 So we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. This is the May 5th meeting of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission. And we will start our meeting with the roll call. Commissioner Bertrand. Present. Commissioner Sandy Brown. Present. Commissioner Johnson. Here. Commissioner alternate Hearst. Here. Commissioner Caput. Yeah. Commission alternate shift friend. Yeah. Commission or alternate Quinn. Let's see him just yet. Commissioner Koenig. Here. Commissioner McPherson. Yeah. Commissioner Christian Brown. Mission Parker. Here. Commissioner Rockin. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. You're on me. Commissioner. Sorry. Here. Sorry. Commissioner Lane. Thank you. Okay. We will now move on to oral communications. Oral communications is a time for members of the public to address the commission on items. That are not on today's agenda. But in compliance with state law, we'll not take action on items that are not on today's agenda. You can, if you're on your phone, you can raise your hand by pressing star nine. And or if you're on zoom via the raise hand button on your zoom controls. And speakers are requested to state their name clearly. So that it can be accurately recorded in the minutes of the meeting. So I will go ahead and start. With David. Dislikes bullies. You are our first caller. And so we'll. Call on you. You're up. And if you're muted, you can press a star six to unmute. David. Hello, can you hear me now? Yes, we can hear you. Hi, this is David Van Brink. And I have a note about the agenda packet. There were some 440 plus emails that are currently being added to the agenda packet. As they were inadvertently spammed. Yesenia and Kristen, Christa are looking at that as I understand. So thank you for your help. These are all from advocates and pertain to item 28 favoring ultimate trail. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Van Brink. Next up, we have Brian from trail now. Hi, it's Brian from trail now. Thank you. We're a local organization. Working to move forward with the Santa Cruz coastal trail. Now in a timely and effective manner. I personally have been involved in state and Santa Cruz transportation for over 20 years. Regularly participating in the RTC meetings for over a decade. You know, maybe of you know that I was in a serious accident a month ago, broke my neck, broke my back, fractured my ribs and bruised my ribs doing well. And thank you all for the well wishes. Many of you were probably very surprised that I actually called in to the RTC meeting a few days after my accident from the ICU. I felt it was important to call into the meeting to express the importance that our community move forward with building the coastal trail in a timely and cost effective manner. What really drove me to call in was a 12 year old boy who was in the room next door. He had been hit on his bike by a call. It was in critical conditions. This is very upsetting. This made me upset with Santa Cruz transportation policy and politics. The decade long delay building a cost effective coastal trail. People are dying. People are getting injured on the county roads. Every day cyclists and pedestrians are at risk without having safe transportation corridor across the county. As elected officials on the RTC board, you have the responsibility to move forward with timely and cost effective infrastructure investments. Please do not continue to play the political games. Listen to the RTC staff and transportation experts on the facts. Very much appreciate your time. And I am actually walking grateful to be walking and alive and wear a helmet everybody when you ride your bike. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. People's. We are next caller is Rick Longinati. And Mr. Longinati, if you are muted, you can unmute yourself on your Zoom. Controls or with star six. Okay. Mr. Longinati is seems to have disappeared from my participant's screen. So we'll get you back in the queue. And we'll call, I'll call on salad and sale. Next. Can you hear me okay? Yep. Thank you. My name is solid in sale. All items appearing on the screen. Are represented as being minor or non-controversial. It is hard for me to understand how a staff recommendation to abandon efforts to secure a contract to repair our county's bridge link. The national rail. Mr. sale. I'm, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I, we do want to hear your comments. That is an item on our consent agenda. And that I'm intending to pull that item. So you will get an opportunity to speak about it. When we get to that worse. We're still on oral communications. So. That was going to be my request. That was going to be my request to pull the item. Thank you. Gotcha. Okay. We'll do. Thank you. Mr. Scott. Barry Scott. You're up. Good morning. Chair Brown and commissioners. I am, I'm not going to address item 28. I've got something else I wanted to mention that's not on the agenda. And it's inspired by a presentation I gave to 40 people. I think at La Selva beach. And I was just sharing with them the, the trail master plan. Details and I'd made copies for them and showed slides. But the reason I'm calling, they asked about the, the, you know, the washed out repair and the erosion repair. What was going on with that? And, and I, and I said that it was probably a technicality that needed to be cured. Before they could do the, the full amount of work that's needed. And I, and I said that it was probably a technicality that needed to be cured. And I said that it was probably a technicality that needed to be cured. Before they could do the, the full amount of work that's needed. And through an email that I think arrived yesterday, we understand that the RTC, according to the coastal commission needs to obtain a coastal development permit. But the RT thing. RTC thinks that they may. They might not need that. And we'll do a temporary repair. And I just want to encourage and speak. And I just want to make sure that they really, and I certainly, I think a lot of the community hope that you are not the problems and are able to do the full work that's needed. For that. That section to preserve the tracks, no matter what we do with the corridor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Scott. Our next caller is has a number ending in 7, 7, 8, 0. And it looks like you're on mute. You can press star six to unmute yourself. Hello, can you hear me? This is Craig Shatterton. Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. Yes, I would like to bring a study to the attention of the commission. There was a study in Southern California is funded by Caltrans. But it was for the inland empire region. And the purpose was to study the impact of broadband adoption on vehicle miles traveled and. Also greenhouse gases. I put a slide in for this. I don't know if it's being shown, but I did include a slide which showed the cover page of the study and the URL for it. And I would ask that the commission consider asking our key staff to review the study. And determine if the approach and or results might be relevant to Santa Cruz County. As a point of reference. The LPA, the locally preferred alternative, which was presented last April had a greenhouse gas reduction of about point, about 0.16%. This study in Southern California showed a greenhouse gas reduction of from one to 15%. Depending upon what approach they took and what adoption levels they were able to achieve. So that could be a 10 X or more improvement versus a solution like rail in the corridor. And recall the goals of the LPA. Or the bottom line assessments of economic equity. And environmental impacts. And broadband as they just discovered is really a green strategy. And could be a very important part of reducing vehicle miles traveled and being off gases here in Santa Cruz County. So I think this is worth evaluating. I would just ask the commission to consider that. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. And we didn't have the slide up during your comments. But if we could, if it came into the commission office, if that could be distributed to commissioners, it may be in our inbox. I will say. The first speaker mentioned a significant number of emails that have come in and I have received those. And I've heard from other commissioners that they too have received those. So our boxes are pretty full. So if we, if we could get that slide referencing the study, it would be very helpful. Thanks. Just for staff. Okay. Next up, we have Michael St. Thank you, chair Brown. Good morning commissioners. Michael St. with campaign for sustainable transportation. When it comes to climate change, most citizens and politicians have their blinders on only focusing on their small immediate problems and ignoring what's happening around the world. As climate impacts worsen. Scaling up investments in climate resilience will be essential for survival. We need to divest from the fossil fuels and get out of our cars. Period. So far, this RT sees. UCI studies, alternative studies for train rail, the potential loss of rail on the corridor, the highway widening with non-tank vehicles, the roadway, the roadway, the highway widening with non-functioning bus and traffic will lead to a large net increase in greenhouse gas emissions, as well as vehicle miles travel. To me personally, and to a lot of our advocates, this is extremely sad with all the studies that's been going on for 10 years. There will be no help in mitigating climate change. The effects of climate change will actually have contributed. To the impact of climate change. And that will be a little warming through the RT sees projects. At some point in this time. Those that make these decisions about our transportation infrastructure. Have to wake up and realize the only way to fix our. And be part of the answer to mitigating climate change. At the same time is to get people out of their cars. Here are a few comments I've heard over the years from commissioners and RTC directors. We know the ox lane project won't work. We need to move people, not cars. The answer to our future congestion is a return to mass transit. No ifs ands or buts. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. St. Our next caller is Barbara Chamberlain. And Barbara, you are on mute. There we go. Here I am. My name is Barbara Chamberlain. I am the president of the Cabrio host lions club and a past district governor of lions district. Four C six. As you know, the lions have a great need for helping. Handicapped people, elderly people and low income people. This is, this is one of our goals. To do some significant future planning. For helping this group and also for decongesting the highway. And there's only one way to do that. And that is with alternate transportation. And there's a, a lot of things going on right now with. Different types of trains and a significant help for these, this group. And one of the things that I think is really important. And one of the things that I think is really important for this large group. Is to make sure that there's a way. In the future, maybe it might take a long time. I realize that. And I may never see it, but the. Future would be to have some sort of connection. By rail from Watsonville to. Maybe Santa Clara go to the airport. Things like that. I think that would be really important. Any new improvements to the highway would only add to the congestion. And I do feel very sorry for people who are stuck in the commute traffic right now. I think that the commissioners could. With significant. And. Innovative future planning. Help this group of people and also help the workers of this city. I think that would be really helpful. Thank you. Thank you very much for your help. And if you have any questions, do contact me. Thank you, Miss Chamberlain. Our next caller is Judy Gettleson. Hi, good morning, chair Brown and commissioners. I'm a fortunate Watsonville resident and. And a staunch train. I want to say I want to invite you to, I'm an artist and I want to invite you to my gallery on main street for 30 main street. To see my show that's up through the middle of June called welcome aboard. And it's a showcasing the history of the Pajaro Valley and the importance and usefulness of train. In the Santa Cruz County. It's been a force for good. And I really want to encourage all of you to support. Our work. With the city of Watsonville. We've been working on the public transportation and public transportation in Watsonville. We could really use a very. Good rail system to connect our people with the world and to bring the world to Watsonville too. So I welcome you to come to studio Judy G and Watsonville. Thank you for your work. Thank you, Miss Gettleson. Our next caller is Robin. The next caller is Robin Belkin. And it looks like you are muted. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Okay. This is Robin Belkin. I lived here for the last 30 years consecutively. And I also went to UCSC. Coming from Southern California, where I wanted to get away from all the congestion. I would just like to say also as a trained coach, that in terms of making decisions, it's always helpful to stay focused on your mission and your purpose. And my understanding of your mission and your purpose is to work towards sustainable multimodal transportation and. Improving the quality of life for those that live here. And I understand that greenhouse gas emissions and traffic congestion and global warming are all critical to that end. So in terms of the ultimate versus interim trail, I strongly urge you to support the ultimate trail. And from what I can tell, you've already chosen that based on all the exhaustive studies you've done and I hate to see you lose focus on your mission and on the work you've already done, which I thank you for. I understand this Belkin. I'm sorry to interrupt you. The question of interim versus ultimate trail configuration is on our agenda today. So we, you will have an opportunity to speak about that. During that item, which is scheduled for 10 30 AM. I'm sorry, so wrong time. So yeah, this is for items not on the agenda. General comments. At 11 pulling from the agenda. Does that qualify? We're, we'll be doing that right after oral communication. Okay. My apologies. Thank you. No problem for me again. Bye. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Our next caller is Tina Andreada. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Good morning. I would like to, I would like to read this. California Transportation Commissioner James Gallimetti quoted in the Santa Cruz Sentinel on July 1st, 2010, regarding the granting of 10.2 million to the SCCRTC from Proposition 116 funds to purchase the Santa Cruz branch line rail corridor and the right of way from Union Pacific. Here's his quote, proposition 116 was meant for rail, not for bicycle trails and paths. I don't want a bait and switch going on to allocate the funds and buy this only to find out several years later that we don't have a rail project unquote. And let's continue forward with the state rail plan. Let's connect, you know, Santa Cruz County to the state rail plan. Let's go back to the state rail plan. Capitola, Aptos, La Selva Beach, Watsonville, down to Gilroy and to the rest of the state rail plan. Let's, I really think you need to shelve the trail only. I call it the trail to know where. Thank you. Have a good day. Thank you, Miss Andreada. Commissioner Rockin. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Rockin. To encourage the chair to say support the chair. Making a quicker decision when people call in and are making comments, whatever side they're on. That are really about the item that's on our agenda. I know you're doing your best. It's not, it's not easy to share these things, but it's pretty clear sometimes after the first three words that a person can't help himself to talk, talk about our number 28 item. And I would really strongly encourage you to cut them off quickly. And I'm, I'm trying to monitor that it's a, it's a little bit challenging to when, when we get, we move from the general comments about rail and trail or. I would, I would just say. Yeah. At this point, if people are commenting about the virtues of rail and I'm a rail supporter, if they're commenting about the virtues of rail, it's about item 28 and you could feel free to cut them off. I think it's one, I'm only one commissioner, but that'd be my encouragement. So, well, thank you for raising it. And hopefully for, for members of the public, you've heard the, the request and I, I agree. Please do try to. Make your comments during oral communications about items that are not on the agenda. We do have time. And we'll get there probably more quickly. If we move through our first items on our business agenda. We'll go ahead next and call on Gina Cole. And ask you to, again, speak to items not on today's agenda. Okay. It looks like Gina, Ms. Cole has dropped off. So I'll call on equity, equity transit next. Hi, thank you commissioners for your time and your work. I just want to speak on, I just came a little bit late. I just wanted to make sure that someone may have already spoken about missing letters. I know that I myself sent in a letter prior to nine a.m. yesterday and I did not see it on the public package. I do want to say that I appreciate the staff because when I called, they immediately researched this and addressed it. And I really appreciate their time and effort to do so. I just want to say that we had heard this issue come up in the past. Perhaps even as many as 6000 letters from a past. RTC meeting had gone missing. And we're not included as a part of the package. The public record is very important. And making sure that we have a process by which these letters are not being lost in the trash or somewhere else is really important. So I guess some of us are going to have to do some research to see if our letters made it onto past RTC meeting agendas. And then I just want to also mention that there was a timing change. I mentioned this in a previous RTC meeting as of December 2021. On the timing change to submit letters was very concisely noon by the Wednesday prior to the meeting. And then as of December 2021, it changed to a more complex situation where items on the agenda were accepted prior to 9am items, not on the agenda. We're a Monday, some weeks prior to the meeting. And that makes it very difficult, especially if we want to ensure that our comments are on a specific agenda. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Miss Faulkner. We, we did hear about that. And our staff will be working to monitor that as we move forward. And, and those, those letters are being distributed. For this agenda item or for this agenda. Thank you. Okay. Rick Longinati is back. You're up. Mr. Longinati, we can't hear you. If you're speaking. So just make sure you're unmuted. And it looks like you are still, there we go. I think, I think I just got the cue to unmute. