 Good morning and welcome to the May 3rd meeting of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission Could we please have a roll call? Commissioner Rodkin Commissioner Chase Commissioner Bautour here Commissioner McPherson here Commissioner Leopold here Commissioner alternate Mcmulhern Here Commissioner alternate Schifrin Commissioner Caput here Commissioner Kaufman Gomez Commissioner Johnson here Commissioner Brown here Commissioner Bertrand here and Commissioner Lowe All right, we will start the meeting with oral communications It's an opportunity to address the commission about items under the purview of the regional transportation Commission You'll have three minutes. Please come forward Good morning Good morning Gail McNulty County resident speaking just on my own behalf at this moment Our county has constraints we're between the mountains the bay the ag land our water is limited and Many have a strong desire to help us avoid becoming a bedroom community for Silicon Valley I've spent the last year the past year connecting the dots and piecing together our transportation puzzle Through conversations with many people who have been here much longer than me I'm getting to know our local political history as well and as someone who's advocating for meaningful and realistic change I'm disheartened and depressed to feel the reality of our local political machine a Machine steered primarily by those who are not affected by daily gridlock Leaders who know our constraints in fear That if it becomes easy to live here and commute from elsewhere We might grow beyond our means. I Realize this is a challenge and I realize there is no easy answer These same people are unafraid of a train Because they know it won't get enough people to and from where they need to go to change our county and Perhaps they know There will never be a train At the other end of our county hard-working parents some of whom work multiple jobs sit in gridlock daily Paying extra hours of child care and missing time that could be spent helping their children to do homework So that they could build a different future. I Recently learned a new verb. I'm told the verb Santa Cruz means to take an issue and pit liberals against liberals creating a conversation that is so Polarizing that a resolution simply cannot be found giving political cover to kick the can down the road and do nothing Please let's not Santa Cruz our county's transportation future The measure D add campaign promised to get Santa Cruz County moving We have a moral imperative to calm this conversation Figure out the best way forward and do the right thing And we need our leaders to show us the way. Thank you Anyone else? Good morning. Good morning commissioners Josh Stevens from Santa Cruz here I would like to commend you all for some of the improvements I noticed on the public transportation experience from the banana slug decor on our Articulated buses to installing security cams on them as well and recent announcements of new grants to modernize our bus fleet Step-by-step I look forward to seeing more improvements as possible funding sources arise such as SB1 money How nice it would be to figure out if it was the bus or I that was late to catch it ABL implementation is crucial for the riders not just for the staff of Metro Turning to RTC matters I am shocked for a county that has most jurisdictions pay for parking to fund their general fund While Iowa Pacific gets a free pass Parking cars on our rail line and not paying the RTC Arc which is not paying our community by proxy a single dime We need a leader directing our branch line. It is time to move forward with your common carrier agreement Please don't run on Santa Cruz time. We need our community moving What's more is that the same tracks on the main line part? Traverse Santa Cruz County for about two and a half miles east of the Pajaro River They also get us moving on a national level and we need to work on connecting to this asset My other and only car is the coast starlight out. Thank you. Thank you Is there anyone else who would like to address us during oral communication? Seeing none, I'll ask if there's any additions or deletion to the consent or regular agenda Anybody from that? Good morning, mr. Chairman. Sorry for the distraction. Yes, we have a replacement page for item 10 We have handouts for items 22 23 and 25 Already Next we'll move on to the consent agenda I'll see if there's any members of the commission who would like to pull or comment on issues on the consent agenda Make a comment on mr. McPherson Item number nine The status report on measure D revenues. I was just wondering. I think the cities and the county are identifying Projects that are going on that this is funded by measure D or sp1 And I just wanted to make sure that we have a coordinated effort to do that It's it's apparent that senate bill one is going to be challenged in the november election And I think it's important that we show that projects are being done and partially funded by one of those measures How are we coordinating that effort or how is it being is it being coordinated? Or is it up to each individual city county? I didn't get to call them all so I just wanted to find out Does anybody have an answer to that? I'm going to ask rachel to come up to the podium This is definitely her purview Good morning commissioners rachel marconi of your staff We have been reaching out to all of the public works departments who are the lead agencies Departments primarily for implementing their senate bill one projects. I know that each jurisdiction did approve their fiscal year 18 19 Senate bill one project lists just last month Several agencies are preparing signs to put on Their construction projects. We did share with them the sign specifications that caltrans had prepared We are also working on coordinated public outreach media releases just last week city of san or actually on Monday city of santa cruz had released a news release about their senate bill one projects that are going to construction I know that capitol has a couple projects going to construction this month as well And so we're working with them to encourage them to We've been sharing templates of news releases so that they can make sure the public knows What projects are being funded by the senate bill one gas tax funds? So that's the primary Efforts that we've been doing. I do have on my to-do list to Actually, the city of santa cruz staff just volunteered their gis department to map all of the senate bill one funded projects That have been approved by the cities in the county and so we hope to have that Um up very soon and we really appreciate the city of santa cruz for Stepping up with our gis staff to provide that. Okay. Thank you. So that's some of the some of a few of the things I think it's important if um, I don't know how we can coordinate the separate We have to be careful, you know about the advocacy and all of this informational, but uh Between now and uh, November to say this is how much has been getting done because of and so forth I think that's going to be important in the next few months and I think it's up to each of us that uh Contact our own cities or metro or various transportation agencies to compile a list and then maybe coordinate that effort And maybe this would be getting it to the commission office Would be the best way to do that so we could have a good message I think sure and we we can definitely we'll we'll provide a link to that map of all of the projects locally That have been prepared by the cities. Um, kaltrans also has a website It's called rebuilding C a dot c a dot gov and it also has a list of some of the Shop projects and other projects in the state that have been Funded it also includes the lists of each of the cities and counties, but it doesn't have them all mapped And so that's why we're doing a local effort also to map all of the projects here One other thing just to remind folks our board has taken a position supporting proposition 69 Which is on the june ballot and folks. I know just got their voter guides What prop 69 does just as a reminder is it firewalls? Some of the funds that are dedicated for senate bill one to make sure that those funds are only spent on transportation projects As intended under um senate bill one and so I just wanted to remind everyone that that's coming Well in advance of the november election of just reaffirming that commitment to spend those monies in that way That's that's good. I think this is couldn't can be confusing because one's yes and well it depends on where you are but If you're yes on one you're probably know on the other so it is important that Proposition 69 assures that transportation funds stay in the budget state in particular for transportation purposes correct Rachel isn't it also true that as part of our measure d contracts that they have to put some signage up as part of that Yes for measure d. We also do have sign guidelines Depending on the project size and also the location of the project. There's different sign Sizes so, you know sometimes if a bicycle lane project is Happening and it's right next to a crosswalk. We don't want too many, you know four foot by You know Three foot signs up because there'd be no space for pedestrians to walk or we'd be blocking roadways So we have a fairly accommodating signage Program, but yes local agencies have agreed to provide that signage and just yesterday Up in scott's valley. I noticed that the Inner section of gram hill and scott's valley drive which is currently under construction Absolutely is demonstrating that that project is funded by measure d So I could just say I really appreciate We've had a lot of conversations about signage recently at The city of santa cruz. So appreciate your assistance in our jurisdiction with the signage Making sure that we're Including measure d and also not confusing People moving around sure. Thank you Well, we drifted a little far afield from the item so I would just uh Move approval There's a motion to approve the consent agenda in a second Is there anyone from the public who'd like to comment on anything on the consent agenda? Seeing none all in favor signify by saying aye. All right any opposed motion carries unanimously with that We move to our regular agenda And item 19 is commissioners reports. Is there any commissioner who wants to report on a transportation related item? Seeing none Move on to the director's report. Good morning. Mr. Dondaro. Good morning, mr. Chairman and commissioners Um a few things to report on this morning um Starting with uh santa cruz bike share program New electric bikes are being installed this week at various locations around the city of santa cruz The ribbon cutting event will take place on may 22nd And commissioners will be invited to the event with the opportunity to take a short e-bike ride Um, our staff will be sending out you a more detailed information as soon as we get it But um and that's coming up Uh and somewhat related bike to work day is a week from today. That's actually bike to work and school day Uh, and it runs 6 30 to 9 30 a.m. And there'll be 12 public breakfast sites across the county Uh and 45 participating school sites Cyclists will be able to receive a free breakfast free bike maintenance raffle prizes and more And uh, let's see how you have to pre-register for the chance to win prizes Calcog met on uh, monday of this week. I was in sacramento for that meeting Much of the agenda is typical this year this time of year focused on legislation Um prop 69 was just mentioned By commissioner mcpherson And the good news is that the polling is looking strong for support of that is one thing we learned so But of course we we don't want to give up the uh, you know, keep keep encouraging folks to Support that The air resources board is working on setting new guidelines for how transportation agencies will comply with state mandates To reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Um, there's quite a bit of concern Amongst the transportation agencies that too much emphasis is being placed on modeling computer modeling which Probably reflects the fact that a model or sits on the california air resources board board In regards to senate bill 1 funding and the recent round of grants that were awarded Um ctc executive director susan branson told us that the ctc staff will be meeting in june With project sponsors to discuss what worked and what didn't in the first round of grant selections We know of course there were many many more projects submitted than were able to be funded Although it was um, it was a very um, and it was a very quickly administered Funding cycle Um, we have uh in regards to Current uh projects that are being funded locally with senate bill one money Last month the county of santa cruz and the cities of capitol of scott's valley And santa cruz and watsonville adopted project lists showing projects that will be funded From the f y 18 19 sp1 road maintenance and rehab account Also known as rma. That's a new acronym to add to our lexicon With those funds So these funds are providing desperately needed funds to cities and the county to fill potholes fixed storm damage And repave crumbling roadways Uh california transportation commission staff is also recommending uh one million from the competitive sp1 local partnership program For the city of scott's valley's glennwood active transportation project Uh project consists of roadway rehab class 2 bike lanes on glennwood drive accessibility improvements connecting to a complete Completed safe routes to school project and construction of five miles of trails in the glennwood preserve adjacent to the glennwood neighborhood Project is also funded by scott's valley Share of measure d formula funds And three hundred and ten thousand dollars in stbg funds approved by the rtc in december of last year California integrated travel conference, uh, this Is an event i attended over the last two days in davis The event was sponsored by the california state transportation agency and partners cal trans and the capitol corridor joint powers authority The focus was to have an open discussion of how to facilitate a process for statewide journey planning and payment With an aim to