 I'm going to throw a meeting for August 23rd to order and can we begin with the roll call please? Dr. Rotsworth. Here. Dr. Compton-Millens. Present. Dr. Gonzalez. Present. Dr. Leopold. Here. Dr. Lynn. Here. Dr. Matthews. Here. Dr. Myers. Here. Dr. Pearson. Here. Dr. Piglet. Here. Dr. Roppa. Here. Dr. Rotkin. Here. Expecial Dr. Northat. Expecial Dr. Paster. Here. Here. Thank you. Today, Mindy Esqueda will introduce our Spanish interpreter. Mindy, come up and say a few words and appreciate that. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Before we get on with the business at hand, I just want to take a light moment which might be necessary today and announce that today is John Leopold's birthday. There you go. I'm excited to have Metro Director. Thank you. Enjoy a happy birthday. And our technician today is Kingston Rivera. Okay, it's time for Board of Directors' comments. Any Board of Directors who have comments they'd like to make. None. We'll move on. Oral written communications. So Board, anybody would like to speak to the Board at this time coming to us? None on the agenda. I see a hand and someone getting out. If you'd like to come up to the podium. Oh, you're on your way. Come on up. I'm not sure if this issue is on the agenda or not, but I just wanted to say that I am concerned about the climate chaos that the Earth is now experiencing. There are fires in South America. The Arctic Greenland is of yesterday in California. To decrease our emissions, we need to change our transport system and buses are essential. Over the past week, the Metro buses have been running sporadically with what I understand to be labor issues. Looking to the Green New Deal will be essential to both a path away from fossil fuels and good paying jobs. Santa Cruz and the Metro need the excellent drivers you have and the future drivers. Pay them well. They are essential for our efforts to decrease emissions. They are our climate warming warriors. Thank you. I saw another hand. Is there someone else they'd like to speak? Hi, I'm Kate Livingston. I'm representing the parents for SLP High School. I have a daughter who is now a freshman and the bus system, as she said, running sporadically is a concern for a lot of us. There are some parents who are having to take over for others because they can't get to work because the buses aren't running and we end up getting calls from our children an hour after the bus should have been there saying hey mom, it's still not here. I need to get to class. My daughter had to do the same thing on the second day of school. Hey mom, it's not here yet. I need you to come get me. And I had to leave work to go get her. There is also a gentleman running around in that area that is not safe, especially for our daughters. And so as a mother, I am very concerned that the bus system get back on track so that we know our children are safe. Thank you very much. I come to this meeting as a resident of Santa Cruz County living in La Selva Beach. I am very concerned about the recent letter from Alex Clifford, the CEO of Santa Cruz Metro, dated August 16, 2019, in which he provided excuses. My family has two children with disabilities and we are frequent customers for both your Metro and Paracruise services. Consequently, reading this letter is very disconcerting for my family. Specifically, these are my concerns. One, I am concerned about not having Metro services to my local bus stops, specifically La Selva Beach Library and Seascape. This is a great disservice and hardship to those needing public transportation in the southern part of the county. Two, children and youth with disabilities including those in wheelchairs cannot readily use substitutes for public transportation, as been suggested by our county supervisor Zach Friend. He has suggested a voucher for Uber or Lyft as substitutes for public transportation. Three, delays in random cancellations due to bus routes cause severe problems for my family. Though I make appointments for pickups at my house, Paracruise is sometimes as much as an hour late in picking up my child. This causes a ripple effect where he is late in arriving at his destination and I am late for a where I need to be or I need to cancel. The driver's tell us that the office keeps giving them more pickups and changing their route, which is causing the delays. Four, the business model as described by Mr. Clifford whereby bus drivers were working overtime in order to bribe adequate route coverage is unsustainable and needs to be remedied as soon as possible. Having tired bus drivers working overtime is not a viable or sustainable solution. Here are my suggestions. One, stop blaming the union for the issues that have plagued the metro for years. Consider using temporary drivers as other cities have done until the challenge is remedied. Two, upgrade and automate your system so that we can schedule and pay for rides for Paracruise online and do not have to call within your prescribed windows of time. Three, include an app so that consumers of Paracruise contract the ride from pickup to death destinations. If Merced County in the valley can do this, why can't we do this with busslide.com? Finally, I do commend the drivers for being compassionate, professional and helpful to me and my children. This dispatch has been commendable in taking my calls and helping us. Thank you for providing this opportunity to raise my concerns and suggestions. Anyone else like to speak to us or communications? Seeing none, we'll close that and move on to a written communications from the map. Okay, before I get to labor organization communications, I just want to make a small announcement. Everyone in the room obviously noticed that there was some enhanced security today as you arrived. And I want to make it clear that there was a flyer that was sent out to multiple counties invoking Union's port. And to us at Metro, we don't really know what the impact of that could be. So as a precaution for our employees, you and us and anybody involved, this is a precaution. It is not any kind of a feeding we have towards any Metro employees that make any of us in this room feel unsafe. You almost kept us out. Veronica, I'm sorry if that was the interpretation and I apologize for any delay in getting you in the room because I think you know that the last thing we want to do is keep anybody out of this need. But what we are concerned about is everyone's safety. And sometimes I think we've learned through TSA and other ways in the United States, we do things that protect people's safety and may cause delays. So with that, I just want you to know that that's why the situation you see exists. I'm hoping as we have in the past that we can have a good, respectful meeting. View all of our thoughts and deal with all the issues we need to deal with in a professional and courteous manner. And I think we've done that and you've done that in the past. So I'm hopeful that that will continue through today. So with that, I'd like to have any communications from labor organizations. Thank you. My name's Olivia McLeanis. So that email went out because we were told that measure was going to impose on us on the last best and final. And we wanted support from our union brothers and sisters. I'm a little bit concerned, Chair, that you're raising labor unions to a degree in TSAs. Labor unions are not terrorists. We're not aggressive. We're not evil. And that's really concerning to me that you made that statement. It really hurts as a union member and the history of labor in this country. And what has labor has done for all of us, our great grandparents, our grandparents, our fathers and our sisters. Labor is American. And I'm very concerned with your comment that you made. When you guys decided to put those security and polls in question, who was an employee and who wasn't, you actually changed the working conditions. And I have emailed all the pictures to our attorneys for a per charge. Because it's a different thing that now our members have to go through. Today we are hoping to have, and we will have, a simple conversation with you. We are meeting with state officials about our concerns with Ms. Clifford's leadership through these negotiations. We had a vote on their last best and final, and the vote was 80% no. We also had a vote about the confidence in his leadership, and 95% of our members said they no longer have confidence in his leadership. We are giving this to our state representatives because it explains the history that we have been dealing with his leadership in Metro. Metro used to be a good place to work at. It is no longer a good place to work at for our members. I want to ask you something. Do you only represent him? Or do you present every single worker here? Because many other members have emailed you with concerns, and many, very little of you have responded to them. And that is concerning that you are not listening to them. This is not about me. This is not about me. My tactics you might not like, and that's okay. But this is about every single worker here that is asking you to help them. Because they can no longer work under his leadership, and they can no longer continue with these negotiations in this way. Your workers have not moved to a strike because they love their job, and they know the impact it will cause to families in this county. What I have given you today is what we are giving to state representatives. I've also given you this definition of all your costs of increase is merit increase and equity adjustment. There are three very different things that Mr. Clifford wants to love together and say, because you're above equity, you don't deserve a cost of an increase. That is not true. No public agency is dealing with equity increases that way. The county of Santa Cruz, Mr. McPherson and Neopold, does equity adjustments, every single negotiation, they automatically do it and give our members a cost of an increase. We are also giving you the spreadsheet we were talking about, the checks that you authorized, that we heard some of you guys doing on the maps of the retro pay of every single manager and their increases. We are also giving you a spreadsheet that says why have we not had an agreement? We offered an 18-month contract with no increase for the second year, for next June of 2020. And he said, we'll pay you to medical, but give us retro. I said, they didn't like that. Okay, we took retro off. We have made every single movement and he has asked from the beginning, no retro pay for salary study, freezing 47 members, taking away the compound time, taking away the ability to borrow PTO, paying more towards medical and using the 5% deal. As he agreed to pay more to medical, we agreed to, we owe the retro pay, we agreed to 5% deal and he continues to want to freeze 47 members. He wants to continue to take away the PTO and the compound time. I have been very clear with Pat Land, I cannot reach an agreement. You have 100, I have 100% membership here. There are United Brothers and Sisters that will start with the 47. What do you guys want me to do? How can I reach an agreement if those three things are the three things that are holding this contract? So I'm pleading with you to please listen to your workforce. This is not about me, this is about them. So thank you very much. Thank you. So I'm just going to touch things a little bit on what Olivia said. She kind of said my own speech. So good morning board members. I'm Michael Rios, the PSA chapter president out of SEIU. Today I'm speaking on behalf of all of my Union brothers and sisters in SEIU. I would like to address our current situation with our ongoing negotiations. As you are all aware, we have been negotiating with the districts since March 11th of 2019 and have still not yet reached an agreement. On August 8th, Metro gave us their last, best and final proposal. This proposal consisted of a freeze to 47 members' salaries, no cost of living increase for those 47 members, a removal of the ability to borrow paid time off, the removal of our comp time, and all members paying more towards their medical benefits and us using the 5% below the median for the CPS results. We took their proposal to our membership and held a vote on Monday, August 19th. The membership voted it down, but they voted 80% rejecting the meeting proposal. We have tried so hard during these negotiations to come to an agreement with Metro. We have offered three different economic proposals ranging from an 18 month contract, a 24 month contract, and