 Good morning, good morning, I'd like to call the January 25th 2019 board meeting of Santa Cruz Metro Board of Directors to order the we are waiting we have been notified that Judge Paul Burtick will not be here until oh probably 9 30 or quarter to so we're gonna and we do have a quorum without having the new members sworn in so we're gonna go ahead and have the roll call and follow the agenda until Judge Burtick comes in so if we would call have the roll call please just go ahead and call them so we can just get it on the record here Dr. Baltimore here Dr. Myers here Dr. Kaufman Gomez present Dr. Gonzalez here Dr. Leopold here Dr. Lin here Dr. Matthews she's here in conversation we had her sit next to a lawyer but she's still going to get into trouble Director McPherson here Dr. Ralph Ross he's not going to be here Director Preston ex-officio director Preston ex-officio director Lorca here good welcome welcome thank you a couple of announcements that I'm here oh I thought she did did you see Mike and leading the the symphony there about a month ago in the Sentinel I swear it was a lookalike like I've never seen before but okay I would like to make a couple of announcements Carlos Landeverry will be available for Spanish interpretation Carlos if you'd like to please come up and just tell them who you are in which they need any help if anybody needs any help here good morning Buenos Dias Carlos Landeverry you are in short cover Thank you, gracias. Also that the meeting is being televised by a community television of Santa Cruz and our technician is Mr. Lynn Dutton. I think we'll go ahead with the resolutions of some of the board members turn this over to Mr. Clifford our CEO. Okay so we have here with us today Norm Hagan who is retired from the board and I believe his wife is here with him today and just a couple of quick nuggets about Norm's history here between 2000 and 2004 he was a member of the Mastiff M-A-S-T-F advisory group we no longer have that don't please don't ask me what that stands for but Norm's really knows your metro transit then in 2004-2005 he was appointed to the original MAC that's the Metro Advisory Committee and then in 2005 through 2012 he was elected to the Metro Board of Directors 2010 through 2012 he was also representative on the Regional Transportation Commission RTC 2013 he was reappointed to the MAC and then in 2014 he was appointed to the IND-TAC committee and then in May of 2015 reappointed to the Metro Board so Norm has had a long-standing tenure with this board in various capacities and has done wonderful things from what I hear predate me and certainly what I've witnessed since I've been aboard in 2014 I'd like to add to that is the one who nominated Norm for his second go-around so to speak this is really what you would call a scholar because he's a former teacher and certainly a gentleman he has been always kind and courteous to everybody he contacts he is one more than any of us in the on the any board that I know of that uses the bus daily for the I think every day and so he is a true a true trooper for the Santa Cruz Metro and I can't say enough about him his input has been really very very much needed and we highly respect what you have done for this district and you know your wife is I hope she really wants you to come home again but I don't know you're on that bus a long time you know but anyway but I want to thank her too for allowing you to be a representative for us on this board it's been very much appreciated and we wish you well in well I don't know if it's any kind of retirement you'll be doing something so I just want to say that for Norm is terrific and after some comments I'll come down to present a plaque for you and then you can make some comments yes mr. Rod I also want to say I also want to say that I've served with Norm many years now on this board and he's been a staunch advocate for the disabled in this community and we've had at times problems with our peer transit system and thankfully not so many now as we were having before but that was happening he was on the case of those issues made sure the board was aware of those problems and addressed them he's also been someone who I think generally has tried to help the general public it's understand how critical the services for many people in our community so I think it's really been valuable to have him on this board he's made a real difference for the community as a whole so I think for years of service thank you and I see a lot of red buttons if you're if they're on or you're not going to speak please just push the button and turn them off but we do if you do would like to say something it's director Matthews I have the same feeling of gratitude for everything you've taught certainly your dedication and effectiveness as an advocate but equally the goodwill and the positive feelings you've had towards others there's never been a time that's been so instructive so I want to thank you both for your advocacy and for your wonderful personal style Scotland Gomez thank you as well being community member I know how active you've been we really appreciate all of the time and effort you put into this we also know how long it takes to get here and that kind of devotion dedication from Watsonville to be that advocate has been remarkable because we need to make sure that we have that South County representation not only do you provide that with the balance for us but also representing the community of those that have the disabilities that need this service and we have a lot of respect I hope that we'll still continue to see you in our chambers in Watsonville for other activity in the future here so thank you very much for all of the time and service and dedication you have it's a few more that want to say something director Lynn yeah it's one of the first people I met when I joined the board and no one made me feel more welcome and it just just felt like we just developed a friendship right from the start and I too appreciate that you were even up in Scotts Valley press conference and which is even further commute and the input that you provide a balance even sometimes when when there have been complaints on metro waves and nope that one actually isn't an issue but this area is so you know we will miss that input but I'm sure you'll still be here when you can and we hope to see that's all of these that laugh at RTC throughout community so thank you director Leopold thank you chair Norm you you have a great skill in from your years of teaching not only could you identify former students who have come to testify at different times or served on this board but you as a you must have been a great teacher because you've never spoken down to anybody here you know you know you have a lot of information you you've really appreciated the input that people have given so I know you must be a great teacher because to make people feel as though they're heard that you care about what they have to say and that you've always extended a hand of friendship you and I have developed a friendship in serving together so I really appreciate that and I'll miss serving with you here first year bottle of Norm my dad's name was Norm so I knew I liked you the minute I met him so that was easy you know you've always been advocate for the public you bring that to the table every time you come and you've definitely been a role model for the use of public transportation and I think the thing I'm going to miss the most is you always provide a little calming effect for the room which is is greatly needed here sometimes so thank you we're going to miss you I'd like to present this to Norm Hagan and if you could like please say a few words come on over here this won't take more than 20 or 30 minutes on behalf of the Santa Cruz Metro we want to present you with this for outstanding service dedicated service and friendly service to everybody on this board and anybody use the transit operation that we have here in Santa Cruz County thank you very much this board this function is given me a way of life it makes it possible for me to get around the neighborhood and the county and to be a participant and as much as I love Metro for what it's given to me my wife was even one other time she didn't have to drag me around she appreciates that but I will miss this board this function it really means a lot to me it means a lot to the people in our community too I can say yes thank you to very minor little words but they mean so much to me in my relationship with you folks each and every one of you and then members you didn't have to put up with me I bless you long next time I show up I will be a member for the community I will point you exactly what she should do I'd also like to announce that we will have resolutions for those members who are not leaving the board Jimmy Dutcher from Watsonville and Cynthia Chase from Santa Cruz we will make those presentations present but we appreciate their service to just want them to know that very clearly as well so we can move on excuse me motion and a second to approve the three resolutions yes did you have a comment no okay okay all in favor I posed so ordered okay now we go to item number six board of directors comments any board of director have comments of items that are not on the agenda they're doing with a navigator volunteer navigator on their bus system and that helps to educate other writers and to encourage ridership and to teach them what writing bus is about and also bus etiquette and so there was somebody that was provided for that and this information is being shared about what that program is about with fancy that might be helpful for us to have that kind of a volunteer relationship on encouraging a bit more ridership and groups to do it maybe field tricks that kind of thing and the other thing I wanted to bring up is Watsonville has adopted a traffic safety action plan that is to go along with the vision zero and we're really emphasizing on safety zones zero tolerance on that working on enhancements and whatnot and we're thinking that the buses and if we have no ads on buses make we can be putting some of safety component ads just generically on the buses of you know watch out for pedestrians you know safe driving kind of thing so maybe if we have blank space and we're not selling those ad spaces that means we can do something like that with adding safety announcements on our buses director I just want to point out to the directors it takes three seconds for these bikes to warm up so when you turn to you before you're going to speak do it three seconds earlier three seconds any other members have comments I have one just the recent Regional Transportation Commission meeting I think it's important to recognize that the Regional Transportation Commission took an important unanimous vote about that cooperative effort like unlike I've seen in many years they're moving ahead how we can work with the RTC in a better fashion we have a new CEO at some of us on this board do serve on the RTC mr. Clifford and mr. Preston the new CEO of the RTC have both have they've gotten together and I think that I'm not numerous occasions and I think we're in for a real bright future in a cooperative effort and it really fits well because going back to the measure D when so many every facet of transportation was included in that measure that was passed by more than two-thirds of the voters in November of 2016 every facet of transportation was in there and it's pretty well understood that every facet of transportation really needs to be addressed in this county for us to improve our transportation network in general so I just want I think it's very encouraging and I know that some of us who are on the RTC as well feel very very confident that we're going to have a really bright future working together any other board comments okay we will go to the public for any communications on items that are not on today's agenda anybody would like to speak to us I just want to come up and introduce myself I'm the newly elected general chairperson for smart transportation with 23 and pretty much got a new team here too they're all here present and we represent the drivers and para crews at Metro and we're here and we're excited to work with you guys try to improve transportation in this county thank you thank you welcome and I want to say too that we really appreciate the drivers when we were in some real tight financial situations not too long ago the drivers really stepped up and helped us out we much very much appreciated and that's not just because we're going into negotiations this year it's it's truly felt we've said it before but we want to