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner's. Good morning. So my name is Rick Longinati and I'm with the campaign for sustainable transportation. And tomorrow there's a lawsuit that we are. It's being heard in Sacramento, superior court. From that's our organization and Sierra club sued Caltrans over the highway one. EIR. And if we just, you know, can kind of assume that there may be an issue with that ruling in our favor that the EIR is inadequate. I want to talk about what happens next. The, our organization has, has a pretty simple ask. And that is that. Instead of building auxiliary lanes and running buses in those auxiliary lanes where they'll be stuck in traffic. In the peak hour traffic. We actually put some pain on those lanes and make them exclusively bus only lanes. Everywhere else in the country where there's a bus on shoulder, it refers to bus only lanes. The only segment of the proposed project before you. That is bus only is at the interchanges when you go over an overpass, the bus will have its own short segment all by itself. And that's going to attract a lot of riders to ride the bus because, you know, you want a bus only lane where the bus. We'll be able to make time and really attract riders. If you can imagine the future where. The highway 17 express starts in Watsonville picks up passengers and apt us. And so Kelly heads over the hill. In addition to. The existing service. Imagine the 91 X going down the highway and making good time. You could really make good time when there's not congestion. And with a bus only lane. The, the express bus could really make good time. And for some people. That would. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Longinati. We are your two minutes are up. And you can go ahead and send. Additional comments if you'd like. And I do have messages from you as well. So. Thank you for your comments. I'll call next on Gina Cole. Olivia, will you please unmute Ms. Cole. And make me co-host. Okay. It looks like. We have lost Ms. Cole for the moment. Thank you. So I'll go ahead and call on. Our next speaker. Fern. You're up. And it looks like. So you are, you're currently muted. Fern, if you could unmute yourself so that we can hear you. Okay. I see. It looks like your name has changed. Fern. Selzer. We are still on mute. So we're not able to hear you. You can unmute yourself. In the toolbar on your, your zoom screen. Okay. So we're not able to hear you. And I think, and we are on a time schedule. We have a public hearing scheduled for 930. So. I'm going to. Keep us moving along. We'll, before we move on to our public hearing, I do want to just ask if there are. Any additions or deletions to today's agenda. So there is one deletion. Item 30 is not needed today. That's closed session. Okay. There are handouts for items 1126 and 28. And those have been posted to our website. And I know staff was working on getting the comments that. Unfortunately went into our junk. Email. Posted as they are not junk. They are important public input. Okay. Thank you. We. So we are at our item four on our agenda. The beginning of the consent agenda. So items four through. 22. Our consent items. Given that we are pulling an item and there may be some comment on the other items. And then we have. Regular agenda items. I think we're going to be able to. We have. Regular agenda items. I think we right now should move item 26 up. We have a public hearing on 2022 unmet transit and paratransit needs. And so if it's. Amenable to the group, I would move that up and begin the public hearing and open that hearing now. I think we're going to be able to return to the regular agenda. And it's in order. So we have, so Amanda, our trans transportation planner, the RTC is going to provide a staff report. On the final draft of the 2022 unmet transit and paratransit needs. And then we will take, we'll open the hearing and take public comment. Thank you. And good morning. Thank you. The RTC and currently staff, the elderly and disabled transportation advisory committee, and the tech for the regional transportation commissions, consideration is the 2022 final draft unmet transit and paratransit needs list listed as attachment one in your packet with changes since the 2021. Unmet needs. that transportation planning agencies that use TDA funds for local streets and road projects to implement a public process, including a public hearing to identify unmet transit needs of transit dependent or disadvantaged persons and determine if unmet transit needs can reasonably be met. Although the RTC does not allocate TDA funds to local streets and road projects, and therefore is not required to perform this analysis, the RTC endeavors to solicit regular input on unmet transit and paratransit needs to provide a useful tool to assess and prioritize needs in the region, as well as identifying needs for future transit funding. Serving as the social services transportation advisory council for TDA statutes, the elderly and disabled transportation advisory committee, ENTAC, regularly hears and considers unmet transit and paratransit needs in Santa Cruz County. Unmet transit and paratransit needs are those transportation needs which are not being met by the current public transportation system have community support and do not duplicate transit services provided publicly and privately, or privately. The unmet needs are prioritized using high, medium and low rankings. High priority items are those items that fill a gap or absence of ongoing service. Medium priority items are those that supplement existing service. Low priority items are still an unmet need, but is assigned low priority because the need identified may be general in nature and requires more specific planning to identify strategies, or may not address a basic needs such as transportation for medical appointments, shopping or access to other services. Within each category there are three levels indicating what extent the needs, if addressed, would advance regional transportation plan goals, with one being a project that is expected to improve safety, economic vitality and cost effectiveness. The items on the list reflect public input or input from a variety of sources, including members of the public, partner agencies, and is primarily a document worked on by the RTC's ENTAC, which includes Santa Cruz Metro, the Volunteer Center, and the coordinated transportation services agency, Community Bridges Lifeline staff. The draft 2022 unmet transit and paratransit needs list was posted to the RTC website, and a notice availability was sent to interest groups, senior living facilities, senior centers, local jurisdictions, and transportation service providers in Santa Cruz County. English and Spanish, Spanish ads additionally went out in the Centennial and the Pajaronian public input was received using the online form available in both English and Spanish receiving 76 comments included as attachment to the RTC additionally attended the Pajaro Valley Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture's Business, Business Expo with printed copies of the online form in both English and Spanish. Some of the updates to the unmet needs list from last year include a need to increase bus service near senior living facilities, libraries and other public venues, ensure accessible public taxi service and ride share service for those using mobility devices, increasing the need for specialized transportation for areas outside the ADA mandated paratransit service area for medical non medical trips, as well as free or low cost paratransit options, including a need for greater frequency and span of transit service in Soquel and on old San Jose Road, Aptos and Coralitos. Consider creating an all nighter circular bus network providing late night and early morning bus service in downtown areas, improving inter regional and cross county transit services, including connections to the Salinas Intermodal Transportation Center and implementing express bus service using future bus on shoulder operations on Highway one. There's also a clarifying the need for safe paths for safe paths of travel at potential future transit stations on the rail line. Increasing the need for free or low cost transportation options, including fixed route transit services and a need for earlier and faster frequency of transit trips system wide. Improving sidewalk connectivity and lighting at bus stops, reinstate a bus stop committee to study and monitor bus stop accessibility. Add a bus stop at the intersection of Granite Creek Road and Santas Village Road in Scots Valley. Coordinated improvements of the Watsonville Transit Center's transit facilities and providing increased parking. Develop micro transit programs in San Lorenzo Valley, Scots Valley, Soquel, Aptos and Watsonville. Provide a dedicated park and ride lot near Highway one connecting transit service in Watsonville. Increasing the amount of on bus bike racks to better better facilitate first last mile of travel and installing bike walkers at transit stations. I additionally received a comment from Caltrans District five staff yesterday to add a need to install bus stop amenities such as digital bus tracking and information displays us be charging and wifi for transit users. You can review these updates and additional updates the list on the RTC website or in this RTC packet. This unmet needs list is not a funding recommendation and does not prioritize projects for funding, and that it does not provide a detailed project schedules or timelines. This list and public process is used as a tool to receive public input and identify projects to be considered in the preparation of both grant applications and for future and for transit operators to use to identify transit needs for future funding and other needs, including RTC discretionary transit funds, such as state transit assistant funds, state of the good repair funds and low carbon transit operation program funds and more. It stands that the RTC adopt the 2022 unmet transit and paratransit needs list with amendments as appropriate following a public hearing and consider unmet transit and paratransit needs as funding becomes available. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Marino. Appreciate your oral presentation and commissioners have reviewed the packet which includes the lists. I want to now open it up for commissioner questions. And before we take it out to for public input and I see Commissioner McPherson. Yes, thank you miss Marino for a very thorough presentation that might be getting ahead of ourselves but there's the potential for Kaiser medical facility being built over in the live ocarion channel clear. And it's yet to be decided the finalized but I just wonder if this is a good time to say, if that should happen, we should pay attention to that because being a member of metro as well it really complicates the bus route system for metro, and I don't know how we might be able to. I think it just should be pointed out that that's going to be a need. And it's, it's a difficult situation for Metro to meet if that should if that facility should be built. I, I don't know if this is the right time but because it hasn't been constructed yet but I think maybe we should pay some attention to it if it should happen, one or the other. Thank you. Commissioner rockin. I just have a brief comment public needs to be aware that the number of bicycles that we carry on Metro buses is at its maximum right now every bus carries has a capacity to carry three bikes up to three bikes. And it's not we used to have the racks on the back that people have problems with, because the driver couldn't see the bikes back there people stealing bikes and so we made a decision to move them to the front but the current technology allows racks that will carry more than three bikes, much as all of us would love to have fiber. I've often been left behind by a bus holding on to my bicycle had to lock my bike up and quickly hop on the bus. But that's just a factual information for people that unfortunately there's just isn't current technology that would allow more than three bikes to a bus. Thank you. Thank you. Mr Bertrand. Thank you very much chair. I noted in the report. Many things that were absolutely wonderful and certainly a guide as you said for future grant applications, the considerations that are on far reaching and also affects many other areas, not just seniors so in all it benefits whole group around Santa Cruz County. You mentioned something in the report about doing a survey for needs senior needs and such. I believe the senior council does an annual survey of senior needs. Is that something that you this agency is working with them. Try to, you know, make sure that survey is well distributed and proper questions etc. So that's my question. This time this is a separate survey that we put out for just for the unmet needs list but that is a really great option and I'll take note of that for next year maybe you can integrate our surveys together work together. Yeah, that'd be great because many of the things that are on this list are definitely the things that the senior council addresses your right maybe a slightly different focus intense focus I think. Thank you. And thank you Ms. Marino that we do I'm also on the area agency on aging board and we do comprehensive survey so I'll try to connect you with the staff there to do that moving forward. Okay, we have, let's see. Mr. Olenek. Did I pronounce that right. Yes, thank you. Good morning. I wanted to emphasize the importance of this unmet transit needs process. We monitor transit planning and we monitor this process under the statues of the TDA. And the comment that Amanda offered, I was going to call on Madeline Jacobson of our team of our of our transit staff team to kind of emphasize the importance of adding certain features key, implementing key improvements that we're all really trying to handle to help shift truck driver behavior from vehicles to track the things like transit and other sustainable modes. So, if it's okay Madeline if you would mind raising your hand real quick and just kind of emphasizing our point about the technology. All right. I believe you can unmute yourself. This Jacobson. Thank you. Thank you, John. And good morning commissioners supporting our statewide goals to help bridge those gaps in broadband access. District five would encourage consideration in the unmet needs list an item to install transit amenities, such as Wi Fi for transit users or digital tracking and information displays and USB charging when feasible as additional amenities to existing or future transit stops. And so appreciate documentation in the in the unmet needs list of this opportunity to bridge those broadband gaps. Thank you. Thank you Madeline and thank you for the time. She's our district five transit planner so going forward we're glad to be available to help with any questions. Wonderful. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Quinn. Great. Thank you chair Brown, terrific report and minds a question regarding, given the rapid expansion of the elderly population and the disabled. I'm curious as to the process to piggyback the pair cruise on to existing buses and looping back to Mr. McPherson's comment. There are certain places we know the elderly and the disabled go with alarming regularity Dominican hospital, the center place, the rehab facility over on Frederick. How do we piggyback the individualized transportation on the existing hubs to try to move as many people as we can. Thank you Commissioner Quinn for the question. Can I ask a question. Please, Robert. I'm not sure exactly Robert could. I'm not just to repeat what you said but I'm trying to understand what what specifically you're asking for. It's a planning. How do we, you know the a lot of the pair of cruises very individualized and it needs to be people need help getting in and out of the vehicle but once they're in the individual vehicles are under leveraged and there are places where that can handle a numbers of wheelchairs when their pre schedule may know they're going say to Dominican or cider and do we have the ability to cluster the rides or leverage larger vehicles to scale the individualized transit that paratransit needs. So you're talking about shared use of these vehicles. I understand. So, I will say that that's already something that we are trying to maximize that the metric and sectors metro. And perhaps our staff could give you more detailed response from the metric to give you a more detailed description of what we're involved in now and what, and you could talk with them and be clear about things you think that are missing in our current operations. Yeah, I'd be happy to educate it offline. It's just it's such a huge issue in terms of leveraging that. Thank you for your point now. Thank you very much. I'll have the Metro staff reach out to you. Talk about what we're doing in that area in terms of our pair of paratransit operations. Thank you. Okay, we will now take it out to the public for comments and our first caller is Brian trail now. Thanks Brian people from trail now you know in 2015, we were a political action committee that opposed measured be. And what happened with Zach friend and Don Lane changed the language to move money from a basically a train and the train station in Monterey County to paratransit to Metro. And that was so great. And then what we did is we became a big supporter of measure D and all we all know the 2016 measure D was a game changer for our community. Great, great, great. My mother died last year of ALS. And I'll tell you that the lifeline is a phenomenal program really needs to be more invested in that it basically went from point a point B. They gave a time slot when they would come and pick her up, and they would drop her off at her doctors. So that's a phenomenal program. We need to invest more in that kind of point to point service for the ADA requirements, Wi Fi on bus, definitely need to increase that because you know why those people who are riding buses can get pained while they're riding on the bus by employers I know this my employer does it they pay you if you're working on a transit bus if you're on Wi Fi you're working you're engaged the employers paying you so immediately. It's a game changer for them digital trans tracking phenomenal excellent idea. Let's get more of that so that the metro users can see when the buses are if there's a delay they know it. So let's continue to invest in the digital age. Appreciate that. So thanks again for your time, and we advocate for more Metro dollars. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. People's. Let's see, I will call on. It looks like I'm going to try to keep these in order here. And so I'm going to call next on Jessica for ultimate rail and trail. And this is for unmet paratransit needs. Comments. Hi chair, I'm sorry I didn't realize my hand was up no need for me to comment. Okay. Okay, gotcha. Thank you. Okay so next up will I'll call on Michael St. Thank you chair Brown just a couple quick comments. I totally agree with all those things that the presenter presented. If we are going to increase that type of travel course vehicle miles travel increases I would highly recommend that we either put us someone involved in this issue. And have them follow up to make sure that we can try to get electric type vehicles to do this extra driving. So that we can make sure that we don't have to go to the green house gas reductions. Also, is it possible. That we stop using the term bus on shoulder. Very misleading, as it is with the ox lane project. I mean we might as well call the ox lane project cars on shoulder because it's basically mixed in with the bus. If we use it, it really isn't meaning what you say, so just would appreciate that. And I hope this program works out well and we actually do help a lot of the handicapped most less fortunate. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Saints. Our next caller is Barbara Chamberlain. I mean, hello I wanted to comment on the taking elderly and people who are needing treatment to appointments. And it's a massive job because every person has a different time appointment at the hospital or at a facility where they're going to do tests. So you may have a real problem there with transporting a lot of people at once because they all have a different time appointment. Thank you very much. Thank you, Miss Chamberlain. So it looks like we have one more caller Linda will Susan. It's your turn. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Linda will Susan. I'm really every year enjoy looking at this list because it just demonstrates how many things we can do to improve our transit system. I know that this process is kind of treated like an annual formality, but it really should be much more than that. The transit and peer transit needs list is a long and important summary of how improved transit service for all of us can help the many people in our county who don't drive but also those of us are tired of sitting in traffic and want other options. I see staff. It does a great job on this list with the elderly disabled advisory committee but it's, you know it's not just for disabled and elderly. And I hope they take a close look at this list throughout the year to make and recommend meaningful improvements to our current and future public transportation network. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Wilson. All right, this is a last call. I'm sorry. So I'm sorry I didn't I don't see any additional hands up. And so we'll bring it back to the commission for deliberation and action. I don't know what to do with these. If my Wi-Fi is unstable. I see. Okay. Commissioner Rockin. I'll move the staff recommendation and add that the broadband issues that were raised by the state person from the state who spoke of the added to that list. Second. Third. All right, we have a motion and a second to add to adopt the net paratransit needs list with the additions from Caltrans discussion I see Commissioner Johnson, Randy Johnson Europe. Thank you chair. I just wanted to echo what Brian people said about his mother. I had a similar situation with mine. She was 95 legally blind. There were occasions when she felt the need to jump on a public bus which is closer right in Watsonville off of Green Valley Road and go to the mall. What are you doing? And she had to go to calls to get an outfit or what have you. But that aside, you know, the regular bus systems, trains or whatever, don't really service the elderly. It's always paratransit. Okay, those are the ones that are kind of the door to door where you make the appointments they bring you from the doorstep to the doctors, they will schedule it and bring you right back. And that along with other means of having those types of systems and enhancing them, or is what going to serve the elderly in this in this county. So I just wanted to, to the extent that we can enhance those things and make them better. I think we'll serve the elderly tremendously. So thank you chair for for allowing me. Thank you commissioner Johnson. Commissioner Bertrand. Thank you very much chair and following Randy's comments and I know what Randy has gone through recently and I, I totally understand his perspective because we did the same with our family. We have our mom at home, but for her on her own and feel that independence was very important for her and I think for many people to still have a sense of independence, but they're that they're able to take care of things and make their own decisions and act on is very important and getting to medical appointments which could change at a moment's notice. Often it happens when you're elderly, people just don't realize that to have an independent way to get back and forth is really critical so totally supporting of this motion and totally supporting with the efforts to document on that needs and you know, that's off to Metro and as mentioned by several others. The measure D has had a lot to do with making these services available to seniors in our county and we're very lucky for it. Thank you. Thank you Commissioner Bertrand, Commissioner Rackin just wanted to clarify that in my addition to the staff recommendation that I'll leave it to staff to score the broadband issue it's obviously not. I wouldn't describe it as a gap it's in addition to what we currently do and they let them give it the exact ratings that it needs in terms of how it gets added to the to the list that we're producing here. Thank you Commissioner Rackin. Does that work for the second of on the motion. Yes. All right. I don't see any other hands up. I'll just make a quick comment and say, thank you to members of the public who showed up to comment today thank you to all of the commenters in this than the survey. We got some really good comments and suggestions, and many thanks to our staff for pulling this all together. I, you know, we, we have been in an age of austerity around public transit I mean decades and decades and decades of underinvestment. We see that the list is still long we have made progress in large part due to measure D and thank the voters for that as always. But the needs are are significant and those individualized transit options for people in need is is critical. And so this does provide us with kind of a blueprint for how to prioritize and moving forward. And so I will, I'm happy to support this motion and I think with that we can call for a roll call votes. Mission or Bertrand. I agree. Mission or Sandy Brown. I mission or Johnson. I mission or alternate hers. I mission or cap it. I mission alternate shifrin. I mission alternate Quinn. Yes. Mission to Konig. Mission or McPherson. Yes. Mission or Kristen Brown. I mission or Parker. I mission or Rockin. I. Passes unanimously. All right. Thank you everyone. We'll now return to our consent agenda. This commissioner. McPherson did you want to make a comment before we. I was going to just never forget to it. I wanted to make a comment. Okay, gotcha. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. The consent agenda includes items four through 22 on today's agenda. And so we will. Vote on all of these items at once. We will take comments from the public on these items. All at once, unless commissioners and or members of the public would like to pull an item. So that is, and that is the approval. Or rejection of a bid for the Pajaro river bridge rehabilitation project. So we'll pull that. And so other items. Can also be pulled. You can ask questions. Commissioners can ask questions. Without pulling an item. And I'll open it up. I see commissioner McPherson. You are. Up first. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. I just want to make a comment on number 12. Authorizing our director to negotiate an interview. The cooperative agreement with the standards of valley school district on the highway nine. Project that's probably not going to be going on until 2024. So, but this is a very complicated issue because we have the state on highway nine, the county, the RTC metro and the school district in this. And we all have to be on the same. Same direction. You're moving in the same direction. And I'm really appreciate the cooperative effort with the standards of valley school district. And if I can just put a little asterisk on that too. This cooperative venture is not unlike the experience last Friday. At the highway 17 wildlife crossing that chair. Brown was at as well. That was the state, the county, the RTC, the land trust. And the community of the county. I think that's going to be something that we can be proud of. So those are the two car routes that we had on our, the voters approved to measure D. I'm glad to see one is under construction. And the other one is going to be underway and with the cooperation of the center into valley school district. So just wanted to comment on that. Thank you commissioner McPherson. And thank you for all of your work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for it as well. I know you've been a central figure and really committed to. The making this happen. Commissioner cap it. Yeah. I'm going to move for approval. After public comments. So go ahead. Okay. Gotcha. All right. We'll go out to the public now on. I'm going to move on to with the exception of item 11. We have. A hand I'm looking for. And so I'll call on our first speaker Maggie Alma. Miss Alma, you are. Up and you should be able to speak if you need to press on mute. On your screen on your zoom screen. So we can hear you. Okay. It looks like community bridges needs to give her the opportunity to speak. Okay. I found it. There you go. Got it. Hi. Thank you. Commissioners and. Chair. Okay. I'm chair of the climate committee for the local. Sierra club. I'm hoping I'm talking about the right item at the right time. Because I'm going to be talking about. Keeping the tracks. So I'm just asking this up front. Miss Alma, we are on the consent agenda. So that we will be talking about the. Rail and trail configuration as item 28 that, that will be coming up. Okay. After, after consent. Thanks. I'll come back. Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay. I'll move on to the commission for. Motion and action. Mr. Caput. Okay. Yeah, I'll make the motion. Motion again. Second. Everything but a number 11 on the consent agenda. Right. Okay. We have a motion and a second to improve, approve our consent agenda with the exception of item 11. And we'll take a roll call vote. Commissioner Bertrand. I approve. Commissioner Sandy Brown. I. Commissioner Johnson. I. Commission alternate hers. Hi. Commissioner Caput. Hi. Mission alternate shifrin. Hi. Mission alternate Quinn. Commissioner Koenig. Hi. Commissioner McPherson. Hi. Commissioner Kristen Brown. Hi. Commissioner Parker. Yes. Commissioner Rockett. Hi. That passes unanimously. Okay. So we will now move on to item 11. The item pulled from our consent agenda. This item is a recommendation to approve rejection of a bid for the Pajaro River Bridge rehabilitation project along the Santa Cruz branch line. So we will now move on to. Give us an update on. This item. Thank you, chair Brown. This is Sarah Christensen. I'll be giving the staff report on item 11. So staff recommends rejecting the bid for the Pajaro River Bridge rehabilitation project along the branch line. This item is a recommendation to approve rejection of a bid for the Pajaro River Bridge rehabilitation project along the branch line. And open bids on April 25th. We received one bid. Staff considers the bid prices to be unreasonable. In other words, we consider this a bad bid. We recommend rejecting the bid for that reason. I just wanted to shed a little bit of light on the potential reasoning for the one bid. The one bid for the Pajaro River Bridge rehabilitation project. And we have a recommendation to approve rejection of a bid for the Pajaro River Bridge rehabilitation project along the branch line. So we will now move on to the next item. The item is a recommendation to approve rejection of a bid for the Pajaro River Bridge rehabilitation project along the branch line. It is fully acknowledged that rail banking has been firmly opposed by Roaringham. However, rail banking is the most effective mechanism for the Pajaro River Bridge rehabilitation project. The Pajaro River Bridge rehabilitation project is presented in staff's written report. Next slide, please. In November 2016, over two thirds of Santa Cruz County voters approved a 30-year half-cent transaction and use tax or sales tax for transportation projects and programs. We will refer to this as measure D 2016. Almost 30% of funding is directly allocated to for what is known as neighborhood projects. There are car valves for $10 million for Highway 9 and the San Lorenzo Valley, and $5 million for the Highway 17 wildlife crossing. 20% of revenue is directly allocated to Santa Cruz Metro and community bridges for bus and paratransit services. On the left side of the pie chart are three regional project categories. 25% of measure D revenue must be spent on highway corridors, which includes improvements such as auxiliary lanes, bus on shoulder improvements, bicycle and pedestrian over crossings, transportation demand management programs, and safety and congestion relief programs. 17% of measure D revenue is for active transportation improvements, specifically the coastal rail trail. This category includes not only the design and construction of new coastal rail trail segments, but also ongoing rail corridor property management and preventative maintenance, including oversight, encroachments, drainage, vegetation control and other rail corridor needs. Fund can also be used to maintain the trail segments themselves once constructed. Finally, 8% of measure D revenue is designated for the rail corridor preservation and analysis of options. This is the funding that we are using to reserve and maintain rail-specific infrastructure, such as track, ties and rail bridges. The funding may also be spent to analyze corridor uses, including environmental and economic analysis. However, measure D revenue do not include funding for any new train or rail service. Although 2016 measure D provides significant funding to deliver investments identified in the expenditure plan, it is insufficient to fully fund most projects. Consistent with the measure's ordinance and long-range strategic implementation plan, in order to expeditiously deliver programs and projects and to competitively position projects to leverage other grants, most agencies utilize some measure revenues to serve as a match to other grants and or focus some funds on pre-construction phasers in order to get projects shovel-ready or more competitive for grants and other funding opportunities. Each agency receiving measure revenues is required to annually develop, update, hold a public hearing on and adopt five-year program of projects that identify how they plan to use measure D revenue in the upcoming five years. The Regional Transportation Commission is responsible for developing five-year plans of regional extended jerk plan categories and projects. The RTC planned on adopting five-year plan updates for all regional project categories in the fall. However, updates for fiscal year 23 through 27 for the active transportation and highway corridor categories are being presented at this meeting to allow RTC to commit measure D funding for grant leveraging opportunities and to make funds available due to cost overruns. Next slide. This will be presented by Grace Blake-Sling. Good afternoon, commissioners and members of the public. As you can see on this slide, segments of the Coastal Rail Trail are in various stages of development and some segments are completed and open to the public. Today, Coastal Rail Trail projects have largely utilized measure D funds to complete or advance pre-construction activities and to leverage state and federal grant funds. The focus of today's meeting is funding for construction segment seven phase two from Bay, California to Pacific Avenue and development of segments eight through 12 from Pacific Avenue in the city of Santa Cruz to Rio de Mar and the unincorporated area of the county of Santa Cruz. Segment seven phase two is ready to be constructed and segment eight through 12 are in the preliminary design and environmental phase. As part of the project development for segments eight through 11, public input on the schematic plans was solicited in March and April. Segments eight through 11 can be viewed in the pink color in the middle of this slide and segment seven phase two is shown near the middle of the slide in red. These trail projects are primarily within the existing rail right of way and do not include new passenger rail service but provide options for preserving the rail line right of way for future passenger or freight service. As described in prior reports to the RTC, preliminary designs are being developed for the ultimate trail project which would be constructed next to the existing rail line alignment and an optional interim trail phase where the trail is built on the existing track alignment. Each environmental impact report is analyzing the potential impacts of the ultimate trail configuration and the interim optional phase and the interim trail as an optional phase because the phase is not required to construct the ultimate trail. If the interim trail should be constructed and later the rail line reactivated, the trail would need to be relocated. The measure D five-year plan also continues to the existing program funding for segment five as a grant match and the segment 18 phase two development. There are still segments of coastal rail trail primarily between the old Del Mar and the County of Santa Cruz and the city of Watsonville that have not been initiated. Next slide please. As I mentioned, segment seven is ready for construction. Bids received April 21st, 2020. Bids were received April 21st, 2022 following your last meeting. The low bid plus a 10% contingency is $11.9 million. Construction of schedules for fall 2022 for this year and funding for construction comes from a state active transportation program cycle four in the amount of 8.6 million. Local city at Santa Cruz measure D in the amount of 2.15 million. And today you will be considering the city of Santa Cruz request for regional measure D active transportation funds in the amount of 1.15 million to close the funding gap for construction. Next slide. Cost estimates have been prepared for segments eight and nine led by the city of Santa Cruz and segments 10 and 11 led by the County of Santa Cruz and segment 12 led by RTC. The city and County of Santa Cruz presented these cost estimates of public open houses for their respective projects in March and April to provide the most up to date information. The cost estimates for segments eight through 12 were reevaluated and updated as needed to reflect the cost for materials and labor as shown in segment seven phase two bid prices. The updated cost minutes are shown on this slide. These costs are shown in $20, $22 and are expected to increase with escalation between now and when the projects are constructed. The cost that you see here includes the cost for construction as well as the cost for environmental preliminary design and environmental work which can range from 10 to 20% of project costs. Measure D played a key role in funding for construction costs for these projects and making them more competitive for grant funds. As noted in the slide, the interim trail cost estimate includes funding to rehabilitate and repurpose the capital at restful. The ultimate trail cost does not include the replacement of the capital at restful needed for passenger rail and trail. The cost estimate for the interim trail shown here is the cost to design and construct an interim trail on the existing rail line alignment. At prior meetings, we have also shown the cost to demolish the interim trail and rebuild the rail for freight as well as final design and construction of the ultimate trail configuration. These additional costs reflect the interim nature of the phase approach. By adding the two costs you see here together you can come fairly close to that total cost to complete the interim trail and then construct the ultimate trail. The cost estimates for the ultimate trail are to construct the trail next to the rail line alignment and in some locations, this requires relocating the existing track and the cost to relocate the track in some locations is included in this project cost. Track relocation would be constructed to serve freight. We are often asked about the cost per mile for the trail and the answer is that it varies. This is because the structures required to complete