make travel simple simpler and more cost effective for everybody Um, and this is particularly on public transportation. Obviously, um, the challenge is to integrate travel across multiple modes throughout the state This involves governance coordinating routes and schedules Creating seamless transfers among and across modes Improving the availability of travel data in open and accessible formats Making trip planning and payment easier for travelers and making payment easier for travelers Over the two days an extensive list of speakers from europe and the us made presentations and held panel discussions Perspectives from london germany switzerland sweden and norway were provided as well as many from across the us I did it run into our, uh, general manager of metro. Alex cliford was there and i think we were both um Soaked in quite a bit of new information. This is a pretty um Very fresh look at transportation statewide by Coming from the state level, but uh, obviously wanting to include everybody And i'll try to put together a more detailed report a future meeting for you, but It's something that affects us all and then finally We are rtc is sponsoring a series of speakers to come and help deepen our understanding of transportation issues and how to do better planning and and Anticipate the needs of the county And our first speaker in the series will be here in two weeks. His name is jared walker We'll be sending out a Bio on him for you, but at our tpw meeting on may 17th He's going to lead an extensive workshop with you all And the first part of the workshop will be Sort of his framework of how he approaches transit planning He is a transit expert He hails from portland, but he's worked all over the world And then the second part of the workshop will be how he would apply those principles in santa cruz county. So he will take a more local Personalized look at our county He is he's well known internationally. He's the author of this book human transit You can get it through amazon. It's not expensive. You mean bookshop santa cruz and bookshop santa cruz I'm sorry What was I thinking? And um, he's got a very interesting website. Uh, there's some short videos there if you like to sort of sample what his thinking is, but he's a very creative and very Articulate presenter. I think you really enjoy him. So I encourage you to come to that meeting It will be held at the santa cruz city Council chambers because we expect some public to Want to come and enjoy that as well And then the but for those who can't come to a daytime meeting We'll also have him the night before On the 16th at the simpkins swim center Do a workshop for the public with pretty pretty much similar material and that will start at 6 30 p.m At the simpkins swim center So mark that on your calendars. I think it's something really unique To look forward to and that concludes my report. I'll be glad to answer questions Are there questions for our executive director? Has there been any discussion on how much funding we're going to be using from rsb 1 to promote the The 69 ballot measure I mean we're going to have to come up with money somewhere in terms of making sure that that's being marketed And I don't know if it's sp1 funds or where we're going to Well, I I don't think we can use funds to promote a ballot measure I think that we've taken a position in favor of it and the earlier discussion about making sure people know how sp1 Funds are spent is our best Right calling card And this is what agencies across the state are doing Yeah, I just want to make sure because I know that there's a lot of Self-funded and I just want to make sure we Have enough resources out. Well, there is a campaign organized around prop 69. That's raising money from the industry But as a public agency, we can't really Other questions for our executive director Seeing none we'll move on to item 21, which is our cow trans report in morning miss low Morning, mr. Chair morning commissioners first of all, I'd like to honor highway workers who lost their lives To in the course of doing business I think I probably mentioned this last time because we were going to be having our annual statewide worker memorial This morning at the offices in San Luis Biscoe. We're holding the district five worker memorial There have been 188 individuals who've lost their lives working on the roadside Working for the california department of transportation eight of those were from our area here in district five Since the beginning of our organization We don't want to add to that number And so we continue to ask folks to please slow for the cone zone and respect highway workers Pulled over on the side by moving over and slowing down when you go by They put their lives at risk on a daily basis for our convenience and mobility Second I would like to acknowledge Some of the new commitments of funding that have been made around the state One of which is a program referred to as the transit and inner city rail capital program These grants are awarded by california state transportation agency in the district five region. We cover five counties We had are going to be the recipients of a significant funding for transit and rail In the santa barbara region. It's 20 million dollars In monterey county, it'll be 10 million dollars And then low san which is the corridor that runs between san diego With services all the way to san lus pisco is receiving 148 million dollars, of course much of that It was focused in the urban areas to increase the on time performance But it is a significant new investment investment in transit and inner city passenger rail That is in part funded by senate bill one and the cap and trade program In addition includes these are the important programs for climate investments There are ongoing opportunities for for new grants One of which was just announced was the usdot has announced the new program. They referred to as build bu ild We referred to it previously as tiger These are Smaller individual grant awards up to 25 million dollars They're they're focused more on rural areas They're the minimum grant award is five million The primary criteria are safety state of good repair economic competitiveness environmental protection and quality of life Caltrans may be applying for these any applicant is limited to two Excuse me to a total of three Projects so we're now scanning our list of projects to determine what Which we might move forward with and there may be opportunities for the regional transportation commission as well Back to funding that that is being spent. I'd also like to point out that you may see and I saw on my way here yesterday Is a Significant effort across our district to restripe highway 101 with new wider striping seems like a minor effort We're increasing the width of the stripe from four inches to six And what you'll notice is a significant increase in your visibility, especially at night and under rainy conditions This project in our district will restripe over a thousand mile a thousand lane miles It's a four point nine million dollar project. And this is funded by sp1 While we're spending money. We're also spending to save money This project will actually reduce the annual maintenance requirements and help restore and return a longer life to our payment and our infrastructure Likewise in terms of saving money. We also invest heavily or Invite heavily our volunteers. We have a very effective adopt a highway program April was our litter awareness month. We have an annual litter day Right around the earth day time frame Last year around the state We we were able to put 3 000 groups Together with an estimated 11 000 volunteers these folks picked up enough garbage to fill 650 garbage trucks We're always looking for new adopters The adopt a highway program is estimated to save taxpayers about 17 million dollars a year Your project update report is is current and I would like to Share one change and that's to project number 10 the highway 152 ad a project near watsonville We're shifting our time frame just slightly There were some complications In in getting this together, but we're looking at an 18 19 still construction year Supervisor cap it. I know you've been anxious to see that go to construction this year 2018 We should have the contract plans ready to list for advertising next month And the contract would be awarded still late this year and we'd be going to construction early late this year early next year Thank you very much for your presentation. Are there questions Mr. Bertrand, you know you mentioned how many people have been killed in the course of your work on the highway site That's very concerning to me And I was wondering permission to chair if you could come back at some point and tell us what Caltrans is actually doing to protect our workers on the road. I don't expect an answer right now. I assume that there's probably rather Detailed and you know significant effort to make that a successful program A little bit Yeah, I mean why don't you share briefly and if you want more information Mr. Bertrand, she can provide it to you, but if you want to just share briefly Yes, thank you. We do a lot of things to protect our highway workers our most important resource Every year there's new there are new innovations. We have some equipment where Workers are protected within a shield when they're out on the road. We have been constructing roadside pullouts We have a new safety vehicle whereby maintenance workers are Are protected in the vehicle they can do their work from within the vehicle instead of being out on the road So we do a lot of things to protect what we call worker exposure and We we also do projects such as what we call gore paving where we There's areas where the highway workers have to go in and pick up litter or mow weeds But by paving it we're able to clean that up and and reduce their Instance of exposure. So there is quite a quite a long list And we we're happy to provide more information, but it's high on our radar Yeah, I'd like to see more Father any other questions from miss low? Supervisor cap Is uh, how many this year have actually Been hit or you know died I guess this year workers I'm sorry. I don't I don't have that data with me. We have um none in district five Thankfully Okay, well then we do have a 930 scheduled item. Uh, thank you miss low Our 930 uh item is a public hearing about the 2018 unmet paratransit and transit needs Miss blakesley. Good morning. Good morning commissioners grace blakesley of your staff That item before you is regarding the unmet paratransit and transit needs list This item is typically reviewed by the commission every year and typically in may The transportation development act statutes Required transportation planning agencies that use transportation TDA funds for local streets and roads projects to implement a public process including a public hearing to identify unmet paratransit and transit needs And determine if unmet transit needs can be reasonably met Although the rtc does not allocate transportation development act funds to local streets and roads project and therefore is not Required to perform this analysis the rtc endeavors to solicit regular input on unmet paratransit and transit needs It to provide a useful tool to assess and prioritize needs in the region Serving as the social service transportation advisory council per tba statutes the elderly and disabled transportation advisory committee regularly hears and considers unmet needs in sanacruz county Unmet paratransit and transit needs are those needs which are not being met by the current public transportation system Have shown community support community support and do not duplicate existing services provided publicly or privately Attached for the regional transportation commission's consideration is the 2018 Unmet paratransit and transit needs list with changes since the last year's list 2017 shown in underline and strikeout The unmet needs are prioritized using a high medium and low rankings The high priority items are those that fill a gap or provide a new service Or a regular ongoing service Medium priority items are those that's made supplement in existing service and low priority items are still an important unmet need identified But it may have been assigned a low priority because of the general nature and the the need for more specific planning Or that it may not address a basic need such as transportation to medical appointments shopping or accesses to other basic services Within each category there are three levels indicating to what extent these needs if addressed would advance the regional transportation commission goals as defined in the regional transportation plan Including safety economic vitality and cost effectiveness The items on this list input Consider input from a variety of sources and is primarily a document Worked on by the RTC's elderly and disabled transportation advisory committee Which includes staff from metro and the consolidated transportation services agency Some of the updates to the unmet needs list from last year reflect a greater awareness about the unique Needs of people living with cognitive impairments dementia or mental health diagnosis In 2017 regional transportation commission staff Worked closely with the mental health client action network to secure caltrans 5310 funding for two years of operation funds For a van to provide transportation services to their clients Other updates reflect work done to identify non-traditional means or strategies for addressing some of these ongoing unmet needs And to continue to develop a comprehensive list of needs identified by various stakeholders in santa cruz county This list is not a recommendation for funding today It does not prioritize projects for funding and it doesn't provide project schedules or detailed budgets or timelines The list is frequently used to identify projects to consider in the preparation of grants and funding requests It's noteworthy. I think that as a result of measure d funding provided under the category of transit and seniors living with disability That some historically high priority needs including same-day specialized transportation services And access to paratransit services on the weekends have moved from a