less than significant level are to aesthetics biological resources and greenhouse gas emissions shown on the slide here with snu for significant and unavoidable the impacts and required mitigation measures are generally the same for both except the interim trail requires two additional mitigation measures the first is for potential impacts to the capitola trestle bridge which is a historic resource the ultimate trail would have a less than significant impact because trail users are directed through capitola village on surface streets rather than over the trestle bridge which requires rehabilitation to be used the interim trail would require the trestle bridge and requires an additional mitigation measure cr1 which is design input from a qualified historic preservation professional on the trestle rehab and design thus the interim trail has 14 less than significant with mitigation impacts instead of 13 like the ultimate trail the other additional mitigation measure is related to hazardous materials both the ultimate trail and interim trail require mitigation measures to conduct soil sampling and implement necessary remediation so the impact would be less than significant with mitigation for both the interim trail also requires mitigation has one c which is evaluating and capping the deeper soil and ballast disturbance that's required to remove the tracks the proposed project with or without the optional interim trail would result in significant and unavoidable impacts to aesthetics biological resources and greenhouse gas emissions from substantial tree removal regardless of the specific number of trees removed for the ultimate trail interim trail or even just part one of the interim trail the amount is substantial enough to be considered a significant and unavoidable impact for aesthetics tree removal would degrade local views of scenic resources including dense trees and vegetation along the rail corridor and would be inconsistent with local policies pertaining to tree and vegetation removal for biological resources the tree removal could adversely affect monarch butterfly roost habitat wildlife movement and would be inconsistent with local tree protection policies for greenhouse gas emissions although the project supports vehicle use reduction goals identified in the county and city climate action plans the tree removal would be inconsistent with climate action plan strategies that include tree preservation removed trees would be replaced at ratios and locations determined in coordination with the regulatory agencies however the impact is still considered significant and unavoidable because the exact location of replacement trees is uncertain at this time and the timing of growth to maturity cannot be predicted with certainty sequel requires the lead agency to identify and consider project alternatives chapter five of the eir identify several alternatives considered including those suggested as part of the scoping process it explains why some were dismissed from further consideration and why these three alternatives were carried forward and analyzed in the eir alternative one trail only includes removal of the rail and construction of a 16 foot wide trail on the rail line this alternative differs from the interim trail which is also 16 feet wide in that trail only assumes that rail removal would be permanent rather than temporary thus there would be no construction or reconstruction of rail at a later time alternative to rail with trail on the opposite side of the tracks was suggested during the scoping process it also addresses another suggestion made during the scoping process which was to maximize connectivity to the coast by locating all of segment 10 on the coastal side of the tracks instead of the inland side finally the no project alternative is required by sequa and it assumes that the project corridor would remain as is with no trail the draft eir provides a comparative summary of the impacts for the proposed project and the project alternatives as expected the no project alternative would have the least environmental impacts overall the impacts of the ultimate trail interim trail and alternatives one and two would be similar in terms of the number of impacts that are less than significant less than significant with mitigation and significant none avoidable sequel requires the county to identify an environmentally superior alternative that is not the no project alternative to do this we looked more closely at the impacts related to tree removal and ground disturbance the slide compares tree removal the ultimate trail removes 803 trees the interim trail removes 957 trees 288 for construction of the interim trail part one and another 669 for construction of the ultimate trail it removes 154 more trees than the ultimate trail because it would have a larger footprint 16 feet wide instead of 12 feet wide and because tree removal would occur on both sides of the tracks particularly in the escalona gulch area along park avenue in capitola alternative one trail only removes 288 trees and alternative two trail on opposite side of the tracks removes approximately a thousand trees regarding the trees removed for the proposed project approximately half are native trees and the other half non-native of the 803 trees removed for the ultimate trail configuration 400 or native of the 957 removed for optional interim trail 464 are native this slide compares the interim trail and alternatives one and two listed in the first column to the ultimate trail configuration looking at the middle column the interim trail and alternative two would have more impacts to aesthetics biological resources and greenhouse gas emissions because there would be more tree removal alternative one would have the less least impact because there would be less tree removal looking at the far right column all three would have more construction related impacts than the ultimate trail because they would result in more ground disturbance ground disturbance causes construction related emissions erosion and loss of topsoil noise and risk of discovery that is a buried cultural paleontological or tribal cultural resources more demolition also increases construction related emissions noise solid waste and potential release of soil contaminants the interim trail and alternative one have a 16 foot wide trail which has a wider construction footprint it disturbs both sides of the tracks and extends an additional 0.5 mile by continuing in the rail corridor over the capitol attressal bridge rather than directing users to surface streets through the village the interim trail also has two additional construction periods associated with implementing all three parts alternative two requires more earthwork and ground disturbance for the additional retaining walls required to support slopes this also results in more impacts to sensitive habitats and waterways along the way as mentioned earlier a sequel requires that an environmentally superior alternative be identified but it doesn't specify how a lead agency should do this the county decided to use a similar approach to the city of santa cruz that they use for segments eight and nine and that the rtc used for segment five north coast these measures are one minimizing the significant non avoidable project impacts and two determining which is environmentally superior for most topics and each of these measures have a different outcome using the measure of minimizing significant non avoidable impacts alternative one trail only was determined environmentally superior because it results in substantially less tree removal however it should be noted that alternative one results in increased impact impacts to the monarch butterfly habitat at the escalana gulch area because it requires the removal of large wind buffer and roosting trees on the north or inland side of the tracks that would not be affected by the ultimate trail configuration which is entirely on the coastal side of the tracks in this area using the measure of environmentally superior for most resource topics the ultimate trail configuration is considered environmentally superior because it requires less ground disturbance and demolition overall which results in reduced impacts to more environmental topics as shown on the previous slide those topics include air quality cultural resources geology and soils hazardous materials hydrology and water quality noise tribal cultural resources and utilities utilities is for generating more solid waste so the draft EIR was circulated for a 60 day public review period which was extended from the 45 day minimum there was a public meeting held on November 16th 2023 to share the results of the draft EIR and to accept verbal comments in total there were 321 commenters that provided feedback including four agencies eight organizations and 309 members of the public the 321 commenters included 678 individual comments there was a wide variety of comments from supporting or opposing the project to commenting on the issues addressed and the impacts disclosed many of the comments are similar or concern the same issues including those listed on this slide for these comments master responses were developed and provided at the beginning of the responses section in the final EIR as mentioned the final EIR includes volume one with all the comments received and responses to each of those comments volume two is the draft EIR with some minor revisions made for clarification and volume three is the EIR appendices I suspect thank you Kate so we've reviewed the project's environmental impacts but it's also important to acknowledge the many the many benefits that this project will bring the project will improve aesthetics by facilitating public access to scenic vistas and views of the coast critically the project will enhance air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the amount of vehicle miles traveled and their associated emissions as more people use the trail for active transportation instead of driving but also help the county achieve land use goals by improving connectivity across established communities and neighborhoods through the development of a new alternative transportation corridor and some of the additional north south crossings of the rail line that I mentioned previously it would benefit public safety and services by reducing conflict between motorists cyclists and pedestrians providing new and improved access to parks and recreation facilities schools beaches libraries and other amenities and create access to the trail corridor for emergency response and finally the project will improve circulation for cyclists pedestrians and motorists by providing a new multi-use trail that is separated from vehicular traffic so there are several actions under CEQA that the board will consider today the first action is certification of the final EIR prior to approving a project the board is required to certify the following that the final EIR has been completed in compliance with CEQA that the final EIR was presented to the board the board reviewed and considered the information contained in the EIR prior to approving the project and that the final EIR reflects the lead agency's independent judgment and analysis the resolution certifying the EIR is included as attachment three the second action is adoption of findings a statement of overriding considerations and the mitigation monitoring reporting program or mmrp since this project has several significant and unavoidable impacts that kate detailed CEQA requires that the board makes findings for each of the significant impacts in order to approve the project the findings are included as attachment four and conclude that the project will minimize significant adverse impacts to the environment with adoption and incorporation of the recommended mitigation measures which are outlined in the mmrp in addition the board is required to adopt the statement of overriding considerations also part of attachment four which documents why the benefits of approving the project outweigh environmental impacts the resolution adopting the findings statement of overriding considerations and mmrp is included as attachment six and includes both the optional interim trail and ultimate trail configuration and the third action is approval of the project to date the project has included both the optional interim trail and the ultimate trail analyzed at an equal level of detail in the EIR and with adoption of the aforementioned resolutions both alignments would be environmentally cleared under CEQA which would provide maximum flexibility for project delivery however to move into the final design permitting and right-of-way phases of the project it is necessary to select for the board to identify a single alignment for continued development so staff recommends that the board approves the segment 1011 project in the ultimate trail configuration because it is the alignment that is consistent with the project's grant funding which i'll describe in more detail later in the presentation and because implementation of the interim trail is not feasible unless the rtc votes to rail bank the corridor which has not yet happened in addition staff recommends that the board