 Good morning everybody and welcome to the Santa Cruz metropolitan transit district meeting for February 26, 2021. First thing we're going to do is swear in director. I believe Larry Pagler needs to be sworn in this morning. Yes, sir. We'll turn it over to Larry and to I believe our legal counsel who will swear him in. Is that correct? Alex is going to swear. Alex go ahead. Alex Clifford the general manager and CEO will swear him in this morning. Good morning everyone and welcome and make sure I'm unmuted here. And Larry I'm going to just read off the oath of office and if you would recite that after I've recited and insert your name. And we can start off with I Larry Pagler. I Larry Pagler. Do solemnly swear or affirm. Do solemnly swear or affirm. Do holds that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of California, and the Constitution of the state of California, against all enemies from and domestic that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of California that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion or purpose of evasion and that I will well and faithfully and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter congratulations thank you all right congratulations all right welcome back to the board it's good to be with all of you thanks very much our next items roll call and we'll have that now Gina director Dutra no Jimmy director Gonzales I'm here oh hi Jimmy hi director Gonzales here Dr. Calantari Johnson here Dr. Konig here Dr. Lynn here Dr. McPherson here Dr. Myers here Dr. Pegler here Dr. Peterson here here Dr. Rothwell here Dr. Rotkin here Exefficio director Henderson here Exefficio director Northcutt we have formed thank you our first item before we begin the regular meeting is to approve appointments to a variety of different committees and other positions within the transit district all the board members should have in front of them the nominations that I've made but the um and there's a number of separate sheets with these various nominations I did my best to try and you know spread the various kinds of committee work around the county I had really no uh nobody asked me for any particular positions a number of people declined my offer to appoint them to certain things and so I took them off of that and then found someone else that was going to do it um but I can't describe that there's any other particular principle involved here I didn't feel that there were any political fights going on at least that I was aware of um and so uh those are my nominations how that's and this is done in the form of slates I have a slate for each of these positions as many positions need to be filled I have nominated people for them however any other board member may nominate a different slate you don't have to replace my entire slate you figure if any of the particular appointments you'd rather see someone else appointed including yourself you have the ability to nominate a counter slate and then the board will vote to choose between these slates so let me ask if there are any nominations for changes for a slate that would be a different slate than I'd propose for any of these positions I'm going to give it some time here make sure it has a look and gets unmuted if they want to nominate anybody I don't see any hands you're late on the screen the problem is that there's a lot of pages of slates so we can do it we can run through them we if you like before we vote we will do that in a formal way let's let's do that now and then we people run through it once uh Tina if you would in order they appear in the board packet unfortunately I didn't include the slate in the presentation that I gave to community tv so um for board chair to take over from Mike Rodkin Mike has proposed Donna Lind let's just go through the entire slate people can take notes if you'd like to come back come back to one of these and take their proposal different slate for vice chair we have Bruce McPherson for capital project standing committee we have Bruce McPherson Donna Myers and Larry Peglar tell me if I'm going too fast all right so far okay and I'm just on on agenda item 4c for the finance budget and audit standing committee we have proposed Donna Lind, Chevrolet Calantari, Johnson, Mike Rodkin and Jimmy Dutra for our personnel HR standing committee we have whoever is the current board chair if we follow the slate proposed that would be Donna Lind whoever is the current board vice chair again if we follow this proposed slate that would be Bruce Mike is an automatic as the immediate past chair Larry and Kristen Peterson are our director appointees for the SCCIC we have nominated let me just say for people that don't know this is a little committee that would only come into any significant work if we decided that we wanted to float a bond of some kind um and we needed to get by there's a mechanism requiring a not an affiliated non-profit rather than the board itself and that's what this committee is so there's actually very little involved in this unless we again if we decide to float a bond it becomes a big responsibility otherwise not and if I can add to that that we have the SCCIC which stands for Santa Cruz Santa Cruz County Improvement Corporation I think civic improvement corporation um we have a five ten minute meeting during the middle of the march meeting so in march you'll see on the agenda that we'll call the board meeting to order we'll recess for the SCCIC these five people will meet and go through approving the financial statement and the minutes etc etc and then we go back to the regular march board meeting so those nominees are Bruce McPherson Araleo as president Araleo Gonzalez as vice president Monique Koenig as secretary Larry Pegler as director and Donna Myers as treasurer the STC RTC which we're all very familiar with the representatives are Araleo Gonzalez Mike Rotkin and Kristen Peterson and then our alternates who fill in when we're missing a director to attend for instance you may have a standing commitment every November that conflicts with RTC meeting and I'll reach out week before to the alternates and I'll reach out in this order Chevrolet Collins Harry Johnson Larry Pegler and Donna Lynn and the RTC meeting just for your information is the first Thursday of every month and usually starts at nine o'clock and I sometimes I go as late as noon but I really don't know before we approve this slate I just want to let everybody know that the finance committee as we have it set up now meets from eight to ten we're going to slot the personnel committee excuse me slot the capital projects committee meeting to begin from 10 30 to 12 30 and then we'll slot the personnel HR standing committee to run from one to three so those are the time frames we're looking at so and we'll note that the personnel committee doesn't meet every month it or is the other two typically do and Donna the finance and capital committee those are still going to be this those are still on the second Friday of every month correct the committee meetings are always the second Friday of the month yesterday great thank you that those times don't work for my schedule so I'm going to have to remove myself from the finance committee the only the only time that works for me would be the personnel commission but I'm okay committee I'm okay not being on a committee if that's the case we also have some responsibilities this year I believe as mayor of the city and I'm on three other boards so that's fine so I'll then remove Jimmy from my sleep thanks and you have a fourth that you would like to start I'm very appreciative thank you Mike for thinking of me appreciate it I'm gonna I don't have someone so I'm gonna leave it to the following chair to appoint a additional up if they see fit and we can get along with three but if they want to it would be good or better if we can have another one appointed and I'll leave that to the following chair to fill in okay so can we take a motion on whether we're going to accept this late or not or does anyone have any other suggestions I'll move the item I'll second that I'm sorry who moved it uh Donna Myers thank you and a second by piglet yep okay we'll do a roll call vote Dr. Dutra yes Dr. Gonzalez yes Dr. Collins Harry Johnson yes Dr. Koenig yes Dr. Linde hi Dr. McLearson yes Dr. Myers yes Dr. Piglet yes Dr. Peterson Dr. Rothwell yes Dr. Rockin hi and I'm sorry I should have stated that the motion will say accept this late as presented with a fourth to the finance committee possibly to be appointed by the new chair correct yes okay okay well that then thank you all for supporting my slates and and for serving but more importantly there's work to be done this is going to be we have just selected a new chair so I'm going to make some outgoing comments and then the meeting will be taken over by Donald and our new chair so my my only thing I want to say is that I love this board and to me the transit district is an absolutely key institution in this community and it's a great pleasure to serve and I want to say a little bit more concretely what I like about our current board hasn't been true of every board I've served with the transit district I like the fact that people with very rare exceptions make their decisions based on what's good for the county as a whole rather than sort of seeing a kind of a parochial or a Balkanized approach to the district's work you know where somebody says I'm going to vote to defend my city's interest or the you know my district's interest uh I think genuinely people try and figure out what's good for the district as a whole and we try and put our resources where the need is in our community as best we can and I think that's true of all of our board members and I think that's fairly extraordinary we have you know a board like this it's often very tempting it's not self-interest but to serve the interests of the community that perhaps elected you to office or from you know where you live and your neighbors live and it's I think great that the sport's been very responsible about that also we don't always agree on everything we've had serious disagreements about various issues but people's uh approach to public meetings I think is extraordinarily good and people's willingness to treat each other kindly and to do our best to get along and make and make our decisions and to to be agreeable as we disagree about important often important items and so it's a pleasure to chair a board like this where people you know are doing their best to get along and to get the business done and not uh looking for ways to pick fights with each other and I don't take that for granted as I say I've served on boards even the transit board in the past and that has not always been the case I also appreciate serving on a board that I think to a person appreciates our staff not just our management staff but all of the people that work for this district our bus drivers the people that do the administrative work necessary to make a district run and again I've served on boards in the past where people I mean and again there's a people have an in a need and an interest to serve the public and just do what's best for the public and this board does that but they they also uh the board I think every board member does their best to try and figure out what does that our employees need to thrive and to be successful uh looking for this district and in that sense it's I see this as a board that's I want to say pro union but certainly that works with union leadership and tries to do our best to see that their needs are met and the needs of the people that they represent and again I don't take that for granted and I enjoy working with a management staff that really puts its heart into its work I mean this COVID has tested everybody that works for this district management particularly but all the drivers that are out there and the people that are in our various offices this is uh we're facing a serious crisis and I think our employees have risen to the occasion so it's been a pleasure being your chair this this year I mean I will miss it I really like like chairing the meetings and being part of it and I like you know being responsible for trying to respond to the public and I did respond to I believe if not every email I got or that we got even collectively but the emails that we receive I tried to respond to them I mean people don't always like my responses but I people need to know that at least if they were heard and that their views about what we should be doing are taking seriously by the board so thank you for the opportunity to serve you and I'm looking forward to working with Donna Linda's our new chair I'm sure she'll do a wonderful job and that's it thank you thank you Mike thank you Mike thanks Mike thanks Mike thank you that's yes and I'm happy to have Mike um to mentor with because there's no one here I think that has the number of years and experience with Metro and transportation and in general serving the community as as much as my cast so thank you and appreciate being able to have his support our next our next item on the agenda is announcements and I know one of things is today's meeting is being broadcast by community TV of Santa Cruz County so we want to thank them and then ask if there are any other announcements from the public or I don't see hands and then move to board of directors comments said anyone have any information to share I have a quick comment am I I think Larry this morning was following a long tradition of I believe getting that oath wrong because it asked you to either swear or affirm not to do both and it was as you're given a choice some people I believe for religious or other reasons don't like swearing or don't take are not willing to swear their allegiance they're willing to affirm it but it's not that we should so when you're asked hold your hand up and swear or affirm it should be pick one not not recite them both and we've all done that Larry is not alone in that thank you thank you any other announcements next the oral and written communications to the board of directors and Tina this is Brian Peoples am I on you I don't know Brian you're you're alive