 Olivia, can you go ahead and allow the attendees to come in and commission or come in and just wait about 30 seconds and we can go ahead and get the meeting started. That's good. It looks like the attendees number has stopped climbing. Now call to order the regular meeting of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission. It's Thursday, January 12th, 2023. Happy New Year, everyone, and it's 9 a.m. Clerk, will you please call the roll? Commissioner Koenig. Here. Commissioner Rockin. Here. Commissioner Alternate Pegler. Here. Commissioner McPherson. Here. Commissioner Peterson. Here. Commissioner Kirsten Brown. Here. Commissioner Johnson. Here. Commissioner Eads. Commissioner Hernandez. Present. Commissioner Alternate Quinn. Here. Commissioner Montesino. Here. And Commissioner Alternate Finley. Are you sitting in for somebody? Oh, no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This has been laid out, so my mistake. You have a form, Commissioner Koenig. Thank you, Clerk. Executive Director Preston, do we have any additions or deletions to the agenda today? Yes. We do have a revised agenda that was posted to our website. That revision was to add three items, which are listed as 8-A, B, and C, and that would be the Commissioner Report, Director's Report, and CalTrans Report. There's also handouts for items 9 and 10. All of those items are posted to our website. Also, there is one change. We got a request this morning from Progressive Rail and Roaring Camp to please move item 10 to the February agenda, so item 10 is being pulled from today's agenda. All right, thank you. That is great. I am just going to move from that direction with additional direction on that subject on number 10. There's no reason to discuss it in any way at this point then, right? It's certainly the public can comment on it and oral communications for items not on the agenda, and if the commissioners want to mention anything about it and commissioners reports, that would be their prerogative, but there will not be a discussion and open session on the regular agenda for item number 10. Very well. Thank you. I'll just make a few. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Richardson, Director Preston will now proceed with oral communications. Any member of the public, commission on any item within the jurisdiction of the commission that is not already on the agenda commission will listen to all communication but in compliance with state not law, it may not take action items that are not on the agenda. Speakers are requested to state their name clearly so that it can be accurately reported in the minutes of the meeting. Proceed starting with Brian from trail now. I thought I would take the opportunity to introduce our organization again to the new commissioners and myself as well. You know, Trail Now is a grassroots organization with thousands of supporters, local supporters, and our goal is to build the coastal cord, open the coastal corridor as transportation resource as soon as possible in a timely, cost-effective manner. Myself, I've been involved with this organization initially 25 years ago, and I've been involved in transportation. I'm an engineer. I started as an environmental engineer 30 years ago, and I was on the Silicon Valley Leadership Transportation Board. I helped develop shuttles to Caltrans. I started van pools. I actually even wrote a state bill for taxes for employers to give to their employees for commuting. And I've been active in this board for over 10 years, over a decade. That was when we physically had to shell up. And my main goal has always been to open up the coastal corridor from Watsonville to Davenport as a transportation resource. It's a game changer. Just to kind of give you an understanding of my passion for this, in April, Monday, April 3 of last year, I was in a ski accident. I broke my neck, fractured my neck, broke my back, fractured my ribs. And that week, and I basically cut my throat open and put the bolts in it. And that week, I called into this meeting, not for a particular subject, but the reason was, is because there was a kid in the ICU next to me who got hit on his bike by a car. And that was really frustrating that we've only, we're not opening the coastal corridor for our community. So that's the passion that we have. And I really appreciate the time to communicate this. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Peoples. CTV, I do see Commissioner Sandy Brown in the attendees list with her hand raised. Someone could promote her to a panelist. That'd be great. Our next speaker will be Joanna Lighthill. Good morning. Good morning, commissioners. Welcome new commissioners and happy new year. I just wanted to congratulate the commission and the staff on the RTC's 50-year anniversary. I enjoyed attending the open house last month, and it was really great to talk about the many projects that RTC has planned for the future. And I especially wanted to thank the staff for being really friendly and helpful. One part of the visit that really stood out, and if you attended, I'm sure you'll remember, was a large monitor that featured an animated video showing what is envisioned for the trail segment 12. It showed people of varied ages and abilities using the trail walkers, bikers. It showed bikers passing people and what the surrounding area might look like. It essentially showed how people would use this trail and how they move about the space. What a fantastic tool I think this is. Today, I encourage the commission to make this video available to the public. Maybe post it on the website, a link, or YouTube or somewhere. People could get really excited about this future project. Additionally, as designs are completed for the other segments, I think the people could really benefit from seeing a similar video for segments 9 through 11. We could each envision ourselves using the trail, how it would look like, what kind of changes we can expect to see. I'm really looking forward to seeing more, and I really want to thank you for your work and consideration. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Lighthill. I believe that some of those renderings have been posted to a new website for the coastal rail trail, but hopefully staff will make readily available. We'll proceed now to Jack Nelson. Okay, good. I'm unmuted. Yes. Hello, commissioners. My name is Jack Nelson. I'm a retired land use planner and environmental planner. I've been following the RTC for a very long time, and my wish for 2023 is that since we all care about the future livability of our planet and our county, that you as commissioners will be making the choice to stop building the Global Greenhouse Gas Chamber and really get even more serious about building the alternatives to automobilism. And when I refer to automobilism, I'm using that word to mean excessive dependence on the automobile, not that it's going away, but that we depend too much on it. So in 2023, you have a commissioner. I don't see him present today, maybe his alternatives here, who really understands the science of climate change. And those that the scientists are advising us correctly that we must bring our greenhouse gas emissions down by 50% by the end of this decade in order to have a chance of having a climate that we'll recognize in the future. So this is I can't think of anything more important than that. But it wouldn't mean turning away from widening Highway One, and would be making the kinds of choices like they've made in the Netherlands, where you can go to a city in Netherlands now and see a river of bicyclists, ordinary people of all walks of life, riding their bikes, perhaps to the train station, where they're going to park their bike in a high quality garage and get on the train to their destination. So that's my wish for 2023. And thanks for listening. Thank you, Mr. Nelson. Next speaker will be Michael St. Okay, thank you. Good morning, Chair Koenig and commissioners. Michael St. from Aptos and a CFST member. We'd like to wish everyone happy New Year and welcome our newest commissioners to the RTC. We'd also like to commend Guy Preston and staff for their hard work and efforts for getting more than 115 million in grant funding through the active transportation plan for six projects. Hopefully this is a direction that the California Transportation Commission and our RTC will continue to pursue funding for other sustainable environmentally friendly projects, and not projects that contribute to global warming and to follow up with Jack Nelson, i.e. highway widening. Speaking of highway widening, let me suggest an article for you to read entitled, Widening Highways Doesn't Fix Traffic. So why do we keep on doing it? That's a New York Times article, January 6th of 2023. This article also had an embedded link to the guidelines of the federal infrastructure law to build a better America past December 21. It states under the general purpose of capacity extension projects where their policy prioritizes projects that move more people in freight by modernizing and increasing the operational efficiency of existing roads and highways over projects that expand the general purpose capacity of roads and highways. The federal highway administration will take action to encourage and where permitted by law require recipients of federal highway funding to select projects that improve the condition and safety of existing transportation infrastructure within the right of way before advancing projects that add new general purpose travel lanes serving single occupancy vehicles. State transportation departments also have been given the ability to transfer resources and funds to support transit projects that they meet more consistent with these priorities of lower vehicle miles traveled, lower greenhouse gas emissions and less single occupancy vehicle infrastructure. As stated by Dr. Turner and economics professor at Brown University and the co-author of a 2009 study on congestion, adding lanes is a fine solution if the goal is to get more cars on the road. If you keep adding lanes because you want to reduce congestion, you have to be really determined not to learn from the past. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Sain. All right. Seeing no one else, I wish to make a public comment. We'll proceed with the consent agenda with one item on it. Mr. Chair. Commissioner McPherson. Yeah, I don't know. Would this be the correct time? I think in light of our delaying number 10, I think Mr. Preston said I should probably comment briefly on my thoughts on that at this point. Would that be correct? We do have an item for commissioner reports. I believe it is number eight. Okay. Very well. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any comments or questions on the consent agenda? We will approval the consent agenda. Second. I have a motion by commissioner Rotkin, second by commissioner Kristen Brown to adopt the consent agenda. Any further discussion? Seeing none. Clerk, roll call vote, please. I guess we should have asked the public if they have a comment. I can't imagine what they have to say, but it's a legal requirement, I think. Mr. Scott, do you wish to comment on assembly bill 361 findings? I don't on this item, but just at the last minute, I thought my hand was raised and I raised my hand at the last minute for general public comment and I wonder if I might be ready. Go ahead. Thank you very much. You know, more than anything, I want to congratulate the staff and director for these remarkable grants that have come in. I review grants, and pardon my profession, and I write grants, and I know how hard it is to do a successful grant. I saw the fiscal year 2020 U.S. Department of Transportation mega ratings report. There were 26 grants from the state of California. Only three of these were recommended. Only two of them were highly recommended. The rest were all not recommended. And one of the highly recommended ones is our multimodal corridor grant for $30 million. I think for our small community to be one of only three that were recommended and one of only two to be highly recommended is significant. The other highly recommended project is for San Diego counties double track and bridge replacement rail project. So just congratulations there. And like Mike mentioned, congratulations on the wonderful, successful, and I believe the largest ever grants for trails with the California Transportation Commission. So you guys are doing a remarkable job and I'm really impressed and I'm grateful for the work you do. Also, I was out at New Year's Day. I went out to look at the progress on segment seven, phase two, and that's looking great. And it's interesting to see how they're using the rail line to move materials and equipment in and out and making it a really efficient construction process. And finally, I look forward to the rail, the biofuels, tank car storage issue coming back in February. It seems like a great project with no downside to do one mile for one year and be part of the green fuels economy. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Scott. Is anyone from the public wish to comment on the consent agenda item four? All right. Seeing none, I'll return it to the commission. There's no further discussion. Clerk roll call vote please. Commissioner Koenig? Aye. Commissioner Rockin? Aye. Commissioner Alternate Larry Pegler? Aye. Commissioner McPherson? Aye. Commissioner Kristen Brown? Aye. Commissioner Johnson? Aye. Commissioner Peterson? Aye. Commissioner Alternate Schifrin? Aye. Commissioner Sandy Brown? Aye. Commissioner Alternate Quinn? Yes. Commissioner Montesino? Yes. Commissioner Hernandez? And Commissioner Johnson? I'll return aye. No. Thank you. That passes unanimously. Thank you. And we'll now proceed into or move into closed session Council Mattis, are there any reportable actions? There may be one reportable action from the closed session regarding real property negotiations for the properties on Soquel. We do not anticipate a reportable action on the other item. And the two items are both real property negotiations, one related to the branch line and the second related to the three properties on Soquel Avenue 79-92 through 79-96. All right. Thank you. And Director Preston, or something you wanted to add? Yes. Thank you, Chair Koenig. I did get some requests from the public to provide an estimation about how long closed session is going to take. I anticipated it being about 30 minutes. So hopefully we'll be back a little bit before 10 o'clock to move into items A, A, B, and C. And then we only have item nine remaining as item 10 has been pulled. Thank you for that clarification. All right. Commissioners, you should have received a link from Community TV in your inbox for the closed session. I moved into closed session and expect to be back here on this public link roughly 10 minutes to 10 o'clock. Thank you, everyone. See you shortly. I guess we should wait till 10, 10 since we told the public that's what we're doing. Hi, Commissioner Rocking. We'll just write a couple more minutes and I can say we've also got commissioners still joining us out of closed session. All right. I think we've got all our commissioners back and it is approximately 10, 10. So we'll resume the regular meeting of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission. And Council, is there any reportable actions out of closed session? Thank you, Chair. For item number six, the closed session item number six, there was no reportable action for item number seven related to the Soquel Drive properties. The commission by unanimous vote authorized an additional 100,000 of funding for due diligence activities associated with the properties at 79.94 and 79.96 Soquel Drive. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilor Mattis. All right. We'll now proceed with item A, A, commissioner reports. Is there any commissioner to share report? All right. Seeing none, we'll proceed with 8B, the director's report. Executive Director Preston. Thank you, Chair Koenig. I'm sorry, one moment before you started. You had your hand raised. Commissioner Hernandez, did you want to share a report? Yeah, a report and sort of a request, I guess, at the same time. You know, we've had significant damage out here to a lot of the roads with these last set of floods and I just wanted to make sure that later in the future we can get an assessment of everything that happened, not just in the Fourth District, but probably in the whole county as well. And make sure that we can assess all the damage and make sure we put it up for emergency funding as well, too. But just so that we could be clear as to all the damage that happened throughout the county with the flooding. That's it. But thank you, you know, that's it. Yeah. Thank you, Commissioner Hernandez. Commissioner Shiffrin. You're on mute. I just wanted to announce that I am now the alternate for Commissioner Cummings, who had a conflict and couldn't be here today. But the Board of Supervisors approved my appointment as his alternate at the meeting on Tuesday. Congratulations. Yes, thank you, Commissioner Shiffrin. All right, we'll now proceed with 8B, Director's Report, or Director Preston. Thank you, Chair Koenig. I'd like to start today by thanking my staff for hosting and commissioners, members of the public and the local media for attending the RTC's 50th anniversary celebration. It was truly a celebration and our office was arranged to encourage engagement and discussion about our past successes. And I was really happy to hear the public comment that it was very well received. We have very many good displays and we are making them available on our website. So that information, if it's not already posted, will be posted because we did find the public found it quite useful. The celebration came at an opportune moment, as RTC had just issued a press release announcing the California Transportation Commission's award of $115.8 million in grant funding for six active transportation projects in Santa Cruz County, including nearly seven miles of the coastal rail trail. Approximately $105 million goes to the rail trail. These rail trail projects will provide a new dedicated bicycle and pedestrian route between the city of Santa Cruz and the C-Clave Cliff neighborhood in unincorporated Santa Cruz County and then all the way down to State Park Drive. Segment eight and nine is being delivered by the city of Santa Cruz and they received $35.7 million in funding. This project is 2.2 miles long. The eastern terminus trial segment seven at Beach and Pacific Avenue roundabout and that section goes all the way down to 17th Avenue. Environmental design and right-of-way work are currently underway. The coastal rail trial segments 10 and 11 is being delivered by the county of Santa Cruz and received $67.6 million. That's the largest in the state and ever awarded by the CTC. This project is a four and a half mile bicycle and pedestrian trial from 17th Avenue and Live Oath to State Park Drive in the C-Clave neighborhood. The project is currently in the environmental phase and final design is expected to begin in the next year. Additionally, the city of Watsonville was awarded $6.9 million for its safe routes to downtown Watsonville project that will construct pedestrian and bicycle improvements at several schools and within downtown Watsonville and the city of Santa Cruz was awarded $2.9 million for the construction of a multi-use path on Swanton Boulevard and sidewalks protected by claims and intersection improvements on Delaware Avenue. Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency was awarded $1.8 million for its safe routes for Watsonville school families and community program that will provide training and education for pedestrian and bicycle safety and UCSC was awarded $700,000 for its slot bike life, bike safety and education program phase two to further develop robust and culturally inclusive bike safety education encouragement program for the University. Statewide, the CTC program $1.02 billion for 93 active transportation projects. Santa Cruz County received over 13% of the total's funding representing a generous investment to improve active transportation in our community. Santa Cruz County's 2016 Measure D sales tax measure laid a pivotal role in providing a match to leverage many of the state active transportation program funding awards. So as always, I thank the voters for supporting local transportation funding. Without a local match, many of these grants would not have come to fruition. I have an announcement regarding the Federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. RTC in partnership with Caltrans and Santa Cruz Metro was an awarded $30 million in mega grant funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation for RTC's Santa Cruz multimodal corridor program, Highway 1 bus and shoulder and auxiliary lanes from Freedom Boulevard to State Park Drive and segment 12 of the Coastal Rail Trail. The grant award will partially fund design right away and construction components of auxiliary lanes and bus and shoulder facilities on Highway 1 from Freedom to State Park Drive and in a critical 1.25 mile segment of the 32-mile Coastal Rail Trail with much needed pedestrian and bicycle overcrossings to Highway and parallel arterial Soquel Drive. It will also fund four new zero emission buses for Santa Cruz Metro. Based on the Unified Corridor Investment Study, the Watsonville Santa Cruz multimodal corridor program is composed of data projects on three main north-south parallel routes through Santa Cruz County, Highway 1, Soquel Avenue and Freedom Boulevard and the Santa Cruz branch rail line that will address vital transportation needs of the community and we continue to pursue additional grants. The grant award is for the final phase of this three-phase auxiliary lane and bus and shoulder operational program along the seven and a half mile Highway 1 program and includes segment 12 of the Coastal Rail Trail. The project will improve transit, time, reliability, safety, reduced construction, congestion, and the quality of life in Santa Cruz County. The National Infrastructure Project Assistance Program known as the mega grant for its large complex projects that are likely to generate national or regional economic mobility or safety benefits. So our program was one of only nine projects nationwide and the only project in California to be awarded mega funding. Attending federal funding provides affirmation that our corridor is of national significance which is expected to facilitate securing future state and federal grants. We also have an announcement, I also have an announcement on a federal appropriation. I'm pleased to inform the commission that we received 1.5 million dollar congressional earmark from Representative Anna Eshoo's office as part of fiscal year 23 transportation appropriation bill signed by President Biden. This appropriation provides a million and a half to help fund the Boulder Creek Complete Streets Improvement Project. The project will construct new sidewalks and pedestrian safety and accessibility upgrades on Highway 9 in Boulder Creek. The project will serve to reduce severe injury collisions involving pedestrians, support economic development, improve pedestrian access to schools, businesses, parks, and residents. The park project was identified as a priority by the community through the Highway 9 San Lorenzo Valley Complete Streets corridor plan and our thanks goes out to Commissioner Eshoo, excuse me, Congress Member Eshoo. Regarding transportation storm damage and thank you for the lead in by Commissioner Hernandez due to severe winter storms, flooding and mudslides, Governor Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency for California on January 4th, allowing the mobilization of the California National Guard to support disaster responses for areas including Santa Cruz County. The declaration paved the way for President Joe Biden to approve an emergency declaration, bringing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide a federal disaster assistance, supplement state, local, and tribal responses to emergency efforts in 17 counties including Santa Cruz County. The federal declaration occurred on a period start on January 9th for an incident period commencing January 8th. Although RTC is not responsible for maintaining state or local roads, we have been coordinating with state and local officials regarding the emergency. Yesterday I spoke to County Public Works Director who informed me that the county has had 65 road closures and estimates at least $50 million in county roadway damage. I personally biked along West Cliff discussing with city staff the plan one-way detour that it will need to implement while they assess the damage and plan for repairs. After my report, Commissioner Scott Yeats will provide a Caltrans report and report on damage to the state highway system and I'll continue to try to provide information more specific from all of the jurisdictions at our next meeting. As for RTC's assets, staff has been performing spot inspections on the RTC own branch line and are using today's break in the weather to further survey storm damage and doing so