even a 36 month contract. Metro has refused all three options. We have already agreed to pay more towards our medical benefits to use the 5% below the median for the CPS study, and yet Metro still cannot reach an agreement with us. We asked, why is that? Is that because of the paid time off? Is that because of the comp time? What's really holding Metro back from reaching an agreement with us? If it is one of these items, please know that these items barely make a financial impact to the district. Metro clearly has money. They are willing to pay managers with huge retro paychecks of up to $30,000, and also recently provided huge increases to most of the managers. The reserves show that they are healthy as well. We also don't understand why Metro is having such a hard time giving these 47 members that came back overpaid in the CPS study a cost of living increase. An equity adjustment is very different from a cost of living increase, but it seems that Metro is disciplining these 47 members for being overpaid by not giving them a cola. Metro is pretty much the same to our members. Sorry, your position came back overpaid, but now you have to deal with inflation with no pay increase and still come to work and give us your all. This doesn't make any sense. Inflation continues to go up, and you are not going to help your employees survive in one of the most expensive areas in the U.S., but are expecting them to go above and beyond at work every day. This does not boost morale. This does not build a happier loyal staff for employees, nor does this help retain your top employees. Metro has always been about taking care of their employees. Why the sudden change? We have members that work so hard for this agency and continue to go above and beyond for all their managers, but yet you refuse to give them a cola. I really hope that the board understands where we are coming from and really takes the time to help us reach an agreement because this does not feel like the Metro that Santa Cruz knows. Thank you. I've got wheels and so does the podium. Good morning, co-workers, managers, directors, public, that I don't know. I'm John Doherty, and part of this is about me and part of this is about the people I work side-by-side with here at Metro. My contribution this morning, and I wasn't sure I was going to speak, is just to bring across, to share with you that part of this has hit me and hit others in unexpected ways, not having a contract, and now being presented with a last offer, having this limbo makes me uncertain, and my other colleagues have mentioned also uncertain about will we be able to pay our rent, will we be able to pay our mortgages in a couple of weeks. I also don't really always know where the problems really are because for myself, I've used, I've borrowed leave, I have an accrual of earned comp time, and for me, I have used those basically as time. It has the ability, for example, when I have needed a break to be able to be off work, not just say Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, perhaps a couple more days, and then suddenly those two days become two days plus the weekend. Rest, recharge. And in the working conditions, as I've gotten older, and I've had the privilege of serving Metro now for 30 years, I see more and more how precious time is. So I admit to being unsure about why annual leave could not be borrowed and unsure about why earned comp has to go away because time is so precious. Even if perhaps one person has abused this opportunity, that doesn't mean that many people, including myself, including my coworkers, don't need to have options on time, don't need time away, don't need to be able to say when a family member asks, can you help me? Yes, I'll clear it with my supervisor, but I can't take a couple of days off. So what I want to say is with regard to leave, with regard to earned comp time, to end them from where I sit shows a lack of empathy for our coworkers, directors, managers, colleagues. Let's reconsider that. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure that you all had this information because we meant to send this to you, but I don't think we have. This is a list of all of the red line positions that under the district's last best and final would not get a cost of living increase this year, next year, or the year after. And once again, we haven't had a cost of living increase since 2015. So I want to pass this out so that you're aware the numbers of people in each position are all indicated on this column. I want to point out that some of the lowest paid workers at the district are on this list. Custodial workers, vehicle service workers. You know, you can see the numbers and I just think it would be good if you had this information. So who can I give this to? Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Bonnie Moore, a labor representative for the smart union. I'm an employee here at the transit district and I've been here for quite a while. I've already had my 30th year anniversary, even though I'm not physically on site all the time. But I'm here. I don't need it. I just want you to know that in my past experience here of having labor unrest, the requirement or the need for the community, this board as a board and the employers here is to figure out how to have labor harmony. Because you have to still come back and work with everybody here continuously. It doesn't end here. And when you have this type of labor unrest continue, it doesn't benefit anybody, especially our community. And it's unfortunate that people are being treated the way that they are. So I'm just asking you for multiple reasons. One, this show of security is ridiculous. It is asking for more years of labor issues that are coming gone. And they've coming gone since the late 70s, all the way throughout. We've never had a situation here that is required to the need of a TSA type of support system. I understand that I'm faithful that you apologize for the situation and you are concerned about everybody's safety. This is a safe group of people. This is who we are. It's one thing to have some security out there that's preventing some issue. You don't do it at City Council. People come in all the time and have to talk about what they need to say. But to hamper someone from the public, especially somebody with a disability to be able to come into this meeting, a public meeting is wrong. And it's a violation. To make me go park all the way up on the top and have to try to walk down and navigate downhill when there's a spot down below that gives me the ability to park in a parking place that's allowed for somebody with a disability, that's a violation to me. Shame on you of these employees and who they've been over the years and who they will be into the future. And that's up to you guys. I'll put the money in there. I'm sorry, the statement that I made was misinterpreted. I'm only going to give you the factual experience that I have in City of Capitola if we feel that there's any kind of meeting that may pose a potential problem or security for any of our citizens or any member in the room we have had security. Unfortunately, this is not a reflection on Metro. This is not a reflection on anything but the state of our country. And I'm sorry for that. But it's a necessary thing because if you anticipate that there is any kind of a problem and you don't do anything about it, it falls under a rule called negligence. If you anticipate that something's going to happen and you're nothing, then you're being negligent. And what we are here for is just the protection of everybody in the room. That includes you. And as I stated in the beginning, there's never a potential threat that we felt from any Metro employee or any problem with that whatsoever. But when we bring people from outside counties that we don't know or we're unsure about, we don't know how to respond. And I will apologize again up and down if you're offended because that was not our intent. But you need to understand this that I know that in our city and I think in other cities, this is done on a regular basis. And it's unfortunate and it's not... You know, you can say that it's not but I know I've done it and we've called for it and it has happened. Brandon, come up. It's actually a good transition of what I just said then. So I understand what you're saying about security and I get, you know, your points on things like that. I think something that needs to be said here that you don't realize is this is not because of security that we feel this way that you're trying to suppress us, that you're trying to control us, that you're trying to keep us down. That is Metro cold. That's where we're at. Every time we walk in the building, that's how it feels. Every time someone gets disciplined for the first time and it's applied to suspension, that's how it feels. Regardless of whether or not how our vote went, it's important for me to let you realize that although we have not been as vocal as SCIU, we haven't had no confidence those and things like that. I'm not used to being the least vocal of our membership about someone. And we have done what we can to keep it professional and keep it off, but making comments, blaming management issues on drivers. Really think about what you're making us feel like and what our morale is when you're moving forward on this stuff. Because right now, I've got to pause to not say some of the things I'd like to say. I've been here a long time. I've been driving for a long time. But we don't deserve to get treated this way. We are not your slaves. We are not those where people treat us like they do. Thank you very much for this comment. I appreciate it. Hi, Susan Scottsky. I'm just walking into all this and hearing how the bus drivers are feeling. And I'm really feeling sad because they do provide a very, very good service. And I think at the end of the day and Mr. Clifford needs to understand that our mission, and I'm involved in a lot of public meetings, and we always read our mission statement. And let's get back to this. To provide a public transportation service that enhances personnel mobility and creates a sustainable transportation option in Santa Cruz County through a cost-effective, reliable, accessible, safe, clean and courteous transit service. And I think that's how would we want to be treated at the end of the day. And I really want our bus drivers to be treated appropriately. And to hear that they haven't had a raise since 2015 is very, very concerning. And they're not feeling supported. And they're the reason that we're here, Metro. They do everything that we need. They show up, they want to work, but they need to have appropriate kind conditions and feel supported. And to not have a raise since 2015 is concerning. Anyway, thank you again. My name is Nathan Meisenheimer with the Parks Department just across the street right over there at the maintenance facility. Just wanted to say a couple of things. One, that the public perception might just be focusing on the drivers, but it also includes everybody, the drivers, people here in the office, everybody across the way, everybody across the way over there. The ability to provide safe and clean transportation is not just on the drivers. It's not their responsibility to make sure that these buses are running smoothly. It's everybody's responsibility to make sure that they're clean for the public to come on, to clean the nastiness from some of the citizens that are using our facilities is weighing heavy on a lot of people. A lot of people take care of a lot of stuff that most people don't even know exist. And I'm sure that the people that arrived at the bus like a clean bus and like a good operating bus, one that's not going to break down on the road, and that weighs heavily on a lot of the guys over there at the maintenance department and the VSWs and even the custodial department. You should see some of the stuff that we have to deal with in the Parks Department that we see affecting everybody within the metro company from the bathrooms to the buses to the facility buildings. We see it all over there in the Parks Department. And I'd like to point out that even though there is almost half of us started getting redlined because of this class and comp study, basically we had our jobs revised. They wanted to know what we do. So we did that. And it turned our one-and-a-half-page job description into a three-page job description with no increase in pay. We're getting redlined. There's five of us in our Parks Department and none of us are getting a raise. Nothing. Although we do more than most of the other facilities bus operations that we were compared with. We went through them time and time again like this one doesn't do that, this one doesn't do that, this one doesn't do that. And we feel that's very unfair and I just wanted to point that out. That also falls on to some of the other red lines. They had their job descriptions changed as well. They're getting told to do this and do this and do this and we do this and we do this based on past practice. Why? Because we do what's right for Metro. We do what's right for the whole company. Everybody does more than their fair share. But now it's in the job description. And now it's like none of the other agencies have to do that. They get paid more than we do. But for some reason we can't get a bump in pay. And I just don't think that's very fair. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else like to speak? No. We'll go to this. We'll send out questionnaires for over 20 and a half years. I just want to take something about this whole negotiation thing. And I'm going to speak to one item like the on-call for our facilities workers was thrown down. We were asking for a little increment on that. During my years here we've always been getting a dollar and fifty cents. We'll be on the call. And that was thrown down. We were asking for a little increment on that. We do get overtime when we get called in. Many times when you are enjoying for members of your family on your Sunday I find myself snaking mail-in for, say, watching the traffic center. I got all of the buttons getting backed up and all of that. And to hear that you want to keep me down that way? A dollar fifty. A dollar fifteen. An hour to be on call. I cannot go out of town because I have to respond within an hour to the job site when that happens. It's a little difficult to take it really. So when you hear some of the managers got these big increments don't you think that's kind of unfair? You have proved that for them. I'm not asking for a lot. But what about the minimum whether it's to be on call? Consider that. Okay. We're going to move on. Is there any additional documentation? I want to thank everybody who came up and spoke. I appreciate all the comments. Any additional documentation for a general? One to the there. Okay. Good. All right. We're going to move on to the Consent Agenda. These are items we normally deal with in one motion. Is there anyone who would like to pull anything from the Consent Agenda? Yes. Yes, we do. The job descriptions that you're going to review for the comprehensive salary study. We feel we need to pull those because that's part of the comprehensive salary study. We don't think you should approve it until we have an agreement in regards to the salary study because they don't hand in hand. And so we're hoping that you don't approve them until we have a full agreement of the comprehensive salary study. Thank you. Thank you. Do you want to think? Go ahead. I just want to remind you forward that back in November I grew that was I personally brought those position descriptions to you as a in-concept type descriptions. What we've done now is added the I think it's FLSA on the top and some other things on the position descriptions but the body of position descriptions on an aggregate level has not changed. This is just bringing it back for the point of consideration. Sure. I'm sure it says accurate. I'm sure it says accurate. My question is is there some problem that this would put off for a month? What would you do with them that you know could put them off for a month? So the position descriptions that you approve for the same November exactly remember technically those position descriptions were used when they went forward to be used for the compensation piece. And I'm not trying to do that. I don't think we're going to do that. I mean their issue about the bargaining is not about these that there are some job titles that have changed and so we're recruiting and recruiting the new job titles. What do you know if we have any recruitment coming up right now would that seem best? So we've had the new microphone coming everybody. My name is Monique and I work in the HR department. Some of the positions that we had issues for recruitment has been the custodial service worker and it was hard to recruit for that position because we have now a new job description with a new title that looks similar to what used to be our lead custodial worker now called supervisor. So for us in the HR department it's important that we go to the board with a new scheme of job titles so it's easier for us to recruit without mentioning and adding more stuff in the documents that we have to go in our website. I guess another question is I've read through these back in November again now there's nothing in here about the issues that are in dispute about whether we should pay people retroactively I mean all the issues that are still in dispute are not in these job descriptions it's simply the description of the job that we used to hire people I'm asking whether I'm accurate I believe you are and we've gone through an exhausted process months ago in which the union has bought off all of these job descriptions So I raised that possibility but I am concerned if we're trying to go out we have problems in vacancies and people are being asked to do more than one job and so I do think we need to move ahead on our hiring so although I raised this question about the possibility of putting it off I don't think it makes sense given that we're trying to actually hire people based on these job descriptions and given that it's got no connection to the things that we are disagreeing about in terms of how people are compensated and so forth it's not about the job description itself so I'm prepared to move ahead and support this The end has not been pulled so we're not having comment if you are up I'm going to allow you to speak on this but we're not discussing this per se so go ahead with your comment though Thank you Again during this study we were asked but everything that we do on a daily basis and we did this knowing that we were possibly getting compensated correctly you know a lot of us do like we said do a lot more than what our job descriptions are to say so for you guys to improve the job description before we get the equity part of it I don't think that's right you know we can't just give all these people all this extra stuff to do and expect them to do them without getting some kind of conversation That was part of the agreement that a lot of the a lot of the agreement that we made on adding more job duties with base with the salary study there are other stuff in terms of agreement of confidentiality non-competuality stuff for some of the accounting people was based in agreement if the salary study so in good faith we made an agreement based on the salary study we might not have a TA in a year right we might not be able to get an agreement here I don't know we haven't been able and you're going to approve something that is part of a salary as well so thank you I'll say it My observation is that people are not given new job duties they're asked to describe what they're already being asked to do and that's how these job descriptions people were interviewed and asked what do you do in your job by now this work I got into a lot of detail on the committee I was on and they asked what do you do in your job and they came back and they said I do this I do this to do it right and some of those things were not in the old job description so they were at it then there's a process where people in doing the study try to figure out well how much should there be some change in pay related to this as we compare people doing similar jobs and so forth there's apparently a lot of disagreement and that's fine about what the additional language in the job descriptions is about but it's not that this is asking people to do new things they're not currently doing and they say now we're going to make you do some new stuff it's stuff that people are already doing so I don't think there's any benefit to the employees to the side that we're going to argue about what people are doing questions going to be in their disagreement about it how should the compensation system work around that and we continue to disagree on the negotiating table but I don't see any reason why these job descriptions which are more or less accurate descriptions of what people are actually doing people are not saying I'm not doing these things they're saying I should be paid more for them that's a different question and that's not in the action that's before us today here there's simply the job descriptions and I think we should approve them Point of order at this point I don't need to be pulled by a director if we're going to have any further discussion on this so my question at this point is there any director who would like to pull an item so I'd be happy to pull it if there's any people who want to comment on it if you want to pull it then we'll pull it and we'll discuss it at the end would you like to pull the item yes please okay we're going to have a request to pull item 915 I'm making it pretty most likely we're going to vote for it we'll see what the comments are okay it's just why I just want to follow the process so is there any other yes do you have a comment that you make go ahead James well this is actually in reference to 9-13 sure the dissent agenda because it's stating that our union was involved with the discussions for the vision insurance and I'm here to confirm that we were not so I would request that that item get pulled so we could get a little bit of information about what's happening with our vision insurance and what the changes are going to be this is my application thank you thank you yeah absolutely so the other thing let me have her speak for us well I'm here in representation of don't remain HR director and it's my understanding that she sent an email to the union to the union with information of the change of that contract and they did not respond to that email so we did send she did send that email with information of the change of this contract and just to add to that we there is no changes on what the level of benefit for the employee there is no changes it's exactly the same thing the same benefit with BSP the only thing that we change is that we no longer are going with BSP directly now we are going with alliance insurance services but the level of service is the same the same payment the same everything is the same thank you for that presentation I would like to thank you that's a contractual item it's a mandatory subject of bargaining Don the HR nor Alex ever gave us a letter with these changes that's up for negotiations that's another per charge I have here so we are asking you to pull it I would like to clarify real quick your agenda says we have approved it your HR department just said we didn't respond to the email either way we want you to pull it because it's not factual just because we didn't respond pretty sure HR has multiple phone numbers for us thank you now is there any urgency on approving this as well would be my question like whether or not we have a time to strain on the contract we do because we're going to go to the telephone this contract became effected in 2011 2019 so we are ready paying the service so much yes yes be your opinion this person okay it is yeah I think we should proceed we've done what we do often times and there is a need to solicit the union contact you know feedback we send them emails and provide them the documents ask them to review them we give them a certain amount of time to respond you know I think Mr. Sturrendon's response is not accurate you should look at his email there is nothing being changed in our contracts and the level of benefit if there was then we would have met and conferred with the unions about that we're not open to discussion right now I'm going to need some clarification on a procedure is there any director that would like to pull this item okay one last comment Lydia good John go ahead well I mean I'm interested in finding the information which is subject to negotiations you know that has been brought up my only concern is if you'd like to pull the item to discuss it I want to put it on the regular agenda would you like let's go ahead so we're going to pull items 9.13 and 9.15 and we're going to move