and you display the photo we will community TV will pull it up yes um thank you board of this is Brian Peoples from trail now thank you for the two moment Benjamin don't don't it was an added cyclist who looks like wait I'm sorry um Walter could you pull up slide uh seven dash two that's what Brian that's what Brian is referring to agenda item seven dash two Gina also is is your name showing up like ten times on the uh on the uh associated with people I think people's are showing up as Gina pie I'll go back and look and let Walter know what's changed them to okay there's a whole bunch there I'm there I have a lot of evil twins good job guys I'm sorry keep going up Walter there it's number nine nine no nine nine there we go thank you but sorry thank you Benjamin don't don't it was an added cyclist who would ride his bike every day to work and who was killed by a car deer the harbor bridge on july 10th 2018 as he would have had an alternative to be living on dangerous roads opening the coastal corridor for alternatives for biking walking running is critically needed for our community the facts show that an interim coastal trail can be started this year and complete it by 2023 rail banking has been recognized by the RTC RTC has also acknowledged that 100% of the rails and ties will be need to be removed for any future transit any future transit trail now will even pay for the interim coastal trail from Watsonville to Davenport that's how important it is to our community we want to point out if metro union chairman James solid sand of all is on the zoom today we want to commend his effort of speaking out about metro vaccinations we that's the right thing to do protect essential workers we ask you James to go further to protect the community by promoting the construction of the coastal there are three board members from metro that represent are represented on the Santa Cruz regional transportation missions and those board members should be promoting the coastal the metro and the coastal trail over other more expensive supporting unaffordable plan for using the coastal core is not appropriate over 40 million has been spent on the coastal core just to keep it from falling apart this taxpayer owned property asset for decade unused we need to invest in metro not waste our tax dollars on poor public policy we need metro members to support the county as a whole and metro being a success please mr sand of all we ask you and members of the union to help communicate to board metro board members to support Metro thank you very much for your thank you Brian there you have a hand up I don't recognize the picture and it shows Gina pie's name this is Barry Scott I'm sorry it's Barry Scott and aptos all right Barry um oh thank you yeah uh congratulations uh chair lind and thank you chair Rotkin for for your service and and for your comments about uh treating the you know board members treating the the region uh uh and taking uh taking a long view I wanted to I wanted to thank the um RTC Metro board members that are represented on the RTC for supporting the TCAA direction toward rail transit on the corridor and I'm encouraged knowing that that that direction involves providing funding to Metro to to expand routes so that their shuttles that are working with the rail transit implementation to really create a network that that would serve the county well and really should grow ridership for Metro something that that I've found from and I've been gosh looking like so many others trying to learn more and more about transit and and sustainable planning it seems that in communities that that don't reach a critical threshold for transit coverage and frequency that they always kind of languish and it takes it takes bold moves something like an integrated system that involves a rail backbone with metro shuttles and working together with trails and active transportation and bike share that kind of a system can increase the ridership and interest in in using transit to to a critical mass beyond which it becomes easier to to find funding and public support and so again in closing I'm I'm encouraged by the nine to three vote the RTC and the fact that Metro uh supports the TCAA light rail transit alternative direction and and pursuing the business plan so that we can look more closely at how rail and Metro can work together and one last thought it's interesting to note that the the any operators employees of a of a rail system are the same belong to the same union as the bus bus drivers would so this is something that the union should be should be interested in in knowing and with that I uh I thank Metro for all the work that you do and um and uh and again congratulations chair Lynn and and welcome new members thank you thank you Barry any other comments and I'm not seeing I'm not seeing all the participants so if someone sees a hand please let me know no hand's showing right now madam chair all right if there are no more oral written communications and we will move to labor communications is anyone from labor if not oh you have um again it shows as Gina pie but there's a logo smart I presume that's Mr. Sandoval okay it says we'll turn on if you up the multiple Gina pies we'll turn on the video I'll try to add names to you can can I also suggest and everybody if you look at your picture in the upper right hand corner there's a little box it says mute and next to it three dots if you click on those three dots it will show you a pull down menu that allows you to rename yourself and so everybody can do that for themselves without waiting for us to untangle the mess of how you all became Gina that's wild we know Gina we know you work really hard we just didn't like you had a whole team this is supreme multitasking I guess all right can you everyone hear me yes we hear you thank you James all right hello everyone and all the genus here today uh it's James Sandoval the general chairman for smart local 23 I just wanted to touch on uh the corridor and um our unions brought the subject up um quite a while back and our union did take a uh no position vote so I do have to remain neutral as the spokesperson for the union so just letting everybody know and I also want to congratulate um Donald in being the chair of the board of directors and I just wanted to thank Mike for having an open door policy with our union you've been great and thank you thank you everyone else thank you thanks thank you James anyone else from labor no other hands showing at this time okay then moved to written communications from the metro advisory committee mech we have none and then additional documentation documentation so is there any additional documentation to support agenda items no ma'am all right well next we move to the consent agenda and if um there's no amendments or changes to the consent agenda then I would you might tell the public what numbers those are okay thank you so our consent agenda would be 11-1 through 11-12 and just if anyone had any comments or changes to make to any of these items 11-1 through 11-12 on the agenda if not do I will I will move approval of the second that's Mike Rocken and moving consent a second it the motion is second and then we'll ask for a roll call vote motion to prove the consent agenda as presented a motion by director Rocken second by director Gonzales correct okay director Dutra yes director Gonzales yes Dr. Colin Tari Johnson yes Dr. Koenig yes Dr. Linde hi Dr. Mike Pearson the universe yes I'm here thank you Dr. Myers yes thank you Dr. Pegler hi Dr. Peterson hi director Roswell hi director Rocken hi motion passes unanimously okay thank you and the next on our regular agenda is an employee appreciation and I don't know if we have we do I and I'm prepared to make a statement about that this is Mike okay so we have um an employee appreciation this morning for Lalo or a lot as he goes by Lalo Abrego 20 years as a bus operator Lalo was born in Mexico graduated from community college and obtained a diesel technician diploma he came to the United States at the age of 19 years old dreaming the American dream he's a proud father of 10 children with three still at home he rested away from home but with success stories prior to Metro he had few jobs he was amazed by one in particular he worked for a slaughter company for eight years where he had to kill 1500 cows in 10 hours every day six days a week it was hard work he lives by his philosophy of never quit your job until you find something better he says Metro is a good place to work because we have an employment and labor contract that balances the right to the workers you he always recommends others to work for Metro Lalo thanks every thanks everyone from the bottom of his heart and so this is an employee longevity award he's been working for 20 years and we typically recognize people at that stage in our district and I don't believe that we need to have a vote on this we're just going to unless I should be corrected if I'm wrong no we don't even so I just we just want to thank him for his 20 years of service and appreciate that that the work he's done for this district it doesn't look like he's joined us by Zoom he's probably out there working for us but um want to congratulate and thank Lalo what a what an amazing background Madam Chair we did have a hand oh it's back again uh that would be Nate Abrego oh Nate all right let's let's hear from Nate um thank you Alex um I just want to say um as someone who's known Lalo my whole life he is my my father and I'm very proud of the fact that we're both part of this great organization um he his entire life he's been devoted his life to the public service and and to his family from uh being a a pastor of a church when we uh grown up when I was growing up in Washington uh to be in a bus school bus driver before coming down here and and joining the Metro team um and we're both uh junior representatives at the same time and I'm extremely proud of that and I'm sure he is too and and uh I just wanted to share my appreciation uh of all the work that my dad has put in over the years to um to raise me and our entire family thank you thank you and um nice to know we have both father and son serving so thank you any other comments well thank you for being here Nate and congratulations to your dad please pass on our appreciation to him for us thank you we next have the CEO oral report hey thank you madam chair and congratulations and board of directors I will um combine my oral report in my COVID-19 update all in one report here I do want to start off by acknowledging new hire we have one new hire since your last meeting Greg Woolliver and I apologize if I pronounce that incorrectly he comes to us from the outside he uh prior to here having been self-employed he is our new parts and materials clerk so congratulations Greg and welcome aboard and then continuing on um on the federal side the the house is considering HR 1319 which is the American Rescue Plan Act um of 2021 the the bill includes 30.5 billion with a B for transit agencies across the nation and as currently written and as it has come out of the house TNI committee if that sticks uh with money being distributed through the various federal formulas Metro would benefit with about a 26 million dollar allocation so we're very hopeful about that and that would that moves this into what's what would be multi-year COVID funding the last two allocations were sort of to address the problem of the here and now impact of the pandemic on transit agencies and this would propose if passed in its current form to fund us for COVID emergency relief through I believe it is 2023 moving on uh our new commercial real estate agent uh actually it's a team or they're doing a great job uh they're working on potential tenants for our various vacant spaces but I'm happy to report that we have signed the lease with a tenant for the scott's valley transit center if you know the scott's valley transit center we haven't had a tenant there during my entire 10 year here and and beyond which may be about 10 years or more the new tenant crews coffee well respected expanding their business in scott's valley they'll be serving coffee baked goods take out boxed lunches they're also applying to the abc for a beer and wine license they will have some non-amplified acoustic music so we're happy to have them aboard and becoming one of our tenants here in another couple of days we've installed the splash pass smartphone ticket validators on highway 17 buses um they are not active yet uh they're they're being tested but they should go active uh really soon um the splash pass that we have launched which is just the smart phone flash not validated uh pass program on highway 17 in our first month we had usage of about four percent and through the month of january that is up to nine percent so that's good to see that growing and uh that pilot project of those validators will be about three to six months if that goes well we'll expand expand that to the entire entire system and as you know the splash pass smartphone application for flashing your fair media has been active for several months now and then also that'll be followed by the credit card validator feature for that splash pass and we hope to have that up and running pretty soon too just working through some credit card coordination issues we are encouraging all of our employees who qualify to get the COVID vaccination which basically at this point unfortunately is limited to just age 65 and older you no doubt have seen the information that we have put out that the Sentinel covered about our concern and desire to have all of our bus operators vaccinated as soon as possible um James Sandoval on the smart side is doing a great job advocating for that and we're doing our best on the management side to advocate for that unfortunately we keep hitting roadblocks but we will keep trying um in addition as we continue to look for ways to make our workspaces safer and safer during this pandemic we are also adding additional three stage heaven air filters purifiers to various interior locations we've now expanded that to restrooms and breakrooms on the bus operator side we're still investigating