 She's got all the names for the RGC meeting for September 5th to order and we begin with a local. Commissioner Rockin, commissioner Lin, commissioner Botthorff, commissioner McPherson, commissioner Leopold, commissioner Friend, commissioner Alternate Schifrin, commissioner Caput, commissioner Kaufman-Gomez, commissioner Randy Johnson, commissioner Brown, commissioner Bertrand, commissioner Low. Here. World Communications, this is when you're allowed to come and address the RGC on any item that does not have any amendments. If it does not have any amendments, you can direct the report back to me, please. Welcome. It says 256 on this, on your little clock here. I'll give you four seconds. Anyway, Brian Peeples, executive director of Trail Now. We're a local organization who believes in improving infrastructure in the way of transportation, which includes, of course, the Santa Cruz Coastal Trail, getting that going, also Highway 1 upgrades and improving it all the way to Larkin Valley and Metro. We were a major supporter of Measure D. We actually had the most supporters in the way of financial investments for Measure D. If we didn't support it, it would likely have a fail. Now that Measure D has passed, we're looking to get our tax dollars used quickly, spending it, opening up the trail. Now, the rail corridor or property has sat vacant for going on a decade now. In the current plan, it will remain closed for another decade, for decades more. We need to use the property for transportation solutions today. It cannot remain closed during our transportation crisis. That is why we're actively engaged with Progressive Rail. We see them as a partner. Progressive Rail actually holds the keys to that corridor. The way the contract is written, Progressive Rail will never have to be responsible for maintaining the rail corridor from Birna Vista to Dataport. That's the way the contract is written. Again, Progressive Rail wants to do what's right for Santa Cruz County. We've had these conversations. They're on board, making our community better. But there is no freight, and Progressive Rail will tell you this. There is no freight past Birna Vista. RTC needs to understand that they're going to continue to maintain the corridor for decades because it's in the contract. The contract, one of the primary goals of the contract when you sign it, was to get out of the responsibility of managing this property. But the contract is written, and it's failed us. Progressive Rail, based off of their own attorney, we don't know, we paid their attorney to help understand the contract and more thorough understanding. Again, Progressive Rail is on our side. They want a win-win solution, but you have to understand the commission needs to understand that the current contract will never alleviate you from maintaining that corridor from Birna Vista to Santa Cruz. That whole goal of that contract that you signed, I'm sorry, you guys, and it's unfortunate. So we're here, Trail Now, we're here to keep making our community better, trying to find a solution to this. And I think it's very important for the public and for you commissioners to understand the contract is not protecting you from maintaining that corridor. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to address the commission. Lawrence Freitas, I live in Aptos and C-Cliff. I live really close to the tracks. I understand that today there's gonna be a presentation by a company called TIGM from Southern California. If you're gonna talk on that topic, you need to wait till we get to that item. I see. Okay, this is for open communication on things not on the agenda. Okay, so they are gonna present that though today. Gonna maybe be a presentation about that today, yes. Okay, good. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Anybody else like to talk to us about something not on the agenda? Okay, we'll go ahead and close oral communication. Is there any additions or deletions to the agenda? No additions or deletions. However, there is a replacement page for item 13 and there are handouts for item 18 and public comment handouts for items to 8, 16, 8, 20, and 22. Okay, thank you. All right, that brings us to the consent agenda. These are items we usually deal with in one most. Director, Commissioner Schiffin. We're gonna pull 16A and SFB third and then the agenda could sit. Okay. Sure, we'll move that to 16A and then it'll be our first on a regular agenda. Just to expedite that. Thank you. Sure. Any other commissioners wanna pull anything? Anybody from the public wanna comment or anything on the consent agenda? The consent agenda is amended. Motion by Schiffin, second by Leopold. Any other discussion? All in favor? All right. Opposed? That carries. That'll take us to the regular agenda and we'll begin with item 16. It's a letter from Santa Cruz County regarding developing and consulting a safe crossing a highway one. And your question on this? Yes. Commissioner Coonerty put this on the agenda face. Press the button. It's on the middle. Commissioner Coonerty put this on the agenda because of an ongoing problem that's existed in the town of Davenport. The letter is pretty clear in terms of the traffic safety issues there with increased visitors, speed problems, problems, a couple of accidents. I wanted to give people a couple of people from the community of Davenport an opportunity to present their perspective on it. So I'll have comments after they're done. Let me see if there's any other commissioners. Any other commissioners have any comments on this at this point? Questions? Okay, then we'll allow people from the public to speak on this item. Does anybody here like to come up and address us? Welcome. Good morning. My name is Rachel Spencer. I live in Davenport and I'm sure you're aware being on this committee that the traffic has just exploded in the county. Seemingly like in the last two years everyone's complaining about it and no more so than in Davenport. Highway one is really a major corridor now. It's bumper to bumper cars going through Davenport. They slow from 55 to 40. That's still pretty fast. And it's bumper to bumper on the weekend. On top of that, all seven million people in the Bay Area seem to want to come to Davenport on the weekend. And there they are. And they are parking anywhere they can. If I wish I could bring you a video you could see the people parking on the ocean side and they wanna get over to the wonderful bakery on the other side and they just walk across. And it is so dangerous. We have a sign in Davenport that flashes yellow for pedestrians but there's no crosswalk under it. So if you are a pedestrian you get the idea that you can just walk across anytime you want to. If you're a driver, you don't know what the heck's going on. And some of the people actually stop at this pedestrian even though they're not supposed to. This is the perfect storm. This is an accident waiting to happen. Only it's not an accident because we know it's gonna happen and we can stop it. What we need is one of those, we need a crosswalk and we need a, you know, you push the button and it lights up. To have a continually flashing is not sensible. We need a flashing when there's pedestrians. And I will tell you that on behalf of all the parents who grab their kids and race across one they need a crosswalk. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. I'm, my name is Stephanie Roggast. Put the microphone closer. Oh, my name is Stephanie Roggast and I have an self-proclaimed safety officer for Whale City Bakery family business. 40 years on the coast working, watching all things because that's what you do. It's a treacherous place when there's no logical way to progress through a very busy intersection with many things going on. People turning into a school, dropping off children. During the busy school hours, that's happening. On the weekends, we've already discussed this. I don't have to reiterate it, only that I drive every day. Even today I put my ears up. Three people just ran across the street with no warning. And I'm of course, I do like many people should do, follow the speed laws, was going safely. So I didn't have a problem, yes. But I also noticed how things are progressed through the years and slowing down is necessary for longer periods of time and a crosswalk that will safely guide people to what they're supposed to do. Now, if you go back even further than that, there was not a parking lot directly across the street. That has never been the case. And in fact, in our minds, my mind and my husband's mind is actually against the Coastal Commission's base. No one is in charge. They're trying, everyone's trying. And the plan that will happen, probably will be better, but the plan is so far down the line. It is crucial, absolutely crucial when you have dogs, children, people. Now there's one other bigger thing is tourist busts. Buses come and that comes every time during the week, during the weekend. Now add the buses that are not even legitimate. You're talking about people in entrepreneurs that are building great businesses, driving ecotourism to us. That's wonderful, we need that. But there's no supervision. I had bicyclists come gushing in along with, I just can't even begin to tell you the stress of running a business with that much danger in front of you. Thank you. Thank you for those comments. Good morning, everybody. I'm Ken Fine. I'm a 30 year resident of Davenport. And I just wanna talk briefly about how much of the same stuff that everybody's saying, except I wanna add to that the fact that the Coast Darry's property is going to open up soon. It could bring, if Fort Ord is any example, it could bring as many as 400,000 more people to that North Coast. And we have to have some kind of provision to get people safely across the street. I think in the long run, I think we need a pedestrian over crossing. But in the short run, we certainly need a safe crossing, crosswalk with markings, plenty of alerts on both sides. People are coming into town at 40 miles an hour. I don't have to tell you that 40 miles an hour is enough to kill anybody. I've lost a dog on highway one and granted a dog is not a child, but they can be trained the same way. And this is just, this is true. And there was a three year old child killed a few years ago crossing the road with her brother. And there's no reason this is all preventable or at least we should be doing our best effort to make sure that there is a safe way for people to get across the street. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, hi. Yes, any, can I give you some photographs to pass around this is kind of showing what's for summer day. Commissioner, bring that microphone down. Oh, thank you. Yes, short stuff. Commissioners, thank you for giving the community Davenport time to speak this morning about highway one safe crossing. And thanks to Supervisor Ryan Coonerty for bringing the matter to your attention. I'm Noel Garenbach. I'm the chair of the Davenport North Coast Association and have lived in Davenport for 30 years. Last month when I heard a child had been hit by a car on highway one, I felt like a mother lioness. As I marched to the accident scene, I was fearful and I was furious that we had not done more to protect our young. Although the boy who was from Hong Kong had had to be flown to a trauma center. Fortunately, he survived. RTC owns the meadow that is now expanded to a free for all parking lot on the ocean side of a major artery between San Francisco and Monterey Bay. I believe it's negligent not to provide a safe crossing from the parking area to the restaurants and the business district on the other side of the highway. It's negligent on the part of RTC who owns the parking lot and it's negligent on the part of the Davenport community who if we don't do everything in our power to correct this dangerous situation, we know there's plenty more to do to make highway one safe. However, today we implore you, the commissioners, to fund and design and construct the safe crossing for Davenport now before anyone else is injured or worse. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, Brian Peoples, Executive Director of Trail Now. Absolutely, we support the idea of a crosswalk with a light today, now, with an overpass in the future. That's the right thing to do. We support it. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. Good afternoon, commissioners. Thank you so much. Sorry, supervisors. I appreciate this opportunity to stand before you. I'm a Davenport resident. My name is Jessica Wolfe. I've lived there for eight years and I'm a member of the Davenport North Coast Association Board. And I think as a board, we take our responsibility for the community very seriously. We're trying to always listen to the community, watch over both the residents and the people who are visiting. And I have to say in the past eight years with the weather being beautiful and lack of snow in the Sierras for quite some time, we were seeing just this amazing influx of tourists. And they're the ones really mostly being impacted, but there's this very confusing situation in that district. The only services and the only restroom facilities are on one side of the highway. And on the other side are all the beaches, the bluffs and this large parking area. And this has really created a real tension. There's in that one zone right in front of Wales City, Bakery and Cafe, there is cross traffic coming out of the parking lots. There are people trying to cross with small children and people who are really very confused about the speed limit, even 40 miles per hour, which we're happy to get when not enforced is a very rare thing. We don't see people going 40 as a general rule. And then just the pedestrian access, there's lower access and there's a rise that you may have heard described. And I just wanted to support the comments of my fellow board members and just say as a alternative transportation advocate for many, many years in this community, I really have studied what happens when we give dominance to the vehicle and don't make space for human beings and pedestrian and bicycle traffic. It's just a terrible situation and we're having more and more deaths. And I really hope something can be done about it as soon as possible. And thank you, John Leopold, for your leadership and Kennedy as well. Really, really appreciate the opportunity to stand up and say, let's prioritize human beings and the multi-use nature of the coast and everybody's safety. Thank you. Thank you. My name is John McKeon. I'm a longtime resident of the Swanton road area in Davenport. This rise that Jessica was talking about, I took my golf spotting scope out to try to quantify the little, a little bit. So from the first flashing light at the bottom of the hill leading up into Davenport to the last restaurant, it's 1400 feet. 530 feet of that is a continuous strip where the three restaurants that are in Davenport are. That whole area is where people can be wanting to go back and forth from either side to the other. So that's kind of a large area. So the, and the other thing is drivers entering from the bottom of the 530 foot area where there are restaurants cannot see because of the slope levels out at the top. You can only see the top half of a person and probably only the head if that of a small child as you're coming up that hill. So there's a visibility issue there that complicates some of these other factors. I'd also like to reiterate the, with the lack of a crosswalk, there is this ritual dance that goes on between drivers, mostly out of the area. They see the flashing lights, but they don't see a crosswalk. They don't know whether that means they have to stop or not pedestrians see flashing lights and signs that say pedestrian crossing 1000 feet. They're not sure, but they think based on sort of Santa Cruz traditions that they have the right of way. So you have definitely a dance that can be quite dangerous, not all the accidents show up. You've got people breaking that don't show up in the statistics. You've got a car that doesn't know whether to stop or not and it decides to stop. Well, the car behind that may or may not have been visualized that happening. You get some close calls from car to car for that issue. So anyway, there's a lot of close calls. You know, some highway towns have it may be a traffic light to at least stop the car speeding momentum once during the transit. We have no such slowing down factor. So anyway, it's dangerous. We need something we don't have. We hope you can get it to us. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for listening to us. My name is Colin Hannon. I live in Newtown in Davenport, still north of the cement plant with my family and two kids who go to the school there. And I wanted to affirm everything everyone has said and also to add that there's also not in addition to tourists, this affects school children and families. And so when the school has field trips and things, they have to cross the road there and it feels quite unsafe to the school, the principal and I were speaking about that the other day. So that's an issue as well. Sorry, I lost my notes somehow. Did they fall? Oh, thank you. Another thing I wanted to say is just that there's never, I never see a CHP officer anywhere near Davenport. They seem to be in the area south where there is two lanes and the road is fairly safe and that's a good spot to catch, to make tickets and stuff. But it seems like they're never in town where it's actually affecting everyone. In addition to speaking for children in the school, I lost a dear friend near the landing on his bicycle just in May. So this is really a visceral issue for me as well. So this crossing I think is very important and I really hope that you will find a way to make this happen. I think there's a lot of other things that need to happen as well, like enforcement of the laws and perhaps taking away the passing lanes that go across the Davenport landing entrance and where the strawberry farm is and stuff. All that stuff is so dangerous and people don't abide the traffic laws at all. As soon as they leave town, they start going 60 miles an hour and I'm walking with my kids from Newtown on this tiny little sidewalk that's not maintained by Caltrans and they're blasting past us in the 40 mile an hour zone at 60 because they've passed the restaurants and things and so they feel like it's okay to go fast. So in the future, it would be great to have some kind of safe path where we can walk our kids to school. There's a lot of families now who live in Newtown who walk to school. I know this is not the issue at hand, but I think that is all. So thank you so much for listening to us and I hope that you'll be able to fund this crossing to make it safer for those crossing there. Thank you. Thank you. Anyway, I'll cycle address the commission. Good morning. My name is Cesar De Santos. I don't live in Davenport, but I work with the sheriff's office. I'm a deputy sheriff and I've been assigned up there and in the time that I've worked up there, especially on weekends, Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, but any weekend, that area is heavily congested. The parking lot in front of the businesses is congested. The side of the highway is packed with cars. People are traveling. You, it says 40 miles an hour, but it'll be going probably faster than that. Grandmother, fathers, children are trying to cross, find a safe space to run through the traffic that doesn't stop. So I really believe that this is an area that needs a crosswalk or a light, a similar place that I kind of looked at was Pacific Coast Highway and Big Rock. That seems to be a smaller intersection, but it has a traffic light. So I would encourage the board here to really think about putting a crosswalk there or a light. A light would be probably the best. That is my opinion. And so I'm just here to support the community and highlight their need there. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else on this item? Okay, we'll go ahead and close the public forum. I'll bring it back to commissioner Schipman. What would you like to proceed? This is a longstanding problem that commissioner community has been working on for a number of years. We've had meetings with Caltrans and the County Public Works Department as part of the North Coast Rail Trail Planning. The federal agency has done a very preliminary design. Basically, what's needed is the funding. We've been hoping to get some county funding to help out. That's been delayed. It just keeps getting delayed and delayed. There is a RTC interest here. Obviously it's a Caltrans road. So it's a Caltrans interest. There's County of interest as well. So what I'd like to do is to make a motion that we direct our RTC staff to meet with Caltrans representatives and the County Public Works Director and develop a proposal for the financing, the design and construction of traffic safety improvements in Davenport and return to us within a couple of months. Motion by Schifrin. Second. Oh, second. Second by McCarrison. Any other discussion on that item? Okay, with that all in favor. Aye. Opposed? I thank you all for coming. That carries unanimously and we'll direct our staff to do some research on this and see what we can come up with. So we appreciate your attendance here. Thank you. Okay, with that, we'll go to item 17. This is- 17, 17. Item 17. Okay, we have a commissioner's report. Commissioner Friend. I don't have a report, but I do have a disclosure on a conflict on items 22 and 23, which are rail items, which I've disclosed before I have a financial conflict as my principal residence falls within 500 feet of the rail line. So I will recuse myself for the votes on items 22 and 23. Thank you for that. Okay, we'll proceed now with the directors. Oh, that's commissioner's report. I'm sorry. Now we'll go to 18 directors. I'm sorry. Any other commissioners having any report on? None. Now we'll go to item 18, director's report. Before I get started into the body of my report, I wanted to thank the commission for understanding my absence at the last meeting. I was in a terrible bicycle accident. I am down to about a half of a hand right now. So I also appreciate your patience with respect to correspondence. My responses to your emails may be a little bit shorter. Maybe that's a good thing. I don't know, but I certainly appreciate your understanding as well as deputy director. Mendez is stepping in last week. He did a great job of handling the meeting and I certainly appreciate that as well as the card I received from the commission and staff. My staff has been unbelievable and assisting me because I am very much down with my abilities to type and get certain aspects of my work done, but I'm finding a way to get through it and I certainly appreciate your patience. With that said, I'd like to get into the body of the report. I'm sad to state that after 22 years of dedicated service to the RTC with a focus on advancing bicycle and active transportation initiatives and projects, Corey Coletti announced last month that she is retiring. Corey's passion for bike planning started when she volunteered for the bike to work program in 1991. After becoming the coordinator of the event, she wanted to bridge what she saw as being a gap between the activism arm and the planning public policy arm of bike project development. She then went to graduate school with the aim of getting her dream job as a planner at the RTC. Corey has realized her dream and has been a key member of RTC staff and the local transportation community. By listening carefully to the needs of advocates and critics, Corey was instrumental in the passage of measure D. She played major roles in the development of the MBSST master plan, the MBSST programmatic EIR, and the recently completed North Coast project EIR, including securing key funding for the project. Although Corey is still working with me on setting an exact date for her retirement, her last day is expected before year's end. I sincerely thank Corey for her dedicated service and wish her only the best in her future endeavors. I have a report on the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail, segment seven. The city of Santa Cruz has advertised segment seven, phase one of the MBSST from natural bridges drive to the intersection of Bay Street and California Street for construction. Bids are expected to be received September 18th. The engineers estimate on this project as $6.3 million. The California Coastal Commission denied an appeal of the coastal development permit for segment seven, phase two of the MBSST project from the intersection of Bay Street to California Street to the traffic circle on Beach Street, which was previously approved by both the city of Santa Cruz Planning Commission and the city council. However, the state of our big trees has now filed a sequel lawsuit against the city of Santa Cruz with regards to this project. The RSTC is listed as a real party in interest. I will be working with RTC's general counsel to file a responsive pleading in the matter. The RTC has an elderly and disabled technical advisory committee and staff is conducting outreach from August through October, 2019 to invite interested members of the public to participate in the RTC's committee. Members of the END TAC review and guide the planning of specialized transportation programs, proposed methods of utilizing transportation to integrate the elderly and disabled population into the community and serve as transportation advocates on behalf of the elderly and disabled. The END TAC functions best when all committee members and alternate positions are filled. Currently, many END TAC members and alternate positions are vacant. The END TAC recruitment outreach plan includes posting a plier on para crews, metro and lifeline vehicles, placing ads in local newspapers, submitting a press release to media partners, placing public service announcements on local radio and TV stations, requesting that RTC members without representation on the committee encourage participation from their constituents, contacting agencies representing the elderly and disabled agencies not currently on the committee, distributing electronic copies of flyers to senior centers, posting information on RTC and crews by one one social media accounts and announcements at city council meetings in September and October. Based on the applications received during this period, RTC staff expects to make recommendations for appointments for the END TAC after October and December meetings and subsequently RTC would consider approving the END TAC recommendations at their November and January meetings. RTC staff encourages RTC commissioners with vacant END TAC membership positions representing their district to contact RTC staff with names of potential candidates. RTC staff will also be reaching out to commissioners with information about applicants applying for ENT TAC member positions representing their districts. END TAC member vacancies as of August, 2019 is provided as an attachment to this report. Every three years, the RTC goes through a triennial performance audit as required by the Transportation Development Act. The RTC has hired the firm of Michael Baker International and Derek Wong as the lead auditor. As part of the audit, the higher auditor reaches out to commissioners for input on the audit. So the audit work is starting, it's starting actually tomorrow and you should not be surprised if you're contacted as part of this audit. RTC organizational assessment and project management consulting services. When I was hired as RTC's executive director, the commission had just completed a classification and compensation study. The commission adopted the compensation portion of the report, but there was no staff recommendation or action taken on the classification portion of the study. Essentially, the study made minor recommendations to the existing job classifications without regard to what functions RTC performs or whether additional skills are needed. I have therefore determined that additional work is needed to assess the scope of work performed by the RTC, especially with respect to new responsibilities that were created by becoming a self-help county and owner of the rail line. Once RTC's functional responsibilities are fully understood, an assessment of how best to structure the organization, use and train existing talent and potentially bring on new talent can be completed. The goal would be to define a streamlined organization with clear roles and responsibilities, capable of responding to the current and anticipated needs of the commission. I have reached out to other agencies who have procured similar services and will be working on developing a detailed scope of services for this work. As the RTC is currently leading the delivery of several major projects on state route one, still working on delivering seven projects to repair storm damage from the 2017 storms on the rail line, responsible for bridge repairs and upgrading track on the rail line and providing oversight of several MBSST projects. The current workload is far and above our current in-house resources and I believe cannot wait for the proposed organizational needs and structure assessment to be completed. That's right. I would like to consider procuring both an organizational assessment and project management services contract and we'll be back to the commission with my recommendations. I have conferred which staff on this matter and have notified the SEIU core union and they have expressed some concerns, especially with regards to hiring a project management consultant. I plan to meet with SEIU and core to address their needs and make sure that a collaborative process is completed before I move forward with any such procurement. That concludes my report. Any questions from commissioners? Commissioner Schifrin? I don't have a question, but I just wanted to personally thank Corey for all her work. I, we've worked together on, I've forgotten so much, but I do remember all the work we've been doing on the North Coast Rail Trail and I truly appreciate her enthusiasm and commitment to that project. So thank you, Corey. Thank you for that. Commissioner Leopold. I too just want to acknowledge Corey's work over the 22 years here at the regional transportation commission. We forget that 22 years ago, we didn't think about bike infrastructure the same way that we do now. It took a lot of advocacy on part of community members and thoughtfulness on the part of RTC staff and working with our local public works directors. Now we think about a robust bike infrastructure as part of our ongoing activities in all public works projects. As we start the building of the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail, her fingerprints are all over that project and her tireless advocacy for those who choose to cycle ensuring their safety has been incredible and she's done it with great passion and also good humor. And at times we know that transportation issues become controversial and Corey has found herself in the middle of some of those controversies, not necessarily of her making, but there have been times when her family was actually attacked as part of her ongoing work to support great bike infrastructure. So I wanna just acknowledge and appreciate the work that Corey has done. Thank her for her 22 years of service. Hope that she does not stay quiet in her support of good bike infrastructure here in Santa Cruz County. And I look forward to seeing her on the bike trails very soon. I just wanna also say that we're seeing the fruition of so many bike lanes and so forth becoming reality in Santa Cruz County now. It's been because of 22 years of work with Corey Coletti that's become a reality and really appreciate it. It's gonna be long lasting for many, many of our residents of Santa Cruz County and visitors too. It's just really a testament to what you've done. It's really coming, really the picture is starting to be coming focused now of what you've been working on for so many years. So thank you very much. Any other comments? Commissioner Bertrand. Thank you, Corey. And I remember last meeting at the office, I was very surprised to hear that you're retiring. It's one of those things you never expect because of your enthusiasm and your participation and making this happen. Another thing I like to say, I didn't know this, that you made a decision to seek a new position, went back to school, that took a lot of work and you have to carve out from your regular everyday life to do that. So it must have been a deep commitment. So thanks for setting an example in that regard. Thank you. Hang on, I'm gonna let that Grace come up first and then we'll continue. Go ahead, Grace. Anything you wanna do? I do, thank you so much. It's so important to me to be able to speak about Corey and her departure. It'll be a tremendous loss for our agency. I think most of you know that. She's been an excellent project manager. There's no one who was more organized in keeping her projects on task and moving forward. She also has an incredible Mac to coordinate with our partner agencies, both advocates and critics, to try to move our projects forward and to support staff, both on a personal and professional level. Corey hired me in 2001. She has been a strong advocate for me to pursue additional education and training over time and has been a great mentor. I will deeply miss her and I think the other staff will too. So I appreciate your support as we move forward and try to fill her shoes. Thank you, Grace. Commissioner Brown. Mostly been said, but I just wanted to chime in and say I have been amazed and just honored to work with you, Corey. And your commitment, your tenacity in working sometimes under difficult circumstances has been a real inspiration to me when I got here and with my knowledge and experience on the North Coast, I thought, oh, wow, that's a tough assignment. And you've just done amazing work and obviously it's been an amazing ride for the RTC. We're really gonna miss you, but hopefully you'll stay involved and we can count on your expertise as we move along as well. Thanks. Any other comments? Miss Lowe, go ahead. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I also would just like to say thank you to Corey and I especially appreciate the comments and hear about your vision to bridge a gap. And I think I've seen the same thing and I think that you bridge that gap really nicely. We've been at some difficult meetings over the years among RTC staff and with the public. It's a hard work and I think you did a really nice job bridging the gap because what matters in the end is partnerships so that we're all really solving problems together. So I really appreciate your approach and good luck to you. Thank you, Mr. Peoples. Brian Peoples, Executive Director. I'll actually go the reverse of the commissioner's report and start with what we're hearing from our Executive Director is a cry for help. He needs help, he's got the work scope in front of him that is overbearing and he needs his support. So we support what he's trying to do. About segment seven, let's just be clear. Segment seven A, the one that's going out for bid was originally estimated at about two million. Now the bids that came back were at seven million and then we're hoping that it'll be less. Segment B, it's unfortunate that the environmental organization is fighting this, be honest with you because we want to be more, to demonstrate that it costs too much. That segment B is gonna be $15 million a mile to build. I mean, Matt, what is a road cost to build? I mean, that's a horrendous amount of money for a little trail and it's all based off of the reason because you're building retaining walls and you're trying to keep the tracks. Lastly, I want to take a moment and recognize Corey who has been what I would deem a legend in Santa Cruz County in establishing the bike community. She's in the bike community. She's kind of in the same network of friends that we go with, but I want to go a step further than that. Public staff job is difficult. You get, especially in an emotional topic like transportation because we're all impacted by transportation. We just want to get from point A to point B and so there's frustration. And unfortunately, staff feels this from the public, the pain and honestly, obviously our groups, the people have been adversely proactive in creating that kind of conflict. And so I want to apologize publicly to Corey and give her recognition that the work she's done is really appreciated and apologize that we don't mean to create a personal conflict. You're a great person. We'll turn around and say thank you and I apologize. We apologize and I want her to go off and know that our community considers her a legend on making the Santa Cruz Coastal Trail here. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments? Welcome. Isn't this, is this? Hi, Sally Arnold. It's the director of the court. It allows public comment. Okay. For friends of the railing trail and I just also want to thank Corey. She's been, as I've been getting more involved in transportation, she's really educated me. She's been very generous with her time and her knowledge and really helped me understand how these processes work. And I just personally appreciate her willingness to share that with members of the community who want to become more actively engaged in the public process. Thank you, Corey. And I hope you enjoy your retirement. Thank you. Any other comments? Commissioner's public. Okay. I do want to echo what was said. I think a lot of good things are said and they were all well deserved, Corey. You've been a hard worker. And I'm glad that as you're leaving there was one accomplishment you were able to relish before you left. One segment of the trail did open prior to you departing. So all that hard, it doesn't matter how small it was. It was a segment. So we're going to miss you and we'll hopefully have good luck filling your shoes. So thank you for that. And even though that's a sad moment, I admitted one thing early on and I want to acknowledge that today is commissioner Jacques Bertrand's birthday. So we should celebrate that. All right. And he left the room. Well, he left the room. Well, he left the room. Well, he'll know that we said it. Okay. With that, we'll proceed on to a couch and report. Commissioner Lowe. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, my first item is to announce that we have a new, a new director. Our governor now, Gavin Newsom announced earlier this week on Tuesday that our new director is. Tox Omishak, Omishakan. He's from Nashville, Tennessee. He comes to us with background as the deputy commissioner for the environment and planning at the Tennessee department of transportation. And he was previously the director of the healthy living initiatives. He has a masters in urban and regional planning. So our new director is in fact, a planner. Fancy that. And, and, and, and our new chief deputy director is Jim Davis. Jim Davis has been with the department for over 20 years. He's had a number of increasing levels of responsibility at the department. He's been most recently, he's been the special advisor to our, to Lori Berman and the acting director now, up until now. He's been the SB1 program manager. He's been the division chief for project management for the preceding five years up to 2018. And he was, in fact, he also did a stint as the division chief for transportation planning. So we have at the helm, we have great leadership that is familiar with the, I would say the complexities that surround planning and delivery of projects. Caltrans is not going to lose its focus, of course, on the delivery of our projects and our, our programs to, to catch up on the backlog of the maintenance, deferred maintenance and all of the investment that the public is making to restore the transportation system. But I believe it does give us some idea of how the governor's priorities are, are being implemented with some of his appointments. Along that, the line of the earlier item regarding Davenport, I would just like to make a segue into that is also good feedback for the district five bicycle and pedestrian plan that is, is now underway. And we are identifying areas of gaps within the system, gaps and areas where the state highway acts as a barrier. What I appreciate about the dialogue that I witnessed and under supervisor community's leadership is that it, it takes a village to, to do these projects, to improve bicycle and pedestrian access to, along and across the state highway system. They can be expensive, they can be complicated. They take time, they take money and most of all they take partnership. And so I, I recognize that the tone of the dialogue has really shifted because I see everyone taking their bit of ownership over the problem and really working hard to find solutions. So I just really want to make, make mention of that and say that it's my hope that the district five bicycle pedestrian plan will also help provide a foundation that we can work toward to identify our collective priorities for where the improvements are most needed. We have also announced our next round of transportation planning grants. The deadline for applications is October 11th. Next Thursday, the 12th, from one 30 to three at our offices in San Luis Biscoe, we'll be holding a workshop for folks to let them know about the current grant program cycle, the types of projects or types of plans and studies that are eligible and, and give people a good idea about how to move forward on that. And then of course you have the updated information about our current set of projects that are underway, either under construction or in development. And if you have any particular questions for me, I'd be happy to take them. Questions for Ms. Lillard. I just want to say thank you to Caltrans. They have been responsive to the needs on highway nine in my district up in the center of the valley. There's a series of pedestrian initiation, initiated crosswalks or signs that will be there. And it's very much appreciated. It, these, these projects take a little time to get there, but I really want to say thank you to Caltrans for its cooperative effort in getting these become, having these become a reality. We have one of Ben Lohman now and a couple of others, but there's more to come. And we appreciate it very much as do the people in San Lorenzo Valley. Thank you. Any questions or comments? Mr. Gonzalez. I know, I know we've been beating this up pretty much, but it is really important for the state of Watsonville in a, on Merchant Street and 152 for that light fixture. Noticing the other project is that 95% PSNE. It's, is that going to be fulfilled this year at all? Cause I mean, it still has to go out to bid. Yes. And we have a construction timeline of fall, winter, 2019. And that's item 21 on your project. Sorry, do you have the number? Are you looking at the- It's 21. Thank you. Projects and development. That's the last one. Yes. That project is in PSNE. We anticipate it going to construction like later this year. I don't know the order of, of when they, that's the only thing I can have to say as a caveat. So once we reach the ready to list date, then we would advertise a contract. And then as you see, there are multiple locations. The contractor would have to develop his own schedule for when, you know, which order he's taking those in. Is there any way we can influence that for at least? Cause I mean, this, this crosswalk is specific for students on 152 and Merchant Street. And so schools already commenced and we have a lot of students making that dangerous cross right there. I will certainly ask if there is a way for us to state a preference for order. Thank you. And the questions, Mr. Schiffer. Yes. I wanted to follow up on your comments on the Davenport signal. You mentioned a pedestrian bike plan that's being done. I would just want you to clarify that that's not gonna hold up the partnership on this particular project. Yes. Thank you. That's an important clarification. The district five bicycle and pedestrian plan is intended to look at the whole district and what the needs are. Meanwhile, there are dozens many projects that are in various stages of development and implementation. There's, there's, there's no, there's no effort at all to, to reorder, reorder any fully funded projects that have been identified that are happening with, for example, this one would be like a locally sponsored project. We don't intend to change any, anything that has momentum. Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I can't resist. Maybe I've lived in Santa Cruz a too long a time, but I remember when it was possible to drive from Santa Cruz to San Francisco on highway one without going through any lights. Half Moon Bay didn't have any lights. And that changed because of the development that happened in the Half Moon Bay area. And now, as any of you know, who drive up highway one, you can sit for a while in Half Moon Bay, getting through the lights there. And I think what we're seeing is in Davenport times have changed. It's the town itself hasn't really grown, but the number of cars and visitors has grown exponentially. And it's important now to really recognize that, respond to it. It's not the first light that's going to be on highway one between San Francisco and Santa Cruz. And it's really needed. So I appreciate that that project's still a potential priority. And I hope it will be a priority for our staff in the county and Caltrans as we move forward. Yeah, I think that the real question there is priority and funding. So the funding that we would see that as a locally, locally sponsored project, locally funded project, whether it might be competitive for an ATP, active transportation program project, something that we could look at with you. Well, I'm hoping our executive director will work his magic with Caltrans and the county public works director and department to come up with a way to fund the project. Given the amount of money that's being spent on some of the other highway projects in the county, it's not very much money in my view. Thank you. Thank you for that observation. Any other questions for Ms. Lowe? Any comments from the public on Caltrans presentation? Okay, we'll accept that. We'll move on to item 20. This is a programming process for regional transportation funds. Rachel Marconi, good morning. Good morning commissioners. Rachel Marconi of your staff. Before you today is a follow-up item from something that you discussed at your June board meeting where staff presented to you some proposals for possibly programming some of the RTC's discretionary funds this cycle. As the regional transportation planning agency for Santa Cruz County, this board is responsible for selecting projects to receive certain state and federal funds. These include regional surface transportation program or state surface transportation block grant funds. We oftentimes refer to them as RSTP exchange funds here locally. The commission is also responsible for selecting projects to receive the region's share of state transportation improvement program funds. These are funds that the commission identifies projects for. Then we submit our project list to the California Transportation Commission who ultimately makes the decision on whether and when to fund projects. By state law, they are required to give us a certain amount of our funds within what's called a county share period. But oftentimes we do not receive our full target formula target of those funds. So it's sometimes a less stable funding source than our RSTP exchange funds. The commission is also newly responsible for selecting projects to receive certain Senate bill one funds that were made available through that initiative. That includes the local partnership program, formula fund program, new Senate bill one funds from the state of good repair program which is focused on transit projects and new Senate bill one funds that flow through the state transit account program. Also, Congress last year did approve a one-time shot of highway infrastructure program or HIP funds for our region. And so we have this one-time slot of funding that the commission is responsible for selecting projects for. Attachment one to the staff report describes these different funding sources and some of the rules behind them, the types of projects that are eligible for them. Also on page 20-5 of your packet there's a table that describes these different funding sources that the commission is considering today and how to, the process for distributing those funds. At your June board meeting rather than issue a call for projects for a competitive process, the commission indicated its intent to program the RSDP funds to local jurisdictions by formula and directed staff to work with the local jurisdictions to determine what the appropriate formula might be. And then also to work with our stakeholders and transportation partners to provide recommendations on the other discretionary funds. So before you today, we have a, for some folks, it seems like a complicated staff report, hopefully for others. It is outlined in a way that makes it obvious that you do have a lot of different choices here on how to distribute these funds. So since June, staff has met with public works departments who have also met with their city managers, the Santa Cruz Metro, Lifeline, Ecology Action, Bikes Santa Cruz County, University of California, Santa Cruz, other agencies have all participated in conversations on what could we do with these funds and what's the most appropriate way to distribute them. There was a lot of back and forth negotiations and what's before you today is a compromise. No one is getting exactly what they would really love to have. Everyone would love to have $15 million only in their pocket and no one else's. But what you see here is what's seen as a distribution of the funds that actually falls not too far out of line with how funds have been distributed in the past by the commission through a competitive process with about a quarter of the funds going to regional projects. Some of the funds going to Metro, a few dollars being available to nonprofit agencies and local jurisdictions in this cycle through the proposed process, they would be getting a slightly higher amount of funding than they have in the past, typically on average, local agencies have received about 50% of the discretionary funds in competitive cycles. So I'm just gonna go quickly through some of the proposals that are before you today and then leave it to the commission to provide direction to staff. So if I can just direct you to, I think page 20-5, I'll just walk through the different recommendations for each of the different funding sources. So starting at the top, the largest pool of money this cycle is the surface transportation block grant or regional surface transportation program exchange funds. There's about $10.7 million available just under that amount available to our region through fiscal year 2021. These are federal funds that come to the state and then the state because we're a smaller county washes them with state cash, which provides a little more flexibility and opportunities to expedite delivery of projects here locally. The proposal before you today is to allocate funds to the cities in the county, most of the funds to the cities in the county on a population formula basis with each jurisdiction receiving no less than 5% of the revenues. Now through the ITAC meeting, the Interagency Technical Advisory Committee meeting, there was a recommendation put forward to set aside off the top $350,000 of those funds for a competitive process available to anyone that was a non-city, non-county entity. So that would include agencies like Santa Cruz Metro, UC Santa Cruz, Ecology Action, Bike Santa Cruz County, any other transportation project entities, lead agencies. And so before you in the staff report, this is probably the most complicated section, which is on page one of the staff report, there's options A through F on how to distribute those funds. There's a table in attachment to that shows you how those different sample scenarios might play out. There have been proposals put forward to take some funds off the top and allocate them directly to Metro, similar to having some funds distributed directly to cities in the counties. There's proposals where we could have a competitive process for this relatively small amount of money, or just say let's distribute it by some amount to specific agencies for eligible projects. In any case, for any of these projects, agencies will have to come back to the commission with their specific project that they're proposing to use funds for, and the commission will make a final determination following a public hearing on how those funds are distributed. If folks would like me to go through options A through F, I can, but otherwise I will just say that those are just samples of ways the money could play out. The commission could say, let's take 5 million off the top and do a competitive process for that and do the rest through formula or any, there's so many different scenarios. So we gave you a couple of them there. On the state transit assistance funds, back in 2017, soon after Senate bill one was passed, there was this influx of Senate bill one funding into the state transit assistance program, and the commission considered allocating some of those funds through a competitive process and made a decision at that time to program 15% of this fiscal year's funds through, make it available to any agency and next year 20% of the funds and then the following year 25% of the funds. What is before you today is a proposal to eliminate that competitive process and instead allocate all but 100,000 per year of those funds to Santa Cruz Metro. And that 100,000 per year would go to Lyft line community bridges to allow them to maintain some out of county transportation services and same day transit services for senior and elderly disabled people that need those rides. Medical appointments are regularly part of that. For the Senate bill one, state of good repair funds, that's about 375,000 a year of funding that comes to our county. There's a staff report on the next item that talks about proposals for distributing the funds this year. But again, similar to the STA funds back in 2017, the commission did indicate that it would allocate 15% of this year's funds or make them available to any public transportation or community transportation service. In total, those STA and SGR funds for this year would be about $450,000, is that 15%. For the state transportation improvement program, as I mentioned earlier, the California Transportation Commission has final discretion on how much our county gets. What they're mandated to give us this funding cycle is $1,057,000. That's what under Senate bill 45, they're mandated to make available to us. That said, if they do distribute the funds to each county based on a formula distribution in our target, we would see up to $3.4 million of our total share through fiscal year 2025. And so given that range of not knowing exactly how much we might get, our proposal, which was endorsed by Metro and the ITAC, is to indicate intent to program the funds to the Highway One Auxiliary Bus on Shoulders Project. That is by showing commitment of our STIP funds as well as our Highway Infrastructure Program funds, those federal funds and the local partnership program funds to that project. It demonstrates to the California Transportation Commission that we really do have our skin in that game, that it is one of the highest priority projects for this county and that it will help us hopefully leverage some large grants from the California Transportation Commission that come through the Senate bill one, solutions for congested corridors program and other programs that we will be hopefully applying for funds for. And that is also part of the staff recommendation that the commission give us direction to go after those grants for that project. Finally, in June, the commission did set aside within its measure D, five-year plan, $100,000 for transportation demand management programs that will help us reduce vehicle miles traveled and help implement the new RIDE Amigos commute trip planner platform, which the commission received a presentation on last month. The exact use of those funds was not defined in the five-year plan, but the recommendation that is before you is you have two different options. One would be to add that $100,000 to a consolidated call for projects. And then within the projects that are proposed, select projects that match up to that initial, that original intent of the measure D, five-year plan or to have the TDM work group that includes agents, local cities and county agencies as well as University of California Santa Cruz. The Cruz five-one-one program, of course, is the lead on that ecology action and others are participants in looking at how to outreach to employers, get commuters online and using alternatives. And so an option would be for that work group to kind of define what scope is really needed for those funds and then a process for allocating them. In the packet, you do have as attachments three and four, some letters from Ecology Action like Santa Cruz County and UC Santa Cruz expressing their interest and ensuring that they're not excluded from any funding process and supporting that this be a kind of, for right now we're talking about this cycle but making sure that they're not excluded in the future from funding opportunities. Staff will of course continue discussions no matter what is decided today with our transportation partners on what to do in future cycles. We are recommending though that we're recommending some projects like the highway one project get some funding off the top for the step that in the future that we make it clear that those funds are available for other regional projects. Next steps, project sponsors will need to submit their project proposals for any of these funds and we will come back to the commission and its advisory committees for input and final decision so that the public has an opportunity also to see each of those projects. Project sponsors especially the cities and the county have indicated that they would also be selecting their projects through a public process. So the public would have an opportunity to provide input on the proposals through their boards and committees as well. Overall the goal is to have this money designated as projects by December 15th that is our deadline for submitting our proposals for the state transportation improvement program funds to the California Transportation Commission but just in recognition that there are a lot of needs in our community we would like to see commitments to specific projects by then for all of the different funding sources so we can really get this money to work as quickly as possible. And with that I'd be happy to answer any questions before turning it over to the public. Rachel I just want to commend you for putting together this diverse package. There's a lot in here and it's well organized and I also want to commend you for being creative and giving us the options you did. I can tell there's a lot of work in here to try to give us lead us in whatever direction we're gonna end up at the end of the day and I appreciate all that. So before I open up for the public any questions of Rachel? Commissioner Leopold. Thank you chair. Earlier in the meeting we asked our staff to come up with some funding meeting with Caltrans and funding strategies for the Davenport Crossing. And I'm wondering if that comes back with a price tag for the RTC does that come out of the county share? Does it come out of some other pot of RTC money? How will that work in this formula funding? In the formula funding there is no RTC share in this scenario. So it would be something that the County of Santa Cruz could consider funding with its share of funds. Other jurisdictions have funded projects on the state highway system using their local funds as well as their local shares of funds. It is my understanding that we are submitting applications through the Prop 68 program for addressing some additional cost needs on the North coast. And so, and then that project would be integrated within that grant application and that there's been other conversations about other potential funding sources as well that are outside of what is before you today. Yeah, and that's not to speak in any way against the project, which I fully support. I'm just wondering under this new structure where things would get funded out of. So I appreciate the clarification on that. I'm glad to know that there are grant sources as well. Commissioner Johnson. Thank you, Chair. So I had a procedural question. You know, if we need a quarter mile of asphalt laid down somewhere in the County and the RTC is on that, there's a true bid process in which we go through correct. In other words, we determine five or six or three or four companies that might be granted at the grant rock and so forth. So on column D, you have a couple, you have ecology action and bike Santa Cruz County who are looking for specific 275,000 and 75,000 respectively to be embedded in this formula. So I guess my question is, you know, it says competitive process here, but why don't those entities go through a true competitive process? Let's just say, you know, climate change international can fulfill some of the goals of sustainable transportation, but at a fraction of the price, why do we gravitate towards those entities without quote, a true competitive process to make sure that we're getting the very best deal for the services provided? It is true that in the past, the commission staff recommendation and the process that the commission has used is open up all of our funds as a competitive process to make sure whether it's a nonprofit agencies project or wrote X, Y, or Z within Scotts Valley, for instance. You know, we've determined if a Scotts Valley project had more value than a county project, for instance, or an ecology action project. So that is an option is to go competitive on funds. Absolutely. But the commission direction in June was to look at more formula based allocation of funds. And so we wanted to