approves the design option b which is the inland side of the tracks between grove lane and coronado street as an alternate alignment for the project pending discussions with the coastal commission on what they will permit through this area so in summary the recommended actions are to adopt a resolution certifying the coastal rail trail segment 1011 final EIR adopt a resolution adopting the findings statement of overriding considerations and mitigation monitoring and reporting program for the ultimate trail configuration and the optional interim trail for the coastal rail trail segments 1011 project and to approve the coastal rail trail segments 1011 project in the ultimate trail configuration with the inclusion of design option b is an optional alignment pending direction from the california coastal commission so in addition to seek whether or will be looking at project permitting so board approval is requested on two permits today the first is a riparian exception permit the findings for which are included as attachment seven the second is a biotic approval and adopting the sequel findings of fact and statement of overriding considerations is required because the project is inconsistent with the county sensitive habitat protection ordinance which requires that all significant impacts are mitigated which is not possible for this project both findings note that the project is reducing impacts to the maximum feasible extent and where impacts cannot be avoided the project is providing mitigation for impacts as much as feasible finally a coastal development permit or cdp which is required for this project is not being considered for approval today because the project will pursue a single consolidated coastal development permit from the coastal commission rather than seeking three separate cdps one from the county one from the city of capitol and then a third one from the coastal commission for the part of the project that crosses so cal creek where the coastal commission retains their original permitting jurisdiction a consolidated cdp is preferred for efficiency and because the public review process will be clear and less confusing coastal commission staff and city of capitol have already expressed support for the consolidated cdp process so the recommended actions for permitting are to approve a riparian exception and issue a biotic approval for the coastal rail trail segments 1011 project in the ultimate trail configuration including design option b based on the attached findings statement of overriding considerations and conditions now for an overview of the project's funding and costs project funding by phase is shown on the table on the screen for reference the project is almost completed the project approval and environmental documentation or paed phase in december of 2022 the county was awarded a 67.6 million dollar active transportation program grant from the california transportation commission for for the project in the ultimate trail configuration the 67.6 million dollar award is the largest atp grant in state history in addition to the atp grant funding the rtc has programmed 17.3 million and measured the active transportation funds for the project which is fully funding the paed phase and supplementing construction funding and serve as a match for the atp grant funds total project funding is 84.9 million dollars now estimated costs by phase are shown on the table on the screen as you can see the cost estimates for the project have increased particularly for construction this is a result of several factors the general and significant increase in construction costs across the county state and region in part due to lingering supply chain issues from covid inflation and infusion of federal stimulus money a tight labor market and the unavailability of contractors in addition the project design has progressed since the draft schematic plans that the original estimates in the atp grant were based on an additional scope has been identified including a new viaduct east of the oak trail more retaining walls and a complex drainage system that's needed to accommodate both the trail and a future rail line we estimate an additional 21.6 million dollars is needed for construction right away costs have also increased due to the amount and the cost of environmental mitigation that will be needed to offset the environmental impacts an additional estimated 6.4 million is required for this phase it's important to note though that the project is still in preliminary design and the project team will continue to explore ways to reduce cost we plan to explore a formal cost reduction exercise known as value engineering with the rtc over the next several months we will also be refining our estimates as additional bid information comes in obviously the hope is that we start to get into a more favorable bid climate and bits are coming down which would help our estimates remains to be seen if that will be the case but as i mentioned previously the segment five project is opening bits today and that would be a really important data point for us to help refine our estimates and so even though these are preliminary numbers and subject to change as we move through final design i wanted to share this information now so the decision makers in the public are fully informed so the atp grant that the county received for this project is partially funded by senate bill one caltrans and senate bill one require that the implementing agency leading a project that is funded by sp1 and has a budget in excess of 10 million dollars sign a baseline agreement with caltrans the baseline agreement requires that the implementing agency documents the project costs schedule scope and benefits and certifies that the funding sources cited in the baseline agreement are committed expected to be available and that the project is fully funded and that the implementing agency agrees to secure funds for any additional costs of the project because of the unprecedented amount of atp funding awarded to this project it is critical that the county approves the baseline agreement to secure the grant funding and keep the project moving forward however there is no money in the county budget to fund this project's budget gaps and the county lacks a dedicated funding source for this type of project the county intends to work with the rtc to fully fund the project through a combination of cost reduction strategies and by seeking additional funding sources that will avoid spending county funds on the project the following is a brief overview of strategies that could be could be used to reduce costs and or increase funding for the project and just as a note no board action is requested for any of the following strategies they're shared for informational purposes only and in fact many of these decisions will not be made by the county board but will go to the rtc commissioners for approval staff will continue to work with rtc staff to flush out these strategies and any additional future actions that the rtc commissioners may vote on so one option and i would say this would be the most preferable is to seek additional grant funds rtc staff recently submitted a federal raise grant application for 19 and a half million dollars which included 8 8.4 million for segments 10 11 another option would be for the rtc to vote to fund the project with additional measure d after transportation funds rtc staff estimated in september 2023 that the fund has approximately 68 million dollars in additional capacity which is reduced to 38 million if maintenance of the trail is included as a measure d cost this would be sufficient to fund the segments 10 11 project but would reduce the amount of measure d funding available to develop the remaining rail trail segments as mentioned previously the project team in conjunction with the rtc will continue to explore ways to reduce costs through value engineering that would not result in a scope change to the project in addition project costs could be reduced by eliminating the cost of railroad track relocation from the project this would save approximately 7 to 8 million dollars as i mentioned towards the beginning of my presentation the project currently includes the relocation of approximately one and a half miles of track in segment 10 to make room for both trail and tracks in the narrow right of way however there are three potential ways in which this cost could be reduced or eliminated from the ultimate trail configuration the first would be for the rtc to enter into an agreement with roaring camp as the rail operator to relocate the existing tracks so they are not in conflict with the trail limit this would happen independently in the advance of the rail trail project the county and rtc staff are exploring the feasibility of this approach with roaring camp alternatively the rtc could pursue an agreement with roaring camp as the rail operator to remove the tracks as part of the rail trail project and defer the track reinstallation to a later time either as part of the rtc's zero mission passenger rail and trail project or as part of general corridor maintenance work again the feasibility of this approach is being explored with rtc staff in roaring camp and finally the rtc could vote to rail bank the corridor which would allow the rail trail project to remove the tracks were there in conflict with the trail and not replace them this would also allow the project to eliminate the fencing between track and trail and potentially save an additional two million dollars rail banking would also provide the ultimate trail configuration with better flexibility to avoid conflict with the future rail realignments that are likely to be required for implementation of the rtc's zero mission passenger rail and trail project particularly in portions of segment 11 through new brighton state beach where the rail line has multiple curves this additional flexibility could result in additional cost savings for the rail trail projects of course there are schedule risks associated with rail banking and it is unknown if the rtc could rail bank the corridor in time to avoid delaying the project regardless of which approach is taken eliminating the railroad track relocation from the rail trail project reduces the risk that the project will install costly rail infrastructure that is not compatible with future rail uh with future passenger rail requirements and has to be replaced as part of that project and the last way in which the corridor in which the project could reduce costs would be for the rtc to vote to rail bank the corridor and request that the county pursue the interim trail for segments 10 and 11 the interim trail has a total estimated cost of 51.7 million dollars compared with 111.7 for the ultimate trail this approach will be subject to the same schedule risks of rail banking mentioned previously and critically would require that the california transportation commission approve using the ATP grant funding to build the interim trail alignment it is unknown whether the ctc would approve such a scope change if the ctc is unwilling to approve that scope change the interim trail would require an additional 34.3 million dollars for segments 10 11 which is more than the amount needed for the ultimate trail configuration so the recommended actions are as follows to approve the baseline agreement between the county of santa cruz and the california department transportation for coastal rail trail segments 10 11 project in the ultimate trail configuration authorize the deputy ceo director of community development infrastructure to execute the baseline agreement with caltrans on behalf of the county and direct the deputy ceo director of community development and infrastructure to request that the santa cruz county regional transportation commission fully fund the coastal rail trail segments 10 11 project so finally concluding with the project schedule the ATP grant funding has several deadlines associated with it including that the project completes the environmental review process this spring completes final design right away and permitting by 2026 and starts construction in 2026 therefore it's critical that the project keeps moving forward and avoids project delivery risk wherever possible certification of the eir and approval of the project by the board today would mark a very significant milestone for the project and completion of the california environmental review caltrans is the project lead for the federal environmental review under the national environmental protection act or nipa and a categorical exclusion is expected to be issued by caltrans in april that would mark completion of the paed phase we expect to request our first ATP grant funding allocation at the june 26 27 ctc meeting this summer and start final design and right of way afterwards with completion expected in 2026 construction would start in 2026 and take three to four years this concludes staff presentation staff and consultants are available to provide additional information and answer questions thank you thank you for that very detailed presentation and also for all your hard work on this issue that i know is very important um in our community um with that