and pulling together quotes on converting the sort of clear protective shower curtain that we use to permanent plexiglass driver barriers so we hope to have something together there and bring a proposal to you in the near future Freddie is also investigating uh air ionizers well actually Freddie and Eddie are investigating air ionizers these would be if we buy these if if we uh believe they will help with the pandemic they would be installed in the HVAC systems on both buses and in our facility buildings so taking a look at that and hopefully we'll have something there in the near future we are also in the process of installing contactless touchless faucets and soap dispensers throughout the various metro facilities um Danielle has updated all of our face covering flyers to reflect the new federal law and of course metro has been mandating face covering since june of 2020 so the new federal law wasn't really anything new for us other than prior cdc guidance said you could use you know bandanas and you could pull your t-shirt up over your nose that is no longer allowed you you must wear face covering face mask now you cannot use those other sort of adaptive means on the para cruise side we're we're happy to report that we are partnering with Sutter health to provide para cruise customers trips to their vaccination site Sutter is willing to work with us to allow those customers to be consolidated so if if some of our customers on a particular day have appointments scattered throughout the day they will allow us to put them all in a in a bus at one time take them to the site take them to the front of the line they don't even have to get off the vehicle Sutter health will get on board vaccinate the individuals then the the bus the the vehicle will wait 15 minutes and then take them home so that's a pretty cool relationship we just established with Sutter health and certainly looking for more opportunities like that to help out in the pandemic we've also reopened our customer service booths at pacific station in watsonville transit center those hours are limited to 8 a.m to noon so thank you danielle and rena for for making that happen and then starting today this is really exciting for us starting today metro is offering free rides on both fixed route and para cruise to customers that are going to get their vaccination so that's rides there and home danielle has put out that to the media and we expect coverage on that in the next couple of days and again looking for opportunities to do our part during the during the pandemic um i'm happy to report um i should always say for our superstitious folks knock on wood but happy to report that we have not had a covet positive case since agency-wide since february 1st that's exciting news um technically on february 15th we qualified to actually exit the calla ocean mandatory weekly covet testing at our judy case susa operations facility however for now and into the indefinite future we're going to continue to do mandatory weekly testing we think it has really helped out tremendously especially since it has identified so many people as asymptomatic when we were getting positives we think we should continue to do that indefinitely and then as i mentioned before uh smart leadership and management continue to advocate to both the county health officer on a local basis and to the governor on a state level um to include transit workers in the current round of vaccines this is so frustrating for all of us um we worked through apta on a nationwide basis to have the cdc acknowledge that transit workers should be in the first tier of covet or at least the first sub tier of covet vaccinations um soon soon after that came out our state said yes um transit workers will be in one b tier two we were excited about that we thought wow victory great this is super this is great for our employees and great for our public then unfortunately as you know the governor changed the uh vaccination priority to age-based with some other little nuances including in the most recent round that restaurant workers and people associated with the cannabis industry get priority which is you know in my mind shameful um bus operators out there on the front line uh exposed to potential customers that might have covet uh don't get any priority right now but yet if you work in the cannabis industry you do so there's something wrong about that statement finally on a high note our new protera uh zero emission bus one of four has arrived we expect in the coming weeks the other three to arrive and uh that bus of course is for our new watsonville circulator that will start in the fall between now and fall we'll test that bus before we accept it and pay for it and just as a final note i'm just going to take over the screen and put the latest picture of that up and you should be able to see i hope uh the graphics that that are being applied to that bus uh over there at our bus maintenance facility are you seeing that okay yeah we see it super and madam chair directors that concludes my comments and i'm happy to entertain any questions and it does i don't do show a separate povid update but it sounded like you may have included that in in your merge the two madam chair yes all right any comments from board members any comments from the public okay well good report thank you and exciting information on the stimulus package next we have the uh accept and file the cy 21 state and federal legislative agenda and again elix sure thank you madam chair and i'll try to roll through this real quick and hit some high points we do have our federal and state advocates here that are following my presentation and i'm sure we're all anxious to hear from them as the board knows every year about this time of the year i present to you the updated calendar year state and federal legislative agenda and in this report as you can see we recognize what has occurred in the prior legislative cycle both for state and federal and then talk about what we will advocate for in the coming year and then i use that guidance of course to uh advocate on our behalf for certain positions at at very well it could be a trip to visit with legislators in dc or sacramento and of course at the at the various legislative meetings at california transit association and apta and others so this is important for me to sort of get my marching orders if you will at the beginning of the year and then proceed to follow those throughout the year this year of course on the federal side we want to advocate strongly for the fast act reauthorization as you know that expired last year it was extended by continuing resolution for one additional year and of course our goal is to take the the current sort of expiring fast act and and in the next multi-year reauthorization take sort of the plus ups that you will that we've experienced over the last couple of years that is the federal government appropriating more money than than the prior regulation requires sort of above the minimum threshold and take those plus ups and let those be the new foundation for plusing up yet again in the coming years we'll advocate for that we'll also advocate very strongly on the federal level for an infrastructure program that includes transit so uh on the on the positive side we had some great success on the state level with um with particularly with regulations that could affect our funding productivity portions of those various regulations where there are financial penalties for non-compliance most notably on the tda transportation development act side um those those have been temporarily suspended i'm sure josh will talk about that and uh and then as you might recall there was some legislation prior to covid multiple pieces of legislation prior to covid in which various legislators were trying to identify categories of riders that shouldn't be receiving free fares um those went away at least temporarily that but they have not come back yet um we think we should be in control of what our fares are rather than having the state dictate what they are uh on the federal side as you know we had success with the cares act receiving about 20 million dollars from the cares act and then carissa another 13.5 million and of course we're hoping to achieve additional covid emergency funding through this latest round of the rescue act we are very grateful to the federal government the fta in particular for sending us 5500 face coverings for our employees and another 5000 for our customers we have continued to provide those at our expense we think that's good so every bus has face coverings available for customers if by chance they don't have one when they board the bus uh and we already talked about the omnibus bill and the extension of the fast act omnibus bill did get us some additional funding of course most notably the alternate fuel tax credit which is about 300 000 a year to us it's a so-called extender and every year we have to you know really fight to have that extended yet another year our goal in our in in our legislative program is to try to convert that to a permanent funding source permanent credit and then we talked about the various plus ups that had occurred in this current year which amounted to about 205 000 additional dollars for us and then there were some additional plus ups of 125 million in the bus and bus facilities and the lono program that's important to us because as you know in the coming month we we expect the federal government to release the notice of funding opportunity for the bus and bus facilities grant we've been working very hard to prepare for that grant so that we can obtain grant funding to build our new pair of cruise facility so that having more money on that program sounds good hopefully better is our opportunity to achieve a grant award this year very important to us and then just looking quickly at the the legislative agenda of course our ultimate goal is always to increase funding but to and and to protect existing funding and then to avoid any kind of unfunded mandates wherever possible we continue to look for as much flexibility as we can get in the cap and trade program for multiple years we've had the the goal of advocating for a reduction in the voter voter threshold for special transit taxes for transportation we'd like to see that move off of that two-thirds requirement it's a very difficult threshold to achieve and then while we have bus on shoulder legislation for our county we are supportive of the expansion of that program in in other counties i continue to represent you and the cta on the transportation development at reform committee and that we'll see how that goes but obviously one of our goals is to try to eliminate or reduce some of the penalties associated with non-compliance with their various performance criteria particularly important in this environment when agencies are experiencing the impacts of the pandemic and reduced ridership and loss of revenues of course resiliency is is important to us and most notably as we move towards more and more electric buses in our fleet when pgne has electric shutoffs these rolling programs that they do periodically where they shut down the power particularly in high wind situations imagine what that would be like if we were 100 electric fleet we couldn't charge our buses we would not be able to make rollout we also think that there should be some room in the carb program to allow us the california resources board program to allow us to retain in a contingency fleet some number of cng and or diesel buses for those types of events or some other disaster that might shut down the electric grid so that we could do our part in providing emergency service in a in a critical time as a as as an earthquake or some other natural disaster and then of course we we continue to advocate to be treated like police facilities fire facilities and hospitals that when they do grid shutdowns they do not terminate electricity to those critical facilities we wish to be identified as one in the same we will also advocate on the state level for additional hybrid and zero emission truck and bus voucher what is called the h-fit program that has not been funded well in the last year we think they need to put more money into it and and that was important to us in our four pro terrace that we just received in which we received a hundred and fifty thousand dollar voucher for each of those so that that was six hundred thousand dollars to offset more than four million dollars in bus purchases that that is a very meaningful and significant amount of money and we need to continue to see that program be funded as we talked about on the federal side the fast act is going to be our highest priority also followed somewhat in parallel by the the talk about the federal infrastructure program we want to continue to see the dollars increase year over year we're going to continue to advocate for the small transit intensive cities program what we call the stick program to move from 2.5 percent to 3 percent that that provides a significant amount of dollars to us and we'd like to see that continue to go in its upward trend we'd like to see the not only the the fuel excise tax credit that we talked about earlier become permanent but as we move towards zero emission fleets whether that be battery electric or hydrogen fuel cell we'd like to see those zero emission um propulsions be included in this program that it not be limited to compress natural gas um and again those dollars are important to us we think we should continue to advocate for an increase in the gasoline and diesel fuel tax of course that hasn't been increased since uh 1993 and um we need to see transit programs better funded with sustainable funding and this is one way to do that there's a lot of talk this year about earmarks coming back into the program uh we'll continue to advocate for that to happen i think the talk is that there'll be a lot of control put around what those earmarks are and how much money will be expended on that and i think chris will probably elaborate on that a little bit more in his presentation and then as the census goes through its process its 10-year process we're