 Okay. All right, ready to go? Yeah. Okay. Welcome, everyone. My name is Bruce McCrorson, Chair of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission. Today is Monday, June 29th at 9 AM 2020. We welcome you, and if you want to join us later, you may do so. We do have a quorum, but would you please call the roll? Commissioner Bertrand. Yeah. Commissioner Brown. Commissioner Johnson. Yeah. Commissioner Carl Gomez. President. Commissioner Caput. Yeah. Commissioner Alternate Schifrin. Yeah. Commission Alternate Mulherr. Right here. Commissioner Ripple. Here. Commissioner McPherson. Here. Commissioner Batur. Here. Commissioner Gonzalez. Here. Commissioner Rockin. Here. And Commissioner Olaynick. Here. Okay, we do have a quorum. We will go to item number two, oral communication. Any member of the public may address the commission on any item within the jurisdiction of the Regional Transportation Commission that's not already on the agenda. The commission will list to all communications, but in compliance with state law and may not take action. We may not take action on any item that's not on the agenda. Anybody that we have that wants to address us with oral communications. Sally Arnold. Okay. Ms. Arnold. Hi. Am I unmuted? You are. You're fine. Okay, great. Hi, I'm Sally Arnold. I'm Board Chair of Friends of the Rail and Trail. And as some of you know, last week, Friends of the Rail and Trail launched a new community-based vision called Coast Connect. And we envision a system for Santa Cruz County that maximizes our mobility and our car-free travel options through the county and beyond through the connections at Pajaro Station. This would use innovative passenger rail technology and expansive safe trail network and integrated first and last mile options, including the coordinated metro service, cycling, walking, shared mobility options. Coast Connect is based on the three principles of people, planet and prosperity. We can improve our community health, safety, equity, environment, business climate, access to jobs and education, all through a comprehensive transportation vision. This is why the work you do here at the RTC is so important. I know you are aware of all the wonderful things that can be impacted by quality transportation policy. And the hopes of Coast Connect are to help raise that understanding throughout the community. Please visit coastconnect.org to learn more. And thank you all for the important work you do every day. Thank you, Mr. Arnold. I think we have another person who wants to address us in our communications. Yeah, hi. This is Barry Scott calling with Coastal Rail Santa Cruz and I just wanna thank the commission for all the work we know is taking place in the rail corridor, their cleanups, their repairs, the washout, the major washout is finally being taken care. And the segment seven on the west side of the trail looks fabulous. The Watsonville is getting ready to start and I know that the other items are in queue so that we can start on eight, nine, 10 and 11 before too long. But I'm just really impressed with your work, with your engineers, on staff, and with the contractors that we see so much progress taking place. So just wanna thank you for all of the work. Thank you and thank you for your input throughout the years, the months and so forth. We appreciate it. There's a lot of work going on. Anyone else that we have that would like to address us? Our neural communications. Michael St. Mr. St. We're not hearing you. Can you hear me now? Yeah, yes. Okay, sorry about that. The commission was Michael St. with Campaign for Sustainable Transportation. A very important date is just two days away, July 1st, 2020. On Wednesday, the new revisions to the California Environmental Quality Act take effect. Of utmost importance is a requirement that state agencies stop using level of service to measure environmental impacts and instead replace it with vehicle miles traveled. This change was called for by SB743, passed in 2013. Since 2017, some cities around the state have been changing their environmental reviews to use vehicle miles travel instead of level of service. Focusing on level of service, as we have been doing in the past, created unintended consequences. Longer commutes, more car travel, more congestion, increased admissions, less housing where needed, higher housing transportation costs, fewer housing and travel choices for everyone. As an advocate, it was my hope that the commission would adopt VMT as its criteria for transportation projects before July 1st, 2020. It is quite apparent that this transportation commission will not adopt the new revisions of VMT but continue using level of service. This is extremely disheartening. In this moment in time, a window has opened for a shift from car eccentric projects to a more sustainable way of transportation. And unfortunately, like a lot of our public comments, it falls on deaf ears. One bright spot was a recent court case, won by advocates. Although this RTC commission had followed the law in its regional plan, the appeals court ruled that the RTP was nevertheless deficient because it failed to consider alternatives that reduced vehicle miles travel. This would not have happened without the tenacity of the advocacy groups calling for better planning. And that is what campaign for sustainable transportation asks of our RTC. Listen to the informed constituents, follow the CEQA guidelines, help us with the climate crisis, make our county safer and more economically viable. Thank you for listening. Thank you very much, Mr. Singh. Anyone else? Lowell Hurst had his hand up, I saw. Lowell, you're muted. You're muted. Lowell, yeah, you got the mute button. Lowell, you're on mute. I know the feeling. Lowell, if you go to the bottom of your screen, there's a thing that says participants. And if you click on that, something will show up on the right side of your screen with your name on it and you get to click on a microphone, which will allow you to, there you go. You're good. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I want to say my great appreciation to the RTC board that's done a fabulous job in listening closely to what the people are saying and understanding their needs. So I haven't been particularly active as an alternate, but I do watch what's going on and I see what's going on out in the community as well. So I want to say thank you to all the board members and the staff too, who are making great progress. Thank you. Thanks, Lowell Hurst. Mr. Otto. Yes, sound check. Can you hear me okay? Yes, yes. Great, thank you. Keith Otto. So thank you to commissioner, Randy Johnson for comment shared at the last meeting regarding the transit corridor alternatives analysis. It's refreshing to hear a voice of reason. It was reported that there were 600 responses to the TCAA survey. Apparently that's a good showing for this type of survey, but the commission also needs to be mindful of the 10,000 signatures that were collected from Santa Cruz County Greenway, advocating for trail only use of the rail corridor. And to understand why this makes sense, trail only use of the rail corridor, look at smart Sonoma Marin area rail transit, right? They were the basis for many commission decisions. What's happening there? How are they doing? They've been in operation since August of 2017, almost three years. What is their ridership? They've got three times the population of Santa Cruz County. So even with that much larger population, have they been able to achieve the level of ridership that we're predicting here in Santa Cruz County? No, not even close, not even half. So again, that's three times the population and not even half the ridership we are predicting. Things just do not line up. So when trail only is brought up, some commissioners and others say, hey, we decided against that a long time ago, we're sticking with our decision. Others will say, hey, to change course now will mean the way. But staying with a bad decision is not a good way to go. Consider the Titanic, right? They set sail from England, stayed the course. They didn't want to arrive late in New York. And we all know that, how that turned out. Options that you're considering with the CAA is like selecting which color deck chair should be used and placed on the Titanic. I encourage the commission to pursue transportation options which are affordable, practical, realistic, and effective in solving our transportation issues. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Auro, for those comments. We have somebody else, but there's another person. Yeah, you're right. Mr. Peoples. Yes, thank you. Hi, this is Brian from Trail Now. Thank you, commission. First of all, Keith, fabulous discussion there. Great, great commentary. Here we have our latest local artist, artist Stephen Desenzo, hoping to illustrate issues with the current train and trail plan. The illustration shows a rail car with RTC commissioners heading into a narrowing mine, heading into rail debt. The sign on the right tells us that the mine narrows and the trail is divided into and is diverted to another area, reminding us that over 35% of the trail will be diverted to surface streets with the current train and trail plan. That's 12 and a half miles. As the rail car heads into rail debt, Supervisor John Leopold says, everything is fine. We disagree, everything is not fine. Santa Cruz taxpayers are paying over $6 million a year just to maintain the old railroad track. And the tracks sit there for decades and decades more. In the middle is Supervisor Zach Friend saying, oh, please stop. Zach is a South County supervisor and he actually lives very close to the tracks. Zach basically quit the RTC commission over plans to have 60 trains a day speeding through our community and neighborhoods. Zach is a well-respected representative of our community. And when a leader like Zach quits a commission, we would think that the commission would get a message that maybe big trains speeding through our neighborhoods is not the right solution for our small community. Next, we have Mike Rotkin saying, no stopping now. Mike is a big supporter of the train no matter what and does not seem to grasp that our community cannot afford a train. Studies show that a train has zero impact on traffic. It actually would increase traffic at street crossings. And it is preventing the cost effective construction of the trail. We see that with segment A, which is $10 million a mile versus what should be $2 million a mile. So we're concerned. Our problem is that we're asking for the commission to redirect, not head into rail debt and begin using the Santa Cruz Coastal Trail now. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Chief. I'm gonna just make it clear Zach didn't quit. He recused himself because of his place of residence near the tracks and his staff member, Patrick Mulhern has taken his place on it. I just wanna make it clear he didn't quit per se that his alternate is Patrick Mulhern who is serving on the commission. In issues regarding the rail, then that's the reason. Okay, but you're right. He's not on the commission or making decisions on the commission at this time regarding the rail. Okay, do we have anybody else? We do not. We do not. Okay. All right. We will go to additions or deletions. Anything that's added or deleted from our agenda. Everything's, episodic, okay. We will move to the consent agenda. We have items number, what, four through 10 that are on the, excuse me, four through 15 that are on the consent agenda. Is there anybody that would like to pull an issue that's on the consent agenda? Anyone from the public want to address us on an issue that is on the consent agenda? Ms. Arnold. Okay. Ms. Arnold. On the consent agenda and which item is it that you would like to address? Actually, I'm speaking on several items around the rail corridor. There, you have quite several on the agenda. Can I interrupt for a second, please? Yes. Bruce, I just wanted to let you know that there were a couple of changes to the agenda. There was a handout for staff report on item eight and that is on consent. Right. And then there's also a handout for item 16 and a replacement page for item 21. And my apologies for interrupting. Okay. So we do have the one item on the consent agenda. There's no resolution on item number eight, just to consider authorizing to enter a contract. There's no resolution involved in that. Is that correct? That's correct. Actually, the staff report, which was a handout is a recommendation not to award the contract. That's why there's no resolution. Okay. Okay. Ms. Arnold, do, okay. You can address us on items on the consent agenda. We really like to limit it to three minutes. So I don't know if you want to do address each item on each consent agenda or a few of them. I will definitely be less than three minutes. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead. Sure. We just noticed that the consent agenda and actually several other parts of the day's agenda include several items related to the maintenance of the right-of-way. And we just wanted to say that we, again, I'm speaking for friends of the rail and trail. We appreciate all the recent efforts of the RTC and its staff and contractors to take steps to repair and clean up and maintain the coastal rail line. You know, creating, well, I don't have to tell you, creating a high quality trail system with integrated transit that crosses multiple jurisdictions is not a simple job. We see that. And we appreciate your efforts to establish the contracts and other procedures that will make the trail design and the review processes more efficient as these projects move forward. And we urge approval of all the rail and trail related items on your agenda. And we thank you for your work, just juggling all these many details necessary to create the quality progress that our community deserves. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Arlen. Is there anyone else from the public that would like to comment on an item on the consent agenda? Mr. Pico. Mr. Pico. Can you hear me? Yes. You should get closer to the mic. Well, I'm on my computer and I don't quite understand, but can you hear me now? Yes. This is a trial run. And it turns out that I misunderstood. I want to raise my hand for joining later on the regular agenda. My apologies. Okay. All right. Is there anyone else in the public who would like to comment on an item on the consent agenda items seven through 15? I do not see any other hands. I'll move the consent agenda. I will second. Moved by Shearfer and second by Rocken to approve the consent agenda as presented. All those in favor, do we have to go through a roll call? Yes, Mr. Chairman, you do need a roll call. And I would just note for the record as the executive director noted the recommendation on item eight is to reject the bid for reveres for the storm damage site seven on the Santa Cruz branch line. To reject it. There was just, okay. Is everybody clear on that then? That and I remember is to reject the contract or the bid, I guess on that. Okay. Call the roll please. Commissioner Rocken. Aye. Commissioner Gonzalez. You're muted. Aye. Commissioner McPherson. Aye. Commissioner Leopold. Aye. Commission alternate Mulher. You're muted, Patrick. Commission alternate Schifrin. Aye. Commissioner Caput. Aye. Commissioner Kaufman-Gomas. Commissioner Johnson. No. Commissioner Brown. Aye. Commissioner Bertrand. Aye. And commissioner Olaynick. Aye. Okay. Commissioner Marks. Aye. Okay. Dr. Orff is aye. Okay. So on the consent agenda, we have been approved with one no vote from Commissioner Johnson. Is that correct? Okay. Thank you. We'll go to the regular agenda. Commissioner reports, are there any reports that anybody from the commission would like to mention to us? I have a brief comment. Yes, Mr. Rocken. I just want commissioners to be aware that the transit district is slightly expanding our capacity for service to the public. We've had a situation where we were only allowed roughly the maximum of eight people to a bus. And we're not, we still require masks on the bus. The drivers are protected by curtains. We're in the process of putting the additional plastic sheets between seats. That will take a little while. But in the meantime, we've now, starting tomorrow, we'll have, I think it's tomorrow, at least in the next day or so, we'll have increased our capacity to about in most cases, something like 12 to 15 people on a bus. That's still about 50% of what we normally carry seated, some buses in the past, of course, have carried standing room as well, but people should just be aware that because people are now going back to work and requiring bus service to get to work and other kinds of things that they were not allowed to do for the last three months, we need to increase our capacity to carry them because we've had problems with people being passed by. So that's our current plan and people should just be aware that again, at this point, we're not requiring people to demonstrate that they have an essential need of some sort to ride the bus. The bus service is open for those who need it to get to work, the medical care and other kinds of services. So people should just be aware of that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rodkin. You chair of the transit district. I know, thank you for your service there too. Anyone else would like, commissioner would like to report on anything? Seeing none. Commissioner Kaufman Gomez, I think was wanting. Excuse me, commissioner Kaufman Gomez. Yes, thank you, chair. We wanted to let the commission know that the city of Watsonville has put together a resolution in support of the transportation passenger rail service on the Santa Cruz branch rail line. And it was a unanimous decision on behalf of the city of Watsonville with the strong encouragement to start there. That's where the need or the ask is. And there are a couple of the comments that came out of it, but I'll share that with staff later work later, but that should be part of the record. I don't know if you've seen it quite yet, but if it doesn't show up in the packet, then perhaps maybe the next meeting it'll show. And perhaps commissioner Gonzalez has some comments to make as well. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gonzalez, you're on the spot. Do you want to say anything? Yeah, I know as you threw it back at me. No, it was good to know that the city council, the city of Watsonville supports passenger rail. I think it's important for the city of Watsonville and the South County. With that, I'll pass it back to you. Thank you. Thank you. Any other commissioner have comment or report? Any actions? Okay, we will move on to item number 17, director's report, Mr. Preston, executive director. Yeah, thank you. Chair McPherson, commissioners and public, just in response to commissioner Kaufman Gomez's comment. The resolution is the handout for item 16. So if you're interested in looking at that resolution, it is posted to our website as a handout for item 16. I do not have a written report today. I will speak orally with a heavy heart. I am fortunately speaking today to report on the loss of three dedicated civil servants. When describing the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission, I always emphasize that we are a team. Our team stretches across various government entities, including Santa Cruz Metro, the county and our four cities, just to name a few. We here at RTC do not do it alone. We are a family of dedicated individuals who work to make Santa Cruz a better place for everyone to enjoy. On June 6th, Santa Cruz County Sheriff Deputy Sergeant Damon Gutswiller was shot and killed while responding to reports of a suspicious looking van in Ben Lohman. 38 year old deputy Sergeant Gutswiller was a 14 year veteran of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office and leaves behind a pregnant wife and a two year old son. At last month's commission meeting, I had announced a public meeting that would occur on June 16th to discuss a safety project for Highway 9 between the San Lorenzo Valley School Complex in Felton. Due to the events surrounding the death of Deputy Gutswiller and that meeting was postponed. I am working with Supervisor McPherson's office for an appropriate date to reschedule the meeting, likely towards the end of the summer. On June 15th, Allison and Herd, a Santa Cruz County Analyst and a member of Supervisor Community Staff was struck by a car and killed on an afternoon walk in the Seabright neighborhood. And that's an area that I walk regularly. I actually was walking by not too long after the incident. Allison is remembered by RTC staff as engaged, informed and caring. Allison inspired us all to think broadly about the challenges and potential solutions based by our community members and to remember that the work that we do affects the quality of life for current and future generations. 