i want to open up to board members and see if there's any questions uh for staff on the presentation and on this item to resident person yeah i um thank you uh ted more and ted more and uh miss elliott for this extensive and thorough statement uh really i know how much work can and over the years has gone into this but i have some extensive comments uh not that i'd like to make uh to thank the public work staff and everybody else that's been involved in this the rtc and the numerous elected officials we've been talking about this for years it's certainly one of the most complex and debatable uh issues we've had with and since i've been on the board for the last 11 years uh and i just want to make a i just support every one of the four major studies to examine the use of the rail corridor the scope feasibility of passenger service and rail service and determine the best approach to take on this um at each decision point i've summarized my concerns over the accuracy of the cost and that's not to criticize anybody but we've seen how costs have increased substantially and other rail related projects throughout the state the ridership data that we're receiving as well as the real impacts on the highway nine or highway one excuse me uh congestion i've expressed my issues also with the south county segments of this corridor not receiving the same kind of attention as other segments have up to now and i've repeatedly supported the preservation of building and operating the passenger rail service when and if we can afford to build it and whether it will make a significant difference in our community but i but i really do care and i think we all do care about what it will cost and how those costs might negatively affect other essential transportation infrastructure um the concept report due in december will answer many of these questions and i know we're talking about let's don't put this off and i know i know there's some deadlines that you've mentioned here and the data will not be up for debate uh until this has been after the prior studies were published uh from those but i look forward to the information in the concept report because the decision we make today must be informed by the facts and not the wishful thinking that many of us we've been hearing about for over the years and regarding the item before us today i support most of the staff recommendations should say a few of the staff recommendations but i have concerns about the recommendation regarding the strategy to fund the 28 million dollar shortfall um i also have deep reservations about the environmental impacts of the options before us um and again this is not any criticism of the studies that have been done we are being asked to lead uh as the lead agencies to use our best judgment regarding the which options we should follow and the best for the community in regard to our environmental impacts as well but i i want to make sure that i understand the situation accurately so i'm going to summarize several points made in the staff report the board is being asked to approve the ultimate trail project a request that the rtc backfill the 28 million dollar budget shortfall that's number one we must make this request to the of the rtc because the county staff want to get an allocation of its active transportation program grant from the california transportation commission and in order to do that the county is required to sign a baseline agreement with cal trance um the baseline agreement with cal trance requires that the county document the project cost schedule scope of benefits plus certify that the project is fully funded and the money can is committed to the project um which in turn really requires uh that the regional transportation commission agree to use at least 40 percent of its measure d active transportation fund backfill the 28 million dollars uh if additional funding needed to build the ultimate trail in segments 10 and 11 uh the consequence of that action would be to lower the amount of measure d active transportation funds available by 40 to build additional future segments especially in the south county and possibly compromise the necessary repairs and maintenance along the rail corridor that need to be addressed in the meantime there are several steps in progress that will provide additional information um and resources that could alter the decisions the board and the rtc make regarding commitments for the measure d active transportation funds uh the most significant funds are steps i should say and progress that i saw listed in the staff report our county staff went to work with rtc staff to do a value engineering to try to lower the budget shortfall i think we can all agree on that the federal raise grant decision of war i think it's up to 20 million dollars in june could change the funding strategy um a number of options to eliminate the cost of track relocation that are under discussion with roaring camp would provide an alternative approach to using the existing atp uh grants to build this trail uh we can use now without compromising future the future of passenger rail or seriously impacting the measure d active transportation fund for future projects environmental mitigation reports and permits needed will take quite a bit of time certainly many months the board could approve all staff recommendations made today so those would proceed without deciding the funding strategy now last but not least and i'm finally there uh the passenger rail concept report is due in december which identifies the true feasibility and cost impacts of building and operating passenger rail as well as providing a better data on ridership congestion mitigation impacts on highway one and the travel time between watsaville santa cruise which currently is estimated on the rail to be at 45 minutes the same as bus on shoulder express service that's been mentioned of another meetings in other words the concept report gives the community an accurate assessment of the feasibility which mean we can preserve the option to building passenger rail but i don't think we can afford to do do it right now which in turn uh we would alter our and our strategies on what we build now and what we choose to fund in the completed projects so um given all of the steps still in process to be resolved should the board consider approving the staff recommendations to keep the planning process going but defer the decision on funding ask uh on the funding ask of the rtc until the issues i mentioned are resolved each of which could they change the funding compensation um i understand that a delay in funding request to the rtc would delay the county asking for an allocation of its atp grant from the california transportation commission in june but maybe that's acceptable giving that without a little more time to resolve the issues that are in progress issues could be drastically could drastically change the project at what we're going to decide to build or not build and how we fund it to completion so um i uh i think you've answered this in part but uh the the staff did you help the board understand why we shouldn't approve all um all of the staff recommendations accept the funding request to the rtc so the progress can continue yeah thank you for that question absolutely so i think that the the most important piece is well there's two pieces here the the first is that we're scheduled to go to the ctc to allocate for final design and right-of-way funding in in june so if we don't make that deadline we have to request an extension of the ctc which is not ideal especially given that the target on this project for the amount of money that they've given us we want to give the ctc every indication that we're going to deliver on this project successfully but more critically the project final designer right-of-way are funded with state-only funds which have an expiration of the summer of 2026 so if we pause our allocation for final design and right-of-way that gives us less time to complete those two phases and particularly on the right-of-way side that can take a long time and so i would i would highly recommend against that and and just to clarify something too because i think what we're what we're asking for today is is a recommendation to go to the rtc to ask them to fully fund the project we're not saying that all that money has to come for measure d that's why we outlined all those different alternatives here i think we would absolutely uh continue to seek additional grant funding we would be working with the rtc to do that like we have done with the federal raise grant and we'd be looking to to save costs for the project so while we're saying you know fund fully fund the project we're not saying that all that money is coming out of measure d right now thank you mr sir rather than others so you know first i have to say i thank you guys for all all the work you've guys done in public works planning and working with all the different agencies as well rtc and i fully you know support this eir um you know but first i have to say that i do agree with uh supervisor mcphearson's statement about equity uh that we got to also look at south county because you know we got like five segments and a partial of one segment in south county and we still have two more to go plus to finish that one eighteen i think um because it's just in the middle of nowhere it's like an island segment not connected to the city so i think we have to move forward at some point on that as well um but you know i think that um generally i mean i'm in favor of all this right because i think that um you know we have to move forward with this project and i think i'm in favor of the the ultimate trail you know option b um my only question is is the uh one of the slides you mentioned that um the bridges are in trestles are under not under the perbie of the cir or they're under the scope of the rtc or something like that and i and i say this because you know one of the things that has come out last year is that there's new pedestrian bridge designs that are considerably less cost than previously thought before um but i i'm just wondering about that if if the cr covers the trestles and bridges um so to answer that question um in part yes so there's there's three bridges for this project there's the bridge over a rodeo gulch between 17th and 30th avenue and that would include for the ultimate trail configuration a new prefabricated bicycle pedestrian bridge and for the interim trail conversion of the existing concrete and steel rail bridge um and then the bridge over the new brighton state beach access road similarly would be in the in the ultimate trail configuration would be handled by a prefabricated pedestrian bridge and in the interim trail be a conversion of the existing rail bridge the only bridge that is not included as part of this project is the capitol attressal and that's because well it's a couple reasons one you can't cantilever an existing uh you can't cantilever a pedestrian bridge off of that wooden structure like was done at the sandlands or river simply because the structure doesn't have the structural integrity to support a cantilevered bridge on the side and it's it would be very difficult to build a standalone and very expensive standalone trail bridge next to the existing trestle due to the limited right of way so the way that's being handled is to include a full replacement of that structure in the zero emission passenger rail and trail project to include both a combined rail and trail bridge that would accommodate both trains and the trail traffic so my only concern and it's not even a concern right it's uh is is well my only concern is not moving forward with this because you know recently the caltrans ctc has been heading towards a lot of uh funding active transportation and multimodal transportation projects and now it seems that even the feds are doing the same thing the federal government is also doing the same thing and trying to fund more uh i can pedestrian activities as well um including you know rail funding as well at the federal level so my concern would be is like that we stall this project and we don't can move forward because i've heard from specific from some ctc members that if we don't meet that deadline that it puts future projects at jeopardy to get funded so that's my only concern is that just move forward and thank you for those comments uh supervisor coning do you have any questions or comments on the side thank you chair i'll start with some questions um so the first is about environmental impacts and we received a letter from the sierra club asking about um will this total amount of trees that need to be removed both for uh the ultimate trail and the interim trail configuration are there any opportunities to reduce the width of the trail and therefore and in certain spots save a large number of trees um i mean for example you know talk about the interim trail through escalona gulch and how because it's wider at 16 feet uh you have to remove a bunch of trees on the north side of the gulch and what if it's only 12 feet the same width as the ultimate trail or yeah in that location how many trees do you save do we have any understanding of you know