watchful of what they are up to and ready to comment we've already met with them and provided them a number of comments thank you chris for arranging that meeting um our biggest concern is this 10 years ago they provoked they proposed to merge the santa cruz um urbanized area with the watsonville urbanized area and i think some other adjacent areas um and on paper maybe that doesn't sound like a lot to anybody but in reality if something like that occurred it impacts our funding to the tune of millions and millions of dollars so it's significant to us to make sure that that santa cruz uza urbanized area and watsonville urbanized area remain two separate areas um so we're hopeful we can get through this 10-year cycle without that kind of controversy and then finally uh in this report i've talked to you about uh the various committees in attachment d that i represent this agency on uh some in a leadership position some in a membership position uh and i would encourage you to continue to allow me to do that in the coming year i think we've had some good successes and i i hope to continue to represent you well on a national and a state level with that madam chair and directors that concludes my presentation and i'm happy to answer any questions or we can move on to our two uh advocates that are here thank you alec anyone have questions of alec from his legislative update mr madem chair this uh yes person here i i just wanted to say uh i think alex is pretty low key on this but his participation on so many of these uh very vital agencies state federal are critically important and uh he is at the top of that list on a lot of them and so i i just want to i think the general public should recognize how how much respect our our ceo has statewide nationwide in and uh his association with so many of these organizations um it really pays off i've been to some of the state and legislative and uh federal visits and uh he's uh very well recognized and i think the general public should know that and uh i just i know if i want to thank our two advocates that we have chris and josh who are going to hear from but um i i really want to thank in this report too about i i see that the metro ridership of cabrillo and um and uh ucsc ridership is 55 percent of our ridership and i can't overstate how much i appreciate their involvement and their support of our metro system i think it uh we're talking state and federal issues but locally here these two outstanding community community college and university of california have played a very vital role in the uh the success of metro and i think that people should know that as well thank you thank you bruce thank you well said uh director rothkin i just want to echo bruce's comments that i the board members certainly know but i'm not sure the public always understands the extent to which we depend upon outside federal and state funding for this agency to provide the service that we do and it is critical that alex had plays a role in these committees he's not a passive member of them and that we sort of see that the small districts like ours don't get you know left behind when the funding often there's a tendency to move it towards larger urban areas um and that in general we have really good representation from alex on these committees that brings us absolutely critical funding and his work with our two representatives both i won't comment after theirs but but both josh and christ's work that santa cruz is a very small community and yet we actually are well recognized when we go to washington bc as we were there agency for example that initiated the entire um small transit intensive communities funding that we get that's over a million bucks a year for us um and this little community's made that happen at the national level so it's only because of that kind of direct involvement that alex performs and that would support we get from our uh our two uh lobby groups that we're able to be as successful as we are getting funding for transit and the riders only pay about 20 it goes up and down a little bit around 20 of the cost of the ride when they take our buses and that means 80 it's got to come from somewhere else some comes from the local community but we get a big share from the state and federal government and our our support from them is absolutely critical to our existence no send you might uh i think mike you can even speak to alex having been recognized a couple years ago statewide um for his work so i mean that's that's uh says a lot too thank you thank you okay well on next week and we mentioned josh and and uh well his upcoming report on state legislative update from josh shaw of shaw yotar and smelter and lang sorry about buturing that the agency name no worries thank you chair lind josh shaw here from shaw yotar and tway smelter and lang i'm joined by my colleague michael pimentel michael and i kind of co-pilot the district's legislative advocacy program in the state capital we are your team uh and it's our job to assist you board members and co alex cliford in carrying out that legislative agenda that he just presented to you and i think between michael and i we will talk about a couple of the items on that agenda and gene if we have the slides up uh for walter we could go to those but michael and i will keep going folks on the funding side uh co clifords asked us to talk to you about state funding prospects the news is getting a little better you know the heavy lift is by chris at capital edge and his transit lobbyist colleagues representing the california transit agencies back there in dc and there's been some great news coming out of dc including quite recently as alex mentioned but in at the state level some additional decent news we think is on the horizon michael will talk about those funding prospects and he will specifically talk about our efforts to help the district continue a pandemic related relief that alex told you we got in the current budget year 2020 to 2021 michael's on the the tip of the spear for our firm and representing the district relative to continuing those pandemic relief efforts including the effort to get your frontline transit workers your bus drivers and others vaccinated as soon as possible i'll start with legislation the slide that gene has got up this is the the first year of a two-year legislative biannium the legislature new class of legislators have come to sacramental you know there was election in november we've had some turnover plus or minus about a dozen new legislators that we'll be working with it's great to have uh senate now senator john layered back in our delegation we've michael and i've already had several conversations with him already this calendar year about metro priorities and ways to help transit and not just in the short term in terms of relief but the mid and long-term prospects for supporting metro and we've had conversations similarly with the rest of your legislative delegation i'll note that legislators really came back and went to work on january 11th frankly uh while the public generally is still not allowed in the state capital there are committee hearings and and floor sessions going on in the capital uh in person while some legislators still participate virtually like we're all doing this morning so it is a the new world that started last year does continue into this legislative session i'll focus on bills of interest to the district i'll note that legislators had until last friday february 19th the week ago today to introduce all the measures they plan to move throughout the legislative process in calendar year 2021 we saw more than 2350 bills introduced this year many of those are still what we call spot bills that don't really have substantive provisions yet they had to meet the february 19th deadline but those could be amended into something more substantive we'll keep an eye on those but of the couple thousand that are substantive we will we have been combing through those to figure out the direct impact on the district i'll bring a couple explicitly to you in a moment here but want to note the bill load roughly speaking is a little bit lower than in previous years that's the effect of the pandemic essentially on legislative business and jino walter if we go to the next slide we do want to note that from the more than 20 24 2300 bills we've seen so far the continued focus is clearly on the covet 19 pandemic and on relief and recovery measures very specifically for instance this week as you saw in the news the legislature and governor collaborated on a very early budget infusion of more than nine billion dollars to fund a number of programs to try to provide business relief small business release uh golden state stimulus checks to two millions of californians to support particularly the folks on the lower runs of the socioeconomic status ladder so early action by the californian state legislature and the rest of the government other themes we've seen this year particularly as signaled by the governor continued interest in moving the state's transportation sector to zero emission vehicle technology you're out in front of that kind of leading the way for the private sector fleets including by the purchase of your new pro terra vehicles that alex just mentioned housing the challenges faced by the unhoused those the affordable housing crisis those continue to be priority issues that we'll see legislation on this year as well as some other priorities mostly a return to business as usual in terms of the state capital while everyone's of course mindful of the impact of the pandemic on all sectors having said that of the more than 2300 bills we've combed through so far michael and i have not identified too many that are directly impactful on the district or other public transportation operations we go to the next slide alex mentioned the new fare free transit bills that a year ago today a plus or minus a few days we were talking to you about that had just been introduced many of you on the board at that time expressed real concern ceo cliford mentioned um that throughout the rest of last year even though they were introduced last year as soon as covid hit all those bills got shelved when we last saw you in late september of last year at the end of the session we were wondering if this year some of those legislators would bring back the bills requiring you to provide free service to large chunks of your of your ridership long story short through last friday no such bills have been introduced so we think that's good news in the absence of bad news having said that we do have two bills specifically for your consideration that are consistent with past policy priorities you've taken we're still looking at as i said a whole group of hundreds of other bills just to make sure we didn't miss anything there could be some that will bring back to you through through ceo cliford in the coming days but the first bill i want to focus on on the next slide senate bill 44 by senator ben allen from the west side of los angeles would acknowledge that public transit capital projects have a positive impact almost by definition on the environment and provide some form of light but possibly important administrative uh expediting administrative and judicial reviews of your transit projects under cqa it still has to be a full cqa review for defined transit projects that reduce chgs and move people through corridors that could be important for you as you consider new capital projects down the line things like bus rapid transit fixed guideways even for buses so we would urge the district support that bill on the next slide we would talk about assembly constitutional amendment number one by assemblywoman uh cecilia aguiar curry from solano county this is exactly consistent with the legislative program and priorities that ceo cliford just presented to you and is is the same kind of measure that you've supported in the past even though you have recent great experience in the county and finally adopting with that two-thirds vote a sales tax measure that includes support for public transit this measure would statewide reduce the two-thirds voting threshold uh down to 55 four measures local measures that support various kinds of public infrastructure like transit capital improvements um that with the majority super majorities in the legislature uh right now in in california it's possible we can see a measure like this move through over the next couple years and we would urge the district to support this bill so that's just a light touch on some of the obvious bills that have introduced that that do do affect transit michael pennantel is going to talk now about funding and our regulatory relief efforts he'll give you an overview of the prospects for more stable funding in 21 22 and as i mentioned our efforts to obtain continued pandemic relief of the kinds we got in the current year and he'll talk about vaccinations for transit drivers as well michael all right well thank you josh for that introduction happy to be before you this morning as josh noted i will be talking about funding at the state level what we're seeing uh in terms of uh a improved funding outlook in this fiscal year so if we turn to the next slide uh as i noted uh the outlook is much improved from what the expectation was last year when we were in the sick of the pandemic uh now funding does remain down relative to three pandemic levels but it has improved from what the expectation was last year now we've also seen that the state's cap and trade market which funds a variety of teen transportation programs including those that specifically support santa cruz metro and its advancement of zero emission technologies has stabilized in fact we've seen that the most recent quarterly option in that cap and trade market which generates the cap and trade revenues that support these programs has vested expectations and all this votes incredibly well for the state's discretionary investments in zero emission buses and infrastructure that are included within the governor's proposed budget so on the next slide we'll see that we have an outline of what is anticipated for investment in zero emission