reiterate it again thank you for your recognition of the problem that we had and we all had to do it as a team effort to address it to keep the system going running as well as we could so thank you again miss Matthews Mr. Sandoval I don't give us like just a couple sentences about your background sure I've been at Metro for six years now and I've been a driver for all of that until this year I born and raised in Watsonville so you know and in here in this county my whole life and means a lot to me to try to improve the transportation thank you very much good morning I'm Brett Garrett from Santa Cruz and just this week I was appointed to the Santa Cruz downtown Commission I'm happy to report that yesterday our Commission voted to recommend increasing the sys the city's transportation demand management budget to fund a full eco pass program for downtown employees we want every downtown employee to receive a free Metro pass so I look forward to seeing this collaboration between the Metro and the city of Santa Cruz I think it still needs a vote from you all too but I'm confident but I the main reason I came this morning is to speak as an individual and as the new Secretary of Santa Cruz PRT Santa Cruz personal rapid transit regarding solutions for the rail corridor and indeed for the unified corridors connecting Watsonville to Santa Cruz I deeply appreciate Metro's request for a comprehensive analysis to determine the best mode of transit for the rail corridor I strongly recommend for that analysis to include thinking outside the box going beyond trains and buses to also investigate developing technology such as personal rapid transit what makes PRT a superior transit system safety an elevated system is completely separate from bikes pedestrians and cars on demand it's designed so that instead of people waiting for the bus each station will often have pop cars waiting for people it's direct and convenient from any station to any station within the system that means an easy trip from anywhere on SoCal Avenue to anywhere on the rail corridor no transfers required if the system covers both that means for many people transit becomes more convenient than a car and low operation cost of a key once the system is installed the since the Fairbox remedies could sustain the system or with subsidies we could offer free transit some companies including transit X J pods and Skytran expect to offer privately funded PRT systems that could be installed at no taxpayer cost and PRT can easily coexist with freight trains if we do this right Metro can operate the system the state wants us to electrify transit and this is a great way to do it I've long believed in PRT as a superior mode of transit especially in a community like ours but it's the climate crisis that pushed me over the edge from what a great idea wouldn't that be cool to thinking this is the planet desperately needs PRT and similar systems solutions to attract more riders and also because pop cars would use substantially less energy per passenger than a train or a bus it's an efficient system can be designed with its own solar panels to generate them enough electricity to run the system Santa Cruz can be a great example for the rest of the state and the rest of the world so Gina over there has copies for you of a report describing possible benefits of PRT for Santa Cruz County the comprehensive alternative analysis will be a great opportunity to confirm the statements in that report please include PRT in the alternatives analysis thank you very much thank you and we'll look forward to getting that report from your downtown association thank you any other or commission any other any other comments from the public okay we'll go to item number eight are there any written communications from the lab any labor number nine any labor organization communications I think we already had your say number 10 additional documentation support the existing agenda items anything that's on the edge okay okay we will move to the consent agenda should I be voting on things before I'm scoring in this morning okay we will move to the consent agenda items number 11 with one change we are removing item number 20 oral date on contract options from the consent agenda thank you this is my last day as chair so okay okay up to a limit item number 1110 any any comments from the public on the consent agenda yes no excuse me nothing is being taken off the consent agenda move in second to approve the consent agenda all those in favor I pose so ordered unanimously now we go to the regular agenda and before we get to item 12 we're going to remove item 20 it'll come back next month to us so that'll be removed from the agenda but now we will go with the presentation of employee longevity awards for I'm not sure who is here first of all for the 15 years there's there's what for three for Carolyn Bowers Gustavo Cortez and Bonnie Ferris are not here today but we really want to thank them for their 15 years of service to Metro but I believe who's here today as Todd Mitchell he's not here either okay well we would like to express our appreciation for their dedicated service for 15 years for Metro for 10 years Andrea is it who say Gil and Eric Burke Eric Burke not a lot of public speaking my job some jobs you can sleep at night brevity is always appreciated just just recently this past summer we had a lot of struggles you know we've been understaffed but Eric took it upon himself to be the sole scheduler for over a month he worked every day because we didn't have anybody to cover that and I just wanted to let you guys know the sacrifice that you made for thank you very much justice to be made and I think it went as smoothly as we ever could have expected so thank you for those comments that's great also on item number 13 now I play employee retire resolutions for Juan Flores here John six years I'll keep this brief but I think it's important to acknowledge like see a few words about Tom Hilner who spent the last 20 years given his best to Santa Cruz Metro as you can see from the short bio we provided you today on Tom he's traveled in an interesting path from growing up in the Midwest like myself and probably many people in California just serving this country honorably writing nuclear submarines in the US Navy to college in Kent State Ohio his home state to a master's degree at the University of Tennessee Tom then made his way to California first working down the road at MSD and ultimately arriving at Santa Cruz Metro in 1998 along with a small child son Victor who just graduated from UC Berkeley proud dad get on to that part of the story during Tom's years at Metro he's met his duties honorably always making the extra effort evenings weekends whatever it took and you know the grants world is tough and unforgiving you work hours and hours to create great grant applications and then watch as you don't always win because the grants are oversubscribed generally 10 times the available funding so you do all that work Tom never wind or complain he just went back to writing the next application he has helped Alex and I strategize clever novel approaches to grant applications in recent years in more trying and more limited funding environments no more airmarks in this context I want to note that in the last 10 years alone Tom has processed over 50 formula grants you owe over one hundred eighty million dollars worth of grants came in the door they got to be processed that's ours and ours and works but more importantly and the scorecard everybody keeps track of competitive grants in the last 10 years Tom applied for 47 grants worth over 60 million dollars you want 26 of them worth over 20 million dollars that kind of batting average will get you to all of them on a personal note I want to thank Tom for helping myself in the planning department folks who are here succeed during these last three very difficult years I and we couldn't have gotten through this challenging financial and workload time without all these always willing to lend a hand and help we're needed and always with a smile and a good laugh we wish Tom and his wife to it the best in their future endeavors wherever they take them thanks again to Tom for all the Metro hence the 20 million dollar man that's where he's going well thanks for your I didn't expect that appreciated yeah it's good to be on the outside looking at a little regret on the 8th of January when I wasn't coming to work but I'd like to make a few comments first of all I want to express my appreciation of Barrow for what the last three years have been like since he's been here he's really gone about forming a number of times kind of throwing fence up around the grants desk what was necessary to focus on grants and get that work done and it's been fun you know it's been a lot more fun than it had been in the earlier years it's good to go out with a smile on my face and some really fond memories of working here and before I get into any other comments I want to appreciate the opportunity that I had to work here and make my contribution to transit that's what I set out to do when I took my master's in 91 I wanted to you know commit to improving public transit this is given me a place to do that and sometimes in the thick of things and the deadlines coming up the endless cycle of reporting and monitoring and project management tasks compliance bureaucracy bureaucracy meetings and all that it becomes you know you just feel like a cog in a big machine it keeps rolling along and there's always one more thing to do but I want to express my appreciation to the metro staff who put up with my quirks and radio synchrosities and and those who endured the new numerous times I'm sure that I cycled them with the pressure I felt come up on deadlines and people always came through often at the last minute with the sense of things that had to go in with the grant and you know they they stood up and stayed for the last minute to make sure that everything came together for a decent grant application if not open and competitive grant applications are tough as as Beryl said one in ten got awarded that's the obvious they're over subscribed we've heard that but there's there's a few other curves that that come every year the emphasis areas change one year CNG buses are the latest technology the newest thing and and now it's battery electric buses and fuel cell buses are the hot and sometimes it's shovel ready infrastructure projects another year it's mobility management and specialized paratransit that you got to aim at and politics you know let's not forget when the U.S. Department of Transportation is handing out money in this era California is not the first name called to come up and take the grant we got one grant last year 2018 of the Lono program state California 10% nation's population we got about 5% awards and the bill project with the much much bigger $1.5 billion 70% of those grants went to rural areas the red states names I never heard of to build roads and stuff like that only about 30% that money went to transit systems and that's what we need to get the structure and 2018 I submitted more competitive grant applications in a number of any other prior year and Alex's legislative agenda for 2019 summarizes didn't hit any of them and those were those are good grants good grant applications it's you know it's tough you got a light like Barrow said you got to step up play and swing for the fences every time and then sit back and might find out six months later whether you have a base got a base hit or popped out it's you know so there's there's some frustrations and some of the formula grants take as much work takes a whole chain of bureaucracy to change taxes into transit trips and a lot of reporting monitoring I think one of the most others applications is the CalTrans were one of the smallest grants that you get like $180,000 for operating assistance so takes a book to get a few thousand things in psychopedia and sometimes it's disappointing when projects that do get funded don't don't progress I came in the door in 1998 we were working with Les White and Mark Dorfman the secure grant funding for Metro base and 20 years later last month tried to close out one of the grants in that project the last invoice hadn't been paid yet still going on Pacific Station year 2000 the first grant was secured from Governor Ray Davis's traffic congestion relief fund and we all know what that is now grants funded 13 new buses in last year but by virtue of the state that you enabled me to occupy for these 20 years I was able to make that contribution to transit as Barrow put up there was 200 and some million dollars it was really a great