 So we will begin with a roll call. I believe we do have a- Commissioner Bertrand. President. Commissioner Brown. Here. Commissioner Johnson. Here. Commissioner Montecino. Here. Commissioner Caput. Commissioner Alternative Schifrin. Here. Commissioner Friend or Commissioner Alternative Quinn. Commissioner Koenig. Here. Commissioner Caput. Here. Commissioner McPherson. Here. Commissioner Peterson. Here. Commissioner Northcutt. Commissioner Alternative Pegler. Here. And Commissioner Eads. Present. OK, now is the time for oral communications. At this time, any member of the public may address the commission on items within the jurisdiction of the commission that are not already on the agenda. The commission will listen to all communications, but in compliance with state law, may not take any action on items that are not on our agenda today. So we will take speakers in the order that their hands are up. And I see one hand up for equity and environment for rail and rail hands. I thank you so much. Thank you, RTC commissioners and staff, for your consideration. My name's Lonnie Faulkner with Equity Transit. To remind the general public, in February of 2021, the RTC voted to accept the findings of the TCAA that identifies electric light rail as the preferred alternative for transit on the rail corridor. Per my written correspondence yesterday, a small number of RTC staff and commissioners have stated there is just no money available to build rail in this community. And yet we know it's the top priority of the state of California to implement rail to connect cities across the state as the wisest way to mitigate climate change. We also know that the federal government is prioritizing funding for rail, connecting cities as well as within cities. A lack of money has been a primary excuse given by some RTC members for not approving the RTC business plan to begin the important work of investigating current costs of light rail service to this community. I understand, for example, when Bruce McPherson voted against the business plan in April, he cited fiscal responsibility as his primary concern. And later his constituent newsletter clarified that he believed staff could and would continue to apply for funding even without a business plan. In May, executive director Guy Preston explained that staff will continue to provide the commission with information on funding opportunities, including those for rail transit. Here in Santa Cruz, we need to be ready to apply for any and all funds available to us for rail. And last week, as I was researching, I came across a substantial DOT grant for rail infrastructure for almost $362 million. That grant came available for application in September of 2021 and was due by November 29th of 2021. Given the substantial sum of this grant, our voters would certainly be quite shocked if they learned our RTC did not apply for any and all funding available. And I can find no mention of this grant in past RTC meeting minutes or in this week's agenda of this grant. I'm hoping this doesn't mean that the RTC has not even tried to apply for this funding for our local rail line. I'm sure you can understand my concern that staff is not being fiscally responsible if they do not apply for all available rail funding. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Okay, next up, Barry Scott. Well, good morning commissioners and staff. And thank you for permitting public comment. Everything that Lonnie Faulkner just explained, I just want a second. We're in a climate crisis. We have a rail line and we really ought to use it. And expand our public transit. I had a news article pop up in my daily news feed. The UN Climate Change, annual climate change conference in Glasgow took place last month, concluded last month. And the headline on this article is public transit must double to meet climate targets. City leaders warn. This is something that many of us have known for a very long time. And it's true globally. It's certainly true locally. I think it's interesting that the transit quarter alternatives analysis identified that with the combination of improved metro and use of the rail line for transit, we would more than double our passenger transit ridership. And what an opportunity. So I think we're obliged to follow the science. I know that, you know, there's concerns around cost, but we would never, if we don't pursue this opportunity through studies, further studies, we'll never know what the costs are. And I think we saw last month or in October with the demonstrations of light streetcars or a possibility that can be much more affordable than we may have thought. The other thing we need to do is take care of the rail line, the rail infrastructure itself. Measure D is clear that the 8% that may be spent on studies should also be spent on maintenance of our rail infrastructure. And there's a contract in effect. And I hope that our new commissioners especially will understand that the RTC is in a contract with Progressive Rail, the rail company that's managing freight. The contract requires the RTC to bring the entire rail line up to minimal serviceable use, what's called class one, that would permit freight and even low speed passenger services. And there seems to be a stall in the amount of work being done. I'm encouraged to see some money being spent, but now that we spent a lot of money on studies to determine that yes, rail transit is the right use, I think it's time for us to dig deep into finding ways to bring the rail line into compliance, into a useful condition, regardless of the cost. And we won't get that unless we apply for funds. We need to constrain funds for improving the rail line and live up to the promise of Measure D and the contract with Progressive and our need to serve the public and the future with public transit on the rail line. Thanks so much. Thank you. Okay, I see another hand up. David Van Brink. Okay, Ruff. Good morning. Can you hear me all right? Yes. Okay, just real briefly, you know, a month and a half ago there was this light rail demo in town. And now that we've, some of the rough edges have had time to recede from our immediate memory, even the vandal who threw eggs at it every day. I just want to mention that for a few days we actually did have passenger rail service in our county between two cities. Technically there was only two passengers delivered between two cities. There was two people who got off in Capitola on just one of the trips, but, you know, it happened. There's always a huge gap between prototype and product. But we did see a prototype. It is possible. We can't say it's not possible. Thanks. I do not see any additional hands up. So with the last call for oral communications, we will move on to our next item. Are there any additions or deletions to the agenda today? There are no additions or deletions to the agenda, but there are handouts for items 19 and 22. Those are posted on our website. Thank you. Okay. We will now move into our consent agenda. All items appearing on the consent agenda are considered to be minor, will be acted on in one motion if no member of the commission or the public wishes an item to be removed and discussed as part of the regular agenda. Members of the commission may raise questions, seek clarification or add directions to consent items without removing the item. And if there are no objections. So I will ask commissioners, if there are any items you would wish to pull or have questions or comments about from our consent agenda. This is items four through 16. Okay. I would move the consent agenda. I'll second it. Just one moment. I do think we have to take it out to the public. Just offer that. I don't see any hands up, but would anyone like to, from the public like to speak on our consent agenda items? Okay. I do see one. I'll hold the motion in second and Heather Willoughby, you are up. Hi, I'm not sure if this is the appropriate space because I just dipped into this meeting right now, but I just wanted to give public comment and support of the Lifeline service. Heather, I'm sorry to interrupt you. We will hold a public hearing on the funding at 1030. 1030, back into the meeting to speak. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay. So seeing no comments from the public, we have a motion and a seconds to approve our consent agenda and we'll take a roll call vote. Commissioner Bertrand. Fine. Commissioner Brown. Aye. Commissioner Johnson. Aye. Commissioner Montesino. Yes. Commissioner Caput. Commissioner Schifrin. Aye. Commissioner Quinn. Yes. Commissioner Koenig. Aye. Commissioner MacPherson. Aye. Commissioner Peterson. Aye. Commissioner Northcutt. Aye. And Commissioner Pegler. Aye. That's unanimous. Okay. Thank you. So we'll now move on to our regular agenda and our first item up number item 17 is commissioner reports. Are there members of the commission who have something they'd like to share with commissioners and with the public? A quiet month. So, well, a quiet month for I guess for commission activities or commissioner activities. Okay. So we'll move along. The next item is a selection of chair and vice chair for 2022. I'm gonna give just a very brief report and then ask the other members of our nominations committee if you have something you would like to add. So we did meet the committee met when we were discussing how to proceed with appointing a new chair to finish up the term when Aurelio Gonzalez, commissioner Gonzalez had to step down and I filled that role. We now are hoping to get back on track and on the regular annual cycle of chair and vice chair duties. And so while the committee didn't meet we did a little bit of email communication and so I'll just give you my perspective on what was discussed and then my understanding there were some other conversations outside of that discussion. So I'll ask others if you would like to weigh in. So when just for context for those who are new to the commission we generally switch the chair and vice chair roles between a county representative and a city representative. So we have one, each year we have a city representative either in the vice chair or chair position and then a county supervisor in the other position. When a while back the city of Santa Cruz got skipped and so we ended up in a situation where there were two cities who were kind of up to be in the rotation in the kind of customary rotation. And so Watsonville was represented and Watsonville and Santa Cruz city were chair and vice chair at the same time because of Aurelio's departure each of us ended up serving as chair for part of the year last year meaning that had we moved and had Aurelio continued then I would be chair this coming year for 22 on the customary rotation. So that is the intention that I will put that out to the commission. I did communicate with commissioner Koenig about his interest and he expressed an interest in serving as vice chair which would then set us back up to be on the county city kind of track. So that is my recommendation and I will open it up to commissioner McPherson or Peterson have anything you'd like to add please do and then if other commissioners have questions or comments we'll take those. Yes. Hi, commissioner McPherson. Yeah, that's fine. We did meet and or communicated and we came to the nomination of or the recommendation of having Sandy Brown continuous chair 2022 and then minor component of being the vice chair it's pretty straightforward, pretty much it. Thank you, commissioner McPherson. Are there any other questions or comments? I'll remove the subcommittee's recommendation. So we do have to take it out to the public real quick if there are any attendees who want to I appreciate your energy, your enthusiasm, commissioner Schifrin, but is there anyone from the public who wanted to speak up? First, okay. So I see I actually do see a number of hands up. So I'm gonna call on folks who have their hands up in order and I see commissioner Montesino, you have your hand up. Point of procedure, I made a motion. I think someone could second it or? I'll second it. Okay, sure. Yeah, we can do it that way. I'm sorry, I just thought that since I saw a number of hands up people might have comments before but we can go ahead and make the motion. So commissioner moved by commissioner Schifrin and did I just hear a second? Yeah, second. Commissioner Montesino. Okay, so now I'll go through the order. Thank you, commissioner Schifrin and commissioner Montesino, commissioner Quinn, you are up. Oh, thank you, chairperson. I just wasn't clear on the sequence and so I want to clarify, are you saying that the chair will rotate city of Santa Cruz County, city of Watsonville County, city of Santa Cruz? No, no, I'm sorry if that wasn't clear. City at each of the cities. So the last city, the last city representative who was chair prior to commissioner Gonzalez was commissioner Botter from Capitola. So we do rotate amongst all of the cities and then back to the county. I understand, so the four city rotation. Four city. Interdictated with the county representation. Yeah, it just happened to be Watsonville and Santa Cruz in this case. I understand. Thank you. Okay, commissioner Hearst. Thank you very much. Can you hear me okay? Yep. Oh, good morning, everyone. And I just wanted to say to Ms. Brown she's done a tremendous job and I encourage her continuation. I had the pleasure of working with her with the area agency on aging and she's a great leader and she can certainly handle this job and it is a tough job. So I would support Ms. Brown and continuing with the leadership of the RTC. Good job. Thank you. Thank you, commissioner Hearst. Okay, so it looks like we now do have, we have a motion on the floor and a second and a few comments, but it looks like we have a few attendees who do want to speak. So I'm gonna provide that opportunity right now and then we'll take a vote. Okay, so equity and environment for rail and trail. I thank you again, RTC. As a resident of Manu Konigs area one, sorry. I have an issue with Manu as vice chair as I feel he has a clear conflict of interest as a past Greenway executive. Thank you very much. Thank you. Jeremiah Daniels, you are up. Hello, as a Santa Cruz resident, it's been clear to me that supervisor Konig has a lot of conflicts of interests, not just being a former Greenway executive director. And it would be very disappointing to see him have any more influence than he already has. Thank you. Thank you. Ryan Sarnataro, you're on mute, Ryan or Mr. Sarnataro. Here I am. I'd like to say I'm also in Manu Konigs district. And the reason that he's on the RTC board is that rail and trail, which is a misnomer because it's a rail only and a broken trail is the minority position of his constituents and minority position of pretty much everybody in the county. And despite the vociferous attacks and the coordinated support of that expensive boondoggle, I think that it's really important that Manu get to step up and be in a greater position of visibility within the commission. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Barry Scott, you're next and you're up. I see you've muted. There we go. Thank you. Thank you. I've got to agree with Jeremiah Daniels. There are problems with having Manu Konig who went directly from being the executive director Greenway, an anti-rail group, a full-time executive director that there's a conflict even is having a vote on a transportation commission much less becoming the chair. It's simply a conflict and it seems to open the RTC up for potential problems in the future around types of litigation that could occur. I think it was a questionable appointment. And I have to add, we also have supervisor Zach Friend having replaced Patrick Mulhern with a Greenway board member Dr. Rob Quinn to be his vote on rail matters. So we now have two commissioners who are Greenway and both of them I think should be recused from having votes on rail matters. Nevermind the fact that Mr. Konig is new. He doesn't have government experience. He's new to transportation. He hasn't demonstrated the skills or the depth of understanding or appreciation for public transit that I think we need to have in a position of authority like this. And I respect him for many of his ideas. I don't believe he's by any means a good choice for chair of this commission. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, it looks like more hands are coming up. Okay, so David, Van Brink, you're up next. Oh, good morning. Commissioner Brown, you've been running just tight, friendly, easy to understand meetings. So carry on, thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, so I do wanna make a quick comment here. I don't see any more hands up. So I'll just say you know, I appreciate the support that I've heard thus far and I am very happy to continue in this position. I do believe that while this does give the city of Santa Cruz a little extra time in this chair position, it is a way to get us back on track with the customary rotation kind of in response to some of the comments about who is fit to serve in the role of chair you know, I recognize that folks in the community have very strong feelings about which direction the RTC should head in terms of where we prioritize our efforts in seeking funding and development of our transit infrastructure. And we are gonna have those differences. We're not gonna be in, you know, lockstep on every decision. And I do think that, you know, we're all public servants, we're all learning. And I think it's important to provide an opportunity for everyone who serves on this commission if they are interested and willing to step up to have that opportunity. Mr. Scott, I appreciate your thinking that there's some level of authority involved in this role. And I suppose that's true with respect to the conduct of the meetings, but it's really one of responsibility and it's one that I found that is, you know, a space for really learning and becoming more engaged in, you know, at a level of depth about how the RTC operates. And so I think that's an opportunity that commissioners should have should they want to do that. And I am confident that commissioner Koenig will also hit that learning curve with stride. And so I'm comfortable with moving in this direction, you know, on a commission that has a, you know, split perspective on a pretty important issue, you know, we all should be able to take a turn, I think. So I'll just leave it there. And I see commissioner Koenig, you have your hand up. Thank you, Chair Brown. Yeah, I think I'll just echo. I do think you've been doing a fantastic job and we look forward to serving with you as vice chair next year. I just wanted to clarify for folks in the audience, you know, to continue to bring up this issue of the idea that there would be a conflict of interest on that, you know, just that conflict of interest refers very specifically to a material conflict of interest because schools would receive a financial benefit because of one of their votes. There's nothing wrong with having a strong feelings about an issue. I mean, there's a reason why a lot of us ran for elected office in the first place because we have strong opinions. We shared them those with our neighbors and they agreed with those positions. So just having a strong position is not a conflict of interest. You know, of course, I started to keep an open mind and consider all facts. I do think that's an important part, an important mindset for all of us in an elected role. But, you know, having made strong statements on an issue before is not really a conflict of interest. And we also just to clarify, I've received no financial compensation from Greenway today. It's been several years since that's happened. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Schifrin. Yeah, I would just like to say, I think it's really unfortunate how emotional this issue of what's happening with the rail line has been, has become. At root, it's really policy decisions that the commission makes. As you've been stated, people come with different points of view with different values. And I think it's unfortunate to the extent that the disagreements become personal. I can disagree with people. I've disagreed with people over the decades and they've disagreed with me, but it hasn't been personal. It's just we have different values. We have different points of view. And that's the nature of the political process. And, you know, so I am concerned when at times at our meetings, instead of really focusing on what's the right thing to do from your point of view, it's like it comes at homey and this is a bad person for one reason or another for doing what they think is the right thing to do. So I just wanted to say that because it is, it has disturbed me in the past and it is really unfortunate when these issues become personal. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Schifrin. Okay, let's see. Commissioner Quinn, you are... Chairperson, I hate to pile on, but as someone new to the commission, I just want to reiterate what Commissioner Schifrin just said. And if one took the time to read the material forwarded before this, it's peppered with words like shameful and no fair play. And I'd like to urge us not to use that kind of verbiage in our communication. I think we should stick to data and drive ourselves forward and resist the temptation to impugn others motives, I think would serve us all well. Thank you, Commissioner Quinn. Commissioner Bertrand. I have a lot of respect for people who followed the dictates of their views on things. And I have a lot of respect for those on the board here who are also doing the same thing. I think Manu has exemplified that. He's maybe been a supporter of Greenway and the issues that that's been brought that's been brought to the community. But in the time that he's done so, I think he's done so in a very respectful and let's say, politic manner. And so I fully support him being vice chair. And I think that next year, he'll be a great chair. I mean, the year after he'll be a great chair. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Bertrand. Okay, I seeing no additional hands up from commissioners, I believe we can call for a vote on this or roll call vote. I just want to make one quick comment. Mr. Marco, I see your hand is up in the audience and we did have time, there we go. Okay, so you're good. All right, so we'll take a vote now. Commissioner Bertrand. I agree. Commissioner Brown. I. Commissioner Johnson. Commissioner Montesino. Yes. Commissioner Caput. Aye. Commissioner Alternate Schifrin. Aye. Commissioner Alternate Quinn. Yes. Commissioner Koenig. Aye. Commissioner McPherson. Aye. Commissioner Peterson. Aye. Commissioner Northcott. Commissioner Alternate Pegler. Aye. That's unanimous. Thank you, everyone. I will do my best to lead the commission meetings and look forward to working with you all next year. All right, next up, we have a director's report. Mr. Preston, you're on. Thank you, Chair Brown and commissioners, members of the public. Before I get started, I just wanted to do a bit of an explanation with respect to the format of this meeting. We decided to stay virtual this month after the county placed additional restrictions on indoor space. I'm glad that we did so too because we've had some administrative sick leave and trying to manage the public would have been challenging for us this month. We are still looking into being able to go hybrid next month, but we're going to definitely be looking at the information that's available to us. There is an increase in COVID cases right now and safety is of our utmost concern. So just please accept our apologies for not being able to have the hybrid meeting this month and we appreciate your understanding. We will make decisions the best we can as we move forward. I do have an announcement regarding our staff. We filled the junior engineer and associate engineer positions. We have brought on Riley Gerbrandt as RTC's new associate transportation engineer. He has 15 years of experience with a bachelor's of science and a master's of science in civil engineering from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He's a licensed civil engineer, professional engineer in California with expertise in storm and damage repairs, transportation design, geotechnical engineering, capital project management and emergency response. He spent five years with the county of Santa Cruz public works department delivering storm damage repairs and flood control projects. Riley was born and raised in Santa Cruz County and has three time enjoys hiking the beach bike riding with his family. So welcome to Riley. Also, Brian Zamora will be RTC's new junior engineer following graduation from San Jose State University with a bachelor's of science in civil and environmental engineering later this month. Brian was born and raised in Santa Cruz County and has served as RTC's engineering intern for the past two and a half years and has done so very well assisting staff with storm damage repairs, preventative maintenance inspections and infrastructure repairs along the branch line. Brian lives in Watsonville and enjoys going to the gymnast free time, both Riley and Brian will start work very soon on Monday, December 20th. So congratulations to Brian and Riley. I have an update on measure D. We continue to make significant progress on the delivery of the measure D expenditure plan, which includes improvements and investments on all transportation modes to serve all County residents. RTC now provides quarterly updates, the latest of which is attached and linked to my report. Highway one auxiliary and bus on shoulder project between the Bay Porter and State Park drive interchanges which has reached 95% final design continues to move forward. The project includes ox lanes and bus on shoulder facilities in both directions and also the replacement of the Capitol Avenue over crossing and a new bicycle and pedestrian over crossing at Mar Vista Drive. Early next year, the RTC will be soliciting input from the community on aesthetic features of the project, including bridges, sound walls, retaining walls, barriers and a planting pallet. This project was fully funded with last year's $107 million corridor grant, which includes Soquel Drive and the highway project from Soquel to 41st Avenue. We are also working on concept plans and environmental clearance for the subsequent Highway one project from State Park Drive to Freedom Boulevard. So aptly named the Apos Strangler as this is the County's bottleneck that must be completed for the freeway program to successfully function. This project is unique and that it crosses all of our major border routes including two crossings of Highway one by the rail line and includes the Coastal Rail Trail segment 12 from State Park to Rio de Mar. We are considering a transportation policy workshop meeting on February 17th of next year to discuss this project and possibly some additional trail projects that are under development. I know these meetings have regularly been canceled but we feel this may be a good form for providing you with more information on our key projects under development. Please mark your calendars again February 17th at nine o'clock, that's a Thursday and let you send me know if you have a conflict that's not completely settled on a date and I want to make sure that this information is accessible to as many of you as possible. Moving on, I have a very big announcement regarding the Coastal Rail Trail segment five, phase two and a project you may not have heard of before because it was very much in concept the Highway one Katani Dairy's over-crossing and those two projects have been shortlisted for federal funding. The RTC's North Coast Rail Trail project phase two construction and a new Highway one over-crossing at Yellow Bank, Panther Beach to the Katani Coast Dairy's National Monument. Pre-construction and construction funding has been shortlisted for a federal land access program grant in the amount of 10.65 million dollars. Being on the short list means that the project is no longer competing against other projects for funding. The final award is contingent on the FLAP team's evaluation of the project's feasibility during the scoping project. The FLAP team is very aware of this project because they've been working on the first phase and they were out here earlier or later last month for a walkthrough of the project and it went very well. The North Coast, excuse me, the North Coast Rail Trail project phase two construction is programmed in 2024, the same year as the previously approved North Coast Rail Trail phase one funding, a Highway one over-crossing at Yellow Bank, Panther Beach pre-construction and construction funding year will be evaluated through the scoping process in 2022. Assuming this grant award is finalized, the full North Coast Rail Trail from Wilder Ranch to Davenport would be fully funded, as well as an active transportation bridge over Highway one to the new Katani Coast Darries Monument and its new trail system. The Bureau of Land Management as co-owner of Katani Coast Darries is a key partner in the Highway one over-crossing project and RTC appreciates their support to obtain FLAP funding for this project. RTC also appreciates both the Coastal Conservancy and the Land Trust for their contributions to the North Coast Trail funding plan. RTC worked extremely strategically to advance this application. Race Lakesley, our transportation planner serves as RTC's project manager on this project and Ginger Dicar led the effort on the grant application with assistance from one of our new planners, Amanda Marino and our communication specialist, Shannon Munz. This is a major accomplishment and the RTC is very proud. I want to provide an update on the passage of the federal infrastructure bill and the reauthorization of the BAST Act. On November 15th, the president signed the IIJA into law that approved $1.2 trillion in infrastructure investments of which includes $550 billion in new infrastructure investments over the five-year period and additionally reauthorizes the surface transportation program that's the BAST Act for the next five years. Overall, this is about a 36% increase in federal funding but only over a five-year period. The details contained within the bill continue to be analyzed and pertinent details will be shared at future commission meetings. As further guidance is released at the federal and state level. Some of the funds are expected to be formulated and others will be by competitive grant. FHW alone has identified 24 new programs that they need to develop, staff and implement. It's gonna take some time before we really see what the impacts are for California. So RTC staff will be actively participating in discussions on how new federal funds are distributed in California and will continue working with local agencies, Caltrans and representatives Eshu and Panetta to secure competitive grants for major projects including Scots Creek, Highway Transit and active transportation programs along the Watsonville Santa Cruz, multimodal corridor and pedestrian safety projects in San Lorenzo Rale Valley. Although Rale gets a significant $66 billion nationally, there are estimates that all but $12 billion will be directed to the Northeast corridor. That's where the Acela line runs. It's run by Amtrak. Amtrak is looking to get to do very well by this bill and it is a big boost for Rale. But California share of this funding will likely be directed towards the high-speed rail program and safety projects to separate accurate redway crossings on busy rail corridors and LA in the LA basin and Bay Area. It is a bit disappointing with respect to how the rail funding kind of played out and I heard public comment on that. Be assured that RTC will be keeping an eye on it and seeing what opportunities are out there. But I don't want the expectations to be that we're not applying for funds that we should be. I heard public comment today regarding funding that the public felt we should have applied for. That funding was mentioned as part of Scott Eads' report several months ago. And Commissioner Andy Scherfern attended one of the workshops and we had email communication back and forth about the viability of applying for those funds and determined with a 50% grant match and the fact that there was no current freight on the railroad past Watsonville that RTC would unlikely be able to compete for that funding. Gonna move on to legislative updates. Staff is starting to prepare the RTC's 2022 legislative program. Key legislative issues in 2022 include implementation of the new IIJA and the state budget. While we welcome the stability and boost and funding opportunities provided by the IIJA, funding available to address all of the transportation priorities in the region are still insufficient as highlighted in the regional transportation plan and consolidated grant items on today's agenda. In response, staff is advocating with local and statewide partners that a portion of the general funds projected $30 billion surplus be made available for active transportation, local streets and road, ingestion relief and transit projects. That concludes my director's report. Thank you, Mr. Preston. Okay, questions from the commission. I see Commissioner Scherfern. Yes, I just wanted to add my thanks to the staff for their work on the North Coast Rail Trail Project. When I read the announcement about the additional money, the additional flap grant, I thought it was only for the bridge at Yellow Bank and was concerned about whether there's the phase two of the connection to Davenport was gonna be funded. So it's very, very good news that the full project is now has that funding. My question, so I do wanna really congratulate staff for their work on this. I think it's going to make a really big difference in terms of one, providing opportunities to the recreational activities that are developing on the North Coast. Hopefully we'll reduce some of the traffic congestion that is gonna result from those opportunities. I guess my question though for the executive director is how is that grant distributed between the over-crossing and the phase two? And are you a staff confident that the funding for phase two will be sufficient? I don't have the exact breakdown in front of me, but Grace is here on the line and I will let her comment on that question. Good morning, commissioners. Grace Blitzley of your staff. To respond to that, the cost estimates for the phase two which includes the section from Yellow Bank, Panther Beach to Davenport and the two parking lots were recently updated as part of the 95% design. So the grant award does take that into consideration. The Yellow Bank, Panther Beach portion is the smaller portion of the construction award funding and that construction estimate for that will be more defined through the scoping process. So for the phase two, I feel that the federal team has a good handle on the cost estimates for that section and that we would be able to fully fund it through the grant award. Thank you very much. Let me follow up, I ask a follow up question. I know that at this point, the construction is funding is scheduled to be available in 2024. Do you see any possibility or what is there anything the commission can do to try to expedite the availability of that funding so that the construction could stop before 2024? Thanks for that question, commissioner. Yes, the key point is for the project to finish all of its pre-construction activities. That is scheduled to be achieved next spring and March to be at 100% design and the required permits completed. That is a key milestone that would drive any advancement, potential advancement of funding for the North Coast project. So you do think it may be possible once we have the permits and the 100% design? We have expressed to the federal team that if we are interested in advancing the funding, they have said if there's sufficient funding and the overall program, that is a possibility. It was important that the multi-year federal transportation bill be passed in order to allow for borrowing between states, which is a key, is something that they would need to allow for advancement of this project. So does the new infrastructure bill potentially provide that funding? I know it doesn't provide the funding that provides the security that there is sufficient funding for multiple years of projects for all of the states and therefore borrowing within the different CFL districts is permissible under a multi-year bill. Okay, thank you very much. Again, I really want to express appreciation. This is a huge project for the North Coast in the third district, third supervisorial district, given the opening, the potential opening of the national monument and the Red Ridge Trail project. There's a lot going on on the North Coast that's going to bring in a lot more people and having the trail available will make a significant difference. I can make one additional follow-up of some of the comments that Grace made as well. Having the project ready for construction is what would put us in position to possibly move that money up. And to be ready for construction, we need to have all of the permits. One of the permits is the coastal development permit, which there will be a hearing in December by the Postal Commission to consider issuing a permit for that job. Staff's recommendation has put some conditions on the project that concerns staff. And we could use as much support as possible at the California Coastal Commission meeting in December. So if you're willing to write a letter of support for the project, if you can get that over to the Coastal Commission, it would really assist the project. The area of concern is regarding a small portion of Davenport Beach that has started to collapse. And we need to somehow fortify that for what the Coastal Commission refers to as armor, the coastline, so we can support a trail. We've worked through several different scenarios and alternatives of what we can do and the Coastal Commission is still not satisfied. This does put this project at risk. So it's a very, very minor amount of coastal armoring, but it is needed to support both the trail alongside the rail line. And I don't want to jeopardize this project in any way. So that support is very much appreciated. Additionally, with respect to funding, staff has been so strategic. You may have remembered a couple of months ago we had an item regarding a Proposition 68 grant that required a memorandum of understanding what the county to be the implementing agency on that project. That would also fund the trial project, phase two of the trial project. We may still get that grant too. I don't know, our application is still out there, but that would free up our local contribution and allow it to be used on other trial projects. So we're being pretty smart about how we're addressing this, always looking for funding opportunities and ways to advance as much of the projects as possible. If I could just add, if there are