buses and zero emission bus infrastructure now all this serves as a one-time plus up to the funding that has been provided historically and we are engaging on metro's behalf to ensure that these monies move through the budget process and will ultimately best advantage the district in its programs now as we move to the next slide you'll see that the governor has also included within his budget a series of pandemic related statutory release measures that largely extend by one year the release measures that we were successful in securing on the district's behalf last year now included in this relief is some of the release measures that mr cliford had referred to in his presentation that would waive the financial penalties associated with non-compliance with various performance requirements that are built into state law now san Francisco senator scott weiner has taken particularly keen interest in seeing these measures extended and extended and is in fact leading a legislative sign-on effort to encourage state leaders to move these measures through the budget process quickly that we'll be working with n cruise metro's delegation to ask that they join those efforts i have to ultimately vote on those measures at the appropriate time now separate from the budget but related to the pandemic we're also working to urge the state to again provide priority access to the cova 19 vaccine to transit frontline workers and much of these efforts have been focused on the new some administration as the key architects of the state's vaccine distribution plan but increasingly we are focused on intervention from the legislature emphasizing for them the imperative of providing these vaccines to frontline workers immediately and so in the very short term we will be engaging with senator lair the rest of your delegation to enlist their support in this effort like mr cliford expressed it was hugely disappointing to see that the state did change course here and we are going to be encouraging change in this arena and so at this time and on the next slide we would like to pause and offer the opportunity for you all to ask us any questions on the updates that josh and i just provided thank you chris and michael any other questions from the board i have a question maybe i i guess i'd like to try and figure out um to what extent adding uh frontline transit workers uh moving them up in the in the hierarchy of you know who receives the wire uh um responses to the vaccines for the pandemic to what extent can that be done without throwing some other group out of the priority or in other words i'm trying to get some sense of the the kind of arguments you might make with legislators for how they not that that they should move up transit workers but how would that be accomplished what's the funding reality of that possibility i mean if they decide to do that would that then force them to throw some other group out they've already made commitments to or um to what extent i don't have since the relative numbers if we add transit first line transit operators to this that would that have end up affecting say school teachers or other people that the governor sort of moving towards supporting at this point like just trying to get a better sense of the politics of this in Sacramento director rockin it's josh let me feel that at the highest level and then i'm gonna ask michael to give you a little bit more detail as recently as last night michael's actually been in conversations with key officials and governor nuisance office my big picture response to kind of set him up is you've seen in the last couple weeks a more concerted effort to open up our public schools there is some guidance that the state has promulgated that recently identified school bus drivers as sort of next in line right behind some of those earlier tiers that we talked about a minute ago more recently they may be amending that guidance to say bus drivers it's still under the general school category but the argument to answer your question it comes in on if you've already identified the fact that a certain number of a set of the vaccinations that are available county by county ought to help the school bus i'm sorry the public school opening effort we know all of us on this call know that your district school transit bus drivers are taking kids to school every morning still even during the pandemic and so your drivers need to be vaccinated that's an example of an argument that doesn't push anybody else out of the way but having said that it's ultimately up to the county health departments to be interpreting the frustratingly still general state guidance in this regard so we also need to see kind of a link between i think this is partly why michael referenced your state delegation what can be done at the county level to interpret that general guidance that i just mentioned on bus drivers now more helpful in a more helpful way in terms of your frontline transit workers michael maybe i stole all the thunder there if there's anything to add or emphasize please do so i think john said rather the question fairly well but the context that i would add to that is in addition to the school component and the critical role that we know that center cruise metro has been playing for not just k through 12 but also for community colleges where you see students it's the reality that transit is also playing a critical role and going to be leaned on at some point by the state for things like emergency response oftentimes agencies are commissioned to provide support for evacuations whether it's wildfires mudslides there are ways to address this question of vaccine priority it doesn't necessarily lead to a zero sum game for other workers it really is a matter of clarification and punctuating for the state the clear reality that transit is ingrained in virtually all aspects of our lives and so those are certainly the the types of arguments that we are raising to the state i think the other critical thing and mr clipper did address this early in his presentation is the reality that the state has also emphasized and important of having an equitable distribution of vaccine in order to actually implement that we need to make sure that those who may not have a car may not have means have an ability to still get to the mass vaccination sites public transit is it those are the types of arguments that we're raising to thanks very much that's helpful and i i think alex's point i i don't understand why the cannabis workers were moved up because it seems like they would be just like retail in the same way they have that protective shields and it i just didn't understand why that particular population was put ahead of you know some of our other front front line workers that are more directly exposed to the public just to jump in on that real quick so in in this current phase using the state criteria prioritization criteria it includes food and agriculture so our county health officer has decided that under food that includes for example restaurant industry workers and under agriculture that includes cannabis workers so apparently we're providing the free rides to the wrong people we're providing the free rides to the people who really need the vaccine instead of following our county direction and maybe we should provide the free rides to those who need to go get their cannabis he said in a very cynical way but the emergency the emergency worker criteria in the state priority list can be interpreted much the same as our county officer is interpreting the the food and the agriculture criteria and as a matter of fact just to the north of us san francisco mta muni big muni is allowing that emergency worker to be considered in 1b and they are vaccinating their bus operators as we speak in addition to that san louis san louis slo sound so this boat uh did that about a month ago they they're their ceo of their transit agency went to the county health officers say hey can we get our operators uh vaccinated look they're carrying people they're taking them to get their vaccinations their essential workers carrying people to their essential places um they got their vaccinations of all their bus operators about a month ago to the north of us sonoma napa they've all signed on to this interpretation of emergency worker including transit workers it can be done our county health officer has the discretion to do that um and and you know we're just going the route of trying to work through the governor to try to get a top down imposition of this but it can be done now today and there's proof that it has been done and and i just don't understand why we can't make any progress with our county health officer i'm very frustrated i'm sure james is too you know we could reach out to our various mayors including jimmy teepra and our mayor dary tim because they meet our county health officers and that might be something that we can are you know through the board of supervisors and our municipal government can speak up for our drivers donna i we actually have a meeting today with dr newall so maybe don and i can bring it up that'd be great yeah i can mention it eric good now if i could add just one more thing on on this front one of the things that we are going to be doing uh we have talked about our focus on the museum administration again as key architects of the space distribution plan uh we are in fact going to be meeting with lca secretary david kim later today going to continue to push on this point i think some of the traction that certain other transit agencies operating in different counties have gained give license to the reality that others are recognizing the critical importance of transit workers within a variety of contacts that's going to be one more touch point that we'll be pursuing on behalf of santa cruz metro help elevate this consideration hopefully continue to push on what should be state-level guidance appreciate that counties are going it alone making changes that's a patchwork approach that can't be rectified if only the state were to advance the unified policy that's assuming what we're going to be uh angling for in sacrament right thank you and i have some important josh and michael so thanks so much thank you chairland thank you board members great to see you be well thank you well next uh we will move to the um number 16 accept and file federal legislates to update from chris iglio of capital edge excuse me director lin this is gina did you ask for um comment i thought i did but i maybe i missed it if i if if anyone did have a comment that i didn't see from the report from josh and michael okay having said that now i see none sorry all right no no brother you ask okay so next uh we'll turn to chris from capital edge maybe he's frozen literally and not just a metaphor i am yeah i did not mute myself sorry about that thank you you again chairland and the board and it's good to be here virtually i'm itching to get out there in person uh so um uh hopefully uh lobbyists will move up the the uh the list of people getting shots i doubt that's gonna happen uh but uh the ceo and uh others have spoken a little bit about some of the federal stuff that's going on right now uh but i do have a little slideshow hopefully kind of move my way through that uh and let you know what's up uh so next slide please we can go one more uh so you know kind of the four big things right now uh actually number one uh in washington dc right now is is covet 19 relief the president has is is sort of laser focused on getting this thing passed it's moving its way through congress right now uh next after that we're hoping for an infrastructure package and then uh last i kind of want to update you a little bit about you know what's going on with widen administration and the new congress we're also in in a new session the 117th congress uh so i can kind of go through that so next slide please so covet relief and like i said the ceo sort of gone over it a little bit but this is sort of in in general over the last year um the we had the cares act in in march 2020 uh and that had 25 billion dollars for public transit in it uh then we had a lot of start and stops between march and december there was uh pretty much an agreement that more covet relief was needed but there were a few roadblocks that prevented something from from being approved and but right at the end of december got something enacted and again i'm not going to go with these you know how anybody who knows me knows i hate these acronyms so that's what they're calling that chrissa it stands for something but anyway that included 14 billion dollars for transit and again the the cares act included money you guys may remember this the cares act included money for transit and it was distributed through the current formulas and so all transit agencies got this money uh with less money available in in the december 2020 bill uh there were some caveats put on that money and it was specifically uh no transit agency could get more than 75 percent of its 2018 operating expenses when you combined the two covet relief bills from 2020 so the cares act and the chrissa money so if you if if between the two of those you got more than 75 percent of your 2018 operating you you didn't get that money so so that left out a lot of a lot of people uh in that uh and i will say again uh somebody mentioned uh the CEO is not a passive uh a participant in in a lot of these talks he's been probably the most forceful advocate for distributing that transit money to everyone in the country and within the industry he's he is loud and clear with that and as a result congressman panetta and congressman eshu have also become advocates for that as these bills move their way through in january the president proposed his covet relief plan a 1.9 trillion dollar proposal called the american rescue plan he actually proposed 20 billion dollars in it an additional funding for public transit uh two weeks ago the house took that proposal which were sort of guidelines and put it into legislative language and actually added 10 billion dollars to that uh to to what the president asked for transit so that's how important congress believes it to