present that as an option. Column D happens to not be a competitive process, but column C and B have a competitive process. So at that point, anyone could apply. But I understand. I think we're talking at differences here. So you've included two entities, Ecology Action and Bike Santa Cruz County. Why not another entity or two or three other entities? Why did you choose these two entities without a quote, true competitive process? In other words, just like we do with a granite or granite construction. What we did was we looked at who historically has applied for funds from the commission agencies that this board has supported for funding in the past. And the agencies that are listed there, Metro Ecology Action, Bike Santa Cruz County and UC Santa Cruz are the agencies that have applied for funds to this board in the past. And so those were the ones that were identified. Did we put out bids? In other words, in a true bid process, you would advertise. If the commission would like us to do a competitive process, we will issue a call for projects. So if you were to choose options B or C, that is the process that would happen. Today before you, you're deciding on what is the process that you want us to go through. So if the desires for us to do a competitive process, you would choose an option that includes a competitive process where we would solicit input from all sorts of different agencies versus going through a less time consuming, honestly, for staff process of allocating funds to certain agencies. Yeah, well, it might be less time consuming. I appreciate that, but it's also in deference to the taxpayers who are paying the bill. So thanks. Any other questions? Commissioner Schifrin. Yes. It was the commission's decision to go through a non-comparative process, which was obviously giving priority to agencies that might not do so well if they had to compete for the money. So I think it's important to remember that. My, I appreciate the work that's gone into this. It's very confusing, not having a competitive process on the one hand, simplifies things on the other hand, makes it more complicated because we have to try to figure out where all this money is going. I was confused about $100,000 in the Measure D fund. That doesn't seem to appear on attachment two on page 20-15 in terms of the RSTPX funds. And it wasn't clear to me how that might relate. I mean, one of the, let me just say, we're really, if the commission goes along with any of these options, talking about 5% of the money, at least this 10.7, and actually much less percentage if we add in all the other recommendations. So we're gonna end up arguing about less than 5% and undoubtedly going along with the recommendations on the 95 to 98%. But be that as it may, what I don't understand is how the, it doesn't make much sense to me to have a competitive process for $100,000 and have a non-competitive process for millions and millions of dollars. So how do you see that Measure D, $100,000 feeding into this overall approach? If the commission were to decide on, for instance, option B, the 100,000 would be included within that, which was what the ITAC had recommended, was to do a consolidation of those two funding sources. Now, we have also heard from folks that because those Measure D funds have a specific purpose attached to them, that it might also make more sense for this group of agencies that are working together in partnership to identify what the needs are to really encourage use of this new commute platform to come up with a scope of work for that and then decide what's the most appropriate way to distribute those funds. It could be a competitive process. It might not be a competitive process. Another option there would be that they come up with a scope of work. They issue an RF request for proposals or qualifications for entities that can fulfill the services that are identified in that. Which are these agencies? They include UC Santa Cruz is part of it, Metro is part of it. The city of Santa Cruz absolutely ecology action. Who else is part of that Cruz 511 ride amigos group? I think those are the main players. $100,000 is for the 511 program. Is that what you're right? It's part of the highway one measure. It's the Measure D highway bucket funds that were designated for transportation demand management. Okay, so I see. So it isn't really relevant to the chart on page. Because it's a separate type of funds. Now in the recommendation F within the staff report does have that 100,000 go out based on a process that's to be determined by that group of whether it should be a competitive process or a request for proposals or identifying specific agencies to take on specific roles and coming back to the commission under options A, C, D and E. So everything except for B. The other thing that was a little confusing to me was the various funding recommendations from Metro because there are really two items. There's this item and there's the next item. And it wasn't clear whether the funds that were recommended from Metro and the next item were added on to the funds that were recommended in this item or whether they're combined with the funds. I'm trying to figure out the numbers. I just got confused. Sure, sure. So the next item is focused specifically on the state of good repair funds. Now 15% of the state of good repair funds for this year is $56,000. The total state of good repair funds for this year, sorry, it's more like $350,000. The commission already made a decision to allocate 85% of those funds to Metro back in 2017. And it's part of your budget for fiscal year 1920. So what we're looking at is in this item, what do we do with that 15%? And the recommendation is to allocate it all to Metro and then rather than make it available to any entity which could include Metro. And so if the commission does not approve the staff recommendation for bypassing the 2017 decision to make 15% available to any eligible entity and instead to allocate those funds to Metro, then the action in the next staff report executes that decision. So in this staff report, the Metro is recommended for 2,686,000 STA funds and 687,360,360 in SB1 good repair. Are you saying that in the next item an additional 56,000 is being recommended Metro? So unfortunately the state of good repair in the state transit assistance program is even more complicated. So the program has two main POTSA funds, about half of the funds come through the regional transportation commission for public transportation or community transportation services and the other portion go directly to transit operators as defined in section 99314 of the code. And so those funds go directly to, those funds are allocated designated for Metro, though both POTSA money flow through the RTC's budget. So the 680 includes Metro's share of the state of good repair funds as well as 100% of the RTC's share of those funds. 56,000 is part of that. It's just what this year's 15% is. So that's 687,000 represents the, or includes the money that's in the next item as well. Correct, yes. Okay, well, thank you. It was just confusing to try to understand. I should have created a chart on the STA, I realize. I do have one if you, it's right here. Thank you. Any other questions before I go to the public? Commissioner Koff and Gomez. Yes, thank you. I'm glad that we have, first of all, one of the things I was looking at is if for example, Santa Cruz has a project that's larger than this allocation, having done this, it now will stifle them on that project. They'll have to sort of take this money, wait till next year, make up the difference. And any of our jurisdictions would fall the same way. But the other side of it, the flip on the coin is we can now have a line item budget that we know that this money is going based on this particular formula for all of the different counties and jurisdictions. And historically, can you tell me on the Metro? Because obviously we have either competitive bid, the option of the 200 for Metro. What has been the history of the allocation of Metro based on what we're rearranging the funding sources in the matrix for? Sure, so we did look back historically through 2010 when all of the funding cycles in the last 10 years. And overall Metro has received about 7% of the competitive funding pots of funds. Now. So seven being the total of 200 that we see on here is one of the options or, because I don't know the math on that right. Oh, sorry, 7% total historically has been what Metro has received for this cycle. Let's see, I did write that down somewhere. You know, basically the difference for Metro this time is instead of allocating some of the STA and SGR funds through a competitive process, which over three years is about $1.5 million plus adding 200,000 to Metro, it's about 9% of the total money that you're looking at today. So I'm just trying to dollars for dollars because I'm looking at 200,000 is one of the options and the 7% of what value so I can compare dollar for dollar. So the 7% is of all the funds, so including STIP funds and other things for just the regional surface transportation, the RSTP exchange funds, I believe Metro's share over the years has been about 400,000 total. So in this particular matrix, the way this is set up, they're getting about half? No, because that 400 is over multiple cycles of funds, not just one cycle. So this is keeping in tempo with what Metro has received based on this being allocated? It's near-ish. Now, one point of clarification that I didn't wanna share is that prior to 2010 and in 2006, for instance, the state transportation improvement program is made up of a variety of different funds. It used to include transportation enhancement funds, which now do not come through the commission. They instead go through a competitive process called the active transportation program. It also used to include public transportation account funds, which no longer come through the STIP and instead go directly through the state transit assistance program. So there's also kind of this, the commission used to fund a little bit more, has funded more Metro projects through the STIP in the past, but now the transit funds that used to go in the STIP now go directly to the STA, so the commission's, so it's definitely, yeah, there's definitely been some changes over the years, but it's also just based on state legislation and how funds are flowing. So what I'm after is the shell game has changed, so instead of going through us to get to them, they're getting it directly, and so when I'm looking at 200 today, it was based off of how the shell game was a couple of years ago on. I don't want to be, I want the continuity of what we've been providing with the Metro so that we don't see that we've got this huge drop if they're getting it from another source, and then this shows our math that it's less today on this matrix, that there still remain whole at the end of the day based on how the shell game has changed on the allocation and the distribution. I mean, it's tough. Like if I look at Watsonville specifically, Watsonville got 13% of the state of the STBG funds in 2016. Historically overall, they've gotten 12%, and in this process, they'd get about 11%. So that's pretty close. For Metro, it's been between seven and 9% of the total pots of money, and so I would say it's close. Yeah, I certainly think that we all have shortfalls of projects that we can use, and at least our own entities can decide, okay, we know that this is what we can rely on so we can base our projects around that or the time it's gonna take instead of a one-time request that it's larger now but next year won't be so large and another jurisdiction can take a hold of it. So that's why moving this around on a formula basis, it's a predictable for a line item for the budget, but it may take longer for our jurisdictions to actually complete a project using this matrix for the formula-based. And again, I think that when we go back on historical in terms of the ecology or even the bike Santa Cruz County, can we compare what we've done before versus what the recommendations look like here? Sure, so historically since 2010, the commission has given ecology action $180,000 and bike Santa Cruz County only started submitting applications for funds in the last two cycles and the commission has allocated 100,000 to them to UC Santa Cruz. The commission's allocated $700,000 worth of funds of RSTP exchange funds. So the other bucket was 700 before and on here, it's either a competitive process for, sorry? You had mentioned 700,000 to- That was what we had given UC Santa Cruz in the past. And then in this particular scenario, if we adopt one of these options for the matrix, it's a competitive process for the 350, so it's a sizable drop in what will be available in the event UCSC asked for funds through these sources. I mean, if we had 700 before and we only have 350, now it's competitive amongst multiple agencies, then UCSC is actually getting a reducing opportunity from what we've given them in the past. That is correct. In the past, the commission would have made the entire $10.7 million available on a competitive process. All right, thank you. Any other questions before I go to the public? Okay, thank you for that, Rachel. Stand by. Welcome, Mr. Pupil. Hi, Brian Peoples, Executive Director of Trail now. I'll keep it short. In 1998, I was an engineer in the Silicon Valley, doing a lot of engineering stuff. And actually one of the things that I did get involved in was transportation for the high tech company helping with contracting shuttles from Caltrans and things like that. In that year, I met Rachel, actually. And she kind of brought me in. And I actually, the way I met her was through a contract. You know, I don't hold it against Rachel that she brought me into the show here working with her, haven't left since 1998. But so I wanna commend her for her work that she's doing. She's always done really good work and this shows her commitment and detailing it. When you're talking about the details, the money and the things like that and all the emotions, it's a difficult thing. It's hard to please everybody. So she's doing a really good job at that. I will comment a little bit about the competitive, the need for competitive. You know, honestly, yeah, this organization historically has been, and I don't wanna label it, but it's pay to play kind of, the public has seen that in the sense of the private organizations that are getting funds, distributed to them. So you just gotta be careful of that. And I think if you keep it above the table with this competitive approach, I think is the right call. Lastly though, I wanna, and I don't know if it's possible or not, the Davenport Coalition left. So I wanna take the opportunity to request that maybe their crosswalk, the need today for a crosswalk with a light, somehow could we do that with funds associated with here? I don't know that to be true, but I think it's right to ask that question. They're not here to ask the question, so I wanted to throw it out to you. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, Sally Arnold, board chair for Friends of the Rail and Trail. So I read this item in the board packet and I saw that the ITAC had, it seemed like it was just a very controversial issue and there was a lot of conflict about it. I don't really understand what problem this change is intended to solve. I mean, that's up to you. And Fort doesn't have a position on this, but we do have a couple of questions. One is how would this change affect your ability to use these discretionary funds for new major regional projects? By its very nature, transportation tends to cross boundaries. And so, especially in a small county like Santa Cruz. And so when I'm looking at these allocations, I wonder about these proposed changes. How will they address projects that traverse more than one local jurisdiction or that have significant regional value? And it seems like it is sort of possibly limiting your influence over those questions. I don't know if I'm reading that right, but I guess I would just like you to think about, you know, regional projects and how will their funding be affected by whatever choice you make here today? Thank you. Thank you. Morning. Good morning. My name is Gina Cole. I'm the executive director of Bikes Santa Cruz County. Of course, I'm here to tell you that this funding is important to the sustainability of the programs that we have in place and important for us to be able to grow those programs in support of what happens across the county with regards to cycling and with regards to sustainable transportation and opening folks to the options that they may have. One of the events that this funding has supported in the past is Open Streets. We currently hold that in two locations in Watsonville and in Santa Cruz. Our Santa Cruz one is coming up pretty shortly in October. The funding would allow us to sustain those two and allow us to also grow into potentially other jurisdictions or increasing the number of times that we can hold those events during the year. The outreach for that is really important. It allows folks to be in a space that is car free that is protected. We see a lot of parents that are bringing their kids out to those events because they know that they're gonna be safe. They're in a street, but they're safe. And what that does for them is that it lets them, I don't know, feel more confident letting their kids ride out in their neighborhood. In my neighborhood, I see right now an increase of the number of kids that are outside riding their bikes. I know it was summer and the weather's been awesome, but I'm starting to see that a little bit more. A piece of that is that I'm on my bike more in an effort to kind of see what's out there. And I know that we need safer spots to ride our bikes. And I know that Open Streets is a way for us to demonstrate that. The other piece that I feel very passionate about is the safety education. Part of my charge in my previous job was to create the next generation of tobacco-free advocates. And I feel that I carry that with me into this new position to create the next generation of sustainable transportation advocates. For our young folks are the ones that are going to be making the changes and that are gonna be sitting in your seats one of these days. And so we need to instill in them a fact that there are other options rather than strictly automobiles or other ways to get where you need to go. We also need to instill in them safety. And so we kind of build on other projects that start with a younger group. And we work with middle schoolers and high schoolers. That's the ages when these machines of freedom become a lot more important to you being able as you gain your autonomy as a teen to go places by yourself. And if they know how to do that safely, if they know how to watch for, be a defensive cyclist, if they know those rules of the road that they learn in our programs they become a safer piece of the puzzle. Thank you. Thank you, Gina. Welcome, Mr. Machado. Thank you and good morning. Matt Machado, Director of Public Works for the County of Santa Cruz. Just wanted to share some perspective on the RSTP share of this conversation. And so I think we all agree that we want to provide and build and operate a robust transportation system and cover all modes. All modes are important. They're all critical to moving people around. But all of those modes do need a solid foundation. And that foundation is our local road system that's managed, maintained by our cities and our county. That foundation and that service that the cities and the county provide is really not optional for us. As long as those roads are there and they're used and they are used by 100% of our community every day, there's a cost to it. And so we're having to provide the best service to that foundation that we can. For more than 20 years, the investment into that foundation, into that system has been on a steady decline relative to its need. The need is growing greater than the revenue stream is growing. And I think we all know that. And so that's a parent in this conversation today. With that in mind, I'm requesting asking that we maximize the formula share of the RSTP component to the cities and the county. And I'll add an element to that in terms of the competitive nature. I think we need to broaden our horizon on competitiveness. We need to be competitive in the state and in the nation. And just last week, we had, we got notice that the state of California is, has the opportunity to reprogram additional monies that they don't normally get in the year through obligation authority. It's this August redistribution. And our local share to that comes through Caltrans. Our local share is in excess of 120 million. Now, we don't normally compete for that money because we don't have projects by formula programmed out for multiple years. That's the key to this. If we could get to a situation where we could buy formula, program out multiple years of federal funds, then we could potentially compete statewide and nationally for monies that we don't get today. And that would help our entire system. All modes of transportation. And so, so I urge the commission to maximize the formula shares for the cities and the county so that we could continue to build that foundation for all modes. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Jessica Evans. And I just wanted to ask you to commit to back Santa Cruz County to maintain those public outreach programs that have historically been in place in Santa Cruz. I've been a back Santa Cruz County member since I first moved to Santa Cruz as a 18 year old college student lots of years ago. And I feel like they're an organization that has consistently been working really hard to improve the quality of life and the usability of Santa Cruz for all of the people who live here. And the Open Streets is a really important program for showing people what quality of life can look like when you're not afraid, when you're not afraid that you're gonna be hit by a car. It's a way to open people's minds to the possibilities of living in a different way. And we really need that because we need to see the possibility before we can work for it. That's all, thank you. Thank you. Morning. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Pia Cannon from Ecology Action. I wanna thank the commission for its previous allocations of RSTP funds to Ecology Action. And those programs have helped the residents of Santa Cruz County and the local cities to use sustainable transportation. And so to step back, this part of the allocation for the RSTP funds, we're talking about 5% of this $1.6 million allocation. So for that 5%, we're asking that you consider voting for the scenario combination CD is our preference. And if not that, then the scenario C. And so for those funds, Ecology Action is asking that we're gonna provide safe, viable, healthy, low-cost transportation options for Santa Cruz County residents. I think those are the things that this RTC planning document, such as the unified quarter study which has recently completed the ongoing regional transportation plan and measure goals which were all public process documents and funding mechanisms called for to increase sustainable transportation options. And so Ecology Action has a list of programs that we would fund with the RSTP funds. And so the first one is for youth safety. So Ecology Action operates bike and walk education training for elementary school students in Watsonville, Aptos, Live Oak, Felton and Scotts Valley. Now these programs would not be provided without these RSTP funds. Annually we'll serve over 800 students at seven schools with on bike and on foot bike and walk safety education for our most vulnerable road users. Secondly, we're also proposing a program that addresses adults requesting funding for new and innovative adult bike encouragement initiative called Bike Month Challenge. That will serve 1500 commuters using data-driven incentives and technology to quantify bike transportation trips in miles that replace car trips that are clogging our roads. The new program has already had 1000 commuters from Watsonville to Scotts Valley competing for a cash prize that was contributed by a private donor, therefore leveraging RSTP funds. This initiative has gained momentum and RSTP funds will allow us to cultivate 1500 bike commuters year round with high impact results. In total, these two programs for youth and adults will directly serve 2,300 locals and thousands more indirectly. With sustainable transportation programs that can be delivered immediately and complement local bike and pedestrian infrastructures installed by our local jurisdictions and also complement metro bus service. They are a small percentage of this one point, this 10.6 million dollar RSTP allocation and will have immediate and lasting impact to meet the RSTP, the RTC's sustainable transportation goals. Thank you for that. Could I ask a question of Mr. Kennan? Yeah. Sure, go ahead. Option E recommends $100,000 for ecology action. Option C and D, $275,000. What's the programmatic impact if the commission would approve the 100,000 as opposed to the 275,000? Well, so we have two programs on sale here. So we would take out the youth bike safety. So the youth bike and walk safety wouldn't get funding. So these seven schools, I just listed in those different jurisdictions and 800 students wouldn't be able to provide service in the next two years. And then we would much reduce our bike challenge program. So it wouldn't be able to reach 1500 commuters. It would be, if it's 50% less, there would be in an order of 700 people that we could reach for those programs. So we're asking for that full amount. We're like, these are relatively small and a $10 million bid. And that if the RTC wants to be serious about advancing sample transportation, we need to like, not just stay pat, but we need to increase where we're going with signal transportation. Okay, thank you. Thanks. May I ask one more question? Sure, come on back here. Is this the only funding source for your organization? No, so we leverage other funding. Like I noted, private donors donated money for the cash prize, which couldn't be done through a public agency. We also, the city of Santa Cruz has provided some TDA funds for their downtown program, you know, targeting downtown employees and we leverage other funds. So yeah. Thank you. Next speaker. Michael St. Campaign for Sustainable Transportation and a quick update on the Aptos Strangler. They decided to take the bus today. Left my house at 710, locked in here at 930. So two hours and 20 minutes to go eight miles, just to give you a little bit of what's going on. I talked to the bus driver, he says this is standard operation this time of the year. I'm really here to support ecology action. I've been a volunteer with them for about three years. Doing primarily their EV shows that they do throughout the year and helping their customers. I've worked with Pied personally and staff. They're all very professional, as you know, and you've been funding them for many, many years. It is sort of like getting a contractor, someone working around your house or business, and you know they do good work and they're very accomplished people and you want to have them back to do more work for you. So basically when I find a good contractor and he does cost a little bit more or he's very competitive in the cost, I will definitely choose that one. And I think ecology action, action definitely fits this bill. Thank you very much. Good morning. Good morning everybody. My name is Dan Henderson. I'm the new director of transportation and parking services at UCSC. It's great to meet all of you. Hope to speak with you all individually at some point soon. You all have our letter in the packet, so I'll keep this short. If you have any other questions, I'll be here later. But our primary concern is that these funds that have come in very handy to our efforts, our TDM efforts at UCSC, as the largest employer in Santa Cruz County have been very valuable over the years. We don't often request, but when we do it is for an important, whether it's a van pool, targeted program, bike trail programs, it is important for us to have the opportunity at some point in the future, perhaps to have these opportunities to request these funds. So we just urge you to really consider not making it a perpetuity decision to have all of these funds based on formula only. So I appreciate your time and we also appreciate all of your support in the past in helping us get to our TDM goals, help people get out of single occupancy vehicles, onto buses, onto the bikes, that sort of thing. So I appreciate it. Thank you, have a good day. Thank you. Good morning. Chris Schneider, city of Santa Cruz, public works. I wanna reiterate Matt's recommendation to maximize the funding to the cities and county for these projects. We all have a number of unfunded projects, approved projects that we'd like to be able to move forward by not having to apply for the money and create the grant applications, et cetera. It's gonna maximize project delivery by reducing the amount of time going after the money that it'll just be a regular application. I think what's difficult is we're not talking about all the transportation funds. We don't have access to university transportation funds. We don't have access to a lot of the transit district funds. We have access to these funds. So we'd like to get a fair share. One of the things P.F. mentioned was the money that they get. What he forgot to mention is that they're part of an ATP grant that the city of Santa Cruz got. So we're executing a $200,000 contract with Ecology Action for bike education. We also have dedicated our portion of measure D funds for Ecology Action in bike Santa Cruz County. And that could be something that the other cities and the county do as well so that they can get a continued source of funding for their education programs. Thank you very much. Thank you for that. Anyone else like to address the commission? I'll bring it back. Who would like to kick off commissioner friend? Thank you chair. And thank you to all those that spoke today. And I think that one of the challenges here is that I can even hear some of the confusion actually within my own colleagues on where this funding comes from. And I think that's actually a point of concern because we should understand the breadth of where the funds are possible for before we make assumptions that there are cuts that are specifically being proposed right now which is actually not the case. I think that we should also, there was a comment from a member of the community of concern about regional projects and whether this would impact it. If you had followed how these funds are generally allocated, normally the ITAC or public works directors through some of the recommendations from elected officials would apply for projects. The RTC staff would call those projects down and make a recommendation to the body at large and the body generally would accept sort of as was the standard recommendations that were made. I think what's important to point out though is that for example, the city of Capitola has in essence one representative of the sitting here. I recognize that the chair is from the city of Capitola but he's serving in a metro capacity. So you can see how cities or smaller areas are significantly disadvantaged in this component. You have one person from Scots Valley who's trying to convince 11 colleagues to support a project. Whereas if you were just to do a formula-based distribution, that colleague can go back to the city of Scots Valley and say, here's $500,000, how would we like to allocate those funds? Those funds could be distributed to nonprofit or independent organizations as we do if we were to so desire to do it. That's up to the individual jurisdictions to make that decision. But the way it works currently though is that where jurisdictions have a limited number of pots that they can actually apply from either at the state or federal level, we're actually competing against those that actually have greater capabilities to obtain this money through other designations. So it gives you flexibility. It also advantages places that have been historically disadvantaged, Watsonville, Scots Valley, Capitola, to actually have these kinds of funds done during this specific way. So I think that it's important that we should recognize that. The second thing that can't be understated was the comment that was made by the Public Works Director for both the jurisdictions, which is that, I mean, we're talking $121 million for District Five is now possible that we could actually leverage. Haven't been able to leverage before, but for having the ability to program these funds. And I think that we would be able to do things. I mean, I don't know about you, I've got Commissioner Schifrin and Supervisor Coonerty asking for a project up in their district. Well, every dollar that we take out of the local jurisdictional funding is something that we can't leverage or directly use for that project. We all have those projects across each of our individual jurisdictions that I know are underfunded. So I would argue that I think that we need to do what we can to either move with the ITAC recommendation or do as much as we can to maximize the funding to the local jurisdictions. I do think that we could consider under the competitive pot, which is something that struck me as not only as a historic precedent, but as something that the ITAC had recommended, maybe a hybrid model between B and C, which is to say that you would actually increase the competitive pot to 550,000, as opposed to 350,000, which is functionally what it is as C, except for it has a direct line item, components directly to Metro. That way, the competitive components still comes back to this commission to make determinations on where those competitive components are. If those individual jurisdictions would like to allocate their funds above and beyond to what those nonprofit entities, they'd be able to do it. But I think it provides flexibility to the jurisdictions that provides flexibility also back to the commission. I'm not gonna make a motion on that right now because I was the first one to speak and I appreciate that the chair made that component. But we have a responsibility to understand where this money comes from, right? I mean, it's complex, it's not that complex. We're sort of on transportation commission and we should know then what we are doing with this money and where other money is available to other entities that aren't available to the individual jurisdictions. So I would lean towards something in a BC component, specifically maybe increasing that so that some of these nonprofit organizations would actually have a larger competitive pot than would be proposed under B or C specifically because that has a direct component. Thank you. I appreciate you not making a motion because I really would like the board to have some great discussion on this item. So thank you for that. And with that, Commissioner Schifrin. Yes, thank you. This is the first time I remember getting information that somehow because the commission hasn't used a formula basis, we're locked out of $120 million in state money. I think I'd like to ask that the staff provide some written information on that. I wasn't aware of it. That seems like an important issue. And it seems weird that it's just mentioned orally at our meeting instead of having presented some written justification for that approach. I don't think I disagree too much with a commissioner friend in terms of being willing to support the formula, the formula recommendations this time around. I would just make a couple of points. One, that that recommendation uses 95 to 98% of the 10.65 million that the commission is getting. So what we're really talking about is what do we do with the other $350,000 to $550,000? And what I'm hearing is put it out, you can give it all to the jurisdictions, which they of course would like, like 100%. We could do a competitive process or we could give some allocation to agencies that we've supported in the past. And my sense is, yes, it's true that the jurisdictions may decide to use some of their allocation to support these organizations. They may not. The commission has a longstanding, as I understand it, commitment to provide a range of transportation services. It's not, we've done a good job of supporting bike lanes. Measure D is a good example of the range of transportation, sustainable transportation approaches that have been important to the commission and important to the community. So my sense is that we have two agencies that have worked with the commission, worked with the jurisdictions, have carried out a number of projects that encourage people to use bicycles, to use alternative transportation, to see the potential of those alternatives. And I think it makes perfect sense to take a portion. It's not even the 5% if we went with numbers C and D because $200,000 would be going to Metro. I think it's reasonable for the commission as part of this allocation, since we're not going through a competitive process generally, which we have all in the past, that we retain our long-term commitment to ecology action and bike Santa Cruz and go with options C and D. I think that not having heard from Metro, I would assume that they're supportive of that approach. And they are, as we've heard, they're all these other funding sources. And as I tried to add up the different amounts of money that everybody would be getting, the Metro is gonna be ending up getting about $3.5 million out of the allocations that are, if not more, out of the allocations that are being recommended. So my sense is this is a year that the jurisdictions, particularly the county, is in need of additional funding for responding to the storm damage and other road maintenance. And so Commissioner Coonerty is supportive of using the basic, using the formula approach. I think it's reasonable for that to be supported, but I think it's also important to support ecology action and bike Santa Cruz is recommended in or is listed in the C and D option. Thank you, Commissioner Leopold. Thank you, Chair. Thank for the comments from everyone here today. And like my colleague, Commissioner Schifrin has just stated, we're actually talking about some small amounts of money on the margin. I'll just say right at the beginning, I'm not a big fan of formula funding. I don't think that that is necessarily a great way to be able to meet the needs of a community based on projects, because a little city or the county could have a project that needs more resources at one point and less resources at a different point and being able to meet those needs becomes important. And if you look at the 20 year history of us, I think you would find that generally that people have gotten something close to this. But I understand that the commission has made a decision to try this out on a formula basis. And in talking with the Public Works Director of the county, Mr. Machado, he has made me aware of this potential new source of funding. It would be, I don't know whether Rachel or Mr. Preston or Mr. Preston wants to say anything about that, about that pot of funds that you, what you know about it. If anybody can weigh in on that, I think now's a good time. So. Are you referring to the obligation authority, August redistribution? This money that about the August redistribution. Distribution. Sure. I have to admit that Public Works Director Machado and I have differing understandings of the pot of funds, but generally the way it works is that some of the funding that comes to California through the Federal Transportation Act is the congestion mitigation air quality program, some bridge funds, some safety funds, RSTP funds, a lot of funding that goes into the state highway operations protection program. All that funding, each state is told, and this is a little complicated, but the feds say, here's how much your state's gonna get this year. But then each budget year, they say, well actually we're only gonna give you obligation authority, the ability to actually access 90% of those dollars because we've only put that much in our budget. And so then each state scrambles and tries to deliver their projects. The federal fiscal year end September 30th, not June 30th, like in California. So in California we look at who could deliver what's left of our state-wide pool of all the federal dollars that are coming into the state. And what Caltrans does is say, how many local projects could deliver that funding and how much transit projects could deliver and how much could the shop eat up of that additional obligation authority if other states can't deliver 100% of what they were told they were gonna get. Now in our county, there is a bit of a challenge that right now we have $10 million worth of projects that have been approved for regional surface transportation program funds in the past that have not quite delivered on their projects yet. So we are sitting on $10 million in old funds that we haven't delivered yet. Now, if we're able to start delivering 100% of those funds every year, it is true that we would be able to possibly access August for distribution, but it would require project sponsors to implement their projects through the federal process rather than the state-only process, which some local jurisdictions have indicated costs significantly more and takes longer for their projects. For simpler projects like road