On Thursday, November 25th, tens of thousands of people yet again took to the streets of Sudan. Now they were protesting an agreement between the military which had recently staged a coup and the deposed Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdoq. Now this is a bit unusual because the agreement actually provided for the reinstatement of the Prime Minister. Yet, according to the protesters, this was a betrayal of the democratic process that started in Sudan in December 2018 and culminated in the revolution that overthrew Omar al-Bashir. So what is this all about? We'll be talking about this on Mapping Fault Lines. We have with us Prabir Pulkai. Prabir, like I said, it's a strange situation because you have a coup followed by the deposed Prime Minister signing an agreement with the military according to which he's going to come back but lead a technocratic government. So it's a difficult mix to analyze. So could you maybe take us through what exactly is the process here? Well, I think it's a difficult mix to analyze as you said because as you point out, the Prime Minister was deposed and then he has been brought back but not the cabinet though it was still a government in which the military had representation. Only he has been brought back and he'll be heading a government essentially rubber stamp for the military ruler. So I don't think that he has really got the levers of power within. Given what the others have said, almost all the other forces who are on the streets fighting against the military dictatorship earlier, military rule earlier and also after the recent overthrow of the government of Hamdouk, it does not seem people accept this as a legitimate coming down by the military. Yes, it is some kind of an attempt to placate the... Is it to placate the external powers or is it to placate the people who have moved to the streets? That's a real question. To me, looking at the correlation of forces appears that most of the internal forces have not accepted this. They think Hamdouk has betrayed them, betrayed essentially what you call the 2018 overthrow of machine and the processes that followed. It seems to be an attempt to placate the Americans and the Europeans who had been saying don't do this because it gives a very bad optics to what's happening in Sudan. So you have to make some placatory gestures. So it seems to be more a gesture than a real re-approchement with the civilian government that was there earlier. So I think civilian government, of course, as I said, was also... It would be misnomer. But at least it is a recognition that the military had lost power in some significant sense. And now it had taken complete power. This is again a situation of unsteady equilibrium if we will. But I think it's also very clear that Sudan is not going to be placated by such gestures. To cut Hamdouk's credibility even further, one of the military generals, I think Dagalo, has said that actually Hamdouk knew about the coup that was to take place, which was to depose him. Though he was held in the house arrest after the deposition, after being deposed. So all of this doesn't add to Hamdouk's credibility. And if you see the major forces who are on the streets, who are leading the struggle, they have denounced Hamdouk and they have said, this we do not accept and we want a return to full civilian rule. So Hamdouk's promise is in 2020-23 there will be free elections and then all this will be over. I don't think people believe that 2023 promise has any credibility. So I think we'll have to see how it develops. It's still the initiative rests with the forces against the military rulers. And I think the initiative has not by this changed significantly. And of course there's been a long history of betrayed promises over the past two years, especially for instance there was a promise that a parliament would be set up that was never set up so you can't blame the people. So could you also maybe take us to the strategic importance? You mentioned the need to placate Western powers, the United States, European Union and all that. But what is also the kind of regional significance of Sudan and the kind of geopolitics that's happening there? See, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia have been the horns of Africa countries. So of course Djibouti is an outlier over there. It is a small state let so to say. Now this is important because it controls the Red Sea. Now that is the pipeline, lifeline so to say connecting Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. And if you see that of course U.S. is then the line that connects Red Sea to Mediterranean. So there is a great deal of strategic importance to the horns of Africa, the horns of Africa. That's been there right from the beginning for a long time. We have talked about it. The U.S. attitude towards the horn of Africa has been there. It's very much a part of the way they look at West Asia itself. But cutting across all of that, all the countries in horn of Africa are now under different kinds of civil wars. So we have a failed state, Somalia. We are now seeing the earlier civil war, North and South Sudan, which was again the Americans instigated, the Western powers instigated. They wanted the Sudanese oil region to be independent of North Sudan. Now you also have civil war in Ethiopia. All of this shows that if you really want to control countries from the top using whatever levers of power you have, that does not really ring true with the people. And long-term stability means that the people need a democratic setup where they have what they feel should happen, does happen. Not what the donors may feel, what Americans may feel backed by the military power they have. So I think it's a long, continuous process in which you see the emergence of increasingly of failed states. The other part of it, and this is also related to the Horn of Africa countries, is of course dismantling of Libya and Gaddafi. Gaddafi was a support to the African Union. He was the one who really propped up the African Union because he had enough petrodollars to fund African Union's budget. After he fell, African Union has ceased to really be a power. So Africa's internal ability to really play a role in these kind of conflicts has gone down significantly. So if we look at it, I think we are looking at a long period of instability through which internal forces have to emerge which can re-establish a democratic state in these parts of the world. And Sudan seems to be one of the first which has challenged the military and challenged the military very successfully for the last more than two years. So I think Sudan is the country to watch whether it can create a new future in the Horn of Africa. Right, and it's interesting because the contrast is of course in Egypt where there was a similar process ten years ago but with the aid of the United States and the allies of the military and Abdul Fateh Al-Sisi are now in control. But you mentioned Ethiopia which is again significant because there have been new developments. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has apparently moved to the battle front to lead soldiers from the front as he says. This has been a conflict that has been going on for over a year now and there have been claims that the rebels, the Tigray People's Liberation Front are close or 200 kilometers away from Adi Sababa. They're trying to cut the large part of the country from Djibouti port which is very important. So could you maybe also take us through the conflict there in this context? Again the history of the conflict is of course the Tigray Liberation Front, what it is today. Did control the government from quite some years. I think from 1990 to about 2012 it was led by one of the strong leaders. After that led again Tigray forces really led the next government also till Abiy Ahmed took over. Though he was a weaker ruler than the earlier Janawi's government. So you have the issue that Tigray has dominated Ethiopian government for the last almost 30 years. And it is ethnically still only 7% of the population. So there has been increasingly a feeling of alienation that they don't represent us. This ethnic divisions always have laid at the surface of most African countries because these are all colonial constructs. Though Ethiopia can say we have been a very old ancient kingdom. The reality is those kingdoms do not correspond to today's what would be called the identities that people claim for themselves. And Ethiopia they have not come out of any anti-colonial struggles unlike for instance in Kenya. The identity was formed around anti-colonial struggles in Ghana again formed against anti-colonial struggles. So Ethiopia had this mixed bag of ethnicities and those ethnicities have only widened over the last 30-35 years. Eritrea was of course the province which broke away from Ethiopia, fought a long civil war. And Abiyah Ahmad finally recognized that they have to part company and they reached an agreement for which he got the Nobel Prize as well. Now we are seeing a brutal civil war break out in Ethiopia again. There are no good sides over here during wars of this kind atrocities take place and are taking place across the line. The question for the United States again which sees itself as the overseer of Ethiopia which it really was particularly over the last couple of decades if not more. What the US is now facing is how does it hold the country together and what can it do with Abiyah Ahmad, the TPLF, how they can bring them to a table together and still make the country hold. It doesn't look like that is feasible and again because the internal processes have never been strong therefore there is this problem. There is a further problem with Egypt regarding this grand dam that Ethiopia is building on the Nile and that has problems with Sudan as well as in Egypt. So we have a further issue over there but that's not what is right now in the center of things. I think what we are going to see is increasingly a bloody civil war in which whether the TPLF can regain power. That doesn't