we are assessing whether any damage may be eligible for state or federal reimbursement. Thus far we are not aware of much damage. I've seen a few trees that have fallen but a good portion of the line is not easily accessible so we'll provide more updates as we continue to survey the damage. I think we were fairly lucky that we had done so much ditch clearing and maintenance on the rail line in advance of the storms. The storms have affected the start of the Highway 1, Sokela Avenue to 44th Avenue construction project. We were to begin clearing and grubbing work this week. That project is on hold right now until we have a break in the weather and then the contractor will get out there and start clearing and grubbing and start working on the Hogsville Relay and Boston Shoulder Project and Chanticleer Avenue over crossing later this winter. As for new commissioners, with the beginning of a post-election year, we have several new commissioners and alternates. Some of this has already been announced from the county. The new District 3 representative is Justin Cummings. Commissioner Cummings recommended Andy Sherprin as his alternate and as Andy noted, the Board of Supervisors approved of his appointment as our alternate at Tuesday's meeting. Also from the county, the new District 4 representative on the RTC is Commissioner Felipe Hernandez. Commissioner Hernandez has notified the RTC that he is recommending City Council Member Maria Orozco as his alternate. To the best of my knowledge, the Board of Supervisors has not yet acted, but it will probably happen before our next meeting. New City Council, first, Capropola approved Alexander Peterson as RTC's commissioner and Joe Clark as his alternate. Welcome new RTC commissioners and alternates. One last note is regarding our ex-officio commissioner from Caltrans. As announced at our December 5th meeting, Tim Govins has retired as Caltrans District Director. Richard Rosales is acting District Director as Caltrans works to permanently fill the position. As is often the case, the District Director is not always available to attend their meetings and as Caltrans is often represented by one of their deputies. As mentioned earlier, Scott Ease, Caltrans District 5 Planning Director is our acting Caltrans ex-officio member today and will be providing a report after the commission asks any questions or public comment is received on my report and that does include my director's report. Thank you, Director Preston. Are there comments or questions from commissioners? Mr. Chair, I just think we really need to apply our guide Preston and his entire staff. What this county is receiving and transportation improvements is just really remarkable. Compared to our size of the county and what we are receiving in grants is amazing. And I want to thank again our outgoing congress member that represented the San Antonio Valley and North Santa Cruz County and Eshu for getting that Boulder Creek project in the loop and that I'm going to be meeting with Jimmy Panetta, Congressman Panetta, who represents that area tomorrow to look at the assessment of the storm damage. But he's well aware of this and I don't know what you have accomplished in getting grants and so forth is amazing. And as you said, thank you to the voters who passed Measure D 2016 because it allowed us to pursue these grants. So thank you very much. Yeah, here, here. Mr. Chair Friend. Thank you. I want to second the comments by Commissioner McPherson. I think the staff work has been exemplary and the achievements are really remarkable. And I think it's important to recognize not only the passage of Measure D in 2016, but the defeat in Measure D last June, because I think that sent a message that the people of this county support not only maintaining the rail but supported the direction that the commission has been moving in providing a rail trail. It's a very strong indication from the public, not just from a governmental body, that the people want to have the trail, they want to pursue rail. And I think the kind of funding that the commission is getting is reflective of that. That's my personal opinion. I know not everyone will agree with the last part, but I think it really played a role in the success that we're now seeing and I hope that we will continue to see. Thank you. And Commissioner Schifrin, Commissioner Hernandez. Yeah, same thing. I want to echo some of those comments about really thanking all the RGC staff and all our partners in securing all this funding. And thank you. It's been the last few years. It's been really successful at securing some of these funds. And I really want to send kudos to all our staff and partners for doing that. And also, take a minute to reflect on what is it that has made us successful in securing these funds. Look at things like equity and transportation, sustainability and transportation, multimodal transportation, active transportation, and seeing if it's these things that sets us apart from a lot of the other applications that go in. And really looking at repeatability and making sure that we continue our successes and continue those projects that get funding. And so really looking in the future so that we could continue to get this funding and looking at equity, sustainability, multimodal transportation, active transportation in the future when we try to secure more funding. So thank you so much, guys. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Hernandez. Any other comments or questions from commissioners? I'll open it to the public. I see Brian from Trail Now. Thank you. This is Brian from Trail Now. We want to echo the recognition of staff's work on getting the grants. We recognize that in communications, both for the trail, as well as the highway widening. And Measured 2016, Measured does play a role in that. And I want to remind this organization that when Measured 2016 first came out, you had 24 percent for a train and $14 million going to a Monterey train station. We actually came out as a pack and posed it. And fortunately, Zach Friend and Don Lane at the time met with us, worked with us and adjusted that and reduced it down to 8 percent for the rail corridor. We then supported it. And that's really what got you over the finish line. And for those of us who think that you're going to have a train that's 20 feet from the ocean in Manresa in the long park out, you may think that the public wants that. We don't agree with that, the vote. And most importantly, the public can't have a train. And these storms that have occurred is a reality check. We're going to get these storms crashing up against Manresa, which we did. And we're not going to be able to build a train along that recent corridor. So as much as you think that you're going to have a train, we're not going to have it. And then finally, the 50-year event, we went to that, really appreciated it. And one of the comments I got from Mr. Press and I asked the question, well, do we have to spend so much money and build a trail that costs more than widening the highway? And he said, no, if we come up with better, smarter solutions, we can readjust it. So we don't agree with destroying 400 trees along segment nine for a train that's never going to arrive. So we want to encourage you to spend those dollars effectively and timely. Thank you. Thank you, Brian. Anyone else in the public question to comment? Seeing none, we'll return to the commission and then we'll proceed with Item 8C, Caltrans Report. Mr. Scott Eads. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the commission. Happy to be here today. First, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Go ahead. Okay. First, just congratulations to staff and local jurisdiction staff as well on recent grant successes with the ATP and the mega funding. Really exciting news. It was a pleasure to partner with RTC staff on the mega application and really excited to see the success there. Also our local assistance staff look forward to working with all of the ATP recipients to help process funding through the California Transportation Commission. And I wanted to also announce that we have Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Plans, sorry, Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Grants. These have just been announced actually this morning. And so there's three different grant categories. First is Sustainable Transportation Grants, nearly $30 million in funding available there. And then a new grant category, Climate Adaptation Planning Grants, certainly timely. And that's $50 million to be able to study needs associated with climate adaptation. And then Strategic Partnership Grants are another $4.5 million. So all of these grant categories are coming together under one application process. Applications are due on March 29th of this year. And they'll be submitted through a smart sheet portal. Details are all online. There's actually three application workshops that are coming up as well. We're going to be hosting one in District 5 virtually on January 26th from 9.30 to 11. And then headquarters will also be hosting one later this month or early February. We'll have additional details on that online as well. So happy to provide more information anytime on that. You can go to dot.ca.gov and just type in Sustainable Transportation Planning Grants and you'll find more details there. There's a whole website with a lot of good information. Also wanted to provide an update on storm-related closures. A lot happening out there. Happy to report that Highway 17 is fully open now. It was closed and we were able to get that open on Monday evening. I'm sure you're all very aware of that. We also had closures throughout the District on Highway 101 due to flooding and slides. Those are all now clear. So 101 is fully open. Highway 9, we do continue to have a closure on near-band Le Mans between upper and lower Glen Arbor. We're working to repair the slide. We're looking at probably a couple weeks. So we're doing everything we can. The reality is that is a challenging situation and progress is weather-dependent. There's also on Highway 9 further up near Waterman's Gap, one-way reversing traffic control near 236. And then on Highway 35, we have one-way reversing traffic control near the Junction of 17. It's due to a slip-out and we don't have an estimated time repair on that one either, but we are working on it. And then 236, we have a full closure there between Little Basin Road and the State Park entrance. We have a settlement of a lane there. Same thing. We're working to assess what to do and we don't have a specific time when we'll be fully reopening that roadway. And then I know it's outside of Santa Cruz, but just as a reminder, Highway 1 is closed south of Big Sur and so that is all the way through down to San Luis Obispo County. And again, there's a lot happening there. Don't have a specific time for opening yet. And then I just wanted to highlight, if you're not already aware of it, we have the quick map on our website. So if you go again to dot.ca.gov, there's a road information, but then there's a little link to quick maps and it's a really helpful resource. I've been using it a lot myself over the last few days where it has information, primarily on the State Highway, but there's also information on the local roads as well. And it shows all closures. It shows what's showing on CMS signs and there's also links to cameras. So you can click on a camera and be able to see what's happening in real time. So it's a really helpful resource sometimes like this. And then the last thing I wanted to say is that recognize there is a lot happening in terms of city and county storm damage on your local roads. Our local assistant staff is already aware of many of these and we're working directly with your staff already. We look forward to continuing to do so and doing everything we can to obtain state and federal emergency funding for addressing those hot spots. So I have happened to take any questions. Thank you, Mr. Eads. Are there comments or questions from commissioners? Seeing none, I'll open it to the public. Any member of the public to comment on the CalTrans report? All right. Seeing none, I'll turn it to the commission. Thank you, Mr. Eads. If I could just make a quick comment. Since nobody else chose to comment, I don't take it for granted that our state is so well organized in the response to the crisis that we're facing. The transportation system is actually doing very, very well given the scale of what we're confronting here. And I know there have been times in the past when we sort of felt like nothing was