where small widths uh width reductions in the trail could lead to big savings and trees good yeah thank you for that question supervisor coning um the i can give a quickly give a high level response to that and then we can look up some details um in a few minutes but essentially that this question this was a master response in the draft year because this was raised by several commenters and uh overall when we looked at reducing the width of the optional interim trail from 16 feet to 12 feet i think it reduced um numbers of tree removals by 16 percent in the corridor i think that was an i think that reduced tree removals by about 47 trees so instead of 288 trees being removed as part of part one it would be 241 trees um and it critically wouldn't reduce impacts to less than significant and unavoidable so it'd still be considered a significant unavoidable impact um but to get to your the first part of the question which is you know do we have opportunities to modify the design to to reduce tree removals to some small extent right so the the eir the purpose of an eir is to is to be conservative and disclose maximum possible impact so we were conservative in our estimates there is the potential that as the project moves into final design you know we can modify um you know we'll look more critically at retaining wall designs and extensive grading and realize that we can save a couple additional trees but i don't expect there to be a large scale reductions in tree removals as the project moves forward okay thanks that's helpful um the second question is about safety and really about trail width i mean we were just having a before this item we were discussing e-bike regulations and i mean we've seen concerns about e-bikes on you know particularly west cliff uh and east cliff iranigulch i mean those facilities are respectively 14 feet 17 feet uh i guess iranigulch is only about eight feet but then it's got two foot shoulder on both sides which is very different from a metal fence um what percentage i mean can you give some sense of you know how much of the ultimate trail is 10 feet how much is eight feet how much is 12 feet um yeah um not an exact percentage but i can i can tell you that it's the vast majority of the length of segments 10 and 11 um the really the only places where we narrow to less than 12 feet are where we approach intersections where we go down to 10 feet and and actually that's purposeful um the idea there is that the reduction in trail width forces people to slow down as they approach intersections and not continue through an intersection at high speed without stopping and looking for traffic so i think we're at close i would say between 80 to 90 percent of the of the length of 10-11 or or 12 feet wide okay thanks um and then about cost i mean and a lot of recent project i mean assume we're still working with engineers estimates here right i mean obviously we haven't put this project out to bit so are the estimates taking into account uh some of the current bids we're seeing or you should be depending on the bidding environment you know i mean we could ultimately see costs increase further when we actually put the project out to bid right i mean you mentioned segment five on the north coast going out to bid very soon so that'll go to a sense of the climate right now um but yeah i mean can you speak to that a little bit how much are they how much are we taking to account some of these higher bid prices that we're seeing yeah great question thank you um so the reason the estimates increased so much between when we submitted for the ATP grant and and now is that we used recent highway one bid prices to to guide our estimates and and as many of you know those projects were over over budget significantly beyond the engineer's estimate and so we're taking those numbers and we're adding further escalation to those numbers to project ahead into 2026 when we expect to go out to construction and those escalation numbers use the current amount of inflation that we're currently experiencing so unless inflation you know goes to the roof again then we think these numbers are conservative and project what was likely to happen moving forward okay and the final question about timing and you mentioned that we need to what is it by by summer of 2026 use all of the funds specifically for right-of-way acquisition and was it for per design yes final design yes right and what percentage of the 67 or so million dollars is that and then what what is the deadline for using the remaining funds i think ps in the final design is about three million dollars and right-of-way is close to two million dollars so there'll be five million dollars total less than less than 10 of the overall funding but just just again as a note you know any lack of meeting deadlines in the overall program you know doesn't just jeopardize the funding for that phase it jeopardizes the ctc's confidence in our ability to deliver the project so so I wouldn't recommend that and then the the construction funding we have four years to to complete that piece which will be more than enough time we anticipate it takes between three to four years to complete construction so we do we have until four years after the the funds are the the contract is awarded to the contractor to complete construction I see so that's kind of that 2026 to 2030 correct yes gotcha and then as far as right-of-way acquisition I mean there's some some portions of the trail or I should say the the rail line right-of-way where dark sea doesn't own it in fee right we own easements does this right-of-way acquisition account for potentially needing to resolve issues with neighboring residents there where you know again we only own an easement and don't have the actual right to build a trail across their land so yes the the two years we're allocating for the right-of-way phase does take into account the fact that we may need some additional or the RTC may need some additional right-of-way rights so on some of those properties we also are expecting to need a small sliver of property along 41st Avenue and then over a long popular drive where the the right-of-way is constrained in those locations so that what how does the how do we come up with the current right-of-way acquisition costs mean yeah it's again it's it's an estimate based on best best guess not best guess but best estimates of what we can come up with so we we anticipated I would say that the 1.8 million dollars in funding that we have should be sufficient to cover the right-of-way acquisitions for the project but it's not sufficient to cover the cost of environmental mitigation right the planting planting of trees creation of new wetland habitat riparian habitat and all that yes got it okay well um you know just a couple brief comments here man this is really an alarming amount of environmental damage I mean removing 803 trees including 584 recognize the significant trees I mean really in direct contradiction to our general plan to our climate action adaptation plan you know even to some codes in the city of Capitola it's it's quite significant and of course including the damage to a habitat for all kinds of well both animals and as I think what we've heard and we'll continue to hear people as well and then you know in addition to the environmental impacts of course we just have this funding issue I mean 38 million or remaining in capacity I think we have to account for some kind of maintenance of our own public works department here is argued that the RTC uses active transportation funding to allocate some maintenance dollars because we simply don't have those funds here at the county right um so I think it's wise that we do that so 38 million dollars remaining then in capacity we're requesting 28 million dollars of that and of course the other shoe that hasn't dropped is segment state nine which we expect could be at least 10 million dollars over their current estimate so they could come in and grab the remaining funds I mean that's no money left for remaining segments in south county zero not even for planning we talk a lot about equity and I think that uh you know people like to cite 2022 measure d but 2016 measure d the actual funding that's moving this project forward everyone in this county expected they were getting a trail all of Aptos, Salva and Watsonville I think that you'd have a lot of people who would be pretty shocked to find out that they're paying the tax the same as everyone else and are now not going to have the facility near their house um so yeah there's some options to mitigate that to get more grant funding um and that was also just up in Sacramento I can tell you at least in Sacramento that mood's pretty dire um you know I think what we've seen here in as far as winning uh largest active transportation grant in state history those days are gone at least for the immediate future um it's a very different budget environment in the state capital I don't think that times are all that different in the federal capital Washington DC either so I mean we look forward to hearing if we can't have the same success winning federal grant dollars on this segment as we have on segment five of course there's specifically access to um federal national park our national monument up there on the north coast that a lot is to win some of those dollars um but you know I think this you know these cost overruns are very concerning um and I would have misgivings of going to Caltrans right now and signing uh the initial agreement saying we got all the money and we clearly don't um I mean the RTC could allocate this additional funding I'd be curious to know um what RTC staff and other commissioners ultimately think about allocating the remainder of these funds um because at this point we're talking about basically training the remaining the training the account so thanks thank you supervisor coming I'm gonna just ask um I just have one brief question now we really want to make sure that we get out to members of the public to hear from the public and we get back to allow the board to have a brief break before we have our time certain 130 item so I guess the one question I have um first just want to appreciate the work that's gone into us um very supportive of the staff's perspective I have more comments I'll make after we hear from the public the one question I do have is related to the tree replacement and I'm just wondering just do the fact that being new on the board I'm wondering since there's um you know a large amount of non-native trees that are going to be removed in terms of replacement if there's an opportunity for us to not have to replace the non-native trees if there's an opportunity for us to replace the non-native ones with native ones because I think from biological perspective we really want to try to promote native species and you know not have non-native not actively replace non-native and exotic species within our communities especially I would imagine the large number those are eucalyptus and those habitats are not very hospitable to many understory native plants I mean they do provide benefits in terms of monarch habitats if they're in the appropriate configuration and they could provide habitat for like great blue herons but I imagine that there's other species that could similarly provide those types of benefits while also allowing for greater recruitment of native species and so I'm just wondering if that is an option. Great question so I'm not aware of any requirement that says we have to replace the tree species that was removed with another of the same species I think our overall goal with the mitigation program will be to maximize habitat function and habitat value which would lead us to planting mostly native trees like you like you said there may be specific instances like in in monarch butterfly habitat where blue gum eucalyptus or other species are called for but we would we would certainly be aiming to plant a majority of native species part of the mitigation yeah. Great those are all my questions and I'll share my comments and so at this point in time I'd like to open the public comment period and invite members of the public to come up I'd just like to see what the people who are here today how many people want to comment on this item you know and then how many people do we have online they're they're raising their hands yeah um about okay I'm just given that the time that we have a time certain item at 1 30 and the board needs a little bit of a break for lunch between now and then reduce the time to one minute and so members of the public will have one minute we'll start it I will start with two and if we if we're running short on time I'm going to reduce it to one minute so we'll start with two minutes please be concise and then um and then if time uh it looks like it's running low then we're going to reduce it to one so please step forward at this time. Thank you Mike Rodkin member of the public and uh first of all the surprise here is that the environmental damage from the interim trail is not all that much uh better than from the ultimate trail that was that's the surprise of the CIR I came here expecting to find interim trail well that won't be you know