be so 30 billion dollars for public transit uh with a more generous distribution method instead of 75 percent of your 2018 operating expenses between the three uh covet relief bills it's 132 percent so that's going to get lots more particularly smaller agencies involved with this with this latest tranche as they call it for for public transit this american rescue plan is is moving through congress as we speak the house is probably going to vote to pass it today for the first time out of these three big pandemic relief bills it's not going to be bipartisan in nature it's probably going to be along party lines and then when it moves to the senate the senate is probably going to take that bill up under an expedited procedure that prevents filibusters it only allow it you know when when the minority filibuster is a bill the senate you need 60 votes to quote unquote end debate on the bill and end the blockade and it doesn't look like this bill would be would get 60 votes in in the evenly divided senate and so democratic leaders are using this budget reconciliation measure to approve that bill and it'll probably be a 51 50 vote with uh with vice president harris casting you know the ty vote in her role as the senate president i'll also mention that this rescue plan includes a lot of other things like you said 1.9 trillion dollars uh to the uh talk about vaccine distribution there's 20 billion dollars in there for vaccine distribution so hopefully that will get more vaccines out quicker and maybe we won't be talking about trying to push bus drivers to the to the front of the line and that everyone will be able to get it soon 120 130 billion dollars for schools to reopen uh and uh for the elected officials on the board 350 billion dollars uh in state and local assistance which would be distributed to states and local governments of all sizes so and i actually have estimates for what each of you folks would get if you're if you're interested happy to happy to let you know uh on top of the 26 billion dollars that the state of california would get there each each of the entities in sanikers county would would get uh some coveted relief funding so again hoping that this will be passed by march 14th another includes another thing included in the bill is an extension of current expansion of unemployment benefits that expires on march 14th so congress would like to uh approve this bill which includes an additional 400 dollars weekly in unemployment benefits would like to get that enacted so there's no stoppage in in those so that's kind of an overview of covet relief next slide please so after pandemic relief infrastructure the president again has been pretty clear that he wants to do a stimulus bill he doesn't call covet relief stimulus he calls it a rescue plan uh correctly i think and then he says after we do covet rescue we do economic stimulus and he would like the sort of infrastructure to be a central part of that you've been hearing me talk about infrastructure for a long time now the the previous administration talked a lot about infrastructure didn't do much on infrastructure this administration is talking a lot about infrastructure and would like to do something right after this this coveted relief bill talking about a two billion maybe three billion dollar measure that we include a lot of things transportation would be a focal point but also kind of water resources broadband access affordable housing school construction just you know a few of the things that that would probably be included in this package with regard to transportation i think as opposed to seeing a bunch of new proposals uh and programs in this infrastructure package we'll see the transportation component of it be a reauthorization of the fast act and last year the house uh approved a five year 500 billion dollar fast act uh a reauthorization bill that didn't that didn't go anywhere in the senate uh and would it increase uh federal transit formula funding at least by about 50 55 percent over that five year bill so lots of resources in it that's probably going to be a starting point for the house with regard to that uh you know their bill that they passed last year but there's probably going to be some input by the white house on that as well and as I say here that the input from the white house is going to be heavy the themes are going to be addressing climate change and addressing racial equity and that's going to be kind of administration wide but this infrastructure package is probably going to be kind of the first go around with that and so I think again I think the things that that Santa Cruz Metro is doing work really well with both those two themes and so hopefully we'll we'll be able to see some good increases in these programs and participate in well and compete really well so next slide please so the by administration they're kind of staffing up and you guys are probably you know familiar with with the transportation secretary he's kind of the highest profile guy we've had a DOT in a long time uh and uh secretary Buttigieg was confirmed by the senate last month uh he's the former mayor south bend indiana as you know he is a former presidential candidate and I thought this was an interesting you know some people he was a presidential candidate so I think people know how to pronounce his name but somebody gave me this good sort of you know boot edge edge is a good way to pronounce it if you're ever kind of stuck on that on that name uh like I said pretty high profile he uh he was just yesterday as a matter of fact he he decided to take um the washington dc bike share a bike share home from work so there were these videos of him cycling along with his two security guys one in front and one in back and people were criticizing him because the seat was too low and you know that sort of thing so uh he's he's getting a lot of attention uh some other key DOT positions as we uh as we go along uh the deputy secretary of DOT has been nominated not uh she needs to get senate confirmation but her name's poly trottenberg formerly the new york city transportation commissioner but also a congressional staffer who dealt with um with transportation for many years actually worked for senator boxer when she was chair of the environment and public works committee years ago so she's got lots of experience uh and then your neighbor from up the street naria fernandez uh from the santa clara vta is uh in in line to be the fta administrator technically right now she is the deputy administrator uh and the the intent we believe is that she will be nominated to be the uh the administrator uh get that full-time job uh somewhere down the line and a director rotton remembers the uh trump administration beachhead teams uh one of the reasons that that uh that nuria is at uh is the deputy secretary right deputy administrator at fta right now is that she does not you don't need senate confirmation to be deputy administrator and so they could kind of get her in the door right away so she's there she's at fta she's acting administrator will probably eventually be uh the the fta administrator and again uh the the the themes the new themes of this administration of climate change and racial equity are already sort of on display we've got two two of the first really big competitive grant programs that have come out at dot or the whole administration for that matter uh one for the purchase of electric buses the other called the infra program which funds uh freight related projects both of them you know their their notices of funding and came out and said you know priority is given to projects that address climate change and or address racial equity so it's already it's already showing up and it's just going to uh to show up more as we go along uh next slide the new congress 117th congress is it's uh it is we've got slim majorities for democrats of both the house and the senate right now we've got 221 democrats 211 republicans three vacancies i think those vacancies are going to split to one democrat and two republicans when all is said and done special elections um and uh and so you know house leaders can't afford to lose a lot of votes on things uh but you know the good thing about the house is that the majority no matter how slim the the majority is the majority has you know so much power to kind of push whatever it wants through so as a result we're going to get this covered relief bill passed pretty quickly today by the house the senate is divided 50 50 um there's i think there's a couple of independents that caucus with democrats technically but 50 democrats 50 republicans and so uh and ties we've got vice president harris there to uh to break the ties the power sharing agreement that the senate has come up with have um the committee's evenly divided with uh you know with resources and with numbers but the democrats serve as chairs and then you've probably seen a lot of a lot of talk about whether the democrats in the senate would uh would get rid of the the filibuster that that delaying tactic that allows the minority to block uh or delay legislation and you need 60 votes to break that the filibuster remains for now even though it's this particular budget reconciliation measure that we're considering covet under would would keep the filibuster would would not need to fill it would not allow for a filibuster so in some certain instances you can do that and i will go back when talking about the filibuster going back to infrastructure that's going to be an interesting thing uh whether whether congress the democratic leaders and the president decide to do this budget reconciliation with infrastructure or they try to do something bipartisan not sure how you know i i know that senate democrats want to try to do something bipartisan not sure that they're going to be able to get by in from the 10 republican senators that they would want first out of a big bold measure so we may see that reconciliation used with infrastructure again uh for you know kind of a a a a big election that we had uh in november with lots of changes and new things happening uh very little change in the house and senate leadership the leaders kind of remain the same the majority leader and minority leader in the senate flipped but they're still the same people chuck schumer and and mitch mcconnell and in the house we've got kevin mccarthy and nancy polosi still leading and but i i i get the feeling that there's a lot of a lot of organizing among rank and file to try to change that come 2022 and then the ceo did mention earlier about earmarks uh congressionally directed spending pork barrel spending however you want to call it uh earmarks of these line items that that congress used to put in legislation uh for specific projects in specific congressional districts requested by members of congress it was a great way to get everybody has some skin in the game with legislation and so we passed a lot more legislation when we had earmarks when republicans took over the house about 10 years ago they instituted a rule banning earmarks so now that we've got democrats in charge of both the house and the senate they have not instituted a rule this year banning earmarks and so they could conceivably do it this infrastructure bill may be the first shot at doing infrastructure doing earmarks we'll see i'm a little bit a little gun shy about about these earmarks and that i think that they're going to be well one thing i will say is that they will be for uh local government entities non-profit entities not for nor for profit entities when they if and when we do have them and my feeling is that they're probably going to be a little smaller and a little more spread out than they used to be and so uh and the that alex and i have talked a lot about what kind of projects we would look for to ask for earmarks we know that congress and panetta would probably be eager to hear from us about that uh but we also want to be careful that we're not getting you know a small amount of money for a really gigantic project and you know putting the federal process in there for really not a lot of money there's there's there's we're going to have to think about how we do that and but i do think that this year there's going to be talk about it and it will involve some some work on our part to make an effective ask those were the big ones that i had but happy to answer any questions that you guys may have and like i said for any locals who who don't know how much you might expect from that state local money i'm happy to let you know about that too it's muted thank you um do any of the board members have any questions chris i just want to say it's good to see you again chris it's been a couple years nice to see you welcome back i appreciate it thank you for all your hard work i mean i know how hard this guy works i mean he is and i've seen him in action firsthand so those of us that have gone to dc know that we are really really with this lobbyist pushing and getting like the top dollar so and and it's he's been very successful so i look forward to that in the future and questions i have stand up yes hi thank you so much for that presentation um i would be interested in learning about the local dollars that um are estimated or assumed um should should i follow up with you directly or how how could we move forward with getting that information uh you know i can i can i can take it off really quickly if you like if you wanted to do it privately we can do that as well i'd be interested as well so okay well i mean i'll go through santa chris county numbers then so again like 26 billion dollars to the state of california alone so josh go for it michael go for it um 26 billion for for california uh santa chris county 53 million uh city of watsonville 17 million city of santa cruise 14 million city of capitol a 2.2 million and the city of scott's valley 2.6 million and that would be for basically for revenue losses related to covered relief starting last year january 27th of 2020 so between then and and and it's money that is can be used until it's expended uh very flexible uh very needed yes thank you and uh and they're using for you know just by way of