happening or nobody seems to know what's going on and things were confusing. But the information is really clear about what's happening. And of course some things you don't yet know exactly when it's going to be open. But I think that the CalTrans is doing a really good job of managing this to the extent that it's possible. A lot of this is beyond our immediate ability to respond, you know, in a way that makes everybody happen, solves things. But I think you guys are doing a great job. Thank you so much. Thanks, Commissioner Rockin. Thank you, Commissioner Rockin. Any other comments, questions from commissioners? All right. Thank you again, Mr. Eads. We'll proceed with item nine is approval of in-sale agreement for acquisition of 7992 Soquel Drive for Highway 1 Auxiliary Lanes and Busson Shoulder, State Park Drive to Freedom Boulevard and Coastal Rail Trail Segment 12 Project. Report on this item. We have Senior Transportation Engineer, Sarah Christensen. Thank you, Chair Koenig. This is the, I'm just going to give a quick oral presentation for item nine, which is the approval of purchase and sale agreement for acquisition of 7992 Soquel Drive. This is for the Highway 1 Auxiliary Lanes and Busson Shoulder project between State Park Drive and Freedom Boulevard. And that project also includes 1.25 mile segment of the Coastal Rail Trail, known as Segment 12 of the Coastal Rail Trail, one big project. Staff, the staff recommendation, there's a total of eight things that we're requesting authorization for in the attached resolution to the staff report. And I'm just going to read them so that I don't get them wrong here. So we're recommending approving and accepting the terms and conditions of the purchase and sale agreement for 7992 Soquel Drive, authorizing the executive director to execute the purchase and sale agreement. And to complete feasibility study is required to waive the contingency set forth in the purchase and sale agreement to make payment for the real property acquisition and related escrow fees pursuant to the purchase and sale agreement, the close of an escrow pursuant to terms of the purchase and sale agreement. We are requesting authorization that the chair of the commission executes the certificate of acceptance for the associated deed and escrow documents as required to effectuate transfer of the property to the RTC. We're recommending an amendment to the Measured five year program of projects for the active transportation category to shift 1.2 million dollars of funds forward. These funds are programmed in fiscal year 2025. Staff is recommending pushing these funds forward to be available now in fiscal year 23 for the purpose of acquiring this property for the project and amending the current fiscal year budget accordingly. So just a little bit about the project. The project proposes auxiliary lanes in a bus on shoulder facility on Highway 1 between State Park Drive and Freedom Boulevard. There are right of way needs associated with the coastal rail trail portion of the project which is along the Santa Cruz branch rail line between State Park Drive and just south of Rio del Mar Boulevard. The coastal rail trail is located on the inland side of the tracks. That's the proposed project. There's a single build alternative for the project. The project studies in engineering and environmental analysis up to this point has selected that side of the tracks or is proposing that side of the tracks because of the least amount of environmental and property impacts overall. So the 7992 Soquel Drive property there are right of way needs that the project has at this property. This property went on the market back in November of last year. The RTC was able to move quickly and made an offer protection acquisition is allowed prior to having environmental clearance. This protection acquisition process essentially prevents properties needed for future projects, transportation projects specifically from being acquired and developed by a private developer and then the project needing to acquire later. Caltrans approval for the protection acquisition is being pursued and is a contingency of the purchase and sale agreement. SOF recommends accepting and approving the purchase agreement which is attached to the SOF report and acquiring this property. The funding as I mentioned is in fiscal year 2025. SOF recommends reprogramming those measure deactive transportation funds into the current fiscal year to be made available for the purchase. And just to address, we did receive very few public comments on this item but they were both relevant to this property and some concerns about the existing historic resource on the property. This property has a building on the on the property called the rice house known as the rice house. The RTC does not plan to modify or demolish or relocate this historic rice house and any future modifications to the building would be subject to the section of county code regarding preservation of historic resources and RTC staff and county real property staff have both been corresponding with county planning regarding this to address any concerns and to understand fully what is required. So with that concludes my SOF report and I'm available for questions. Thank you senior engineer Christensen are there comments or questions from commissioners? I'm prepared to move it after a year from the public. All right thank you commissioner Rodkin. There's no uh commissioners we're going to speak at this time I'll open it for public comment. The chair recognizes Brian from trail now. Thank you chair that's bright people so now we support this this this item. So first of all I want to say that it was interesting I read the note from Becky on the comments about the historical factors and it's good to hear Sarah Sarah saying that they're not going to adjust that property. With that said I was going to comment that if you look at the EIR for segment nine the final decision to keep the tracks was the justification was historical even though the tracks are not classified as historical even though it created more environmental damage. That's a side note. One other uh note on this um the current plan just so we all understand of the rails going through Aptos village um those trains are not stopping in the village they're just going to go through