them to any other items we want to talk about I have a question let me deal with these two first we're going to move 9.13 9.15 and we're going to make them I'm going to put them after 17 so it will be 17 A and B 18 well no 18 is a different item 17 A and B we have items 17 so I'm just going to make a 17 A and B for 9.13 it will be 17 A 17 B and now your question on another topic on item 9.06 which is a grant page 4 it's an item grant number 38 and 39 which are for the Pacific Station expansion it shows those grants expiring in September in the long term sure they're really renewed or what's the what's the status of that money I hate to leave a million dollars very quickly let me clarify very quickly good morning I'm some planning director chair board staff yes there's not a million dollars left there's 137 I my glass is off to catch up with you it was originally in 2007 a million dollar grant that we spent 857 thousand dollars working on concepts to go back before five six years ago the concepts that was developed we got special permission to extend these two grants as we have and we're actually spending down little bits of it right now for the work for Mark Thomas and Boyle and Associates and if in the end we have to give a few thousand back because we couldn't spend it on eligible activities like I said we'll be up over 900,000 out of a million and we got special permission we should have had to give it back three or four years ago so we feel it's been a very big help in our ongoing work I think you just gave us an insight into a column that we should have to stable which is for me a positive out of that conversation thank you okay so any other items on the consent agenda that any director have a question or a concern about the remainder of the consent agenda motion by Rodkins second by Papa Gomez all in favor opposed consent calendar carries let's see so with that we're going to go on to the regular agenda this is our presentation of employee longevity awards and I'll turn it over to Rodkin so we have several employees who have we have several employees who have received recognition for their longevity and service district and the community I'm not sure who among them are here so the first is okay so thank you so the first one first of all I'm going to say the name even if they're not here first one is for Clarence Aragon who's receiving a 10-year longevity award and Clarence is very I mean there's information about each of these folks which we should be aware of these are people who have made a lot from commitment to this district Clarence is a very conscientious well respected by the riders because of a safe driving and courteous manner his affinity for performing magic tricks has entertained his coworkers on many occasions secondly we have Julio Garcia Velasco Julio is a second generation operator following his father Pedro's footsteps Julio delivers a high level customer service for which he's well known by our bus riding public his commitment to excellence and professionalism concerning the title of line instructor and allowing him to convey his attributes to newly hired operators next we have Lisa Mitchell who is here I believe he's not told you this nope alright well we'll release as well and Lisa's also a 10-year employee Lisa's been a valued employee in 10 years of a tenure at Metro both the riding public as well as her peers and supervisors greatly appreciate her dedication, commitment and professionalism in her duties as a Metro operator she's always going to go the extra mile and learn new things her cheerful and pleasant smile is always welcoming to all next we have someone who I believe is not here but well known by most of us Eduardo Montecino his career started as an operator always committed he's coming September I won't read it now so you'll hear about it in the next month next we have Salvador Calderon who I believe is here but Salvador is appreciated and respected by the riding public his peers, supervisors and managers alike a like of not only for his high level of professionalism and courtesy but also in his care of service to his riders his deep resonating voice commands a high level of respect and has been used in making announcements on Metro buses with good results next we have Sergio Lona Gonzalez Sergio has completed three decades of transportation service to the community his commitment to excellence says Mount Raver during this time he's been ready and willing to take on more filming required and driving any bus in any route whenever needed his dedication to safety, courtesy customer services unsurpassed throughout his career Sergio has demonstrated adaptability to handle a variety of circumstances and situations that have resulted in controlled and thoughtful approaches to solutions and many grateful Metro riders Jose Herrera during his tenure Jose has shown his commitment to Metro Metro's community of customers by his record of great attendance more than just showing up for every shift he brought his wisdom and adaptability to deal with difficult situations and people while still exhibiting excellent personal relationship skills for customers and co-workers alike he shows his pride by providing the very best in customer service utilizing his bilingual abilities to serve the monolingual Metro riders all appreciate his quiet respect for the near and then Richard Roscoe in Richard's 20-year tenure at Metro he's received a safe driver awards in 2004 2006 2007 2015 and 2019 for a total of nine years of safe driving he has other years of safe driving but he won the award for nine years all of his appreciation his attention to safety his dedication and commitment he has relied on daily Richard not only pilots and bus for Metro but also possesses a pilot's license allowing him to fly aircraft much to the pleasure of his fellow operators we also have awards for Chris Kane and A.J. Doherty but those will be ready to attend a later meeting we have John here we didn't get John's bio well I can tell you about John's been here is a great response to the people who depend upon our service for those who cannot necessarily lie our regular buses but even those who sometimes need special help and being able to do so so we definitely appreciate John's service to the district John Doherty I serve Metro today as only our second accessible services coordinator and I want to share with everyone that over the years a lot has changed metrobuses. I was a UCSC student and during my tenure I had the pleasure of doing field study and reporting to Mike Rodkin as I worked on a project for one class. Also I want to say that back then long ago in a galaxy far away when that door opened there were a few steps and so I would lift my arms my crutches with dangle and I grabbed whenever I could grab I could keep myself in there and ride. Fortunately before the Americans with Disabilities Act changed what buses were like everywhere here, San Cruz Metro, Scott Galloway, Les Light and others were all ahead of that big change ahead of that civil rights law because at Metro we got ransom buses before it was recorded. At Metro we involved people with disabilities before it was put in statute and also here at Metro having a position like accessible services coordinator we set things up so that when person needed one-to-one attention or a couple needed to practice with someone to use our services or even as I did yesterday an older adult came in with their scooter and needed some help to know where to put on some straps so it would be easier for her to get on and off a bus. We got that covered. I want to say that for me Metro is confirmed for me with what I've been doing at Metro and what I did before that I am a public servant and I am pleased to serve the public today. I am pleased to be serving it next week especially when I get to meet a young man in Watsonville who's looking for the first time to take his mobility aid out on a bus. So thank you for this opportunity to be recognized and obviously those who are not here and I apologize in advance but I don't get the pronunciation of the names right. I apologize for that when you have a number of new hires and some promotions that occurred and are occurring. We have hired four paratransit drivers and of course you'll meet those folks at future board meeting when they graduate so I'll introduce those folks at that time. Also 12 bus operators going through class right now which is pretty exciting. We hope that they will hold their on graduation day. We need them to fill at least nine vacancies that we currently have. We have hired Gabriel Moreno as a facility's maintenance mechanic one. We hired Jose who apologized again for that. Facilities maintenance mechanic one and he is a promotion from a vehicle service worker two so that's internal. I should also point out that one of our bus operators going to class right now one of those 12 is a vehicle service worker one. So there is opportunity to move up a new organization. We're excited to see that. We have a promotion of Luis Abundez Camacho and he's moving from a custodial service worker one to a lead custodian and then Manuel Madrigal moving from a vehicle service one to a vehicle service two and then we just also hired Caitlin Nelson as our financial analyst that's a new hire so it's been a busy month for the HR department and also for our training department on the paratransit site and on the bus operation site and then also sort of a sad announcement but we're very proud to make an announcement and wish one of our employees well Erin Alvie as you all know as our director of purchasing procurement has taken a job with another entity and this will be her last day here and we're really excited for her in her future although she will leave behind a great big hole here in that department. She's been here I think 17 years Erin is that right? Almost 15? Okay. Still a long time but 17 years with the work. That's a true story. I should point out that Erin more recently is most notable for helping us to actually complete the JKS, the GK SUSE building as you might recall when we when we lost our project manager for that and we went out and we hired a project manager to come in you can't just hire a project manager and say our management company and say go do this for us and let us know when it's done. They do have to be managed and Erin Doe Men she saw avoid there and Doe Bright in and took that over without questioning it helped us to coordinate with Heal International to get that project built then work with us through a number of different things that we had that we sort of de-scoped and that we had to complete after the fact once the we were done with the developer of that project she carried us through all of that and it was a happy day when we were able to do the ribbon cutting and Erin had a heck of a lot to do with that. I will also tell you that in this new adventure that we're embarking upon in which we will have electric buses at this agency they don't just arrive and you don't just plug them into a 110 socket and hope that everything works fine that's a major undertaking to design your yard redesign your yard so that it can accommodate electric charging facilities for buses. Erin has been shepherding that project and as a result of her work which we will continue to carry on in her absence we hope to have that electric infrastructure in place by December 31st so that when our first electric buses arrive early next year we can plug them in and put them in service and thank you Erin for all of that and for many years of great service to the agency. Thank you. Sorry it's a little bittersweet so I kind of vacillate from being happy and being sad so thank you very much for your support I appreciate it it was a difficult decision thank you. Any questions? Okay move on to item 12 this is consideration of James Van Hendy to the Metro Advisory Committee for term ending December 31st 2021. I move the recommended action. I just wanted to comment on that committee we had a lot of applicants for that job and it was it was an interesting discussion we had and this gentleman seemed very qualified and happy to have him on board so with that anybody from the public I want to weigh in on that All right. Do I get I missed the podium? Warm cold warm cold. First off I wanted to thank the Ad Hoc Committee. I'm Veronica Elsie and I'm chair of the Metro Advisory Committee wanted to thank the Ad Hoc Committee for their work. James actually did attend our meeting on Wednesday night and I'm