look so likely because it doesn't seem that they have that kind of credibility to win a civil war of this nature that we are seeing unfold at the present moment. Abiyah Ahmad will he hold power? Will he be able to defeat the TPLF? Not so clear because the TPLF has at least from reports 250,000 people on the ground. They have arms. They have relatively a well armed force by which they can wage such war. There is also a third party here Eritrea and we have to see what they do because Eritrea has conflicts with both TPLF and it could also have a conflict with Ethiopia depending on what Abiyah Ahmad and they decide. So will it develop into a three-cornered war? We don't know. There are tensions between TPLF and Eritrean forces. That is something yet to be watched. So will we see a breakaway of for instance certain parts of Ethiopia? There is a part of Ethiopia which is close to Somalia. Ethnically they feel themselves more Somalians and Ethiopians. But again Somalia is a failed state. So again what do they do over there is a question. So I think we are going to see instability in this region for some more time till there is a genuine popular forces who come out to say we need peace and we need re-approachment. That at the moment doesn't seem to be happening. What we are seeing still are strong leaders who are fighting over what they consider as their share of the state. And Ethiopia is not a marginal player. It is one of the largest populous countries in Africa, particularly in North Africa. It had also developed quite a bit in the last few decades. So this is very unfortunate that we see now civil wars in the two countries which had some semblance of state, particularly Ethiopia. And they might all follow in the direction of Somalia. So this destabilization of the entire Horn of Africa I think doesn't portend well for the rest of the world. Of course not for Africa. Thank you so much Prabir. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching NewsClick.


Okay, we're back to wrap up Falcon 2022 CrowdStrike's customer event. You're watching theCUBE, my name is Dave Vellante. My co-host Dave Nicholson is on Injured Reserve today, so I'm solo. But I wanted to just give the audience a sense as to some of my quick takeaways. I really haven't given a ton of thought on this. We'll do a review after we check out the videos and the transcripts and do what we do at SiliconANGLE on theCUBE. I'd say the first thing is, the CrowdStrike continues to expand its footprint. And it's adding the identity module through the preempt acquisition. Working very closely with managed service providers, MSSPs, managed security service providers. Having an SMB play, so CrowdStrike has 20,000 customers. I think it could 10x that over some period of time. As I've said earlier, it's on a path by mid-decade. It'd be a $5 billion company in terms of revenue. At the macro level, security is somewhat, I'd say it's less discretionary than some other investments. You can probably hold off buying a new storage device, you can maybe clean that up. You might be able to hold off on some of your analytics. But at the end of the day, security is not completely non-discretionary. It's competing. The CISO is competing with other budgets. While it's less discretionary, it is still not an open checkbook for the CISO. Now having said that, from CrowdStrike's standpoint, it has an excellent opportunity to consolidate tools. It's one of the biggest problems in the security business. Go to Optiv and check out their security taxonomy. It'll make your eyes bleed. There's so many tools and companies that are really focused on one specialization. But really, what CrowdStrike can do with its 22 mods is to say, hey, we can give you ROI and consolidate those. And not only is it risk reduction, it's lowering the labor cost and labor intensity so you can focus on other areas and free up the biggest problem that CISOs have. It's the lack of enough talent. So really strong business value and value proposition. A lot of that is enabled by the architecture. We've talked about this. You can check out my breaking analysis that I dropped last weekend on CrowdStrike and can it become a generational company? But it's really built on a cloud native architecture. George Kurtz and company, they shunned having an on-premise architecture, much like Snowflake, Frank Slutman has said, we're not doing a halfway house. We're going to put all our resources on a cloud native architecture. The lightweight agent that allows them to add new modules and collect more data and scale out. The purpose-built threat graph and time series database and asset graph that they've built and very strong use of AI to not only stop known malware, but stop unknown malware, identify threats, do that curation and really support the SECOP teams. Product-wise, I think the big three takeaways and there were others, but the big three for me is EDR extending into XDR, you know, X is the extending for, in really the core of endpoint detection and response, extending that further. While it seems to be a big buzzword these days, CrowdStrike I think is very focused on making a more complete, a holistic offering beyond endpoint and I think it's going to do very well in that space. You're not alone. There are others, it's very competitive space. The second is identity. Through the acquisition of preempt, CrowdStrike building that identity module, partnering with leaders like Okta to really provide that sort of treating identity if you will as an endpoint. And then sort of Humeo is now Falcon log scale, bringing together the data and the observability piece and the security piece. It's kind of the three big product trends that I saw. I think the last point I'll make before we wrap is the ecosystem. The ecosystem here is good. It reminds me, I said a number of times this week of ServiceNow in 2013. I think the difference is CrowdStrike has an SMB play. It can go after many more customers and actually have an even broader platform. And I think it can accelerate its ecosystem faster than ServiceNow was able to do that. I mean, it's got to be sort of an open and collaborative sort of ecosystem. ServiceNow is kind of more of a one-way street. And I think the other piece of that ecosystem that we see evolving into IoT, into the operations technology and critical infrastructure, which is so important because critical infrastructure of nations is so vulnerable. We're seeing this in the Ukraine. Security is a key component now of any warfare. And going forward, it's always going to be a key component. Nation states are going to go after trust or secure infrastructure or critical infrastructure, try to disable that and disrupt that. So securing those operation assets is going to be very critical, not just the refrigerator and the coffee maker, but really going after those critical infrastructures getting asked to break. And the last thing I'll say is the developer platform, we heard from Amal that the opportunity that's there to build out a pass layer, super pass layer, if you will, so that developers can add value. I think if that happens this ecosystem, which is breaking down, will explode. This is Dave Vellante, wrapping up at CrowdStrike Falcon 2022 Falcon 2022. Go to siliconangle.com for all the news. Check out the cube.net. You'll see these videos on demand and many others. Check out wikibot.com for all the research and look for where we'll be next. Of course, reinvent is the big fall event, but there are many others in between. Thanks for watching. We're out.


levy. In the face of all the other things this county has to do to meet the needs for public service. We do not have, I believe, the willingness of the public to pass such a tax measure. The tax measure was to make what we have now available useful for public use in terms of transportation. And I think that's what the RTC is working for. And I think that's what it will provide. But the public really does need to know how much some of these options will cost if we're gonna actually take advantage of it. And someone mentioned earlier, it has to be a realistic option to replace the Capitola's trestle. And I'm not necessarily saying, I don't wanna do it because I love the trestle. I'm thinking totally in terms of cost. And having been a finance person for a Capitola for a while, I believe that has way beyond the capacity of the electorate in Santa Cruz County. So I don't mind supporting what Andy has put on. And one reason why I don't is because Guy said that this is totally the same. And it's what the staff direction was gonna be after this was passed. So those are my comments. Thank you. Commissioner Rack and you're up next. I just wanna say really quickly, I understand people's strong feelings about this and a desire to provide some explanation about how we're seeing this decision we're making today within the bigger picture. And I just wanna remind us that the question on the floor is related specifically to what next step we're gonna take with respect to the trestle. Commissioner Rotkin. So the concern about freight is not because some of us think there's likely to be freight or we're all excited about how quickly we're gonna get it or willing to spend billions of dollars to get it because we have a legal obligation and the current situation that we're in to consider the maintenance of freight possibilities on this line and should be failed to consider those things. Think about this for a moment. We risk losing this right of way for any of our purposes, a trail, passenger service or anything that we might feel more passionate about. So our concern about freight is not because we're idiots and think that somehow we're gonna have freight there next week. It's because we're concerned about the legal obligation we have as a rail provider under federal law to move ahead on this issue. And so the idea of ignoring freight and pretending like it's, we don't want it or so we're making an absolute statement we're not gonna study it, it's not in our future. It's not, we're not bringing it back. It's not gonna happen. But it's a huge legal risk. And so I think we're trying to be fiscally responsible without the situation that we find ourselves in. And I'll just echo Jock's comment in terms of like the motion that's on the floor. I'm not arguing for or against the overall approach. I'm still rolling around about it and stuff. But I'll just say if you add some language that clarifies something and the staff tells you that it doesn't undermine their intent, you should take it a face value and understand what it takes to get votes to get a majority on something. It's as simple as that. And again, if the staff were to say, no, you add that it's gonna totally undo our intent and we're gonna move in the wrong direction under minus. And yeah, then you wouldn't wanna support additional language but the staff's already made clear that all it does is clarify what they were intending to do anyway, thank you. Commissioner Koenig, your hand was up and I see that it's down. Did you wanna jump in here?  