that won't cause so much trouble but tearing up those tracks and the uh the uh problems with the environment from that are like huge secondly um measure D the public has pretty much told you they want the ultimate trail here and the idea of going to the interim I think is really just going in the face of the public and measure D vote was not that long ago and this isn't about roaring camp it's about the public your voters 75 percent of them 74 whatever the exact number was um I think in the most recent campaign um supervisor uh Tony but successfully I think he was telling the truth you know I did a good job of persuading the public that he hadn't stood in the way of this uh train project and I think it's kind of unseemly that less than a month after the election there's a possibility here a vote that actually would kill the possibility of a future train and the real issue that's left for my 40 seconds is we have to project our willingness and our excitement and our commitment to building this train and the kind of trail next to it that makes the train possible and given that situation what's at risk is the money we've already received from the state and even more so our future money it depends upon this whole multimodal approach that's gotten us this funding I think we can get that in the future and I think it really requires us not to spend money now but to basically make a commitment to move ahead rather than going backwards to the sort of the feed idea for measure d thank you thank you my name is Michael Lewis from live oak I hope that you've all had a chance to thoroughly read and understand this massive 2500 page documents that were presented with I've studied it fairly well and I've come to conclusion that the feir and the findings of facts are inconsistent and contradictory with misstatements of fact and unsupported assumptions in fact it appears that the findings of fact was written before the final eir was published for example the description of the alternative one trail only assumes permanent removal of the tracks even though it goes on to say that the tracks are not permanently removed because at any time in the future they can be replaced this is a misstatement of fact that was repeated in the presentation this morning this afternoon this calls into question the overriding the statement of overriding considerations which states that alternative one is infeasible because it precludes future rail which it does not so the the statement of overriding considerations is false because it bases on the findings of facts that contain false statements so I can only conclude that the eir was carefully crafted to favor the proposed project and dismiss the optional interim trail and the alternative one out of hand so leading to the my observation that this is a flawed document that must not be certified and passed to the RTC in its present form send it back to get those mistakes and misstatements corrected thank you very much hi jean brockel bank ditto to everything that michael said in terms of i'd like this board to return the findings of facts and the wrongful assumptions in fact they use the word we assume in findings of facts and supervisor McPherson says we need facts return it to the maker for corrections do not accept the statement of overriding considerations because they are based on the misstatements in the findings of facts state your initial support for building the less harmful interim trail it's not 803 trees that are going to be removed by the using building the ultimate trail well it's more than that and the reason it's more than that is because the eir did not inventory the smaller trees it only inventoried the adult and elders not the children and free teams that live amongst the adults and elders the statement of overriding consideration says the benefits of all this death the slaughter of the urban forest throughout live oak and all the wildlife and the biome of the living soil that will be deboldosed it's supposedly these the benefits of this outweigh the cost you're going to hear about some human costs from the folks behind me and i hope that you'll listen to them but for right now i'm saying you have the power to alter this runaway train we had a bullet train presentation this afternoon no one no one could really have absorbed all 2,500 pages and make a good decision today put it off until we have the concept report until we have the facts thank you very much thank you hi my name is christina gill would you please pull the mic down so we can thank you hi my name is christine mcgill i live in castle estates i bought my home october 22 no one told me that the park management or the park owners the title company or the realtors that my home was enrichment on the rtc property this has affected my mental and physical health i can't afford the cost to move my home i can't afford to lose my home and i can't sell it under these circumstances i have um one second this problem should have been identified and dressed by the railroad santa cruz county and the rtc and the property owners years ago you are now appending innocent people's lives the other mobile homeowners and i are not the responsible parties where are we supposed to live when you split our homes down the middle and move them the cost to move a mobile home the engineering involved to reset it in place and ensure that it sounds electrically plumbing and from the environment is a great expense where are we supposed to live while this is happening i do not have the funds to pay for this i live on my husband's social security i am not responsible party i walk 38th avenue every day with my dog and i see empty buses that well there might be one or two people but they're pretty empty they then those buses go somewhere where who's going to ride a train train that's on the outskirts of santa cruz um if you must you know i urge you to postpone this agenda item then vote to to require that the interim trail option down the center of the quarter would be built this will will move a trail along while also giving myself and the park owners more time to deal with the layout the lays before us with our thank you so much being upside down thank you my name is terry thomas i'm a 50 year resident of capitol living on park avenue across from escalona gulch and a former planning commissioner there are two issues i would like to resolve for you number one implement design option a put the trail on capitol atresol now that it has been determined that rail banking is not required this will prevent the overcrowding safety hazards and difficulty for seniors and the disabled that rerouting bikes and pedestrians into an already chaotic traffic situation in capitol a village would cause should a train ever be reactivated then the path could be rerouted to the village using the trestle for the trail would be so much safer and user friendly number two then reroute the pedestrian and bike traffic onto the already existing sidewalks and bike lanes on park avenue from monorail to coronado it's not nearly as busy as the village it would be in keeping with the mbsst master plan regarding use of existing roads by maximizing new brighton and monorail bay views but more importantly it would protect and leave undisturbed escalona gulch's monarch butterfly roosting area as well as avoid the destruction to long establish wildlife corridors and habitat plus the disturbance to avian nesting sites along with segment wildlife can't speak for themselves so we have to the proposed elevated trail along park avenue sections up to 12 feet eliminate future vegetation and would be highly destructive expensive and compared to the use of the existing street amenities it would be much cheaper and safer for all to switch the trail to go on the trestle and then move it on to park avenue so great trade capitol of village over congestion by using the trestle for saving escalona gulch and its trees by use like utilizing park avenue and thank you thank you so much i'm in a race with the parking good afternoon supervisors my name is maria rye miller i've been in castle mobile states for 24 years and the deir considers the impact on mobile home parks and castle and blue and gold to be less insignificant and not worthy of mitigation um but for any of us in this room we humans it's never insignificant to face moving our home losing our storage shed or yards and possibly even losing our home or in our investment the ripple effect will also increase the rents in the park affected to cover the costs the park owners will bear the costs will be ongoing and passed along to all residents not just on the corridor who will pay the price of losing affordable housing and likely be forced to move as well as they attempt to age in place so there's a lot of ripple here so speaking to the personal impact moving one's home can be a life or death matter especially for those who are elderly disabled or in poor health like my 90 year old father hoping to come and live with me i can't now and good conscience have him move in with me or only to face having to move mad again we are in limbo can't move can't sell the unmitigated stress just survive in the constant change years of building going on in our backyard or what was our backyard is truly significant in life altering my father will have to go live in a facility sounds dramatic it is however we hold on to a single hope that you will help us to avoid the disaster of this impact to our communities by voting to require that the interim tear trial be built this option will be the least invasive most economical preserves the habitat provides a legacy that we can all truly be proud of for years to come like they are in Monterey for example and for those of you impacted here please raise your hands if you want to have the impact interim trail in this room anybody ma'am if you can please this is not for you to address the board okay thank you sorry um and so um please make the right choices and help us out thank you thank you next speaker please approach thank you welcome my name is Mona Orozco my husband and I live in the blue and gold and we have for 28 years in this past year's first time I've heard about what has happened we thought we'd be living there very comfortably until whatever happens but we plan to live there because we've paid off our mobile home years ago we're going to lose our backyard and if it is we won't have to move our mobile home but individuals if they put a a fence or a barrier there they will be able to go right into my bedroom they will be able to go right into my bathroom because the windows are right there next to the railroad um and we have to pay for the cost to to take down our our backyard in a permanent shed that we had put in there 10 years ago it's not feasible we don't have the money for it um we're not going to move it somebody wants to move it that's fine but we're not going to move it we're 75 years old and we're not going to be able to take care of any of that so that's all I want to say um I enjoyed hearing all the comments today um and hopefully um where we solve it we can stay where we're at I don't know thank you welcome thank you supervisors my name is solid in sale I live in the city of Santa Cruz and I'm a strong supporter of robust multimodal public transit in general and our rail and trail in particular I agree with the findings of the final environmental impact report determining that the ultimate trail is the environmentally preferred alternative for segments 10 and 11 the ultimate trail configuration for our county has received support not only of county staff but of staff of the RTC and the cities of Santa Cruz Capitola and Watsonville and has directly contributed to our superior rankings in competitive grant applications I strongly support approval and encourage the board to both approve all the actions recommended by staff and request the RTC to fund the project county voters challenged to make their preferences known voted overwhelmingly in 2022 to say they wanted county transit to include both trail and rail so certifying this EIR in the ultimate trail configuration directly aligns with the overwhelming will of our voters finally board certification of this EIR today is a time critical step in building the next phase of our integrated multimodal transportation system without your certification today we risk losing the largest grant in the history of the state active transportation program when the California Transportation Commission considers this item at their June 2024 meeting please don't lose this huge sum of construction grant money already awarded over the continuing objections voiced by the same Greenway believers who doubted the odds of our current success with grant funding thank you thank you good afternoon my name is Lonnie Faulkner I'm a scientist and environmental educator and I urge the board of supervisors to approve the EIR to move forward with segments 10 and 11 of the trail beside the rail now called the ultimate trail the California Transportation Commission chair who approved the funds for the grant for this project stated publicly that Santa Cruz was given the money to buy the rail corridor with the promise that we implement clean passenger rail in