really looking forward to working with him I think he's gonna be great so he's already shown us his commitment to the committee so I think that was a really good selection and second I just wanted to give the board a heads up because we were told at our meeting that you were considering holding the application period open a little longer to wait till the various universities came back into session and to get more applicants for the second open position and then combining that with the position which will be expiring in December so I wanted to say that I thought that was the right choice so you wouldn't have to recreate your Ad Hoc Committee again and then just to give you a heads up that in light of that we have done this once before at our November 20th meeting would be the time when we select the chair the new chair for 2020 and set our calendar for 2020 and what I am going to suggest here and going to make the suggestion at the meeting in November is that we select our chair for 2020 and select the date of the first meeting so that then when we have our first meeting our new members can participate in selecting the calendar for the remainder of the year since that is something that the committee does so I just wanted to give you a heads up that we were considering doing that just to be fair for everyone and that the good news is that because our attendance has been so excellent that being one short we are still going to have six members in November we will definitely have a forum and be able to act on anything that's presented to us at the agenda. Thank you. Thanks for your comments for that. Just to add to that we have a tremendous amount of very very good well qualified applicants and we looked at the strength and witnesses of what we had for that particular board to make sure that we're filling the gaps that we really needed and the gap of the cabrio colleges that they want because we know that we have a significant amount of ridership there and so I've taken that conversation also with the cabrio campus at Tim Watsonville and forwarded to them this particular opening so that they can start encouraging and passing along to staff and the class that are just coming on board with cabrio so that we can really identify the cabrio applicant for that seat that's vacant for that position there so I'm hoping that we'll see something come of that quickly and we certainly look forward to making sure that you have a full board there. So should we assume that at our next meeting we'll make an appointment either of someone from cabrio or from the list of qualified applicants that we got before? We held it for cabrio for a cabrio person instead of because it's loosened up that we could have done someone else for that position but looking at who we already had there for representation we really want to keep it for a cabrio and they hadn't started school so. No, no, I get that part but at our next meeting before unable to find a cabrio will we disappoint someone from this list? I wouldn't hold us to the next meeting but possibly the meeting after that so that would that would be the lead the lead way I'd like to give on that but we're trying to be very optimistic and I think Veronica's on board with us which means we're going in the right direction so. Yeah the question was are you going to combine it because we have a position that expires in December combine those two together. Dr. McPherson I'm very happy to hear the very complimentary comments about Mr. von Henry who happens to reside in the 5th Superzero. There was a swaying back to just saying. Anyway thank you those comments from out here with that we have a motion. I'd make a motion to recommend that. We have a motion to add to that so we have that so with that all in chamber I suppose that carries unanimously we're glad to have Mr. von Henry on board. I'm 13 this is consideration of ratification the contract was Central Electric Company. Erin, after you've done this you want to take people in to make some comments and highlight your career I'd be happy to give you that anyway so. Let's get through this. So this volume is a ratification we would have to bid for a contractor to install the electrical vehicle charging infrastructure at our duty case use the operations facility across the street this is going to set us up for 10 bays of charging we've already ordered four pro terra buses we're beginning engineering and design reviews coming up in a couple of weeks so those buses are are going to be in production soon. This particular contract is with Central Electric Company they were the single bitter we did reach out to the contracting community in Northern California the best that we could we did a lot about reach efforts and in the end we had about three contractors we were dealing with and only one submitted so but we're very happy with Central Electric they're really good company Watsonville long time family company from the area so we're really excited about that we're already off and running that's why this is a ratification the equipment that needs to be manufactured for the switch year takes several months so we really wanted to get this contract going and get the equipment ordered so that we can meet our deadline of December December 20th here and in 19 to get this done so that that is this item we asked for the contract value which is 553,349 with a little bit of contingency in there this item is fully funded by our LC top grant which is great the contingency in all it's about six hundred and fifty thousand dollars we also have a great design team on board Bowman Williams a local civil engineering company I see heads everyone's familiar with they've been wonderful they were our own call engineer and they're going to stay with us through this project fair engineering did the design fair and Tony from Central Electric have also known each other for a long time so they're there again they're off and running this is this is I'm very excited that before I go this is this is happening and I can hand it off but I'm confident that the project team is going to be able to bring this to to completion and and we'll have some chargers before we get our buses which has been our goal so any questions thank you and I'm Mr. Clifford I'll comment Jerry just wanted to answer the general comment you notice this is a ratification which means we've already taken action and we're coming to you and asking for you to prove the action we've already taken we don't do a lot of those we try to avoid doing those and when we do them we try to make sure that there's a lot of rationale for that oftentimes in August you see ratifications because you're dark in July and it just means we try to try and we couldn't get an item to you in June before you make dark but because of the timing especially in this case in order to be looking at the structure in by December 31st so you probably need to go ahead and proceed and then hope that you would approve it if you choose not to prove it we'll cancel the contract but you will approve it to be able to thank you chair you know this is an important one of our first steps in the future of our bus fleets the our goal is to go for all electric buses zero admission buses by 2040 and to do that we need to make sure that we have the right infrastructure the right equipment I really appreciate all the hard work that you put in to helping us find that right piece and it's something that we as a community can be proud of that we're that we're taking this important first step of purchasing spudges buses and and reducing the emissions from our vehicles and I just want to personally thank you for your years of service to the Metro and all the years that I've been here you've always been able to present information clearly and concisely and effectively and you know you're going on as a blonde you know you've had different hair colors I'm trying to cover the gray but we could go through the years and look at the color of your hair and we'll know what phase we're in yeah anyway I wish you the best of luck in your new position thank you director right first I want to agree with John's comments about your service to the district it's been extraordinary all right do you have two questions do you tell us anything that you might know about the capacity of that yard to charge all of our buses someday I mean in terms of space absolutely it's it's very space constricted so that is the next phase we have hired a company called center for transportation in the environment CTE out of Atlanta I'm sure you've met Steve Claremont and some of Lauren sorry Lauren at conferences they've been really putting together this industry for us in public transit for electric buses so they're going to come in they're going to help us today get through implementing these first four buses they're going to insist planning with routes and then they're going to help us figure out the next step it's there's so many approaches to how to charge that yard there's a lot of people that are just getting started and we've sort of been giving the board this message for a few years of go slow let's see how it develops give some of these companies time to get some experience really get experience and get their products together yeah there's several ways to win it's going to be a challenge it's going to be multiple solutions as well there's going to be some charging in the yard there might be some charging at maintenance and we'll have some we'll have some uh fast chargers at some of our transit centers which will help with the load it's yeah it's going to be a lot of planning and preparation but take it slow and and do it right and we'll get there I think we're fortunate that we have a cng station we have cng buses we're going to continue to buy cng buses until about 2028 so that's when they're at the end of their useful life it's it's 2040 and they can go so I think we have a little bit of time to figure that out it's going to really depend on the bus manufacturers a lot of what type of charging is going to be required for these buses and again I think there's some really good players in the industry that are just getting started that have some good solutions we've been talking to them all um and uh yeah we we have a little bit of time it's 10 there's actually a contract with fraterra for 10 buses as well so as we get additional grant funding we will continue to buy the same bus um which will be which is good it's difficult in public agencies and procurement to to get the same manufacturer of the same product when you go through bidding processes so we do know we'll have the first four the first 10 all fraterra's all going to be the same charging and then we'll see it could be overhead charging it could be inductive charging it could be the fueling station becomes a sort of charging charger itself and pushes it out so lots of ways to win thank you my second question we're fortunate to have this person started discussions with the electrical supplier with moderate power about rate issues because we're going to be forced to charge these buses during the day when the rates are high and that's a problem for us and they're they're a public experience and so we need some discussions about how we might deal with these rates what they might charge you know it's very kind of a unique customer in a way they've already indicated that they're willing to put together a tariff package for us to help us with rates they're really also in the beginning of their program we've been talking with mst and san benito as well baro and i went to a monterey power board meeting and spoke and they heard our presentation and our questions and our concerns about rates with pgini and they said they absolutely can help us with that so um yes if i can add the the the big thing i think that we need to sort out is going to be charged management software a software is going to help when you charge what time of the day avoid that peak of the peak you know so it's going to be a little bit of operational but um there are some companies developing software that will help you keep your energy charges down to the best rates during the day so it's a combination of things i'd like to say too it's been an absolute pleasure working with there and throughout the years is it just because i live in felton staying there uh yeah on the behalf or uh to answer of waterway bay community power we understand this we are really happy to be um be part of this uh having the situation of this being that literally