high to a medium priority I think that's something that this commission can be very proud of Today staff recommends that the rgc adopt the 2018 unmet paratransit and transit needs list With amendments as appropriate following a public hearing and consider unmet paratransit and transit needs as funding becomes available That concludes my report. Thank you very much Are there questions from commissioners? Are there members of the public who would like to testify? Well, you want to come to the microphone There wasn't any a call to invite per the uh cal trans report and I just had one quick comment about that Let us finish this item. Okay Is there anyone who would like to uh Testify about the unmet paratransit and transit needs Well, seeing none. I will close the public hearing. Oh, no, there's someone in the back Please come forward Yes, thank you Yeah, I was uh, it's regarding uh public transit out from the selva beach right and uh You know, I frequently would ride the bus from there to get into town get You know back and forth and recently had been cut and There's no uh possible way I could get Anywhere from la selva or to la selva without riding a taxi and that generally cost over 20 to go a couple miles It's really It's out of my pocket in other words to to get that done Sure, what else I could say about it, but I do ride the bus quite frequently all over the county Um, do you mean that your fixed route bus the actual bus or the paratransit service? Now service has been cut correct If I could comment, yeah the transit district um when we made major cuts in a this is not the ones We just made the last year but the year before that actually made a very difficult decision to Uh really We had a policy generally that routes had to be within a quarter mile of one of our existing fixed routes to be able to receive paratransit service to your home or business and um As a result there were certain in certain areas including a part of the selva beach people who had previously we we didn't follow our policy We were running uh Paratransit service well beyond the quarter mile limit We were forced because of financial reality To make the cut back to that to the quarter mile limit and that resulted in some people losing paired not a large number But some people losing pair transit Service must be an example of that and his comments are very appropriate to the issue that were in front of us Which is this is now an unmet need. We used to serve it before it's certainly a reasonable need That's being expressed here But we just have financial constriction In the transit district and the cost of providing that service was meaning We'd have to cut some fixed routes that served actually even more disabled folks than Then we're being served by paratransit. So very hard decision But uh, it it's certainly appropriate to have this on a wish list of things that we would be looking at for grant funding Or ways to think about a service that might be restored particularly with things like measure defunding So that's just it should be added to the list as uh He's suggesting and I don't know if we have to add something specific for that particular Place but we certainly should know it's already it's listed here among the things that we have to provide Restoring the service to uh Areas the transit district had to cut So I don't know that we have to list, you know, your particular place But it's helpful to have your testimony that this is a real problem for someone that lives in our county So thank you for that Thank you, uh, mr. Johnson So I know from my mom who's 95 has used paratransit considerably, but she's uh Right in the heart of uh, watsonville Um, and the price is very reasonable Is there a way maybe uh bifurcating the And having different rates for those who are within a quarter mile and instead of four dollars a trip maybe Instead of having to pay 25 or whatever he has to pay He might have to pay eight or nine And double the price but it still provide the service I think the problem is that the federal guidelines limit how much you can charge for paratransit service And so you're even though you're talking about paying it for a premium service in effect Paying something more but not as much as a taxi ride We can look into that at the district. I'll suggest that we do that in our transit meeting But but I think it's going to be difficult because you basically you have one Fixed price you can charge for your paratransit service and I don't know that we have the ability to It's a great idea, but the federal guidelines may limit our ability to do it But I I will make sure the district looks into that question Are there other uh Is there other testimony? Today, please come forward Good morning Good morning, everyone. My name is carol children's and I run the senior lunch program for meals on wheels up in the sander in the valley Hi bruce and We have I have one lady in particular That she's a we call her a young senior. She's under 70 But due to vision problems. She takes uh the bus Well for her recently She had an appointment at dientes Over on commercial way She lives up on brown gables, which is just a bit north of downtown ben loman For her to get to her appointment She left her house three hours early to make that one appointment Um, and this means walking along highway nine, which is dark to catch that first bus It means transferring downtown Um When the weather's bad luckily that day it wasn't There's no shelters at the bus routes along highway nine. So she's out unprotected on a dark highway I would like on my wish list It would be that our folks that are still trying to be as independent as possible That some of those roadblocks to that independence be removed or at least lightened Thank you Thank you Is there any uh more testimony? Please come forward Hi, my name is jonathan flint. I work with camp hill communities california, which is based up in so cal We support about 20 adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities Both living in licensed residential care and also in supported living Which are people who are able to live in their own home with individualized support Which is really the direction the whole service system is moving in and paratransit is an integral part of that I'm also part of a group of of supported living providers who are in Watsonville santa cruz area and I said that I would come in and one individual asked that I plug for the rail trail That this the idea of corridors for people With intellectual and developmental disabilities that would have clear signage that Would be more direct more predictable. These are all crucial factors When you're looking at independence and and thinking about not just getting to point a from point a to point b But getting there safely and getting there independently Yeah, and and then specifically regarding para crews I think over 70 percent of the individuals we support utilize para crews about one, you know, at least once a week And I think it's hard to you know Hand in hand with with the actual service. It's important to consider the amount of time it takes And and you know any implicit value judgment on people's time who have an intellectual developmental disability I don't think anyone in this room would use uber if they Were given a 45 minute appointment window And there's obviously financial reality, but I think recognizing the Any implicit bias and values behind why those systems exist is is certainly an important consideration So thank you. Thank you Is there anyone else who would like to testify about the unmet paratransit and transit needs? Good morning So I was reviewing this list and a couple of eye catchers. I noticed was line 43 Wi-Fi expansion is granted medium priority whereas other items such as faster run times on transit routes Access to transportation services on all holidays are also categorized within the Medium priority same with inter regional and cross county transit services I'd like to think that those would deserve a little bit of a higher priority versus Wi-Fi expansion like that that would be awesome. Don't get me wrong like I love having that on the highway 17 bus, but I think I'd say it if anything the Wi-Fi expansion should be considered a low priority task because these other issues as others have mentioned as well as The facts that we do have some slow run times on our current system Should take precedence over Such an item. I would say some of these priorities should be vetted a little more thoroughly Thank you. Thank you Is there anyone else who would like to testify? I will close the public hearing. I think Mr. Rockin had a comment As president of metro this year and directors rockin leopold bachlore and others Being members of that. I can assure you that we will we're aware of this We are looking in as we go into this next budget session and getting back to sp1 We are very very cautious about implementing some new additions to any budget item Uh not being unknown it being unknown of what's going to happen to senate the senate bill one vote in november so Probably we're going to be in the stat I would imagine pretty much the status quo in our upcoming budget But because we don't want to add something and then have to cut it three or four months later So that's kind of where metro is in this but uh, the points that were made are well taken Um, and I'll relay those to the staff and we have some staff borough emerson here from metro as well It's different. Is there an attempt going to be made to come up with a list of what would be done if the sp1 continues So that the public can be aware of while these improvements aren't being done now because of the uncertainty They're up for consideration their priorities and if there's funding available They will be implemented. Yeah, we can we can do that with or without sp1 I think that's a good point that we can make You know at the metro the transit district other comments I would just say that the testimony is very important. Um, and uh, uh, we members of the metro will take Especially the comments about the paratransit service very seriously bring that up with our board Who is the one who could who could make a difference in uh in the change of that service? Mr. Rockin I'll move that we approve this um List of on that paratransit and transit needs that we do send Information about the testimony we got today to the transit district formally for it allows us to respond to the concerns raised I I wasn't sure exactly what it is. We could do to fix that problem in Ben loman for the example that we were given which like is important But we'll refer all those to the transit district because that would be the agency that's going to have to actually do something about it The reason i'm not gonna what can you wait till there's a second to your motion? Yeah, I'll second that motion with the motion by rockin seconded by McPherson that that is another way of saying the staff recommendation To prove the staff recommendation. That's exactly I understood. That's what he meant. Right. That is what I meant But I want to now you have a comment The only comment I want to make is that i'm not going to suggest amending the prior the uh Uh priority listing as was suggested by a member of the public only because this is not a list That's going to get funded tomorrow afternoon And this is a list that people will be looking at what in terms of what kinds of grants are available And whether they're listed as high or low in this thing I think they're going to go after every grant they get that actually would apply to any particular need That's it's unmet here. So I although I agree there might be some things moved around I don't think it's going to be a critical issue to do this particular setting Yeah, and I would also just add that the we do have an elderly and disabled handicap committee That meets regularly that does vet this list And so uh, this is from leaders within that community Who are proposing it so There is a motion on the table In a second all in favor signify by saying aye Any opposed motion carries unanimously. Thank you for your work Yeah now, uh, we'll get that count before we start the next item. There was a quick comment about the cow trans report um A couple of weeks ago I actually got to go on a little late night drive with one of my friends down highway 236 and um It is pristine and I just wanted to give kudos to whoever repaved that road I wish more of our roads could be like and freeways could be like that Aside from the one lane parts that is but um, it's very pristine and Thank you to all the construction workers who made that possible Thank you with that positive note. Can we adjourn? Ms. Locut adjourned But we will continue on with the meeting soldier on item number 23, which is our highway 17 wildlife crossing Measure d project update and funding arrangements. Good morning. Ms. Morconi. Good morning commissioners rachel morconi of your staff once again Um before you today, we had invited cal trans who has been working on a very exciting project that is funded by measure d Which is the highway 17 wildlife crossing Up near laurel road and we have several cal trans staffers here today to make a presentation on this um As voters committed measure d funds for this project We also and the land trust has committed to do some fundraising to cover some of the construction cost as well We also need to establish some funding agreements with cal trans. We do that through a cooperative agreement And so today in addition to hearing a presentation update on this project We are asking for your authorization for our executive director to negotiate those funding agreements with cal trans and the land trust And i'd be happy to answer any additional questions about that perhaps after Cal trans makes its presentation on the project. So with that i'll hand it over to erin hinkle Who is the project manager for this project from district five? Good morning. Good morning commissioners. Thank you for having us here this morning. Um I'm pretty excited about this project. We've been working pretty hard on it last night. We did have a open house up Office 17 a little bit To inform the public of what we have going on So today we'd like to kind of give you an update of how we got to