a particular segment often play a significant role in determining the cost and need for structures and the type of structures vary across the 32 miles of the coastal rail trail. This variation in the cost per mile is true for both the interim and the ultimate trail. In general, however, current cost estimates indicate a cost of 6 million per mile for interim trail or 16 million per mile for ultimate for segments nine through 11. Segment 12 is significantly higher because the project is primarily comprised of bridges which are very costly. At our last meeting, we were asked to provide information about the amount of funds that would be allocated if measure D regional funds were distributed by mile by trail mile. This would be approximately 3.9 million per mile once corridor maintenance was taken off the top. It's important to note that this would be total funds per mile, including any maintenance cost program. Keep in mind, these costs will continue to be refined as the projects move into final design and project sponsors will look for opportunities for cost savings and updates to unit costs. We will also be updating the project fact sheets with the most current cost assessment system. Next slide. So these projects are well underway. Currently, City and County and RTC are preparing preliminary design and environmental documents for segments eight through 12. The preliminary designs for segments eight through 11 were reviewed by the public and will be finalized and informed the environmental analysis of potential project impacts. The environmental review is scheduled to be completed in spring 2023 with draft environmental impacts reports released later this year. Should construction funding be secured, segments eight through 12 would begin construction in 2024 and 25 and segments seven and 2022. Segment eight and nine is scheduled to complete final design prior to segment 10 and 11 due to previously awarded grant funding deadline associated with this project. Meanwhile, segment 10 and 11 is still seeking funding for final design. The County of Santa Cruz measure the request considered by you today includes the request for segment 10 and 11 final design costs. Next slide. We want to review key decision points that the commission makes that provide direction to RTC staff and project sponsors and inform how the projects are developed. We mentioned some of these at the RTC's transportation policy workshop two weeks ago and we've added a few more here. Cooperative agreements and right of entries for construction are considered by the RTC and they include a description of the project and its alignment. Programming measure these funding also considered by RTC and being considered today in form available funding and grant opportunities. As a responsible agency, RTC will also need to concur with the environmental impact report findings and cooperative agreements for maintenance. We'll explain maintenance funding obligations. The project sponsors have requested additional measure D regional active transportation program funds to continue to, excuse me, to continue to develop these trail projects. The city of Santa Cruz is requesting an additional 1.15 million in measure D active transportation category funds. As mentioned in an earlier slide, construction bids received on April 21st exceeded the available funding of 10.6 million by approximately 2.15 million. The additional 1.15 million if programmed by the RTC would partially close the funding gap to award the construction contract. And this would be in addition to the 2.1 million funds previously programmed to this project. For segments eight and nine, the city of Santa Cruz is requesting $370,000 to support the preliminary design and environmental phase. $370,000 is in addition to 2 million in RTC measure the active transportation funds previously programmed to this project to serve as a grant match. The city of Santa Cruz plans to submit a grant application for cycle six, state active transportation program funds to construct the ultimate trail alignment. As mentioned at your last meeting, the city of Santa Cruz submitted a competitive application for cycle five program funds. And with just below the award line, the city has continued to develop the project and it expects to improve its score under project delivery metrics. In general, the coastal rail trail projects within the more urbanized areas advance many of the state active transportation program goals and are expected to score well. For segments 10 and 11, the county of Santa Cruz is requesting $237,000 to support preliminary design and environmental phase. Under scenario two, which is staff's revised recommendation as I described, the county of Santa Cruz is also requesting 12.8 million for final design and construction of the trail alignment next to the railroad tracks. Since the RTCs transportation policy workshop two weeks ago, the measure the active transportation funds requested by the county for scenario two increased by three million to reflect the most recent material and labor cost admitted for the segment seven phase two project. If approved, a total of 17 million in measure D regional active transportation funds would be programmed to this project. The county of Santa Cruz is also planning to submit a cycle fixed active transportation plan grant application to fully fund segments 10 and 11 and approval of this measure D funding request would provide a 20% match. Lastly, segment 12, this development of segment 12 is combined with the highway one state park to freedom project. Staff is with the cost of the project according to what is allowed by measure the expenditure plan and a portion of segment 12 is funded by the highway's corridors program due to the bicycle and pedestrian over-crossings of highway one. To advance this project RTC is requesting 12.6 million from the measure D active transportation category for final design right of way and construction of the trail adjacent to the railroad tracks which amounts to 10.8 million through fiscal year 2027 and 1.1 million in future fiscal years. The balance of the segment 12 funding plan is a combination of measure D highway category funds and state and or federal funds. Next slide. Staff will solicit input from the commission, committees and the public on funding maintenance including whether local jurisdiction should be required to fund more for all the maintenance needs. I'm gonna pass it off to Sarah Christensen. Thank you, Grace. Really quickly before you start, Ms. Christensen, I did hear the announcement that the recording had stopped and just hoping somebody out there with control over these matters can work on getting that resolved while we proceed. Okay, 25% of measure D goes to the highway corners program with an expenditure plan that includes improvements on highway one, including auxiliary lanes, bus on shoulder and bicycle pedestrian over-crossings as well as programs such as transportation demand management or TDM safe on 17 and freeway service patrol. The highway one program of projects currently has three projects under development. Phases one and two shown in this map are fully funded and scheduled to begin construction in 2022 and 2023 respectively. The phase three project completes the last recording in progress. Good, we're back on. The phase three project completes the last two and a half miles of the seven and a half mile auxiliary lane and bus on shoulder facility along highway one and includes the coastal rail trail segment 12 within the branch line right of way with two dedicated bicycle and pedestrian over-crossings in Aptos and this phase three project although the cost is significant, I think the cost of this project exceeds the other two projects combined. I just wanna note that the benefit of this project is it's pretty incredible and this phase three project is really gonna transform the transportation system of this county. The project between Freedom Boulevard and State Park Drive along highway one which includes segment 12 of the coastal rail trail is in the environmental phase and could be funded by both the measure D highway corridors program and the active transportation program as Grace mentioned because project elements are included in both expenditure plans. The cost estimates for the project were split according to the two programs expenditure plans and what is allowed and the costs associated with the highway project are shown in this table by scenario. The new and previously programmed measure D funds are shown in this table. Staff recommends programming funds to the ongoing program. So the TDM say fund 17 and FSP programs through fiscal year 27. In addition, due to the incredible grant opportunity upon us staff recommends programming funds for either scenario to serve as the RTCs commitment for the local match. And just to note that this commission has already committed a significant amount of funds to the pre-construction phases of this project and it's well underway. The proposed programming action signify a commitment of local funds for competitive state grant funding opportunities under scenario one to build the trail along the railroad alignment. The grant requests and total project costs are shown in this table. The city of Santa Cruz plans to apply for construction funds of segments eight and nine and the county plans to apply for both final design and construction funds for segments 10 and 11. The Senate bill one grant program only funds the construction component of the segment 12 and highway one project. And RTC plans to apply for 88.7 million to fully fund construction of the highway one segment 12 project. And just to note that 88.7 million is only partial to the full ask, which would include a project along Soquel Drive implemented by the county of Santa Cruz as well as other transit improvements. Under scenario two to build the trail adjacent to the railroad tracks, the grant requests and total project costs are shown in this table. And typically a lower total project cost is gonna result in a lower grant request amount and a higher, obviously a higher project cost is gonna result in a higher grant request. That is with the exception of the highway one and segment 12 project. So staff considers that 88.7 million requests being at the kind of the top end of what's considered competitive under the grant program that we are pursuing. The grant requests remains the same under both scenario one and scenario two and the difference is being covered by the local funds. So measure D would fill the gap between the two scenarios. A commitment of the local match is needed prior to June 15th, so that's coming up. And that's for the active transportation program that's city and county are pursuing. And RTC as the implementing agency is pursuing the SB one cycle three funds to fully fund the highway one and segment 12 project which needs to be committed this fall for the project and the application. And I'm gonna hand it back over to Guy to finish up and bring us on. So thank you, Sarah. This slide shows two types of the anticipated cost to measure D sales tax for the two scenarios based on our cash flow model analysis which was presented at the April TPW meeting and considers borrowing or debt financing as a strategy to advance the projects before the revenue is earned. These tables have been adjusted since the TPW meeting to reflect expected costs and that Grace mentioned earlier and that's due to the information learned in recent bid openings. The top table represents the funding scenario for an interim trial whereas the bottom table summarizes a plan to directly implement the ultimate trial alongside the freight rail line. The interim trial funding analysis indicates that we almost have enough measure D pay as you go revenue to leverage grants to complete the highway and optional interim trial segments on their current schedules. There would be a need to borrow for approximately $7 million. The table also show that what we call future capacity. Future capacity is the revenue that we currently project that we will still earn and have available to fund other eligible program expenditures after funding these scenarios and any debt service incurred. This funding would not be available in the short term as we would be programmed to near capacity for the next five years. Future capacity will build gradually from about fiscal year 28 to the end of the sales tax measure in fiscal year 47. In the second table, the ultimate trial funding analysis shows that we would not have enough measure D pay as you go revenue to complete the ultimate trial unless we financed for borrowed money. For the second scenario, we calculated that approximately $77.9 million would need to be financed. Due to the higher cost of the projects and the need to pay debt service, the future capacity is notably less. But as the table indicates, we do have the ability to finance and fund with the projects currently under development for scenario two. Part of staff's recommendation is to commit funding to financing. Pay as you go revenue is insufficient to meet all funding commitments. Financing would be dependent upon future events and the timely delivery of projects. Beyond financing, it is also important to consider what's left to judge whether these funding levels might be an over commitment of resources considering future potential programming needs. Although the highway auxiliary lanes and initial bus on shoulder improvements could be funded with either scenario, there are other highway congestion or safety improvements that RTC could pursue dependent upon capacity. Is the remaining highway capacity enough? Well, it depends on what you want to achieve. As for the trial, we should consider whether the future capacity is enough to advance the remaining 12 and a half miles of trial. The remaining sections are located in mid and South County and contain some of our most significant engineering challenges, including the trestles at Hidden Beach, Seascape and La Selva. They also include the eroding bluffs over Manresa Beach and the sensitive habitat of Galligan and Harkins-Sleuths. These locations are already sustaining impacts from climate change and may be costly. Staff only has planning level estimates for the trial for these other sections, but we will need to do a more advanced engineering estimate and analysis to determine if we can stretch our remaining active transportation capacity to develop funding plans to deliver trial segments for the rest of the corridor. RTC also uses Measure D active transportation funds for ongoing corridor property management and preventative maintenance, including oversight, encroachment, drainage, vegetation control and other route corridor needs. Although we've included an estimate of this cost for our analysis, the cost of the corridor maintenance are very unpredictable. In addition to corridor maintenance, funding is also needed to maintain completed segments of trials. RTC has committed some funding towards trial maintenance. However, the model used the not-commit funding for maintenance of instructed trial sections beyond fiscal year 27, and some sections have no maintenance funding proposed at this time. The RTC is working with local jurisdictions, state parks and other agencies to update long-term maintenance cost estimates for the coastal rail trail. Staff estimates that approximately $79 million may be needed to fund the maintenance of all 32 miles of trial between now and fiscal year 47. As you can see, the active transportation category for passenger capacity cannot be the sole funding source for $79 million in maintenance, especially in scenario two. So RTC will need more assistance from local jurisdictions to ensure that the trial can be both completed and maintained. We also may want to consider the possibility of cost overruns since cost often exceed estimates. Next slide. The last component of staff's alternative recommendation is to advance discussions, and I'll repeat, to advance discussions to remove the unnecessary costs and risk associated maintaining the freight obligation on the branch line in locations where there are no freight rail customers. The RTC has discussed rail banking extensively at public meetings as a cost-effective strategy to preserve the rail right of way. The rail line is out of service and RTC does not have the resources available to restore it. Rail banking will allow the RTC to defer the costs with freight-related repairs until such time that that portion of the line is needed for freight rail service, which is not now. Rail banking preserves the integrity of the rail property and does not require the removal of any tracks. Rail banking also shields the RTC from potentially costly lawsuits when building any rail on property that RTC owns only for rail purposes. Thus, rail banking facilitates the construction of either the interim trail or the ultimate rail. Freight service can also complicate the implementation and operations of future passenger rail service. At this time, rail banking is the most effective way to preserve the quarter. However, rail banking could take two degree years if warring camp continues to oppose it. So staff recommends advancing discussions and opportunity to address warring camps concerns. RTC did not cause this 150-year-old rail line to be out of service. Nonetheless, it is out of service and both parties need to respect each other's needs and limitations. Warring camp is disconnected from the national rail work now, yet they're still operating. Over time, RTC acknowledges that being disconnected could have more serious implications, but RTC does not have the resources to restore the line at this time. Staff is committed to good-facing negotiations such that an agreement can be reached that focuses on the continued viability of this important community business given our circumstances. Next slide. So the commission could choose one of the scenarios as put forth in staff's initial recommendation. However, staff feels that the alternative recommendation accomplishes the purpose of programming the funding needed and not missed this opportunity while not showing a preference before either the election or the environmental analysis. The alternative also seeks to address the obstacles caused by freight and the development of any rail trial project, scenario one or scenario two. Given RTC's limited resources and the condition of the rail line, the commission could also consider programming funds only a portion of the trial projects currently under development or programming at lower amounts. With that, Madam Chair, staff is available for commissioner questions. After question, staff recommends you open the public hearings and receive valuable public input prior to commissioner discussion and action. Thank you, Director Preston and staff for the presentation. I wanna make a couple of comments on how we will proceed regarding procedures and decorum for moving through this item. First, I just wanna express appreciation to staff and the work that you all are doing to plan for and identify funding to meet our county's transportation needs under very challenging circumstances and ask that comments and questions raised with respect to that work be mindful of that commitment and respectful of that commitment. I wanna recognize the high level of interest and strong feelings, perhaps that's putting it mildly about future use of our rail corridor and ask that all of our speakers on this issue, the members of the public and commissioners. Hey, how are we doing? What was that? I think if we could mute those who