uh metro being a day long service possess some challenges because the charging rates are higher bid days so we are targeting as we speak and i just uh we'll be discussing this at our next meeting next month um we target school buses the diesel buses because they're morning and afternoon and you have this time to charge uh and some better times for rate procedures so that's where our target is of modern day community power initially for buses take these diesel buses off they're carrying these young children it's going to be a win-win for sure but uh we we have our eye on the ball but that's where we're starting and we're going to put that in place very soon great any other questions for him i think when this came up too as i asked staff about um the grant opportunities from waterway bay community power and i think i had a response that some of the funding did come from that resource um so they're a collaborative partner and i'd like to make sure that this is probably one of their grants that they're just initially getting started with an issue um having been only in service really for a year at this point so i'd like to make sure that we get some recognition there maybe uh kudos to them on somehow a logo somewhere for what we're providing um from that grant to and collaborating with the you know the agencies together to make this happen for our community um and i also want to say thank you for the service that you've provided we've touched base quite a bit on different projects um since my time on here and i've appreciated working with you and the response of you getting back to me on the types of questions that i've had as well so thank you and good luck to your adventure your new adventure and your questions anyone from the public want to weigh in on this seeing none oh don't come on i'm sorry i i just want to say that erin is the best hands down the best manager i have ever had um she's been an amazing person to know to work for and to see every day um she's such a great leader and so inspiring and always has a smile on her face and very supportive and she knows so much it's a huge loss to us but i wish her all the best thanks general i move approval to recommend that a second thank you um motion by a vehicle thinking about kagela but before i let you go erin i just want to throw away my little two cents uh you know i don't want to minimize any of the other jobs you've done to this agency but as far as i'm concerned your legacy will always be bringing duty cases across the finish line which was a big accomplishment i know you're you've got to be proud of that because it was not an easy task and i wish you all the best and i'm going to have a vote and then i'm going to let you say whatever you want to say as since you've regained your composure all in favor i propose well i will just quickly say that um all the the beautiful people that work here at metro i uh is so overwhelming so many people have reached out and and made a point to come and see me and come and talk to me and get a hold of me and uh there's been such a a message of um understanding they uh understanding my decision to leave it was very difficult this last year has been tough for all of us and um uh the support has been great everybody has you know said we're so sad to see you go but we're really happy for you and and they're very supportive so um yeah so that's thank you so much for the love and support everybody has shown it's um made it even more difficult okay to take us to item 14 this is authorized a public hearing and a fixed route free fair program hi thank you janey i've been uh marketing and customer service i have made it through my first few months and they've been a visit an adventure so i'm glad to be here with my first item before the board um i'm asking that a public hearing be set for next month so that we can discuss the proposal to bring a free fair program forward for a legally blind individuals right in our system um i'm the the goal is to address some continuing concerns regarding our eventing machines and their accessibility to that particular audience uh the purpose of this program would be to allow that audience to ride our buses without any um issue and uh at the time that we are able to replace any machines or move to some other technology we would at that point propose to spending this program i know i'm trying to be mindful of the time of the board i know we have a number of additional agenda items to get through so i am open for questions if you would like to discuss it's a tough question of course because obviously we don't you know have any information about the backgrounds of our customers um about 12 12.7 of our customers ride on the discount pass now that discount pass is available to both elderly as well as disabled customers and of course that's um all types of disabilities um so we are talking about roughly half of the discount pass users um who are uh who qualify as disabled users um and then of course a smaller percentage of that group are legally blind in Santa Cruz County according to the 2010 census data we have about 6 000 individuals who identify as legally blind now of course not all of those individuals ride our system but we sort of got five million trips a year so that gives you some sense of the scale of what we're looking at any other questions the board any approval any questions from the public on this see you now bring back to the board for action then i'll do that we approve saying this here motion by uh rodick and second by new piercent uh any discussion all in favor i posed motion carries unanimously okay this is a uh item 15 received an update on the Santa Cruz County RTC rail corridor turn of analysis putting a scope arrow thank you very much again uh board um very quickly want to jump on the air and band wagon and just note uh the thanks from the planning department she's been a good friend of the planning department and we especially appreciate all our health and one more very important initiative we all know the mantra 63 buses is now 47 on this way to 34 thank you for the help over the last two years in making the solution in the plan so i'll get back on pass but thank you all right very quickly for your information agenda item 15 is the final scope of work for the unified quarter investment study alternatives analysis you do in your package and they have three replacement pages because we produced the version before august 1st made some minor changes so you're provided three pages very small amount of changes the heart of them were more emphasis on what we all have learned to refer to as triple bottom line analysis the metro staff is very happy we developed this scope together with the rtc staff and we're looking for the execution of the project this is an opportunity to establish facts about service features operating capital costs land use assumptions having to do with densities and neighborhoods are on the station ridership which is based on proximity and origins and destinations the ease of the access networks walking bikes uber lift other buses etc etc and the most important issue to metro is to establish a real analysis of this county's funding capacity for transportation transportation related projects over the next 30 or 40 years because there's only so many dollars to go around for our different features we feel that all this information will allow us to make an objective decision that is data driven lastly as you may know the rtc directed the task force of three metro and three rtc board members and order commissioners be established to oversee the project i think that's a great idea and i think it will be really helpful in keeping our eye on the ball of the technical analysis this project should be concluded in about 13 or 14 months so we should have a solution in early 21 thank you thank you any questions for variables okay any questions for the public okay this is just to receive enough data on the last necessary thank you for that update and with that i'm going to go away and come on an update on the next station thank you again um it has been established that the most viable opportunity to address the funding needs of this project are to pursue an affordable housing and sustainable communities state grant to make up the funding shortfall of the current proposal we will also be applying for the less likely to be successful federal program referred to as bill metro and city staff are working towards a february 20 ahsc application and the july july 2020 build application the task at hand for the team from the city and us is to meet all of the grant application requirements generally including a lot of things but in the big picture we have to have a final project definition we need to have a confirmed local funding package we need to move through some local government approvals projects got to be through some zoning and project approval steps in the city and lastly there's two parts to what we need to have some levels of environmental clearance for both the transit facility and the redevelopment facility the residential commercial retail site but that's what that's our assignment for the next few months i can't hear any questions um i spoke yesterday with uh body that's going to just i'm not used to this um so i'll just report and i'm sure you know this that i just uh for the benefit of the rest of the board um they had uh economic development has put out a scope uh has gotten a scope from the consultant mark thomas to verify the layout for the circulation just to make sure that uh in fact we understand precisely what it is that's your understanding as well oh right that's actually that's what i've been working on so be very clear we did some generic layouts to meet the 24 bay requirements with different plots that land many months ago we then once that all got established we brought back our service planning team to actually put the real metro operation over this generic and we identified a few things that could be done slightly better so now mark thomas and dan boilers associates us are taking the second run through those and i just received my promises latest ideas yesterday bombing in our meeting next week we've just gotten out and rq for affordable housing developers for this project as well as others and so they will release that shortly you should know what we're going to request for qualifications that is affordable housing developers interested in being a partner in this project so there are a number of really good ones in the area they expect to release the rq in three weeks and then get returns in a month or so in october and then we will have an idea who the potential partners are really affordable housing component not that they will be committed to this project but that they're qualified and interested in that we'll lay the groundwork for the brand coming up the economic development is also working with weber haze the environmental consultant to include both the city and the nyak property that we bought a national institute for non-profit insurance alliance in california it was in there something as i think board knows that the city purchased that property and apparently the nyak is building on the west side new new facility they will be out by early january santa cruz community health centers may be interested in applying the building so there'll be some space and you probably know this as well so there's some space in play at site for perhaps transitional purposes anyway just to let the board know there's progress being made on a lot of aspects of details for this project to go forward so no action but people are working on it yeah thank you any other questions any comments from the public okay that's a update so you know need to take an action move on to item 17 this is a prove a resolution of the board rectives compensation benefits this is i'm going to direct this to our attorney julie sherman for some guidance on this short thank you so this is called a resolution of uncertainty and um yes and the whole point of this resolution is to recognize the fact that the labor organization m of us have expired and part of the labor negotiations part of the possibility of the negotiations is to agree on effective salaries as of the day after the expiration so july 1st would be the effective date if that is the what the bargaining parties agree to and this resolution of uncertainty is basically saying because the mo use have expired that means their wages and benefits are uncertain as of this day and that