opportunity for me to monetize my writing skills my bureaucratic experience relationships with the external agency that enabled me to make that contribution public transit Santa Cruz County and you know I'm happy I'm pleased that having sat through it day after day sometimes it's hard to get that perspective of what really was accomplished but that amount of money bought a lot of transit trips in Santa Cruz County took a lot of people school doctors jobs it paid benefits and wages for a lot of Metro employees and their families and myself included it's kind of rewarding to say I paid my way and it's only by virtue of the seat that I was able to do that I appreciate Metro good opportunity that doesn't even touch on some of the legislators stuff there was all the legislative stuff but but really the big accomplishment that everybody worked on and that you know it was very fulfilling to work on for the last three years was getting SB1 passed that brought a lot of money for public transit into you know statewide but it was a boom for Santa Cruz Metro and then fighting the repeal after the next year for another year and both of those were successful and that's a that's a good spot to be in the last year to see the mind that the field they worked on so long with so many support letters so many let's say the community meetings and garnering support throughout the community and to see that pass and then to see it whole when there was a fight to take it back down so that's very rewarding so looking ahead I anticipate great things coming out of the grants grants office in the planning department I have to say in a scant three years Barrows created a well respected effective planning department it gets things done and it's been a great pleasure to work for him the new ten-year strategic plan is going to goals objectives budget schedules and project management expertise behind the projects that Metro sorely needs to implement the next few years to reorient its emphasis on transit services they're effective and efficient in reclaiming the ridership that's had the weight in the last few years and on completing the physical plan that's necessary to support those services and grow the ridership over the next next few years I look forward to seeing that strategic plan come out that I know it's going to be great I've seen the one that we've done for San Mateo and it's a great piece of work the work that he's done to enable the grantless slave analyst to focus on what's important funding Metro's core business while developing other procedures and processes to help other departments accomplish what's more appropriately within their review during the transition period and this also showed a lot of foresight to bring one to move in so that we had a two-month overlap a two-month transition period and we got this brainstorming about what was coming to talk a lot about urban planning theory talk a lot about philosophy but those are some great conversations very energizing and at one point I thought wow this is a great position of course I was going to go on it that's kind of the irony of it that I have to step aside to see the potential going forward it's going to come out of this planning department and one to move brings a tremendous set of skills to the to the grants desk and I'm very optimistic about what's going to happen with Metro going forward so I just want to thank you for having had the opportunity I thank the staff for working with me on some tough projects over and over and it's time for me to go thank you okay thank you very much again it's terrific legacy you're leaving so we're moving forward because of you and we have very bright optimistic thoughts in the future so thank you again we look to item number 14 the report from our CEO Alex Clifford chair directors yes number of items to cover as you alluded to earlier the RTC passed the recommendations modified recommendations of the Uniform Court our study and we're very pleased about that we had the opportunity as you pointed out to partner with the new CEO at RTC over the holidays and talk about what our needs and concerns were on your behalf and I hope you agree that the final outcome resolution adopted by the RTC is good and represents what you took action on a couple of months back and as you sought to protect bus funding in the future as a result of all of that we will be a while the seat at the table will participate in the scope of the work for the alternatives analysis and will participate in the process of evaluating the different mass transit modes that could occur in the railroad right of way and maybe more important to us identifying the actual costs of each of those including our bus VRT concept that we put forth and then equally important how do you pay for it and how do you pay for it has always been important to us because if one or the other of those two approaches or any other approach were to happen we feel it important that the Commission know today where that money would come from and if that money is coming from sources that Metro currently relies upon that should be a part of the decision making process so all of that has been included in that resolution and I'm very pleased about that outcome thank you all board members for your support on that moving on to the impact of the governmental shutdown you probably have seen a lot on TV lately about MSP our partners to the south in Monterey talking about the impacts of the government shutdown and they they're a bit stressed on the cash flow side and so they've gone very public about their concerns I have not been able to get conscience pile on because our situation is actually a little bit different now that could change if this goes on and on and on but for right now we are okay why why in part are we okay you took a very important action in the last year to replenish your reserves so you have reserves to protect us and which which part of those reserves are intended for exactly that kind of thing whether it be state or federal a disruption in cash flow and we have some money in the bank to address that when that occurs but on our side one of the largest items that we depend upon the 50 307 formula money which is a little over six million dollars we have drawn that down so we drew that down before the government shutdown occurred and our next drawdown typically occurs somewhere between May and October so there's a big span of time before we have to worry about that one impacting us at this particular time so it's a significant amount of money if having the government still shut down in October as October approaches will be crying the blues because that's nearly seven million dollars in the nearest term really if we wanted to say what is what is the nearest term thing that could impact us if they're still shut down in September that could create a complication because as you know from the other presentations last year Tom was successful in getting us a 53 39 be competitive grant in the amount of $1.2 million that grant matched with the money that we put forth as a local match is going to buy five compressed natural gas Gillix those are expected to be delivered started to be delivered in August of this year so come August September will be expected to pay our bills and we'll need that federal money to do that so that's probably the short-term near-term issue if the government shutdown continues is really September for us our funding structure too is a bit different than MST the South they have a number of DOT contracts and so they where they provide service for the military so they're cash flows dependent on that too looking forward to the this year's 2019 funding of the fast act as you know we have this year and next year and hopefully by the end of next year there is a new fast act or extended fast act in place that's our federal funding that we depend on the transportation housing and urban development so what we sometimes refer to as the food recommended the fast act appropriations again this year be plus stuff and so remember last year we talked about plus act which was fast act mandated allocations in various programs and and Congress and the president voted to increase those over what the minimum thresholds were and once again the the is recommending that we get those plus stuff but not as much as last year but still plus stuff over the minimums which is really kind of nice in the bus and bus facilities program that's a plus up of 160 million in the formula and and the competitive not for us but nationwide but of course our share will go up in the low-know which is you know we got a low-know grant a number of years ago for three over the road electric buses that's being plus proposed to be plus stuff 30 million dollars the 5307 program is being increased by the fast act mandate at 2% year over year so no issues there and then the bill program which we know is the old tiger program is actually going down as proposed from a hut from 1.5 billion to 900 million that's the current stage of things so program we haven't been able to win yet but we do envision submitting grants under that program potentially for Pacific Pacific station potentially for a new cargoes facility so we have an interest program and also every year about this time I talked to you about the year in review that we do with management and a number of our employees so we called soon after the new year we called together our managers and we have them identify a couple of employees from their department to participate in the year review and these are these are employees ideally that haven't participated in prior years in reviews they come together and it's our one time before as we end a calendar year and before we start a new calendar year to just take a moment to breathe and say wow we did a lot of things last year because as soon as January one rolls about the first thing we're doing is talking about a hundred things we want to do in 2019 so we want to just take a breath and acknowledge that the accomplishments of the year no accomplishments too small is kind of a theme and it starts off by all of those employees spending about 15 or 20 minutes filling out an accomplishment that represents them or their group their department and they're all nice and neatly organized here on the wall on these sticky notes but in the exercise they're all over the roof and it's just it's a chance to celebrate those many many things not that we don't often think about just the small things paying invoices how often do we think about that yet we function because we pay those invoices so we capture all of that we kind of in the dance of that built annually fill out the bulletin board with everything we can think of that's on our plate right now as we know it and you have that in your packets before you on your table Barrow nice and neatly organized all of that chaos into your strategic priorities so remember you had your work session you created your strategic priorities and Barrow went in and took all of those things and that's not necessarily all inclusive that's just Barrow and I spending about 15 minutes before the session to just try to capture everything we can think of that's on our plate right now and coming into the new year some things are carryovers from 2018 and some things will take multiple years to accomplish and then we kind of wrap it up by letting everyone break into groups of five or six and they take a tripod and a large notepad and you see the six large notepad sheets around the room in which the employees go off as a group and these are these are people representing all different departments getting together and they they look at what should be our top priorities if they're the CEO if they are the board what would be the most important priorities for them and so that is that that's represented on these six sheets of paper and then we wrap that up they each have six or seven dots they can have no more they have to ration those out and they go vote on what they think would be most important for them and then we have those represented so maybe as you're leaving today later today you can take a look at that if our employees were in charge if they were the CEO if they were the board this is where they would put the focus in the coming year and you have all that information also in front of you this we're still working on because some themes are duplicates across different sheets and we want to consolidate them and we'll get those to you also and then finally in closing the as was alluded to earlier the the city has been working through their TDM their transportation demand strategy which a component of that includes consideration of a bus pass kind