are on, who are not to speak just yet, thanks. So I just wanna ask that all speakers on this issue speak to the substantive policy and programming issues at hand, avoid personal attacks. And so we'll proceed along the following lines as suggested by Director Preston. I will open up the floor for commissioners to ask questions at this time. Please reserve your comments for after the public hearing. And so after commissioner questions are asked and answered, we will open the public hearing, hear from as many members of the public who want to speak and I'll, if anyone's having trouble, I'm not sure how to make sure those comments are delivered but I wanna make sure responding to a previous public comment about people not being able to raise their hands so that that can happen. When that is completed, we will return to the commission and that will be an opportunity for you commissioners to make your comments and we'll have a entertain a motion at that time. So with that, I, and I'm gonna do my best to monitor and enforce this as we move forward. Commissioner Schifrin, you are up. Thank you very much. I do wanna thank staff make that comment for their present for the presentation. That's a lot of overwhelming information. I particularly appreciate the fact that the staff has now made their own recommendation. I really do look to the staff to make recommendations on these 20 issues because, you know, I respect their point of view even when I disagree with it and it's good to know what they're thinking. I do have a number of questions about the staff's alternative recommendation. The staff report includes a number of recommendations. It isn't clear how the alternative recommendation relates to the recommendations on page 28-1. It, for example, the, you know, the adopted resolution to program scenario too, but there are other parts of the recommendations. For instance, the programming of additional funding for segment seven phase two is not a segment, is not a scenario to issue. So how are those two recommendations related? So both scenarios included the segment seven costs. Both scenarios included the corridor maintenance costs and some trail maintenance costs. There's really no difference. So basically we're programming at the highest level. So everything that was on the table, we're saying program the funding for. Okay, great. That's good. I appreciate that clarification. And could you clarify also under A-1 without specifying preference? Does that mean that the programming will include both scenario one and scenario two? And there'll be no preference for one or the other. It would simply be programmed at the higher amount, but we would remove the scenario one scenario two from the five year plan and just call it the programming for the coastal rail trail. But it'll be high enough that any alternative could move forward. That's it. What then is the recommendation or is there a recommendation for the ATP grant applications? Will, how is that gonna relate to this? The money will be there for either one, but the commission at least needs to apply as I understand it for segment 12 ATP funding. What is there a recommendation for which scenario would be applied for? No, we did not provide a recommendation to do so. We did not wanna get ahead of the two issues, the vote and the environmental documents and provide a recommendation there. Now that said, with respect to the city of Santa Cruz who's developing segments eight and nine, they've indicated that they're gonna submit their application for the open the trail. There are several decision points that Grace went through that will occur later and we'll have to bring forward to the commission and including cooperative agreements and funding agreements. So we'll have an opportunity to weigh in at a later time, but we've effectively said we're not going to dictate to the city of Santa Cruz which scenario they should apply for. So are you saying that the commission will not be applying for ATP funds for segment 12? RTC never planned to submit an application for ATP for segment 12. Segment 12 is combined with the highway program we felt that with the other two projects going after active transportation program grants that that was an awful lot of ATP grant to try to bring home to the city of Santa, the region. So we've taken a different approach on segment 12 combined with the highway program. We've targeted the solutions to congested corridor program and the local partnership program. Those are both SB1 programs that the CTC plans to put out a notice of funding availability in August and our application should be due sometime around November. So if I'm understanding this correctly the city will be applying for ATP funds for segment 89 and the county will be applying for ATP funds for segments 10 and 11 and the RTC will not be applying for any ATP funds at this time for segment 12. Is that correct? Yes. Number B, where it says commit to financing if needed to meet funding commitments is this really referring to support for bonding if necessary? Yes, we have a policy that allows for it. This would just make sure that the commission understands that a few program to this amount and the grants are received and we want to actually be able to make that we will have to do some sort of debt financing. Okay, I just wanted to, that's why I understood it. I just wanted to make it clear that what the language meant. And there's C where it says amend the fiscal year 23 budget to reflect programming. Does that mean that the budget's gonna be amended to reflect the programming at the highest amount? Yes, but I must say in fiscal year 23 the only new programming is the programming for the cost to overrun on segment seven and then the additional funding to complete the environmental analysis by segments eight, nine and 11. So the- Okay, that's good. I just- You know, I think these, I think it's, I appreciate the, you know, this compromise recommendation, but I want to be clear I understand it and hopefully the public and other commissioners understand what exactly you're, what the recommendation is. And then what does in number D, what do you really mean by advanced discussions about rail banking? How will that be operationalized? Well, what I mean by that is I really do think that each this sort of a compromise we need to be able to control costs on the corridor. And rail banking is appropriate considering the situation would break on the rail line. What I see happening is sitting down with Warren Kaplan talking about it. We've done that before. We hadn't reached an agreement. I really don't think that there's gonna be any substantial discussions immediately, but I do think that ultimately it both parties need to come to the table. We need to understand their needs and they need to understand our limitations and we need to respect those and come to some sort of an agreement so that they can be protected and we are not overextending. And hopefully we can reach an agreement. If you know, go back to the commission and have future discussions on what the progress we have made or not. Obviously there's a good deal of controversy about the direction that staff wants to go, which is one of the reasons I wanted to really make sure that what you were proposing is understood by everyone. You're not proposing that an item be put on the next commission agenda to consider adverse abandonment of the line. What you're proposing is that commission staff continue to go back to the table with Warren Camp and seek an agreement that would be mutually acceptable regarding the use of the line, which you hope and what you feel is needed would include rail banking. But that's what you really, the advancing discussions really mean continuing and re-establishing negotiations with Warren Camp. Is that a correct statement about your proposing? That is correct. But as you noted, there is opposition by Warren Camp and we might not be able to make an agreement at which point then we might need to bring an item to the commission to have further discussions on what we do then. But that is not the proposal. That's not the proposal now. That's not the proposal now and maybe the commission says at a later time that you've done as much as you can. So there's no pre-determination in terms of where this is gonna go. Other than there's an acknowledgement that more discussions are needed. Okay, well, thank you very much. I think you've answered my questions sufficiently. Hey, let's see, Commissioner Quinn, you're next. Thank you, Chairperson and thank you RTC. My two questions are for better understanding. On the ultimate trail costs, are those costs specific to the trail alone or do they include the cost of having it rail ready? And number two, in the ultimate trail, I'm understanding that the trail would in fact wind down through Capitola Village and not go over the bridge. So I just wanted you to clarify those two questions. Yes, the cost estimates for the trail only, they're not to rehabilitate the rail line or for passenger rail service. They're to build a trail adjacent to the existing rail line. There are a few instances where the rail does need to move over. There may be a few more even as we go because there's some narrow sections of trail that we've asked the county to look out more substantially to see if we can get a standard trail by there. So there could be additional changes coming but the cost estimates are for the trail only. And as for your question regarding the Capitola Trestle, the Scenario One or interim trail includes rehabilitation of that Trestle and repurposing of the bridge. So the trail would go over the Trestle and not through town, but the ultimate trail will ultimately require replacement of that Trestle to be able to serve both freight rail and a trail. And that is beyond the scope of that project. It would add significant cost to the project and without a rail project identified, it really didn't make sense. It would have really blown up that cost estimate to something that was untenable. If the Capitola Trestle is ever replaced, it'll probably be replaced as part of a future passenger rail project that would include a new bridge that could accommodate both rail and trail. Thank you. Commissioner Hurst. Thank you very much, Chair Brown. I too am pleased to hear of the spirit of cooperation and the hard work of staff on this, but we only have two options presented before us. I'm wondering if there could be a third option where the trail proceeds where it can adjacent to the rails and gets built and where it's problematic now that that kind of waits for a later date. And that might mean that the whole line, the whole trail might not be connected at once, but the portions of it could be phased in. And then later, when planning and access and funding permit, it could be all connected. I've been on a lot of trails that sometimes you have to detour or bypass or sometimes even have to turn around and go back. And that may be the case here, especially with finances so limited. So I'm glad to hear of the creativity that the staff has. And I think that some other option besides putting in facilities that later have to be torn out, that would be a big waste of money, but we could use segments at a time and they could all be connected later on. So I think that that should be another consideration considering the restriction of funding at this time. Thank you. And that's my question. So yes, Mr. Herst, that is an option that is available to the commission. Thank you. All right. Commissioner McPherson. Yeah. Actually, most of the questions have been asked, but I just wanted to thank the staff for everything is done. And at this time for us to leave our options open based on fact-based data. And, you know, that we've all gotten a lot of letters and so forth from people about wait till after the ballot measure on June 7th, the Greenway ballot measure, we're going to do that, I'm sure. So I just want to give some assurance that that's going to be the case. But I do thoroughly enjoy the options, especially when we have project-level EIRs still being developed. And the voters still need to weigh it on the Greenway initiative on June 7th. So I'll just leave it at that. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Koenig, questions. Thank you. First question is kind of to the grant application piece by the city and the county, which I do, I think June 15th. And well, I understand that the city is committed to applying for the ultimate trail to have maximum flexibility and, you know, ideally get as much funds as possible for construction. Can they write that application the way that they'll have flexibility to build the interim phase, if needed? If we wanted to build in the flexibility, I would say that it would be important that we not specify things in the application that would be, take away that flexibility. So I wouldn't necessarily refer to the rail line. I would talk about building a trail within the rail right away. Okay, got it. So if we do it right, we can have that maximum amount of flexibility. That's good. And then, I mean, I'm really glad that this report finally looks at the maintenance costs. I mean, I feel like as a county supervisor, half of my job is just dealing with the maintenance of our 600 miles of county road network, which we're constantly falling short on. And then, you know, maintenance of things like our parks facilities, whether that's removing trash or trying to clean up after encampment. So maintenance is a huge issue. And we're constantly talk about how, oh, well, it's so great that we got state and federal money to build our road network, but oh, no, we don't have any money to maintain it. And of course that drives Santa Cruz County residents crazy every day. So we really, it's good that we're finally talking about maintenance. The question here is what maintenance agreements are in place today, as far as any of the segments that are under construction or that we're planning for. So right now we have maintenance included in our cooperative agreement with the city for segment seven. We committed funding just for the five year period and we propose to continue that. And we're working on an amendment that will come forward at a subsequent meeting to add the money for segment seven phase two and provide a little bit more clarity on the maintenance because there's been some issues in terms of what it really includes. We're looking at it as everything on one side of the fence should be considered trail maintenance. And everything on the other side of the fence be considered corridor maintenance. Right now with the city of Santa Cruz, they're offering to split the maintenance cost with us 50-50. But that's about as far as we've gotten and we figured that was kind of a stop gap while we came up with a more comprehensive plan. We've talked to the county about maintaining segment five that they've indicated that they do not have funding for maintenance and have asked us to cover 100% of the cost. If that continues and if all of the other jurisdictions say, well, we want to be treated equally with the county, then we'd be in a situation where we would not have enough money to build and maintain the crap. All right, we have more to do on maintenance agreements. Yeah, I definitely think we need those maintenance agreements in place so that as we're proceeding, we're ensuring that we, as you said, budgeting enough money to finish the entire trail. I mean, if you want to talk about equity, like it's budgeting so that everyone gets their fair share of the trail on each part of the county. Thank you. Hey, Commissioner Bertrand, questions? Thank you, Madam Chair. So, yes, thank you so much for staff to coming up for the second proposal. It recognizes a lot of the comments of the public. So the fact that you listen to the public, and I'm sure many commissioners phoned you up about the same thing. So thank you very much. Commissioner Quinn asked a question. I didn't quite get the answer to, so this is to Guy, and I'm also very interested. And so if the interim trail happens, then you have to move the tracks and put them back together and stuff like that. How would you characterize the condition of the tracks and what would they be able to be used for in that interim trail situation? So our track is generally between accepted or what's known as class one track. Accepted track cannot be used for passing to rail. You know, as discussed in the earlier item, RTC does have the responsibility in the current agreement to bring the track up to class one. I accepted track, freight can travel at 10 miles an hour, no passenger service on it. Class one would track rate again, can travel at 10 miles per hour and passenger rail can move at 15 miles per hour. We would, the areas that require track to be moved include portions of segments nine and 10. And I've mentioned earlier, I think another section needs to be looked at in segment 11. And if we move the track over, we would be building it to class one standards. Thank you. Commissioner Schifrin. Yeah, I just wanted to ask one last clarifying question before we open it up to the public, given how strongly people feel about the various alternatives. Am I correct that the commission today is not making a decision on either alternative? Whether people are supportive of what's called the interim track or the ultimate trail, all that's being considered today is the programming of money. And that, as I understand it, you'll tell me if I'm wrong. And in the program and the recommendation and the standards recommendation, at this time, the recommended money to be programmed would cover either option. So there's no need to have a big debate about which option we prefer, where we would like to go. And in addition, there is no decision today in favor or opposed to rail banking. All the recommended recommendation is to have staff continue to work with Roaring Camp to seek a mutually acceptable agreement. If that's correct, I would hope members of the public would focus on this staff recommendation and really look at this as a, you know, I guess I'm worried about other people telling us whether they either want one scenario or the other scenario, when that is really not before us today. What's before us today, if I'm understanding it correctly, is simply programming money and the recommendation is to program money in such a way that it would cover the course of either scenario, is that correct? So it's mostly correct. And I know why you're asking, Alec, because I did leave on, you know, the table that you guys could make any recommendation that you want, but you are correct and it's just programming of funds. Even if you were to select one scenario over the other, it wasn't set in stone, but there was concerns that that would show preference. So to not show preference and program at the higher level, staff's alternative recommendation, that there would be no doubt that there would be no preference shown and that was stated in the alternative recommendation and it would be put forth in the resolution. So if you go with the compromise sort of, this is a way to move forward and not show preference, then you are correct that there would be, you know, absolutely no doubt that either way you were correct in that, we would always have had the ability to change direction. And this is only a programming exercise. Thank you. On the basis of that, I'm going to pull a mic, Rodgen and say my intention will be after the, unless somehow convinced otherwise, my intention would be to support the staff, to make a motion to support the staff