background there for cities they're using they use the cdbg formula to distribute it the money doesn't have to be used you know for cdbg purposes that's just the formula they use to uh to distribute the money you can account for note on that any anyone else have any questions any any from the community madam chair i don't see any hands i do have two follow-ups when you get a chance okay looks like we're ready for the follow-ups okay i just while we still have josh and michael on the line i just wanted to make a statement as you know josh has been the executive director of the california transit association for as long as anybody can remember i mean josh has been the face of cta and he has just been wonderful in all the things he has done for transit agencies across the state of california uh and we've shared those things with you on an annual basis he is he has stepped out of the executive director role to take on a support role as a consultant to the organization and i'm sure he has some other things he's going to be doing i i have a guess that he's never going to get out of politics but i'm glad to see he's still there and i just wanted to say publicly how good he has been and the great job he has done for california transit agencies across this state and acknowledge him and thank him for that and also michael pimentel who who has been with the agency for again as long as i can remember um has just done a fantastic job for us and has stepped into the executive director role tough shoes to fill but he's a great guy and he will do well for us so i wanted to make those two notes and then madam chair if we could if we could just double back to item fifting um we kind of didn't have the agenda right we have it as accepted file but the actual board report is an action item if you wouldn't mind approving that legislative agenda i sure would appreciate that thank you and i should have caught that myself so i will move approval of the legislative agenda as proposed a motion for director blotkin do you have a second i'll second okay i we had a couple of you all at once well i'll defer to larry since i saw his screen light up first but thank you really so we have a motion and a second and we'll look for we'll call vote yeah so the motion is to approve the calendar year 21 state and federal legislative agenda as proposed and the roll call is director do track yes dr gonzalez yes dr collins harry johnson yes dr konig yes dr lynn yes dr wilson yes dr meyers yes dr paigler yes dr peterson hi dr rothwell yes dr rottkin hi unanimous i have one question for chris um the uh the year are there the uh the allocations of 24 days that based on primarily on population isn't it it is yes uh the formula the the section 5307 formula that that distributes federal transit funding is based on population for it's mostly population but population and population density right good to see you too go and thank again thank all of our lobbyists for the work they do for us they do a fantastic job and congratulate josh and his semi-retirement director rockin did you hear alex call me old that's i mean thank you thank you but that's that's what i heard but i appreciate i appreciate those comments thank you i don't i i didn't hear michael and i say that and you're certainly not old compared to me so just calm down i can get away with that josh what the hell is all right point taken do we need a motion also to approve the uh federal legislative update from chris no okay no no all right then we'll go to the key performance indicators kpi for report for second quarter fiscal year 21 to december third actually for the year 21 through december 31st 2020 thank you madam chair uh or members in public with christina we have a finance deputy director hopefully i'm unmuting myself here you have so thank you so what we'll present today it's basically our kpis for a second quarter of fiscal year 21 and we went through great details during our committee finance meeting we talked about all of that i'll give you a brief overview of everything as well so if we could call maybe to the presentation our second slide which is the overview of the presentation also we need the presentation please okay perfect so we'll start again with our financial performance called by ridership or productivity risk management uh reliability or maintenance dependability and there is a new category in this time peer comparison so um we'll start with the financial performance next slide please our fair box recovery ratio so fair box recovery ratio as you know it's a very quick but quite important representation and what that basically is is the ratio of how much of the the the agency's costs are covered by passenger fares and the effect of covid 19 are clearly depicted here you see what's happening in march of 20 basically our fair box recovery plummeted to 14 percent and then again even more so in april may and june we resumed fair box collection the beginning of actually the middle of june and our fair box recovery slightly increased and it has been slightly increasing in the second quarter as well kind of measure of financial performance which is quite important for us and it's primarily a measure of efficiency it's our cost per revenue service hour the revenue service hour in this case again the effects of covid 19 are pretty obvious while our fixed costs remain pretty much the same and as you can see in july our costs were really high that has to do primarily with the prepayment of the the first liability we do that every year but also with the fact that our revenue service hours were dramatically reduced next slide please in the same pattern it's also present for for parents as well productivity and ridership it's a category that we'll talk about a little bit our total ridership our ucc and career ridership and the total ridership plummeted and basically is between 89 percent down compared to prior years it has been slightly increasing in the second quarter but it's still fairly low ridership per hour reflects the same pattern next slide please ucc cabrio ridership as we were reminded many times it's approximately 60 percent of our ridership and the effects here of covid 19 were dramatic in march of 20s as you switched online classes i believe the same thing happened with cabrio and as you can see we went down almost 100 97 95 percent it's been increasing slightly but it's still fairly low highway 17 ridership right highway 17 it's our commuter route and covid 19 again was um significant impact of that category we are still at 85 percent below our um nine fiscal year 19 fiscal 20 levels and that trend it's probably going to continue for the next month and year next slide please local ridership is the category that was probably the least impacted of all of that and went down by 60 percent the productivity per hour in this case this is a very interesting slide because as you are probably aware of normally our ucc routes are the ones with the highest productivity in this case however the local routes are the one the ones with the higher productivity and you can see that 69 w 66 those are the intercity lines that we have i'm going to guess that uh the route 19 carries a bunch of people that are not ucsc students perhaps lower bay uh into the system in some way that's one of the major ways people from the west side can get to the metro center and the pacific station and i'm just looking at the fact that they're up in the higher numbers whereas the other uc routes tend to drop below that tend to drop below that absolutely they're below and when we when we get our um origin destination data coming from the tracking we'll be able to do with our new systems you know it'd be in a better position to understand what percentage would say their 19 route is local traffic not ucsc bound related see i just saw i just saw that on that slide and thought that was kind of interesting it is it is any other questions about ridership or activity this category for us it's risk management the next slide please and safety so we'll have our safety director helps understand a little bit and and we were not able to um update the data in this case for the second quarter however we did improve a little bit our um our information we included the data by quarter so it's for quarter one of 21 good morning and madam chair and board members can you hear me yes that's requesting so this chart has been reformatted as christina said instead of a yearly comparison we are doing a quarterly comparison of these nine categories and you can see in each category there is a reduction with the exception of loading zone incident loading zone in which the bus is not moving is stationary and other vehicles have made contact with our bus so this is you can see progression has been good for us for metro any questions i wonder if we might think about what kind of advertising we could do with the public that might have fewer people run into our buses when they're stops not moving that's i don't think we can do our driver training won't help here obviously this is a question of the public realize that if us come to a full stop and often in a traffic lane or maybe we might think about how we might do some public advertising about that so yeah that's a good point we can look into that proposal and see what we can do i'll check with the daniel our marketing and we'll come up with something okay the next chart is about passenger accidents so let's go to the next chart again we have three categories this this time the data is distributed on a quarterly basis and you can see boarding alighting and onboard so in this category we have developed a brochure in english and spanish for our riders so that they can get themselves educated what they can do to prevent boarding incidents alighting incidents and while they are on the bus onboard how they can prevent those kinds of injuries so hopefully we will see more reduction in these categories of passenger accidents we raised this question of the finance committee the lighting issues whether and i don't expect to see it today but at some point to understand to what extent people getting on the lighting mean people getting off the bus as i understand it whether there's issues if we can track these by bus stop to figure out whether there's something about the place people are stepping down or where they are or something that might be partially the cause of the fact that that's gotten a little these are small numbers so you can't draw conclusions but that's might be helpful at some level to try to figure out are there particular bus stops where more people stumble or fall after they get off the bus you know i look at each of the incident and find out most of the time this incident happened the guy have a bag in his hand or and missed the step didn't see because they couldn't see properly the guy missed the step sometimes and fell so most of these things are happening by error on the part of a passenger alighting and not watching his step properly and the brochure talks about that when you're alighting how safely you can alight and how uh take use of the hand railings and extensions available to them to protect themselves for falling so hopefully in the in the future we'll see some more reduction because of what educational brochures we are distributing it's on our website also so we can see that this will have more effect in the future thanks that's all i have thank you thank you rufus and with that we go in the category of reliability and um eddie benson will focus through the kpi's for the second quarter eddie if you're available okay so uh maybe we have some i'll talk about it thank you margo margo ross um madam chair and board members thank you um so i just want to see say that as you can see there's been a reduction in our mean miles between chargeable roll calls on highway 17s and also on our fixed route our overall um uh chargeable calls have been reduced some of it is due to um we're not on the road as much we're not running as many miles but also um the pmi program um the maintenance department has put together and then um the newer buses that we're receiving that really helps with the lower mean calls between road calls for all of our service and i'll be happy to answer any questions any questions next slide please thank you information for highway 17 okay i'm sorry i moved too fast certainly for highway 17 and um we'll we can move to the next slide um and talk about para cruise a little bit uh again you can see that um the miles between road calls um has decreased as well uh you know obviously our our ridership is way down by about 75 or 80 percent though it is ticking up a bit um but um this also contributes to the fact that we have less roll calls on our service we'll be getting seven new vans in a couple of months so um that will increase it as well the next category is dependability and again more information probably we'll receive from margill about operations this is basically canceled trips by area by location and also the calls of the trip um so because we don't have as many as much ridership we do see a decrease in um in cancellations the month of december was kind of an anomaly where we had more cancellations in the previous months and that was really due to lack of personnel a direct result of the holiday season and we saw you know more cancellations the dispatchers do a really good job in trying to allocate where the cancellations are where they do the least amount of harm but unfortunately it was very high for the month of december and november and so again with the pass ups go the cancellations they they kind of or in correlation they they're in hand by hand so if you don't have the personnel to um to carry the passengers and then we're limited on the number of passengers we can get on a vehicle we see an increase in pass ups not as much in the beginning when it was due to um um the limited ridership i think this especially in november and december had more to do with the lack of personnel on our part um again the dispatchers do a good job of attempting to mitigate um the pass ups and in the lack of service in certain areas um but it was a problem for those two months and i