commissioners that want to be helpful, commissioner Coonerty's office is really trying to coordinate the presentation to the at the coastal commission meeting. This is a recommendation from staff, from the coastal commission's staff. And as the executive director stated, it's quite unfortunate and very much a threat to the project. So any help anyone is willing to give either to get it to the staff or contact you might have with commissioners or coordinating with commissioner Coonerty's office would be appreciated. Let's see, thank you for the reports. Are there other questions or comments from the commission at this time? And I don't see any attendees with hands up, but this is your opportunity if you have a comment or question, members of the public to do so. Yeah, I would just add that, but yeah, I think this is something that commissioners who are interested should definitely find a way to be involved in. And I appreciate commissioner Schifrin that supervisor Coonerty is coordinating this effort. And so if that seems like the most effective way to be involved and find ways to provide support, then I think that's what I'm here you saying, but contact supervisor Coonerty. Yes, that would be great, but let me not understate the role of commission staff on this. They've done a great job trying to work it out with the coastal commission staff and they are preparing a rationale that would be presented at the meeting. So the staff role has been critical and will be critical if we're gonna be able to convince the commission to be more reasonable about the requirements. Okay, so anyone, yes, absolutely. I know the staff has been doing a tremendous job and I want to be supportive in any way possible. And hopefully we can connect before the coastal commission meeting. So and anybody else who wants to, I do think this is really important to really make clear the critical need to do this work. And I think that overall it supports the coastal commission's goals of beach access. So it seems like there's some conversation to be had. So thank you for the updates and please members of the commission do check in with our staff and our supervisor Coonerty. I do see a member of the public has raised their hand so I wanna take it out to the public before we move on. And so equity and environment for rail and trail, you are up. I think you, I don't see that you're muted Lonnie so you should be able to speak. Okay, I'm not hearing anything. So we will go ahead and... Hello, I'm sorry. There you are. Thank you. The little unmute button did not come up for me. So it did finally. Thank you. I just wanna say, first of all, thank you so much to the RTC staff. This is an amazing grant and such a fantastic timing that it's coming much more quickly, these funds much more quickly than we expected. So just the work that has been done to get this grant funds is fantastic and many of us are avid users of the trail. So this is just so exciting and the work I know is substantial going into finding these grant monies and applying and getting them. And then on the other note, I just wanna say thank you to Guy Preston for speaking to my earlier question. I think that's really important and it's good information to know and to feel confident that our RTC staff is doing the same sort of thing for funding for our trail. So thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, any additional comments, questions before we move on? Seeing none, we will go on to the Caltrans report and Mr. Eads, take it away. All right, thank you, Chair Brown, members of the commission. Again, Scott Eads here reporting for Caltrans District 5. So first, just wanted to appreciate the executive director for providing a brief overview of the federal infrastructure bill. There is a lot there. I believe the bias partisan infrastructure bill, the text was about a thousand pages and there's many new programs. And so we're all learning together and I look forward to coordinating with the commission on future funding opportunities and other things related to that legislation. I had a couple of announcements today. One relates to our roadside rest areas south of Santa Cruz. If you're traveling for the holidays, we have one that is now open that has just completed some work on. We put in a new wastewater disposal system at our Shandon roadside rest on State Route 46 East. So it's fully open now. It also includes electric vehicle charging stations at that location, which is an improvement. And then that's the good news in roadside rest. The closure news is that the Camp Roberts roadside rest is closing, it actually just closed earlier this week. It'll be closed through September 2022. We're putting in a new wastewater treatment system at that location and some other upgrades. So be aware of that as you're traveling. Last announcement that I wanted to make is just an update on the Clean California local grant program. We've mentioned this before, around $300 million is available statewide. This is out of the state general funds. And it's focused on literary removal, educational campaigns or local beautification projects. And we would expect those applications to come from cities, counties, I believe the commission could also apply, but I'm not positive about that because it would be facilities that are owned by the local jurisdiction. But in this case, maybe the branch rail line could qualify. There's a minimum, there's no minimum award, but the grants shall not exceed $5 million each. And the newest news on this is that the applications and the instructions for filling out the applications are just posted online this week. So on the call for project, this is now open. I believe it closes in around February. They're not firm dates on the website. I'll post the link in the website if I can or in the meeting chat if I can do that. Please see me if you need any additional informational now program. That concludes my report. Happy to take any questions. Thank you, Mr. Eads. Do we have, are there questions from commissioners? And I do see one member of the public with a hand up. So we'll take it out to the public. And that is Sally for rail and trail. Hi, am I, are you hearing me? Are you? Yeah. I was excited of what Mr. Eads said about possible $5 million available for cleaning up the rail line. I mean, obviously we'd have to apply for it. And I'm just wondering if you could tell us just a little bit more about that. So those of us who are interested in these things could understand a little bit more about that process and the likelihood of our county possibly qualifying for that. Thank you. So- If I could, Madam Chair, I could verbally give the information on the website and again, I haven't tried to post it in the chat but I can maybe send that to Luis and he could post it if I'm not able to. The website is cleancalifornia.dot.ca.gov and then forward slash local grants. But if you just Google clean California, it's clean and then CA or clean California, you'll find a lot of information. There's a website dedicated specifically to that program with Caltrans. And there's multiple parts to clean California. You'll wanna focus on the local grant portion of that. There's a lot of information there with all the materials posted online. Great. Thank you so much. Commissioner Hurst. Well, thank you very much. I wanna congratulate and thank Mr. Caltrans Eads for his good work. There's a lot of litter out there clean California's and everybody's goal. Lots of those bisected by three state highways, the Highway 152 that goes over Hecker Pass and connects with Highway 1. Of course, Highway 1 bisects the city and Highway 129. And so we'll be anxious to take a good look at this and find ways that we can continue our great partnership with Caltrans. Thank you very much. Thank you, Commissioner Hurst. Mr. Preston. Yeah, just real quickly, I just wanted to assure commission and the public that our TEC staff has been attending workshops on this program and has identified the rail line as a potential application for this funding. I'm not quite sure how well we'll compete, but I think this is something we may be going after. Great. Thank you. Okay. So we are moving along quite nicely here. And I think we're gonna be ready in time for our public hearing at 1030. Our next item is a release of draft 2045 Regional Transportation, the Regional Transportation Plan for 2045 and Amy Naranjo will give us a report. Good morning. Can you hear me? Yes. Great. Well, good morning commissioners and members of the public, my name's Amy Naranjo and I'm a transportation planner for the RTC. So today I'm requesting your review and input of the draft 2045 transportation plan as well as authorization to release the draft plan for a 60 day public review period ending January 31st and then authorization to schedule a public hearing on the draft at the January 13th RTC meeting. The executive summary of the draft 2045 RTP is provided in your packet as attachment one and then the entire document is available for download at the RTC website at secrtc.org slash 2045 RTP. There we go. So what is the Regional Transportation Plan? It is a state mandated long range transportation plan that the RTC is responsible for developing and implementing for Santa Cruz County. The 2045 plan is a minor update to the work that was done for the 2040 RTP. So the Regional Plan, the Regional Transportation Plan includes three major components, the policy, financial and action elements. So the policy element defines the transportation goals, policies and performance targets set for the County and then these have been developed using the triple bottom line approach framework for environment, economy and equity. The goals and policies for this 2045 RTP were revised from the 2040 RTP so that they shift their functions from forecasting to monitoring trends in real time. And some of the goals and targets that are in this RTP really focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, system preservation, safety and improving access and equity. And this component was approved by the RTC in February of 2020. The next one is the financial element. Excuse me. So the financial element estimates how much transportation revenues will be available for Santa Cruz County over the next 25 years. The revenue forecasts are based on 2020 financial data and estimate just over $5 billion in revenues that are reasonably anticipated to be available from local, state and federal sources, including measure defense. Most of the revenues are highly restricted and or dedicated for certain projects. And then just under half of the funds that are available, excuse me, come from local sources. And the RTC has only has discretion of about 4% of the funds in total. And then the RTC also approved this component back in March of 2021. The next element is the action element. And the action element identifies the complete list of transportation needs in the county through a list of programs and projects that are needed to operate, maintain and improve the transportation system. And the complete cost of transportation needs in the county is currently estimated to be approximately $9.7 billion over the next 25 years. In the project list that we have, we have 360 projects that are fully constrained, 150 that are partially constrained and then 290 projects that are completely unconstrained. And projects that are on the constraint list, they include projects that have dedicated funding and then all the projects that have already been programmed and then projects that are prioritized for discretionary or semi-flexible funding. And some of these instances, projects that are identified as unconstrained may be high priorities, but given the funding constraints may not be financially feasible under the current funding sources and projections. And then the RTC approved the complete project list back in September of 2020 and then approved the constrained project list in March of 2021. The RTC, excuse me, is also subject to the California Environmental Quality Act requirements. So the EIR for this RTP, as well as the RTPs for Monterey and San Benito counties have been merged in the EIR for the 2045 Metropolitan Transportation Plan and Sustainable Community Strategies. The RTC has been coordinating with AMBAG on the development of the MTP by identifying financial constraints and transportation projects for Santa Cruz County from the RTP for inclusion in the MTP. Let's see. So the next steps really include that the public comment period for both the RTP and the EIR is scheduled to end on Monday, January 31st. A public hearing on the RTPs tentatively scheduled for January 13th at the next RTC meeting sending your approval today. A public hearing on the draft EIR will be held by AMBAG throughout the month of January, virtually via the go-to webinar and also at their January 12th board meeting. Members of the public can attend any of the scheduled workshops and there's no particular workshop that has a focus solely for Santa Cruz County. So any workshop is available. And then the next steps will be to review and respond to comments that come in throughout this review period, potentially updating any project costs or any new projects that will be added to the RTP will happen during this time. And then I will take the revised draft RTP with any of the revisions back to you and the board at the March 22nd RTC meeting. And then the final RTP is tentatively scheduled for adoption in June of 2022. And so the next steps really are the staff recommendations here for today, which is to provide input on the draft plan, authorize staff to release the plan for public review with a 60-day comment period that ends on January 31st and then to schedule the public hearing for the draft RTP at the January 13th RTC meeting. And that concludes my staff report. I'm happy to take your questions or comments. Thanks. Hey, thank you, Ms. Naranjo. Questions from the commission? Commissioner Koenig. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Ms. Naranjo for the update. So just wanna make sure I understand the process. So we can still add projects to the, obviously easier to add them to the unconstrained list than the constrained list, but presumably till the January 31st deadline, is that correct? Yeah, that is the correct for any comments and or revisions or updates that needs to be made. Okay. And then the best way to do that, you know, if it's a county project, it would be through a county submission, or if there was an RTC project that we wanted to add, would that be through a vote of this commission? Do I have to pose or vote those processes? Right? I believe so. Yeah. Okay. And then also in that period, we could, you know, I guess in theory move something from the unconstrained to the constrained list, although it'd be difficult given funding sources. Generally, yeah. Typically we'll have, we'll need to adjust that balance there since we have our financial estimate that's set at this point. And so we'll need to make sure that any project, if it's taken off the unconstrained, then it's balanced out accordingly. Okay. Thanks. Other questions? Staff is looking for any direction. So commissioners, if you have thoughts now is the time to share them. So now commissioner Schifrin. Just want to clarify that in fact, if the commission wants to change the projects, even after approval of the RTC, there is a process for doing so. So as I understand it, the RTP sort of represents the thinking at the time of its approval, but recognizes that the world is volatile and changes may occur and the plan can be updated. Is that not correct? That is correct. Yeah. Thank you. Mr. Preston. Yeah. I wanted the comment too, regarding the unconstrained and the constrained list and the funding and what it means. The projects that we identified as being on the constrained list is what goes through the environmental review. It doesn't mean that we can't attempt to find funding for projects that were on the unconstrained list. Those projects will go through their own separate project level environmental reviews. And if we are successful in finding funding for projects that are currently on the unconstrained list, we can move forward with those projects. This was often done in other counties that I've worked with. We weren't able to identify the funding at the time. A new federal program or state program isn't acted, provides a new opportunity. We apply for that funding, we get that grant. We can still move forward with that project. So, you know, it's our best guess at what we think we're going to be able to do with the money available, but it doesn't lock us in to only delivering the projects that are on the constrained list. And I think it's important for people to understand that. Thank you. Okay, there are members of the public who would like to comment now on the RTP draft plan before we move on. I am not seeing any hands up. So, I think that we do need to take some action. So, I'll bring it back to the commission now. I don't see any members of the public. I've moved the staff recommendation. Second. Okay, we have a motion by Commissioner Schifrin. Second by Commissioner Koenig. Any last words before we vote? All right. Okay, so we'll take it to a roll call vote. Commissioner Bertrand. I agree. Commissioner Brown. I. Commissioner Johnson. Commissioner Montecino. Yes. Commissioner Caput. Aye. Commissioner Alternative Schifrin. Aye. Commissioner Alternative Quinn. Yes. Commissioner Koenig. Aye. Commissioner McPherson. Aye. Commissioner Peterson. Aye. Commissioner Northcut. I can't hear you, Commissioner Northcut. I see that you unmute it yourself. Commissioner Alternative Pegler. Aye. That was unanimous. Okay. So, our next item on the agenda is a public hearing and it's been advertised for 10.30 a.m. This is adoption of the 2021 Consolidated Grants and Regional Transportation Improvement Program. Our tip, how in terms of our advertising versus starting early, maybe somebody from the staff, Mr. Preston, do you have any concerns about beginning? Yes, I recommend we take out 14. Take a break. Okay. So, 130. Okay. So, given that we don't have another item upcoming on our agenda that we could switch, this is our last open session item. Let's take a break and begin, we'll reconvene so we can get started right at 10.30. All right. Thank you, everyone, for cameras. So, we know you're here. We will go ahead and get started. Great. Well, hello, commissioners. If you don't mind, I'll kick it off. Sounds good. Rachel Marconi of your staff and before you today is a project selection for $11 million in funding that the Regional Transportation Commission has discretion over. And I'm just trying to get the slides to work. There you go. So today we will be having a public hearing to solicit input on the recommendations for providing funding to a variety of different transportation projects in our region. These include funds that go through the California Transportation Commission. So for some of these funds after the commission takes action, it will be dependent on the CTC's concurrence. If there are any kind of project scope schedule or cost changes to projects, those also that the commission has previously approved for funding, those also go through the Regional Transportation Commission for amendment. So today we're just gonna ask you to consider staff and committee recommendations for four of the funding sources that flow through the Regional Transportation Commission. These include the State Transportation Improvement Program or the STIP. We use a lot