where we are And exactly where we are and where we're heading So with that said i'd like to bring up, um, nancy cyple and morgan robertson who are biologists for the project To kind of start with a power presentation try to go through it really quick And then answer some questions and give you more information A couple ahead Thank you for your time. I'm i'm nancy Cyple and this is morgan robertson. We kind of team tagged this presentation. So i'm going to go first with the introduction This is the location for the wildlife under crossing on highway 17 where the red dot is And as you all know, that's that laurel curve that kind of really dangerous curve on the highway and um As you can see the road highway 17 bisects the santa cruz mountains And um morgan will show a slide that's pretty awesome That shows how it interferes with the connection between the gabalon range to the south and the diabol range to the east across highway 101 No, 101 It's a it's a huge wildlife corridor And this was a project need and that's laurel curve. You can see it from the air there and The problem there and along the highway in general is we have these huge high traffic volumes daily High traffic volumes And for safety reasons We've had to put in a lot of concrete medium barriers I mean because of the safety issues And also concrete guardrails and along this particular stretch in santa cruz county We don't have any culverts or bridges that animals can go under under across the highway That are more than about two to three feet wide So, you know, they don't get through there too much except for maybe possums and raccoons And that creates a huge barrier This is a photograph of what laurel curve looks like underneath the highway. This is the viaduct that's set up on the road bed and It kind of looks like it might be permeable, but it's really not it There's a concrete wall underneath there So animals are forced at this location forced to try and cross the road and they either get hit Because they can't get across the medium barrier or some of you know, some of them can jump the medium barrier at times And this is Just to show all of our collaborative partners We know the land trust cal trans santa cruz. We don't transportation agency but we also partnered with california department fish and wildlife And the land trust hired pathways for wildlife to do all the camera monitoring that morgan's going to talk about And uc Santa Cruz has a puma study And they were kind enough to give us their telemetry data for the cats that they have just gps collars on And that really provided us with really solid data to that points that laurel curve is a really good place for wildlife crossing This is just a brief summary of the project funding the land trust Purchased 463 acres through fee title or conservation easements And so there's now land protected on both sides of the highway through conservation easements cal trans received over three million dollars from the 2016 shop 240 advanced mitigation program To complete the environmental document and the design phase, which is where we are today in the project The construction cost is over five million and that is rachel mentioned Construction is going to come through the tax measure d and additional funds that the land trust will I'll get through their donations Methods for identifying locations to improve connectivity included landscape scale monitoring Modeling that showed where there were important wildlife corridors In the mountain Santa Cruz mountains and also to the mountain ranges to the south and the east Cal trans and pathways for wildlife Collaborated on collating roadkill data and pathways for wildlife has continued to collect roadkill data at laurel curve And also monitor wildlife movements with cameras and then the dps data from Santa Cruz I'm going to turn this over to morgan. She's going to Do a few slides and then I'll come back in Morning Nancy always lets me talk about the fun stuff. So I get to talk about the science behind the project. So She mentioned first off we use modeling so modeling maps will show us some important information about these critical linkages on the landscape And so in this case this map here was made by south coast wildlands in 2013 as part of the bay area critical linkages project And so what we see and we'll point her but right in the center The lighter green is the Santa Cruz mountains critical linkage and you can see how it links the darker green areas These core habitat areas the diablo range and the gable on range So it's a really nice depiction and if you look closely right in the center of that linkage is highway 17 So 17 bisects this critical linkage And then on highway 17 itself We have some wonderful studies have been done by our partners at pathways for wildlife in conjunction with the land trust They went ahead and looked at animal vehicle collision data for highway 17 And what they found in santa cruz county is that laurel curve is an animal vehicle Hot spot where animals are being hit on a consistent basis and what you see there It's a little small But you can see there's different colored dots and each one of those represents an animal that was hit on the Highway and the different colors represent different species So you can see a lot of yellow there that's deer, but we also have Some bobcats and orange and the red stars represent mountain lines that would hit this location In addition our partners went out and put camera arrays Along both sides of the highway and the different parcels there that the land trust has acquired since conservation for And so this particular graphic shows on the Best side of the highway Um, I gotta get my area straight there So if you look there's little green dots in there each one of those represents a camera monitoring station and What we found is wildlife movement and in this particular case they tracked mountain lions going east from so-called creek towards highway 17 And this path represents a track that a single mountain line took seven different times towards the highway And unfortunately seven times he got hit on the road In addition to mountain line tracking the camera arrays have found all sorts of other native species using that Area on both sides of the highway moving back and forth And so we have lots of examples of coyotes top right. There's bobcat a lot of gray foxes Um, and then lots of deer so what we've Determined is this area is High value for many native species and that a wildlife crossing application would serve A quite a number of species not just larger species like mountain lion and deer So it would help improve connectivity for all of our native species there In addition, we worked with the uc santa cruise group uc santa cruise puma project Which has done some great work through the santa cruise mountains with satellite telemetry on mountain lions there And what dr. Wilmer's group has found Is that they have a number of these crossings at moral curve And so each one of these lines that you see on the map there represents a different mountain lion crossing highway And what dr. Wilmer's has found is that the majority of crossings in santa cruise county by mountain lions are at the lower curve area And so this is my last slide, but it's my favorite because it summarizes all the data together in one place So what we can see is this about rural curve there in the center We can see that concentration of roadkill you can see the uc santa cruise telemetry project So in all the places around lines are crossing We have our camera arrays that have shown us that we have a lot of different species using this area going back and forth And then finally we see the conservation easements that the land trust has acquired on both sides of the highway Which are really important investment in conserving this wildlife corridor for the long term So what I like about this is it as a scientist I like the fact we have a lot of data all in one place and all our best available science is kind of converging there at Lural curve and the animal behavior is Guiding us to where we think would be the ideal spot for a wildlife crossing And i'm going to turn it back over to nancy talk about the crossing um, this is um The preliminary design that we developed when we were doing our project initiation document um, originally we had two designs one was a box culvert under crossing This design is came out as the Actually the cheaper design and the most optimal design for an under crossing for wildlife And what it entails is they will do precast They'll replace the road surface with a precast Bridge that will provide an under crossing underneath the highway It'll be placed on top And then afterwards the soil that's on the highway right now down the roadbed will be dug out afterwards And it makes a really Really really good opportunity for a wildlife to be able to cross under and this is a great slide our design engineer found online that sort of shows a similar type of wildlife crossing and this is how the view would be for the wildlife So you can see it's kind of an open laid-back slopes It's going to be about 16 feet wide And 60 feet long and 12 feet high and it'll have a natural bottom So so from the wildlife perspective, it'll just look like natural habitat and a good opportunity to cross under the highway As part of the project it for all wildlife crossing projects wildlife fencing projects. You also usually include Other infrastructure, which are escape ramps and wildlife guards at local roads So there would be some type of wildlife guard at Laurel Road and the local driveway This is just an example on the right of the guard from our project on highway 46 east of Paso Robles The jump outs at the top Are on our highway north of San Luis highway 101 and as you can see this Photo on the left is an escape ramp. That's what the animal sees from the highway side So for some reason they got trapped on the highway They could run up that ramp and then jump off as you see that buck jumping off the ramp And that's one of my favorite ones because that sign says highway 58 interchange crossing So that's right near an interchange and that buck and we've had other animals doze and fawns jump off too So i'd like to just final say thanks to all our partners and a special thanks to the partners The residents of Santa Cruz county that supported measure d and all the folks that donated to the land trust. Thank you Thank you. So where we are today is We have the project report almost finished. It's in what we call our electronic review Which means the management of caltrans and our district are reviewing it for technical issues and everything else Once that is complete. We will be signing the project report Our environmental document is done. We got a category exemption category exclusion for the project So we're hoping by the end of may to actually be out of our project report phase And hopefully be able to start the design phase by july Which brings this about two months ahead of when we were supposed to have the project report signed The current cost estimate is 5.6 million for construction And the yours constituents voted to Authorize five million. So thank you for you and your constituents because this is in your your your neighborhood And so your people are helping to pay for this in partnership with the land trust who had agreed to put three million up And then caltrans has been covering the support cost For the project and we're looking to have it. Hopefully if we stay on schedule to have it In construction in september of 2021 I'm hoping that we can beat that by a little bit and it just depends on how long it takes to get through the process Of getting the plans built plans done and reviewed and everything So with that, are there any questions that I could answer for anybody? Thank you for the presentation I'm sure there will be questions. Mr. Schifrin Yes, it seems For this size project a really long time to do the design since the environmental document is done the project Uh plan is done And it's a You know, it just seems like it's not a major road project Why is it taking over three years to go from the from this point to construction? Design phase is going to take about two years to be done and then it takes about six months to advertise an award a project Just it's just part of the process The design phase because it seems real simple, but in order to keep traffic open. So As part of this we've looked at being able to keep four lanes open on the highway and be able to build the bridge in thirds So they'll barricade off a third of the what is existing now shift traffic over Drill and place supports Put the new road bed down on the existing dirt Open that up move traffic and do that three times So to develop the plans to do all this just takes time plans aren't developed yet. All we had was a preliminary kind of Almost napkin type sketch a little bit more than that, but it's it's not that developed yet We haven't looked at all the stresses all the loading All the soil parameters everything like that for what the structure really needs So that comes into the next phase as all wells all the traffic handling and things like that And that's all going to be covered the cost of that design is going to be covered by caltrans The the design phase is covered by caltrans. Yes. Okay. Thank you and it was approved by the ctc Thanks for that explanation Aaron, would you like to go back to the slide with the um the layout in the cross section? Because it might be relevant to point out that Right there now We have we have a structure there now. It's a viaduct. So we're modifying an existing structure and it's a little bit of a complicated It's a little bit hard to see but that it is a complicated design The little red square kind of shows you where it's going to be We're actually going to end up removing the existing road section there So drivers when they're moved over They're just being shifted. We're going to try to slow them down the best we can for safety reasons and the The contractor then will remove the existing road surface They will drill Cast and drill piles basically for support for the new structure They'll put the new structure where what was proposed was precast slabs To be able to make this efficient