recommendation. I think it's a reasonable way to allow us to move forward at this time when we're really legally not able to choose an alternative anyway. I'll second. Lots of us will second that when it comes to it. Yes, yes, yes. When it comes to it. All right, so in order for it to come to us, we do want to open the public hearing now. I appreciate the question posed by Commissioner Schifrin to try to help the public, the viewing public and those with an intention to speak recognizing people have very strong feelings and have prepared to make comments. I don't want to limit those, but I hope you heard the intention here and so we're not making final decisions about ultimate versus interim that are going to lock us into a particular path. So with that, I'll call on Commissioner Rodkin before I open the public hearing. I just want to point out to the public that comments about the choice, which will come to us at some point, no doubt, is most effectively addressed close to the time when we're making the decision. It's making strong arguments now when we're not actually making that decision today is kind of, I don't want to say it's wasting your time, but obviously we'll pay attention and we'll have some impact on what we think about things, but you really want to be effective. You should wait till the meeting's happening when that choice is really before us to be most effective in making your comments count. That's my only comment. Okay, so with that, I am going to open up to the public and begin with our list. We have, right now we have 13 speakers with hands up. If you are interested in speaking on this issue, please get your hand up so we can get a sense of about how long we expect this item to take. If we end up with many, many, many speakers, I may reduce the time allotted to allow us to complete our business today. So just get your hands up. I see 19 now and we will begin with Robin Belkin. You have two minutes. Okay, this is Robin Belkin. I am very concerned about any funds on doing anything. Can you hear me? Yeah, yes. Okay, I'm doing anything that makes the ultimate trail cost more. Anything that has to be undone later. You have already exhaustively studied all available options and you arrived already at the conclusion that the ultimate plan was the best. So hearing you talk about, you're not sure yet, really concerns me deeply. Also, I understand there's some funds that have a sunset clause. If they're not used by the set deadline, we're just gonna lose them, which really bothers me. I really would like to see this process accelerated substantially, the rate of progress, the application for all the funds at this optimal time that are available. The state transportation funds, the federal and state gas tax funds, the 2016 tax measure funds from the former tax measure D for 30 years, the new $1.4 trillion infrastructure funds, and anywhere else possible. I really bother that we're still talking about this and I hope I never hear the word rail banking again. There's too many forces in this county that wanna abuse that and see any increment toward getting us to do that as a step toward an agenda to rip out and destroy our railroad forever. I do not wanna hear that word again. I don't think it's ever worked anywhere where in the history of rail banking. So please stop. And I thank you for your work and your time. I really would like to see you move on with the ultimate plan. Blessed are those that plant trees under whose shade they may never sit. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Saladin Sale. Hi, I'm Em Saladin Sale. Honoring Commissioner Schifrin's suggestion that we have a gentle person's agreement with regard to taking no action today with regard to rail banking, other than to encourage staff to continue discussions with Roaring Camp. I will spare you my larger passionate advocacy for rail and trail. I just want to ask that the guidance to staff in the alternate resolution that Executive Director Preston presented be clarified as to its intent that it is just to continue discussions so that well-meaning souls don't take the suggested alternative resolution to mean something that it doesn't. I think that in the interests of transparency and clarity for those folks who mostly get their information from the pages of the newspapers or inflammatory content on social media, all of that just drives us farther apart. And what I've heard today is a real continued coming together. And this is our path and our track that will bring us forward. So that's my suggestion is to clarify what the meaning of, I believe that was part D of Executive Director Preston's alternative. Thank you. Our next speaker is Ryan Peeples. Hey, everybody, Brian from Trail Now. You know, when we supported Measure D in 2016, the expectation was that RTC would be very disciplined in the financial use of our tax dollars. And included in that expectation was the timeline that it would take to open the coastal corridor. We truly need to move forward and that's a very important element when we talk about improving our transportation. We support rail banking from Watsonville to Davenport. We do not support spending an additional money for segment seven being. That is so overpriced. We really encourage you not to do that. And then we want you to think about putting a project as part of the five year program of projects that would have the entire rails removed from Watsonville to Davenport, even though some of it may be a simple dirt trail as you progress, because opening that up as a dirt trail will significantly make our community safer. And I want to remind you of the 12 year old boy that was in the ICU with me who was critically injured. And we're having those kind of instances. And that's why, you know, you're putting a lot of emphasis on the money part and the idea of having future rail. Let's really start to think about the time part. How long is it gonna take us to open the coastal corridor? Because it's already been 10 years and people are gonna die and they're gonna get hurt if we don't have that coastal corridor opened up for active transportation. So just remember people in, you know, I was very sad seeing the 12 year old and there can't really talk about it, but thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jessica for Ultimate Rail and Trail. Hi, am I unmuted? You are. Okay, this is Jessica Evans. Thank you, Chair. Thank you commissioners for the opportunity to speak. So I just wanna start by saying how much I appreciate the revised recommendation from staff. I can't tell you how strongly I feel that this is a huge improvement and is really important showing the community that, you know, that staff does understand and respect that, you know, it's important not to make recommendations before the environmental, the IRs are done and when there's an outstanding issue in front of the community that the community is about to vote on. So I just really very much appreciate the revised recommendation. I encourage the commission to adopt the revised recommendation to program the measure D active transportation and highway corridors revenue at the higher amounts without specifying a preference between the two scenarios. Understanding that the decisions regarding those scenarios we've made after the IR is complete and the election is not an issue. And I support continuing the conversation with Rowan Camp and I appreciate that we're no longer talking about pursuing adverse abandonment, but instead we're talking about having a conversation. So, and finally I wanna say I very much support the recommendation to fund segment seven as a resident. As I said, I look forward to segment seven being finished and that concludes my remarks. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Barry Scott. Thank you. Thank you commissioners. I am encouraged to see that the direction is to aim for the ultimate trail of funding and it's reasonable to keep options open. So I thank you for working together. I thank you too for working with Rowan Camp and Progressive in all matters relating to the rail line because after all, the RTC is a brand new to the business of maintaining operating railroads. And it's great that you work with your partners in this. I wanna revisit an item, however, that I think is reasonable for a citizen to ask about and I'm formally requesting some form of proof. It may be an oversight or it may exist, but for these first seven miles, the fact that Progressive has been using the first two or 2.5 miles cannot be taken as proof that the entire line was improved, absent some independent inspectors report. The contract exists and the contract should be, when you reach a milestone like this, it should be agreed by all parties that an expectation has been satisfied. So like I said, it may be an oversight, but I'm formally requesting some evidence of an inspection and it might be that the inspections weren't done and still need to be done. So for that first seven miles, please look into this. I'll be asking for this more formally later. Thank you for the new recommendation and let's build that ultimate trail now. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Deb Molina. Commissioner Brown, we're having a little bit of technical. Okay, we just got it going. So I'll need the other speakers. Sorry about that. Thank you. You had time or didn't run down the last person. So maybe that needs to be done. We'll talk to you about that. Yeah, I'll be sorry about that. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay, hi. Thank you, RTC staff and members for all your hard work. It must be just incredibly difficult to put together all this information when you really don't know which way we're going. I wanna say that I'm excited about the bus on shoulder. I think that electric buses can really get people where they need to go cheaply and efficiently and give South County a reasonable transportation option. I agree that rail banking is needed. I hear people being really nervous about rail banking. I'm not sure why, I think they need to do a little more investigation into that. I wanna state that I feel that segment seven phase two, which is only 0.8 miles long, which is coming in at $12 million plus, I'm sure, should be reconsidered. This is an extreme amount of money and it's gonna have major excavations, 30 foot concrete retaining walls, trees being cut down and it just seems like a ridiculous amount of money when there is a railroad corridor directly parallel that could be as easy, easily, cheaply, quickly. I overwhelmingly endorse scenario one. To me, it's a clear winner. It's significantly cheaper as we've found out, but most importantly for me, it would provide a continuous trail and would not divert folks onto unsafe busy surface streets. So yeah, thank you very much and that's it. Thank you, Ms. Molina. Our next speaker is Paula Bradley. Thank you. I would like a clarification concerning the cost estimate for the interim trail versus the ultimate trail from the slides that were shown. I understand that proposed interim trail is only from the San Lorenzo River Tressel to Lee Road, not a 32-mile trail such as the ultimate trail. So if that's the case, I was thinking in terms of length, the interim trail and the ultimate trail are, maybe the cost estimate per mile would be a better comparison. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Bradley. I will just say while people are waiting to speak, I'm tracking some of these questions and we will try to come back around and get answers to the specific clarifying and technical questions that can be answered at this time at the end of public comment. Okay, Christina Watson, you are next. Hi, commissioners, this is Christina Watson. I'm a director of planning with the Transportation Agency from Monterey County. And I just want to quickly say that we look forward to continuing coordination with your staff and board to implement our long-term network integration vision and the state rail plan. And we hope that our joint transit intercity rail capital program grant application we submitted earlier this year will be successful. We'll be hearing in June for the Pajaro Watsonville train station, which includes the trail segment from the location of the station to the Pajaro River Bridge. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, next up we have David Van Brink. Hello, can you hear me all right? Yes, we can. Okay, yes, David Van Brink here. Thank you for this revised recommendation for moving forward while retaining the flexibility to include a scenario too, which I'm quite confident the community will shortly indicate a preference for. This is great and very wise, I love it. I think it would make some people including myself more comfortable if item D on the revised recommendation didn't say rail banking specifically, but rather something more like item D work constructively with roaring camp and other stakeholders to protect their interests and limit RTC financial exposure. So, less prescriptive. And of course, please approve the funding filler for segment seven phase two. How exciting. Thank you for everything you do. Thanks. Thank you. Okay, our next speaker is Michael St. Mr. St, you're muted. How's that? There you go. Okay, thank you, Chair Brown. I sound like broken record here, but I've heard bust on shoulder referred to just from some recent speakers, Burbage. I just want to clarify, I wish you wouldn't use that term, bust on shoulder, I took time during this meeting, which I had plenty of to look it up, is also known as a bust bypass shoulder program. It's a low cost way to bypass a congested arterial on the freeway. Just in the interest of transparency, when you refer to this project on the ox lane, could we use bus with cars or bus in traffic or even just say hybrid bus on shoulder? It's misleading to the public and we always get questions about what is actually this means. It seems that we've reversed our previous position a couple of meetings ago. I remember Jack Brown, who's a greenway supporter, saying, why are we even talking about interim trail or the extreme trail because they haven't got to June 7th on the measure vote yet. And I believe Director Preston also agreed with Jack on this point. So my position is I'd support the staff's recommendation with deleting scenarios one and two as being part of that and just say something like, both scenarios are capable of funding, period. Thank you. Okay, Rosemary Sarka, you are up and yep, there you go. Yes. So our intention at Morring Camp was to use this opportunity to underline items from our letter to you, which you have in your file and in particular in demonstration of our efforts to cooperate with respect to funding opportunities. RTC was successful in the 2020 SB1 cycle in obtaining funds for highway work. By applying a multimodal corridor program, which includes highway one rail corridor and active transportation. So we encourage RTC to pursue that strategy in the 2022 SB1 TCP cycle by again, including all three lines, legs of the multimodal corridor program, Braille, not just highway and trail. In the upcoming cycle for the 2022 SB1 trade corridor and enhancement program, there's an important opportunity for funding connected with the California freight mobility plan 2020. This includes 800 million in funding that specifically highlights the eligibility of projects included in the freight mobility plan and two specific projects already designed for the San Cruz branch line. 25,000 to upgrade the rail line to a class two condition at 22, 25 million rather and 22,410 to maintain and rehabilitate the railroad infrastructure. And this is in addition to possible grants on the federal level. On rail banking, we do look forward to some understanding of our position and why this is so important to us. And we hope that you will keep in mind the many comments you receive in February about this issue as well. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next up we have Jack Brown. Thank you, Commissioner Brown. Just wanted to give my support to the guy Preston and the alternative resolution. I think it's a good place to be in between both polarizing sides of this issue and states it about as best as we can. And then I just wanted to give some commentary on rail banking. I recently spent two and a half weeks in Washington, DC helping my mother who had knee replacement surgery. And my primary source of transportation during that time was using e-bikes share while I was there. On the one day I got off, I decided to take the capital press and trail from Georgetown to Bethesda, which is a rail bank trail, which is also being converted back into the program. And it's a beautiful trail and it's being used by thousands of people on a daily basis. And I think we can have something beautiful like here too. Just a couple of the comments was someone, I'm sorry I didn't catch the gentleman's name before, but it mentioned me. I do agree with him too. I think we should have something like bus and auxiliary lane rather than what we really should be doing bus on shoulder, just to clarify that there isn't an impact on the rail bank. And I'll clarify that there isn't an impact with traffic there and hopefully we get ourselves to a point at the bus on shoulder in the future. And lastly, I just wanted to say thank you to all of you for putting yourselves out there and all of this. I've got great respect for you now, now that I've been with the S&D campaign and hearing all the comments, but I really felt that when Guy Preston was giving his initial information that for that no way supporter Tina Andrew out of the screen for fanities was completely on call for. And as a member of the public, I just want to apologize to you Guy and the rest of the commission for having to hear that from someone. Thank you. Okay, let's see here. So the hands are continuing to go up and I've received messages from a couple of commissioners who do have to move on to other commitments today. And we do want to be able to vote on this before we finish our meeting. So I'm going to, and I'm sorry to do this. We've just had a meeting that's gone on quite a bit longer than anticipated due to a couple of items. So I'm going to reduce the time for public speakers. I kept hoping we were going to be through and then hands keep going up. So I want to reduce the time to one minute. I'm sorry about that. Given the circumstances, I think it will get us through the meeting more efficiently and those of you who have things you want to say about, again, the decision between among rail and trail configurations, since we're not really making a decision about that today, you will have plenty of opportunity to do that when the time comes. And there will be multiple occasions, I imagine. So I'm going to reduce the time to one minute. I apologize, but just for the sake of completing our business today, we need to do that. So our next speaker is Faina Siegel. It's good afternoon now. Thank you very much. I just had a couple of comments and I'll be brief on Director Preston's alternative recommendation that we're happy to see today. And that is for Section D, I would have to echo the comments from Mr. Saladin Sale. Really, I don't see that as being a recommendation about rail banking and that probably that should be reflected in any motion made. And it really, you know, it's so important for us to include stipulations that protect both our tracks and our bridges from being torn out. We may need that and it's silly to rip out infrastructure that is perfectly capable now, especially over segment 12. If there's not enough money, then we need to keep what we have at least available. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Catherine Mizzuno. And if we could start the timer over, thank you, that would be, that's great. You are needed, there you go. I'm here, I'm just, I am a retired teacher. I live in Watsonville and I just like to ask us all to stop back, take a step back and look at the big picture that climate change prevent presents to all of us. And I just want to say that we are obliged to provide emissions free transportation for all people in our county and any decisions we make should allow for that possibility. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Leah, AC Frost. Ms. Frost, if you can unmute yourself, we're not able to hear you, great. Okay, thank you. First off, I sincerely and respectfully want to apologize to all RTC staff for any perceived mistrust in their extensive and thoughtful and cooperative efforts and recommendations that I've heard today. I'm curious if the numbers on the perspective, perspectives on both scenarios include potential profitable income from industry employers who may subsidize mass transit for their employees and or in attracting future industry to the area that depend on rail transportation. And also, I really see this as a chicken and egg scenario with option one and rail banking being short-sighted and penny-wise, but in the long-term pound foolish. So I really do appreciate Guy Preston's recommendation and wholeheartedly support that. So thank you again for your time and your efforts, everyone. Thank you, Ms. Frost. Okay, next up, Kyle Kelly. Yeah, thank you so much. Sorry, I'm revised in my comments, I'll be really quick. I just want to say that I support the staff's alternative recommendation. The only thing that I would possibly update instead of saying that you're gonna advance discussions to rail bank to instead work constructively with Rowing Camp and other stakeholders to protect their interests and limit RTC financial exposure. That's all for me. Thank you all so much for your time and all that you're doing for this community. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Next up, Equity Transit. Hi, thank you to the staff for revising today's recommendation. I also want to ask commissioners to ensure that neither adverse abandonment nor rail banking will be included in this motion. Research indicates that rail banking is not required to build the ultimate trail as we own the line. There are billions of dollars in funds coming available through state and federal rail infrastructure grants more than has seen in the past 100 years. An interim trail ensures we miss these substantial funding opportunities and other cities more committed to implementing rail like Monterey will receive our hard-earned tax dollars that we've already paid into these federal rail funds. And here's a letter quote from the state of California. In 2018, California state rail plan identified Santa Cruz branch line as a key facility in the corridor for providing rail service through the region while providing connections to popular destinations, including San Francisco Bay Area, et cetera. Importantly, the locally approved alternative identified in the TCAA includes rail with trail option to further expand multimodal options and enhance utilization of the corridor for passenger rail operations and a dedicated trail. And we support that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next speaker is Maggie Amma. Maybe not. Okay, we'll move on then to Ryan Sarnataro. You're up. Yes. The, I appreciate the report. One glaring thing that's different about that report than what could have been reported is that there was no green light option in there. There was no cost of actually moving forward with removing all the tracks, fixing everything up, no extra fencing and properly preparing for the most greenhouse gas reducing use of that corridor which is two paved lanes of traffic. In terms of the actual report, it was said that no trail can be built without rail banking due to liability. And you just have to look at the smart train up in Marin. And it was also said that roaring camp is going to be the reason why rail banking could be prevented for the next couple of years. So they are the impediment to a trail. Okay, next up we have Pauline Seals. Thank you, Chairman and Commission. I would like to point out something on page 28-7. It says, rail banking falls under the jurisdiction of the Federal Surface Transportation Board with no guarantees as to outcome. Given the severity of climate change which has already been mentioned, given that emphasis, the very necessary emphasis on clean transportation, this may never happen. And yet it also says on the same page, rail banking could take two to three years and potentially delay implementation of some rail segments. I'd like to see that not a cent gets spent investigating rail banking without very specific approval. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Our next speaker is Anne Kaplan. Greetings. My name is Anne Kaplan and I'm a resident of Watsonville and I want to thank the RTC staff for their careful expression of the importance of rail banking for either scenario, either scenario one or two, ultimate or interim. There's a lot of misinformation that's circulated about rail banking being the death mill for future rail development. This, and this is inaccurate. I believe it's a fear tactic meant to confuse and disorient voters. So thank you to the RTC staff for clarifying that and for your excellent report and all of your hard work. Many thanks. Thank you. Okay, we have one more speaker. We have one more hand up. I'm gonna do a last call right now for public comments. You folks will have one minute and then we'll return to the commission. The next speaker is no more CZU fires. Things heard from the commission today. We're not gonna make a decision, preserve, reserve, further study, there is no free. There's so little free. We can't afford it. We have to end free. You know, if y'all were a corporation, you'd go broke with reporting like Guy and Cody brought today, they'd get fired and most likely sued for the appearance of trying to tank the company. Firefisher's officials have told us we need to stay connected to the rest of the state to bring in water tankers. Were they invited today? No, the Boulder Creek Fire Chief got a phone call from a stranger on International Firefighters Day to tell them what's going on today. I'm trying to end it again. Hear the same reporting every meeting from y'all. Where's the truth? Where's the accountability and in heart? Thank you. Our next speaker is Jacob Wazaki, Waisaki. Go for it, you're unmuted. Mr. Waisaki, are you prepared to speak? We can't, unfortunately, we can't hear you. Okay, we will, I'm gonna call on Charles Hicks. Mr. Waisaki, hopefully you can figure out it may be an issue at your end. We'll call on Charles Hicks and then return to you. Okay, am I being heard? Yeah. Okay, great. I just wanted to, first of all, like a lot of other people, thank the RTC and for all of the efforts that's been done of a real interesting meeting. And I enjoy all of your, all of your efforts. The thing I wanted to say is I live in the hills up behind Shamanad. And like many of my neighbors, we recently had our house insurance canceled. And we finally found another insurance company, but almost everyone is paying double from where they were last year. And this is an effect of global warming and the fire problem. And so as I see it, we're gonna start getting more and more density of people trying to move down into the town area and out of the hills. There's been several articles about this also. So I think that we need to be prepared and get our transportation systems in order because we're really gonna need it. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next up, William Mensheen. Yes, thank you very much. I wanted to thank Director Preston and the entire RTC staff for their presentation today and encourage the board to accept their recommendations in its entirety. I wanted to also ask that the staff spend time at some point looking at precisely what was brought up a little while ago of what the, an ultimate trail would look like as in something that actually had enough width for proper active transportation and hybrid type miniature vehicles as well as a separated sidewalk. In other words, in short, the Greenway plan. Also, I think that it's very important in the study of rail banking to look at how that impacts the phase three highway investment, specifically in how it might be a way or a strategy to remove the Aptos Strangler that's posed by the pair of rail bridges there and be able to get to bus on shoulder and ideally dedicated bus transit lanes in the future on Highway 1. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, our next speaker is Maggie Alma. All right, she already spoke. Okay, great, all right, I made it. There you go. So I have a couple of questions. One is, it's my understanding. Ms. Alma, we lost you again. You're muted, you could unmute yourself. I do, can you hear me? Yep. Okay, so it's my understanding that there's been like only maybe 10 or 15 examples of trails that have been reverted back to rail after they've been rail banked and that's over like a thousand trails. I'd like some clarification on that if possible. And the second question I have is it's from what I thought that what the intention was was to remove the rails and put in a trail to take the rails out completely and put in a trail. And I saw that in the presentation that Guy Preston gave, there was actually a reference to just leaving the rail in. So that's unclear to me because if they actually are gonna take out the rails they have to remove the ballast and that's really problematic. So thank you. Hey, thank you, Ms. Alma. I'm gonna now bring it back to the commission for action, emotion and deliberations. There are several questions that people raised during the public comment that I'd like to get answered but for the sake of making sure we maintain a quorum to vote on this, I'd like to take that first and then we can return to figuring out which questions we might be able to answer quickly for the public. So I'll call on commissioner Schifrin first. Thank you. I would move this amended staff recommendation. Second. And I have comments on it. I think it's a reasonable way to move forward at this point in time. I'm not, although I hear the request from a few members of the public that we add additional directions on the rail banking. I understood what the staff was saying about their intentions and that satisfies me. I mean, I think that they wanna get a resolution. I think we know that they wanna get a resolution and they will, I think they will in good faith and work with Roaring Camp to try to achieve that. So based on all of that, I would recommend that we approve the staff recommendation as presented. That's the second. All right. We have a motion and a second. Next up, commissioner McPherson. Yeah, I appreciate, and I will go along with motion, but I think it would be good. I think the staff would appreciate additional direction that includes language that the cities be responsible for cost overruns. I think that's a concern that's not specified to the gray. I think we should have it in a motion. I don't know if that would be acceptable to Mr. Schifrin. I don't have a problem with that. I mean, I don't, you know, it's, what I would like to do is to bring back a whole discussion on maintenance because I think maintenance is a really big issue and I think we should discuss it separately. But really what we're asking, what's before us today is to program money. And I'm happy to add, if it's acceptable to the second, I added direction that, you know, the commission, I don't know, we can't, yeah, we, you know, bring back the discussion on maintenance. You know, again, what you wanted commissioner McPherson, I mean, I don't. Okay, yeah, I just think it's a, it could be a pressing problem. That's all that I think we should have addressed, but. How about just adding a direction that's staff return with a discussion on how to deal with cost overrounds? That's, yeah, that'd be fine. Thank you. Would that be acceptable? Is that acceptable to the second? Yeah, that's fine. Thank you. Thank you. That's it. Okay. Commissioner Koenig. Thank you, Chair Brown. Yeah, to this maintenance question, I'd like to propose a little additional direction as a friendly amendment, which would be that a maintenance agreement approved by the commission will be put in place with partner agencies prior to advertising for construction for any future segment. So that would basically allow that this does come back and explicitly require that we get those maintenance agreements in place. I'm happy to add that, but I think given how long this process might be, before we get to that point, I think we should have a discussion on maintenance before then. I would appreciate it if we could just maybe direct that no later than September, the September meeting and commission have a full discussion on how to deal with the maintenance course. We have five supervisors represented here. We have representatives from all the jurisdictions, the cities along the segments. We should be able to have a discussion with our staff and with local staff about how to resolve it. It is complicated, but I think the sooner we do it, the better it's gonna be rather than waiting until we're ready to go to construction. I would be happy to add that if in addition, you would agree to an additional direction that we have a discussion on maintenance issue issues put on our September agenda. Is that acceptable to you? That is. Is it a- That's fine, finally the second. Okay, so great, thanks. And if I may, would want to suggest one additional bit of direction, again, as a friendly amendment, which is again, related to ensuring maximum flexibility here before the vote, which is explicitly authorizing the grant applications for segments eight through 11 for either scenario, but that grant application should be silent with respect to the rail line to provide maximum flexibility to implement either trail option in the future. Well, let me ask staff about that because eight through 11 are not our grant application. So, I mean, do we really have the ability to, say what those grant applications should say? I mean, I think from what staff was saying, that's sort of what the city and the county are intending to do, but I'm a little reluctant to add it to a motion direction when we really don't have the authority to make it. So, Guy, could you respond to that, please? Well, we'll ultimately have their reason agreement with the city, a cooperative agreement for them to receive the money. And so at that time we could, we don't like the project that they won money for, we could not provide our funding. So, it is important that the city hear this and I'm glad that the city's engineer, their project manager is listening. You know, we, you know, they can really do whatever they want, but they would be taking risks that it might not be approved. So, you know, I would hope that the city staff heard the need to make sure that flexibility be included. We could provide that direction so that they understand what the intentions are, but there's the only hammer would be the future cooperative agreement to actually provide the funding. This is just the program of funds. I'd be willing to add, you know, as a friendly amendment, direction that staff provide the city and the county with their recommended language for moving forward with the grant applications. It seems to me that that's reasonable. I'm reluctant to go beyond that. Is that acceptable to you? Yeah, that works for me. Is that acceptable to the second, the second there? Just going to express my reluctant acceptance of it because I think people need to recognize the fragile nature of this compromise being proposed here. And it's getting kind of like tenuous on one side of it here. So, my answer is yes, but. I guess I don't see it that way. I mean, from my perspective, it's consistent with the overall approach that we want to provide at this point in time through the grant applications, through the programming, the ability to move forward with either option. And so, I think that that's, I don't see that weakens the position that we're taking by approving the staff recommendation. It's just formalizing what the executive director said before in terms of a suggestion for how the city in the county could word their grant application to allow for that flexibility. That's why you have my reluctant acceptance of it. Okay. That's everything from me. Thank you. Okay. So, let's see, Commissioner Rockin, it looks like you're. Yeah, I only have really brief comment. I really want to thank staff for the alternative recommendation which shows a great responsiveness to a lot of concerns from the public. On the issue of rail banking, and I understand the concerns about rail banking, but my view is that what actual, what rail banking actually means is precisely something that could be negotiated with Roaring Camp and others. I am certain that Roaring Camp is not going to agree to something that includes adverse abandonment, for example. And so it's very possible that we can get a rail banking agreement that does more to protect the future possibilities of rail than some other agreement about rail banking might have in it. So I'm quite open to the idea that our staff would talk with Roaring Camp to try and figure out how we could provide, if there's going to get to rail banking, something that would preserve my concerns about not having a sort of legal right to bring back rail, but no feasible practicality of it happening. So that's why I don't want to change the language generally that's in the staff recommendation. I think it meets the needs that we have out there and the way that it's worded. I also think that people's desire to sort of make it so abstract, let's talk about preserving our financial, recognizing our financial limitations and Roaring Camp's concerns about whatever. If you make it totally abstract, it's not clear what we sort of recommend or allowed staff to kind of talk about. And I think the issue is about rail banking, it's a question of what kind of rail banking, that's a totally open-ended question. But I think the current language around rail banking is appropriate, even for those that are quite concerned that rail banking of the wrong kind might, and destroy all possibility of future rail service or something that I don't think the language we have now in any way leads to that. So I'm happy with the current formulation by Guy Preston of the Alternative Recommendation. That's my comment. Thank you. I just wanna, I see that our Deputy Director Nathan Nguyen is here and I think I wanna give you an opportunity to just jump in because it's probably in response to some of the conversation. So I'll call on you next before I go back around to Commissioner Parker. I appreciate that, Chair Brown, Nathan Nguyen, City Engineer for the City of Santa Cruz. I just wanted to jump in and talk about our ATP grant application and what the City of Santa Cruz right now, kind of the funding that we have for Segments 8-9 and the timeline that we're under, the gun that we're under right now for the current funding. So we are proposing to approve both the interim and ultimate schematic plans at our next meeting, but then also move forward with proceeding with final plans for the ultimate shelf