provides the board the ability to go back in time and make the wages effective july 1st because under the california constitution somebody could challenge that as a gift of public funds and so what you're saying is it's not a gift of public funds if we ultimately do that because their compensation is not fixed right now and so this is a benefit for the employees if the board adopts this so that you are able to make wages effective july 1st rather than when you ultimately approve the final mo use so i think you should do it so that you're able to do that if that's where bargaining takes you great thanks for that introduction many questions any questions from the public second motion by rodkin second by leopold any further discussion all in favor that motion carries unanimously okay we're going to 17 a and b which uh 17 a is going to be item nine dash 13 this is a proof consideration of ratification of contracts with alliance insurance so needs more clarification thank you so bsp has been metro's vision provider for many many years and the contract expired on july 31st of 2019 with no option to renew metro issued a new request for proposals um for employee vision care insurance and we legally advertised it and to we gave information to 12 firms but we only received four proposals now our evaluation team review in detail all four proposals and selected a proposal that matched our current contract now what we are asking today is that you ratify a contract with alliance insurance um our employees will continue with the same level of service given by bsp so we will continue receiving the same service by bsp but we are going to be using alliance services as our broker for this insurance um by by us doing this we'll be receiving 11 percent of monthly savings uh which will give us a roughly amount of 14k per year in savings um as a member and using most of the insurance just last week i was able to go to my eye doctor i paid the same amount i gave him the same information and we don't have insurance cards for vision insurance all we do and give to the eye doctor is our name our social security and they find us in the system so me going to the doctor last year and uh when i went to the doctor last week it was the same thing nothing changed the same co-payment in the same service um so our evaluation team recommends that our um that you ratify our contract for employee vision care insurance to alliance for a term not to exceed seven years in an amount not to exceed of seven hundred one thousand five hundred dollars and so quick question here is if we did not ratify this our employees would be without benefits thank you director there and did you say BSP did not uh offer to they did but the amount uh by us going with alliance will provide us a savings and so that's why we chose alliance as our broker i just said that they didn't respond they did thank you that's a higher rate they were one of the four they were one of the four okay director coven don't thank you do in the process did you also compare the network in making sure that there was no gap in the providers that they had from the old plan to this correct he's the same but he's the same director the concern that was raised was whether this is a negotiable um peace and appears what our sure so um you know the basic principle is if the benefits are changing it is a bargainable matter my understanding of the facts are this is the same exact insurance it's just it's still vsp insurance it's instead of buying it from vsp directly you're getting it from a broker but nothing is changing am i correct in and when i read this that the memo the report doesn't say that this that the unions approved this they they had a chance to participate in the draft specifications and that's what they didn't respond to i don't have an answer for that that would be an answer that my director can respond to that yeah my my concern and i look forward to public comment um is uh provision of benefits i understand the concern that uh that uh people didn't feel as though they were um uh consulted well enough but i also share concern that um it's could be a forest and trees argument which is uh we the employees would lose a benefit until a new one could be initiated that may not result in any difference except people would be without coverage so um as i weigh that i think it's important that uh our constituent unions be consulted on them on the provision of benefits that's without a doubt um but i'm concerned also about the loss of benefits um for something that at least is being uh uh shared with us as virtually identical to what we had before so i'll be curious about that that would be a question for don't not not for you but for any other questions from directors i'm going to open up to the public uh comments on this model so article 7.1 under our panel year the union shall be given 10 working days advanced written not email written notice of any personal matter ordinance rule resolution regulation or acting affecting working conditions related to matters within the scope of representation proposed to be adopted by mental board directors or management the union shall be given opportunity to meet and confirm with mental representatives prior to his adoption except in cases of qualified emergency i never received an email i checked all of my emails from don i didn't know such committee or was i invited of such committee i'm just learning about this some of our members as you heard from the public i'll cry they have just heard about this i don't know anything about it i'm only basing something that i'm hearing without meeting our really understanding and really has impacts when i'm noticing provincial more and more they're doing this the CEO just had given orders to our supervisors to do something that was not within their scope of work without feeling and they were really concerned about this coming through what i suggest is you can perhaps modify your approval so that if there's any concerns that the unions come up to a meeting that we can have with management perhaps we can come back and you can modify your i don't know your rules but you can modify your decision that's my best thinking so that it doesn't hurt the membership because at this point i see mental at fault of this but i also don't want to hurt my old members so i'm trying to figure out how to work with the board and i hope you hold metro accountable for making this mistake so for for a bit of background when robin slater was here several years ago HR manager there was a procedure that she developed to that was in place that was used for many many years whenever HR related contracts were going out to get whenever we were going to issue a permit for the contract the procedure involved getting the feedback and and getting input from both unions throughout this procedure they were invited to be on the evaluation team if it was an RFP that procedure is all printed if purchasing has a copy of that procedure HR has been given a copy of that procedure but since robin left there's been a lot of pushback and that procedure has fallen away and not really been adhered to so i just wanted to give you that background sparse issues with the process obviously want to remember to remain covered if you guys are going to stay here to say that nothing has changed then nothing has changed we'll take your word on that however the process wasn't followed we do have sent information requests and check on our end for this email it doesn't exist you're also obligated to be in favor with us didn't happen you'll see the grievance for that on a separate issue that in my opinion that's different than actual ratification breach of a contract is a separate issue and we'll deal with it as a separate issue we need to have those benefits continued thank you thank you hi Nathan nice time right here um as a eye doctor um patient i'm just this is the first time i'm hearing of this um i was about to schedule an appointment for myself and my kids since school started getting their eyes checked and i have a vst card in my wallet so my question is is this official can i call and make an appointment yes the answer is yes i had an appointment last week you can't speak sorry about that it's my first time here and the answer is yes you can i just had my appointment last week i gave them the same information that i did for the last few years i i wear contact lenses so okay the answer is yes okay just wanted to confirm that make sure there was no no loopholes because we didn't get any emails i received nothing in the mail regarding any changes and last thing i want to do is make an appointment assuming i have vsp and go in there and then wind up with a bill saying we don't deal with alliance so i just wanted to get that confirmed thank you any other comments yeah i just wanted to comment right over because i think i may summarize this for everybody i think the intent of the board is to uh i biggest concern is we don't want the employees to drop any benefits that are pre-existing i think we can all acknowledge that i can also acknowledge that there was some loophole that existed here but since don's not here to defend herself i'm not going to be entertaining any kind of piling on the back there's a reason that it happened and i think we all need to explore that and and take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again so i'm hoping i can get a motion from this board that's something to the nature of uh that we want to continue the benefits with the understanders absolutely no reduction to whatever the services that are provided and that we make efforts to solve this loophole you might have a motion in my yes i would move the recommended actions with an additional direction that hr sit down with our constituent unions to review the benefits and report back at our next meeting about whether there are any changes that we would need to consider so to ensure that there's no uh decline effect i'll second that i have a motion and a second additional comments by the department i'd like to add in which me i think this family which is that we also direct the staff to develop a clear protocol for how unions are notified of renegotiation i guess would be or something like any of the sort of benefit contracts that we have i see that as a friendly second also and i suspect also family clearly there's a need to inform employees immediately about this and not access the benefits reassuring them there's no change in the level of benefit just the provider and the process yeah i think everyone in the room can agree that this was not handled correctly and we will make efforts to uh to remedy that if that needs to be part of the motion i'm happy with seven parts and i'll second okay i think we might be all in agreement on this one issue so with that uh put a call of vote all in favor i oppose the motion carries unanimously thank you for that discussion everybody we're going to go to item 17b which also is known as uh item 915 this is approval of the final issue scei decision descriptions who's going to start that i'll start because i pulled it okay my comment is basically that um what's in contained in these job descriptions i don't believe is that issue there are questions about compensation for it when it should happen whether the uh the study was well done on the question of whether they adequately compensated for all the duties listed in the job descriptions but my understanding is nobody is actually challenging that they do these things they're the results of their use with them and that that's already been before the minutes before the middle as long ago as last november i think ultimately in terms of when the it's been starting the process so i don't see any reason to not approve this even though i pulled it but i wanted to make sure that people in the audience had a uh a chance to comment because otherwise it was going to be taken you know it's going to go through a consent agenda so i have nothing else to add that's my view i could be persuaded that i don't understand something but that's where i any questions of directors it's beautiful well i'm not on less of a question but i i know that one of the concerns we hear from employees is that we don't have enough staff to cover the jobs that we have and i want to make sure that we are recruiting successfully for these jobs and so i chair director rockin most of director rockin's sentiments i understand the uh concern uh uh from the labor representatives and uh most of these issues