will be happy to answer any questions since our last category and it's something new it's peer comparison and there were some questions to request from our members and we are also curious to see how our peers are performing you know in regards to farebox recovery or cost per revenue service hours and of course it's usually very challenging to find information from peer agencies simply because they either don't provide the information or the time frame it's different when we find good reliable information we'll share it with you and this time we found mst which is moderates so in a transit and we are providing information for the first quarter they did not have quarter two for fiscal 2021 so this is the first quarter of fiscal 2021 farebox recovery ratio and um cost per revenue service hour and as you can see in 21 or q1 our farebox recovery ratio of course still pretty low it's 8 percent there it's even worse and part of the reason was that i believe they um resume fairs correction fairs collection in in august so a little bit later than us and so their number reflects that as well um when it comes to the revenue service hour and the cost revenue service hour obviously ours is significantly higher that has to do with um a lot of things one of them is the fact that we are prepaying our first liability liability at the beginning of the fiscal year um the structure of the agency also has a lot to deal with that um for them i believe their salaries and benefits are approximately 50 of their total operating expenses they have significant purchase transportation um expense for us it's a little bit different we have almost 80 or more than 80 percent personnel costs so those are all things that will um be significant when we are comparing data between the different agencies next slide please again this is mst and its average passengers through revenue service hour as well as miles between chargeable um protocols and data a little bit better um primarily it's a much larger service area in the in the first quarter fiscal 21 prior to that we had higher numbers next slide please now we also compared ourselves to golden empire transit um and that transit agency is located in baker's field i have to be honest i don't know a lot about that agency um obviously their boardings were significantly much higher number than metro but our their service area it's much larger as well um the cost side costs for revenue service hours again our cost was significantly higher and like i said it has to do with um our operating expense structure and how we prepay our costs at the beginning of the fiscal year primarily for first i i also know that we have a much better benefit system frankly and uh our drivers are much better than the drivers in that district so i mean that's a big absolutely big big big factor here yeah that will always be a significant factor as well the cost of moving in different areas and so on any questions about your comparison okay thank you thanks thanks for that presentation very helpful to have these indicators and how we're doing track of these are going to be presented to us quarterly we will we will continue to search for more data and present it to you quarterly it could be different agencies but we'll try our best to give you as much information as possible it's a good information for us as well to have yes thank you christina thank you okay and we don't need action on this i don't believe so we will move to consideration temporary fair reduction i think that will be john ago thank you madam chair good morning directors don or go planning and development director so this item asks consideration of a temporary six month fair reduction as we've presented many times since the start of the pandemic the pandemic triggered a steep decline in ridership beginning last march that we haven't recovered from yet and agencies around the country are responding in different ways to get to balance ridership loss with revenue loss some agencies are considering fair increases to make up for lost revenue others have postponed any fair increases that they had scheduled um some have extended their free fair periods that began with coven these are more mostly smaller and rural transit agencies and some are considering you know eliminating fairs entirely kansas city became the the largest and most famous agency pre coveted los angeles metro is now considering a similar policy we we carefully consider ridership revenue and equity and we're recommending a hybrid approach which would consist of a 50 discount on adults in regular fairs and free fairs for riders with an eligible discount card for a period of six months the same discounts would also apply to parent cruise trips we think this supports a number of goals so the first being ridership we estimate that a 50 reduction in adult and youth fairs could produce a 17 increase in ridership in that category while free fairs for discount eligible riders uh could increase ridership 33 and that in that category for an overall increase in 20 i should pause and just say that these numbers are likely overstated we applied standard industry accepted elasticities of ridership with respect to fair price in the short term but typically those changes take longer than six months to see results customers also would need places to go so we'd need to see the economy continue to open up in greater measure but still we believe that supporting the return of ridership in whatever format may take is important to do at this time and beyond ridership we think this supports a number of important equity goals and also just regional economic recovery efforts so consumers as we all know are disproportionately low income with more than 60 percent of riders reporting a household income of less than $24,000 this according to the last 2019 on board survey and as the pandemic continues to take its hold on the economy and public health reducing fairs can help lower the financial burden of transportation for those in our county who need it most it can also help with regional economic recovery efforts expanding access to opportunity and putting money back into the pockets of transit riders that can be spent elsewhere in the economy there are certainly some disadvantages to consider the new implementing the new fair structure requires reprogramming our fare boxes or ticket vending machines our customer service terminals there's a cost of about $1,800 associated with the the vendor software costs more significantly is the staff time that it will require to go out and test and reprogram all these various terminals we also need to print and distribute marketing materials there's a potential of a free rider problem or or exposing conflicts with people experiencing homelessness however we are only doing free fares for or we're proposing only allowing free fares for discount eligible customers so they still need to show proof of discount eligibility as they do currently most significantly is the fair revenue loss we estimate about $200,000 in fair revenue loss over the six month period proposed for this temporary fair reduction and this may seem like an inopportune time to incur further revenue losses however given how low ridership is currently the loss is relatively minimal in the bigger picture compared to the overall budget situation right now and again supporting the return of ridership now is an investment in the future of metro and it's also an investment in the community and to transit riders at a time when they need it most in terms of implementation for for a temporary six month change the FTA does not require a board approval although we are asking approval today nor a title six fair equity analysis and we will evaluate the effects of the fair change on ridership revenues equity the goals we've stated fourth year today at the end of the six month pilot pilot to make a determination if we want to continue it if there's any reason to do so I I don't think we wouldn't do that we see this as a temporary measure to get us kind of through spring and summer and hopefully out of the worst of the pandemic but we never know what the future will bring as we've all learned over the past year with that I'd like to take any questions okay Mike Robkin I'll just offer my strong advice that we clearly make it very clear to the public that this is temporary as a measure there's a tendency for riders to you know have a short memory when it comes to these sorts of things and we'll be charged with you know what are you guys crazy you're gonna like increase transient pairs by 50% you know no we're just going back to having fears at a level that to perform at this sort of nationally expected level and so I I think it's critical that people understand even if we do decide to extend it which could happen but at this point we make sure this is a temporary program we will be putting fears back to their regular level that's absolutely otherwise we're going to have long lines of people at our meetings when that happens blaming us for like deciding to like out price their transit industry or something yes thank you we we during our budget that was one of our concerns in the finance meeting that it be very clear and advertises temporary yeah we'll make sure temporary is in all of our marketing and one reason that we decided to basically mimic our existing fair structure is to make the messaging super easy so half price for youth and adults free for discount rider we don't expect to you know change out the information that's on the fair boxes for example that this is going to be all done through marketing customer information and as you said the intent is better to have you know hopefully increased ridership at a lesser fee than you know continue with the loss of riders so it makes sense that this even though it doesn't seem logical at this time that we're cutting fees when we're struggling financially but we need to find a way to get our riders back in and find the value of metro and then during this pandemic also helping them as so many are unemployed so makes sense any other board members have questions or comments thank you i do chair um i have a handle from stan first thank you hi a quick question a couple questions um it sounds like one of the primary objectives is to increase ridership how does this tie into uh current ongoing and um unknown into ridership maximums is there any concern that how to kick our coverage here and get more riders than we can accommodate yeah that's a good question currently we're not in danger of that on any of our routes you know we are seeing basically average boardings being about half of our capacity even reduced levels we are approaching it on some of the inner city front routes like the 71 35 66 69 so we'll we'll have to continue to watch that um it's it's definitely a good question you know the the issues that we experienced last summer when we went free fare uh were more associated with this free rider problem and once once we instituted fares back in um it pretty much uh ended that issue so i it's it's a concern that we'll monitor we're already preparing backup service should we need to implement it um but you know it people still need places to go you know that's it's not just because it's cheaper doesn't mean it's gonna entice people to to draw a ride on on the metro system for example thank you director can tell us thank you chair um yeah my question was on for the discounted eligibility um are they or already recognized organizations where or how do they apply for being eligible for the discounted fares uh so we're following the same uh eligibility process that we currently go through and I believe that customers have to apply through customer service load up through the discount photo ID projects or sorry process and it's for older adults and people with disabilities what else can help me out but I believe you do have to apply in person for a photo ID card at the customer at a customer service center rena you want to chime in on that definitely it's agent disability they can pick up an application at the booth so we're not changing that process any other questions for comments well thank you for that presentation do we I believe we need uh a motion for approval I don't really know make this motion it's been trying hard well wait a minute let's clarify something because I think uh uh staff said that they didn't need a motion but they like to have motion is that that I understand it correctly because they didn't have to they didn't have to bring it to us but they decided that they would for our approval so once it's here we should all right I'll make a motion we approve the temporary second and Bruce is seconding I got a motion from Rio and second by Bruce and we'll ask Gina for a roll call vote motion to approve the temporary fair reduction as proposed motion by Gonzales second by McPherson Dr. Ditcher yes Dr. Gonzales yes Dr. Callantyre Johnson yes yes Dr. Coney yes Dr. Lind yes Dr. McPherson yes Dr. Myers Dr. Myers Dr. Myers sent an email that she had to depart to another meeting okay thank you Dr. Pegler aye Dr. Peterson aye Dr. Rothwell yes Dr. Rotkin aye aye unanimous of those present with director Myers being gone all right thank you and I believe under 19 that we don't have a closed session if I understand correctly so we can move past that if I'm correct no closed session no closed session thank you all right then the next item would be announcement of our next announcement the next meeting Friday March 26th 2021 at 9 a.m. and teleconference or I assume we'll still be it'll still be teleconference the people should check the website just to be certain but at this point it does look like it's going to be a teleconference all right thank you we look forward to when we can all be here in person but safely and other than that I think we are ready to adjourn excellent job of sharing your first meeting thank you Mike and thanks for the back the backup on that and I publicly apologize for all of the kinks well you were present in all pages so executive executive secretary in charge of cloning apparently and they thought I could only do sheep thank you all we'll see you next meeting and uh stay safe