and quick because they've estimated about 10 months worth of construction time for the bridge So then they'll put the slabs down We'll get that tied into the existing road Move traffic onto that one and go to the next third and do the same thing three times across the road section So when we're said and done Before it's all opened up for animals We'll still have work underneath but the driving the motoring public will be on the new Bridge and after the bridge is all the way open then we'll excavate all the soil out from underneath The bridge which is actually supporting the road section right now Thank you other questions Mr. Bertrand I just have a couple of curiosity questions. I guess so I'd like to know how the conservation easement works What effect does that have on the landowners and is that advertised are there signs? I'm just trying to get an understanding of that. I have no idea that would be a question for somebody from the land trust Uh, can you be brief you can come forward And then my second question is this a site for opportunistic predation so as animals use the bridge go through Is there any cases of that that's been monitored? I know it works, but I'm just wondering if that's also Something that actually happens Stevens the executive director of the land trust Um, conservation easements are permanent restrictions on the title So if you have an easement that allows me to cross your property no matter who owns the property I can cross it So what we have done on this 400 and some acres is we have put easements that restrict building In areas where the mountain lions would go And yes, if you violate the easements there are primes There's a particularly colorful story associated with this of someone who bought the property had a house that was clearly a tear down was unoccupied They decided it was acceptable to dig a hole In the area where the wildlife corridor is and pushed the house into it That was a violation and they had to clean it up Um, we have someone that monitors our properties We call that the the house in the whole violation Nancy will be able to respond to the other issue about the animals Um, tony clevenger who's one of the experts nationwide and internationally on wildlife Connectivity issues and does a lot of work up in damp canada with similar structures Um, has done studies and so has his co-worker Marcel hauser from the western transportation institute And they've done studies that have dispelled the fact that An under crossing will create a trap for animals and predators can prey on them more easily They found that there's no correlation Does that answer your question? Yeah Other questions? Thank you. Um, when it comes to the land trust and the 463 acres Uh, would this be used for any other purpose such as any trails or anything else in terms of, um People being able to use on this particular Um easement Um, uh, steven slade again. Uh, no, there's no public access planned on these trails all the All that land is has private landowners and we just hold the easements So the landowners um have control of the rest of the property. They just can't bother the wildlife My constituents in the laurel community were hoping that they could They could use this to get across because when they closed the laurel curve Exit where people could turn left. That was a big impact that caltrans made to that community Others Mr. Dondaro, um, yes, I I would just like to acknowledge What a great partnership? This has been to get this project to this point um The three million that the land trust is putting in towards the The the building of the project does not include What you spent on actually acquiring the easements. Is that correct steven? Yeah, so um, and The land trust when they approached us on first on this project Um was was Already, uh, had some of these easements in place and they were working. I think on the final piece So they basically did this they advanced on this project somewhat at risk They had no guarantees that caltrans was going to get as excited as they have of course they We know it's been a great story. You know since then so um, and then of course and that was before of course well before measure d was uh, even, um Um Determined to be on the ballot so Everything came together in in in in really great ways and I think we should all be Happy to see what we can do with a relatively small amount of money to do something that's going to benefit the community And both the two legged and the four legged varieties, uh, you know for for many years to come And I've worked with nancy cypill over the years on different projects, and I know that she'll soon be Retiring she's gonna beat beat me to the punch But I just want to acknowledge the great work that you've done nancy. Um, I know you've been a real champion for this and Other wildlife related type projects, so thank you Mr. Schifrin Yes, um, I think this is a great example of how complicated it can be to do a simple project When I remember hearing it early on they just want to do a little wildlife Connection on highway 17 kind of like what's the big deal? You just dig a hole and let the animals go through And you know the amount of money it's costing the amount of time it's taking The commitment that the land trust is made to this project. I think is very commendable the commitment that caltrans is now making I think they started out somewhat skeptical And caltrans about whether this was really a worthwhile project to do but it sounds like they've really Got totally involved in it. And I think now with the measure defunding and the ability to Use it in an effective way It's going to be possible to do this to get this project actually Constructed in and of benefit to the wildlife of the county So on the basis of that I'll move to staff recommendation And thank all the cooperating party to for the work that they've done second So there's a motion by Schifrin seconded by rock and we do have to take public comment as well Um, I just wanted to add uh, just a couple of remarks and a question Um, is there other wildlife tunnels in the caltrans system? Um Like this Um, I believe there are some and I know there's a big bridge that's proposed down in district seven across 101 And on some of the other districts, um up in highway 89 by truckie They've put in under crossings. It's much simpler. I mean it took time But they were on relatively flat ground and two lane highways and they've put in multiple crossings for migratory deer herds They've also done work up in highway five near shasta And district 11 down south has done a project on highway 76 76 and put in under crossings And um similar features with escape ramps and Fencing, um, so around the state there have been other projects Some of them aren't well advertised because they're part of larger projects This is the first project that would be specifically for mountain lions And under crossing for mountain lions Thank you. Um, I also want to add my appreciation to the land trust because in addition to all the work they did in terms of uh Doing the conservation easement Uh, and doing a lot of work in sacramento and other places to get the build the support for it They also build support in the community by doing regular presentations with, uh, dr. Wilmers Which were well attended and made people aware of this issue. I know that I attended one Uh several years back that I learned a lot about mountain lions It was a it was a fascinating presentation and helped me better understand the importance of this, uh Um, of the importance of this wildlife tunnel. So thank you to all involved Now I'll see if there are members of the public who would like to uh make any comments Stephen slave from the land trust. I just want to thank you for your partnership and your work on this We we when saying that we started this it was kind of a risky thing is an understatement of all times and We weren't even smart enough to know how risky it was to suggest to caltrans what they should do on our highways, okay We've learned our lesson. They've been very, uh graceful And we look forward to getting this project done as quickly as possible And we have some other projects in common. We'd like to see those done as quickly as possible too Thank you Thanks for being a great partner. Is there other uh, who would like to address us Seeing none, uh, uh, there's a motion by shifrin seconded by rockin All in favor. Oh, uh, mr. Johnson. Uh, thank you chair You know, I'm glad annie shifrin asked the question about timing uh, uh two and a half three years of uh, what I consider something of a delay Does caltrans ever have a sense of urgency to expedite things? I mean, we're you know Animals are gonna die here While while we're planning on the back of napkins and so forth So it just seems like to take two and a half years to build a relatively small project This is five million six million dollars not five billion dollars. And so I just It bothers me that um, we're we're so comfortable with, uh the timing here So it's it seems real relatively easy So Let's take a step back then what we're building through is an existing viaduct Which already has structural components to it with Tendons that go down that we have to try to avoid because we're not removing the whole viaduct We're only going through part of it So it's going to take a lot more time to try to figure out exactly where we're going to place this to Miss all these items that are already there for support for the existing viaduct It's the process it takes to go through the calculations the design the creations plans specs and estimates just to get done It's just it's what it takes. We're not sitting on it Like I said at this point. We're already two months ahead of schedule We've been moving Continuously with it. We will move continuously with it in the future if we can move it forward faster. We will But I don't want to promise something here that I can't deliver Um, it's just what it takes to get all the studies done for the design And get both the structures design and the roadway design and meet with the biologists the landscape architects To make sure everything is coordinated as one smooth piece But can't you do a lot of that concurrently? Can't you you know one person is meeting over here another person's meeting over here Can't you consolidate the timing of the bid process? It takes I mean the six months. Maybe it's maybe it's A situation where it's by law you have to I guess you have to do it But at the same time it just seems like everything moves in a Pretty slow process and It's I think it's a frustration of people in general who have You know Given to measure D have expectations of measure D and then it's a glacial sort of process that you know We'll take our time But thank you It it does appear that way and there's a lot of legislative Issues that we have to follow when we put things to bid how long we have to advertise them And things that we have to check then once the project is bid from each of the contractors before awarding it And it's just it's a lot of process and paperwork that takes four to six months Once we've reached rtl Just to get the contractor on board And and a lot of that we don't have any choice on because a lot of it is legislatively Set for what we have to follow for advertising. Okay. Thank you I'm trying to get to a vote here. Um, I see mr. Rockins hand is up. Uh, I'll see if he has a the comment I do Um, I'll make it brief Animals have been killed on this highway since it was built as the first state highway in california 1911 And if this could be fixed in three more years, I think that would be great There's there's been a call for the question, uh, all all in favor of Of the motion by shifrin and rockin, uh, please say aye Any opposed motion carries unanimously and we extend our great thanks to all the partners on this project Next we will move to item 24, which is the measure d community bridges lift line five year program Good morning commissioners grace blakes live your staff again Um before getting started I wanted to note a correction to the staff recommendation number two on the first page of the staff report The date of the public hearing to consider public input on the measure d five year plan Under the transit and seniors and people with disabilities category should be june 14th 2018 not june 7th The correction reflects the change of the regularly scheduled rtc meeting to june 14th that meeting will be held in the city of watsonville So the item before you discusses the 4 percent of net measure d revenues allocated to the consolidated transportation services agency for santa cruz county The agency community bridges lift line which i believe you're familiar with serves as the consolidated transportation service agency in santa cruz county lift line the lift line program provides specialized and non-emergency health and medical transportation for low income seniors and disabled residents in santa cruz county And riders are not charged a fare for their service This 4 percent of the measure measure d revenues allocated to community bridges lift line is part of the overall 20 percent of net measure d revenues designated for transit for seniors and people with disabilities category The other 16 percent of this category is allocated to the santa cruz metropolitan transit district Each agency receiving measure d revenue is required to annually develop update and hold a public hearing to adopt a five year program of projects Identifying how they will deliver measure d projects in the upcoming five years Agency must also submit an annual report describing their actual expenditures and progress towards these goals The measure d five-year Excuse me the measure d five-year funding projection fiscal year 18 through 23 For direct allocation to community bridges is estimated to be close to four million dollars for the five-year period with an average annual distribution of almost 800 000 The draft five-year plan covering the period fiscal year 18 19 through fiscal year 22 23 for direct allocation to community bridges Is included in your packet as attachment to of this item? Similarly to the prior your five-year plan community bridges proposes Dedicating approximately 50 of this allocation towards service expansion