a meeting with Cal Trans last April they anticipated that our passenger rail be active and connected to the state rail network in about 10 years not 25 or 30 and Monterey is moving forward with their rail at our hub at Pajaro and to the rest of the state let's not get left behind Santa Cruz an interim trail would waste more time and more money preventing us from implementing this important passenger rail project and possibly at all we're experiencing an exponential rise immediately in global warming and rail has been and always will be the most energy efficient and least environmentally damaging form of moving large numbers of people distances it's simply physics it's ironic when we hear Greenway members including Supervisor Koenig prior executive director of Greenway opposing the trail beside the rail when the proposed Greenway trail was a 26 foot wide 32 mile long asphalt road by and far the most destructive environmental plan ever proposed in reality any asphalt trail we put on that corridor is going to have environmental implications a single most environmentally wise thing we can do with that corridor is to implement passenger rail as quickly as possible which means if we're going to have a trail it needs to be located adjacent to the rail we must mitigate the tree loss and removal of the trees and prevent a heat island and implement street trees to help provide traffic calming and heat islands along our roadways so please I urge you to support segments 10 and 11 of the trail today thank you thank you hi hello can you hear me hi my name is Teenie Andrietta and I want to thank Mr. Rob Tidmore for your very hard diligent work I agree with the final environmental impact reports determination that the ultimate trail is the best option removing 803 trees consistent with the master plan it is environmentally superior I don't support the optional internment trail because it is a significant removal of 957 trees 288 from part one then 669 trees from part three segment 10 and 11 received the largest grant ever in California history from the state's active transportation program and certifying the ERR is critical to our receiving this construction grant the voters overwhelmingly support rail with trail we support all of the staff recommendations for agent agenda item 10 California and Santa Cruz counties approve proposition 116 which specifically stipulates that it is a rail projects within Santa Cruz County that facilitate recreational commuter inner city and inter county travel the California Transportation Commission released funds to the RTC with the condition to initiate recreational passenger rail service and to follow all 116 requirements California Transportation Plan 2050 aims to advance social equity and this is very important especially to South County who are very disadvantaged we cannot forget them lastly I want to say authentic planning is never about our generation it's always the next let's not hold the young as hostages to our privilege thank you thank you so much good afternoon hello um my name is alexandra fisher i'm the only one um who is in my friend group i was able to make it to this meeting um but i would also like to let the know the county's board of supervisors know that myself and my friend elie davies rosa rice pilepco jeremiah daniels and toba papilsky are all young voters who live in soquel and aptos and we all support the rail trail specifically recommendation for which is approval of segment 10 and 11 in the ultimate trail configuration we do not support the interim trail two of my friends actually live near the train tracks and said that they have if they had a train they could have taken it to this meeting in order to beat the northbound morning traffic um Jeremiah is a disabled veteran and he needs more options to be able to get around the county i talked to a lot of people my age and we all we all agree that having a train is common sense many people i've talked to who have lived in places that have trains talk about how life changing they are and to not have a car how um how much money that saves not only do trains cut down on time spent in traffic but they also cut down on our carbon footprints there's a lot of talk about the environmental impact of the rail trail just now from the supervisors i would just like to reiterate that cars and massive highways are way worse for the environment than the rail trail will ever be those same highways are also much more expensive than the rail trail to maintain and to widen when they inevitably fill up with traffic building the rail trail means we are investing in building a more sustainable and accessible Santa Cruz for those of us who live here today and also for future generations of Santa Cruzians thank you for your time and please support segments 10 and 11 in the ultimate trail configuration thank you thank you my name is Jeff Perry um i am speaking on behalf of my brother Christopher Perry who cannot be here today because of a scheduled eye surgery that he desperately needs he sent you an email on march 4th he spoke at the last regional transportation commission and he was the first person to speak i encourage you to watch his recording uh before you vote today chris lives in the blue and gold star mobile home on 38th avenue a lot 119 he has lived there for seven years and five months he is not the property owner i am the mobile home owner we lease the space from the property owner the owner of blue and gold chris is 53 years old he's developmentally disabled he's a client of imagined supported services and he lives on social security income he can work six hours per week he works at a nearby pizza my heart um before our father died he helped me buy this house so that christopher could have a nice safe place to live he likes it there he has nice neighbors he can bike to work or to shop uh when we bought the home the property owner and the manager never told us that it was encroaching into segment 10 of the rail corridor we just found out about this two months ago um what has happened to the value of our home we can't afford to sell it or buy another mobile home we'll pay to move the home a few feet forward to get it out of the corridor this become our responsibility this was problemless created by the property owners moving my brother's home or making it uh me move it as impossible it would turn our lives upside down what would we do uh where would we my brother go and how would i pay for i need more time i hope the rtc and um the supervisors will um build the optional interim trail for section 10 for the rail corridor thank you very much thank you all right at this moment in time seeing no more members of the public would like to comment on this item here in chambers we're going to move it to online and i'm just i mentioned it earlier that you know that we might have to change it to one minute i think at this point in time i'd like to reduce comment to one minute my apologies to those people who are online who wanted to speak for two but we do have um we're in a little bit of a time crunch here so um we'll give speakers on one minute matt f your microphone is now available board members my name is matt barrel i'm speaking today for friends of the rail and trail uh we submitted a letter to your um for your consideration we want to reiterate our support for the staff recommendation and we urge the board to pursue funding opportunities to bridge the project's budget gap this increase in cost is not only true of this project but of all capital projects including highway projects across our region and we also encourage you to pursue funding opportunities with regional transportation we have written a letter in support of the front race race funding grant application and we will continue to support those kinds of opportunities thanks for your time and support of moving this project forward ryan your microphone is now available hi this is ryan people's with trail now we uh we support what guide president former rtc executive director recommended years ago which is the intro trail and the reason he did that was because it's the fastest way he also stated at his last meeting that it would absolutely meet the scheduling requirements i hope you all remember that for building the trail the intro trail the issue is is you're trying to build a trail to accommodate a train that will never be approved by the california coastal commission because it violates the coastal act in the way of sea level rising and beach access and we all know that you just heard it from the consultant when he said that they have to get approval just for the trip you're basically going and spending all this time and money for a trail and it's delaying your look only 1.2 miles of the trail has been built in a decade and we're north coast we're still don't have that trail so we're going and we're trying to build this trail to accommodate a train that's never going to exist so we never get a trail so let's build the trail now interim trail thank you thank you johanna your microphone is now available thank you so much uh good afternoon supervisors um i've been reading the eir and i decided to go back and reread the the master plan um i what struck me is how far away we've moved from the original vision of the trail um the master plan was in vision and the estimates for such were about 18 million dollars for these segments 10 and 11 and today we find out it's um let's see 111 million dollars and despite the largest ATP grant ever awarded we're still short 28 million dollars uh so now that that we know the environmental cost of financial costs i think we should evaluate the benefits and what are the benefits of the ultimate trail is it a class one trail described as in the master plan no despite the great work by trail planners the constraints of the corridor cannot accommodate a trail that meets the minimum width requirements determined by uh caltrans even with design exceptions so thank you for your time thank you kami your microphone is now available hi good afternoon to all you there thank you very much for taking my call and i'm i apologize i'm a little under the weather that's why i couldn't be there so i'm not going to give you a lot of facts um you've already gotten all those facts you've got them from both sides um you know i live in castle mobile estates i live on the traps i know of what i speak and what i know of what i see from the tracks um and so i think a lot of the people who are actually wanting you to move forward right now don't really have the reality of what's going on the reality is it's going to encroach this alleged encroachment by rtc but it's going to encroach upon our lives tremendously and and i ask you with the supervisors to sit back and just think for a moment please if i was to live on the tracks how is this going to affect me and what decision would be best i am asking and imploring you to go ahead and go for the interim trail we all love the bikes and we love the walking and that's great so for that i ask you to do that thank you so very much thank you john your microphone is now available hey guys good afternoon this is my excellent well my time is up sorry but i'm just gonna get going uh i remember back to when the interim trail was through capitol the village and the ultimate trail was adjacent to the rail corridor over the trestle uh i still don't understand why that isn't the ultimate trail like as far as just the the semantics of it that seems like the proper word just that is our ultimate goal but whatever uh i don't really care about the trees greenway and we do not get along i'm really into math state and federal budgets are bleak and a grant awarded in a record surplus is a silly thing to rely on in the future uh every dollar spent on a train is one less dollar we spend on things like housing economic accessibility essential services uh making our environment more resilient so my solution is i think there's four of you sitting on that dais a two to split solves our current dilemma that's uh that's what i would recommend thank you david your microphone is now available uh good afternoon can you hear me okay yep okay yeah i'm david van brinkins of santa cruz uh sorry i'm dialing in today from bentonville arkansas where i'm literally just a few yards away from the world famous world class uh northwest arkansas razorback greenway i want to thank supervisor conic for clarifying on multiple occasions that is 2022 initiative measure d was specifically to select between the temporary trail and the ultimate trail configurations and uh we all voted enthusiastically for the permanent trail not the temporary one some residents homes have inadvertently trespassed onto rtc property understandably they may be worried or even panicky i do hope that you are reassuring these encroaching residents that although they are definitely in violation that you and the county will work with them and especially the park managers to resolve and minimize their disruption when we move forward with this project as recommended by our esteemed staff of planners and engineers and as selected by the voters we're really looking forward to our rail trail our very own santa cruz greenway thanks very your microphone is now