Thank you, yeah. I wanted to clarify, I mean, the one in reading the Commissioner Schifrin's proposed motion, the only confusion I had a little bit was, it says proceed with the prioritization of the pre-construction activities needed to rehabilitate the existing timber and wrought iron bridges for the trail only light rail and freight rail options. In Ms. Christensen's report, she explained that we gotta rehabilitate the timber for all three options. When it comes to the wrought iron bridges, we've gotta redo the bearings for all three options. For freight, we would have to look at replacing the wrought iron bridge. So I'm assuming that that's not being contemplated that we're adding that, it's just clarification that what staff had proposed before study of replacing the bearings and the timbers that applies to all three options. And we're not contemplating adding additional pre-construction work for replacing the wrought iron bridge entirely. I would agree to that clarification. Okay, thank you. And the seconder? Yeah, that's fine with me. Okay, thank you.  Yes, I think I hope we're ready to vote, but I just wanted to clarify why I think it's important to add the language that I added. I think there has been some confusion and given the intensity of feeling around this issue, there will continue to be confusion. The motions represent the commission's formal action. Those go into the record. Things that are said by staff or commissioners are things that are said by staff or commissioners, but they're not the official action of the commission. And I think given the confusion around this issue and the fact that the added language simply clarifies what the staff intended all along, I think that will be helpful in terms of members of the public irrespective of their point of view, understanding what exactly the commission is doing today. So if possible, I would call for the question. Oh, no. I don't think we need to take a vote on that because I do not see any more hands up. So I'll save us the time there and if folks are prepared to vote now, ask for a roll call vote on the motion on the floor. Commissioner Ramirez. I agree. Commissioner Brown. Aye. Commissioner Randy Johnson. No. Commissioner Eduardo Montecino. Yes. Commissioner Alternate Hernandez. Yes. Commissioner Alternate Schifrin. Aye. Commissioner Alternate Quinn. Yes. Commissioner Koenig. Aye. Commissioner Alternate Johnson. Yes. Commissioner Peterson. Aye. Commissioner Alternate Pegler. Yes. Commissioner Rodkin. Aye. One no. Okay, that motion passes. Almost unanimously. Okay, thanks everybody. We are gonna move on now to item 20 and this is a staff report on issues related to preservation of the Santa Cruz branch rail line. Madam Chair. Just could I clarify, would help I think if you clarify to the public that we're not intending, at least we're not being asked for action on this item today. Yes. And that might help the public to understand where we're going. And I assume that also, Mr. Preston will clarify as well what he is, why this is in front of us and so forth. Sure. Thank you, Commissioner Rodkin. Yes, this is an informational item. So as I said, staff report and Mr. Preston, I believe you will be giving us that report. That is correct. And Commissioner Rodkin is correct as well. This is an informational item. Only there is no action requested by the commission other than to hear this report and receive public comment. This is a report on the preservation of the Santa Cruz branch rail line. Our current approach to preserving the branch line has to maintain the corridor for heavy freight and recreational passenger rail service while developing a trail adjacent to the freight easement. When financially viable, it has been assumed that RTC would eventually environmentally clear design and construct a light meter passenger rail system that would coexist with heavy freight and recreational rail totaling four potential transportation uses for this very valuable but constrained corridor. RTC negotiated an agreement with our freight operator to maintain the freight easement in exchange for the rights to operate heavy freight and recreational rail. However, RTC is responsible for the 2017 storm damage repairs as well as initial repairs to bridges, culverts and track before providing the operator with the responsibility to assume maintenance and for him also being responsible for recreational rail service. RTC completed work south of mile plus seven outside in the slew area. It's actually about the intersection of Buena Vista and San Andreas Road, but there's still significant work to do on the remainder of the line. Due to the extent of repairs needed on the branch line, staff anticipates the shortfall and funding and this is somewhat answering commissioner for trans questions earlier. The complete all initial repairs RTC may need to consider directing other regional funding to the rail line and or securing grant funds. While it is possible to secure competitive grant funds, not much is available for rail lines that do not have very much great service on them. But we do have some discretionary funding and a call for projects out right now and we can certainly direct more of our discretionary funds away from our other transportation uses and towards freight if that is the desire of the commission. Our freight operator wants out of our agreement with them, which obligates them to provide freight service on a reasonable demand. St. Paul and Pacific and their part of progressive rail claims that they cannot make the operations of freight using the profitably work under the terms of the ACL agreement. They also suggest that the current terms of the ACL agreement do not provide a viable structure for the engagement of passenger rail operator. RTC interviewed several parties that have shown interest in assuming freight rail on the line, but did not find a suitable replacement operator willing to assume the existing ACL agreement. Roaring Camp is currently providing freight service to Watsonville customers under a separate agreement with our contract rate operator, but up until now has not indicated a willingness to fund the maintenance of the full branch line freight easement as required by the existing ACL agreement. We do not have a contract with Roaring Camp, but I'm going to discuss this a little bit more later. So that's our current approach and status. We are still under contract with St. Paul and Pacific for freight and recreational rail, and we are working towards meeting our contractual requirements, including what we did in the last report, while considering alternatives to dealing with an operator who would like to get out of their contractual obligation. This has led to conversations about different approaches to preserving the rail line, and I'll now discuss a couple of those. So this is a discussion now about public-private partnerships and this is based on some proposals that we've received. RTC has received persistent interest by a small hydroelectric streetcar manufacturer called TIGM. TIGM informed RTC that they would like to form a public-private partnership for the right to develop commuter passenger rail on the line between Watsonville and Santa Cruz. That was their initial proposal. Staff has researched the viability of a P3 on the branch line. P3s are built on the concept that private money would help pay for some of the upfront costs. It is assumed that these upfront costs would be paid back over time, with revenue generated on the project. In the case of our branch line or a transit project, revenue can be earned from ticket sales and the four land rights for development. And we concluded that that's not recommended, that we shouldn't, that we don't recommend entering into a P3 arrangement until a project has been properly defined as part of the environmental process. And this is to keep major decisions that are important to the community and the control of local public officials, as opposed to in the hands of a private or profit enterprise. One thing that was clear from the proposal is that additional public funds will be needed, will be needed to make any future consideration of a P3 arrangement work on the branch line. Staff recommends that the commission defer seeking additional interest in a P3 arrangement until a time when passenger rail planning is better defined. TIGM is also the firm that plans to use the branch line for an upcoming demonstration of its rail cars. The demonstration is planned to be from Watsonville to just before the Watsonville Slough, railroad bridge for two days and from the boardwalk to Capitola for three days. So Roaring Camp has now partnered with TIGM to put on the demonstration and is currently inspecting bridges, signals, and track at these two isolated locations and will be responsible for making any additional repairs needed for the demonstration. The license agreement is still under negotiations, the FRA approval is tending and a date for the demonstration has still not been confirmed. Yesterday afternoon, I received a new proposal from TIGM which