of acronyms and transportation funding for folks who aren't familiar with this. The Surface Transportation Block Grant, which is federal funding that because we're a smaller region, we're able to exchange it. So we oftentimes call it the RSTP Exchange Fund or the Regional Surface Transportation Program Exchange. Then back in December, folks might remember that Congress approved a COVID relief bill and that included some funding that went directly to transit agencies as well as some funding that flowed through the federal highway bill. And in California, a decision was made by the California Transportation Commission to give regions the authority to distribute those funds to different projects. And we also have a small amount of funding, which is two years of highway infrastructure program funds. And those also come through the federal appropriations bill. So those are federal funds. It's always great to have funds available to program as some of you may recall, in years past, we haven't always, this hasn't always been the case. In some years, the state transportation improvement program especially has been very volatile. In 2016, the California Transportation Commission had to defund $750 million with the project statewide. And that included $6 million that this board had previously designated for a project in Watsonville, along Harkinsloo Road Interchange Area over Highway One. So we're fortunate that we aren't having to just reprogram that $6 million to that one project in Watsonville because Watsonville put together an outstanding application to the state's active transportation program and was awarded over $11 million for that project earlier this year. So that is making, of this $11 million, about $6 million of that otherwise would have been going to that project. So it's always exciting to have money. It's never enough money, as mentioned in the regional transportation plan, of all the funding sources that exist in our region and they still only make up about half of what is really needed to fully fund projects. So these funding sources are available for use on a pretty wide range of projects with the exception of HIP funds which are only available for highway and road projects. The rest of the funds are all available for highway road and bridge projects, transit, paratransit and rail project, bicycle and pedestrian projects, system preservation, the COVID relief funds are even eligible for spot potholes and a few other projects that aren't usually kind of ongoing maintenance projects that usually aren't available eligible for the other funding sources as well as transportation demand management programs and education programs to encourage people to use alternatives to the automobile or use the transportation system more safely. And then there's projects that improve access for all different modes and users as well as of course safety projects. So our process this year for programming the funds was that in the spring and summer, the California Transportation Commission provided guidelines for and fund estimates for a couple of the funding sources including the COVID relief and the STIP funds. And we met with the ITAC, the Interagency Technical Advisory Committee in June to discuss evaluation criteria and the process for programming these funds and determined that a consolidated grant program made the most sense and would be the most efficient use of all agencies' staff time rather than issuing four different calls for projects especially for considering that some of these pots of money are relatively small. So we issued a call for projects in the summer and applications were due October 5th and we received 19 applications totaling over $26 million. So as a reminder, there's only 11 million available where we received requests for $26 million. All of the applications that we received are posted on our website and there's a hyperlink in the staff report to those applications. And in November, we reviewed the applications with the commission's advisory committees. This includes the Vice Committee, the Elderly and Disabled Transportation Advisory Committee and the Interagency Technical Advisory Committee which is made up of county and city public works and planning departments, Santa Cruz Metro, Caltrans, the Association of Monet Barrier Governments, University of California, Santa Cruz and Ecology Action. And today we are presenting the staff and committee recommendations to you for your consideration and we'll have the public hearing for you to consider verbal public comments but there's also included in the packet and as part of the handouts, some of the comments that were received in writing before the 9 a.m. deadline yesterday. So for programming funds, we are required by state and federal mandates to select projects based on evaluation or performance criteria and metrics. Some of these are set in federal legislation. A lot of them are set forth in California Transportation Commission guidelines but most importantly, both of them direct us to utilize metrics that we've identified in our regional transportation plan which Amy mentioned earlier. These include things like safety and system preservation, emission reductions, both greenhouse gas emissions and other emissions, reducing the number of vehicle miles that are traveled or VMT, things that improve travel time or reliability of the amount of time it takes folks to get around, projects that improve goods movement or trade as well as projects that improve access or multimodal components. Now we also considered the scale of the benefits of the projects and how many users we're gonna possibly benefit from each of these projects as well as health benefits of the projects if it will get more people moving as well as equity and where our most disadvantaged communities are located and who might benefit from these different projects. We are required to look at if the projects are consistent with our regional transportation plan. We also considered how deliverable the projects were and if there were any risks to the project schedules some of the projects did a lot of work over the last several years or months reaching out to the community and so the projects have been identified and whether it was general plans, active transportation plans, special plans. So we took into consideration that information and what kind of public engagement happened there and then consistency of the projects with complete streets policies which are required of all cities and counties to have and then we took into consideration advisory committee input and project sponsor priorities. Now every single project that was submitted for funding does advance at least one or more of the performance criteria that are set by state, federal or regional criteria. So that was easy. There was nothing that was 100% off the table but that did make it a little more challenging when we were looking at the different options given the limited funding. Project sponsors did an outstanding job presenting competitive applications that really describe all of the range of benefits of each of these projects for our overall multimodal transportation systems but because there's not enough money for everything staff is recommending funding for almost everything and partial funding for most of those projects. Project sponsors have indicated that they would be able to scale back their projects to meet the funding amounts recommended or they have other funds that they plan on utilizing to fill that funding gap. Depending on the projects approved by the commission today we will receive updated project scope and descriptions from agencies and post that on the web as soon as they are available. Now while there's not enough money to fund everything today as mentioned by director Preston earlier in the meeting there is the potential of additional funding for transportation through the state budget surplus and we are also hopeful that with passage of the federal infrastructure bill that the commission will have more funding available for programming as early as next year in 2022. So there is a chance that things that don't get fully funded today or don't get funded at all could come back for reconsideration next year. So one of the biggest parts of our recommendations are for roadway preservation projects. Over half of the funds recommended would be utilized to preserve local roads and bikeways. This includes roads on 41st Avenue, Alba Road, Jameson Creek, San Jose Soquel Road, Porter Street, Soquel Drive, San Andreas Road, Holihan, Granite Creek Road, Chestnut and Ocean Streets. So a lot of different roads and throughout the county would be considered here. And most of these road rehab projects do include complete streets elements whether it's repaving the bicycle lanes, adding green lanes, upgrading curb ramps and crosswalks and such. One of the other categories of projects that we're recommending funding for are vehicle replacements for paratransit and in a metro bus. For a metro it's an articulated bus which allows metro to carry more passengers with just one driver. And that has been a challenge for them especially as they've struggled to recruit as many agencies are employees right now. So that is one of the vehicles. And then Lifeline is proposing to replace some of its gas and diesel powered vehicles with an electric van. On the highway side, there are two highway projects on the list. One is in San Lorenzo Valley. This would be piggybacking on work that's been done in the past with the school district and Caltrans to look at really diving in deep on what can be done to address circulation around the three school complex in Felton. This would include auto circulation as well as bicycle and pedestrian access to the campus. And then there's also a recommendation for funding a million dollars towards the Highway 1 Freedom to State Park auxiliary lane bus on shoulder and segment 12 rail trail project. That money would be utilized to advance the design phase of the project. So to make the project more competitive for future state and federal funding opportunities. And then as mentioned earlier, there's a lot of bike and pedestrian facilities that are integrated into some of the roadway preservation projects. But there's also a few projects that focus specifically on bicycle or pedestrian infrastructure or education. And that includes Kennedy Road project in Capitola. There's a gap in the sidewalk network there. And so Capitola proposes to build some new sidewalk. Soquel Drive includes the county is proposing buffered bike lanes, filling gaps in the sidewalk network, improving intersections, circulation. And then the ecology action, bike and walk smart programs which target second and fifth graders making sure that they understand how to utilize our roadway network safely when they're walking and biking. So overall, oops, it looks like some of my little numbers aren't showing up there. For all the staff recommendations our pretty balanced split includes about 14% of the funds whether it's on a local road or a direct full transit project or 14% about 20% of the funds for pedestrian projects, 4% for bicycle elements, 8% for highway auto projects, roadway operations that means intersection improvements especially specifically on Soquel Drive is about 2% of the funds. And as I mentioned before about 50% of the funds would go for pavement repairs. I'm sure some of you have probably already done the math but we were pretty excited to see that when our staff recommendations were developed just utilizing the evaluation criteria we actually felt like it was a pretty good mix of distribution of the funds. We're not allowed to distribute funds by formula but it did come out to meaning that everyone got a little bit of something. We're recommending overall that 75% of the funds go to cities and the County of Santa Cruz this cycle and only 25% of the funds for regional projects that is different from what we've done in the past. The last cycle, the commission program 47% of the funds to regional projects and not to cities and counties. Some regions in the state program 100% of these funds only to highway projects for instance that has never been the practice at the regional transportation commission. We've always looked to do a balance of local road, bike, ped and regional projects. The committees reviewed the staff recommendations as I mentioned before in November and the preliminary staff recommendations were endorsed by all three of the commission's committees in addition to staff's preliminary recommendations which were $500,000 lower for the Alba Jamison Creek Road Project. The ITAC recommended adding $500,000 to that project and staff modified its recommendation to reflect that unanimous ITAC recommendation. The bike committee had recommended that that $500,000 instead be programmed to San Andreas Road and the San Jose Soquel Road which are heavily used by cyclists as well as the bike challenge encouragement program proposed by Ecology Action. The bicycle committee and the elderly and disabled transportation advisory committee recommendations are noted in bold in the second to last column of attachment too and they also include which staff endorses encouraging agencies to ensure that their projects do are bicycle and pedestrian friendly accessible to all pedestrians not just taking into consideration folks with perhaps limited mobility and that all of the projects that have any kind of bike or pedestrian or transit elements return to the bike committee and the elderly disabled transportation advisory committee for review before the design of those projects is finalized. So today's action, we are recommending that you consider our staff recommendations and committee recommendations as well as the public input. We did solicit community input through Sentinel newspaper ads that went out. I think it was November 21st news release that was distributed to media and over 4,500 subscribers to our online email list as well as it was posted on social media and the RTC website and noted as part of our commission packet agenda announcement that went out last week. As noted earlier in the handouts our comments that were received by our 9 a.m. deadline yesterday I will note that there have been some comments that have come in since then expressing support or opposition to a variety of different projects support for lifeline projects and San Lorenzo Valley school survey study or two that received several different comments. There were folks who had a few concerns on some of the design of some of the other projects and we'll share those with project sponsors. But unfortunately we did have a 9 a.m. cut off for comment and so I hope folks that had those comments will be testifying during the public hearing. After you hold the public hearing we do recommend you adopt the resolution shown in attachment one programming funds to the projects. And I will just point out that the commission also could decide not to recommend all of these or decide not to fund all of these projects the commission could decide to hold back some of the funding or program funds in a different way than is recommended by staff and committees. So those are options for the commission. And we also have just two minor amendments I would consider to projects that had slightly different costs than initially anticipated by the County of Santa Cruz and those are reflected in attachment three to the staff report and with that I'll turn it over to you Commissioner Brown to if there's any questions from the commission muted. Thank you so much Ms. Marconi for the overview that was really helpful to have it in a very clearly organized way in terms of the process and the recommendations you've made. I will, so if members of the commission have specific questions about the presentation or the recommendations in the document we'll open it up for questions now before we go out to the public. And I want to give Commissioner McPherson an opportunity to make a statement because he does have to leave and his alternate will take over. So Commissioner McPherson, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you chair and I appreciate it. And congratulations Rachel on an enviable task to try to get every project need and $11 million for whatever it is. You can't do it, but I am here to speak more for the needs of Santa Cruz County and at 600 miles of roads that have about $500 million of deferred maintenance. You throw through no fold of anyone Santa Cruz County roads are more deficient than most of the other 57 counties in California because of storm damages we've experienced for getting back to 2016-17. Measure D did help as a member of the committee that put together Measure D. I'd push to have local roads as the top priority in getting the largest share of Measure D revenue and it did. My point is the same this time. I believe we should fix our roads first because they accommodate virtually all of the transportation needs for motorists whether they're driving electric vehicles or got gas powered vehicles, bike buses, bikes, trucks and so on. And that benefit to win more than two thirds of the county voters approved Measure D was that Santa Cruz County became a self-help county. I mean in the eyes of the state that if you help yourself with tax funds for your roads, the state will more likely help you get there. Furthermore, in this age of unpredictable wildfires road improvements are essential more than ever particularly in my district and the other third district of Santa Cruz County. For instance, in my district, Jamison Road, Alba Road and others will be upgraded more quickly if they get more funding obviously in the same it's true of old San Jose road, San Jose, San Andreas Road and others as you have mentioned some of them. These are critical evacuation routes that need I believe more immediate attention today than maybe it did a year ago because of the situation we have with wildfires and that threat. The greatest immediate need therefore I think is need, I think we need at least 55% of what was proposed for some of these critical road projects and looking into the future, I think our key station look and fix the first policy for our roads going back to using the formula that we came up with a more balanced approach and grant funding for our road system or a transportation network. I really do not think we should have to pit buses against fixing roads or bike projects against highway one improvements. These become false choices in my opinion because all these projects are important to our overall transportation system and each and every one of them that Rachel Marconi mentioned is needed. We know that, but we will never have adequate funding for the projects as was also mentioned to do all this but I believe we can make balanced choices but starting with fixing our roads. I think if we fix that first, it's gonna help every form of our transportation on our network that we have in Santa Cruz County. I appreciate you're letting me speak before the actual public hearing starts. Jenny Johnson will be my alternate when we're taking my place but these are tough choices to make and I just think our roads needed more than ever in Santa Cruz County. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner McPherson. Okay, I have a comment also if I may. Sure, go for it, Commissioner Calvin. Okay, thank you. Yeah, Rachel, thank you very much for your report. I appreciate all the work you put into this. In writing, the question I have here is in writing the project evaluation, did RTC actually reach out and talk to the county public works and the cities probably public works and all that. What I'm getting at is it seems late in the game that we're actually now trying to formulate something. Local roads are a top priority everywhere. Most of the calls I get from residents in my district is they can go from a pothole to a whole resurfacing of a road and whether or not the road resurfacing will be a temporary fill like a slurry seal or will it be a permanent fixture, you know, fixture. So I know I'm going on state statistics that each household has two plus cars. Each car goes in each household in the county and everywhere in the state go 11 miles per car. That's two times 11 and be 22 miles on local roads per car that are traveling. So what I'm, we have to have a priority there. Our local roads is what gets people to and from our schools, to and from work, go shopping, go to church, parks and recreation and et cetera. So how much public input and how much discussion did RTC have with county public works and other cities when we're sitting down writing the report? Sure. Commissioner Caput, that I mentioned it a little bit earlier and just touched on it. So the criteria, the evaluation criteria come from our regional transportation plan. And you might recall that over the last year, the commission and the public and all of our advisory committees including the technical advisory committee made up of public works departments participated in review of the goals and policies and targets. And that is where it identifies several of the evaluation criteria related to safety, system preservation, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, addressing the needs of folks who maybe can't drive or don't drive. So a lot of that discussion and determination of the evaluation criteria happens as part of development of the regional transportation plan. This board approved those criteria, those goals, those metrics. I think it was in February of this year, earlier this year. And so that was the main basis for our criteria. But we also had, we are required to take into consideration and utilize state and federal performance metrics as well when we are evaluating projects for these funds. We did present the draft of those evaluation criteria for this funding program to the public works departments and other agencies that sit on our interagency technical advisory committee. In June, we did make some modifications based on comments from that committee. And that was what was utilized in the call for projects. So yes, the short answer is yes, they did have the opportunity and did provide input on the criteria. At those forums, I guess, was the county public works actually involved with them? They are a member of the technical advisory committee. And then, well, what I'm getting at here is everybody depends on local roads going to and from everywhere. So we have to have money for local roads. So we're talking now about priorities and where the money would go. Does Metro, Metro gets funding from what a sales tax and also from a gas tax and everything like that. I'm all for Metro, I've used it many times myself. But like most people, someone gives me a ride and drops me off at a bus stop. If I can't get to the bus stop on a local road, then I'm in trouble. So is Metro gonna be okay if we allocated more money to local roads and less to Metro? I think the short answer there is everyone could use more funding and to maintain our existing transportation system, whether it's our roads, our highways, our bicycle facilities or our, you know, any, our buses, more money is needing than what is available. And I think all agencies are struggling to keep up. Yeah. Okay, anyway, I'm gonna turn Felipe Hernandez is gonna take my place, but we really need to work this out before we actually get to this point. I think we need to have people actually from the cities of the County and RTC sitting in and actually helping you write the final proposal. I hate to put all the pressure on you. Here you are and it seems to be your proposal right now. And it would be really nice if it was everybody's proposal before we get to this point. Thanks a lot, Rachel. Sure thing. Just to clarify, it is based on input from the technical advisory committees also. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Bertrand, you're up next. And I've disappeared. I think you're muted. Sorry. I'm mute and forget I'm muted. Okay, you know, the first glance at the proposal looks very balanced. And, you know, I echo statements prior that it must have been quite a bit of work to make this happen. All the different components that, you know, were part of the process. So the question I have is basically ready to criteria. I lived in San Lorenzo Valley for almost 10 years. And prior to that, when I was a kid, some time, a lot of time in Mendocino. And one thing that impacted us was a fire danger. So when I was a kid, about four or five years old, we had to evacuate a rather large area in Mendocino and the adults all went out to fight the fire. One of my uncles came home rather damaged. And that's because there was no Caltrans. I mean, Cal Fire. Most recently in Mendocino, also a piece of land that I owned of fire was stopped just short of feet from my property. And again, there wasn't much more than volunteers and no way to get out as the roads were blocked. I let off with that. I lived in San Lorenzo Valley for almost 10 years. And after we moved in, one of the first things I realized was my neighbors were very scared about evacuation routes. At that time, we were concerned about flooding and collapse of hillsides because that was a more recent incident that actually killed many people, some I knew. And then the fire came up, CZU. I've had many friends that have lost their homes, many friends that evacuated under, rains of cinders and stuff like that. And the proposals to fix Alba, Jameson and other roads in that area really strikes me as very important. It's a need to protect people's lives. It's not a need to get to the store. It's a need to make sure you can get your kids in the car in time to get out. It's not a need to get to school or to go visit a friend down the road or something like that or go to Santa Cruz or wherever you might be. This county is basically a rural county with many roads that are very dangerous to go on and not prepared to handle major evacuations of which we just had one, the very need for one. So I think it's very, very critical that we address these roads. It's a matter of life. It's not a matter of convenience. And so that's why I support the county's proposal to broaden the support for their particular projects. Is this a consideration that was actively considered in the discussions that you carried on to make sure these were addressed or not addressed? Staff does consider access and the range of needs as part of our evaluation. Yes. Well, it's more than access. It's being able to flee for your life. That's what I wanna hear. The commission has identified a wide range of priorities for our transportation system. And we did not explicitly look at fleeing for your life as part of the evaluation criteria. Okay, well, I think that's a consideration. Like I said, having lived in Santa Rosa Valley for almost 10 years, people actually talked about that was a major consideration and a fear. And most recently with the CCU fires, I think it came to pass that it was a well-justified fear. Thank you. Can I just make a suggestion to the chair? I am hearing commissioners indicate their recommendations. And I would really recommend that this time be set aside for questions of the staff report and then open the public hearing. And then after listening to the community, making decisions on any kind of funding. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Morkoni. I was gonna make a comment about that. We did, commissioner McPherson, because he has to go wanted to make some comments, but this is a time for questions. And we do have, this is a public hearing. So we wanna hear from the public as soon as possible. So we can, if you have questions specifically to try to help understand the proposal or the process, now is the time. And then we will have time after the public speaks to deliberate. Well, Madam Chair, if I strayed, I'm awfully sorry. I was just trying to lead up to the question. Understood. It's hard sometimes to separate them. And I do that as well. I comment questions, I call them. So I understand. But if we could just do questions now and then we'll come back around and give you time to weigh in. Okay, commissioner Quinn, you're up. Thank you, Ms. Morkoni. That was a terrific report. On the criteria for getting new buses is replacing defaulty equipment or augmenting surface the criteria or is it simply moving to a lower emission mode? Sure, there's, I think about 15 criteria that we utilized. And so some of it is this mode essential for folks to get places and get around. We also have a strong system preservation goal in our regional transportation plan. So that includes just replacing equipment that otherwise might become obsolete, which means then service would have to be cut. We also have several goals and mandates from the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And so getting more fuel-efficient vehicles is also one of the considerations. Safety of the transportation system is also important. And so replacing old equipment with newer equipment that has better safety features is also an element. And that's easier for those with limited mobility to get on and off the bus is also a consideration. So all of that comes into consideration. Thank you. Commissioner Montesino. Well, thank you. Thank you for a report, Rachel, very detailed. But the question that I had was under the E&D tech, did the county public works state their more need or vote against the recommendation? The County Public Works Department did vote in favor of the ITAC recommendation. They had made a one amendment to add the $500,000 to Elba Road, which was endorsed by the committee as a whole. Thank you, so they endorsed the recommendation. And now after the fact, one more money. Okay, thank you. Okay, we will now move on to the public hearing portion and allow members of the public to share their thoughts. And so raise your hand now if you are interested in making a comment about the our tip funding recommendations and we'll give folks three minutes. Mr. Kelly, Kyle Kelly, you are up first. Great, thanks for having me. Again, this is Kyle Kelly. I wanna thank the chair and commissioners and staff for the presentation. I noticed that the County Department of Public Works is requesting a change in the funding allocations, which would result in redirecting funds from lift line and Metro in favor of variety of roadway projects, some of which are in line to receive future funding from other sources. Part of why I speak to this one is that, in order for us to fight climate change, it's imperative that we protect and increase funding for public transit at every opportunity. Partingly, I urge you to reject this and any future requests reduced lift line and or Metro funding. I think it's good for us as we look at some of these decisions that we think about, who are we gonna serve the most? I mean, that would really fact-based, database piece here, which is that most of the sales tax revenue that comes in, actually comes in via our urban cities. There was a big case made about funding for rural roads. And while we need those, I got to see, back when I used to live in Santa Rosa Valley before relocating down to Santa Cruz, that we got Zionte Road repaved, right? And that's great. It's good to have those things, but at the same time, we're kind of like trying to repair the things that are gonna be damaged further by climate change over time. And then kind of putting our head in the sand about how do we get out of this? What kind of public policy do we need to embrace for us to fight climate change, build climate resilient cities within our county and provide equitable, accessible transit, right? I think it's really important that you look at this and say we should not be diverting from bus funding at this time to put it into more roadways and to put it into more vehicle miles traveled and more greenhouse gas emissions. You need to take a strong stance on funding for the bus, both capital expenses and operational expenses. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Okay. Next up, Brian. Trail Now. Hi, this is Brian from Trail Now. Absolutely support staff's recommendations. The roads are very critical investment in our infrastructure. Just to comment, Trail Now originally opposed Measure D because there was 24% funding for the train and the RTC adjusted the language and moved a majority of that to Lyft Line and brought the rail down to 8%. So Lyft Line is a phenomenal service. My mom used it, my dad uses it. So it's a great service and they have a lot of funding. Measure D is doing very well. The other thing just to give you a little background of my experience on this is for 30 years ago, I was working on providing shuttles, working up in the Silicon Valley, trying to get shuttles to counter it. I wrote some legislation for commuter checks at the state level. I basically worked hard to get people to ride on buses, right? And through my experience, it's just very hard to get people on those buses and it's gonna get harder now that technology enables people to use their electric cars, use their electric bikes, use Uber. So the roads are very important, not only for cars, but for the bicyclists to open up because bicyclists with e-bikes, it's a game changer for our community. So we wanna improve our roads for that. The other thing I want to recommend is to think about vehicle, the metrics that you're using, vehicle miles traveled. That's probably not the best metrics as we move forward with electric cars, right? So it's just like the gas tax where the gas tax goes and allows us to have a different way of taxiing. So anyways, we support improving the roads and of course, we're always very much appreciate opening the Santa Cruz Coastal Trail as soon as possible because that corridor right now is closed and that's a bad thing. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Brian. Okay, Mr. Machado, you are up next. Thank you. We're having a little technical difficulties with our timers so we will be back up but I can keep time for you, Commissioner Brown. Thank you, thank you. And I will just mention, we are giving three minutes for comments right now. This is a very important issue, our set of issues. Depending on how many hands, if we keep seeing hands go up, we may end up switching to two but I do wanna give people an opportunity. So try to be brief and it looks like Mr. Machado, if you're ready, you're up. There you go. Morning, can you hear me? Yeah. All right, thank you so much. I do have a few words I'd like to share but I wanna start by saying that through the committee, meetings that County Public Works did share the same recommendation that they're sharing today. We just, it failed due to a lack of second and lack of support. And so just to be really clear, we've been consistent from the day this item came out publicly. So, but that said, good morning, Chair and commissioners. In addition to a letter I sent to each of you last week, I would like to share that I believe there is an expectation that our gas taxes be spent on road maintenance. Money spent on road maintenance serves all modes of transportation, buses, bikes, pedestrians and vehicles. Lack of investment is a disservice to all modes of transportation. Roads are not optional. Every man, woman and child use and depend upon roads every single day. It is by far the most heavily used and dependent upon government service. RTC staff recommendation today is just 40% of our County ask. And at that level, we will not be able to deliver our critical projects. We need at least 55% of our ask to deliver these critical projects. The County maintains 67% of roadways by lane mileage and the County roadways have the lowest pavement condition rating in our region and one of the lowest in the state. Over the past four competitive grant cycles, nearly 10 years, the County has been awarded an average of just 30% of total available funding. I firmly believe that our regionally significant projects such as bus transit and highway one widening have many more opportunities for funding and that we will be successful with those efforts while still providing much needed investment in our road maintenance. I am asking that your commission fund County roadway maintenance projects as described in my letter of November 23rd. I recommend programming for critical County road maintenance projects to fully fund the requests for San Andreas, Soquel San Jose, Alba and Jamison Creek projects. Additionally, the County will commit to delivery of the Soquel Drive buffered bike project and the whole of hand project at the proposed RTC staff recommended levels of funding. And though I am advocating strongly today, I want to assure the commission that the County is also committed to continued collaboration on transportation in our region. And lastly, and I know I only have 30 seconds, the past few days I've been in a number of state and federal transportation meetings talking about new funding. And I can also say that new funding is for new programs and there is not gonna be new money for road maintenance, general road maintenance. And so I am worried that our maintenance is gonna continue to be neglected. And I firmly believe that new money is for new programs and that's a great thing. And I thank you for your support today and I'm certainly available to answer any questions that commissioners have. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Machado. Okay, we will move on now to our next commenter, Jamie Ackman, whenever you're ready. Great, thank you very much. Jamie Ackman, today I'm here in my capacity as a member of community bridges management team to ask that you support the staff recommendation to fund a million dollars for Metro's electric vehicle infrastructure and $375,000 for Lifeline electric vehicle procurements. Funding these projects enable Santa Cruz County to continue making progress towards the state of California's requirement that all public transportation operators transition to a fully electric fleet. Small agencies like Metro and Lifeline have an incredibly difficult time competing for federal infrastructure funds against agencies with large grant writing departments at major public transportation operators across the country. As a former director of marketing and communications for the San Mateo County Transit District, Santa Clara's VTA and Santa Cruz Metro, I had significant experience with transit vehicle procurements. In fact, with Metro, I oversaw the work the grants team is now doing on an interim basis after the department had retired. Metro and Lifeline have been in the slow process of converting their fleet for years to meet new state emissions regulations, but funding comes in small increments allowing just a few vehicle purchases at a time. The manufacturing is laborious and can take months for delivery and drivers must be trained and certified on new equipment before it can be placed in service. All of this means that a delay in receiving funding for these procurements resulted in much longer delays in acquiring new vehicles. And I would remind you that our roads are used by people who don't have the ability to drive their own car or even ride on a bicycle themselves. The customers that we serve really require the vehicles that we provide that are customized for their unique needs. The short-term road repair needs should not result in the defunding of other important strategic goals that improve the health, environment and mobility of all Santa Cruz County residents. Reducing vital funding for long-term strategic objectives to address structural deficit in the county's road maintenance budget doesn't serve our community well. And finally, if the decision comes down to improving evacuation routes, I would gently remind the commission that Lifeline and Metro also participated in evacuating those in San Lorenzo Valley without vehicles. All forms of transportation are important. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Ackman. Okay, Ray Cansino, you are up. Hey, commission, this is Ray Cansino from Community Bridges. I appreciate you hearing from a couple of us today. I didn't think I was gonna make it, but I was able to rush in and make comment on this topic. This shift will allow our proposal today, a lifespan reduction of over 500,000 fossil fuel rides and provide us another 10% more greenhouse capacity. The project not only impacts our greenhouse reductions, but it helps make our community and make a dent in larger goals in our community. This helps to address multimodal needs of seniors and people with disabilities. And I ask that the grant composition that is approved ensure that you're not a victim to ableism and ensures we provide some equitable distribution to address the paratransit needs of our community. We understand that there are many community needs and that our requests might be viewed as a luxury in comparison to other needs, but I want to ensure we acknowledge not only the real climate crisis, but that we feel the community need to ensure that we continue to have free paratransit services to all Santa Cruz County residents by providing the vehicles that allows us to perform the service in coordination with the measure defunding that continues to support the expansion of services on weekend hours and on a weekday evening hours. I want to ensure that we all need to understand the multiple communities and input have been provided and have had multiple variations of today's proposal. I fear that the shifts and changes at this point will send a clear message to other situations similar to like the redistricting discussion that those committees don't matter and their input isn't recognized. We need to also recognize that local roads funding is far more needed than just these local sales tax dollars in order to address the huge mass transportation infrastructure need in our community across the state and across the nation. Some of those infrastructure dollars are anticipated in the state and federal infrastructure investments. And we look forward to also having public work supply for those as well as alongside us as well. We look for your support on our two electric vehicles and we wish to continue to bring in additional dollars to community. And just for you to get some context, our commitment to electrification has already resulted in over $700,000 of local state-funded dollars coming into our community for other EV vehicle development as well as implementation and infrastructure. So with that consideration, I hope you maintain the staff recommendation as well as the committee's voice, as well as our community's voice by maintaining our request. Thank you, Mr. Cansino. I, before we move on, I am just watching since I made the comments about the time allowed for comments and watching the hands keep going up. And so I wanna just make a comment here so folks are prepared. We will continue to give three minutes for folks who have their hands up that. And so James Sandoval, you are the last person with your hand up at the moment. So we're gonna go with three minutes through this list. And as new hands get raised, just know you'll have two minutes when your time comes. Okay, so we are now, we're moving along and Monica Martinez, it's your turn. Hi, thank you so much. My name is Monica Martinez and I'm a resident of Felton. I know you have many important priorities to fund and I appreciate you considering projects that improve the roads and safety of the San Lorenzo Valley. As a resident of the Valley, we have unique transportation challenges in our community. We have limited routes in and out of our community on a daily basis. And this is particularly important during an emergency, an emergency. So I'm glad to see the recommendation is prioritizing emergency routes on Alba and Jamison Creek. But I also wanted to talk today to really talk about the safety of the school corridor. I have two children that attend school at SLB complex and daily I sit in the traffic and observe parents and children walking to and from campus by foot. I really support any effort that helps us get closer to a solution to this corridor so that way we can keep our families and children safe. So also thank you for considering the SLB schools complex circulation and access study. With that, I'll give you the rest of your time. Thank you. Appreciate the efficiency. Jim Moser, you're up. Thank you, commission for the work you've done on this. I appreciate all the hard work that's gone into this. I am Jim Moser, I'm a resident of Felton. And I can be very brief. I support the comments from the community bridges folks. I think it's important that we continue to move forward electric vehicles and away from gas vehicles, excuse me. And that the lift line in particular is absolutely critical service for low income seniors. I'm a senior myself. I know many people that rely on it and to continue to support that program. I think it's very, very important. These are relatively modest amounts of money. I don't, I totally agree with Mr. Machado that our roads are critical, but it seems to me that diversifying the funding some to also meet some of the other objectives is really critical. I also support what Monica Martinez said. I've had a child go to the school in Felton. It's a very dangerous corridor. I'm really pleased to see that there's money in the budget for doing that study. And I think that in terms of our safety issues in the valley, that is an absolutely critical priority. Thank you. Thank you. Verena McFarland. Hi, thank you. I want to say I really appreciate that the RTC staff are required to do a very complex dance here. I am an alternative mode of transport person. We really need good roads. So I have a very poignant, I used to commute down Felton empire from Bonnie Dune and one morning in dappled sunlight, my front wheel went into a hole in the road and the next thing I knew I was in the ambulance they were trying to get me to say my name. So yeah, road maintenance and deferred road maintenance is a really big deal. And I came here, I serve on the bicycle advisory committee to the RTC newly. So I, bearing in mind that I'm a newbie and I'm trying to wrap my head around this and the history and I heard that in the RTC staff report that this county unlike other counties has never dedicated this particular pot of money for road maintenance. Whereas other counties do. I didn't know that and everything I tried to learn and understand about this situation we have of deferred road maintenance since 2013 led me to wonder if somebody in this time period had taken creative license and just it just seems the strangest thing to me for the RTC to throw out this halt all over the county to say, hey guys, we've got this 11 million dollars and you could have it. Because the worst thing is then is that we've got a kind of entrenched interest or vested interest over years where there's no bad guys. It's all like really worthy causes but it's like this is free money and anybody could go for it. And once you've had lots of people really work hard and do their public interaction and put together amazing proposals you don't wanna turn anyone away you want everyone to have that. But public works, as I'm understanding it their point is they don't have another pot to dip into whereas the other entities that have applied and have a share of this now proposed do have other pots to dip into and that's the point. So that's kind of, yeah, that's probably enough to say. I think you probably got the gist. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, Kanim you're up next. Good morning commissioners. I wanna appreciate the situation you're in in terms of having many important priorities to fill in for mobility and not enough money to do that. And so, I would agree with most speakers who are calling in today, but like those speakers I am also advocating for a specific project and in terms of the mix of transportation that serve Santa Cruz County I'm speaking on behalf of cycling and cycling in the way that's not like some of the projects that the RTC helps build and helps fund the infrastructure projects but the social infrastructure. So these projects that College Action Run are set up as programs to help people get on their bikes and ride their bikes more often. And so we're getting before you today to ask you to consider the RTC bike committee's recommendation to fund our bike challenge at 156,000 per year which is overall less than 3% of this $11 million. And I just wanna be able to tell you a little bit about the bike challenge. It is a program that is a digital platform that is COVID proof and it created a bike community where folks were able to go in and encourage each other. They were able to access incentives to ride and ride more often and then access resources while they track their bicycle trips. And because this is an online platform that collects a lot of data, we have that data available. And so the challenge is impacts over the last three years since 2018, we started from scratch. We now have 3,700 users on the platform and they've ridden a total of 2.7 million miles and reduced one third of a million pounds of carbon dioxide and they've had 72,000 transportation trips. So this platform meets a lot of the goals of the RTC and the consolidated call for grants, the goal of reduced VMT, the goal of reduced greenhouse emissions, healthy active transportation, low cost and equitable transportation. So in closing, I'd like to ask the RTC to consider funding this project because without the RTC funding on this project we'll go away and this bicycle hub resource will be lost for the local community. Thank you very much for your consideration. Thank you. Next up, equity and environment. Hi, thank you, Sandy and thank you, Rachel for your detailed report. It's really a complex endeavor on the part of public works in RTC and divvying up these limited funds. So I appreciate your work. I too lived the number of years in the San Lorenzo Valley and for a number of years, my son and I rode Metro Bus by choice even though we had a car. I'm also a cyclist and value stage streets. I think the level of aggressive in the roads today has really skyrocketed since I served seven years as a used biking coach in our community. I just wanna say I'd like to advocate for prioritizing our funding in general into building our robust public transit systems including funds for Metro Buses and Lifeline which is an equitable and environmentally wise choice. Our efforts need to make it harder for people to be attached to their cars and even e-cars which actually come with their own degree of contribution to environmental degradation. Information is not yet as publicly aware, made publicly aware about that. This can only happen by providing our community with a comprehensive county wide public transit system including e-buses being an immediate investment with our current funds and public rail transit in the future as well as safe biking and walking access to public transit. And I really do appreciate the difficulty of this work you're doing and hope the overarching view will be how we can remove single driver vehicles from the roads and move our county towards a robust public transit system. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, Murray Fontes, it's your turn. Thank you, Chair Brown, members of the commission. My name is Murray Fontes. I work with the city of Watsonville. I wanna express appreciation to staff for the recommendations and ask that the commission approve it as the RTC staff proposed. It benefits to Watsonville as well as the South County area include funding the city's complete streets project. It also includes funds to all the funds requested to upgrade the existing Holohand Road resurfacing project which is in district four. Other projects that are funded while they don't directly benefit the South County they do provide services for all County members including the South County. And that includes lifeline, metro and the RTC's funding for the highway project. The County's proposal would shift funding away from South County and allocated in a manner that wouldn't have as direct a benefit. So as a representative of the South County I would discourage that. Also, I wanna note that in the staff's recommendation presented today, the half million dollars that was originally not allocated has been put toward the emergency road resurfacing project in San Lorenzo Valley. So there is additional funding there and was originally proposed. Again, I ask that the commission approve the staff's recommendation. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Fontes. David Dait. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay, I'm calling from the former 56 bus stop here in Los Alva Beach on the corner of Playa and San Andreas. This bus was taken out of commission in September 8th of 2016 just ahead of the Measure D ballot initiative which I supported. And I think everyone in this community believe that if we go ahead and pass this Measure D we'll get ourselves out of this crisis and our bus service would be restored. The buses, the benches have been removed. Someone recently came and took the last of the signs. And I don't think there's any intention to restore bus service at this location. Looking across San Andreas from me there's just a cluster of potholes like you wouldn't believe. So this raises the question, if we don't have money to restore basic baseline service that we enjoyed just four or five years ago, if we don't have the money to keep our pavement index above an F, how are we going to fund these new projects and at what costs to our community and everyone really? So I mean, I've talked with many of the staff and some of the commissioners and I understand you all are very good people and I understand that this makes lots of sense and many of you are aware of the disaster that the state of our transportation is in. And I just scratch my head at how nothing ever gets done about it. And I think the root cause of this is something called group think. People just wanna go along to get along on these political commissions and maybe they wanna get invited to the end of the year, cheese party or the holiday party and stuff like that. It's a singular hierarchy we've created here in Santa Cruz and it's really unfortunate because instead of people doing what they know is questionable and correct, they go ahead and do what they believe everyone else is doing. And I think that definitely needs to be addressed in this county and if you all can just look deep and have some introspection as to why things are the way they are and whether the decisions we're making today are gonna do anything or change anything in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, Susubo, I wanna make sure I get this right. Bo Horquez, you're up. Thank you, commissioner. My name is Hasubo Horquez. I was recently, has been assigned as a new community Regist Lifeline Program Director after previously serving as a operation manager. During the normal circumstances, Lifeline provide over 55,000 free one-way rides in the course of the year. A large percentage of these rides are medical rides provided to Santa Cruz County seniors and people with disabilities. The Lifeline Electric Vehicle Project, we replaced two of our current older gas vehicles with two new electric vehicles. The acquisition of these vehicles not only will allow Lifeline to achieve the California State why a mission goes to transition to an entirely serious mission fleet by the year 2040, but also we estimate that it will transition in 10% of our rides with two 10% of our rides with additional to these two vehicles and helping Lifeline reduce greenhouse gases in disadvantaged communities and serving low income minorities, which is often the most negatively impacted in these impacts. With these days, I will come today here to ask for the committee to support the current RTC staff recommendation to found the 2021 Consiliered Regional Transportation Grants without amendments. Thank you. Thank you. Jack Brown. Hi, Jack Brown, resident of Aftos. Want to thank Rachel too for this very comprehensive report. Also it's been very interesting listening to the public comments here afterwards. Typically Kyle Kelly and especially Lonnie Faulkner and I are on opposite ends of the spectrum on issues, but I think we have a lot of common ground here in regards to the need for public transit. And especially, you know, as Susie noted in regards to Lifeline and Paracruz, I think those are absolutely essential. I was kind of shocked in a conversation I had with a neighbor next door that was disabled and looking for a way to get to a doctor visit and I had recommended that they look into the Lifeline or Paracruz and said that they weren't eligible because where they were on Traukulch. And so I thought that was kind of surprising. I don't know if that's, it's actually the case or not, but whatever they got the information like that. So as I've stated many times before, we got to make sure that the transportation solutions fit all of Santa Cruz County, not just selected areas. And also look at some of those programs that are there that are they real? Is I mean, we're still pouring money into a ghost freight train line that doesn't exist. We have not sent freight down the corridor past Lee Road since the storms of 2016, 17. If we're looking for places to divert money for better programs, let's please look at just stopping doing anything more for freight beyond those places and repairing and maintaining lines beyond Lee Road. We do have the Yes Greenway Initiative. We'll have enough signatures on the petitions to be turned in shortly. And this will be going for a vote in June of 2022. So I think it's very, it's highly risky to be pouring money into corridor programs where the voice of the voters will be saying what we want to be doing in just a few months. So please take that into consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, so James, Sandoval you're up next and after that if hands keep going up we are gonna switch to two minutes. So, but James you've got three minutes, you're on. Hello everyone. This is James Sandoval. I'm a bus operator and also union representative for the bus operators at Santa Cruz Metro. I'm not well versed on what we're, or what you guys are about to vote on right now, but from my understanding it sounds like money will be diverted from funding for purchasing buses to road repairs. I just wanted to make it a point that by 2040 here in California, we have to be fully electric or fully equipped with hydrogen fuel buses. And right now we only have five fully electric buses and we have about 97 buses in our fleet I believe. So we still have over 90 buses that we need to purchase in order to be in compliance with this law that's coming in 2040. And I believe compressed natural gas is not going to be an option anymore beyond 2040. So we got a lot of work to do as far as updating our fleet. And I echo support for everyone that spoke at Lifeline transportation is a really important thing for our community and I'm hoping that funding doesn't get pulled. From transportation. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sandoval. Okay, Mr. Marles, Rick Marles, you're up next. And it looks like we only have three folks, actually two Monica, you've already spoken. So we'll just stick with three and hope for the best here. Thanks. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I'm speaking today because I have been and I've heard that the county on a regular basis gets reports from consultants on the conditions of our county roads. Those reports indicate currently our roads are deteriorating, depreciating at a financial cost of $20 million a year. You know, some towns will do slurry seal on the roads every five years. And they do this because the asphalt dries out. And when the asphalt dries out, the roads deteriorate. So they're able to maintain the roads for an indefinite period of time. We have no budget currently for doing this. Our road surface conditions are according to the consultant rated at a 49 pavement condition indicator. And most of the United States maintains their roads at a 70 PCI pavement condition indicator. And that's because at 70 with slurry seal, you can extend the road life and save so much money. We allow our roads to deteriorate to where we have to completely tear them up and repave them. That costs something like 10 times as much per annum as a slurry seal or a regular road maintenance. $11 million is not gonna even touch the problems we have with our county roads. And yet you're only going to spend half of that on our roads. I would recommend you rethink this. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Clifford, you are up next. I'll do a check, am I okay? Yep. Oh, great, super. Thank you, Madam Chair, commissioners. I'm requesting that you support the staff recommendation. I'm concerned about statements made by the county representative over the past month as he's been less than transparent and less than comprehensive in his effort to divert $1 million staff recommendation from Metro to the county, including inferring that the money is roads money. That's not true. Inferring that transit should not get state highway account money when everyone knows that state highway account funds, roads, bus and rail. Claiming that Metro receives funds from certain sources that the county cannot compete in, yet neglecting to point out that the same holds true for certain funding pots in which the county receives funding. Claiming that the IIJJ will provide new funding for Metro that the county cannot compete in, yet neglecting to point out that the federal discretionary or competitive grants are always way oversubscribed by at least 10 times and other new money in the IIJJ is formula operating money. As an aside, a thoughtful CEO never plans their budget around a hope and a prayer that they will receive a grant. Finally, in his arguments, he treats funding as generic instead of distinguishing between the challenges of attaining capital grant money versus operating funds. Like the county fights hard for scarce capital funds, so too does Metro. In the end, this should not be an arm wrestling match like it used to be under the former executive director who regularly put forth funding recommendations that resulted in nasty fights in front of the commission over limited dollars. The current executive director has put together a quality and thoughtful recommendation and until now has avoided the nasty fights of the past. Under his leadership, this will be the second consolidated grant cycle resulting in thoughtful recommendations. The process has resulted in no recommended changes following review by the RTC's ITAC Bicycle Committee and E&D TAC in spite of the County Public Works Director attempt to convince them otherwise. In closing, sure Metro would like to have $4 million that originally requested for two CNG buses, but we'll settle on one CNG bus because we desperately need to replace that. That is not a competition to see whether the county's backlog of road projects is a larger list than Metro's. Ours is over 200 million. This should not be a tit for tat process in which we compare which agency can or cannot compete in various pots of money, grant formula money. We all know that there simply isn't enough money to go around. Now is the time not to be greedy and steadied is the time to support each other. I will not contest the county's needs for lots of money to catch up on their projects. I'm not contesting the staff recommendation that the county be awarded four times more money than Metro recommendation. Why isn't the County Public Works Director willing to do the same for Metro? I can see that the county capital list is long. Why won't the County Public Works Director do the same for Metro? Finally, I can see that Metro has access to funding sources that the county cannot compete in. Why won't the County Public Works Director be transparent about funding sources that the county receives and that Metro cannot compete in? I respectfully request that the commission support the RTC staff recommendation. Any attempt to rescore the recommendations will be seen as subjective and arbitrary. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Clifford. Okay, our last speaker is Douglas Underhill. If anyone else who's out in the audience wants to speak, please raise your hand now. We will close the public hearing after Mr. Underhill, after Mr. Marco. So, okay, you're up. Mr. Underhill, are you there? Mr. Underhill, you're on mute so we can't hear you if you're speaking. Thank you, Chair Brown and the rest of the commissioners. I am the CFO of Community Bridges and I just wanted to talk a little bit about measure D dollars because there's been a lot of talk about how Metro and Lifeline Paratransit both receive these dollars. But I wanna point out that we've also put these dollars to work in our community. I'm referencing the measure D oversight committee, March 29th, 2021 packet on page 13. There's unused measure D funds of $37.8 million and we're talking about $11 million of allocations today. That 37 million is nearly two years of measure D funds. Of those unused funds, 4.2 million were by the county of Santa Cruz, 14.6 million highway corridors, 8.1 million active transportation. Of that 37.8 million, Lifeline was 146,000 of unused funds. While we do receive 4% of the funds, our unused funds were only four tenths of a percent of the unused funds balance. It's very challenging to receive funding for switching our fleet to electric vehicles. Most of our vehicles are provided through the Federal Transportation Act. It is not an option for us to get, receive alternative fuel vehicles from them and keep up with the mission of the state of California and the county to transfer our fleet. So I appreciate Rachel's work and the committee's work and in support of following their recommendations. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, Todd Marco, you're up next and you will be our last speaker. All right, last, hopefully not least, I will keep it short. I'm a resident of Aptos and executive director of Nicene Rio Gateway. This is actually my first time attending an RTC meeting. So I appreciate the opportunity and definitely thank you for allowing me to make a comment. I respect the intense challenges in appropriately allocating limited funds, especially when so much important work is needed. We've heard from numerous residents of unincorporated county expressing significant concern over the existing conditions and apparent trends. Here in Aptos, we lack basic infrastructure like sidewalks, which are commonplace in local cities. I'd like to request that unincorporated communities like Aptos be prioritized appropriately in the county's transportation plans. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so we will close the public hearing comment portion and now bring it back to the commission for comments, deliberation and action. And I see Commissioner Montesino, you have your hand up first and then Commissioner Koenig and Commissioner Hearst. For providing my comments I'd like to make a motion to go forward with RTC staff recommendation moving our community week created policies around there. It went through our committees. Everyone was in favor. It's not just our processes being not a here by, not a here by, but we need to move forward on everyone getting a slice of the pie because there's not enough to go around. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Montesino. So we have a motion on the floor. Do we have a second? This is Kristen, I'll second that. Okay, so a motion and a second and now we'll go on to further comments. Commissioner Koenig. Thank you, Chair. I'd like to make a substitute motion that we moved for staff to alter the RSTP consolidated grant awards to ensure the County roads are worth 58% of the County's proposed funding or additional $2 million more than currently recommended by staff. The final alteration should be left up to staff's best judgment, but the grant amounts for projects proposed by each of the four cities should not be compromised and at least $300,000 should be allocated to Highway 1. Second. And if I could just make a comment in support of the motion. So, I mean, we absolutely need to prioritize rows. I appreciate staff's understanding of that, but we need to go further and make progress on the huge deficit that has built up because of the way these funds have been allocated in the past. Religial investment with the most universal benefit that we can make. We heard a lot about the need to fund transit today and I completely agree, but we have to understand that transit is both the buses and the roads that they run on. In the same way, if we're talking about a train, we'd be talking about both cars and track. And so even our Metro public transit system is a combination of the vehicles and the roads they run on. That's particularly true when it comes to projects like Soquel Drive, which Metro's best use inner city routes like the 69A, W, 71, and 91X all run on. Moreover, the Soquel Drive project will include smart signals that can communicate with the automatic vehicle locators on buses so that the lights can stay green longer when a bus is coming or turn green faster when a bus is waiting. So, but just buying more buses is not gonna get more people on transit. We actually need to improve the infrastructure that those buses run on so that they can run faster and that more people are incentivized to take the bus because it'll get them where they're going faster. As staff noted, the road projects all include complete street planning. So an investment in our roads will also improve sustainable walking and biking infrastructure, as well as the safety for those users, which is a big piece of that and as we also heard in public comment. And finally, many of these county roads are essential routes with no alternative or are the primary alternative route for a major highway, like the way Soquel San Jose Road is for Highway 17. So these routes have been consistently underfunded. We heard from staff that in the past 47% have gone to larger regional projects and just 30% have gone to county roads. So while this motion does ask for more funds, particularly for county roads this time around, really that's just making up for historic underfunding of these roads, rather than being in order to make them whole because of years of underinvestment. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so we have a substitute motion and a second on the floor. That means that we will need to vote on whether or not to accept the substitute motion for consideration. So rather than talking about the substance of the motion, we will take a vote on whether or not to proceed and accept that motion and put that one on the floor for discussion. So as long as everybody clear on that, I just wanna make sure we don't start discussing and conflating the two motions on the floor. We don't wanna have that happen. So I see a lot of hands up and I will cautiously start calling on folks, but I do think we wanna vote on that substitute motion before we get too far into the substance. Commissioner Hurst. I would recommend the denial of the substitute motion. The RTC has worked very hard and very inclusively with all the subcommittee work and all the stakeholders to establish the well-seasoned recommendations that the RTC has proposed. So let's get clear on what's really going to happen for transportation. And there are some people who would really like to be able to walk and bike and get to their shopping without getting in a car. And so let's see what we can do to support the overall needs of the most needy people in the community and try and focus on what is really the most bang for the buck and the most important for the residents. So I would urge a denial of the substitute motion. Okay, Commissioner Pegler. I too would encourage the denial of the substitute motion. I do wanna clarify that the additional bus that Metro is requesting is a articulated bus that would be providing additional capacity at UC Santa Cruz and the west side of Santa Cruz. I think I fear that if that capacity is no longer there that transit reliant population will get into cars and add to the traffic problems across Santa Cruz and the county. I also wanna acknowledge from the interesting perspective I have participated in ITAC through many years of my career before retiring. And I wanna acknowledge the hard work of the staff and the importance of having the process of grant review, discussion, negotiation, even argument in the ITAC among the bike committee and among the elderly and disabled TAC. I think it's a valuable and important process and I appreciate their work. I'm going to support their recommendation for funding. Okay, thank you. Commissioner Schifrin. Yes, thank you very much. I am going to support the motion and the substitute motion. All the projects are worthwhile and I have mixed feelings about doing this but it seems to me that there are a number of reasons for supporting this motion. Despite some of the testimony we've received, the funding sources for road maintenance are very limited to say that road maintenance can get money from other sources, just like transit lift line can get money from other sources is really, I think a little disingenuous. Sitting on this commission month after month, I see TDA money, two thirds of it going to transit. I see STA money, many capital grant projects come along. They're always supported by the commission. Very, very seldom do we get a recommendation where we can support money for the roads. I'm not going to try to repeat things that have been said by others about how bad, how bad shape the roads are in and how the funding is insufficient to correct that. I think some of the comments about the growing danger of wildfire are worth considering and what I should mention in the past, the Board of Supervisors has had to allocate limited general fund money for road maintenance project. Given our needs in all sorts of other areas, using general fund for road maintenance really seems to be unfortunate. Well, at plus, while road maintenance funds are so limited, I do see through the new federal infrastructure funding that the transit projects will, and the lift line projects will get the funding. They're worthwhile projects and they compete well to the capital grant. The commission has also been very, very successful in getting funding for our highway projects as was mentioned in the SNF report. And I think it's important to emphasize that the road maintenance does not just serve automobiles as others have mentioned, besides the evacuation concern, inadequate roads increase dangers to bike riders and actually discourage bike ridership. So it's a difficult decision, but from my perspective, it seems important at this point to support the substitute motion. Okay, so I'm going on, I've got hands raised and Commissioner Johnson, I see that your hand is also raised. I'll make sure I call on you and I'm trying to pay attention to the order here. Commissioner Bertrand is next and then we'll keep moving through. Thank you, Madam Chair. It's hard to know if I'm next because the hands are up and down and such. And so I'll like to say I'll support the motion also. I appreciate the last speaker, Commissioner Schifrin talking about the grants and which are available for which particular kinds of projects. And that has actually been a major confusion on my part and enlisting to various people talk about their needs and whether the grants are available and also talking to Guy Preston about that. None of this is certain, but certain grant buckets are definitely made for certain kinds of projects. And I think Andy's comments sort of made that a little bit more clear for us. And that's part of the basis of this discussion about whether or not we should allocate more money to roads. When I think about the general, at least how I think about things, I remember when I first started looking into social policy long time ago at college and the whole idea of the commons. And the idea that, you know, when the commons are all available to everyone, it gets abused and the condition of the commons gets ignored. And in a sense, the road maintenance issues are related to how we view the commons. So we just take the roads for granted. They're always there. If a pothole, you know, appears or if that route is no longer available because of some issue in the road, we just sort of accommodate. And so with that consideration, it sort of supports the reason why we've lacked adequate funding for road maintenance. There's other projects that of the day are more important, you know, as we start focusing on different issues and they are important, equity issues, climate, all these things are very important, but they somehow all go back to our dependability on a good road system. And if we don't maintain that good road system, there's gonna be other issues that come down the pike. And when I spoke out first and I try to lead up to why I'm concerned about this issue, I have been faced with rural fires on many cases. Like I said, when I was a little kid, all the kids were all evacuated to the doctor's farm out in the middle of nowhere because the fire couldn't get there. And then a recent fire in Mendocino, the river stopped the fire from destroying our property and the little cabin we had on it up in Mendocino. So I have grown since the time I was a kid up to the present and now CCU and all my friends who lost their homes, I've grown up with this issue continuously about the danger of fire. And so having lived in San Lorenzo Valley for a while, I know since the time I moved there that there was a major concern of people there. When I drive up and down other roads in this county, I know that these areas are just disasters waiting to happen. And so there's many ways to deal with that, but Rose is one thing if you haven't done anything else, at least to get out of the way. So my question was basically the idea of how do we allocate the importance of an issue? And I