of an eco pass type of a concept as you heard the city commission took the staff recommendation and added to that I think staff recommendation was ninety four thousand out of a three hundred thousand dollar TDM budget and as a result of a commissioner recommendation I think just Zach Johnson put forth that it be the ninety four thousand plus another two hundred and seventeen thousand to fund an eco pass program which is basically the program that we submitted to the city for consideration so as we understand that next sometime in probably February that will go to the city council and they'll consider that recommendation Mr. Chair that concludes my remarks yeah I just I wanted to make a comment I probably have done this on item number six the board of directors comment but there was mention of SB1 and how important that is and it's the governor Newsom announced his state of the state address some of the programs he wants he really wants to target housing but a concern for those of us involved in transportation is some of the ways he wants to go about to have the local governments in the state meet its housing demands that we are all facing throughout California and I can't remember the number and that's just probably just as well because my wife keeps telling me just tell them what the subject matter is don't give them the number but it's a piece of legislation you can repress the number yeah it basically it's it's saying that if they they want to encourage housing as we all know that that's a pressing issue here but they're saying that if we don't meet or really make an earnest effort I haven't read the exact legislation and how it's worded the state is not meeting its housing goal of 180,000 a year it's less there are just about half of that 100,000 and we sure aren't what AMBAG has for us in our our numbers as well but they're saying if you don't meet or really address your housing issues we may cut your transportation funds from SB1 I this is something that local government it was introduced last year a similar piece of legislation it was killed because of county governments and local and city governments and in particular fighting it I know we're going to do that again because land use is a primary function of our local governments and independently we can we can plan our own communities in essence but it's a real concern if you know if we I don't know what these goals might be but we have to keep our eye on it and I know we will but it's something that was tried last year and didn't make it and it's going to be it's on the agenda if one of those 2,000 bills that were introduced there will be introduced by the time bill introduction is closed next month in February it's something we need to keep our eye on because if we lose that we're well we're back to where we were pre SB1 and then Proposition 6 followed up of course and it failed substantially as well so Supervisor or Director Leopold thank you chair I know we're going to be talking about our legislative agenda and I made a note that when we talk about this that we want to make sure to include that as part of our goal for the year I too agree with you that the Metro or any of our transportation systems shouldn't be held hostage there's a lot of what we work very hard to pass this and we work very hard to ensure that it didn't get repealed it wasn't done on a conditional basis and this transit district has nothing to do with land use but we need to ensure that we we can move people around and even in our small little county if some of us are doing our part but others are doing our part we still need to get those people moving around on those buses so I think we should very strongly fight this not only at the here at the transit district but out each of our councils and on the board of Supervisors director Matthews did you have to comment okay director rucky I just wanted to point out the irony of a situation where they have a housing crisis that forces people to live further away from where they're working and they can punish that community by taking away their transportation money that makes a lot of sense okay I thought of anybody have a board member would like to comment on this uh mr. Clifford you wanted to talk about new hires oh yes I neglected to mention that monthly I talked briefly about the hires and promotions we had Courtney Martin and Barton new hired as a benefits administrator Bernanke Caronco as a vehicle service worker new hire and Mike Montes as a new hire parts clerk and then in the area of promotions we have this individual we just I don't think we've ever met him before Eduardo Montesino who promoted from a bus operator to transit supervisor and Raselli Rubio also promoted from a bus operator to transit supervisor okay thank you yes this matters I just verdict is here so go ahead but go ahead we want to finish this question we do talk regularly about the difficulty in hiring in particular as well as retention but any progress on that hard just the bus operators yes so we we just we just graduated a class this week of bus operators and we're going to turn right back around we still have vacancies so we're going to turn right back around we need to give our training instructor a little bit of a break and then we'll turn back around and do another class we also have our VTT training that we have to keep up on along with all the bus operators on the new equipment that we we've arrived so it's a big job and we're going to be talking about that in the budget process also but we are still short bus operators we're aggressively working on the paratransit side to we have some folks that we're training but we're still recruiting for more there rough numerically the gap between what you have now what you would want to be fully staffed let's see I'm going to ask Sarah how many short bus operators right now we should be able to have about 10 that would give us to a bundle of that so we need to recruit for that and then Daniel over on the transit side for ten and three okay thank you okay now we'll get back to the top of the agenda to swear in new directors Mike Ratkin County representative Watsonville representative a real solid yes we will probably go up to the mic and have the the the members that are going to be sworn in on my right over here get you on TV and Cynthia Matthews as well yeah well that's what I'm saying we're really this is right yeah stay there you're very yeah okay and thank you judge verdict for taking the time to come here it's very much appreciated for this important body that we have to serve the people of Santa Cruz County thank you for having me I'm a judge call verdict I'm the presiding judge of the Santa Cruz County Superior Court I'm happy to do the honors of swearing the folks in some of you re-engaged Mr. Matthews, Mr. Ratkin, Mr. Ratkin was my thesis advisor I think you're speaking to me I don't know if you know it or not, but your daughter is my wife. I damaged the bump into the events post out there when I was parking, so I damaged some property. We'll go ahead and jump right into your oath, which I was surprised to see our identical oaths that we all take as judicial officers. You're performing an important duty service and what we'll have you do is just say your names. I'm going to administer those to all of you at once. And so I do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies born in domestic that I will bear truth, faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion and that I will faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter. Congratulations. Yeah, we just had Director Ratkin said students makes good, so thank you very much. You've done well. Thank you for your service and taking the time to come here. It means a lot to us. I like to think we both have aged gracefully. Thank you. Thank you very much. One out of two ain't bad. Okay, we will move to item number 15. Oh, excuse me. I'm sorry. There was one. Mr. before we get to number 16, Mr. Clifford would like to read something in regard to Mr. Ratkin. We thought with Mike's reappointment that it would be important to acknowledge a pretty incredible milestone and that is 30 years of association with Santa Cruz Metro. He joined the board shortly after the passage of the local ballot measure G, providing half-cent sales tax for public transit. This was one of the early local public transit tax measures in a small community in the United States. He walked over half of the precincts in the city of Santa Cruz in support of Measure G. He started when there was only about 50 diesel buses in the fleet. We might still have those here actually. He served on Metro as the city of Santa Cruz appointee of all of his six terms on the city council and more recently appointed to now his second term as the county's public representative. He played a key role in making Santa Cruz Metro the first fully accessible bus fleet in the United States. He supported bringing pay and benefits for Metro drivers into the modern age before his joining the board's drivers might have worked more than eight hour shifts with large spreads which would have made work days as long as 16 hours with their splits. So he worked hard on that to change that. He supported affirmative action plans to diversify the district's management, administrative and bus driving employees to reflect the gender and ethnic composition of the local community. He has served on every standing committee ever created by the Metro board, worked with all three of the district's general managers over the years and during several months of the transition between the first and second general manager as a board member and chair. He worked closely with Metro's general council and acting GM to oversee daily operations of the district and maybe most importantly he doesn't own a car. How about those pictures? Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Chair, we need to pick up a motion on Mr. Hiltner's board. Resolution? Resolution. So moved. So moved. The resolution. Recognize Mr. Hiltner. Moved and seconded. All those approved. Aye. Opposed? So we're unanimously. Okay. We will go now to the oral Metro advisory committee, the MAC semi-annual report. Michael Osama. Thank you, board, for having me here today and for bringing my last video as MAC chair. First, I'd like to thank the staff, Alex, Barrow, Ciro and especially Donna for giving us on the track and our MAC meetings. And also like to say, and my two years as chair and proceeding up to that, I'd like to thank those that have supported overcoming our $6 million dust set, which is amazing. Measure D, SQ1, such a few to measure six. Also adding ABL to our buses and cameras. And of course, Ciro's help on the 14 buses, which is amazing. And then standing Santa Cruz for their jump bikes and the transportation demand management system. And like was mentioned earlier on the horizon and watching carefully the Governor Newsom's new budget connecting housing and transportation. And then also our future census 2020. And the last thing I like to mention is one other thing is the passions are coded conduct. I really appreciate that. And letting us add our voice, the MAC voice to those comments and taking those seriously was really nice. And we just wanted me to ask if we can add nice posters to the buses and maybe the transit stations. I mean, you know, seals and dolphins and that to the boasters and make it really, you know, the most just points about the order of conduct for people to understand and learn. The last thing is that anybody can add their voice to bring to help bring over pool and lift line. The county would be most appreciated and thank you again. Very good. Any director comments to Michael John? Well, I just want to expect my appreciation. The MAC for their ongoing work representing the riders and providing input to this board and the administration of the metro. I think it's really critical for our service to be well represented by those who ride it. And I particularly want to express my appreciation to you because I know that you not only track what's going on here, but you track what's going on with the original transportation commission and always have good insight about things that we could be doing to make our transportation system better. So thank you for your work individually and thank you for the MAC collectively. Director. I just wanted to add a comment that the work that you and your board, your committee do, it's done kind of quietly behind the scenes and you don't get a lot of praise or people don't see the work you're doing. But those of us on the board that get your comments and then try and respond in a positive way, really appreciate what you're doing. Just like you know that this work is not unseen by people that really have to make the final decisions about what's going on. So thank you so much for that work. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. That does not mean to motion to move on to item number 17 to approve the, or excuse me, 60s to final revised Metro base phase two operations, building life of project budget and project completion. Mr. Clifford. I asked Aaron to talk a little bit about that and celebrate the closure of a long project. I will try to give a brief. As Tom mentioned when he came in 1998 and he left, we're going to close it today. He's not going to witness it. He was working on it. The Metro base project as a whole was a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which destroyed our operations and maintenance in Watsonville down in Sakata lane where we were. The district had been splintered for many years. And Metro base was the concept of coming back and creating more of a campus to bring all of the elements of Metro back together. So it's been a long time coming. Again, 89. We started planning Metro base as a whole around 99 2000. We engaged an architect in 2002 who designed all of these buildings. So it's the same architect. You can kind of see as you look at the buildings. And we accomplished various components of Metro base since 2002 as funding came up. So when Alex came on board, we had completed the first phase, which is the fueling station across the street that was completed in 2007. We, let's see, next we purchased this building and renovated it. We started the maintenance facility across the street. This building was finished and we moved in in December of 2009. We finished the maintenance building in 2010. And then we had a bit of a lull while we were looking for some more funding. And we started the operations and bus yard across the street as the last phase. So when Alex came and we were in that lull, he created the phase two portion of this to make it solely the operations facility and bus yard. So that's technically the phase two that you've been looking at our budget. We went out to bid. We started construction in 2013. The first phase of this LOP came in 2014, I believe. I want to look at my dates. So you've seen sort of this LOP budget on this portion of the project since then. So I'm not going to go through the entire staff report with you. This is the same staff report you've seen. We have iterations of the budget throughout the years as the project has unfolded. Typically we're adding funds. We were revising, those were budgetary estimates at that time that we thought we needed to accomplish the line items that are in the attachment. And this report today is the final report and it is now based on the final expenses. So when Tom left in December, he's correct that final invoice was not paid and it is now paid. So we're done. We're done. So these numbers are good. I just want to, if I can bring your attention to the financial considerations, that's kind of where we're at today, a bit of a summary. So we started construction in 2013. We ended up being almost a year delayed in the project. We had a lot of problems come up. We received occupancy from the city in March of 2016. So if you all recall, we moved in in March and started operating and got going. And we got out of the temporary facility that we had been leasing over at Dubois. We had leased a building, two properties and our neighborhood union carbide was gracious enough to allow us to use their property as sort of the pass through to all of that. And we did some improvements on their property to help out. So we moved in. I also wanted to mention that we did dedicate this building to Judy K. Souza. Judy was a pioneer for women. She was the first bus operator here at Metro in the 70s. And she was also the first female transit supervisor. And then she became the first female base superintendent. And she really led the way for a lot of women to get into this agency and do all of these things that typically had been a male profession. So Judy did pass away while we were constructing the building. And so we dedicated it to her and her families still around. They came and participated. And that's been really great. So thank you, Judy. So we moved in in 2016. We still had some ancillary projects. Part of the delay was contractor. Part of it was the design. We made some changes. So we went into that not so fun world of claims and disputes with the contractor. There were things that were needed to be corrected, completed. We did end up in arbitration and had a settlement with that contractor. Our architect did contribute to that. Those two items are in the budget, the $1.6 million to the contractor and R&L. This is kind of funny. This actually adjusts $1 out of that line item because they were supposed to send us $225,000 towards the settlement and they sent us $224,999. So after that we were done with the contractor. We had some repairs to do. We had concrete repairs to make it ADA accessible. We had to repaint the stairs. We added pipe protection for a lot of the utility piping that was exposed in the garage and the subject of being hit by cars. And we put some security fencing around the mechanical platform in the back which is exposed to the elements and right up against the river and the fence back there and we didn't want it to be vandalized. So those are the major things. I think the last thing was some property remediation from Dubois. We did discover after we moved out that our diesel buses had been a little messy so we had some cleanup activity to do. And the PTMISA that you see going back or coming out of the project was mostly from that. We anticipated we were going to have more expenses related to the remediation and it came in lower. So that was great. So we have a little bit of cash reserves left, 1,0216. We'll just go back into the cash reserves. We have about 18,000 in Cal OES money, some security, state security money. That's been reallocated. Excuse me and that will go to adding some security cameras at the operations facility and at the fueling station. Upgrade that system. And then the PTMISA portion which is the bulk of it will go back into the Pacific station project which is where we borrowed it from in the first place. So a little bit back to that project. So all in all the final expenses on Phase 2 for the building and the yard were 29,069,687 dollars. So that's our final number and that is Phase 2 that will close us out there. We do have a little bit of final reporting to do and Tom's not here to help me so I'm struggling through some reports right now but we're getting there. So this is a big step and a big thing to get this done. So I have just a brief presentation. A couple of slides to show you. This is the building. This is the Judy K. Suza Operations Facility. You can see on the front there. This is just before we moved in. We had a local photographer, Neal Simmons, come and do some beautiful photography. It looks too good to be true. It looks lovely. And Neal actually was friends with a local surfer who has a plane and they check out the waves every morning. So this photograph that's on the wall over here by the door Neal took at dawn one morning when his friend was out checking out the surf. So it's kind of dark and pink because it's early morning but so that's a nice shot of our campus there. So that was nice to have him and here's the shot. So you can see our administration building that you're in here on the left. We gutted the building and remodeled it to what you see today. The Fleet Maintenance Building there is our shop. We purchased some property. Iwala was there. We had a few throughout the years. And in the back half we had already had a maintenance facility on. So that was a nice new facility there. And then across the street you can see Judy K. Suza. You can see our bus lot. That was another reason we wanted to go in the morning so we could get all the buses in the lot as many as we could on a Sunday morning. And then the feeling and wash station over on the right. So that was our CNG facility that we built. We had a slow fill before and now we also wash our buses there. So that's our new campus and that's the completed picture there. The feeling and wash station. These are just some of the final costs. All told it was about 11 million and we added the second tank in 2013. This administration building was 1.9. Fleet Maintenance was about 15.6. And that was two phases. So that second phase was 2010. So that was great. And then all of those activities were completed in September of 2014. And that total budget and that's just the construction budget was 27.6 and that doesn't include all the environmental and the design and all told this phase and the second phase together came to about 71 million. So that was a pretty big project for us to accomplish here. So again, this is just kind of what I had said earlier. We moved in in March. We did the dedication ceremony and ribbon cutting with Sam Carr who's been helped us with quite a bit of the funding. Back in the day when we had earmarks, he helped us quite a bit. And there's a wonderful plaque on the front of the building naming some of the people who were instrumental in getting us the funding and making this happen. So there's the numbers that are in the staff report. At the end, we came in a little under and we're able to refund some of the money. So that's great. And we are complete. Any questions? I just have one question. What's the size of this canvas? How many acres? Oh, the acres. So the JKS and the fueling and wash is almost two acres back over there. So I don't have the total square footage on all three sites. Yes, Director Leopold. Thank you, Chair. You're retelling of the story and you're missing on the epic journey elements. I was trying to be brief. There are many great battles that are here. We lost friends along the way. We had to fight for funding. And we erected towers and everything. This is the Lord of the Rings. Absolutely. It would take several volumes to really capture everything here. It's taken a lot of work. It was a vision that the district had over 20 years ago. It really makes sense for us to have these facilities all together. And it took a lot of work by our CEO when he came in to get it across the finish line with the help of a lot of staff members because it wasn't in a good shape then. That'll be total number 16. Probably 20 volumes. That was the great concrete delay. The concrete delay. Yes. Well, even picking that contract, I remember, that's also part of the story. He pulled up in his red Ferrari out here. We went, hmm. Yeah, there are villains in this and there are heroes. It's pretty amazing. I want to appreciate the work of all the staff members, both current and former, who worked on this. Mike has been here 30 years. Maybe he's been around for most of it. But I've been only on the last 10 years of this and it's been quite a journey to express my appreciation. And, you know, the metro-based life of Project Budget might be dead, but long-lived metro-based. Director Reichen? I just want to appreciate your particular contribution to this entire complex. Someone who really kept on top of the numbers, the dollars and how it was managed financially and yet no responsibility for all the problems that was there to make sure that they got fixed. So, thank you for your work individually. Absolutely. I was over there inspecting and, you know, I do actually want to say that Andy Creck from Hill International, our project manager, came in and really turned the project around and he was like a mentor. He was wonderful. He taught me so many things about construction management and project management and really gave me the tools because he's been gone for two years now to see this thing through. So, thank you, Andy. Was there a comment from the public? It's wonderful. On your slide, you have the open in... Winning 106. Oh, do I? Yeah. Well, you know, it felt like that. Thank you for catching that. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Becky. Any other comments from the board? I just want to say to the new and recent board members, you don't know what you've missed and you might be happy that you missed it. So, it's been a real struggle, but we've succeeded in the end and thank you very much, Aaron, for everything that you've done and everybody in the staff who participated to make this come to an end and we have some new beginnings that are going on, too. So, very much with confidence, we're going to be able to do more in the future. Thank you. Thank you so much. There are nice facilities. I think everybody's pretty happy working in them and we're glad to move on to the next big project, which is electric buses and infrastructure. There you go. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you very much. We will go to item number 17, the State and Federal Legislative Agenda. Mr. Clifford. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Directors, I'll try to keep this brief. You have the report. It's similar to past years. I just take and go in and modify whatever is no longer applicable out of the report and then whatever is moving this year into the report. So, you do have that. If I go to the attachments, the State and Federal Legislative Agendas, you can see that there are very similar themes in general in there. Certainly in February, the State bills start being introduced in the State. So, starting in March, we'll start keeping track of things that are introduced that could impact us. What we do know is sort of a carryover from last year. We have some parts of our enabling legislation that we'd like to tweak a little bit. So, we're carrying over the same recommendation from last year. We didn't get to this last year. We'd like to be a Board Chair to appoint an ad hoc committee to lead with our general counsel and myself and talk about that. And if those items are good to go, then we'll start talking to our State lobbyist about introducing some legislation. So, we'll be in touch on that. Something really exciting for me is that Senator Bell and Assemblyman Frazier have organized a TDA, Transportation Development Act Reformed Task Force. They determined that there are some problems with the current legislation, particularly the performance measures. And those performance measures have impacted several properties in the State of California in a negative way, putting in jeopardy their TDA funding. So, I've been appointed as one of a handful of representatives across the State to sit on that task force and we start meeting in Sacramento actually next week on that. It was a kickoff meeting. So, I'll keep you informed as we go through that process. There are things that I've identified in the report that certainly we want to look out for as possible changes to that legislation to make it more efficient and hopefully to guarantee and more so secure the funding that this agency receives from TDA, both on the STA, the State Transportation Assistance Site, and on the LTF, the Local Transportation Funding Site. Both of those come together to be TDA. On the federal side, as you know, each year a group of board members and myself go to Washington, either in March or April. I'm proposing that we do that in April, probably early April. So, Gina will be in touch with the chair to talk about who might go and to reach out to board members to see if they're available to go on that trip. I think we've taken as many as four board members that want to say on that trip. It's really important for us because we time it away from the APTA legislative conference so that we're not walking in the halls with thousands of other people. And what really benefits us is that because we separate ourselves from APTA, we're able each year, so far, not gone would, to get in and meet with the FTA administrator, which has always been an important conversation for us. So, we're seeking to do that again this year. And, of course, on our agenda is the FAST Act is vastly approaching to have something done to it, either extended or a new replacement but put in place. And that is only two years away before it expires. It's time for Congress to start talking about that because, as we know, it probably takes them two years past the expiration before they adopt the new one. So, we've got to get that started and that brings up all of the usual discussions about how you fund a new program and whether the monies are one-time monies or recurring monies. And, of course, we would always argue they need to find recurring monies and take some of that burden off of our back. We will continue the journey about alternative fuels tax. We took a hit this year in having to reduce that amount and, going forward, have a reduced amount because of the IRS's interpretation of how you calculate the fuel tax credit that we get for operating CNG buses. That hurt. But, maybe more importantly, going forward, as we move into this new mandate of electric buses, we'd like to see electric buses qualify for that alternative fuel tax. So what will happen is, as we meet the mandate and eventually start buying more and more electric buses, we'll be retiring more and more compressed natural gas buses. Our alternative fuel tax credit will come down. We'd like to get credit for the electric buses and have that stay up there a little bit. We're also advocating for a state of good repair program similar to the American Recovery and Relief Act back in 2009. And that initially proposal being put out by Apted by the bus coalitions about $6.74 billion. So we would like to see an infrastructure program that's sort of separate from all the other plus-ups and things that we talk about. This is a one-time program that would find all kinds of capital things, much like ARA did back in 2009. So we hope that will occur. We're going to be very watchful as the census comes up in the next year because we like what we have today. The census impacts the urbanized areas. We have two urbanized areas within our county, the Watsonville and the Santa Cruz. And there are benefits that come to, there's dollars that come to our agency by virtue of having two, what they call usiated or urbanized areas as opposed to them being merged into one. Ten years ago there was a play to do some merging and thank you to Congressman Farr that didn't happen. We need to be watchful as the play could be made again this coming time around. That could impact us in the millions of dollars range if that were to occur. So with that, Mr. Chair, I will add Director Leopold's comment to the agenda about being very watchful to oppose any linkage between SB1 and housing. So we'll add that to the statement. Director Rockin? I don't think I've ever been accused of not being partisan enough, but I want to say on the issue of the federal legislation, I think our legislative program is really important, and I'm not sure everybody really understands how important it is. Often these lists and other agencies are sort of wish lists of things that people might like to see in a perfect world. This is a list that we actually go to lobby on in a serious way in Washington. And we have a really good story to tell from this district in terms of what we do. And we're not going to go there and get help on our grants, which we've done directly almost every year. I'm sure every year we've gone. But for the country as a whole, because we don't go at the same time as everybody else in the American Public Transit Association, we have an opportunity to actually not just listen to a speech from a public official, which is what happens on after-weekend, but to actually meet and talk to senators and health members of the House of Representatives, Congress members. And it's really critical on this that we be bipartisan. The success of getting refunded in 2020 and hopefully funded for more, which is going to be a struggle this year for sure, requires that we not go there trying to push some particular partisan view of the way the world ought to operate, but really explain where it is that public transit needs to have happen in America. And so there are times when you wonder, like when we have a need for more buses and people, why are we spending money to send three or four people to, five people to Washington D.C.? It actually has helped this district very directly with funding, and we need to get a bill, and it won't happen if it doesn't start this spring in 2020, so we don't end up defunding Public Transit America, which is certainly on the horizon as one of the possibilities that's out there. So I just wanted to speak up about the importance of this legislative agenda. And it's, I think, properly pitched as trying to really figure out how we can appeal not only to members of Congress who come from urban areas that understand obviously how much they aid in public transit, but more rural areas and other places in the country, because that's where the boats are. And I think it's been successful in the past, and it's only kind of critical that we adopt this legislative program and that we then go carry it out in a practical way, because it really matters to us a very good dollars and cents in the next five years. Thank you, Director Leopold. Thank you, Chair. I appreciate the inclusion of the efforts to oppose the new mandates on RSV-1 funds after all the efforts we did to fight this, to get that money. I would be interested in serving on the committee for the authorizing of this legislation. I think that would be interesting. I want to put the time into this. Okay, anybody else? Let me just know we're going to be having some committee assignments and all that. I'd like to know your interest if you are interested in this aspect, too. Director Matthews? Yes, the legislative program is so important. It really does matter. And I had some time looking through the RTC legislative program, which is lengthy. It has a lot of these same issues in it. One thing they mentioned there in the state legislative program is supporting efforts to capture sales tax. So much of what we do is dependent on sales tax. So to the extent we... I mean, a lot of people hear about that, but it should also be on our agenda as well. Okay. And then talking with our staff, they brought up a possibility that I think could be very important to us. And it has to do with the... Page four. And this occurs in the RTC. So it has to do with the definition of disadvantaged communities. The RTC legislative... state legislative agenda includes blocking the definition of disadvantaged communities in order to ensure that projects that benefit low income and other transportation, disadvantaged residents, are not excluded from funding, funding opportunities that support sustainable communities, transportation choices, and investments in alternative modes. And this explains the thing that there's a very strict definition statewide, but there is the possibility of doing a regionally defined definition, which can count for a critical few points when grants are being reviewed. And the RTC does have a... apparently maybe those who serve on the RTC know more about this than I do. A definition that has been, I think, referenced but not adopted, something like that. But it's considered a legitimate regional definition. And where this can be important for us, and it references, again, other aspects of the legislative agenda and work program, looking for partners that can bring in new money. I'm thinking particularly of the Pacific Station, where so much emphasis now, many people have referenced it already today. The genuine interest priority on transportation, links development, and particularly the benefits, disadvantaged communities, and links with health facilities, we have on the table now the possibility of doing something that links transportation, affordable housing, and affordable clinics, health clinics, health and dental clinics. And the executive directors of those clinics are affordable housing providers in this community say that is money. That is the priority for so many funding sources. So it should be... I think we should do everything to position ourselves to bring in those financial resources that will complement and complement efficiently Metro's interests. So I would just like to suggest that we include in our legislative agenda the addition of the adding, working for the alternative disadvantaged communities definition, in sync with the RTC. Okay, what's that? Yes? Well, I really appreciate Director Matthews for bringing that up because we have failed to get some grants for the Watsonville Transit Center because only a portion of Watsonville is considered disadvantaged community, not the entire community. And so we could not qualify for the funds. In fact, there's very few areas in the entire county that qualify under the strict state definition. And downtown Santa Cruz, it has also been declared an enterprise zone. So there's just a whole lot of layering of things that could be advantageous. And it can be a positive impact, obviously, on the sales tax, which you have no question about. Any other comments from board members? Any comments from the public? Okay, I'm going to entertain a motion. I think we adopt the program with the two changes that have been... Sorry? I knew that we adopt the proposed program with the changes proposed by John Lee Holden and supported by the CEO. The one that Cynthia just mentioned, was there a third or was there two? I did reference also... Sales tax. Sales tax. Those three changes... So those were captured, but those are the three changes to what's been proposed to us here. Okay, we have a motion to accept with the amendments. Motion by Lynn, seconded by Leopold. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Silver or unanimous? Item number 18 is acceptance of the financial report. Statements with independent auditors report for the year-end of June 30th. I know that Angela is not here, but we have a great feeling. I'll play Angela. I'm Debbie Young, the Finance Deputy Director. And I just want to say, I'm so glad the Odyssey is Metro-based. Oh my God. That has sucked away my mind here. I literally have spreadsheets, detailed invoices paid against that project that go back to 1998. It's thousands and thousands of lines, so I'm very happy that I can stop adding to that. So, when I'm up here today for... Yeah, turn that mic just toward you a little. There you go. Thank you. I don't like being that way. I know. So, we're asking the board today to formally accept the audited financial statements for last fiscal year, fiscal year 18. And I also wanted to bring your attention to the fact that we had to do a separate report this year. And that is for the Measure D compliance. And it's not really an audit, it's just a compliance report. And I do that because of our master funding agreement with RTC, and that's on page 18D1. And then I was also asked to be brief because we have a lot on the agenda today. So, the high points of the audit this year are on page 18A71, if you want to flip there. So, again this year we received an unmodified opinion. And basically what that is is it's a clean bill of health. We had an unmodified opinion for the financial statements and federal awards and we're also considered a low risk audity. So, that's basically the best you can get. I also wanted to bring your attention to the fact that we do still have two lingering agreed upon conditions and those are referenced in Attachment C, which is on page 18C1. And those aren't current year conditions, those are from the prior year. And just very briefly, the first condition is about reconciling our ticket stock. And the second condition is about the current pre-printed coupon step we issued to the pair of cruise customers. And so, we're working right now with GFI, who's our vendor for our ticket issuance machines. And they're supposed to be pushing through a software upgrade at the end of January, that supposedly we're hoping against hope that this is going to clear that issue for us and that the reports in the background will match our actual ticket sales. And thank you to Kayla, she stepped out, but she's been working diligently with the vendor to get this cleared. And then the second issue, we are going to discontinue the pre-printed pair of cruise coupons, and we're going to start issuing those through the same system that we use for the fixed route coupons, I'm sorry, the fixed route tickets. And that is estimated to be implemented March 1st. Yeah. So, basically we've got a great audit this year. We will be working towards clearing those too, hopefully, so everything will be clean. And I want to thank the finance department because if they didn't work so diligently, we wouldn't continue to receive clean audits. And again, the agreed upon conditions, those aren't the same as the finding. So still this year, we have no findings. And I also want to thank Lorraine, our accountant, because this was a particularly difficult year. We had GASB implementation. We had the measure fee. We had a medical leave on the audit team. So she pulled it together. We were able to issue the report by the December 31st deadline. And we're good to go. So are there any questions? Any questions from the board? Director Matthews. Yeah. The audit report was very impressive. And I don't know how to read between the lines on the ticketing issues. It sounds like that's been kind of a fraught challenge to say the least. Yeah. Yeah. And the hope is that solutions are imminent. Yes. Confidence level. Non-financial opinion. Non-financial opinion. We've been working at it. We've been making progress. It just seems what happens is when they roll something out, there's unintended consequences. So everything was good before. And then there's something new that's a problem. But we've been working with them literally for a year. So I'm praying that this is going to go away. Well, I guess there's more to this conversation. Yeah. And so, and that's just in a few days, they're rolling that out. So maybe we could get reports on the progress of that. Sure. You go so far down the line. And still, it sounds like it's the vendor. It's the vendor. It's not us. Yeah. Frustrating. Yeah. But the other one will be cleared. So we'll be down to one. And then we'll keep beating on them to get this resolved. Okay. Any other comments? Any comments from the public? We're not a faith-based community, but we all want to put our best thoughts into getting this finalized. So thank you for that. Oh, excuse me. We just put clearly on the tickets. They're clear. They are. They're clearly identified. And it's in big print. Okay. That's good because I've had problems with that. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. I move to accept the report. Second. Moved and seconded that we accept the report. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The order unanimously. And we will go to item 19 to authorizing the CEO to enter a three-year license agreement with FlixBus for accommodating the use of a stop twice per day at the Civic Station Transit Center. Ciro, our CEO. Good morning. Greetings to the new directors. Ciro Dearing, Chief Operations Officer. I just wanted to introduce this topic as a, since last year we've been working with FlixBus to try to get a better understanding of how we can accommodate the position for them at the Metro Center. They approached us with a very unique and novel service that they are offering. And we felt that it was going to enhance the opportunities and options that the residents of the community are going to have for other transportation throughout the region. So with me, I have Ty Costa and Nicholas Diorio. And they'd like to give you just a brief overview of what the service is about and how it's going to play with our future. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Thank you so much for having us on your agenda. We had a somewhat long presentation prepared, but we're told we're a little time challenged, so I'm going to keep it short. Essentially, our company, FlixBus, was founded about six years ago in Germany by two college students who wanted to go on a skin trip, and they couldn't get a bus out there. So they were very creative and created essentially what it is, technological solutions for transportation. We partnered with local charter bus companies and essentially they perform all of the routes that we plan, sell or market, and they hire all the drivers and take care of all the bus operations, and we take care of all the technological part of it. Millennials love us because we put Wi-Fi's on the buses and charging ports. Some of them even have virtual reality goggles. And I guess the most important thing for us is that we want to create a culture that young people as well as anybody who wants to take care of services be able to get from point A to point B and long distance trip with the bus, and then once they arrive at their final destination, use the local public transit system. So it's good for your ridership and it's good for us to be able to bring people exactly where they want to be and for that we're requesting just a space in your transit center so that we can do daily pickups. So it's one pickup and drop off each way on a line that goes from Southern California all the way to Northern California and these drop offs last about 10 to 15 minutes. Pretty much it. I'll open it for questions if you have any. Excuse me, Director Leopold. This seems very interesting. What does it cost? So that's a great question. We have pricing that is similar to airlines. It's dynamic. If you buy far enough in advance, it's fairly cheap because we haven't started this line yet. I can't give you an exact price, but for example, if you buy a ticket from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, three months in advance you can pay $5. So it's like a bulk bus that they have on the East Coast similar? It's similar, but that's kind of like comparing a flip phone to a smartphone. Flip buses are... Good answer. Good answer. We do more things. We try to provide exceptional service and we're more dynamic. So because we don't buy our property for the bus stations, we come and we try to partner with transit agencies. We're able to be in more desirable places for passengers so that they're exactly what they want to be. And all of our buses are three years or younger. They take safety very seriously. We actually follow the European standards of label practices and driving our requirements. So I think we have a slide on that, but we require that they drive less hours than the US federal government does. Thank you. Director Rodkin. You pointed out that this is good for your organization and good for us, but it's really good for the climate of our world as well. Because the single biggest example people use for why people need to have a private car is for the kinds of tricks that you provide because it's pretty easy to make an argument about why you might use the bus within a community but how you get from LA to Las Vegas or from here to Southern California or whatever. And the fact that you do it in a way that makes it really attractive for young people to use it means that maybe some of these folks will never get a car and basically figure out how they can live their lives with public transit. And I think that's really, really critical. So I really enjoy the fact that we're partnering with you to make this all happen. Director Matthews. This is just a classic example of transit influx here. And are you requesting a dedicated, a single dedicated space or access to a space? And I guess where I'm going with this or our staff is certainly there will be others coming along like this. And how are we projecting expectations just like the Google and Google buses, Facebook buses took us by surprise. Basically the service is once in the AM, once in the PM. And just whatever slots are available? We've identified a slot that's underutilized on lane two and it'll be similar to the area where, just behind the Amtrak Highway 17, actually at the beginning, we've actually measured that space with an actual 45 foot bus previously and it will accommodate that particular bus. The schedule, which I believe was passed out, inbound out that, gives the routing and the times that they'll be in Santa Cruz so we should be able to work around that particular time frame. For additional buses, I mean we would have to have their schedules and the things of that nature in order to try to dynamically accommodate them around our schedule. And there's other options, I mean there's Pacific Avenue, the Stop Outside Electric Center, but what I was envisioning was basically having Flix bus come in and there we have the amenities to service the people that would be waiting for the bus and also make it convenient for people with disabilities that be able to board the bus safely and there's a security element there. So people would be safe in that environment for the bus. It's a new start. It's basically something that's coming out from the East Coast and trying to establish the routes here and I think it's a good opportunity for us to have some options to get around that. A little bit. If the schedule doesn't work for any reason and you're always flexible and able to change the times to make sure there's no conflict with your agency. Thank you. I have a few questions for you as well. What would be your anticipation ridership to pick up the route through Santa Cruz here? I mean you're going to market, how many people do you think that you'll be seeing coming from our community? So it's hard to say because we haven't started the line yet but usually our lines just start with a bus that it's about 20% full and eventually in a few months we'll be able to fill it up about 50 to 75%. Some of our routes see even 100% like LA to Vegas is the fullest route. Because there's so many universities in this particular line we stop at UCLA, we stop at USC and then make a