Including funder for funding for new driver positions Funding for a new driver trainer who also serves as a backup driver funding for outreach funding for an administrative assistant in dispatcher Similar to the prior year these measure d funds will allow for an extension of service from five days to seven days per week And extend service expand service hours from 10 30 to 3 30 to be 8 a.m to 4 p.m The other 50 percent of measure d funds allocated to community bridges is planned to be used for capital investments Including the purchase of vehicles and equipment and some funding Some funding to go toward the purchase or lease of a new operations facility Community bridges is the only agency receiving a direct allocation of measure d funds So that is not a public agency and therefore does not have a public meeting subject To a public hearing therefore approval of this Five-year plan will be overseen by the regional transportation commission Excuse me to meet the requirement for a public hearing The regional transportation commission's elderly and disabled transportation advisory committee reviewed this five-year plan at its april 12 2018 meeting And of course this plan will be updated annually based on project schedules and cost information as well as any other grants that may be received To secure projects I would like to turn over to kirk ans to discuss this five-year plan in more detail and following his presentation Consider the staff recommendation that the regional transportation commission provide input on the measure d five-year program of projects for community bridges And schedule the public hearing for the june 14th 2018 Meeting to consider public input on this plan Okay, thank you. Are there questions from commissioners Seeing none. I'll see if there is any questions from the public Are there any testimony of mr. Schifrin now? I was waiting to see if somebody from the lifeline was going to make a It's going to say anything because I have some question. I have a question I figured they would Good morning Good morning commissioners and staff. My name is kirk ans. I'm the program director for community bridges lifeline program We act as the consolidated transportation service agency for santa cruz county And I want to thank grace for giving such a detailed report on our five-year plan and What we have budgeted to do And you have a question andi. I want to start with a question Yes, um from looking over the material it appears that The the program has lost some outside grants that were fairly significant over That were available last year that are not available now I don't remember whether they're federal state or it seemed to be two that were not being funded this year Is the measured d money intended to Make up for the loss of those grants I mean it's the the staff report and the presentation talked about Kind of an increase in service, but is it really going to be an increase of service? Or is it really how much is it just maintaining service given that other Grant grant sources were lost. Okay. Um, I'm not actually sure what Grants that would be. I don't think we Have lost any grants. We did lose A outside contract, which was the winter shelter program, which was a large portion of our Units of service. They were that was taken over by the salvation army and We provided 30,000 rides annually over a period of about five to six months There were some tda funding that went into that and then the The salvation army and the folks that ran before then they paid the difference for that transportation So that wasn't really a loss of grant Starting march 1st community bridges has received A grant and has implemented it already for additional funding For same-day and out of county services, which will provide actually additional transportation So I'm not aware of losing any grants other than the outside contract for the winter shelter program Maybe that I can't find it right now, but maybe that's what I was thinking about that was That contract which reduced a particular program But didn't affect service elsewhere I'm thinking you may be looking at the 5310 program, which is a two-year cycle And they do community bridges has been very successful at obtaining Come 5310 program funds for their vehicles, but it is a two-year cycle. The next funding program will be next year So it may maybe that you're not seeing it listed for this fiscal year Well, thank you So i'll just march on andy and if you find that let me know and jump back into that conversation I wanted to kind of highlight some of the Projects that we've implemented and what we've done with major d funds already We have our new five-year plan on 24-7 But we're currently in our first year the next five-year plan will take us to our sixth year So we provided a updated report to Which is also in the packet that included the first half of the fiscal year So community bridges was able to Implement the four positions the two drivers and we're able to start that service and for the first half of the fiscal year We've reached 38 of our goal by providing an additional 1500 rides so we believe we by the end of the fiscal year. We'll be able to meet that target We implemented the driver's trainer, which will help us get Drivers and qualified drivers in faster and that was also a recommendation that was Through a tda audit to hire that position For outreach, we had we have funds about 5,800 a year set aside for that we've Outreached to about 16 different agencies that Work with seniors and people with disabilities and medical facilities and meal sites to spread the word about major d and our expanded service From eight to four and with the two additional drivers and the weekend as well So we'll continue to do that. We also did some advertising in good times and on a facebook sponsorship as well as kion and ksbw which will continue to run Publicity about major d and expanded services. So we're really trying to get the word out about this About major d and expanded service and build up our client base So far we have about 700 individual clients that we serve and We certainly want to expand on that Um, as far as I believe that you brought this up bruce about major d signage. We have community bridges has Developed signage for the buses. We had an early version on there before RTC came up with a brand for for that. So we have the Brand specific sign now that says partially funded by major d with the nice logo there that we'll be putting on our Buses will have about 19 buses out there. So that's that's Good outreach as well. Our buses are kind of seeing them. They're like rolling billboards out there. It seems like so We're happy to to get that done and We also have funds set aside for the operations facility which grace had talked about and Back to the outreach. We're able to leverage some funds through the santa cruz community foundation For outreach. So they added another 2,800 Dollars to the outreach for this fiscal year. So we're pleased to be able to use major d funds and leverage more funds and I want to talk about the vehicle in equipment reserve. We have major d fund set aside at 30 000 dollars a year for equipment And this mostly is equipment that we can't get off the 5310 Fund or vehicles that we cannot get off 5310 funding which grace had talked about And one of those was a 24 passenger passenger vehicle, which was all ambulatory. So it doesn't have a lift on it And that's something that 5310 didn't fund. So we Put that in the major d budget as well as electric vehicle something else that doesn't come off the 5310 fund Well now with the winter shelter program being taken over by the salvation army, we don't really Have a big need for that 24 passenger bus So what we've done is we've applied for a carb grant for two electric vehicles and some charging stations And we were just awarded that we went into a fully executed contract on the 30th of last month And major d funds will be used to purchase two electric vehicles in connection with the carb grant So we'll take 90 000 of the vehicle reserve and leverage 200 000 from carb To get electric vehicles, which are more expensive 100 electric So we'll get the opportunity to start going green In the ctsa. So we're happy about that. There are 16 passengers with It includes a wheelchair lift and Two wheelchair positions on the vehicle. So we're happy. We're just starting kicking that project off We will also get two charging stations with that, which will be installed at 240 Ford street in Watsonville where our current maintenance facility is and that will be open to The public during our hours of operation. So we're also happy about Be able to use major d funds to leverage all this additional Um, I call it a green energy in the county. So we're excited about that and I think, um, Hoping for questions if there's any questions Supervisor McPherson. Yeah, congratulations on, uh, you know addressing the the the energy the the green facility. That's terrific um, and calculating rides is, uh A ride from a person from their home or their home site to the doctor and back Is that one ride or two ride for the same? So that that is two, uh, sir, uh, units of service It's a round trip. So one way equals one unit of service It's how it's calculated Mr. Rackin, I just had a brief comment. I wanted to appreciate community bridges lifeline service The transit district doesn't serve, uh, with the Paratransit service everywhere in the county, which you guys do and We have people that we had this question come up earlier who are disadvantaged because they're not within a quarter of a mile of a bus line And they can't either get a fixed route bus or a paratransit service from us And so the service you provide is absolutely critical to a bunch of people in this county and I want to appreciate that That's made available to them for both medical and meal service within the county. I think that's kind of really important Yeah, well, thank you for that Stopping going Yes, are you also included on the 211 for people to call for information about your resource? Lifeline is involved in the 211 program to the best of my knowledge. I've heard that we were so Um, so I just thought I'm an additional comment for the operations facility Community bridges will also try to leverage federal funds. So we hope to get the majority of the funding through federal grants to build that then Any additional Well, I just want to say I appreciate um community bridges was active and involved in the passage of measure d And has had those signs on the buses On the vans for quite a while I see them regularly and I really appreciate that and I appreciate all the effort That the organization made uh in help in order to help pass it And I also really appreciate that it's it's a very Identifiable expansion of service that came from the passage of measure d I'm also glad to hear that those charging stations will be available to the public Because watsonville needs a few more charging stations And uh, it's uh, it'll it'll be helpful to have some additional resources for the public So thank you for your work. Thank you very much And I just want to thank the the commissioners and I said thanks at the e and d tech for the RTC staff, but I really appreciate the work that you do as well I think you do a tremendous job within our community. So thank you for that Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to address us about the, uh, community bridges lift line five-year plan Seeing none time for a motion. Mr. I'll second the motion Well, that's what I was going to do But I was first going to say that my comments didn't come out of my living in an alternate universe I was remembering the tda report and it was in the tda report that there was a discussion of a couple of revenue sources That weren't going to be there. I think the questions were answered. So I just wanted to clarify for the record where I couldn't find it here at finally My memory finally came back to me where I Was nice I'll still make the motion where you there was a concern on the commission Yeah, uh, so there's a motion by McPherson seconded by Kauffman Gomez all in favor say aye Any opposed motion carries unanimously and I would remind the public that hearings on june 14th not to seven Next we will move on to item 25, which is the measure d five-year plans for regional projects Ms. Morconi Good morning again Building off of the other items you've heard this morning. It's measure d theme day So as grace blakesley mentioned earlier all recipients of measure d revenues are required to annually identify how they intend to use Measure d revenues over the next five years through a five-year program of projects This is in order to provide transparency to our voters on how we're actually planning on using The individual funds from the different Categories that were funded through measure d the regional transportation commission is responsible for Preparing those five-year plans for the regional category of projects from the highway category, which is 25 percent of measure d funds For the active transportation and trail category, which is 17 percent of measure d funds for the rail corridor Category which is eight percent of measure d funds for the highway nine san lorenzo valley category, which is 10 million dollars over the 30-year time period of measure d and for the highway 17 wildlife crossing, which we discussed earlier Today we did not provide for you the new spreadsheet of five-year plans because we are just working on updating those now And we wanted to give the commission the opportunity today to identify if there's any specific things You would like us to look at as we're preparing those five-year plans attachment one provides a summary of some of the initial recommendations that we are Planning on presenting to you at your next board meeting in june The commission will approve the five-year plans following a public hearing at that meeting on um june 14th And so today, um attachment one does as I mentioned earlier summarize some of the proposals Overall and kind of building on what kirk from community bridges was mentioning We're all working very hard to use our measure d funds to leverage other grants And so a lot of our five-year plans include some measure d funds for a