think most of us here have been professionally involved in many things. And one of the ways to decide whether you go on a project or not is how do you wait the various concerns? When there's various concerns in a project, you can't just take them all equally. And so that was the basis of my question. And I didn't really hear that response, that right now because of climate change, fire and natural disasters are a major issue, and especially in this rural county. I support a lot of these projects, I really do. I was a trustee of San Lorenzo Valley School District and the whole issue 25 years ago or more. We were very concerned about safety for the kids getting into the high school and the grammar school there, the name's since been so long now. So many of these issues I completely support. And so, but we have one that's facing us, that's very critical. And so that's why I support this alternate emotion. Thank you. Okay, Commissioner Johnson, you're up next. I just wanna remind everyone we are voting on whether to introduce, but the substitute motion on the floor. So, and I recognize we are getting some arguments for doing that. So I'm just gonna ask folks to, that's okay. I'm just gonna ask folks to, if you wanna make those comments, then to not repeat those once we take the vote, if we do end up deliberating on this substitute motion. So Commissioner Johnson, you're up. Thank you, Chair. I do support the substitute motion for I guess a variety of reasons. But first of all, I would like to thank staff for giving Scott's Valley our Granite Creek Overpass is extremely important to us, both for cars and bicycles. I'm happy to say that we represent about four or 5% of the population. And I think our request was right in line about four or 5%, that's what we got branded. I think we've heard a lot about the condition of roads. And over and over for the past, I guess maybe 10 or 15 years when people from public works would come and testify before the RTC, they would say, 10 cents spent now saves a dollar spent five years from now as road conditions deteriorate. And that's one of the reasons why I think that this is now a road system that is a much critical condition. I mean, it needs immediate attention and it's our, I think responsibility as commissioners to notwithstanding a good staff recommendation, I won't argue that, but we have to pivot and we have to adapt and we have to prioritize to represent our constituency. So with that, I'll just say that I'm happy that Metro and I'm happy that Lifeline are making their requests, they're reasonable, but at the same time, both of them have their own dedicated resources, a half cent sales tax in the case of Metro. And so I think our roads are underserved countywide in some ways, Scots Valley does not have a dog in this fight simply because we don't have the same level both in terms of mileage and also conditions of roads that the county has specifically in the fifth district, you just go all throughout on highway nine and the little tributaries, if you will of the roads up there, it really does need addressing. So I'll leave it at that and thanks for considering my comments, Sharon. Thank you. Okay, the other commissioner Johnson is up next. Thank you so much. I really want to thank Rachel and the staff for doing what I think was a thorough and comprehensive job. I think their recommendations are good and I can't think of one thing that they're recommending that I couldn't support and other untroubled times. And I'd like to remind folks, I'm a 45 year bus rider, 35 of those years I've ridden buses in this county and I recognize that Metro has an ongoing budget structural deficit. I'm also a big supporter of Lifeline and the critical services provided to seniors. And I've spent my entire professional career, most of it addressing climate change with programs and pushing for those throughout the region and state. But that all said, I'll be supporting the substitute motion and I'm going to be doing so for three reasons. The first is the fire evacuation routes must be made whole. It is frightening to walk through the San Lorenzo Valley as Commissioner Bertrand said to realize that if you live there, where would you go with these wildfires that are so unpredictable and so quick to go through. The second reason is, and this has not been mentioned before, there is a direct connection between seriously eroded roads and increased greenhouse gas emissions. It's something I've talked about very often and not recognized very often. But maintaining your roads actually rather than having to rebuild them after they erode to the point where you can't maintain them anymore, it actually increases exponentially greenhouse gas and that is not a good thing. And then lastly, I agree with Andy Schifrin. There will be other resources federal and state that are obvious for electric vehicles, but there's one that's regional that not very many people know about as yet, and that is Community Traced Energy, Central Coast Community Energy is in the process of establishing another electric vehicle program to encourage agencies to switch over. And so that's coming on deck and we'll all be seeing it next year. And I'm very pleased to see that happen. So I will be supporting the substitute motion and thanks again, Chair, for the time. Thank you. Commissioner Hernandez. Thank you. You know, there's always a difficult decision, but you know, I think that we do it, we do have to address deferred maintenance. I think that the longer we wait, the more that we dig ourselves in a deeper hole, a deeper, costlier hole too. I think that we have a lot of deferred maintenance throughout the county. And you know, I know there's pockets in areas in South County that have been neglected. A lot of our roads here in South County are also, you know, ag roads. And in South County, that's the economic lifeline for us here, agriculture. And so I know I've been off the council, but I still get calls from folks in Ag about some of the roads and stuff. And so I'm going to support Supervisor Koenig's motion. That said, I support and I'd like to see, you know, lifeline preserved. I think it really checks off, really checks the equity box in really, in transportation, especially in South County. And I really support, you know, all the complete streets, active transportation projects throughout the county. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Peterson. Thank you. I'm also going to advise against supporting the substitute motion. And my reason for that is, well, for one, as Supervisor McPherson had mentioned earlier, it's always unfortunate when we're in a situation where it seems that we're pitting roads against transit and we have to make this kind of decision at all. That being said, you know, lifeline and Metro providing valuable services, including during times of crisis and evacuations. And I certainly understand the concerns around the areas that are vulnerable to wildfires and other crises of that nature. And at the same time, I know that even at the city level and the city of Capitola, when we're looking at the funds that we have for our CIP projects, we do have to look at which of our roads are the most in need. And then we put the money that we have towards those and sometimes other projects have to wait. And so I, finally, I'm also a little bit concerned because I know that the advisory committees spent so much work on this recommendation. The staff spent so much work on this recommendation. And while advisory committees, you know, what they are providing to us as advice and it's never guaranteed, I do have a concern that when we don't give weight to the advice that they're providing that it dissuades members of the public from wanting to be a part of those committees if what they're telling us isn't really going to matter in the long run. So with that being said, I will not be supporting the substitute motion today. Thank you. Ms. Morricone, it looks like you have a comment. I was just hoping that the maker of the motion could just clarify what I understood the substitute motion to be was to provide $2 million more to the county road preservation projects, but letting staff decide how that is split up and ensuring that at least a minimum of 300,000 be put on the highway one project or remain on the highway one project and that no funding come out of the city projects. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay, and then also just, I understand that there was a lot of discussion about evaluation criteria. I mean, I don't know what the vote's gonna end up being, but it would be helpful if this motion does pass to get more clarification. I'm hearing that emergency routes should be the very highest priority from some of you. Others are talking about the importance of complete streets. So just if there's any kind of direction that we could receive that says, you think emergency routes should be, and evacuation routes should be the highest priority thing that we look at, or roads that also serve transit, or roads that also have bicycle components and actually improve the bicycle facilities, not just replace them, or that improve the pedestrian network, or is it roads that address agricultural needs or have equity benefits or disadvantaged communities, just to get a little more clarification on that, you can see by the range of things that I'm hearing from you, there are so many different needs in our community. And this is the same thing that we struggled with as staff when we were looking at the different projects. And so otherwise, can't always accommodate everyone's desires and priorities. And we do recognize that there is a balancing act here. And so just if this motion were to pass, I would hope that the board would follow up with a little more clarity on what you do think should be the highest priorities. So just really quickly, I'd love to, I just wanna ask Ms. Marconi, in terms of follow-up, do you wanna, would you like to talk about that with the commission today after the, once we take the next step, would that be a way to get help? If this motion passes, absolutely, it would be important to us as staff to have a little more clarification on the board's priorities. You could also hold off on that, give us free reign on this. Maybe we'll make everyone happy under some miracle and can read the crystal ball. But otherwise I would say, during the regional transportation plan, that we take our direction from the regional transportation plan that is adopted by this board and the goals, policies and targets that are in that document. So that document is very important for you guys to look at, read that chapter. I think it's three of the document. And tell us if you think it should be different. That'd be great. Yeah, yes. The chair has made it clear that we're supposed to be voting on whether to approve the substantive motion or not. I don't know if it's appropriate to be talking about what should happen if the motion passes or doesn't pass. What's before us is a motion. You know, we've heard from commissioners, I think it may pass, it may not pass, but that's what's before us. What the process should be is not on our agenda today and it's really not relevant to this motion. So I would ask that we not continue to go down that road, but we do act on the motion and see what the commission, if there is a commission majority that wants to do something that it acts and then we can talk about other things. Okay, thank you. I and I apologize for going down that road a little further. I just wanted clarification on what the request was. So with that, we will, so we now have two votes to take. One is whether or not to accept the substitute motion. So that is the first vote. Whether we will accept the substitute motion for consideration, we've heard a lot about that. And so we'll do that in succession. So we, I guess it's time for a roll call vote. Ms. Parra, if you are there. Commissioner Bertrand. I vote yes on the substitute motion. Commissioner Brown. No. Commissioner Randy Johnson. Aye. Commissioner Montecino. No. Commission alternate Hernandez. Commission alternate Schifrin. Aye. Commission alternate Quinn. Yes. Commissioner Koenig. Aye. Commission alternate Jenny Johnson. Yes. Commissioner Peterson. No. Commissioner Northcott. No. And commission alternate Pegler. No. Seven yeses and five noes. Okay, thank you. So with that, we now will consider the main motion. And for those, if you have further comments or if staff has questions or comments that you want to include here now is the time, but if you've already spoken and said your piece, then I'd ask to just give other commissioners time to weigh in. Point of order chair is the main motion now the substitute motion. My understanding of the substitute motion is that you just vote on the substitute motion. If we're gonna vote on the substitute motion both to accept and then vote on the motion again, it's essentially the first was a proxy for the second, but in your understanding it's the substitute motion now the main motion. That's my understanding. I am happy to take advice from council on this. That is correct. And in particular the way, madam chair that you identified the last vote, it was really to consider and make the substitute motion the main motion. So now if the, so the motion on the floor now is the motion that was originally worded as the substitute motion by commissioner. So in this case, the arguments that were made relate to an argument to make that the main motion and why to support it. And so that's why I'm just asking for folks to not repeat those comments. Commissioner Schifrin. I'll be very brief. I just wanted to respond to the concern about the role of the advisory committees and whether they are taken seriously or not. They are, from my perspective, they always are taken seriously, but the commission has the responsibility to exercise its independent judgment. And that means that sometimes the advice of the committees isn't taken, isn't agreed to. That doesn't mean that it isn't valuable and that it doesn't help inform the discussion. In most cases, my sense is that the commission does support the advice of its committees. As in most cases, it supports the advice of its staff. But if that was the only thing that ever happened, we wouldn't be here. We could let the committees and the staff to make all the decisions. And that's not our role. And so, well, I know they can be disappointment when the commission doesn't do either the staff and some of its committees want. I think that's just what our responsibility is and that's just part of the process. Thank you, Commissioner Schifrin. Are there any other comments before we take a vote? Commissioner Johnson. I just needed a clarification again on what we're voting. So Commissioner Montesino had an original motion and it was seconded. Is that gone by the wayside and just reaffirming Commissioner Koenig's vote? That is correct. Commissioner, the initial motion was made by Commissioner Montesino is not on the table. It has been replaced by the substitute motion now. So Commissioner Koenig's motion is the substantive motion that Commissioner would vote on now. Thank you. So I just want to make a couple of comments here before we take the vote. I was committed to supporting the staff recommendations. I did have conversations with our staff. I've had conversations with others, other stakeholders. And I recognize that these are all critical needs. They're all legitimately up for consideration. And so, and I want to support all of, funding all of these projects and making all of the agencies whole in terms of at least getting the projects that they've told us are priorities completed. So I will be supporting the motion now. My preference was to consider the initial motion, but given that, I don't have an objection to supporting the county roads, I will be supporting that. And I recognize Commissioner Schifrin, your comments in response to process. And I recognize that as well. I also really appreciate the thought that went into trying to distribute these funds in a way that did address critical concerns and provide some equity in the process. So my hope is that we can maybe have these conversations in more depth prior to coming to the commission. But nevertheless, we've had the conversation here and under the circumstances, I will be supporting the motion. And I, unless we have other comments, I'll offer a roll call vote. Commissioner Bertrand. I approve. Commissioner Brown. I. Commissioner Randy Johnson. I. Commissioner Montecino. Mm-hmm. Commissioner Alternate Hernandez. I. Commissioner Alternate Schifrin. I. Commissioner Alternate Quinn. Yes. Commissioner Koenig. I. Commissioner Alternate Jenny Johnson. Yes. Commissioner Peterson. No. Commissioner Northcott. No. And Commissioner Alternate Pegler. No. That passes. With a beat. Yes. Okay. Thank you. So we, our next item is a closed session item. We will be moving into closed session for, I believe one item. And I am looking to Mr. Mattis, do you want to give a quick report on this? Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair. The commission would be moving into closed session to consider one item which is related to potential initiation of litigation. We are not anticipating a reportable action at the end of this closed session. And so I wanted to confirm that all of the commissioners have the separate link information that was sent out this morning from CTV. Okay. With that we're preparing for a closed session. So before we move into the closed session, I do see members of the public would like to speak to us about that item. And so I'll give folks an opportunity for that. I'm just looking, I was reading the screen here. Commissioner Jenny Johnson, do you have that? Did I see you say that you don't have the link? Okay. So if we can make sure that commissioner Jenny Johnson gets the link before we transition, that would be great. Rick Marles, you are up and you are on mute. Mr. Marles, if you're trying to communicate on this item, you're on mute, we can't hear you. Okay. We'll move on to Brian from Trail Now. Are you on mute? Sorry. Can you hear me now? Yes. Hi, Brian from Trail Now. I just really want to emphasize the importance of that the community supports Santa Cruz regional transportation's work. It's very frustrating when this organization gets sued by organizations and private corporations or any other organization that holds up opening up our roads, that holds up opening up the Santa Cruz Coastal Trail. That's very frustrating to us. And so I'm hopeful, we're hopeful that more public awareness is given on the organizations that are pursuing and preventing our community from moving forward with improving our transportation systems. And we're here for you. We support the Santa Cruz Coast regional transportation commission and the work you're doing. We want to make sure that we continue to not waste money on legal fees. So I just want to emphasize the importance of making sure that we tell us that this organization informs us, informs the public who's preventing our transportation systems from getting built and we will publish that. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, seeing no other attendees who wish to comment we will now transition to closed session and it's 12.33. How do people feel about a five minute break? And so we'll reconvene in the other Zoom. It's 12.38-ish. A little before 12.40. Thanks, everybody. Commissioner Johnson, you should be receiving the link shortly. Yes, Sina, can I get the link too?