configurations for Segments 8-9. And that's so that we can apply for that ATP Cycle 6 construction grant that we've been talking about and that we almost got in ATP Cycle 5. Now the program itself is to deliver on a trail and if things, decisions that come, things change in the next, you know, six months or years ahead, there is that possibility of going back to the CCC if we are awarded that grant to, you know, then proceed with a different, the interim trail, of course, we'd have to proceed with getting some final plans and specs for that design, but what we support the alternative recommendation that you have today, because it does provide for that ultimate flexibility. So while we're applying, the City is gonna likely apply for ATP Cycle 6 with the ultimate shell configuration. It does not necessarily include, again, the future decisions dictate, you know, interim trail switching to that type of design. So I just wanted to be clear with that, you know, as far as our intentions and that we appreciate, again, the collaboration effort that we've had with RTC staff. We are working on getting our maintenance agreements up to date. And so we look forward to bringing that back to you guys in the future. Thanks. Sorry. Sorry, Commissioner Parker, you're up. Okay, I didn't wanna talk before you said so. Okay, I needed a clarification and I don't know who that's gonna come from, but appreciations to the RTC staff with the flexibility and how they produce this for us. I have a clarification between cost overruns versus maintenance costs. Because I'm looking at segment seven, phase two, and I see that the cost overruns is approximately 2.15 million. And the City's gonna try to cover 1 million of it. The City of Santa Cruz with the ATP grants and City funds. And then they're asking for an additional 1.15 million from the RTC. Is that correct? Am I reading that right? Yeah, Nathan, you're again. Yeah, that's mostly correct. We are funded up to 8.6 million with the ATP grant. The project came in roughly about 10% over. And so we are working with your staff and you guys here requesting basically a cost sharing as far as the overrun for segment seven, phase two. Okay, that's what I wanna know. And Director Schifrin, is that what you were talking about when you were talking about cost overruns and maintenance like coming back with future maintenance? Or was that something? No, each project may or may not have cost overruns. But I think staff has been talking about is the long-term cost of maintaining the trail once it's built. Okay. And who's gonna pay for that? And at this point, because it could be a very significant drain on the measure D funding and could prevent construction of some of the segments. So what I hope, what the motion would bring back is a more detailed discussion about what the options are with maybe recommendations that the commission could make to the jurisdictions about what they would prefer. Okay. And I appreciate that. That's just further clarification. That's kind of what I thought. But I also worry about this because the bridge in Parro that supposedly Cadillac would have been 1.5 million to improve, I mean to fix at its most Cadillac version and we're kind of quibbling over whether the basics is even good enough. And I see the RTC now allocating 1.15 million additionally to the city of Santa Cruz. I'm a little bit, I'm thinking South County is just not getting some of the things that they need for this. And maybe the city of Santa Cruz is getting a little bit more. So I just wanna make that comment as we look at this and understand this is a part of what we're deciding today. So thank you once again, Nathan, for your answers from the city of Santa Cruz. And I appreciate once again, the guy, your staff and what you've put together today. Thank you. Director Preston, did you wanna respond directly to that? Well, I need some clarification now based on Commissioner Schifrin's response to Commissioner Parker's question because the friendly amendment was actually made by Commissioner Koenig to not include cost overruns which is different from maintenance. So I need Commissioner Koenig, I think to clarify whether this friendly amendment was one of the other or both. My friendly amendment was in regards to maintenance agreements and having those in place. Thank you for that. Let me, while you got the mic guy, has the commission provided funding for the segments in Watsonville? We provided 2.8 million, I believe. I'd have to go back and look, but I'm pretty sure my recollection is correct on that for segment 18 of the rail trail. However, when segment 18-1 cost overruns during construction, the city of Watsonville covered those costs. Okay, so since you have the microphone, Director Schifrin, I just wanted to ask that. So the cost overruns, was that paid by the RTC? If what you just said was true, then the answer would be no. That is what I just said. Excellent. Well, there are cost overruns. I mean, we're using it in two different situations. One is where the bid comes in above the engineer's estimate, which is the case with segment seven. The other is once construction happens, the bids accept it, and then there are additional costs that were unanticipated. Let me just say, I mean, my sense is the commission has tried to help every jurisdiction as it's moved forward with implementing the rail trail segments. It's been supportive of the county. It's been supportive of the city of Santa Cruz, and it's been supportive of the city of Watsonville when asked. So I mean, I don't remember any time the commission has turned down a request from any jurisdictions at the commission for additional funding. Well, I appreciate that, Director Schifrin. I just, we're talking about trying to maintain all this and trying to maintain our budget with RTC and people being responsible for things. That's all I brought up. I just wanted to be an awareness of it for the public to see where these funds are going. So that's it. Thank you very much, though, Guy, for your clarification. If I may, I'm just gonna, I wanna try to bring us back around to the item that we are deliberating and voting on right now. And just to stay focused, we will certainly have many conversations about the broader distribution of funding, you know, formulae versus RTC-granted measure defunds among jurisdictions. I'd just like to try to get through this item. Commissioner Hurst, do you have comments? And then I'll give the mic to Director Preston. Yes, thank you. Thank you very much, Chair. You know, I get a little nervous when we have this gradual creep toward rail banking and shifting the cost of the RTC maintenance as well as the programmatic changes and stuff back on the backs of cities, you know, the RTC does own this facility, does own this line, and we've been given guidance as to how to use it when we requested and received the 116 monies. And so I think we're kind of moving away from where our intent was originally and everybody wants a certainly a piece of the action. And everybody really, I think, wants rail trail and bridge equity. And I don't know if we're getting that. I think that we can have more discussions about it. But I'm concerned about the gradual creep here that we're moving forward to rail banking and other scenarios that actually may cost the public a lot more money and yield less results. I'll yield the rest of my time. Thank you. Okay. Director Preston, you have some comments. Yeah, I got some clarification from staff that we did provide some additional funding for Watsonville when estimates did come in high. But during construction, when there were utility complex, associated with a water line, we did not. So it was a combination of both. So now we're providing additional funding to the city Santa Cruz when their bids came in high. I must say there's an awful lot of utilities on that job. And so if there is an additional need for funding, staff may come back and make a recommendation or not for additional costs during construction. Based on today's discussion, that was to not include any sort of language regarding cost of events at this time. All the question. Yeah. Let's not. So we don't have to have two votes. Come on. I didn't mean to call for. I'm calling the chair to call the question. Thank you. Okay. We will now. We will now it looks like we're ready to take it. The motion. And so I'll ask for a roll call. Before doing that, I just want to be clear. Whether somebody has written down all these amendments so that we can be clear what the motion is. I didn't write them down. The meeting is recorded. So it's not to take them off of the recording. We've been writing them down and there. The motion. Would be to adopt the resolution with the alternative. Recommendations provided by the executive director. Along with the additional changes that have been identified. We have been keeping track of them. Okay. Our commissioners comfortable with the motion. As it stands in the kind of summary or just the gist of. The motion. The motion would be to adopt the resolution with the alternative. Recommendations provided by the executive director. The motion would be to adopt the resolution with the alternative. The motion would be to adopt the gist of what those. Amendments are related to. The item. So what. What happens? This is a commission Hernandez. What happens if there is no negotiations with, with roaring camp or they don't. They don't fall through. We'll come back to it. We'll hear all about it. Okay. So I'm going to now. Ask for a roll call. Vote. From this item. Commissioner Bertrand. I approve. Commissioner Sandy Brown. I. Commissioner Johnson. And. Commission alternate hers. No. Commission alternate Hernandez. No. Commission alternate shifrin. Hi. Commission alternate Quinn. Approved. Yes. Commissioner Koenig. Hi. Commissioner McPherson. Yes. Commissioner. Kristen Brown. Hi. Commissioner Parker. Yes. And commissioner Rockin. Hi. That passes. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. That passes with two notes. All right. So before we move on to our. Before we leave this item, I would like to say, given the exchange I had with. Parker that. cooperatively on moving forward with the Israel segments. And I know all the North County commissioners have supported the projects in the South County and all the South County commissioners have supported the projects in the North County. And I'm hoping that we will continue to really look at this as a countywide effort. And as the various jurisdictions get ready to implement segments within the jurisdiction that the commission will do as much as they possibly can to support those efforts. All right. Thank you for that. I also have some comments to make before we move on from this item. There were questions that were raised by members of the public. We tried to answer those as we can. And so I just wanted to get these out here and ask if staff could just provide clarification. I know the answers to some, but I want to make sure the public is aware and that we're being responsive. Before you do that, Madam Chair, I have to teach this afternoon. So I need to apologize for leaving the meeting. I don't think Commissioner Coonerty is available to come in. And I'm sorry I have to leave, but this other obligation is mandatory. Yes. Understood. I'm actually teaching my classes online right now next to me. And they have a written assignment they're doing. So I understand we all need to get moving. So anyone who has to leave, the rest of our items are not action items. They are reports. We do need to maintain a quorum for this meeting to continue. But I did want to just try to get those three questions answered very quickly. And I'll do that before I call on anybody else. Okay. Just one moment please. If the staff, there was a comment made that we could potentially be at risk of losing funding if we, you know, don't move forward with the approved, locally approved alternative. Are there any particular funds that we are currently at risk of losing if we do not take action to move forward now? I am not aware of any funding that we're losing. In terms of this question about a clarification on what commitments have been met for the first seven miles, can we get some kind of like a memo or just a quick overview maybe circulated so that we can respond to questions from the public about that? I just like to make sure because there are people who still aren't can, you know, want to, want to understand this better. Is that something that could be done? We provided notice to progress route back in August. We've had conversations with them. They even pulled us to that, that there's equipment on the craft that needs to be moved. So we've not heard anything from Progressive Rail that we have not met our commitments. And it's been, we're getting close to a year from now. And in fact, we plan on writing them a letter that they're not maintaining that section properly now. It's getting overgrown. Thank you. And then there was a question about the concerns about the estimated cost for interim versus ultimate configurations that the interim was only for part of the trail, but the ultimate was for the full trail. And so the there was a disparity potentially on the cost because there are more miles in the ultimate. Can you just clarify on that? There's actually more miles on the interim because that includes the capital threshold. Otherwise, it's a life to life comparison. The cost estimates only go down to Rio del Mar at the end of second 12. So it's pretty much an apples to apples comparison. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure that was clear for the public that it is apples to apples, at least as close as we can get on that. Okay, those were the questions I had heard from members of the public. So we will now I'm going to close this item, and we will go back to our the rest of our agenda. We have the the final items we have are items 23 commissioner or reports. I'm hoping if commissioners have any, they will keep them very brief. Commissioner Koenig. Thank you Chair Brown. I just had a question. So I had posed some questions to RTC Council and the commissioner Schifrin had as well. Those were answered to the commission in private as a confidential memo. And I just wanted to I don't know exactly what the process for this may be RTC Council matters can clarify but request to the commission that those be allowed to be public. Since that was the intention by asking the clarifying questions to begin with. Madam Chair, the memos were provided to the commission as confidential communications. If the commission wish to authorize their release, the commission should provide that direction to the to staff and my office. That can be done through a motion would now be an appropriate time to do that. Would you remind me what we're doing before I authorize it? So there were two memos that the council that the commission received this week. One was a series of responses to questions that vice chair Koenig had asked in relation to the current measure D and RTC and then commissioner Schifrin. I remember that one. Yeah. And then commissioner Schifrin separately asked questions about it as well too. And what we responded to were both sets of questions. Okay. I remember this but now and I think there's no problem with that in the public. But let's put it to a question. I guess I move we put those make them public. Second. Okay. Any discussion on that? All right. Let's vote before we lose another member. We can't take any action. So I guess we'll take a roll call on the motion to make that information available to the public that was received. Commissioner Bertrand? I approve. Commissioner Sandy Brown? I. Commissioner Johnson? Commissioner Alternate Hearst? I. Commissioner Alternate Hernandez? I. Commissioner Alternate Quinn? Okay. Commissioner Koenig? I. Commissioner McPherson? I. Commissioner Kristen Brown? I. Commissioner Parker? I. And Commissioner Rockin? I. Process. All right. So we'll now move on to the director's report. I will make two very quick announcements. We put out a press release regarding the repairs at Manresa Beach and why we're not moving forward with them at this time. And it is related to an ongoing conversation with the coastal commission regarding the need for a coastal development permit at that location. In fact, we had a very productive meeting yesterday and we're going to continue to move forward to making sure that that area of the rail line is protected this year and that we ultimately get a project moved forward best for a minute. And then last but not least, RTC was notified that the timber trestle on the Santa Cruz branch rail line caught on fire early in the morning Monday, May 2nd. The trestle was located at mile post 0.86 near Pajaro Junction in Monterey County to south of the Pajaro River bridge. RTC staff contacted both Professor Raul and Lauren Camp who are also notified and in the process of assessing the damage. Lauren Camp has arranged for an engineering assessment of the bridge but unfortunately freight rail and Watsonville will be out of service until repairs can be completed. That concludes my report. Thank you, Director Preston. Are there any questions for Director Preston? All right. That we will move on to our last item or certainly not least, our Caltrans report. And we have, I believe you are still here, Mr. Olenek. Yes, there you are. Thank you for your patience. It's time for your report. She bet. John Olenek, Caltrans District 5. Glad to be here today. I'll be brief as well. Essentially, we are still really appreciative of the ground-breaking event we had for the Highway 17 wildlife crossing project. And I'm only bringing that up to mention that we are going to do our part to get the project done as soon as we can. I think we're looking at a towards end of November timeline, which is a little advanced in schedule. That's kind of our current estimate. We are going to do our best to mitigate any traffic concerns by keeping the peak hours, the activity to a low activity in peak hours, any significant changes in staging. We're going to attempt to do that at night again so as not to impact traffic. But also, I just wanted to mention for all of us, for your constituents, please remind everyone to mind the construction speed limits. It is an active construction zone, which leads me to my second point in that this week, we held our District 5's worker memorial ceremony here in our District Office in San Luis Obispo just to remind all those who participated the seriousness of working on the highway. And so we, as an event, we hold every year and it's very important to us and to all of our respective public works agencies and our contractors who work in serious conditions on the highway. So again, we all want to pay heed to the cone zone as it goes and keep our eyes on our speed limits and be careful around our work zone areas. So that's my brief report for today. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Elinick. Are there any questions for Caltrans rep? Okay. With that and having heard that we will not have item 30 a closed session today, I believe we are done with our regular business and I will adjourn today's meeting. Thank you. We came in just under 2 p.m. Not bad. Excellent job of cheering, Sandy. Thank you so much. It's not easy. People, public asked to understand how difficult that is. Thank you. Well, thanks everybody for being here and being succinct here, especially towards the end. See you next time. Our next meeting is going to be June 2nd, I believe, which was the first Thursday in June. See you then.