appears to be a variation of their previous P3 proposal and includes Roaring Camp. I have not had time yet to fully review the proposal but this new proposal is structured different and does not appear to include computer commuter passenger rail. Instead, this unsolicited proposal is to use their vehicles for a new recreational rail service between Capitola and Davenport. So only between Capitola and Davenport would continue freight service using Roaring Camp in Watsonville. Although Roaring Camp appears to be willing to assume responsibility for some routine maintenance, the new proposal states that RTC would be responsible for the cost of any structural damage beyond normal wear and tear on the line. Since there may be public or commission or interest in this proposal, I will ensure a copy is posted on our website. Now, the third part of my report is another strategy to preserving the rail corridor called rail bank. Rail banking allows a freight railroad corridor that would otherwise be abandoned to instead be preserved under federal legislation that was designed to protect the property rights associated with a freight rail corridor. If a line becomes abandoned and the railroad properties consist of easements for rail purposes, the use of those properties will revert back to the underlining property owners under California law. Rail banking prevents easements from reverting back to underlining property owners. Rail banking is separate from any decision to remove the rails and may provide certain benefits to the RTC, both in terms of trail development and also with respect to development of a robust and modern commuter rail service. First, let's talk about why rail banking would make it easier for the RTC to develop any sort of continuous trail on the branch line. Although the majority of the branch line is owned by fee, there are some easements and also gaps in our ownership documentation. There are also parties now have disputed whether we really own certain parcels in fee. As long as we are only operating a railroad, the distinction between fee or easement is not important, but it is a very important if we plan to develop a trail. When a railroad owns easements, the same property rights issues exist, regardless as to whether the trail replaces the rail or is built adjacent to the rail. Underlining landowners of rail easements can claim that rail easements do not include land rights for the purpose of a trail. However, if the corridor is rail bank, a trail can be built either adjacent to or in place of the rail line without the threat of easements reverting back to underlining property owners. Remember, a decision as to where to build the trail is separate from rail banking. Developing potential passenger rail service on the branch line also has compatibility challenges with freight. Active freight lines have special protections. Mutor rail cannot unreasonably interfere with freight service. Great rail standards are designed to support the size and weight of freight trains, which are larger and heavier than light rail cars. Rail banking does not prevent any rail option from proceeding, but will ease restrictions, lower costs and facilitate future operations of any future rail transit on the branch line, especially light rail. Rail banking would also allow the branch line to be repurposed for commuter passenger rail without needing to meet the federal standards for freight as long as the repurposing does not prevent the future potential reactivation of freight rail. And I think that's why so many of you keep asking that we look at that as part of our analysis in the previous staff report and we do plan to do that. Yes. On a day-to-day basis, RTC expends in a significant amount of time and expense coordinating to satisfy freight requirements, including meeting freight rail safety, insurance and operator requirements. Federal freight rail requirements have and will continue to complicate approval and add costs to virtually every operation and development opportunity that RTC considers for the branch line. And I can tell you that progressive rail has become extremely difficult to deal with. I've had to universally approve, laterally approve the crossing agreement at Parade Street and now they're refusing to provide a right to entry to our biologists to do inspections on the storm damage jobs. It is an enormous amount of work to deal with this as a freight railroad. Rail banking designates a trial sponsor who becomes responsible for maintaining and preserving the corridor in a manner that does not preclude a future potential reactivation of freight rail. Rals and ties are permitted to be removed, but could also remain in place. Rail banking is part of the abandonment process. If St. Paul and Pacific files for abandonment, which they indicated they're considering and reserve the right to do at any time, a potential trial sponsor would have 30 days to seek authority to negotiate a rail banking agreement subject to the approval of the STB. The parties would then have an initial one year period to negotiate an agreement. And our agreement with St. Paul requires that they cooperate with efforts to rail bank the corridor in lieu of complete abandonment. Rail banking can be prevented by another freight operator who is willing to assume financial liability of the line by providing and offer a financial assistant to assume the freight easement, the associated commentary or obligations and the maintenance obligation of the line. But due to the significant cost of work needed to restore the freight on the line, a legitimate OFA seems unlikely. Rail banking can also potentially be prevented by objections by freight line customers or the owners of a potential stranded line. The Felton branch line owned by Roaring Camp is part of the national freight rail network and would become stranded from the main line if the branch line were rail bank. The best path to rail banking is to have mutual support of all affected parties, including the freight operator, affected freight customers and the owner of potential stranded lines. Misconceptions about rail banking continue to persist. So I provided a back sheet with FAQs to address some of these issues and that's attached to my staff report. So in summary, staff continues to preserve the branch line, meeting our contractual obligations and we're doing so with a look at freight and recreational passenger railroad in accordance with the ACL agreement. And due to limited funding, staff is prioritizing initial repair projects based on safety and potential damage to property. The rail operator desires to terminate the ACL agreement but they prefer to do so by assigning the ACL agreement to another freight operator with a modified ACL agreement and I talked about that a little earlier. Again, there is no action needed by the commission today. We recommend that you receive this report, immunity input and consider and provide any direction that you may have regarding our approach and options for preserving the rail corridor. That concludes my report. Thank you, Mr. Preston. I am going to now open up for questions from commissioners and I believe that Commissioner Johnson, Jenny Johnson, you had your hand up first and then we'll go to you, Commissioner Bertrand. Thank you, chair. I appreciate it. Mr. Preston, your report says the STP will not refuse to issue a rail banking order based on third party objections about the desirability appropriateness of the proposed use. And when you say third party objections, are you referring to people who are, in other words, roaring camp who's a current short line operator or other kinds of third parties? Did you just explain that a little bit or clarify that a little bit? Yeah, I'm referring to other sorts of third parties. They're really interested in keeping the freight network together. And they serve more of a ministerial role as part of the abandonment and rail banking process. They really are not interested in getting involved in the local debate and they really wouldn't consider that there's a strong desire to rail bank. There's a reason to rail bank because they want to use the rail line as a trail. They also wouldn't consider objections if we've agreed to move forward in this direction from third parties that are interested in commuter rail because that's not what they're looking at protecting. They're looking at protecting freight rail. Thank you. And then could you expound a little bit about if or in camp as a current short line operator were to object to the RTC and abandonment action or some kind of action to rail bank and they were to object to that because they didn't want to be cut off from the system. Could you expound a little bit about what that would look like and what kind of process we would use to try to address that objection or move forward with our, if we wanted to rail bank with the STP, what would that look like? Well, like I said in my staff report, I mean the best way of moving forward would be to get all parties to agree but there are processes to try to force it to happen but they're not recommended. There's not a good crap record of moving forward with adverse abandonment. It's not easy and their objections would be heard and based on a case law, it doesn't appear as if this would be an easy process to do but I wouldn't necessarily say that it would be impossible. They do look at the viability of the line and the cost of the line and the viability of freight on the line and that's all that they're gonna look at and consider now of cost that we have on this line. We certainly could make arguments. It's not to say that those arguments are gonna be well received by the STB when they really wanna keep the freight network together and there's a party that's subjecting to it. Thank you, appreciate it. Commissioner Bertrand. You're muted, John. Thank you very much. So I'm trying to understand what the issues of Roaring Camp are. I understand that sometime in the past they purchased some equipment which they'd like to get up to San Lorenzo Valley and I can understand