available thank thank you very much this is barry scott i'm in aptus and i uh i'm asking that the supervisors you unanimously approve all eight recommended actions uh in this agenda item um and i'm not going to repeat others uh talking points i do want to add something new though and that is we uh the city of santa cruz enjoys a great deal of completed trail and the uh city of watsonville only has about 18 percent of its uh well less than half of its segment 18 completed and i only hope that uh the rtc with the support of supervisors and the order supervisors and county public works uh take every effort to complete segment 18 because it it's just not fair that the city of santa cruz has something like 70 percent of its trail segments done while watsonville waits for trail completion so go for it vote yes thank you very much that's all then your microphone is available then for nasa your microphone is now available as a reminder it is star there we go go ahead uh i've written about this and to you in a report you should read it but the final design in the ir for the ultimate trail creates a public nuisance from the standpoint of safety and i've written about that it's not in with the master plan which calls for cal trans class one and that's a problem you better be careful as a board as you move forward that you you're aware of this and that you don't get future liability for the county now now um the other thing that i recommend is that you have an independent safety review to ensure the final i a ir meets cal trans standards especially for width and concrete walls thank you please read my report to you we have no further speakers okay thank you everyone who commented on this item and for your participation today i'd like to bring it back to staff um to see if maybe you can provide some uh response to some of the concerns that been raised especially as it relates to the mobile home park who i think we've heard from a lot today yes thank you um so i think as everyone is aware that the mobile homes are encroaching under our c property and as the the the challenge in this area is the the right of way is is very constrained in some cases this is why it is 35 feet and others it goes down to 32 feet so it's very difficult to fit both the the trail and the railroad tracks in this corridor so that that requires using in much of segment 10 you know the entire corridor to fit both in in the um in the right of way we did as part of the environmental review process locate the ultimate trail up against the edge of the right of way purposely to provide environmental clearance for you know the entire right of way so um and and the rtc is is working to resolve those encroachments as part of a separate process so they're not they're not the removal of encroachments is not being handled as part of this project however my understanding is that uh there's there's been some conversations at the rtc about um modifying the design to reduce impacts to property owners so if we get that um direction and request from the rtc then then we would work with the rtc to to look at ways in to modify the design to reduce impacts on encroachments i i think it's i think it's reasonable to say at this point that there's not going to be a way to modify the design to remove all impacts to encroachments there's just not enough space in the in the corridor to do that but um you know if we get direction from the rtc to to modify the design to reduce impacts to encroachments we can we can look at that great and i just want to say that i'd appreciate the fact that you know there is an opportunity to through the rtc to address some of these potential negative impacts and so for those folks who spoke today specific to those impacts i would just encourage you all to you know continue to pay attention when this item's on the rtc board's agenda and to express your concerns to rtc members because there there could be a way that we can resolve some of the concerns that were raised before us today um i guess i'll just share some comments and feedback first i just really want to appreciate um everyone who's worked so hard on this and for all the information that was provided to us today on this item based on those staff's report and the staff presentation it does appear that the ultimate trail is the best option for consideration here today and i just want to reflect on some of what i heard which is that you know we really want to be respectful of the voters who voted on measure d to move forward with the rail and trail option and i think it's you know really important and it's our responsibility to continue to honor and respect the vote that was made at that point in time when we think about equity and we we talk about equity you know if we delay action today there's a good chance that this is going to jeopardize one of the largest grants that we've been able to receive in the history of the state of california for this kind of project and what that means is if we jeopardize that funding we will be putting to waste a lot of past funding that's been used on this project it will jeopardize our ability to get future funding and um and i think that's a real concern when it comes to equity because what that means is we will have here in north county we will have segments that are completed and it's going to jeopardize the potential to have segments in south county for residents down there and so i think it's really critical that we continue to move forward with the staff recommendation today and so that we are demonstrating to the state of california we're demonstrating to the voters that when we receive these kinds of funds we're going to use them responsibly and we're going to demonstrate that this is why state and federal government should give us more money to help us back fill these gaps in my experience um and i'll just you know as it relates to another issue that um i spoke about earlier with going with the city of santa cruz to discuss um funding for homelessness at the state level the number one thing that they appreciated was that we're moving forward that we're not trying to delay our projects and i think in this case we need to continue to demonstrate that we are able to use funds responsibly when the state provides them to us and we need to leverage the projects that we've completed to be able to show that you know we're capable of taking these funds and using them responsibly and so please help us within these um instances when we have these gaps in funding and then furthermore i just like to say that you know if we delay you know these decisions it also means that the cost of everything is going to go up at the same time so you know if we're saying well we don't have enough money right now we should delay it's like well the costs are just going to continue to go up over time so why should we use that as an excuse to delay rather than continue to move forward and as snap has mentioned um they're looking for creative ways to help backfill some of these gaps and i think that we should allow staff the opportunity to really go out and explore other funding options explore ways that we can reduce costs but continue to move forward so that we're not you know wasting money and allowing for the cost of this ultimate real option to go up over time and then i'd also be concerned if we you know pull rail out because um the voters definitely said that they didn't want that to happen and i could see us you know getting sued potentially if we decide to go against the voters will and so um for me i'd be happy to entertain a motion to move forward the staff's recommendation on this item so you made a motion no i can't make a motion okay um you know i think ultimately we're approving a EIR right it's not really a business plan or a concept report and i'd like to see us move forward and you know not delay the process um you know i i think i i want to see the projects in south county happen but i'm also concerned about future projects i'd like to see highway one i mean 152 get its road diet in south county uh it's a future future project that needs funding right and so i want to make sure that happens and you know i want to see that one one day that highway nine will have protected bike lanes or a sidewalk on one side so those are things that i'm also concerned about the future and so for that and because i i believe in this process that we're doing and this project um to be a more sustainable multimodal project uh i'm going to go ahead and move uh to adopt the findings all finding statements of dr for segment 10 and 11 including options b and all riparian exceptions in including all the permits agreements and all related actions so is that essentially moving the staff recommendation yes staff recommendation she's even motion for the staff recommendation so second i'll go ahead and second the item and then i'll open up for further um discussion from board members any further discussion okay seeing none we'll bring it to a roll call the supervisor konig no uh hernandez yes midferson and comings yes so that motion fails or that motion that motion fails on that item i so we'll bring it back to the board for uh motion yeah i um again i just uh this is no um hit on the work that's been done uh it had to be done but we're finding out more information which but um i think that um well i would like to make a motion that we accept the staff recommendations on one and two that's the public hearing today and the certification of the uh segments 11 uh 10 and 11 final eir uh but with additional direction to one investigate the options to reduce the rail size at escalona gulch to preserve more trees and reduce the more severe environmental impacts a resolution to the ongoing discussions with roaring camp regarding various options to reduce costs and a resolution to working with the regional transportation commission on value engineering and design again to reduce costs um and then lastly to request that the rtc provide a written analysis regarding the impacts to the 68 million dollar measure d active transportation program fund associated with the funding request from both the county and the city of san jacuzzi to finish the north county segments of the trail we move that that motion all second so the motion by supervisor mic first and second advise from riser county i just like to get some clarification on the motion that's before us and just want to see if staff can provide some information on and how that's how that differs from the staff recommendation because i know that within the staff recommendation that um you know there's executing agreements there's um the sorry i'm just looking through this because there's the statements of overriding consideration that needs to be incorporated it's not just the um the eir so i just want to understand how this the the recommendation that's before us is differs from what's been recommended um yes thank for that question so if we're just approving recommended actions number one and number two you would certify the ar but you would not um you would not complete the uh california violent review process so there would be no adoption of findings and no statement of overriding considerations so you would not so we would have to come back and and do that um at a later point for the board and then there'd be no approval of the project and this would prevent us from obviously signing the baseline agreement and moving forward with the grant funding um and and some of the actions requested here i anticipate um taking some time particularly working with rowing camp um to resolve the railway location so it's hard for me to anticipate the amount of time required to complete these um these um uh directions from the board but it definitely would mean we're not going to the ctc in june to request additional grant funding okay that's a great comment thank you um what i would move a friendly amendment that we include item three then recommended action three i believe that's what would be required to basically complete the environmental impact report process i think our consultant has done an excellent job and provided us at least the information we need uh as far as these various options um you know i'd be part of why i seconded the motion is i think okay let's let's not delay as far as the environmental impact report let's get that behind us um but you know before we go ahead and um basically make a commitment to ourselves and to and to caltrans that this project is funded uh i think we need to actually determine well what are the options for value engineering uh what is roaring camp willing to do i mean that's a huge piece of it this eight million dollars of track relocation we need a hard answer not not a we'll work with you answer we need like we're going to commit two to four million dollars or this much time to move those tracks um matt i heard i finished with a question which is why why can't we make june if we get some of these answers back sooner rather than later great question um the the baseline agreement is signed by caltrans and it takes two to three months to complete the process once once we have signed it on our end so um there's just not enough time to to make any changes right now we're we're down to