rehab, it's not that much longer. It's a lot more coordination with Caltrans on some paperwork. But the challenge is because we're a small county, we are allowed to completely wash our funds with state funds and we get 100% of what our apportionment level is rather than that 90% obligation authority amount. The other challenge is that what happens with the OA dollars that are distributed in the state, they look at who can deliver more projects within a given year, between the time period of June 30th and September 15th when Caltrans kinda drops the gavel on this is who's gonna get the money or not. And so what happens oftentimes is that larger regions with very large oftentimes highway projects end up eating up a lot of that obligation authority that is given. So it's varied through the state. A lot of our large partners, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, for instance, they wanna wash their funds. They wanna get what we get. They'd rather give up the obligation authority, August redistribution funds for the opportunity to get 100% of their apportionment every year. So I think there's some debates in the state on whether or not it's a benefit or not. Yeah, and I'm not speaking or asking the question because I have, I challenging the notion of this money. I'm just, it's a, you know, when you hear $121 million that would make a huge difference and what we're actually able to get becomes important. You said two things I just want clarification on. One is that these project would have to go through a federal process. So items like our highway projects, they don't go through a current federal process or do they? Most large projects we do end up going through the federal process because we don't wanna limit our opportunities to apply for federal grants in the future. Got it. And the issue about the washing of money that some places, we get it. So we get that full allocation, but other places don't get it. I'm trying to figure out what the determining factor is. Sure, so. Does this jeopardize that? Only agencies that are considered rural counties in California, which because our population was under, I think, 250,000 in the year 1994. I can't remember what it was. They drew a line and said any county that had a population under that number in year X can exchange its regional surface transportation program funds. That's super helpful. And I think that my colleague noted it would be great for us to get an informational item about this redistribution because it does sound fairly complicated. Sure, and I might have someone from Cal Trans Local Assistance headquarters present it. Just a couple other comments that I wanted to make about this and they aren't questions for you, Ms. Markman. So I appreciate that. Let me interrupt you just a second. Just to be fair, I appreciate that explanation you had, but I think Mr. Michelle would like to just give his side of that. Since we did ask for a question, I would just like before Commissioner Leopold continues. So just. Thank you. And I'll be very, very brief. And so I'll give an example. If we were formula share for the RSTP and local agencies could program their projects out two or three years, have Shelf Ready. And I agree they would need to be projects like resurfacing, restriping. They could include all the modes of transportation, but they'd have to be relatively simple on existing corridors, existing roads so that you can meet the NEPA compliance very, very easily. In fact, you'd be exempt from most of the requirements. And if you had those projects two, three years program Shelf Ready to bid, then when this money becomes available, which it just came out last week and the deadline is September 26th. But if you had Shelf Ready projects that had been federalized through an exemption process because it's an existing road, then you could advance that project forward and deliver it right now. September 26th, you'd get the approval, you'd advertise, you'd build that job. A job that you didn't think you were gonna build for two or three years, you just built this year. And then you get more projects ready and get to keep the shelf full. And every year you get to do this. Now, granted, it's not every project that we get to see, it's the projects that are federalized. It's typically the road maintenance type projects. That's true, but they would include all those elements that we all need, more bike lanes, smoother roads, all of those components. So that's, and I can tell you that from my history, I've done this for a dozen years successfully and it works. So just add that. Thank you. Question, please. Why can't you do that now? Right, so now we don't... What prevents the planning projects for the future in the expectation that the funds will be there? Are there other sources of funds that can be used or does it have to be RSTPX funds? I don't understand why that... So there's two elements today somewhat limiting our abilities to do this. First of all, when we wash the funds to state only, then that's our money then. So this redistribution is federal funds because it's across the nation, all 50 states get a chunk of it and it's an opportunity for all 50 states, not just California. And so, but it's federal monies. And so we wash it early on, which there's some advantages for some of our projects because they could be complicated through the NEPA process. So that's one of the restrictions. The other one is since we don't have formula shares, we don't program our projects out in advance. We don't have Shelf Ready projects. And like I mentioned, September 26th is the deadline to bid your project. So it has to have all of its clearances, all of its approvals be truly Shelf Ready. If you can't program projects out in the future with a known revenue source, then you can't compete for this money. Well, I don't understand why it is impossible to program them out with the expectation that you'll probably have the money when the time comes. Right. So currently being the competitive process, we don't know what we're going to get in the future. So we have to compete. There's a lot of unknown. So we can't program or foresee what projects will get secure funding. Formula shares, you would know it year after year and you could develop those projects and have them ready. But see, the only way you compete is if you truly have the project programmed. I'm sorry. No, thank you for that. I just want to get another light bulb coming on your commissioner Lowe. Please weigh in on this. Yes, thank you. This is a complicated item and your staff, both Public Works Director and Rachel have a really good understanding of this. I just wanted to also chime in that California has been very successful in getting this redistribution of funds. As Rachel described every year, the feds look to see who's delivered and who hasn't. And there's this balance leftover. California has been very successful in retrieving this balance of funding, but it is not something that we can count on, right? This is the reward for delivery, timely delivery, is that this balance, this left, the coins that are left in the jar at the end of the year, the feds are sending back out to the people who are delivering. I'd be happy to provide some information to you following this meeting, just with some facts, maybe an aggregate of what California has received. Both Caltrans has received it into the shop and local agencies have received it as well. And these are for projects that are basically programmed at happening. Then they need these extra funds, but we can't anticipate it. We can't project what it will be. So it's this idea about delivering and being ready. Thank you. I'd like you to follow up on that. And I think we are all intrigued by other sources of data. So Rachel, one last thing is I wanna get it back. Sure, sure, sure. So what I would recommend is that we really investigate this more closely in a year after we've been able to clear, we have to clear 100% of that $10 million that has not been delivered, plus about half of this $10.7 million before we would be able to start competing for that August rate distribution. Right now we're in about a $20 million, $18 million hole. Thank you. The Pandora's box has been opened. So we'll get more information about that. It's intriguing to have a potentially new sorts of funding. And if there's something information, especially about projects in district five would also be helpful to know whether the Central Coast compares favorably. Through the chair, it may be difficult to quickly come up with these projects benefited from the redistribution. It's more of a, it's a- How much is California getting? Right, so I will provide information that is as clear as I can get back to you. Okay. The other part about this, the outside the formula, I'm supportive of a combination of C and D. I think the 5% threshold that we set for small cities should also be for the non-metro, non-jurisdiction. I prefer a competitive process. I think that that makes sense. I think that that allows the greatest projects to be the ones that are funded. I strongly support this money being available for groups like Bikes Santa Cruz County and Ecology Action who have demonstrated success on projects in our community. And they would be very favorable, looked on by the, in a competitive process because of that past record. But I think that the amount of funds makes a difference and it'd be worthwhile to look at that. Commissioner, I have one quick clarifying question. You said you support a competitive process. The C and D combination does not have it. Yeah, sorry. We can create anything we want, but I just want to make sure I understand where you are. I apologize for that. I'm interested in the amount being the 5% and the competitive process, so that's really is a C. So it was just, it was the same thing I had talked about at the beginning, which is a 550 baseline, but it's competitive. Yes. Okay, thank you. Thank you for that clarification. Commissioner Brown. Thank you. So, like Commissioner Leopold, I'm not really a big fan of formula funding either, but I have been persuaded after talking with public works directors and hearing from public works directors. And I understand at least the theoretical benefit of being able to have the formula and thus program out projects and be shovel or shelf ready. So, and there's obviously trade-offs there, but I do agree that this small portion, this 5% funding is really important for some of the programs that have been funded, that have been successful in the competitive process, ecology action bikes, Santa Cruz County, and potentially others in the future. I mean, they help us, they help the RTC meet its own sustainability goals in ways that, you know, other projects don't, and they do it in a pretty efficient way and low cost. So I'm very much supportive of that 5% being allocated. And I am, I was, I'm inclined to support the C and D combination. I also am hearing from staff that there is some benefit to just allocating those funds rather than going through the competitive process, particularly if we don't have a big competition happening at the moment. So I would be inclined to allocate that in this way. And at least for now, I understand that you kind of for the future, there are other organizations that may have projects that are, you know, that we would want to look at. So I think for this round, it would make sense to allocate those funds and then open up for competitive process in the future. But I will wait and see what others have to say. Thanks. Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I'm in favor of C and D, but I also am in favor of being competitive at the same time. I think that's important for a factor. I think the programs that we're supporting are good programs. And I think it's important for the city of Watsonville and the fact that, you know, we always talk about being equitable. And I think this is a process of equitability. Bike Santa Cruz and Ecology Action are really taking a foothold in the city of Watsonville, which is a really good thing. And I think we need to continue to moving in that direction and supporting these programs. I think it's really important. And then we always talk about being equitable. And I think this is one of those processes of allowing to be in that equitability bracket. But being said with that, I'd really like to make the CD, but make that a competitor still for the remaining portion. Thank you. Commissioner McPherson. Yeah, we're number one. We're facing a timeline because we really need to spend. So we're going to make a decision here. I could go for the CD or possibly C as well, but also that this is, we're talking about a formula for a setup for two years. Is that right? So if we, I think we have a good basic format here to follow and let's see how it works for two years. I think generally people are going to get what they want under the CD formula. Nobody's going to be complaining too much. I think we could probably be, C could be acceptable too, but I could go for the CD formula. Commissioner Coffin Gomez. I apologize. Yes, I also concur. The competitive process gives us an opportunity to learn what the agencies in our community are doing and are resourceful for what they're going to be requesting the money to do in our communities. And if it's arbitrarily just given, we may not necessarily see what the outcome is for the money being set aside for those agencies. And it also might flush out other agencies that are coming forward and having some good projects as well with this. And again, I think we are also looking at this as only a just a two year kind of window. Let's see how this works when it comes to the formula base. And I don't know if that's going to create some limitations for some of those projects that we want to try to get to the feds and do some sort of a matching competitive grant process. C is what I'd like to see happen if we could do something with this. I know Metro is there. It's a staple. We already know what that situation is. I don't think the need for competition for Metro funds is absolutely necessary here. But I do feel it would be necessary for the other social service agencies that have relied on our funding sources in the past and that we have an interest in knowing what those projects would look like so that it becomes a competitive process so it educates us and the public of what the money is being used towards and educating them on the best allocation for those alternative modalities that we're supporting. Thank you, commissioner Johnson. Thank you, chair. Just looking at column A versus a column C, you know, you see some huge discrepancy in terms of the monies that are being allocated towards quote the competitive process. You know, when I look at the difference there between those columns, I'm seeing maybe $30,000 that instead of going to an entity that spends, you know, a few hours in my community, we could hire somebody who traditionally does bike safety and bike education and so forth, one quarter of a police officer. That represents 500 hours in my community to deal with those things instead of just kind of a sporadic sort of presence in Scots Valley. And when you look at the difference for the county, it's over a quarter of a million dollars between A and C. What could you do with a quarter of a million dollars? I mean, thank you for walking in the truth, Matt Machado and also Chris Snyder in terms of what your needs are for, you know, for years and years and years we hear from the county. We have, you know, 80 billion miles of roads and we have no money to deal with them. But because we're kind of all things to all people, those things don't happen in terms of finding solutions to real problems. And we heard from Davenport, you know, that's been on the calendar for apparently, I don't know, somebody said years and years and years, there's been a fatality or two, but it doesn't get fixed. Why? Because we are not, you know, 100% a regional transportation agency. We just throw money here, throw money there. Obviously nobody's gonna support my position of A, but in some ways it would be better for our cities in our county because then we control the money and our taxpayers are rewarded for their trust and us as elected officials and also other representatives. Commissioner Lynn. We agree with several of the other comments. My preference would be there's the CD combo or the C for Scotts Valley. That means giving up $5,000 of those funds, but those funds can go to whether it's competitive and I'm okay with that. The programs in our schools, ecology action, all of those things that do benefit us with Metro, we know that the funds that are needed can be used to establish another route and we've had to make those cuts and there are areas that are noticing a real loss in services. So for me, that 5,000 that Scotts Valley gives up comes back to us and other services with our bike programs and ecology action and whichever one of the other, if it's competitive, I'm okay with that too. My understanding is that there wasn't a lot of competitive, there weren't a lot of other options for us, but maybe others have more information on that. So my thinking is it's a very small amount that Scotts Valley gives and yet we can receive back those funds in other ways. Thank you. Commissioner Caput. Yeah, thank you. I'm looking at them all and I'm thinking B. B looks like it's very fair and equitable. I could see an argument for maybe lowering the competitive part of B a little bit, putting that towards roads. I think we all understand that when we talk to people in our areas, the roads is where they want it and everything else is secondary. So anyway, thank you. Thank you. Did you already weighed in? Right, I'm ready to make a motion. I was gonna weigh in and then let, Commissioner Friend is dying to make a motion here, but I'd just like to make a comment here. I wanna acknowledge one thing that Commissioner Machado said and that was that this is really about roads. We all use roads and I think that was really indicative of Measure D. The biggest share for Measure D and I believe although a lot of people take claim for why Measure D passed, I believe it was because the lion's share went to roads. So there's no doubt about that being accurate. And I also believe that what this is about is being able to plan with money. And in the past, when this was competitive, you could not do that because you didn't know if your project was gonna be the one that was selected. This provides equity to the county, to the cities. And so I am, I'm thinking this gives people the right to plan for something they wanna do. All the things we've talked about, the new possible funding, this happens for that. We were getting down to the bottom 5%. That's where we might have this little discussion. And what I'm here to do is, I noticed there's a lot of money that's going to Metro has brought up that Metro is getting $3.2 million. And I think that what I notice in here is we're making a big commitment to bike, to the bus on shoulder. That's because the people of this county want something that they can see right away. And we believe that that's a project we can get ready right away. So I'm an advocate for that. Metro is stabilized. We all know we went through the fiscal cliff. We're stabilized, but we need to add routes. And to give Metro $100,000, that's about the cost of a bus driver to add a route to Aftos, to add a route to Felton, or to add a route to someplace else. Live Oak, there we go. I don't want to make sure I touch all the bases. So what I'm in fan of here is I want to take away this competitive nature. I want the good programs that have proven themselves, bike, Santa Cruz, Ecology Action to fund them. I'm a complete advocate of CD. And that's hoping that Mr. Commissioner Friend makes that motion. Well, it won't be the first time at this point of view, Chair. It won't be the last. But I think that I'm glad that this has actually been, in my opinion, one of the best discussions I've heard RTC commissioners have about multimodality and the points of equity in a lot of components. So that was a very actually good discussion. I'm going to make a motion. It may not be something that the commission in general will support, but I think that it actually does meet a lot of the needs. I think that there is, my point is that I disagree on the competitiveness. I think that there's a value to that. I also think that there's a value to this commission, not setting baseline expectations for two years from now. I think we can all be honest about two things. One, the economy is probably churning any kind of formula base that we give to something other than a jurisdiction will be assumed as a baseline funding moving forward. It's very hard. It'll be viewed as a cut otherwise. And the second component to that