seem to be part of the negotiation which we're taking very seriously any other questions or comments from directors i'm going to open up to the public for comment i just want to provide a couple things that um by share market is that there were um anything you're explaining in terms of the process of a study he was done however when we met and confirmed for weeks and weeks and weeks they were added um duties not based on the the study but because we agreed to add more duties on certain positions i think mostly what i hear from the membership is they're very very scared of this going through without any increase because of good faith they agreed to so many changes to the job descriptions and not getting compensated for those changes i think i hear those here from our members and i wanted to express that to you guys but just to clarify mr. rockin there was um adding duties thank you thank you any other comments so just to clarify the way that we were introduced to this whole job description thing we have a job description currently on file in a binder that we use for hiring purposes and whatnot and then we were instructed to go through it and then add what else do we do so that the purpose was to find comparable agencies with the same type of job description and so we did that and next thing we know they updated our job description to match what we do and then they went forward with the other 10 agencies and just went with the same job title and just compared us based on job title not based on what is underneath that job title in the sense that we are doing more than the department same department over at Riverside or we're doing more than the same department over at sbt so what we feel is that we're not being accurately represented when compared with these other agencies and that is probably our biggest beef within our department I just wanted to say that thank you thank you for that any other comments again I can't speak on the rest of the numbers but my positioning especially I'm the upholster and I was one of the ones I was interviewed by the cps you can see and when they were asking me what I was what I did on a daily basis I told them everything that I I'm the upholster but yet I have been asked to do a lot of the body shop technician work we make sure doesn't want to hire a body technician because they say that it's there's not enough work for that one position and yet on a daily basis my I do more body shop shop than I even do upholstery so when I told the lady and I gave him my information of what I do on a daily she said that I could not be compared to two different positions and then that they would not be adding that stuff to my job description and yet when they came back they all had not my current job description sorry says assist body technician when it came back the duties were just added on to my job description so that's just my concern with the job description going through your day and not being you know accurately uh compared to other agencies when you look at bta and you look at their upholster there is no body technician stuff on the blog on the upholster's job description when you look at golden gate it's only upholstery stuff there's nothing to do with body technician stuff I also um install advertising panels I drop I drive all the way to stand stand the android pick up buses that are being repaired um at other vendors and bring them back that is not not on job descriptions for other agencies so you know for us for us to be adding all this extra job duties and not being compensated for them directly it's just it you know it doesn't help the morale in the shop and that's just I'm just taking on my job description but I know a lot of the other guys that I represent in the mechanic fleet maintenance um also taking on a lot other jobs that are not on their job description thank you I just wanted to thank you for giving all of our members opportunity to speak I really appreciate that and I thank you so much for giving us opportunity thank you all right I know the comments from the public I wouldn't have but today's my last day so um I will share with you that I experienced the same thing that you're hearing about today and it was definitely a factor in my decision to to um take it out of position so please I hope to you this and I support them and experience the same thing and it doesn't feel very good so um thank you okay bring it back well in the testimony we got that I think my early restriction is still a hacker it which is to say people are not complaining about the job description but there's a dispute which is quite real that's going on at negotiations about other people are being adequately compensated for the uh did the study for the changes any changes in their job description for what it did before or the comparisons might not have been appropriate and so forth but there's not an argument here that the these are not the jobs people are doing basically and been asked to do and um so I'm not going to weigh in believe me on the question of the negotiations and how that's going to get resolved but I don't think the question is the job the problem is not the job description the issue whatever your position is on it about how how the study came out in the end and whether the compensation is adequate for doing these jobs so I still feel I'm in a position to move approval of these job descriptions and that hopefully the negotiation process will allow us to have a full discussion about whether or not the job changes as they exist are unanimously compensated. Dr. Cohen. I agree with Director Watkins's comments and to me it's only benefiting employees if the if we're adopting accurate job descriptions and those you know what we are listening recruiting for should be accurate so that there's no surprises when employees are hired and I think it also just helps in a better position than negotiations to be able to be more accurate and take the information that employees have provided and what their actual duties involve so I understand and appreciate the opportunity to be heard but I think this update and classifications are beneficial in in all areas. Go ahead and second the motion and it's also my understanding that there are in fact vacancies that need to be filled and for the best higher we need to have an updated description and that's part of what's being covered in this actually. Michael you want to say something? I do agree but it doesn't feel good when you add all these duties to your job description and then when your position comes back as being vibrated in negotiations so thank you. I'm struggling with this because what I think about is we all represent different cities here there's larger cities Santa Cruz and Watsonville compared to Scots Valley and Capitola and I know that when we compare bus we ideally the classic top idea is just try to compare apples to apples and oranges and sometimes it's hard to do I know that in larger cities Santa Cruz they have multiple positions to do different variety of jobs here in Capitola one person has to do all three of those jobs so I think this could be a similar what's happening here. I don't have a solution for it off the top of my head I know that it exists and it happens and it could be just a difficulty between the organizations. I know that class and comp studies is requested by a lot of agencies and sometimes you know if you're on the winning end of that it's a great thing and if you're not not so great still doesn't mean I have a solution for this. I'm concerned about the comments I think all the comments are real I think they're all valid. I'm not sure how we move forward this Director. Yes thank you Director. I guess is there a grievance process that there is this job description that's put together that gets flushed out so that it gets clarified and really what that job is for the employee that's in that role and making the revisions of what their description is before and after. I can hear Angela talk a little bit about the process I just want to reiterate this was an extensive process to go through the evaluations the employees participated in that. The union signed off on every one of the positions before you I'm a little bit astounded about the pushback today. Those job descriptions were then taken and evaluated against other agencies the chair is correct particularly in small agencies it's very difficult to find absolutes where people are matched against other agencies identically it just doesn't happen because depending on the position you take on other types of job responsibilities we hired a professional organization CPS to look at that data and to try to sit that down to a recommendation and that's what they have those CPS pay recommendations which are a part of another process were based on those job descriptions. Thank you. Dr. Lee. And I too being from a small agency years we've had some class and comp studies that we were frustrated with too because we can't compare that's why you wear many hats as well and it's it became frustrating where in our case the class and comp study wasn't helpful to us and we were better we thought we were better to negotiate just on a percentage basis because we ran into the same problem it just there wasn't a way to compare apples to apples if you're in a smaller agency to a larger agency it's just not and so we experienced when I was the negotiator in my my agency some of the same frustrations and finally decided it was better to negotiate separately individually not try to it wasn't helpful for us to try some constant it just didn't yeah I just wanted to put in some comments and listen to the the commenters I think one of the fears that I'm understanding is that when we did did the study and these folks got added these duties or weren't added but job description was changed a bit for them that their compensation is based on the lower end of the of the of the position just like the upholster he's probably doing some auto body work and but he's being looked at as the upholster versus the scale of an auto body worker so I think their fear is that they're going to be required to do two two different jobs but getting paid at the lower end of the of the of one of those positions and I can kind of relate to that you know it's just you're asked and what you're doing at this agency you're going to get compensated for the that lower lower position versus the higher position I think that's a point by my colleague just made is is a good one but it does seem clear that the quest that the question of pay is a negotiation issue that we have to take very seriously but it's that but in terms of the description of job description and the process we went through to develop the job description that seems to be without question we're we are going to wrestle with the question of pay but this doesn't seem about approving job descriptions so they go out and start recruiting isn't it isn't the right point but we should be at the negotiating table figuring out what to do how we look at that that that a class income study what kind of pay or or we need to be offering in order to remain competitive and hopefully come quickly to an agreement for the benefit of the employees and for the community so I feel comfortable and I will support the motion because I think that we want to get these job descriptions in these positions filled and I remain hopeful that we can get back to the table and figure out these issues so we can resolve as quickly as possible I'm going to go ahead and hold myself accountable here we have a motion and a second I'm going to call the question so this point all in favor I propose motion carries unanimously thank you okay that takes us to item 18 this is a review of items to be discussed in closed sessions thank you chair we have two closed sessions we've got one on existing litigation and one on anticipated litigation and Gina there will not be any announcements coming out of closed session okay well with that I just want to make an announcement next meeting will be Friday September 27th at 9 a.m. the Santa Cruz City Council and is there anybody who wants to address any of the items that are yes once we adjourn our regular meeting we're going to start our special meeting right especially it will be following the closed session and the topic of that meeting labor negotiations labor negotiations okay great thank you with that anybody want to address any of the items that are on the closed session seeing none we will recess to the closed session