that that at the time they thought they'd be able to move the equipment. I'm not sure if the line was capable at that time but they would like to be able to do that. So I understand that. So my question, are there other ways to move that equipment short of the amount of money we'd have to spend to get the line up to standard to actually move the equipment? I just don't know if that's a possibility. It seems to me there's other stranded lines. Miles Canyon, I mean that's one I know, Skunk Railroad, well, I don't know Skunk's stranded but I mean, I know of others and they seem to be able to get their equipment. So I was just wondering if there's other means to do that. And you could, you could potentially move locomotive by truck, but it's not cool. It's not regular. I'm sure it's been done before but there's gonna be limitations on overhead clearance under bridges and we talked a lot about load rating on bridges earlier. Load rating on bridges, highway bridges to accommodate the locomotive. Whether it could be taken apart and put back together. I mean, there are possibilities for that. We have not done extensive research in it. It's not our area of expertise. Roaring camp as indicated that they don't think it can be done. So, you know, that's kind of where we stand right now. It's a question mark. You know, I find it a little bit outside of my position to try to figure that out right now. I would need the cooperation of Roaring camp and would be more willing to discuss it with them in further detail. Thank you. I mean, this is beyond my capability but I have to answer that question. It seems hard to believe that, you know, we'd be held responsible to run a line, you know, just on the option that sometimes Roaring camp would need to move something up to their camp. And, you know, hopefully there's other ways to satisfy those needs, maybe with our help. Thank you.  So, I want to just clarify with Guy Preston. When I look at the staff, I appreciate the staff report. I think it's clear and it's definitely advanced to the public to understand more about rail banking in which there was massive confusion on every side about what it means. I think it's not going to be gone at least we made a good stab here at trying to like make it clear what's going on. But my reading of the report leaves me, I tend to be an optimistic person but it leaves me somewhat pessimistic that we have any real out. I mean, pursuing it, as you said, our number one plan would be to try and pursue an agreement of all the parties and figure out, you know, what is, or maybe there's more than these two local motives that Jacques referred to. There's also the issue of use of the rail line to get to the boardwalk rather than the depot in Bicherry and Santa Cruz, which I think is a huge interest to them. I'm not going to negotiate in public with them right now about what that might be or something, but I have no objection to it. I think it'd be very great to try and see if we can work out a common agreement. But my reading of the report overall suggests pretty pessimistic outlook in which we're all in trouble. The people that want to have a trail, the people that want to have rail service soon rather than later and so forth.  We still wouldn't be able to do it without. And so my question has to do with, do people ever apply for a kind of a pre-reading from the surface transportation board?  I'm trying to, I'm just trying to, again, I don't think the public is quite aware of the precarious situation that we're in in terms of our ownership or like access to the corridor given this report. And it really makes it sound like the fight that we're having with each other is kind of, I don't want to be overstated, but pretty convenient, you know, it's lots of sound and fury, but I think in the end, perhaps signifying nothing in terms of what we can actually accomplish if we don't get approval of the STB. Do I misunderstand the situation? I don't think you misunderstand the situation at all. I think you understand it extremely well. Unfortunately, I don't think that we would be able to get any sort of pre-reading. I think it would be a very complicated and long process and the STB would want to do that in a public forum with their full board, you know, present and available to discuss these very difficult issues, but we are in a very, very difficult situation. You know, I'm trying to figure out ways and that we can bring things, bring people together because, you know, we are in an untenable situation with this debate. And the one thing that I think people are most frustrated by is they would like to see some sort of utilization of the corridor. And so, you know, if we're stuck in this situation where we pretty much are not able to use the corridor right now, you know, is there a way that we can bring people together and so we can work towards a solution. But I think we need to start doing that so we can find a path out of this, you know? And if that's one of the things that we can agree that we have in common, we'd like to see this important asset start to be used in some sort of way, maybe we can work from that towards the next step of reaching community acceptance and agreement. Thanks. Okay, Commissioner Schifrin. I would, in the interest of time, I would say make a recommendation that we hear from the public and maybe limited to one minute each and then come back to the commission for comments. It's already 12.30 and I know other commissioners also have things that they would like to do this afternoon. Okay, so yes, I was just about to take it out to the public. I see four hands up. If folks could get their hands up if you'd like to speak, I appreciate the recommendation about going to a minute and I know we have been on for quite a while now, but let's start with two. I just see six hands up. So let's start with two, but if that number starts to grow, I may switch to, I may reduce the time. So... Growing. Oh, it's growing. Yes, it is growing. Okay, so how about if we do a minute and a half and just start moving through these? Okay, Jack Brown, you are up. Go for it. Give your staff a minute to get up the new minute and a half. Oh yeah, sorry. That'll take, I was trying to make this quicker, but I was like, you know. Love to see that, oh my gosh. Okay, let's just... Hi, this is Jack Brown, resident of half past. Guy Dresden, I can't thank you enough for putting this memorandum together. It really is the honest reality of where we are today. Rail banking makes sense. We've been saying this for quite a while. Thousands of miles across the country have been opened up thanks to rail banking to take this, basically oversubscribe antique that's out there and put it back to utilization. So, you know, if we can do this, I think it's the best thing to protect the corridor and give us some use out of it right away. I have read through the entire TIGM proposal that was put up before and was just absolutely shocked that, you know, the sponsorship by friends of the rail trail and the ecology action and all their funded nonprofits are looking to privatize the corridor with this sort of type of study. And now to see here, Boring Camp wants to make it a recreational rail line is more disheartening. The TIGM proposals, their little custom built street cars are $4 million a piece and they wanted to put four on. That's the equivalent of 29 electric buses that could utilize existing infrastructure that we have right now. Our solution has to be for all of Santa Cruz County. We're not called the Watsonville Regional Transportation Commission. We need to take everything into consideration. So please take into advice what Guy says here and let's get moving forward. Thank you. Hey, Corinna McFarland, you are up next. And you are on mute, we can't hear you. I got the mute button. Okay. Thank you. Supervisor Kanbuk said 10 years ago, we've secured the corridor. A passenger train has never been feasible on the corridor but that's a fight for another day. Since then our county government has tried like crazy to run a train on it. Three rail operators, three failed contracts, failed tourist trains and failed attempts at freight. No one seems to be able to make money on the corridor. Many millions spent on repairs and maintenance but the rail line is nowhere near ready for a train. Millions more on studies that could not find a way to feasibly run a passenger train. All three rail operators asked for abandonment of the rail line. Meanwhile, the people of the county who own the incredible corridor are barely allowed to use it. Rail banking was suggested when the corridor was purchased, it has indeed been a fight as John Butte's predicted. But I'm here to say there is a third side which is us, the community at large. Let's preserve the rail right of way on our stunning corridor and rail bank now. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Scott, Barry Scott, you're up. Okay, thanks very much. And I wanna thank the commission for permitting and working with TIGM for this demonstration. We haven't seen anything like this since 1996 when there were three demonstrations. I wanna say that movement of locomotives is impossible due to overhead constraints on the highway. But more than movement of vehicles, this rail line is useful for transit but also in the future potentially disaster response and preparedness where we've seen fire trains and other kinds of uses that would provide redundancy to the highway. We also have to think about MBANG and Caltrans and the regional considerations. Everybody's looking to us to be a part of our regional rail transit future. And that's in our general plan. It's in our regional transportation plans across the region. So let's do that. On rail banking, I wanna point to a 2018 frequently asked question statement that the RTC is unaware of any paved trails that have been converted back to rail once it has been a rail bank. So if we're gonna discuss rail banking, I think we need to make sure that any kind of rail banking we do keeps the tracks in place because we know that opponents to rail transit are going to capitalize on any, even an interim removal of the tracks. I'd like to know solutions-wise, I'd like to know, is it possible to rail bank for transit use, keep the tracks and rail bank the freight easement but also guarantee Roaring Camp the ability for infrequent movement of their rolling stock? Thank you. Thank you. Brian, peoples, you are up next. Yes, hi, this is Brian from Trail Now. Great report. Really appreciate bringing the facts on rail banking. The farmers that we support on the North Coast North Trail now supports any type of train, tourist train up North, but we do support working with Roaring Camp. Roaring Camping is parking their big train currently on the Boardwalk Trestle. I don't know if they have permission to do that. They're parking it on the Boardwalk Trestle. Let's work with them, have them move their onboarding and offboarding operations, what we propose to them to Depot Station. And this will allow our community to remove the tracks in the middle of the roundabout. It will be a win-win for Roaring Camp. They can have a museum, they can have onboarding, offboarding, they can have parking. You really need to provide a carrot of Roaring Camp because that sounds like it's our barrier here. And so we're really asking for the RTC, the city of Santa Cruz and the county to reach out to Roaring Camp and say, hey, we need to get you a better location for your onboarding and offboarding operations, which will allow us to build the world-class Santa Cruz Coastal Trail. Thank you for your time. Hey, Jacob was off with Saki, you are up next. Hi, T, you're my voice. Yes, thank you. Okay, thank you. So I'm a little new to this issue and I became aware of it when one of Manu Karnig's campaign managers or campaign people knocked on my door and was livid that we were spending all this money on this trail. So I've been investigating trying to educate myself as much as possible in advance of this impending vote. And I've been reading decisions by the Surface Transportation Board and I've put some excerpts from some of their decisions in public comments. And I think they're useful for the public to review just so we can form our own decisions. And everything that I've read is completely backed up by this latest report. And so thank you to the staff members for clarifying some of these issues. The phrase that I heard today and that I included in my comments is beyond my capability. And these issues are really complicated. It looks to me, and I'm not a lawyer, it looks to me like abandonment is completely infeasible, but that is up to the lawyers to describe. And I think this is highlights why the public vote is completely inappropriate. After I wrote my comments, I was concerned, am I committing unauthorized practice of law? And there's so many complicated issues here that I think it's beyond the scope of the public's knowledge. So good luck. And I hope that you consider retracting this public vote. Thank you. No arguments here about the complexity. Okay, Mr. Johansson, you're up. Johansson, you're up. Oh, good morning. Can you hear me? Yeah. Yes. So I'm a local attorney representing TIGM on this project. The new concept presented by Mr. Press and mentioned is essentially the excursion service of the original proposal or concept proposal, which goes from Capitol to Davenport. So this would be the type of recreational rail service that's described in phase two of the ACA with progressive. And the proposal includes improving the track ties and other infrastructure station development and other necessary improvements for a world-class excursion service connecting Capitol, Capitol and Santa Cruz to Davenport and the parks and locations in between and it will require zero public contribution. It would allow the track between Capitol and Davenport to be retained along the trail system as the RTC is continuing its planning and would also allow the future expansion of rail service to Watsonville pending further planning and resolution of the infrastructure issues as we discussed, you've discussed today on the Capitol Trestle and also the construction of the adjacent trail system. This submission as part of the agenda comments also includes addresses some of the community comments and misrepresentations that we've heard today about TIGM and its public and its technology and its experience in transporting millions of passengers in the system since 2000. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Johansson. Okay, Ms. Faulkner, you're next. And you're on. Hi, thank you. Thank you, Guy Preston, for that informative presentation that was excellent and there are many of us in the community really excited about this upcoming demo. So thank you for bringing this event to the community. Friends of mine who are members of the elderly and disabled immunity. Sorry, I have a dog that has a ball in his mouth. And South County communers are eager to have a local light rail and excited about this demo. Given all the evidence publicly available, rail banking and building an interim trail seems to render impossible the future of rail along our coastal corridor considering legal and cost considerations. Rail banking should be off the table until an a firm commitment is made that we're guaranteed rail transit can be protected on our line. And part of the issues we've seen that contribute that have held back to getting this rail going in our County have to do with organizations who work behind the scenes to stop that progress. Another issue has to do with general planning and process in our County when for example, it takes decades to create a County park, like for example, Shannon Clear Park that took 27 years from purchase to the grand opening. I'd like to reiterate that many of these costs, analyses and proposals should be happening within the context of the budget analysis which should be approved so we can actively seek funding for rail as well as evaluate other costs of various options that we're looking at today. The TCAA clearly states that rail and trail is the best use of the coastal rail corridor. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Sally Arnold, you're up next. There we go, I had to find the mute button. Yeah, well, I wanna echo some of the things that some other people have said that I'm very pleased that Mr. Preston clarified that rail banking is not the same as tearing out the tracks but it does open up the door to possibly tearing up the tracks. And obviously that's a concern for people who want transit for all the reasons that other people have explained and that's why, as again, other people have mentioned, it's what would the guarantee be that we would have transit or in the future. I'm surprised that the director said that we can't use the corridor without rail banking because we're building the trail next to the tracks now and that seems to be like a very good use of the corridor right now. It's not the full use because we'd like that transit too but we're getting the trail now. So I don't understand why the no use of the corridor that doesn't seem accurate. And I wonder just a question is and could roaring camp move their rolling stock on rail banked tracks if they were not torn up? Thank you. Thank you. We're gonna get through these here but Mr. Preston, if you wanna respond to that for clarification before we move on it might be worth. So yeah, rail banking wouldn't prevent them from moving their freight locomotives on the track. What would prevent it would be the condition of the bridges and the track and the various infrastructure that still needs to be done. Thank you. Okay, Bill, you're up next. Thank you. Can you hear me? Oh, very good. I'm very grateful for Mr. Preston's report and all the hard work from staff. It's so clear, so accurate, completely coincidentally, completely in concert with my own perspective. That's always a plus. I wrote this body, the first paragraph on the website of the service transportation board. It's very clear that anything that occurs in a rail right of way must be done in concert with their dictates. This ought not to be a surprise to anyone. Additionally, many of us warned of entering into a relationship with St. Paul Pacific. They've beat us over the head with the threat of abandonment. This is important. Working, finding a way to work things out with big trees is also a very important abandonment and rail banking for in concert with one another simultaneously, thanks for your time. Thank you. David, Dean, your turn. Yes, I also want to support the TIGM demonstrations. I think that that is a great use of our corridor and really will let people know that the possibility of safe electrical transit can be done. I'd also like to talk about the promise and the intent of rail banking versus the history of rail banking. There have been hundreds of lines, rail banks, roughly a dozen who have applied for return to service. And of those, not a single one has resumed service on those rail lines if the tracks were removed. There are several who have not removed their tracks and at least returned a portion of their rail to service. But I don't think we want to count on a less than 1% chance of retaining our rails and the possibility of future transit service. Thank you. Thank you. Jeanette's, you're next and you are on mute there. Oh, good morning or good afternoon. This is Jeanette. I'm a representative of Rory Camp Railroads. And we did send a detailed letter regarding our comments earlier, but I'd like to stress just a few of the points now. Easements are presented as a key factor that's motivating rail banking. And there are only a few easements in question. Couldn't such rights be acquired in a way that would not trigger the need for rail banking? Does this, I mean, this would really allow both the rail and the trail to exist together, yet no explanation of the significance of this risk is presented. Rail banking would eventually terminate the Santa Cruz big trees in Pacific passenger service to the boardwalk, yet the writeup claims this limited passenger service from the railroad is sufficient enough to prevent the state from seeking repayment of the bond. This approach appears to be in violation of the terms of the bond funding requirements. We'd like to thank you for all the work that you do. And hopefully someday we'll all come together in the meantime, again, we appreciate the opportunity to provide the impacts of rail banking to the Santa Cruz branch line. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Ryan Sarnitaro, you are up next. And I see after that one more person, Sean, you will get your chance to speak. And I'm intending to close off public comment after that. If there's anybody else out there, please do raise your hand. Otherwise we will end after our two speakers from now. Okay, Ryan. Yeah, the director's report said that funding needed to advance commuter rail has not been secured and appears unlikely in the short term. The consultant's report on the Capitol Trestles stated that there are many risks associated with a rail transit project, including funding. Rail banking, removing the tracks that have to be moved anyway, are not what is an impediment to passenger rail service in Santa Cruz. The impediment is money. And the impossibility, or at least that's my opinion, of securing the billion dollars necessary and the tax to construct it and the tax increase necessary to operate it. And people who are for a trail are not opponents to rail transit, or opponents to irresponsible public policy that pursues impossible options because it sounds wonderful. It does sound wonderful. I'd love to get on a train to take a latte and go down to Watsonville. And I'm sure everybody in Watsonville would like to get up to Santa Cruz for a dollar of a trip, but it's just not gonna happen. Anyway, that's what I need to say here is that it would be really nice if the commission, if the staff continues to quantify the impossibility of rail transit at the present time. Thanks. Sean, your turn. A trail only project ignores the needs of the disabled community and specifically the transportation needs. People have been trained since childhood not to stare at disabled people. As a default, we've become invisible to you. I wanna remind you that more than 20 out of 100 Americans lives with a disability, although the disabled community is never invited to the table with other minority groups for the first round of talks. The disabled community needs people movers, safe, reliable transportation for the same reasons you do. A trail only project is exclusionary and would ignore one fifth of your county, a fifth of, that's a fifth of friends, family and neighbors too. We've been taught to respect our elders, thank our veterans, be kind to children and be helpful to disabled people and those with special needs, but how does trail only thank them? You have the choice of thanking and helping your community to think of their future. We'll all be part of this community eventually if we're lucky enough to live that long. But don't look away one more time when you see a disabled person. I'm a guide for blind athletes. They know the disabled athletes I know rely heavily on CalTrain and BART to get to work every day. Adaptive cycling and kayaking. I have friends who are quadriplegics that travel around Santa Cruz independently. So why not Santa Cruz too? I'm disappointed the two commission votes come from former Greenway members. Greenway is pursuing endorsement from a nonprofit that provides outdoor activities for people with disabilities while it works to keep the disabled community disenfranchised from transportation equity. Thank you for your comments. Okay, Faina, you are up and you will be our last speaker. Thank you, Commissioner Brown. I would just like to comment on some of the misinformation that Greenway is spreading and we can see it be repeated back to us by comments such as those made just by Ryan who claims that rail is unfeasible. That's entirely untrue as found by the RTC. Additionally, we can see that we are being measured for funding by our political will. I've had several conversations with federal and state legislators who would be able to get us funding for this project but are unable to do so because we still have not passed the business plan. I'm going to urge you again to please consider that we need action today. We need to start planning for rail now. Any interim solution or rail banking that will block passenger rail service from starting tomorrow is the wrong direction. We have the funding and we are being blocked by Greenway and Budcull again specifically. I urge you not to meet with him as he mostly spouts lies and is a multimillionaire who did not grow up in this county. Thank you so much. Bringing this back around now to the commission and matters of the staff report on these options for preservation of the rail line. I will take any comments. Anything folks wanna say? Again, this is an informational report. I know people want action and various kinds of action that may not necessarily, it may be contradictory but today we are listening and learning and so that's where we'll keep going. Commissioner Schifrin, you are up next. Thank you very much. Let me just first say that I found the staff report and staff presentation very helpful and agree that it provides good information about and agree with the information it provides about the benefits of rail banking. However, I think it's important to understand the reality of our situation and really take that into consideration as we decide what we're gonna do. First, let me ask our attorney a couple of questions again. One is can the RTC rail bank align without approval of the federal STB? So since we don't have the approval of the STB the consequences, we could not now rail bank whether a majority of the commission wanted to rail bank align or not. Is that correct? That is correct, rail banking is a process that's approved as part of the STB process. Okay, and can the STB approve rail banking without abandoning the freight easement? Well, they, so the freight easement stops operating. The rail line is, and I don't mean the physical line but the actual right of way is preserved for future potential rail use through rail banking. But there isn't a freight easement anymore. There would not be a freight easement because in this case the holder would abandon, would place it for abandonment but in lieu of abandonment, it would be rail banked but if you are correct there would not be a holder of freight easement at that point. If there were ever to be a reinstitution of freight service that entity would need a freight easement. A new freight easement. Correct. So based on what we've heard today the likelihood of the STB at this point approving rail banking with the opposition of current user of the line. It sounds like it's a long shot, it's difficult and it may not be successful at all. Is that correct? I agree with the way that Guy has previously characterized it. It would be difficult. It is not impossible but it would be very difficult to get the STB to approve it. Okay, and at this point progressive rail has refused to apply for abandonment. Well, they have, they first said they wanted to abandon and then they withdrew that statement but they reserve their right to abandon at any point without invoking the 90 day notice again. But at this point they have not, they are not willing to abandon. At this point they have not commenced an abandonment process. I wouldn't go so far as to say they're not willing to abandon. Okay, thanks for the clarification. For me, this is a very frustrating issue because I feel that the commission is being asked by a large number of the people to do two mutually contradictory options neither of which the commission is able to do. The supporters of rail want the commission to institute it now. The supporters of trail only want us to institute the trail proposed by Greenway now with rail service. And this is a problem I think that responds to the guy's hope that it would be possible to work something out. The problem is these proposals are mutually exclusive with rail service. The trail only option is impossible. With trail only option, rail service is impossible but the reality is the commission doesn't have the ability to do either. We don't have the financial ability to do rail and we don't have the legal ability to do rail banking which would allow us to rip up the tracks because we can't rip up the tracks or take out the tracks and do a trail only project without rail banking. Whether we're not required to do it and I think that's why rail banking is desirable but given the political antagonisms that exist and the concern about what the commission would do if there was rail banking, it's hard to we haven't been able to reach an agreement where we could get the benefits of rail banking. So I just think it's a very difficult position for the commission to be in. We keep hearing about it. We keep having items on the agenda about it but the fact of the matter is that until the staff is able to work something out with Roaring Camp so that they're willing to remove their objections if that's possible or until the staff is able to identify a funding source that could pay for passenger rail service, we're just inching along unable to satisfy either constituency the way they wanna be satisfied. So again, I just think it's important for the public members of the public to really understand that the reality is we can't institute rail now and we can't institute a trail only on the corridor now whether a majority of the commission wants to do it or not, thank you. Commissioner Schifrin, I will just use my privileges the chair to jump in and say I wholeheartedly agree and thank you for those comments. I think it's really important for the public to hear that and to really listen because that is the precarious, difficult kind of hands tied position that we are in we can only do what we can do now and we're looking at getting some information about things that may happen in the future. So I think it's really important for people to