43-year-old Allison and Herd is survived by her partner and their two daughters, ages 15 and 12. Tragedy has a strange way of happening in threes. Unfortunately, I found out this weekend that one of RTC's own, Teagan Spicer, passed away on Friday morning. Teagan began her transportation career with Santa Cruz Metro where she worked for almost seven years planning, marketing and customer service. She was also the founding executive director for the Santa Cruz Area Transportation Management Association for five years. And as such, also served on RTC's Interagency Technical Advisory Committee. She later worked for the RTC for over 15 years as a senior transportation planner where she led her work on a variety of significant RTC projects before retiring in April, 2017. Teagan's dedicated career, dedicated her career to ensuring people knew their options for getting around Santa Cruz County and leaves an indelible mark on the RTC and on the Santa Cruz County community. Although I never got the opportunity to work with Teagan, I often hear great stories about her lovely personality as well as her professional accomplishments. Commissioner Leopold and a couple of Teagan's co-workers would like to say a few words about Teagan's passing. So I'm going to hand it over right now, Commissioner John Leopold. Thanks, Guy. It is hard to deal with the whole loss that our community has experienced. And Teagan was an incredible member of the community. It's hard for me. I was thinking over the weekend exactly when I met her. Was it at the TMA, where she was an upstairs office from the Santa Cruz AIDS Project, where I worked at a gay pride event? Was it in her work at the RTC? She was incredibly dedicated to making sure that people were smart as they got around. She always came up with creative solutions and she always worked to bring that flair. She had an incredible creative flair to everything that she did. And so whether that be marketing materials, whether it be the outreach to the TMA, whether that be the art that she brought into the RTC office, it was always great. It was always fun. And you always had a big smile on your face when Teagan was around. After she left the RTC, at one point she became the executive director of Temple Bethel, where I happened to be a member. And there she brought organization to the organizational chaos that is any congregation. She figured out a transportation system for people showing up for the high holidays. And she changed the way things looked inside that the building, because she had such a great artistic flair. When she came back to the RTC, I was really happy to see her return. And she, as I said, she always brought that smile, always brought that spark of creativity and encouraged us all to be that way. I'm mistaken a lot. And she was a value member of the community and her contributions will not be forgotten. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Leib. Well, I can just say that these are three outstanding public servants of Santa Cruz County. And we're a better place for it. And thank God they were here for as long as they were to serve us and to be friends and just tremendous outstanding productive citizens to make Santa Cruz County a better place to live. And I believe Commissioner Rodkin would like to also make a statement. Thanks. Tagan was an amazing community activist. I worked with her really closely on the West Side neighborhood organizing back in the 1970s, starting around 75 or 76. A number of other community projects over time. And she was incredibly energetic and mostly, I have to say, like very open and able to work with all different kinds of people. And the West Side neighborhood group was a diverse organization in all kinds of ways. Politically, as you know, demographically as well. And she got along with everybody in that organization and it was really the spark in a lot of ways for the things we did. So I just want to say she'll really be missed. And I can't believe she's gone. I mean, she was very young and still energetic the last time I saw her not long ago. And she made so many contributions to this community. It's quite a loss that she's passed away. And I know two of our Taken co-workers would also like to speak. Luis Mendez, my deputy director, Luis. Good morning, everyone. I think everyone at the RTC knows how instrumental Taken was on many RTC projects. I mean, she was extremely helpful making sure that the RTC became a well-functioning autonomous agency when we moved away from the county. I mean, it was a daunting task. And I mean, Taken was perfect for the job because she was so detail-oriented and so great at keeping so many things moving to make sure that that happened accordingly. She's instrumental in our Cruise 511 program that we currently have, which was extremely helpful during the 2016, 2017 winter storms when that got tremendous usage of the system. And it was tremendously helpful to the people affected by the storms. And there's only a couple of the projects she worked. I mean, she worked in so many projects in the RTC throughout her career. But even before working at the RTC, I mean, she was involved in transportation. I mean, I first met Taken in 1994 when I was a starting transportation planner at the RTC and she was executive director of the San Cucero TMA and a member of the RTC's Inter-ACC Technical Advisor Committee. Then in 2002 is when she came to work at the RTC as a senior transportation planner to leave her a mark on so many RTC projects. And Taken became one of the people from whom I learned to be a transportation planner. From Taken, I learned that good transportation planning requires efforts from a variety of areas including science, engineering, economic, sociology, marketing, politics and communications as well as a fair amount of investigation, discipline, patience and perseverance. When I was a transportation planner, I was also the union steward of our office. Taken provided me with invaluable guidance and advice in my work with union student involvement with STIU boards and contract negotiating teams. When there was an opportunity for a transportation planner to move to the deputy director position at the RTC, I expected Taken to be a shoe-in given her experiencing qualifications. She let me know that she was not looking to be in such a position at that time and she provided her support and encouragement. Thanks to her experience, she was a great resource to me in my new position. And thanks to her suggestions and advice, I think that I have done at least a decent job in my position. Perhaps if I had paid better attention, I would have done an even better job. I know that I am not only speaking for myself when I say that Taken certainly helped shape a variety of projects at the RTC, but perhaps more importantly, she helped shape the people with whom she worked. And for that, I am very thankful. Thank you, Leish. And then finally, Jinder Daikar would like to make a statement as well. Good morning, everyone. I want to share a few words about Taken. She was a coworker and also a friend and I appreciate so much about who she was and what she stood for. I'm not sure how much it is apparent to others that the staff of the RTC have really close working relationship with each other that are extremely powerful. We work really hard together and support each other like a family. I worked closely with Taken on the early development of the Cruise 5-1-1 project. And Taken, she never did anything halfway. She never stopped until she got it right. She just had so much perseverance. Others have already talked about her keen eye for design that came through on so many of the projects you worked on. And really when you look at the RTC, so much of her work defines the look and feel of the RTC today. In the last few years, when I would spend time with Taken, the song from the 60s, What's It All About, Alfie, that's sung by Dionne Warwick, would often come to mind. Because Taken figured it out. She knew what life was all about. She worked hard to make the world a better place. She took time to enjoy herself through travel, appreciation of art, and she always had the best artistically made scarves that matched her outfits to a tee that other women in the office just envied her for. She knew how to be herself. She had the confidence to live her life the way she wanted. She was a really good listener, but she also spoke up in her self-spoken way because she knew she had a perspective that was unique to Cher. She was so smart and thoughtful, and she connected with people at such a deep level. The strength of her relationship with her sister, Tar, is just so incredibly heartwarming. And she loved her little dog, Zoe, with so much heart. Thank you all for letting me share the words about Taken. I will really miss her. Thank you. I know this has been hard for everybody. I know a couple members of our family are on the line today as well. Her sister, and I believe also for brother, I would understand if they did not want to say anything right now, but if they do, I want to give them an opportunity to speak as well. Mr. Preston, thank you. This is Sabin Spicer. I'm Tar's brother. I'm Tarja Taken's brother. And I appreciate all the comments that people have made. I know several people on the commission. I know Mike Rockin, he was my thesis advisor at Santa Cruz. And it is really moving to hear the impact that Taken had on Santa Cruz and on the specific transportation policies and projects there. But it was also really moving to hear people's impression of Taken that they are so similar to my own when I'm trying to think of how to encapsulate what her life was about just to hear kind of my feelings towards Taken, validated by the people she worked with at the Santa Cruz Transportation Organizations. So thank you very much. Thank you, Sabin. So this time has all been very difficult for us. I would now appreciate it if everyone would please bow their heads for a moment of silence in the memory of all three civil servants who recently lost their lives. Deputy Sergeant Buntz-Willard, Allison and Hart, and of course, Taken Spicer. On this very sad note, we must continue our business. This concludes my director's report and I'll hand it back over to Chairman Kirsten. Thank you, Mr. Preston. And thank you for those deserving comments by everyone. We will now go to the Caltrans report. And I might just add before we hear from Mr. John Olanek that I appreciate the work that Caltrans is doing that has such an important impact on the motorists of Santa Cruz County. You can see that improvement projects are being done throughout the area, especially the overlay on Highway 17, which thousands of our residents travel every day or used to before COVID-19 and probably many still do. The clearing of the brush over in the Santa Clara side by Lexington Dam, I think was the most successful or the most expensive project of this type in the state of California to create a firebreak there God help us if we ever need it. So they've been doing a lot of work and it's been very beneficial to the people of Santa Cruz County and it's much appreciated. And I just wanna let Caltrans know how much we appreciate they're getting to so many projects in our County. But the Caltrans report, I think Mr. Olanek will be giving us a report. Yes, good morning everyone and certainly thank you Chairman Pearson for that compliment. We appreciate working with you and your staff and RTC and RTC staff as well. There's a lot of good in the transportation