connection that is really very easy for students in San Luis Obispo to also take the bus and now here in Santa Cruz we've got to have the buses full within 6 to 7 months hopefully but it's hard to give you a... I mentioned something about cross promotional what would be your vision of what that would look like? So one of the things that we provide is the ability to somewhat market or advertise your services in exchange for the same kind of proposal for me so if you're able to have signage on the station or maybe if you're willing to do ticket sales we can offer you permission on the transit center if you're willing to do that or put brochures of your transit system on our buses and things like that we have an entire department designated to cross promotion and marketing opportunities that is able to give you more details information but essentially we can cooperate so that we're helping each other sell So putting on your app what our bus routes would be at the time that you're arriving in our stations with people that are riding your bus once they get off and know what are the buses and routes are they able to get there? I am unsure about the app because that's IT and how the integration goes to be honest but we can definitely put up brochures of the routes on the buses so people that are coming here can just pick up and see all the lines that they can take I can connect you with our marketing team and we'll be able to answer these questions better Thank you Very good, I'm director of results I have one question because you mentioned university you're starting up north are you starting at the university or are you starting downtown San Francisco or how north are you going and coming down? So right now we stopped at 5th and Townsend in San Francisco right by the Coltrane station we hope to be at the sales force transit center when they reopen and we're working with UC Berkeley to open up a station there as well City Council is going to vote to approve us for the next couple months here so eventually we'll have the UC's all coming I just have a question about it looks like a lot of these cities are you making progress through most of these cities at this point in time or where are you at overall route sort of map in terms of successfully negotiating with the jurisdictions? We have I would say 90% of the cities on the map we're going to Utah we're going to Utah well Texas is not on the map but we're also expending to Texas and we're going to launch we have to be all over the country within the next two years but for the maps specifically we're going to launch the next month or so aside from the pretty much 99% of the cities again I think this is a great program and I think that this gives us the two definition of what a transit facility should be used for and what I really appreciate is that you're coming to us to be in a partner as opposed to some other agencies just started using our facilities without our knowledge so I look forward to us having a great relationship with you and I wish you a program success because I didn't see it anywhere else is this a use at no fee or it just says accommodating the use just described me a little bit of what the content of the agreement will be the question of the agreement is basically per stop so there's two stops it's $11 it'll be billed on a six month period okay I just didn't see that $11 per stop okay any questions it's a three year contract three year contract thank you any comments from the public I just have one question on the website and it showed a trip from San Diego to Los Angeles costing 99 cents what do you have to do to get the 99 cents so that's a promotional because we recently started that line we start really low to get people on the bus but it will probably go up to $5 soon yeah well I looked at it it was looking $5 to $10 depending on what you went I think this is a transit option that especially our community students will use and I would move the recommended actions second second Kaufman Gomez did you any more comments okay we already went to the public it's been moved that we accept this contract all those in favor aye opposed so we're unanimously and thank you very much a very exciting venture you're welcome thank you okay we have delayed item number 20 to next month number 21 the 10-year fiscal 2020-29 strategic business plan update Vero Emerson our planning and development director alright in the name of brevity for me I'm going to jump through this October 17th you had your initial board strategic business plan initial work session and you and the management team established the seven strategic priorities that are in attachment A following on from that management team has proposed a number of key tactical initiatives to support those seven priorities attachment B what we're asking you today is to approve and adopt those these will allow the metro staff to prioritize the use of our financial and staff resources if pending your adoption today of these initiatives we will go away and put together implementation multi-year or this year implementation plans and following on from that budget request for any of the initiatives that need funding to move this whole agenda forward so I think I'm going to keep it pretty short to that point this the financial context will be our five-year budget plan and this is a living document so it's a 10-year plan but it will constantly be rolling forward so why don't I keep it to that for the moment and answer any questions or let you take your action any comments from the board this anybody from the public would like to address this on this issue number 21 director Leopold thank you chair I appreciate all the work that's gone into this and thoughtfulness there was one language use or something I didn't like is as much as the rest of it and that had to be 2 F it's not that I disagree with managing future labor costs so to maintain the capacity to provide at least the current level of service it would be nice to have something a little bit more supportive of our staff you know we we have been working to deal with some long-term class and compensation issues and it would be good for us to say especially as you know in the other parts of this we deal with recruitment to say that we should address our labor costs so to be able to support our staff to live in our community and provide the service at least the level that we're at now something more supportive of our staff to recognize it let me play word smithing with that and then when we bring it back to the third and final step of the strategic plan where we offer up some budgets I will have gotten your all sign up on better work in there something like work with I just want to appreciate you and your staff's ability to capture the let's say complex mess quite a bit of October we thought our vision should be for the future and you've really done a great job of capturing this sort of sentiment and putting forth the way that actually makes it operational it should actually allow there is out a vision thank you we're supposed to do five that was a long day that was a long day I don't think we need that because this is going to be we're going to get final action next month did you need a the action would be as enlisted to adopt this set of initiatives we put under the seven actually formally adopting the seven and adopting the long list to approve this seven strategies so moved and second and I'm assuming that will be with an update next month we'll change that okay okay anybody yes comment on item six the relationship of the station and it acknowledges no rehab but I believe we don't fully understand the long term needs for rehab and I would like to also suggest a little bit of word smithing there to suggest that there is still a choice ahead of us whether to do a rehab or rebuild rehab versus redevelopment consideration perfect it's accepted by the maker very well any other comments from the board okay we have a motion all those in favor aye so ordered unanimously now we go to item number 22 and we'll pass out as is customary the chair as a starting point recommends nominees and officers for the 2019 year these will be finally approved or passed on in next month's meeting in February I'm not going to go through the whole list I didn't know those who might have specific interests I did find out from some that they would like to continue on some committees I have made some recommendations this is not the vote to accept that will take place next month and there's a lot on there and you might just want to take a moment to look at them and if anybody has any recommendations for nominees I'm very much open to this this is not a stamp of approval of what you should do it's just what I recommend it's a starting point to carry on for 2019 soon to be distinguished chair Mr. Botthorff so you might want to take a moment to look at that and if there's any specific that you'd like to see you or somebody else mentioned in one of these as a possibility and if not right now certainly to let our staff know what is your interest and so we can get that out prior to the February meeting Director Matthews do you have a sense of when the additional public member will be Mr. Botthorff it's going to be in the county we've posted do we post it for Tuesday? I think it's posted we posted it on our meeting on January 15 our last meeting we posted the opening so we would normally make an appointment probably at our February 12th meeting I haven't checked as I'm not chair but that's we usually leave it open for a period of time so there's some applicants I know there's a few that made application for that so by the time we would make our final selections that person would be known and should be considered and we would get that out to our next board for sure I just appreciate your work on this it's not final until we see but the options might be that I think you've done a really good job of spreading out the work and not many people say thank you for that work it's not easy to do that I just think that if we can ask staff to make sure that they summarize the frequency of the meetings and maybe a little bit about the responsibility of being on that maybe so that maybe how much time it may take for that commitment I think in general these committees usually meet three maybe four times a year yes Mr. Chair what we ask is that you always block the second Friday of every month out for committees and then as we approach each month we look at whether we have an agenda or not it's possible that we won't be convening a meeting that month or we will be convening a meeting that month but we do ask you going in to block out the second Friday of every month and that's typically from as early as 8.30 or 9.00 in the morning for the first committee through to I think as late as 1.00 2.30 2.30, okay I would point out that we used to meet twice a month and that's why that Friday couldn't be so we relieve you two meetings a week every month and hopefully there will be people find time to be able to do these committees and it's probably three or four times a year that these committees meet yes yes director Mayor Paul Chair I think this is a good list to start off with I notice with our new members we want to make sure to include them in some of these pieces and work with them to figure out where they would like to be and I appreciate leaving some of this open until we get to our full complement of directors any other comments I don't see anybody throwing spears at me so I guess it's pretty much successful so we'll just that will be just for your consideration but please if you want to be engaged in any committee let our staff know and we will carry on so well before probably two weeks or so before our next board meeting in February so we have the full component of nominees okay now we will review the items to be discussed in closed sessions with Sherman or General Counsel and I guess in general is there anything that's going to be reportable is there any comments that you need to make no comments to make it's just a labor negotiations conference and there will not be any report out of closed session okay very good and we're now to item 24 the announcement of the next meeting will be at the Capitola City Council Chamber in Capitola and so now we will recess into closed session and there's going to be no report on that so we will adjourn shortly after we close that closed session thank you for your attendance and some really good news and some good prospects for the future of what's coming to this Metro District to thank everyone for attending and thank you for community television for televising this meeting the recess into closed session