project But not fully funding that project because we are planning on going after state senate bill one grants Working with the land trust to leverage some of their funding on the highway 17 wildlife crossing and the trail projects So a lot of our five-year plan really is partially using measure d funds to fund a project so that we can secure those additional funds There are many funding sources through senate bill one Through the congested quarters program the trade quarters program that we plan on pursuing for the highway Category and so part of the highway category proposal is allowing us to start work earlier on environmental review and design work for New auxiliary lanes between 41st avenue and state park drive so that we will be more competitive for the next senate bill one grant funding cycles On the trail side. We are continuing carrying over funds from That were approved by the commission last year For trail segments that are currently underway and are Anticipated to start construction over the next year that includes trail sections in the city of santa cruz city of watsonville as well as pre development stage work for segment nine which goes through kind of the harbour area Bridging both the county and the city of santa cruz and then new for this year for the trail project We are recommending that the commission Include another $200,000 for segment 10 which goes from jade street park and capitol Over to 17th avenue so that we can start some preliminary analysis survey work on And when I say we I mean the collective we of all our partner agencies Which include the city of santa city of capitol and the county of santa cruz To start doing some of the analysis of that trail segment on the highway nine corridor We are just about done with the san lorenzo valley corridor plan We'll be releasing that to the public. Hopefully within the next few weeks Through all of the public input that we received last year We have identified 30 priority projects that cost a lot more than 10 million dollars in san lorenzo valley And that was actually a priority list that was culled out of about 400 suggestions that we received from the community So there's a lot of work to be done there, but for the five-year plan that you'll be seeing in june We are only recommending one project for those funds until we finish that planning process And that again is carrying over the project from last year, which is to build a Bicycle and pedestrian pathway from the san lorenzo valley high school entrance South towards downtown felton and to one of the connecting roadways there fall creek or clear view Place On the rail project the commission did review at your april board meeting some changes for the five-year plan there Primarily it's to reflect current cost estimates for different items and to add funds for ongoing expenses in fiscal year 22 23 So with that today, we really are just seeking kind of a brainstorming session If there's some additional items you would like us to analyze We're not looking for a vote from our board today But just to hear from you as either individual commissioners or collectively on things You'd like us to consider as we're trying to balance the funds and how much money is available in each of the next five years And if there's other priorities that you would like to see us try to incorporate into this near-term planning effort So that I'll turn it over to the board And if you don't have any suggestions that is also fine And we will be back in a month for you to see Some formal proposals. Okay. We'll see if the if the board has any input. Mr. Schifrin Yes, thank you. Um I want to bring forward a potential project in the On the north coast of santa cruz along highway one in the town of davinport That commissioner or community would like the staff to consider adding to the list Um as commissioners who go up there know Crossing highway one in davinport is a dangerous position the There's a flashing light, but it's Not enough to really provide safety two people have been killed over the last several years and with the opening of the national monument the sand been sent the redwoods to more public access to Be considering the extension of the rail trail Up to davinport the future really is going to be bringing more and more people to that community And they're going to want to look at the ocean and they're going to want to be on both sides of the highway So what has happened as part of as commissioners will remember The federal grant for the segment of the construction of a segment of the rail trail From wild the ranch to laguna is now being going through environmental review And there's funding for construction From laguna Laguna creek up to davinport. There was funds to design The rail trail. There were not construction funds, but as part of that design the The federal agency has also done design work for what I learned is called the hawk light I think that's what they call it Which would be a essentially a pedestrian Activated light that could be used to make it safer for pedestrians to cross highway one That's been designed. That's part of the environmental review that the federal agency is going through It seems to me that this is a project that sort of meets the criteria of one regional road The public safety concerns the possibility of leveraging in terms of sp1 money and potentially other kinds of money So I would request that and supervisor commissioner community request that the staff look into the Feasibility of adding that project to the list of regional measure d projects To be brought back in june So essentially the hawk as a standalone project I'm elated being the supervisor representing the fifth district that there was that 10 million dollar carve-out for highway nine And just for informational purposes We're there's going to be some preliminary discussions on the draft report starting monday this monday the seventh and center ones of alley elementary school Then on the 8th tuesday night at hotlands park in ben loman, and then I know there's one on the 9th I think that's back in felton again, but the 10th. There's one at the liberty bank and hold the creek. So It's really important to people. It's very much needed We're not going to have a four-lane highway through highway nine in the san ronzo valley But it's some improvements or darling in dire need of Or Much needed in san ronzo valley. So I appreciate that but those are coming on. It's proceeding very well. I think Thank you, mr. johnson. Thank you chair um Speaking of district five I'm fortunate to to live and represent scott's valley So the needs of my constituents don't really are more Around highway 17 than highway one Um, but speaking of highway one I think one of the most ignored constituencies obviously are the people who have to drive it every day And there just seems getting any I don't mean to beat a a dead horse But you know, it seems like again sense of urgency On highway one the commuters that have to travel that each and every day some six years 70 000 people um And just looking back from 2016 when measure d passed Uh, you know reviewing some of the agendas, you know, we've had You know scores of items on our agenda that concern the rail corridor But very very very few that concern highway one auxiliary lanes and so forth. What are the steps? that are Preventing us from making real progress that are prevent us from having to push out uh, the construction of Of auxiliary lanes on highway one that would help with these people who are suffering each and every day um, you know, I know that there's quote environmental issues, but Why doesn't staff sometimes bring the whole? concept idea of highway one expansion to this commission it's it's it's like a Never talked about it's going to be It's going to be and um commissioner. We share your frustration with the slowness of the process um, I think the primary reason we haven't been having a lot of discussion about that project is because the environmental documents are now circulating for internal review between caltrans and federal highway administration Um, basically our consultant team is pretty much done with the work. Is that yeah, we're very close to Having a final version um, and what we're working on so i'll be making a presentation In two weeks at the tpw meeting about highway one and how we can leverage our local funds to expedite the auxiliary lanes, um the design phase of the auxiliary lanes between So callum 41st avenue Well, my recommendation would be to move something like that from from, uh tpw To something that these commuters who are who are interested can actually see it on tv because when we're holding that meeting They're driving to work So you might consider that Okay There's a little bit more to it than that which is why I wanted to have more of a Informal discussion about it just to There's you know the possibility of having caltrans be the lead and doing the design in-house versus The rtc and there's benefits and challenges on both sides and so I wanted to present kind of like a A full picture of what that looks like and then from there If the if the rtc does lead the design phase, um, we can save six to eight months on the schedule Um, and we can get our project more construction ready sooner and capture some of those competitive grant sources that are out there So I don't think that will be done talking about it in two weeks. So we'll probably have a future, um meeting At an actual rtc meeting to talk about it as well. So thank you Mr. Johnson could we get clarity? Do you in an effort to speed it up? Do you want to put it off two weeks or do you want to do or a month really? It would be or do you want to hear it at the tpw meeting? Well, if it's going to be an extended conversation I think your logic probably carries the day in terms of It's an introduction information and um, so I don't have a problem with that Okay, so we will hear items about about the highway auxiliary lanes at our tpw meeting. Don't miss it Other question, mr. Koff and go miss Yes, I was concurring the same as well because watsonville did sacrifice quite a bit of the money that comes from d for that And I know our community is wanting to make sure that we see that In every single meeting at least something told for progress for the one expansion and those efforts Because obviously when it takes you, you know 45 to an hour to get to the you know 10 miles to get even to capitol It's definitely an issue that we want to make sure we see in the media at all times about the progress being made there And I had one other question if that's okay. Um, if somebody can tell me About the progress of the committee that is evaluating The funds the oversight committee if we can get a little bit of information about where we are with that Sure, I'm going to hand that over to one of our directors to discuss. So we're we're actually recruiting Publicly for people who would like to serve on that committee now I think the the closing date is june 1st Is that right shannon? Yes So, uh, you know, we are looking for five qualified people that uh, we can bring to you To come for your consideration to You know to select for that committee I think we Will we be bringing that to them in the june meeting shannon? Do you think or Hard to say we're not sure. Okay. But as soon as possible. But remember the The task of the committee is to look backward and make sure that we've been spending the money According to how we've committed to the voters So that that's why we're haven't got them in place yet. Uh, miss brown Just a really quick comment and a question. Um, I just wanted to echo Um, mr. Schifrin's comments about the north coast highway one crossing I am here as a representative of the city of sanikers, but I worked on the north coast for um, almost 15 years and Was there for um, the you know to kind of deal with the Aftermath of those, um Those accidents and I've seen a lot of potential accidents. So I just wanted to say that I think it's really important It's a it's a community that a very small population, but um With the increased traffic that we will see on the north coast and we are already seeing I think it would be great to consider that as a standalone project And I'm just so I guess I make that comment to ask the question What by what process would we? Um pursue that at the commission level I think there's kind of a couple different approaches when a new project is identified by the community by the board There's a couple different processes one is to start setting aside some funding for the project Because this project is on the state route system We will also be discussing this with caltrans and see what kind of funding opportunities there might be there If there's already plans in the area, um, you know one of caltrans's main missions of the shop program is is to reduce fatalities and so We'll be in discussions with eileen and her staff about that as well, but As far as programming funds typically what we would do is we would have a You know a call for projects for different ideas and then evaluate those individual projects against other projects and You know ensure that we're spending our very limited funds on the highest priority projects that said if the commission wants to Go outside of a normal competitive process to identify this project that would be to your discretion to do that following a public hearing I'll just wanted to uh Add my comments. I'm really glad to see that we're putting money in here for the preliminary design work on segment 10 Um, uh of the uh of the trail. I think that we need to keep on moving forward With the various segments. I know we receive grant money for segment nine. Um, and uh, I look forward to To the time where we put in construction dollars till we can build these uh portions of the segment I think with within five years we could uh make that happen if we keep on Focused on what it is we're doing uh and providing the resources to make it happen. So thank you for that I forgot to mention about the Davenport project that Commissioner Coonerty's office has been in contact with Caltrans engineers about that project There there seems to be more of an openness to doing it certainly having Non uh Caltrans funds would be helpful I also think it