world we're gonna accomplish it together. So that's really nice. As far as my brief report this morning, I just at last minute added one thing of following a comment in the initial public comments by Mr. St. This is regarding SB743 and the change of state law and CEQA from a level of service analysis to VMT. Just announced on Friday, the Governor's Office of Planning and Research, OPR, their director and our Caltrans director, Director Omar Shaken, they're gonna hold a joint town hall this Wednesday at one o'clock to talk about SB743 and its implementation. So that's one o'clock it's a webinar. If you just go to the governor's OPR website or the Caltrans website should be able to anyone in the audience should be able to find that announcement for that town hall. The July one date brought up that's the deadline in CEQA for land use traffic traffic analysis for LOS for traffic for transportation projects that's our highway projects that date is not July one for Caltrans and for our transportation projects that date is September 15th that will be fully implementing the SB743. So just wanna add that. Another point I look forward to just mentioning is that Caltrans and CHP has joined efforts and enhanced litter cleanup effort right now and between our two agencies we're working hard to just do all of our litter removal projects and activities and enhance that as well. Litter increases the risk of fire it glutes our waterways, it threatens wildlife and it costs the taxpayers it costs us millions of dollars to be able to do these ongoing cleanup efforts. So we just asked the public and everyone to continue to dispose of trash properly if you have a load to cover that load properly as well. And then lastly, as far as just mentioning since you brought up highway nine we appreciate your work certainly on that. A lot of good work is continuing along highway nine including our project to develop a pedestrian pathway between the high school complex towards the town of Elton. So as appropriate in the time's right to be able to set up another outreach to the community to afford to do that as well. And that concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that continuous effort on highway nine as well. Is there a comment that came in regarding the Calfrans report? Thought I saw one. No? No. Okay. Any commissioners have any comments to make regarding the item number 18 Calfrans report? Seeing none, we will move on to item number 18 Safe On 17 Safety Corridor Program. It's 2019 annual report. I do remember when being in the legislature putting this into effect with then assemblyman Fred Keely as a matter of fact. A.B. and Aranjo transportation planner will be giving me a report on this. Good morning commissioners. Can you hear me? Yes we can. Thank you. Great. I'm here today to discuss the work of the Safe On 17 Task Force and to provide some highlights that are included in the 2019 annual report. The Safe On 17 Task Force has been active since 1999 and has the goal to reduce collisions and improve motor safety on Highway 17 corridor between Santa Cruz and Los Gatos. The Safe On 17 Task Force is a partnership between the RTCSafe, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission phase, CHP and Caltrans. The Task Force needs twice a year to discuss the outcomes of CHP's extra enforcement and education activities and to share information on Caltrans current Highway 17 projects and maintenance activities. So this group has identified three main strategies for reducing collisions. One is extra enforcement of safe driving practices, road improvements and then public education. So the RTC's role in the Safe On 17 Task Force is to provide funding for extra CHP enforcement on the portion of Highway 17 in Santa Cruz County. The MTCSafe pays for extra enforcement on the Santa Clara County side. Since 2003, the RTC has been using $50,000 annual and safe funds to pay for extra CHP enforcement. However, in 2019, the RTCSafe allocated an additional 50,000 per year in Measure D funds for enhanced CHP enforcement in Santa Cruz County and to cover inflationary costs for the increases in the hourly rates of CHP officers. RTC staff also facilitates the biannual meetings to bring partners together and to share information and perspectives about safety issues on Highway 17. And then in addition, we produce the annual report which I'll describe today. So in the report that's beginning on page 163 in your packet, we review the collisions and citation data provided from CHP on Highway 17. We review some of the highlights of the Caltrans construction and improvement projects as well as from other stakeholders. And then we summarize some of the public information and outreach activities that have taken place over the year. And this year's report was prepared by RTC staff with input both from MTCSafe, Caltrans and CHP. So in 2019, there were 839 collisions on Highway 17. Four of those collisions were fatal and 275 collisions involved injuries. And in 2019, this was the most injury and fatal collisions reported in the program since the program began back in the late 90s. If you look at attachment one in the annual report, you can see the collision data that goes back as far as 1996 in the three year duration before the program actually began. Injury and fatal collisions in 2019 were up 12% compared to the three year pre-program average and then 50% more than the three year average during the Office of Traffic Safety grant period. In particular, injury and fatal collisions were most severe on the Santa Clara County portion of Highway 17. Those increases in injuries and fatal collisions started in 2016 and they're at their highest number in 2019. There's a couple of reasons for the increase in collisions. It usually involves a combination of factors including speeding, tailgating, unsafe lane changes and in particular, the distracted driving. Other external factors like wet weather may also influence a total number of collisions. Wet weather is considered to increase traffic collisions because of the slippery pavement and the decreased visibility on the roadway. If you look in attachment two in the annual report, you can see how we compare the amount of annual rainfall monthly, quarterly as well in comparison to the number of collisions on 17. In 2019, there was a little bit more than 66 inches of rain along Highway 17. Most of that rainfall came in January and February and then again in December and those match up with the increased number of collisions that happened as well. So in response to the increase in number of collisions both in Santa Cruz and San Jose, the CHD have focused their efforts during commute hours when the probability of traffic collisions are likely higher. And then they also schedule extra enforcement during higher traffic collision months and then on summer holiday weekends when there's more traffic on Highway 17. In regard to the additional funding for more overtime in Santa Cruz, the CHP worked total of 1186 officer hours for overtime on 17 and during that time they issued 1284 citations. Santa Cruz in particular, they worked twice as many overtime hours in 2019 compared to 2018 and that's likely due to the increase in the available funds that was provided for extra enforcement. And in the report, you'll see in attachments three, four and five, the annual, the summary collision data, citation data and extra enforcement data that we've been tracking since the program began. And then finally in 2019, Caltrans also completed additional safety projects as was mentioned previously and including constructing multiple storm water mitigation improvements, widening the shoulders, installing concrete guardrails and repaving the lanes from Granite Creek Road to County Line, just to name a few. And then Caltrans and Cal Fire also worked together to work on the Shaded Steel Brake Project to reduce fire risk along the Santa Clara Cautions of Highway 17 and they just recently completed that project. You can see their mid-progress report in attachment six of the annual report and then lastly on an attachment seven, I included in information about Caltrans in Santa Clara County that they also in 2019, expedited a traffic safety project that will eventually begin construction in January, 2021. And that includes a pavement restoration, high friction surface treatment, dynamic speed signs, enhanced striping and improved safety lighting. And then as far as public outreach activities, RTC staff will continue to provide information to the public about driving safely on Highway 17, including tips for driving in the rain and sharing risk of distracted driving, both on the RTC and Cruise 511 websites as well as our social media channels and sharing information from our other partner agencies as well. So that concludes my report. Staff recommends that the RTC accept the 2019 Safe on 17 annual report. I'm happy to take any questions and Sergeant Troy Vincent from the Santa Cruz CHP. He's also on the line to answer any of your questions that you may have specifically for CHP activities. Thank you. Yeah. I again want to thank Caltrans and the CHP. I do Mr. Who is the officer's name? Excuse me. Would he like to make any comments? This is Sergeant Troy Vincent. And we're just trying to do the best that we can to, well, reduce the traffic collisions out there. You see all the information there and I'm happy to answer any questions if you have any. Thank you. I can say if we would have these would be grand free drivers slow from 60 or above to 50 as posted, I think between Los Gatos and Scotts Valley, you save a total of or gain or however you want to put it about two or three minutes. So is it worth the effort or the threat of an accident to go 10 miles an hour or more faster on your car? Just slow down and take it easy and we'll have fewer accidents, I think in general. But I do want to thank the CHP and Caltrans for everything it's done to make improvements on Highway 17. Is there any comments from the commissioners? I think we had some comments from the public as well. I had a question, it is. Mr. Rotkin? Mine's really brief. I just want to point out that I wish people sometimes only went 60. You could be driving 17 at 50 and have people go by you at 80 and 85 and when it's raining outside, I mean, people just drive crazily and there really is nothing more effective than basically having CHP enforcement out there because it's the only thing that seems to slow people down. And during this virus pandemic that we've had, there was a time when 17 was less busy than usual and people were going even faster. Literally, I mean, it's just amazing what people will do and it's just no common sense whatsoever. Right, I do want to thank the transit district but many of us are on that board too. That the Highway 17 route is, I think next to UCS here, our most popular route and boy it saved a lot of vehicles coming and going over the years and over the weeks as we move on. Mr. Johnson, I think you had a comment. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to ask, over the past 20 some years you've collected, this is for Sergeant Vincent, you've collected a lot of data. What are the, have you been able to distill where the real problem areas are? Which curves are the worst? Are they, do the accidents happen mostly downhill and are you able to then concentrate your enforcement on those spots? We've made a couple of changes in our tracking programs. Unfortunately, that hasn't been able to mesh together as well as we would like, but we have definitely noted some dangerous areas. One, it was northbound, south of, oh, not the cutoff. If somebody could help me out here, you've got the cutoff and then what's the first name before cutoff and I'm drawing a blank, I'm so sorry. Is that Vine Hill? No, well north of Vine Hill. I think it's Glenwood, right? The Glenwood, yeah, northbound south of Glenwood, we noticed several crashes there, but with the widening project, they've cleared that area up and they've also added the additional surface that increases the coefficient of friction and we've definitely noticed the decrease in collisions there. The other collisions we were having at Vine Hill, putting the wall in there has definitely decreased the injury collisions and then we've got a couple locations going southbound where they've added in the new surface that I think will, in the future, help decrease those and then when it rains, we just have kind of all over the place when it gets slick and especially when it starts raining or it's heavily raining and then it stops raining and people pick up speed and get more officers out there. Yeah, so thank you for that. I mean, to Commissioner Rockins point, it's kind of counterintuitive, I guess, on some level that the fewer cars means more speed. I don't fully understand that. I guess there's just more asphalt for people to speed on, but thank you for your service, appreciate it. Any other comments from commissioners? Chair, this is John Leopold. I just wanted to make a comment. First, I really appreciate this ongoing work of the task force in terms of tracking and identifying where there are problems and increased enforcement. It does really make a difference. I think it also, one of the things I know that would make a difference is that if we actually started planning to do some of the improvements that were identified in the access management plan that was done about 18 months ago, that would help with the traffic and some of the turns and it would make the road a lot more safe. And so I look forward to a time where Caltrans and the RTC can work together to start moving some of those projects forward. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McBowley. Any other comments from commissioners? I have a question. Yes, Mr. Brown. So I'm looking at the kind of trends over time for collisions and just wondering, I mean, there appears to be some correlation with how the economy is doing. So I would assume that means how many people are driving over the hill for work. And so I'm just wondering if we have, if there's any data that can help us match up. I mean, not to say there's much we could do about how many cars are driving over the hill, but I think that those improvements that Commissioner Leopold was talking about and some of the other factors could help us understand how to deal with that. And so I just wanted to hear if there's any data or it's being tracked. Thanks. Yeah, so we do track, we do track the ADT, the, and let's see, oh, I just closed my notes, your hair, sorry, I can give you that number right here. And so there's typically about 66,000 daily trips on highway 17, and that number is as of 2018. And then traffic volumes have been increasing year over year since about 2013. And they're essentially, they kind of stayed the same around at around 66,000 trips. Did you say 66 or 56? 66. 66, okay. Okay, any other questions from commissioners? Questions from the public? Ms. Owens, Heidi Owens. Thank you. I'm a candidate for town council in Los Gatos and people are really upset about the beach traffic, as I'm sure you can imagine. So my question is if we're measuring average daily trips and it's 66,000 and increasing, have we measured it since 2018, first of all? And then second of all, at what point do we say that it's too many trips and we have to look at a study to increase capacity in some formation? And can we form a joint powers authority between the two counties to refresh the real study that was done 25 years ago? It's dated. I don't think those questions can be answered. Go ahead, Amy. Yeah, I'm not sure how I can really answer that. Yeah. Let's see. Luis, do you want to take a stab at that possibly? Sure. I don't know if last time the average annual daily traffic was measured, but I know that Caltrans does that on an ongoing basis. And then in terms of at what point is there too much traffic and do you increase capacity? And I know that the RTC has looked at that possibility of years ago of increasing capacity in Highway 17 by adding a truck hyming lane. That was one that the RTC looked into it working with Caltrans, but it was determined that at that time, that that was not a feasible option due to the tremendous environmental impact that and the cost that such a project would have. I think of course the access management plan that was mentioned by Commissioner Leopold, it's not necessarily, it's not designed to help to increase capacity, but it is designed to deal with the conflict points that received throughout the highway and that could help accommodate some increases in traffic in a matter that's safer by dealing with those conflict points. If at some point the RTC and Caltrans can work to try to implement some of those projects. Okay, any other questions from the public? Michael St. Okay, thank you very much, Michael St. once again. This question could be for Officer Vincent or anyone else. You're basically my opinion, you're not gonna change human nature when it comes to speeding and driving poorly. Obviously some form of mass transit system would be ideal, but we don't seem to have the political will to do this. Even though Santa Clara County, Santa Cruz County, federal funding, everyone would be interested in that. My specific suggestions would be to reduce a speed limit on 17 to 45 miles per hour. The reason being is I've had some experts not necessarily look at it, but I've spoken to them and that road is mainly built for 45. I've done both just testing the situation. 45 is a very comfortable speed even in most of the corners. Is there any way we could get some automatic type of system with huge fines that would ticket people? In other words, an electronically monitored system as they do in Germany. I know this from a personal experience because I was in Bremen, Germany and about a month after I got home, I got a ticket with my picture in the windshield of the rental car speeding in a 35 mile an hour zone. So it is doable. And if it's set along that highway 17 in different places, people get tired of paying these huge fines. Be very similar to a fast track monitoring system when you don't pay the tolls or you use fast track and you're not supposed to. My suggestions, I hope we can work something out. It's really a shame to see this traffic collisions increasing in the deaths that it causes. Thank you. Hey, I don't know if there's a response to that or. I do have an initial response. This is Troy Vincent with the CHP again. Our department will take on a system like that is that it doesn't actually affect the problem that's occurring now. If somebody were speeding and they continue to speed and there's no officer to stop them and have the face to face contact to let them know what's going on. Hey, you need to slow down. And then there's no immediate response to that and the chance and possibility for collisions actually increases as opposed to having an officer out there when we do see somebody speeding. We make that stop. You've got that immediate, hey, you need to stop and slow down plus having the officers out there is that extra visual deterrent. I understand the comments and the possibility for an automated system like he was talking about, but our stance is that it doesn't have the immediate effect to say, hey, you need to slow down to avoid a collision. Okay. Thank you, sir. Any other comments from the public? I have a comment for you, sir. Okay. You have for right. I just wanted to comment on the real question that the woman who's running for Los Gatos Town Council raised. The RTC a couple of decades ago studied really intensively the possibility of rail service over the hill. We were quite supportive of that concept. I was on that committee that worked on, focused on that issue, included walking the entire right of the old right of way where the railroad used to run over the hill. There used to be 11 tunnels that people went through. And the problem is the Santa Cruz Mountains were simply too steep for a train to be an effective means of travel. It could be done. It's not that you couldn't do it, but we sold off most of the right of way. So that option, running parallel to 17, turned out not to really be feasible for economic reasons. It would have been completely cost prohibitive to try and rebuy. A lot of that's all been built and there's houses in literally in the right of way at this point. The idea of running a train down the center of 17 then became a possible thing to study that option. But the railroad train really can't go over 12% grade. And even then it has to go really slowly to get over a 12% grade. And part of that highway has got a 12% grade or higher. And so you'd have to, there'd be tunneling involved. You wouldn't just simply put the track in the middle of the, between the lanes. And of course it would require widening to do that in some places. And widening on 17 is really expensive because you basically have to build bridges or on the sides. It's not as if you can just add a lane somewhere. It's not just a question of buying property. It's a technical issue of making it happen. But the final failed flaw in the railroad possibility was that a train would take about an hour and a half to get from Santa Cruz to San Jose. And whereas it's, people don't like riding 17 it's about issues and everything else. You can get over there even traveling the speed limit in something like 45 minutes to an hour for that part of the ride. And that would have been double, an hour and a half by train. And it was obviously people were not gonna take a train that took on twice as long to commute to work every day. So it really became a non feasible project that we studied quite intensively and gave up on. And the people that gave up on it, believe me, were committed to rail and were hoping that it was gonna work. This was not trying to kill it or something. We're trying to make it happen, but it simply was not feasible. And so that's not really an option. I don't think that's serious at this point. Thank you for that historical perspective, Mr. Rodkin. Thank you. I haven't been around a long time. Any other comments from the public? We should check. Commissioner Person, it looks like Ms. Owen might wanna respond. I don't know if he would like to allow that. I don't know. I've seen a couple of the chats explained. She just wanted to know who was speaking. And I think she appreciated the comments. I'm Mike Rodkin and you can definitely, I'll just say my email is open up, O-P-E-N-U-P, one word, open up at ucsc.edu. And please feel free to email me if you have a question. Okay. Chair, can I speak really quickly? I just wanted to advocate for refreshing the study because it's 25 years old and so much has changed since that point in time. But I realized that's not going to happen on this call. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments from the public? An item number 19. Okay, good discussion. No action is necessary. Thank you for that report, Amy. I appreciate it very much. We will go to item number... Thank you. Excuse me? Yes, sir. No, thank you. Okay, good. We will now move to item number 20, the fiscal year 21, 21 budget. And like everybody else, we, well, it's kind of up in the air, if that's where you want to put it, but there's say we're going to utilize some of our reserves and we just want to find out when the financial stabilization is going to be coming before we use them all. But we're going to try to maintain some flexibility, but I think Mr. Preston, are you going to report on the, or is this Tracy Niu, excuse me, Director of Budget and Finance? Are you going to report on this? Good morning. Yes, good morning. Thanks, Tracy. So Senior Planner, Rachel Morconi and I have been participating in local and statewide meetings and webinars to keep reprised of the projections and forecasts on sales and transaction tax revenues in the economy. The info coming from our consultant, Hinder Leite DeLamis, for our Measure D tax revenues, is verbatim to the info coming from California Department of Tax and Feed Administration, which is reflected in the governor's revised budget with a 20% reduction in sales tax for fiscal year 2021. This is also reflected in the amended revenues in the budget presented today for TDA revenue and Measure D revenue. The most recent webinar has been very similar to previous webinars and they've been presenting a slight variation each month when we receive the actual revenues. The message is the same, we will not know until we start opening businesses and even then business will not be as usual. Recovery will be driven by consumer behavior and may present a false start with pent-up demand driving the initial few weeks during summer. Recovery is expected to start reaching pre-COVID-19 levels starting in fiscal year 2022-23 for most business industries. Brick and mortar stores were already struggling going into this situation, so their recovery will be delayed to fiscal year 23-24. But on a lighter note, the Wayfair decision, which affects online sales tract transactions has definitely propped up our revenues. Sales tax from online sales is relatively new to California replacing some of the loss we would have experienced if we did not have sales tax from an out-of-state online retail coming into California. The revenue comparisons for fiscal year 18-19 and 19-20 are slightly skewed due to this injection of online sales tax generation that we did not receive prior to October 2018. We received our last TDA and Measure D payments for the fiscal year last week, June 2020 TDA revenue our receipts actually is reflecting April 2020 revenues is 20% less than the same month last year. Measure D is 16% less. TDA and Measure D receipts represent revenues two months or years, so we won't know the end of the fiscal year total numbers until August of 2020. Our target reserve for TDA is 8% or $800,000. Our June revenues reflected a 20% reduction and we used 400,000 of our reserves and we have a remaining 373,000 to carry over into fiscal year 21. We've paid all allocations that were approved by the commission and we do it in the year with 150,000 more than we had expected. Measure D does not have a reserve so the money that is in the fund balance will be reflected in our updated cash flow model that we'll bring to the commission later this year and staff will continue to monitor opportunities or changes to funding at the state and local level. At this time, we are using funding available for current projects and programs and we'll present an amended budget to the budget personnel administration committee for consideration in the fall. The fiscal year 2021 budget presented to you today is recommended by the budget personnel and administration committee and staff. Okay, thank you for that report and I want to thank the committee too. It's a series of unknowns in every level of government that we're associated with, whether it be a district, a city, or a county or whatever. We're trying to do our best to project what is going to be real, three months, six months a year from now and I appreciate your efforts, Amy or excuse me, Tracy New and all of the committee. Are there any comments from the members of the board? The commission. I had a question. Randy, commissioner Johnson. Thank you, thank you, chair. So I noticed approximately what a 17% decline or lessening of the budget. Is there any group or any budget item that is exempt from that reduction? We made that reduction across the board to each and every recipient. Okay, so no one is exempt from that. Correct. All right, thank you. I have a question. Mr. Schifrin. Just a question for staff clarification about when the budget committee is meeting next. I thought there was a meeting in August. Is that not still the case? I thought the committee was going to get an update on the final revenue picture at that time. Would you clarify please? Yes, we will have the revenue, the end of the fiscal year total revenues at that time and we will meet in August. Okay, thank you. I thought you said in the fall, so I was confused. Is there a specific date in August? 13th, I think. 13th, okay, good. All right, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Any other comments from the commissioners? Comments from the public. Mr. Brian Peoples. Mr. Peoples. Yeah. Hi, this Brian from Trail Now. When Measure D first came out for the elections, we originally came out as opposed to Measure D and we were a political action committee registered with the California state. And what happened was Zach Friend helped adjust the Measure D measure and move money that was dedicated to a train to Metro in Paraturhanza. And at that time then we switched and supported Measure D. And actually our supporters gave most of the money to help pass Measure D. Without our support, Measure D would have likely failed. We're glad that Measure D passed and we're a big supporter of Measure D and spending it, this, the money appropriately. Right now we haven't been seeing the money being spent appropriately as it relates to the train and the rail rail line. And we're hopeful that with this budget problem, we start to see this organization start to shift the focus of being more disciplined in how they spend their Measure D funds. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Peeples. Any other comments from the public? Yeah. Good morning, commissioners. This is Pia Cannon with the Ecology Action. I wanted to thank staff and commissioners for minimizing the sales tax shortfalls on these TDA programs and Measure D programs. Ecology Action is a recipient of TDA funds and we fund our adult bike programs for that, bike encouragement programs mainly. And I also wanted to add in to another source of funding for bike and pedestrian programs is the county health services. And during the time of COVID, our worlds have been turned upside down all aspects. And one of those aspects is transportation. And there's been a surge of biking, families biking around the neighborhood with their kids who are cooped up inside all day, individuals getting daily exercise and using it for transportation. And there's been a constriction of transportation such as the Metro service due to protect against the spread of COVID. So fewer buses running at lower capacity and then carpooling and vanpooling has also been down due to concern spreading COVID. So biking, walking is a COVID social distancing compliant form of transportation. And as we go through many more months of COVID and social distancing and sheltering in place, I would ask the commissioners maybe to look for ways to increase support for biking and walking, especially in the realm of safety to make sure that new bikers and people that are rediscovering biking are doing so in a safe way once our traffic levels get further increase on the streets of Santa Cruz. And I just want to close on that and thank everybody for minimizing the shortfalls of the sales tax and looking for ways to increase these programs as the activities of biking walking increase in our county. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cannon. And thank you for all your efforts in increasing the opportunities for those who want to bike to work or play or wherever it may be. It's very much appreciated and what the ecology action is doing for us as well in the input you've made to the commission. Is there anybody else from the public who would like to address this? Mr. St. Mr. St. Yeah, sorry to jump back. I had my hand up on the last agenda item and I guess little was overlooked. I just wanted to comment on the 12% grade of 17 just looked up the maximum grade and it's only 6% just south of the summit restaurant. So I believe a new study is necessary and this would preclude false information maybe being transmitted to the public. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else who would like to talk to us on item number 20 on our budget for 2021? I do not see any other raised hands. Okay. One thing that I want to make clear we have utilized what half of our reserve is that correct at this point? Yes. And we have- Just a little bit over half. So we have $400,000 left in reserve. Is that correct? Is that the right number? Or is it? We had 800,000 and we've used 430,000. So we have 370,000 left. Okay. All right. Good. That's good. We're going to have a little flexibility one way or the other. And when we know more in August, is there- Is there- Yeah. I know this. This is a commissioner Leopold. Oh, excuse me. Yes. And first I'd like to say thank you to Tracy and the staff for the work on this. This is a difficult budget year and it's hard to- There's a lot of things we don't know and we'll continue to work on this as we are at many agencies, but I appreciate the effort that gone into this. I also want to say that as we- It's great that we have a reserve and we're able to moderate some of these drastic cuts that would come otherwise. And the hard work and putting together that reserve has allowed us to do that. And that is something that we have to do during the good time to help us out when we get to times like these. I do think that as the receipts recover through the TDA and other things we should look about those organizations that don't usually get increases and think about adding some extra dollars in there, that's down the line. We're not there yet, but usually we only give certain agencies increases but not things like bike to work or ecology action, like Santa Cruz. We might want to consider that in the future, but I'm prepared to move the recommended action. Second. Moved by Leopold, second, Mr. Friend. I need to click some button. Okay. Mr. Gonzalez, did you have a comment? Did you want to make a comment, Mr. Gonzalez? No, no, I just got to get faster on the button. Okay. It's like jeopardy or something here. Okay. We have a motion before us. Is there any comments? Let me, anybody like to still say something on the budget for 2021 that's presented? Okay. We'll have a roll call, please. Commissioner Rockin. Aye. Commissioner Gonzalez. Aye. Commissioner Batorf. Aye. Commissioner McPherson. Aye. Commissioner Leopold. Aye. Commission Alternate Mulherr. Aye. Commission Alternate Schifrin. Aye. Commissioner Caput. Aye. Commissioner Kaufman-Gomis. Yes. Commissioner Johnson. Aye. Commissioner Brown. Aye. Commissioner Bertrand. Aye. Commissioner Olanek. Yes. We have a unanimous vote there. Hey, that's great. We can move right along now and review. We'll probably get back to the budget in August as well. Okay. That's a unanimous approval of our 2021 budget amendment. We'll move to item number 21, the consultant contract award for preparation of right-of-way boundary survey and encroachment identification along the Santa Cruz branch rail corridor. Grace Blakesley will make a presentation. Good morning, commissioners. Grace Blakesley, senior transportation planner of your staff. I'm here to present the staff report to you this morning. In 2005, the RTC compiled data from a variety of sources to digitize and create maps of the Santa Cruz branch rail line right-of-way owned by Union Pacific Railroad Company. The maps were developed as a reference for planning purposes and to provide approximate right-of-way with and location. As you know, in 2012, the RTC purchased the Santa Cruz branch rail line from Union Pacific. The purchase of the right-of-way by RTC occurred through two deeds being transferred from Union Pacific to RTC. One deed transferred all the property to which UP had clear free title and could be covered by title insurance. The other deed transferred all other property rights owned by Union Pacific between mile posts 0.433 and 3139. The property rights transferred to RTC are for rights to own and utilize the property for transportation purposes, not just operate a railroad. This gives RTC the rights to use the corridor for more than just railroad purposes, including a multi-use trail. As trail and rail repair projects are being constructed on the Santa Cruz branch rail line, property boundary field surveys are being performed. Well, according to... Yeah. Segment eight, nine, 10, 11, and 12 of the coastal rail trail projects will begin pre-construction activities this fall and will construct approximately eight miles of trail along the Santa Cruz branch rail line from the San Lorenzo River in the city of Santa Cruz to Real Delma Boulevard in the unincorporated area. RTC staff is proposing to prepare a right-of-way boundary survey for the span of the Santa Cruz branch rail corridor associated with these segments. This work will inform the right-of-way needs of trail projects, for example, to ensure that the project design stays within the RTC-owned right-of-way or identify if right-of-way needs to be acquired, both which inform the right-of-way certification portions of these projects. Initiating this work now will assist the local project sponsors in moving the design of trail projects forward. It was addressed in the MESST Cooperate Agreements that came before the RTC at their June 4th meeting. Another reason staff is proposing to prepare a right-of-way boundary survey for this section is to assist staff with coordination of rail line repairs with neighboring property owners as needed. For example, a boundary survey will inform whether or not the RTC or neighboring property owner is responsible for repairing damages to the rail line, which can come up during drainage issues or falling trees. The boundary area, the boundary survey includes aerial mapping of a 200-foot wide strip along the approximately nine-mile-long rail corridor from the Beach Street roundabout to the real Del Mar Boulevard. It'll also include research of the rail corridor's boundary from this area, evaluation of other publicly-available documents for adjoining properties, such as maps, parcel maps, records of surveys, and previous deeds along the rail corridor. It also includes supplemental fieldwork to locate survey features, such as property fences and structures that might be obstructed by tree cover. It will also involve compiling all of this data and mapping RTC's right-of-way boundary lines as well as adjacent property parcel lines and associated parcel numbers. This will result in a series of exhibits to illustrate the encroachments and help understand the extent of the encroachments and the appropriate actions to take. When reviewing any potential encroachments, it's important to note that use of publicly-owned property for private uses without due considerations of public is inconsistent with state law. Therefore, once aware of unpermitted encroachments, RTC is obligated to notify property owners and make arrangements for the timely removal of encroachments that conflict with construction of the MBSST or other public projects or are not consistent with RTC encroachment policies. RTC's encroachment policies allow for the establishment of leases when the uses do not conflict with RTC purposes for purchasing the rail line, rail service operations and safety requirements and development of the MBSST. Prescriptive even claims may not be made against railroad property or publicly-owned property, you should note. Staff requested proposals for relocating, establishing, retracing the property lines and boundaries for segments nine and 10 and a number of parcels within segments 11 and 12 on the branch line from RTC's three on-call civil engineering consulting firms. We received one proposal and that was from RRM Design Group. RRM specializes in trail design and right-of-way surveys and mapping. As previously described, the first phase, the boundary survey phase includes aerial mapping, ownership document research and encroachment determination and field confirmation. The second phase would be a record of survey, which would include the development of encroachment exhibits and record of survey preparation and right-of-way monumentation. The total cost proposal for the phase one of the work is $183,170. Since the total number of encroachments are unknown at this time and will be determined at the conclusion of phase one work, the budget for phase two will be determined once the total number of encroachments have been found. So today's staff is recommending that RTC adopt a resolution authorizing the executive director to negotiate and enter into a contract with RRM Design Group or not to exceed $183,170 with the term ending in December 31st, 2012 to prepare the boundary survey and identify encroachments. RTC staff is also recommending amending the measure D5 year program of projects for active transportation rail trail category to program this money and amendment to the fiscal year 2021 budget for MBSST professional services to include this amount. RTC staff will return to the RTC with cost estimate for phase two upon completion of phase one. That concludes my report. Okay, thank you very much for that report. Just to be clear, this was not included in the budget we just approved, but there is sufficient programming capacity available to fund this. So for money purposes, that's where we are, budget purposes. This can be done and we can move on. This is for between Santa Rosa River and Rio del Mar. Are there any questions from the commissioners? Is there any none? Any questions from the public? I have Mr. Peoples, Brian Peoples. Okay, thank you, Mr. Peoples. Hi, Brian from Trail Now. Thank you. We support this first of all. This should have been done prior to the purchase. We should have had this survey done. And the concern we have is that a lot of guidance to the public about the railroad, the train and trail has not been communicated well. It's actually been misinformed because you didn't have these record of encroachments and boundaries of the property lines. In case in point, the Aptos Village where Parade Avenue is going in, there's a dispute with the private owner next door and the title report that the ITRTC has is incorrect compared to the title report by the private owner who purchased the property. And so there's a major dispute going on there. That's a great example of why you need this. We need to ensure that the corridor remains in public hams and so this is a good thing. Appreciate your work. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Peoples. Any other questions from the public? Mr. Kerry Pico. Mr. Pico. Can you hear me? I'm sorry. Can you hear me? Okay, I'm new to this kind of stuff. At least I'm a big thing. Don't worry about it. I sent this in as a communication earlier. The RTC purchased the property, but not the railroad easement of the right of way. And so the properties that are not included span from the harbor to 17th Avenue from Rodeo Gulch or 30th Avenue. If you want to picture that is the 47th and from Real Del Mar to Seascape. And there are other properties as well, including some portion that's in the middle of phase one. These are properties that don't have title, which means that the owners are the property owners that abut the railroad easement. For example, I live next to the Real Del Mar section and I own up to the middle of the railroad easement by California Code and it's been settled in court. So my point is you don't have the free right of use of those sections as is being communicated. I don't even believe you can put a trail there because it's a railroad easement only. And you need to include the 200 plus property owners that are adjacent to the railroad in those sections. And then the second part that I want to mention is the RRM design group has been way off on its work in terms of estimating costs. I know this is different in terms of surveying, but they have underperformed in terms of the MBSST report estimating the cost to be about $121 million for the trail itself on the right of way. And the UCIS has up to about 280 or 280, 260, something like that. I even put it higher, but the point is I don't find them as a reliable company and I would ask you to give oversight on them. Anyway, I want to come back to the lack of ownership of the right of way is a big, big issue. And you have the possibility of being sued for millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, probably not quite that high, but close to $100 million for the taking of land if you proceed as planned. So I'd rather have this discussion ahead of time and not be behind the play cap Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pico. Any other comments from the public? Ms. Sally Arnold. Hi, Sally Arnold, Board Chair, Friends of the Rail and Trail. This is one of those rare days when Fort and Trail now are in agreement here. We believe that this is really important work. We're really glad that you are beginning to look at the easements and documenting the encroachment. It's going to be essential for the ongoing work on the rail trail. And we urge a guest vote on this really important item. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Barry Scott. Hi, I'm Aptos with Coastal Rail Santa Cruz. I'm also a board member. And I am excited to see this item on the agenda. And I hope that the commissioners will approve this contract. It'll settle a lot of community questions and concerns that we've seen over the years. And it comes at a perfect time. And I'm glad that our design is will be selected because they've done a lot of work already and they're very familiar with our corridor and our community. So thank you for having this. And I hope that it's approved. Thank you. Thank you. Any other public comments? Heidi Owens. I'll just chime in and support this as well because if we get that stretch of rail and the Monterey stretch of rail and something going across 17 will have a nice loop for commuters across the whole of the South Bay area. Thank you. Thank you. I do not see any other hands raised Commissioner McPherson. Okay. I have just one question. It says that the term ending December 31st, 2021, is there, what are the chances of getting this done prior to the end of next year? For the phase one work, I would anticipate having that done before the end of this calendar work, sorry calendar year. So the end of 2020 for this section is eight through 12. Is that right? Yes. And the phase two portion would extend into the following year. So we didn't go to the end. Okay. Good. Any other questions from the commissioners? Yes. Discussion. Mr. Rodkin. I want to ask our executive director, Guy Preston. We heard earlier in the meeting that when we purchased this rail right of way, we purchased the underlying ownership of the land. In some cases it was only the right of way for all transportation purposes, not just rail. That's what we heard in our report. And I just wanted you to confirm that Mr. Pico is incorrect when he suggested that somehow we don't own the right of way. We didn't buy it. Or that, I think there are issues about where exactly the boundary is, which is what this item's about. But that in general, we bought that right of way is in fact the case. Is that not true? You're correct, Commissioner Rodkin. We did do extensive research before we purchased the rail line to ensure that in addition to using the rail line for rail purposes that it could also be used for additional transportation purposes such as a trail. So our plan to build a trail adjacent to transit services is consistent with whether we own the land and be or whether we own an easement across the land for rail line purposes. So we're perfectly within our preview to continue on with our planning process to build a rail line along, excuse me, to build a trail along the rail line. Thank you. I'll move the staff recommendation. Is that Commissioner Schifrin? I did have a question though. Okay, we have a motion by Mr. Schifrin, Schifrin seconded by Rodkin for the discussion, Mr. Bertrand. Yeah, I'm just curious about that report. I thought my understanding of the surface transportation board is that it's for rail. I didn't know it was for any other use. So I'm really, yeah, I'm willing to take this off bar, but maybe a report to the board would be, because this would be important to do because I keep hearing this comment that it's only for a certain purpose, not a general purpose. And it keeps coming up in multiple discussions I've had with other members of the public. This is the first time that to my knowledge has been brought forth in public discussion. This is Chris Butler calling to moderate coast in Carmelville, T. Yes, in Carmel. And this is from the general public. Excuse me, excuse me. Is she from the general public? Both of us have come into SFO with Wolf-Gloff staff. Trina's mic's on. Oh, is that Trina? Okay. Where are we? Who's- Sorry, yes. I was talking and then- No, I'm in the middle of that. That's understood. We have closed the public comment. So Mr. Bertrand, did you have, did you complete your comments? Yeah, just to summarize, what the member of the public, I think Carrie Pico brought up is something I've been hearing often on, but I've only been on the board for maybe three years now and I haven't actually seen a report about that research that has been done by RTC before the purchase. So I'd like to see it settled in terms of something definitive that I could read and could be handed out to the public. So they also got that information. Thanks. Okay, Ms. Coffin-Gomez, I believe you had a comment. No, I'm fine. I'm fine. Any other comments? But it is at the commission. We have a motion on the floor. Is there any other comments? I have a comment, Bruce. Oh, yes, Mr. Rotkin. In response to Director, Commissioner Bertrand's comment, the two, we're conflating two issues here. One is when we purchase this, did we purchase the right of way for transportation purposes in general? And the answer is we did. The other issue has to do with some part of the funding with which we purchased it. And that's about the 11 million something dollars that we received from the state from Proposition 16. And that requires that there be rail service on the quarter. Not that the quarter can only be used for rail service, but there needs to be some form of rail service operating. There may be some ambiguity about whether it has to be rail or some other kind of transit. But that's a different issue than who owns the right of way in general on the quarter. I'd like to respond. I wasn't confused, but thank you, Mike. I could see how it would be easy to see that. So in general, I've just heard the issue that the purchase, your respect to the California Transportation Board was for transportation rail. And some people say it's in general. And I just want to see what study the RTC did to confirm that I keep hearing these comments come up and I think in order to settle that with the public, it would be worthwhile to bring this up. It's been settled several times, but you can get a document, which is the actual documents where we bought the right of way. And that's what you should look at. And the executive director could provide you with those so you can actually see the language in there. It's quite clear. I'll talk to Guy about that. Thanks. But I think the general public would also like to see that too. We will provide information to provide some clarity on this for commissioner Bertrand and the public. If you can do that, it may be not 25 words or less, but in two pages or less, that would be great. Chair. Yes. This is Randy. Yes, Mr. Johnson. Thank you. So I guess in some ways, phase one hundred and eighty three thousand dollars seems reasonable. I'm always a little troubled when we only have one respondent to any sort of request. What scares me a little bit, of course, is phase two. It's always the other shoe starts to drop and what, what starts out as reasonable, all of a sudden expands into something that is gargantuan. So I'm going to support this, but at the same time, I don't, I, I guess I'd be very skeptical of all of a sudden phase two came in at, you know, half a million dollars. I guess it is what it is, but that's just a caveat I wanted to express. Thank you. Thank you. Any other commissioners where we call the roll? Seeing none. Please call the roll. Commissioner Bertrand. Aye. Commissioner Brown. Aye. Commissioner Johnson. Aye. Commissioner Kaufman Gomez. Yes. Commissioner Caput. Yes. Commission alternate Schifrin. Aye. We should alternate Mulher. Commissioner Leopold. Aye. Commissioner MacPherson. Aye. Commissioner Botthorff. Aye. Commissioner Gonzalez. Aye. Commissioner Rotkin. Aye. And Commissioner Olaynick. I'm staying. Okay. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. I'm staying. Okay. We have a unanimous vote. I think that's one abstention. But that passes unanimously. We have completed our agenda. We're going to item number 22. We've got a couple of closed session items. Mr. Mattis or I don't know, Mr. Preston. Are we going to have anything reportable coming from these closed session items? Mr. Chairman, there will. We do not anticipate reportable action out of the closed session items. I think the commission does have a two closed session items, one related to real property negotiations related to the branch line and the second one related to a potential initiation of litigation related to a claim by RTC. Okay. So we do not have any reportable items coming from closed session. To be clear, we're going to be going, do we stay on where we are? Or do we have to get to another link? I have to go to another link. Yeah. Okay. So there is a, there is another link that is in the closed session. A memo that we sent to my office sent to you on Friday afternoon. It came from my assistant Melanie, and we can resend it. Okay. Maybe just resend that in case. Don't have it or in front of them. We'll take a, it being 10 minutes to 11. We'll take a 10 minute break and then get into closed session. Is that all right with everyone? We do it. Five minutes. Five minutes. Okay. Five minutes. We'll move, we'll move right along. I just do want to announce that our next meeting is, I'm sure it's going to be a teleconference again. It's going to be Thursday, August 6th. At 9 a.m. So we will. Adjourn the open the regular session of the regional transportation commission and go into closed session. In five minutes. Thank you.