just remember that. So commissioner Bertrand, you are up next. Thank you very much, chair. I appreciate this report for many different reasons but the main reason is that basically informs the public just like Andy and others are gonna be talking and we'll be talking about the difficulty of the situation. It clarifies things that have been in public discourse kind of muddled because of misunderstandings. And so we've sort of pushed the line forward a little bit towards possible solutions. All the different parties are gonna realize that to some degree they're gonna have to give and we're gonna have to reach that at some point otherwise nothing is gonna happen for the citizens and the various stakeholders in this particular issue. So we've advanced it a little bit and I believe that we're gonna be depending on Guy and his staff to negotiate with the major stakeholders progressive roaring camp and come back with proposals to the public that it ain't gonna be easy but I think we've progressed a little bit further towards that possible solution. Thank you very much for this report Guy and staff that helped put it together. Commissioner Quinn. Oh, thank you chair. I wanted to thank Mr. Preston and the team for putting together this excellent and level headed approach. I think many of the speakers have pointed out there's an assortment of permutations and combinations ahead of us none of which we can anticipate or plan for all of them but I think they've given us a common sense and level headed path forward that doesn't reclude us from any of the other options. I applaud that level headed effort. Mr. Hurst. Mr. Hurst. Thank you very much chair and I wanna thank the public today and the staff as well. Dialogue is important and we'll get there through discussion and talking and compromise and negotiation and bringing all the players to the table at some time. But the reality is the fact is throughout the nation that once tracks are removed, then there is no transportation, there is no transport, there is no recreational or there is no commercial travel on those rails. And so the public and the commission need to be careful what they wish for because once the rails are gone, they're not coming back and that's a reality and a fact that exists. There's many competing interests here but everybody really does want the same thing. They want access, they want transportation of one type or another and we certainly wanna see the corridor used to its highest and best interest and I wanna salute the folks who did make that point available. And clearly there's many opinions and some of them are ill-formed and some of them are well-formed but it's a tough go. I appreciate the dialogue and let's don't throw anyone under the train or the bus on this discussion. Thank you. Are you staying on track too? Okay, sorry. I was gonna say or under the electric bike. Okay. We have up next, Commissioner Hernandez. Your turn. Thank you. I wanna, first I wanna thank staff for the presentation today. I know this is an informational item but I just have a hard time supporting going backwards and supporting rail banking. I don't think that we should limit in any way shape or form or inhibit or eliminate the rail line use from roaring cam or its potential customers, future potential customers especially for the potential use of future light rail, passenger rail. You know, I don't think there's been very many cases of rail banking ever coming back and so, you know, for those reasons I just have a hard time supporting this and wrapping my head around it. So it's wanted to share my opinion. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Rockin. I just wanna thank Guy and the staff for excellent reports. They were really helpful and I think we had a very rational conversation here. We might, none of us be totally happy with the outcome given the constraints that we're facing, but it made it possible to have that kind of a conversation. And I particularly wanna thank Sandy for a superb job of sharing a very difficult meeting. Fine job, thank you. Commissioner Koenig, last words. Thank you, Chair. You know, I just wanted to make sure we clarified something because it seems that some of my fellow commissioners don't understand why we're talking about rail banking this way. So Director Preston, isn't it true that the smart train right now is facing a lawsuit precisely because they chose to build a rail and trail plan without rail banking? My understanding as there has been a suit filed by property owners, underlining property owners of easements on the smart line where they've built a trail. Yes. Thank you. So is it safe to say that our rail and trail plan here in this county is in jeopardy if we do not rail bank? Perceptions of the line where ownership could be an easement, we would have to do additional work to secure additional rights. That could be fairly easy if we have willing sellers, or not willing sellers, it could be a lot more challenging. So portions of lines could have serious complications but other portions could continue as planned. Right, so there could be significantly greater risks to a rail and trail plan if we don't rail bank. For the continuous line, yes. Okay, thank you. Well, thank you again for this report today. I appreciate it as well. And I was sort of taking no action, but a great report. Okay, Commissioner Schifrin. Yes, I wanted to follow up on the last comment. We've heard a number of times about the potential of easements and not even having fee ownership, but it's never really been clear how extensive that is. And I think it would be as, we've solved that problem on the North Coast. I don't know how serious it is. It doesn't seem to be a serious problem in the city of Santa Cruz. It looks like it could be a problem and is a potential problem in the unincorporated area, but we don't have any specifics. And I think given the potential of lawsuits, I would like to ask that we have a closed session item and maybe a couple of months that would provide information to the commission about how many parcels are we really talking about? Is this, does it really put the project in jeopardy? Does it represent a very significant potential cost or is it a minor problem? I don't have any sense of that. When the commission bought the line, we thought, I believe I thought at the time that we had the right staff a trail on it. It appears that for some of them, some portion that may not be the case, but I'd like to know more specifics about it. So I would ask that the staff kind of researched this and provide the commission a report, since it includes its potentials of litigation, I think it needs to be talked about in closed session. Thank you, Commissioner Schifrin. That does sound like a good idea. I feel like we've heard little bits about it and we don't know necessarily what that scope and scale looks like. So does that seem like something that we could get on our agenda for a closed session? At some point in a few meetings down the road here, Mr. Mattis and Preston, I'd ask you guys, if that's what we get a report on that. We could arrange a closed session and provide a report based on the analysis that's been done to date on the fee versus easement ownership issues along the right way. Thanks, I think that would help clarify. We're getting into that area of making statements about the risk and without really knowing what that entails. So thank you for that. Commissioner Rockin. Just want to lower everybody's expectations that when we get to that closed session, we're going to find out the answer to that question because this stuff is buried in the past. You never really know until you have a lawsuit. Even if you get a report back that tells you, we think this, this, and this, the reality is you never find out until you're in court what the reality is of those options. So again, I'm not arguing we shouldn't do it. I think it's great to find that out. The more we can find out about it, the better to lower your expectations. It's going to still be murky when we're all done. Yes, a very good point to remember. The more you learn, the less you know sometimes. But I think it would be worth getting that report. So thank you. I want to thank everybody for being here today. Thank you for hanging in there for a pretty long meeting. And I really want to thank our staff for, you know, we, we are, we've heard comments today from commissioners suggesting that we are, you know, a bit of a difficult situation here in terms of the decisions we can make, what we have control over, et cetera.  So we do need to be ready to make a decision if we get to a place where others have made a decision about abandonment, right? So it's important that we kind of keep going through this educational process and discussion. We don't have to repeat the same discussion over and over, but we do want to keep, keep abreast. And, you know, I know that you're all in a difficult position too with staff trying to navigate how to make things work. And so just really appreciate all of your support in our decision making. Commissioner Rockin. Just really quick. I also want to call out Sarah Christensen for her presentation and a superb job of explaining delay people and technical engineering issues. That is not easy to do. And I think you did a great job of it. Thanks. Absolutely. It definitely made me feel like I have a little better sense of what I'm saying when I'm saying, talking about these things and what it actually looks like and what it means from an engineering perspective, structural perspective. Okay. With that, I believe that we, we do not have closed session today. And so that means that we have concluded our meeting. Thank you all so much. You should announce the last meeting. Next meeting is your last meeting. Oh, I'm so sorry. Next meeting is the first Tuesday in October. I believe that's the third. And we may or may not be in the County Board of Supervisors chambers. That is currently the plan. Stay tuned. Thanks. October 7th. Thank you. October 7th. Thank you. Bye everybody. Stay safe. Bye.