might be useful since some of the commission is new In response to the concern about why things are so slow On uh highway one projects to you know look back a little bit um under california state law The caltrans or the and or the commission cannot approve a project until the environmental document is done and the eir Environmental assessment for the highway one project the commission and caltrans when that started and I think it's I'm saying 10 years ago. It's 10 years 10 million dollars. I don't know but it was for the High high occupancy vehicle lane. So it was for the big long segment It was a big project The auxiliary and that's being done kind of on a programmatic level not a specific level the auxiliary lanes were added As specific levels. So when the hot when not when the environmental documents are done The the caltrans and the commission and the commission can move forward right away They will not be the need for another environmental document But that environmental document has taken forever And there was a draft eir that was out. There were lots of comments And it's been several years now waiting for the final eir to be done And caltrans has to approve it the commission has to sign off on it Federal government has to sign off on it and it just goes into that buzzer and goes around and around For years and you know, we've been hearing or at least I remember hearing that The final document will be out this spring for the last three or four years So I can appreciate the frustration But I don't think there's anything that commission the commission can do it about it until caltrans finishes their review The federal department of transportation finished their review and they decide that the document is Accurate or adequate and release it then the that's what it's going to take to be able to move the auxiliary lane Projects forward. So I don't know if that's helpful or not But I think it puts it into the perspective that this is not the commission Delaying things. This is just a process that exists when there's federal money and state money Having to go through the environmental review process And it does sound as though we're going to be getting some information in our next meeting about how what we can do To also speed it up with design work Before the eir is done. So I look forward to that conversation I think that'll be very helpful and it clearly needed and we'll remind that the you know, the second largest amount of money we put in measure d was for the highway and And the this commission has been is interested in seeing that happen And we have to wait for the process to be done, but I look forward to the strategies that we can use to speed it up I'm going to open it up to the public to see if they have comments on the regional project five-year plans Gail mcnulty greenway. Um, first of all, I would like to add my thanks to commissioners shifrin and Brown for looking out for the north coast. I'm a north coast resident and I crossed that street with my children Just to go to will city bakery on a regular basis and it is really scary I actually just this weekend was wondering if we could just paint a crosswalk for now Like just something to give a little more vision But it is important. Um, I'd also like to thank commissioners johnson and koffman gomez for Remembering the people that are sitting in gridlock. It's it's really that as well is really important Um, and then in talking about the funding for segment 10 um I'm curious as to what those design docs would be we held an event in capitol last night So I was looking very carefully at that section and for instance from 17th to 47th We talk about moving the rails to fit the trail in and then of course we have the trestle issue there And there are issues with the tree tunnel on the other side So I'm just curious if we're going to start the road with design documents What would those be would it be for a painted lane on the side of the street because that's the alternative Plan for now for that section I'm just curious what it would be um then in general To help ensure a fair and transparent unified court or study greenway And also prudent spending of course of our measure d funds Greenway recommends the following changes to the measure d five year plans for regional projects in the rail corridor category All track and railroad infrastructure repair projects should really be put on hold until after the completion of the ucis For the active transportation trail program. We have several recommendations one No funding should be spent on retaining walls or other infrastructure projects that would be unnecessary If we were to go forward with a non rail option For the corridor until the best use of the quarter has been determined in that ucis study Right of way research and surveying for the entire corridor should really be prioritized since this information is an integral part Of any use of the corridor in order to make informed decisions going forward We need that information Any other preliminary work like with segment 10 design work, etc done prior prior to the completion of the unified corridor study Really must include those non rail options to do design work for only the rail with trail plan When we're still studying other options would be a waste of our money Since the corridor is not yet open for legal active transportation The 500 the 519 thousand some odd dollars currently allocated for annual corridor encroachment and maintenance Really should not be included in the active transportation line item It should be rather taken out of the rtc general fund or if it does need to come from measure d transportation funds It would be better seen taken out of the rail corridor category also Just a recommendation reach out to cruise io and the utilities because they might be able to help fund the trail With respect to the conduit installation. Thank you Is there anyone else who'd like to provide testimony? Seeing none. I'll bring it back to our board. I don't think we're we don't take any action on this. Is that correct? I really appreciate everyone's comments and we'll be taking those into consideration as we prepare The documents for the public hearing on june 14 Okay, thank you Next we'll move to item You do have a comment mr. Rockin I just wanted to say that the reason they're almost certainly not going to be Crosswalk as a quick fix for the problem in davenport is because traffic engineers and police agencies in general Think it's a very bad idea to paint a crosswalk That's not otherwise protected or announced on a highway where people are not paying attention to it It gives people a false sense of security that they have a right to cross I mean they might have a legal right to cross there, but it's also a right to get killed So it's going to only happen if there's something that's being suggested here something like a flashing light or something with more Perhaps even a stoplight or whatever it's going to be But something that really lets the traffic know that there's people trying to cross there crosswalks are very dangerous When they're not protected in some way on a highway. It's different on a city street Okay, any other comments seeing none We'll move on to our review of item to be discussed in closed sessions or announcement Yes, certainly commissioners On your agenda for closed session. You have two items listed However, item 27 the conference for the proper negotiator will not be necessary for you today The this commission and the the out hot committee that you selected to work on the negotiations of associated with this have pretty much have gone as far as they can go in terms of the in terms of those negotiations and so that What's been negotiated thus far will be before you Soon for for consideration So we expect that as we Are able to then just And make sure there aren't any like you know formatting things or the things like that They need to be cleaned up in the overall document and that document can be made public for the for the public interest Make comment to the commission as the commission then considers this at a future meeting Okay, thank you. Mr. Schifrin. Yeah, I understood that the intention was to release the Draft contract at this meeting so the public would have a significant amount of time to review it before the commission would act on it at its june meeting I don't understand why that's not happening the Agreement has been negotiated thus far. It's pretty much ready for public release. We just want to make sure that we clean up any formatting or anything like that so And we expect it'll be out next week early early next week For release and that will give the public you know plenty of time to review before the commission's next meeting Which will be on june 14th. So the Intention is not to have the commission as a whole review the The proposed contract before releasing it I thought that was the intention that we I know there's been discussion about the various points of an issue but So the staff is essentially releasing it as a staff recommended document Rather than as a document that has been reviewed by the commission And so when the you know, I know the commissioners have seen it But they're not being asked. We're not being asked to act on it before it's released to the public I just wanted to be make sure that the public had a sufficient amount of time to review it before it's recommended for Mr. Rockin I raised that issue at our last meeting. I was concerned that you know, there's a document out there We haven't necessarily said we like it and think it's fine I mean individual people have their views but the not as a body And I was concerned about it and then people said no But in order to get this out as quickly as we can and actually have the public have the maximum amount of time to comment We're going to forego that so I decided, okay, I'll let it go But I understand your concern It's not typical to have an agency release a report that we haven't had a chance to sort of formally act on as a body Even just to say we this is the draft. We're going to circulate our staff's going to do that And it was a time question of trying to get it out quickly is my understanding And that's why I gave up on my concern about it a month ago Mr. Bertrand I echo those comments Okay, is there anyone else from the public who would like to address us about items to be discussed in closed session They're still going to be discussed in closed session We just said they were not going to be discussed Oh, well since the public is still here and since that was agendized as a an agenda item May I speak to the item we just discussed, okay Um, how did we get here? We're stuck in a corner Feeling as if there's no other choice but to move forward with a contract that is clearly not a good fit for our county um Greenway did a public records request. They've been very slow to come not in compliance with the public records act We are getting these emails filtered in slowly We're going through them as they come in and I can tell you that they're very troubling thus far We've learned that there was clearly an unfair advantage in the rfp process Progressive rail has been negotiating with our staff since july Other operators were not given a chance to apply until december I still commend commissioner burton commissioner johnson and commissioner mcpherson Who at the january meeting even without that knowledge? Sense that the thing had moved too quickly and that it was too early to begin negotiating with this company and they were right This staff had been lobbied hard. I mean progressive rail. They're good salesmen. They were working with iowa pacific They worked really hard to get in here They gave their first proposal in october then were coached by staff how to fix it up and make it more appealing to our community I mean this is um this company and and they've been actually very honest with us What they want to do is come here and do what they do best industrial development They hope to succeed where other operators have failed by bringing their midwest customers to us The only customer we know of is the propane group lancing trading that wants to come to watsonville and construct a facility To my knowledge. No one has asked who those other customers might be um This seems as though it can play out in two ways One bad The other works I mean, yeah, we just need to fulfill this minimal freight requirement in watsonville right now But we really should be thinking carefully about who it is We're moving forward with because we would have to pay to get out of this contract and this company Maybe they're going to come over here. Maybe they've oversold themselves Maybe they are just another midwestern fish out of water. We'll spend millions of dollars the county fixing those tracks Once they get on to the whole 32 miles, which they do want and then they'll fail and pull out that would be bad Much much worse actually for everybody here and for the majority of the public who have no idea that this discussion is even going on Maybe they could succeed. Maybe they really do have customers that want to come here and use those tracks Maybe they really will manage to turn our whole 32 miles into a thriving quarter of commerce If that were to happen It would be the final nail in the coffin a passenger rail or a trail Everything that this commission is discussing discussing for that quarter could go down and freight rail is incredibly possible Thank you incredibly powerful Don't underestimate what they can do If they get those tracks. Thank you We really want to get into a debate about this. No, okay, mr. Rocking I want to commend our chair for his excessive concern for public input And letting the person speak at the time is really not appropriate in my view And that's why i'm not going to respond point by point to the what I believe misinformation It was just presented to us the appropriate time for that discussion is when we discuss the actual contract. Thank you Okay, is there anybody else who'd like to talk about something that's actually on the closed session? agenda Seeing none will we adjourn to closed session our next meeting will be Our tpw is may 17th, and it'll be held at the santa cruz city council chambers We're meeting in here