there every 15 minutes with the current plan. So just imagine that every 15 minutes the entire village of Aptos was shut down because of a train passing through it. So that's something that we want to keep awareness of of this agency as you continue to move forward. Again we support the widening we support segment 12 and really appreciate uh Sarah the work you're doing. Thank you for your time. Thank you Brian. Next up Barry Scott. Yeah thanks very much and uh I just wanted to say I'm I'm excited about this this property uh becoming uh RTC owned and controlled. I'm uh you know a member of the Aptos chamber and and I live near that location. I went to look at the site and I looked at the the parcel maps and it's it's it's a fabulous spot with potential uh with the rice house there and and more space than is needed or you know just the trail segment it could make a wonderful rest stop or information station or any number of things like that. So I'm just really excited and um and it's almost as if uh the opportunity came to us at the perfect time. There's uh you know the thing is on the is on the market. So I thank everyone and good luck with the negotiations. Thank you Mr Scott. Next up Mr Aurelio Gonzalez. Hi good um happy new year commisioners and uh good to see all of you folks. This is a good project moving forward. Um one of the things I want to thank uh the staff and uh Preston Guy. I attended the celebration. I thought it was put together. Um but you know it's important multi-modal project here. We've gotten a lot of funding uh because of the great work that everybody's been doing uh from the south county point of view. I think it's critical that this gets moved forward uh and that we continue to negotiate to acquire this project. I do have one question on the project though. Is there any buildings that are going to be uh readjusted? And I know the rice house isn't going to be touched but is there any building that's on the borderline? It will have to be uh demolished. So that's my question but again thank you thank you commissioners for being there. Thank you Eduardo uh for representing uh the city of Watsonville and uh congratulations Felipe for uh becoming the county supervisor. I know uh you'll be representing as well. Thank you Mr Gonzalez. Next up Michael Sain. Okay thank you uh Chair Koenig. I hope you'll let me continue here. I was trying to do this earlier but uh bus on shoulder was mentioned here. I don't know why you continue to insist that this is a bus on shoulder project. At very least I would call it what it is. It's a bus in Oxlames. What the mass transit activists call it during the commute times is bus in traffic. To give you a definition of an actual bus on shoulder this is primarily for the new commissioners. Uh it was known uh internationally as a BBS which is a bus bypass shoulder operation. Key word there is bypass. Uh it's a low cost strategy allowing buses to travel at or near free flow speeds through congested arterials and freeway routes. This will not happen with your present project. The primary goal of a bus on shoulder dedicated prioritize the reliable performance of public transit over a capacity for single occupancy vehicles. This also will not happen on your present project along the bus on shoulder. These dedicated attributes of a true bus on shoulder is not your bus in Oxlames project that the RTC and Caltrans will be implemented. Buses will be sharing the lane with cars. Just wanted to emphasize that and make sure everybody understood that this is probably doomed to fail as well as the Oxlames themselves. Maybe not in the near future but in the future itself you will have to find out some other aspect in how to get congestion relieved and to move traffic around in our county. Thank you. Thank you Mr. St. All right seeing no further member of the public wishes to comment I'll return it to the commission for deliberation and action. I will move the staff recommendation including the resolution before us. Second. Much by commissioner Rotkin. The loudest voice I heard there if not the first was commissioner Schifrin. It was allowed. It's Hernandez. All right we'll give the second to commissioner Hernandez. And I believe there was one question that was brought up on our staff could just clarify that about whether there would be any demolition of buildings on the site. Sure the property has in addition to the right house there are some storage garages that are very very close to the existing right of way line and those garages would be demolished as part of the project. Okay thank you. Any further discussion on seeing none. I will just add you know I think whatever type of trail is built in the corridor is certainly going to add value to all the property in the surrounding area. In fact this is a value capture approach to surrounding real estate is one that many transportation projects around the world utilize in order to fund large parts of the project my understanding is large parts of bullet trains in Japan have been and funded with this with sort of strategy so I think given the fact that we've got cash on hand and the active transportation fund to acquire the property it makes sense to proceed and that ultimately even after the demolition of the storage sets will be able to create an asset here that is of higher value than when we began so I'm fully supportive of the motion. Who's no further comments. Clerk roll call vote please. Commissioner Koenig. Aye. Commissioner Rockin. Aye. Commissioner McPherson. Aye. Commissioner Christian Brown. Aye. Commissioner Alternate Pigler. Aye. Commissioner Johnson. Aye. Commissioner Peterson. Aye. Commissioner Hernandez. Yes. Commissioner Alternate Schifrin. Aye. Commissioner Sandy Brown. Aye. Anyone else you know. Yes. That passes unanimously. Thank you. All right given that item 10 was pulled from the agenda expected to see that believe it our February agenda that concludes our meeting and the next meeting of the RTC will be our February 2nd meeting 9 a.m. and staff do we know if that'll be a hybrid meeting or again fully remote. It will be hybrid and we will be out the county. All right at the board chambers at 701 Ocean Street here room five or rather the fifth floor. All right thank you everyone and we'll see you in February meeting adjourned. Thank you Manu.