the wire as we are to make the june ctc meeting so delaying uh delaying the baseline agreement is is is delaying the grant the grant funding and i'll just share too because um myself and grace and and staff from the city of sanacruz have been involved with roaring camp in these discussions and they they excuse me they have been open to to conducting the the rail relocation work um as as the rail operator to remove the cost from the project obviously we haven't completed negotiations yet but i would say so far they've been a willing partner in in those discussions so if we don't make june do we make um august to be honest with you i haven't i'm not i'm so focused on june i don't have a i'm not sure when the next ctc meeting would be they're generally quarterly so i think it would be october um we'd have to submit a an extension request for the grant funding to allow them to push back allocation to to october and then as i mentioned previously we're now we're talking um reducing the amount of time that we have to complete the final design a right of way by three to four months which is it's going to prove challenging for the project schedule so any questions i don't know further questions i just like to ask um um so it sounds like there's a friendly amendment to add number three that correct but i'm just wondering what the rest of the i mean there's another eight um recommendations here and i'm just trying to better understand how these all kind of fit in with one another because it sounds like we're just moving one two and three then how do the other five um staff recommendations that we're not incorporating how does that impact our ability to move forward with this project because i mean it seems like this there's if we don't do this properly there's a potential that this is going to kill the project or it's at least going to delay it substantially which could ultimately also result in significant negative impacts of this project and so i just like to better understand as we're moving into this vote how these recommendations are going to share share if i may just provide a little information shouldn't it but after june the next meeting is august 15th thank you okay and it's june 27th so a month and a half correct i i don't anticipate being able i mean i think i think the questions that we're trying to answer as part of this this this new motion are our big questions honestly and i know the 27 28 million dollars that we need for this project it is is a huge question mark but the reason we presented the recommended actions in the way that we did was to say let's go to the rtc now let's get a commitment to fund the project let's not risk this grant funding let's not go to the ctc and say hey you know we we committed to coming to you in june to request this additional funding actually we're not going to make it now you know there's now there's question marks on our ability to deliver to this project and there is frankly there's a lot of there's two years for us to now to work with the rtc to go after additional grant funding to work with rowing camp to reduce costs for the project to work with the design team to value engineer the project so the the idea here is is not to say we're going to use all 28 million dollars of measure d funding for this project we're we're going to look for additional ways to save costs this just gets us to deliver the project and to move forward with the grant funding in a way that doesn't like many of many of you have said risk our grant our grant money and i guess that's my biggest concern with the recommendations before us if we're able to move forward and then incorporate you know some of these resolutions to reduce costs it sounds like that's the biggest concern right now is the reduction of cost and it sounds like we're moving forward the ultimate trail and so i'm just wondering if there's an opportunity for us to not delay because by leaving out some of these other pieces it's going to it's really uncertain how this is going to impact the funding correct and so there could be an opportunity for us to move forward and then also you know with resolutions to reduce costs working with rgc to reduce costs getting this written analysis i mean i'm just wondering if there's an opportunity for us to do to have a win-win here with these because that sounds like what is the concern is so with that seeing no further comments from board members i guess we'll just take this to a roll call Supervisor Koenig hi Hernandez hi McPherson hi incoming no so that motion passes with Supervisor McPherson Hernandez Koenig voting in favor and Supervisor Cummings voting in opposition and so with that that concludes this item i'm really hoping that we can continue moving forward with this project and that we're not going to jeopardize the funds for this project because i know that many voters and folks in our community have been really expecting this to move forward expeditiously but just want to thank everybody for their work on this and we will return to this item at a future date and so thank you staff for your presentation thank you members of the community for coming out and speaking on this item and with that we do have a 130 certain item i know we've been sitting here all day non-stop so maybe if we can take a five-minute break for folks to use the bathroom then we'll come back and we'll continue forward moving forward we have working much recording stopped i can do it again okay so the next item on our agenda is to conduct a study session on housing for a healthy Santa Cruz strategic framework to prove memorandum of understanding for a homeless housing assistance and prevention program round five grant funding ratify mou with county of Monterey for state encampment resolution project and take related actions and they turn this over to staff from our human services department for presentation on this item okay good afternoon supervisor of chaircomings and board members know it's been a long day for you today um and this is also a really critical item for our community i'm randy morris i'm the human services department director i'm going to make some introductory comments and then i'm going to turn it over to robert ratner the director of our housing for health division who will go through a formal powerpoint presentation i want to make sure you're bored in the community watching is aware that we are at an important juncture in our work in this county that we are completing the first three-year strategic plan that the county has ever put into place while we pivot today to requesting your board to approve a next three-year strategic plan which this round is required by the state in order to be eligible for certain state funding the division started uh just over three years ago when i was transferred from the CAO's office to human services um so robert and i have been here for three years giving your board six month um report ins on our progress obviously during a very complicated time with the worldwide pandemic and a lot of COVID related funding that came into place and also a number of disasters that sort of were a conflation with the unsheltered crisis in our community and i just want to take a few moments to comment on a number of accomplishments that have occurred in the last three years but very mindful and humbled about the many many challenges that still sit in front of us first i want to highlight because of COVID pandemic funding we sheltered over 1000 people for well over a year during the COVID room key um events it showed that when the federal and state government steps in to take seriously the unsheltered crisis to help support their health um we can stand up effective shelters we also housed over 900 people many of whom were moved out of those shelters and we showed through those efforts that on top of previous efforts and accomplishments before this division started i think there were nearly 500 people um housed thanks to the support of the housing authority we added another 900 this was done through housing authority vouchers landlord incentives and supports that your board approved in a large um wave of funding and also a number of social workers that we put in place to help support the people who are in those COVID um shelter systems i also want to take a minute to highlight and appreciate the county administrative office and your board and the board prior to you that when this division started we had a combination of some analysts from the CAO's office who joined a couple of analysts and human services which told of the mighty five people trying to address homelessness in sanikers county and thanks to your board and a lot of creative effort and funding and leveraging of state and federal money we've been able to grow the division to 20 people today i want to highlight that that has been over three million dollars of new general fund that your board has approved over a three-year period and with that investment you got a over four-time return in the number of federal and state grants we've been able to secure to help expand our system mindful it is still not enough i also want to take a minute to highlight my first year i got here before the office transferred over there were so many systemic problems and infrastructure issues with how our county responded to homelessness this is a little bit of boring insider government speak but just to recognize the work that's been done i just want to highlight a couple of major system reforms we've established first we now actually have a fully transparent public brown act government continuum of care called the housing for health partnership which has elected officials and community members supervisors comings and conics are members of that group which better integrates and collaborates the work of your board and that local co c we have a much more robust data system through the homeless management information system a lot of what robert is able to report on is because of better data infrastructure we also have a much more refined referral system into the system was a bit chaotic before it's much more organized we now recently have a lived experience board people who have in our experiencing homelessness who are giving us perspective through a process and much broader communications with the community through our website a lot of data dashboards and newsletters but many many challenges remain i want to start with the number one and that is this is in large part a response to a affordable housing crisis that is arguably 50 years in the making it is next to impossible to afford housing in most high cost communities when you are on ssi or low income and so the work we do is often nibbling around the edges of what has only been solved here locally with housing authority vouchers and we have been successful in penetrating the private rental market with that but without that finding a way to bridge the gap of what it costs to live in this community and many in california is truly an affordable housing crisis that social services have limitations in affecting second i have said this many times i think it's worth repeating i'm a professional in the field of human services for almost three decades now and when i look at human services safety net funding it is very stable and very predictable and therefore we have a stable safety net addressing poverty and abuse in homelessness the funding is almost entirely unpredictable almost entirely built on one-year grants we follow the money available to us but only about five percent of the budget that roberts division manages is affordable and stable and we will talk more about that today why we have an opportunity to invest some more stable funding into the system and my last comment about the challenges is i think it's unfortunate in our country in our state for sure the amount of politics and narratives that are getting created around this problem tends to generate and evolve into who's at fault who to shame who to blame local government says it's the feds in the state the feds say the state needs to do more and our governor unfortunately who has invested a lot of money in so solving this spends a lot of time saying he has solved everything in local governments the problem that is not our experience and we hope that these reports shed light on why and the last and this gets to one of the specific items for today in the chaos of unstable funding and the crisis that surrounds us opportunities to have thoughtful careful targeted trade-off discussions about the choices we have to make often don't happen so often decisions get made in response to a particular thing and the whole larger system we're trying to build up is compromised so hopefully today we'll get a little more focused on what i mean uh chaircomings listed the recommended actions and i want to end my introductory comments by just focusing on one because it's a little bit unique and that is recommended action number five and what it asks your board so it could be very clear what we're asking or not asking is really an approval in concept and the approval and concept has two items one is measure k passed by the voters in santa cruse county creates a new revenue stream of local money that we did not have unti