is that if we increase that pot, then this commission still gets the decision to make as far as to where that money should go. It still comes back to us while the jurisdictions get the lion's share of the funding. So I'm going to move recommendation C, but changing the competitive pot from 350 to 550 so that it is all competitive across that component, but it has the 5% baseline that commissioner Schifrin was discussing, but this allows UCSC and others to be in the game for competitive in the RTC to make the ultimate decision about where that 550,000 will go. Motion by friend, second by Leopold. Discussion by commissioner Schifrin. Well, my sense is that if we're going to be competitive, we should be totally competitive and that it makes sense to be consistent. So I don't support the motion. I would make a motion to amend the motion on the floor to substitute the CD combo for number C. Second. Substitute motion by Schifrin. Second by the boy, Brown. Okay, thank you. Any other discussion? So we have to vote on this. We have a... If we're going to vote on this, I want it really clear exactly how we change C. I'm going to do that right. I'm going to clarify right now. We have a substitute motion, which means we're going to vote on that first. Okay. And the substitute motion is, as that the CD combo has been presented as is, is that correct? Yes. Okay. But let me also clarify that the motion, to the extent that it's a substitute motion, includes the rest of the staff recommendation. And I would also add that we get a direct staff to report back on the distribution issue. I believe both motions did all the entire rest of the staff recommendation. So we're clear on that. The board's clear on that. All the other items that were on there, the other distribution tables, the main one that we're having the discussion about is the RSTPX. So in that case, the substitute motion is going to be for the CD option as it is printed, which basically is not competitive on any level. Clear? So I'm going to vote on the CD option all in favor. Well, we should probably have a vote. You know, it's a good point. Thank you, Mr. Schiff. Can we do a roll call vote on this one? Commissioner Bertrand. No. Commissioner Brown. Commissioner Johnson. No. Commissioner Kaufman-Gomas. No. Commissioner Caput. No. No, I'm going to move on. We're going back on. Commissioner Schifrin. Aye. Commissioner Friend. No. Commissioner Leopold. No. Commissioner McPherson. Aye. Commissioner Botthorff. Aye. Commissioner Lynn. Aye. Commissioner. Okay, and back to me. Gonzalez. No. And Commissioner Caput. No. We have seven noes. Okay, so it fails. And five yeses. So that motion fails. So that goes back to the first motion by Commissioner Friend, which is item C with a revision to change the, to make the entire pot competitive and to raise the amount to $550,000. Are we clear on that? And all the other recommendations are included in that. So point of clarification. So the 200,000 for Metro goes into the competitive pot. Goes into the competitive pot. Thank you. Correct. John Sheeves. That's what item C is. That was his motion. That was his motion. Right here. So the motion again, just for clarification, is we're going to go with item C as printed. We're going to delete the 200,000 to Metro. It goes into the same, it raises the amount to $550,000, all competitive. The only thing not competitive is the city and county distributions. Are we clear? Can we have a roll call? What about a suggestion for an amendment to that? Okay. With C as is, leaving the 350 competitors and the 200 is Metro. I respect that council member. I'm going to keep the motion as is that I made it to make it a 550 competitive for the reasons that I outlined about the assumptions of baseline funding and other things moving forward. Okay. Then I would, I mean, I'd like to call the question, I'd like to call the question on this item so we can have a vote directly on this item. I was going to see if it got a second. The motion. I'll second that. The second, the. The motion to just keep C as is. Move C as is. Just to leave C as is. I'd like to ask, I mean, I'm not a parliamentarian, but I don't think you can introduce 15 substitute motions to the motion on the floor that you continually vote on. I mean, at some point, I think you get to actually vote on the initial motion that was you're allowed to introduce an additional substitute motion, which we did. At some point you come back to the original motion, which is what we would do right now before we then take a secondary component. I don't think it's 15, but I'll go ahead and ask our attorney to weigh in on that. No, it, the, you have two potential issues here. One, the substitute motion can be heard now. It is a substitute motion, but you did have a request for a motion to call the question as well too. Which I believe was before the substitute motion was in. That's correct. So it is appropriate to act on the call on the question. You can call the question. Okay, we're going to call the question prior to the motion being made. So we're going to go back to the original motion by friend, and that is item C with the revision to delete the 200,000 from Metro and to add to the competitive fund, raising it from 350 to 550. Are we clear? 550. Okay, I'd like to have a roll call, please. Commissioner Gonzalez. No. Commissioner Lynn. No. Commissioner Botthorff. No. Commissioner McPherson. No. Commissioner Leopold. Yes. Commissioner Friend. Yes. Commissioner Schifrin. No. Commissioner Caput. No. Commissioner Kaufman-Gomis. No. Commissioner Johnson. Aye. Commissioner Brown. No. Commissioner Bertrand. Yes. Seven, eight yeses. I mean, eight noes. That motion fails also. I'd like to go back to commissioner Lynn for a motion. And I would move approval of option C as written. C as written. As written. Second. I'll second that. I got a second by McPherson on that. So just for clarification here, we are now down to item C, which is completely printed as is with no changes. Which includes all the other staff recommendations. And it includes all the other staff recommendations. And that is, I've got scribbling here, but I believe it's 350,000 competitive, 200,000 for Metro. So all of other agencies are included in this process. So with that, a roll call vote please. Commissioner Bertrand. Aye. Commissioner Brown. Aye. Commissioner Johnson. No. Commissioner Kaufman-Gomis. Commissioner Caput. No. Commissioner Schifrin. No. Commissioner Friend. Aye. Commissioner Leopold. Aye. Commissioner McPherson. Aye. Commissioner Botthorff. Aye. Commissioner Lynn. Aye. Commissioner Gonzalez. Aye. Thank you for that democratic process. Okay, that motion passes that nine to three. It was, that's nice of you. Thank you for that discussion. And we'll move on to the next item, which is item 21. This is a state of good repair. Okay. Oh, you guys have a lot of endurance. So Rachel's made my job easy, I hope. This action here is pretty, this would implement approval of item number three in the prior staff report. I apologize that it is before you the same day and I can understand that this would be confusing. The reason we have brought it before you is that the deadline for the application for project lists is due to Caltrans this month. So we did need our board's approval on this action today. This is related to the state of good repair funds that were discussed earlier. And I'll go through my staff report and hopefully you'll be able to see how it fits with the earlier action approved as item number three. So in April of 2017, we had SB1. In April 2017, SB1 passed as you know, it provided funding for a variety of new programs, including significantly increasing the funds to the state transit assistance program and the state of good repair program. The goal of the state of good repair program is to provide funding for capital assistance to preserve the existing transit system. As Rachel pointed out in her earlier staff report, these funds do flow through the regional transportation commission, some are directly allocated to the RTC and others are sub-allocated to Metro. So these can be organized into the population-based formula funds 99313, which come directly to RTC and the revenue-based formula funds 99314. In the SGR population-based formula share is 374,249 and Metro's public transportation operator revenue formula says 313,111 for a total of 687,360. 85% of the state of good repair funds were already allocated to Metro as part of their May 2017 TDA claim. Again, this was implementing the policy adopted by the RTC in December 2017 and 15% the 56,000 that's before you today were set aside for programming at the RTC's discretion. So today we're discussing the 56,000 that has not already been programmed and also the project list that was submitted by Metro for all of the SGR funds that they've received, they would be receiving if you take action. So consistent with the recommendation item number three in the prior staff report, RTC is recommending allocating 15% of that unprogram share the 56,137 to Metro, which we added to the SGR funds that were already approved in their TDA claim in May. Metro has submitted a project list which is included as an attachment and RTC is also recommending that RTC staff excuse me is also recommending that RTC approve that project list for all of the region shares a fiscal year 1920 state of good repair program distributed under the 9313 and the 99314 for a total of 687,360,000 of SGR funds to Metro for fiscal year 1920. The RTC's budget already includes this estimate for the SGR population and revenue based formula funds and if they're the budget will be adjusted if there's any updates. So that concludes my report. Thank you. Any questions for Grace? Thank you for that. Let's open it up to the public. Anyone from the public like to comment on this topic? Move the staff recommendation. I'm a motion by Schifrin. Second by McPherson. Any other further discussion? Ms. Coffman. I was just wanting to see if there's any comments Metro has. I know that we have staff here regarding this item before us. Is that? He's okay. He's okay. Thank you, Barrow Emerson Metro Planning Director we're supportive of the staff recommendation. Thank you. Thank you for that, Barrow. Okay, with that we have a motion to second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. That motion carries unanimously. Okay. That will take us to item 22. This is a potential rail vehicle demonstration. Mr. Mendez. Yes. Good morning, commissioners. Is the mic on up? Yes. Good morning, commissioners. TIGAM, a company based in Southern California approached RTC staff requesting to provide a demonstration of one of its rail vehicles. TIGAM manufactures electric rail trolleys powered with onboard batteries and hydrogen fuel cells. Now live demonstrations of potential rail transit vehicles would be useful for the analysis of potential transit vehicles that will be part of the alternatives analysis that the RTC is undertaking for high capacity transit on the Sanctuary branch rail line. So TIGAM is proposing to run its demonstration as early as November, but depending on the required approvals from the Federal Rail Administration, it could be potentially in the spring of 2020. Now the exact track segments for the demonstration will not be known until TIGAM performs an inspection to determine that there is track meeting FRA safety standards for demonstration. And TIGAM will actually be doing inspections tomorrow of RTC track. And the RTC staff will be participating in those inspections. It is anticipated that the potential demonstration would start at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. And TIGAM has already been in conversations with the FRA to make sure that they can meet all the necessary requirements for such a demonstration. Now Brad Reed, President of TIGAM is here with us today and he will make a presentation on TIGAM's rail vehicles and their proposed potential demonstration. Now if inspections and the FRA determine that there is suitable track available for this demonstration, then RTC staff will come back to you with a potential temporary license for TIGAM to run that demonstration. So with that, I'll hand it over to Mr. Brad Reed to make the presentation. Welcome and thank you for your patience. Good morning, commissioners. I think it's still morning. My name is Mark Johannes and I'm a resident of Aptos and have a law practice in consulting business in the city of Santa Cruz. I'm here with Brad Reed to present a proposal to demonstrate the streetcar that Mr. Mendez mentioned, which has the potential to achieve the high capacity public transit goals on the branch line and also be fully compatible with competing uses of the track, including bike and pedestrian use and also complimentary to services of Metro provides in the region. So as Mr. Reed will explain after me, these streetcars are lightweight, quiet, they're about the size of a bus. They're ADA compliant. They do not use overhead wiring and are powered by batteries with a top-up generator, which is a fuel cell generator, which allows it to be in service for 20 hours a day. So for those of you who do not know what fuel cell technology is, it's the same technology that's used by Toyota and a Mirai vehicle, Honda with its clarity vehicle and Hyundai with its next vehicles. The only emission from these devices is water. Now, considering that the area receives 100% green power from the Monterey Bay community power, these streetcars have the potential to be to 100% zero carbon, 100% zero emission. So TNGM is a California company based in Chatsworth and manufactures modern off-wire streetcars and these are called streetcars or trolleys. There's a number of different names and they also are an operator of these systems. And as you know, the commission, there is a track licensing agreement progressive and progressive currently has freight operations in the Watsonville area. Phase two of that license requires provision of passenger service and I believe it's 5,000 passengers per year. This type of technology, high capacity commuter vehicles would allow that goal to be achieved. Each of TIG's vehicles can carry between 100 to 200 passengers depending on the configuration and they can also be configured to accommodate bicycles, bicycle racks. The proposals that demonstrate the use of this streetcar as passenger service, as Mr. Mendez mentioned either later this year, early spring, a lot of it depends on getting the FRA approval. We've already reached out the FRA and it's going to require a waiver. A lot of that will require the track inspection that we're going to be having over the next few days to see exactly what portion of the track can do this. Now these vehicles are going to be, the vehicle is going to be brought in on a truck and it's just going to be laid on the track. So the idea would be to find the place where an active demonstration can occur. There's also a possibility of moving the car without people to areas where possibly an active demonstration can't occur but maybe a open house type demonstration can occur for example in Aptosville or Seascape. So unfortunately the demonstration will not include a demonstration in Watsonville because of the agreement with Progressive. Progressive is operating freight on that line and there's no way to operate a passenger system along that line at this point. In addition there's a washout on part of the track that precludes any kind of rail activity between Watsonville and Santa Cruz which is actually would help with the FRA approval to have the demonstration run this side because there's a physical barrier there. So the commission approves moving forward this project and we're going to be doing a track inspection with commission staff and then we'll work with the staff to determine the exact location of the demonstration. It's anticipated that this, as Mr. Mendez mentioned, the project will come back to the commission for open approval. We've also been in contact with Roaring Camp and the Seaside Company and we do not anticipate that this will impede their operations at all. In fact that's why I think the timing late fall to spring particularly in terms of Roaring Camp's operation will not, it'll be compatible. In fact, we think that this operation, the ultimate streetcar operation on this line would be actually a welcome service to both of those organizations. So the proposal is to have a demonstration over one of two periods, either a 13 day period which would include two weekends or a 27 day period which would be over four weekends and that's to be determined. The cost of the demonstration is going to be worn by TIGAM and we're going to reach out to local sponsors to help sponsor this. So we hope that this demonstration will allow the commissioners to get a close looking feel of what this type of high density public transit would look on this line and how it fits in with the community. It'll give the commissioners a sense of the modest size of the vehicle and in the context of the surrounding and how this type of fixed rail vehicle would be compatible with the competing uses of the rail. And the timing I think is also good because I understand next agenda item is the creation of an ad hoc commission or committee to look at the alternative analysis. This would give the opportunity for the commissioners on that commission to receive data on how this would fit in with that alternative analysis. So there's a number of details we have to work out including the FRA approvals. We do not anticipate any roadblocks at this point. So Mr. Reed and I will be available for questions should the commissioners want that. And now Mr. Reed will present the information on TIGAM, their development of these vehicles and also their experience in operating these type of vehicles in dense urban settings. Thank you. Do you want a question of the speaker? I was gonna let them both present and then we'll come back. We'll both present and we'll have questions for you. Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you. My name is Brad Reed. I'm the president of TIGAM modern street railways. We are a Chatsworth, California manufacturer, designed build manufacturer of streetcars who operate around the world. Thank you very much to the commission for allowing me to speak before you. I'll try to keep it really brief, not too much technical. And just about how I wanna highlight a few slides that really indicate how these vehicles can be attractive on this kind of an alignment. TIGAM builds self powered trams. We're the only company in the world that makes an electrified street railway tram that can operate a full day of passenger service without any wayside power of any kind. That means there's no overhead wire and there's no opportunity charging stations required anywhere along the alignment. All the power for a full day of duty cycle is carried onboard each car. So you can see in this slide at the top left, there is a 200 passenger articulated modern car. In the middle, there is a 100 passenger rigid body, single car body, modern car. And in the bottom are two heritage style cars which we build in several different sizes, but they are from 35 to 100 passengers. They are heritage style. They look like they were built around the turn of the last century, but they all utilize the same propulsion system. Let's see if I can advance these. How does this work now? Advancing is, which way? Oh, there we go, I'm sorry. There we go. So Tigama is an international transportation design, build, operate and maintain firm. You can see here our projects around the world. We have provided PRT, LRT and APM at various locations around the world. We're working in five countries currently. Our mission is to reduce street car infrastructure impacts and costs by eliminating electrification systems required off-board the cars. That's simply what we do. We are a turnkey design builder. We design, build, track everything from analysis to operations and maintenance, including track and rolling stock. To bring it down to a very concise statement, Tigama manufactures battery dominant serial hybrid self-powered electric trams. Now when I say battery dominant serial hybrid, as Mark has indicated, 90% of our onboard operating energy is carried in the form of batteries. About 10% of the energy is carried in compressed hydrogen, which is then consumed by a hydrogen fuel cell, which actually charges the batteries while the vehicle is in service. The reason we do this is to keep the overall heat of the system down to extend the range while being able to add energy quickly to the vehicle in the form of hydrogen as opposed to charging batteries. It works very well for us to provide 20 hours of service. Here are some of the cars in operation in Doha, Qatar, where we are involved in the world's largest lead project. It's called the Musharib downtown Doha project. We are installing in just this month entering into certified public operation. All of our cars are built according to European norms, the most comprehensive worldwide standards for railway applications. Some more pictures of the cars in operation. This is really hard to advance this accurately. I keep jumping. Can you start this video? Here's a little video where you can see three of these 100 passenger cars. This is the car that we'd be bringing up for demonstration. The first thing you'll see here is our maintenance vehicle that maintains the tracks for us once a day. And here are three of the 100 passenger single-body modern street cars. These cars are completely silent. The cars have 16 flange lubricators on board that lubricate the front and back face of every flange in the car, eliminating all wheel noise. So you cannot hear these cars whatsoever, even when they're moving around 15 meter curves, extremely tight curves. I'm guaranteeing you that there is nothing even close to a 15 meter curve on the Santa Cruz branch line railway. So all wheel noise has been eliminated. There is no motor on board any of these cars. They are absolutely silent. Here are three of the cars lined up. And what I'd like you to consider now is what we call virtual coupling. Using either the 200 passenger car or the 100 passenger car, we have an option called virtual coupler. Now I travel around the world and consult with street railway systems all over the world. The major problem that I see is operators buying cars that are sized for their peak hour demand. What this means is during off peak hours, most of these operators are dead heading up to 50% of their seats. That means they're operating with 50% capacity on the cars because the cars are too big. They're sized for peak hour, not for off peak hour. So what we offer is what's called virtual coupling. By the use of GPS, Bluetooth and LiDAR, we can couple these cars together without any mechanical connection used at the push of a button. So what this means is, I can get to the next slide. There it is. By virtual coupler, we can scale the tram size. By non-mechanical vehicle coupling at the push of a button, the trams can be sized to reflect the demands of peak and off peak hours. This reduces excessive driver costs and eliminates the dead heading of empty seats. As you can see here utilizing 100 and a 200 passenger car, we can build consists of from 100 to 400 passengers, each one of these consists being driven by a single driver. So in other words, if we can go to the next slide and advance once more, here is an example of three cars coming from three separate alignments. They stop at a station, two of the drivers go home and the tram drives off as a single 300 passenger car under the control of one driver without any mechanical coupling, ultra safe. Let's go to the next one and advance this one. Here's an example of two 200 passenger cars coming from two different alignments or two different schedules. And then one of the drivers goes home and the consist drives away as a 400 passenger car under the control of one driver. So this eliminates an enormous amount of driver cost which is the highest cost in the operation and maintenance total for the year. Can we go to the next slide, please? TIGAM also builds track, an example of our track construction here is in Doha, Qatar where TIGAM did everything curb to curb. Now I want to talk a little bit about the hydrogen fuel cell application. These cars represent the world's first zero carbon transportation system when we utilize renewable energy to create hydrogen from the electrolysis of water, compress it and use it on the cars to charge the batteries while we're in operation. We provide for our clients a hydrogen electrolysis unit which produces a set amount of hydrogen per day utilizing water as the feedstock. We separate the water into hydrogen and oxygen. We compress it and distribute it to the cars once per day utilizing a dispensing appliance which operates just like an automobile gasoline dispenser. Dispenses hydrogen at either 350 or 700 bar to the vehicles. Next, please. Now here is an example of a 24 kilogram per day hydrogen electrolysis unit and its dispensing appliance as we delivered it to the city of Dubai for the first hydrogen fueling station in Dubai for the Dubai trolley system which is a heritage operation, heritage looking cars that are really the most technologically advanced street cars on the planet utilizing battery dominant hydrogen fuel cell propulsion system. Here is our renewable energy-based self-powered tramway system philosophy. Now we've been able to achieve this in Texas and in Aruba utilizing solar and wind power. We harvest renewable energy and sell it to the grid at peak hour prices. Now at off peak hour we buy that energy back at off peak hour prices thereby becoming a profit center for the operator as well as a zero carbon energy system. We use that renewable energy to operate our hydrogen generation plant which operates 24 hours per day providing stock hydrogen to our compression and dispensing unit. So once per day we utilize renewable energy to charge our advanced battery systems hydrogen to power our hydrogen fuel cells plus the regenerative braking that is harvested all day long. These three power sources, power heritage and modern street cars for a 20 hour service day supplying the world's first zero carbon public transportation system. That's what we do. Thanks a lot for letting me speak to you. I hope you agree that this would be a perfect application along the branch line railway. Thank you. Thank you for that presentation. Commissioner Gonzalez. Yeah, I just have a, oh thank you. Thank you for your presentation. It was a good presentation. I got to ride with one of these in Vegas. It was really nice. But one of my concerns is that we're not gonna have a demonstration in Watsonville and I don't see reasons why we wouldn't be able to do something like that from Lee Road to Manresa Beach and back because it's just for a demonstration and I think it's important that Mid County and South County individuals get people up to need to ride on one of these and not have to commute to Santa Cruz to get on the demonstration. That was one of my main concerns when they originally came and proposed was that how could we include Watsonville on the equation? Unfortunately between Watsonville and Manresa Beach is the slide at Harkinsloo. So until that slide is cleared and that section of track is repaired there's no pathway from Watsonville to Manresa Beach. And then also these vehicles it's important to know is really not compatible with freight. So to actually have a demonstration just in downtown Watsonville it would not be possible would freight on the line. Any other questions? Mr. Kaufman Gomez. Being non-compatible with freight because of the way it's set up now and this would then still take conversion if the freight in this were to share line what makes it not compatible for right now? Streetcars are not compatible with freight because they're much lighter weight and the FRA has concerns about their crashworthiness. You can correct me or add on to that. I think through my discussions with Progressive the Federal Rail Association does not permit passenger cars on an active freight line. You need to have what's called temporal separation which is actually physically separating. In fact our discussion with that organization on roaring camp is you actually have to have a physical switch that absolutely under no circumstance can one of their trains roll into this area. So it could be possible if there's a section of track that's not being used to possibly do a drop-off in an open house in Watsonville. We certainly would want to look at something like that but in terms of going on an active track freight track Progressive has been very clear that not gonna happen. Just a question for her to see. The freight, the Pacific Rail only goes up to Walker Street. They don't go beyond a lony way, right? On their freight rail? Because I mean there's nothing to deliver after a lony. They do go all the way to couch distributing which is right on Lee Road on the other side of Lee Road. Exactly. Can we do it on the other side of Lee Road? The demonstration? Because when the tracks do jump the street. That's where it was just explained that we would actually have to have a way that there was a switch or some other mechanical device that prevented the rail line from actually connecting. Is that correct? That's correct. Yeah, I mean there has to be, I mean based on the new or the past accidents they're very strict about having this temporal separation and under no circumstances is there any way at all for the trains to freight trains to mix with passenger trains. So there has to be some type of, or there could be a switch that I think would do it but we'd have to look at the regulations there on how that would apply. I mean the Federal Rail Association seems to be very supportive of passenger rail on their tracks but it's a question of going through, you may have to go to Washington DC and you know whatever, whatever, I mean that can take some time. So that's where we've kind of pushed this out to Bosley Spring because of those types of approvals but you know we're certainly open to any suggestions on how to make that happen. We wanna see a Watsonville because you know frankly if there's going to be any kind of dense urban transportation Watsonville would be a place where folks would come from and the housing is a little bit less expensive there and it seems to be a natural to have passenger service out there but you know for this point of this demonstration it looks like it's probably just gonna be a Santa Cruz area. Commissioner Shiffrin. Yeah I would just, in the interest of time, since the commission would like to have a demonstration Watsonville as well as North County to just ask staff to do whatever they can working with the company and see if there's any way to make a Watsonville demonstration happen. Commissioner Leo. Thank you for the presentation. You know when there have been discussions about rail and people have seen the steam locomotives or even the DMUs they, there's been concern and the idea that there is a train that is so energy efficient and so low impact and zero emissions and quiet is, I didn't realize there was something out there so I think that the community would be very interested in seeing this demonstration and I support it. It was kind of unclear to me about the time of the year in which this was gonna happen. There's talk about November and then talk about spring and would, do you have any thought about how you would encourage people to go to use this? I mean, would it go particular places or would there be a theme? Yeah I think the question of November through spring it's really on the spring side of it to be roaring camp and their operational schedule we wanna try and catch this before they start operating at this point in terms of November it's that's when the demonstration car will be ready. So really if the commission decides to proceed with this we'll get right on the FRA approval and get that waiver going. So does that answer your question? Yeah I mean I was just trying to, you know in January, you know we don't, it's the off season, right? And whether people wanna go from Santa Cruz to Capitola or Live Oak or whatever. I'm not sure how that works and maybe spring is a better time but this is an area which I do not have expertise. Yeah so I think one of the things I did mention is we're playing a media outreach and a stakeholder outreach to really get people to see this demonstrations occurring. We wanna encourage folks at our bicycle list to come by and take a look at it to see how this vehicle goes down the track and how compatible it would be with the varied uses. So we do anticipate a lot of media outreach on this track, on this demonstration because ideally the value of a demonstration like this is to get everybody who has an interest in this at all to come to these things. So if it's a weak demonstration we'll have two full weekends that we understand it's not tourist season at that point but it is commuter season all year round. So you're basically hitting the folks that would use this on a daily basis and 200 folks per car potentially could take 200 folks per train trip off of one. Sure, thank you very much. I look forward to seeing this continue. Thank you for your presentation. They're beautiful, eye-opening. I look forward to seeing something. Questions about capacity. I think we heard a couple ranges from 35 to 100 for a heritage car and I think I heard 100 to 200 in a car and then I heard something about bicycles of course. So I'm wondering about why there'd be a difference in how many passengers and also what's the trade-off? Is there a simple way to say what the trade-off is between allowing bicycles on a car and what the level of passengers would be reduced correspondingly? So Brad will come up and address so bicycle racks on the outside I believe or however it's configured and then also the capacity of the trains. Yeah, each individual car has a, it's set capacity but the passenger capacity of each car can be customized for the client. So in a lot of cases we design interior, first of all, we have to be ADA compliant. So we have to have wheelchair births on each car depending on the size of the car. So in the car that you see here up on the screen this is a 100 passenger capacity car. It has a large low floor area that will accommodate two wheelchairs or five bicycles on the low floor area inside the car. We also have exterior racks that can be added to the outside of the car. Now these are single-ended cars they can be designed as double-ended cars which means they can reciprocate, they can go both directions on the alignment without being turned around. That will eliminate three passenger seats. Now when I talked about from 100 to 400 passenger capacity that is a matter of joining several cars with our virtual coupler. Now the smaller capacity like I mentioned a 35 passenger, 45 passenger, that would be the smallest car we make which is a single deck 36 foot heritage street car. It's a shotgun loading cross bench style that was popular in about 1911. Then we have a 40 foot version of that then we have a 40 foot double deck car which can go up to 100 passenger capacity. Now if we're gonna put inside luggage and bicycle capacity that will reduce the seated passenger capacity by a certain fraction. So it's really a matter of design. What we would be demonstrating here would be a 100 passenger car. Similar to this it would be all white. These the cars you see with the different colors on them those are full body wraps and they can be changed out. We deliver white cars and then we wrap them with various color and graphic patterns depending on what the client wants. And would your demonstration include capacity of bicycles because I know you mentioned wanting to invite cyclists as well. Sure. Great. Inside. Commissioner Bertrand. Three questions. The 88 does the offloading and onloading meet whatever I guess height there's in the area or do you have to have set platforms? Well it depends on the project here obviously what we would we don't have any platforms in this case. What this particular car is a 280 millimeter low floor which is about 11 inches. So in permanent installation we build an 11 inch curb and the car loads flush to the curb. What we would do here is build a wooden platform which would have an ADA ramp at the ADA slope provided and the wheelchairs would board level to the low floor section of the car the wheelchair section of the car. Okay. There would be temporary platforms wooden platforms built and painted in locations. Okay. In terms of feeding back into the power grid here how's that managed? I'm sorry. In terms of feeding back into the power grid here. Charging the batteries. Yes we would provide a generator to charge the batteries while we're on site. In terms of when you have a light air configuration so that a car is falling without a driver. Yes. When you're going down the hill how's that managed with regenerating the batteries? The all motors there's a motor on each axle in the car. Each motor is either a generator or a motor and it's controlled by torque controls that the driver has. So in the case of virtually coupled cars the driver controls the torque commands for each motor on each axle of the entire consist. So the entire consist will be powered and regenerating under the command of the driver at the lead car. So with the driver in command there could be a lag issue here because there has to be coordination between one car's momentum and the other car slowing down. It's all done through programming. There's a PLC that controls through as I said Bluetooth LiDAR and GPS. That's a communication mechanism. Okay so computer will control this so there's no. Exactly. How close do they have to be? It's a programmable distance. So normally we run them at about one to three meters. One to three and so that would vary depending on the slope. Yeah and depending on the local regulations. And are there regulations for this? Well there are guidelines. There are especially in the E and the European norms there are guidelines for a close spotting of headways. Okay thank you. Any other questions? We're going to open up for the public. See what they have to say. Thank you. Hi Brian people so at the trail now executive community. So when we look at capacity you have to look at it from a systems engineering approach. You don't look actually at the capacity at the vehicle you actually have to look at the entire line. What's my through throughput? So the study from the unified corridor study was trains going 45 miles an hour 60 times a day. So and you're on a single track. So you don't just look at this is our big we could have a hundred foot for a hundred people. You don't do design that way. You have to look at the entire system and having a train. And so the other key point about this is you have to pull up the entire train tracks. You have to pull up the entire train tracks just to accommodate this unique rail line. Essentially it's cheaper to pull up the tracks and put rubber wheels, use rubber wheel vehicles. So why would you go through the expense of saying we're going to have it as rail specifically just to isolate that type of mode of transit. It doesn't necessarily make sense. Now for Watsonville you guys are kind of in trouble already because right now the plans are going forward in discussions about using freight for the dump. The dump's going away. And so your opportunity to have trains going from Watsonville to Santa Cruz is being discussed as it's quite possibly eliminated with the idea of freight supplying the dump. So you gotta start looking at those issues that are occurring. It is going on the discussions are going on that way. So when you look at operational, do fixed rails work versus rubber wheels? The study showed that rubber wheel vehicles actually are far more effective by seven times and it's significantly less expensive. So what we're encouraging you to do is be clear to the public. So you're going and running off and gonna demonstrate this product but there's a lot of costs that you're not sharing and you're trying to tell them this is the next thing when really you have to pull the entire rails up and replace them for this system. And you're paying half a million dollars to go study this. So to bring this forward to the public prior to that study being completed is really somewhat disingenuous. You need to be, you can't go and say, hey, look at this great product and not be honest with what the real costs are and the capacity of that system is because we know that fixed rails on that single track is not as effective as rubber wheels. Thank you. Thank you. Do we get to rebut? We're gonna let the public speak all the way through here. Sir, you waited long enough. Come on up and address us. Yeah, I'm Lawrence Freitas. I live in Aptos. I live near the tracks. I've been, I voted yes in 1991 in June for Prop 116. I don't want my yes boat to go to waste in this county. I think this is a great idea. Also, I like the idea that they're offering to do the maintenance for the track. And I know I checked out in the mid 90s with Southern Pacific, I called up their office and I asked them the cost of fixing the track from class one to class two. It was relatively inexpensive. I can't remember the exact numbers, but it was way less than widening the freeway one mile. I'll say that much. So, you know, you're talking about a simple upgrade so that you could have trains going 25 miles per hour on the track instead of 12 or 15. Now I know they're a mess right now because of all the weeds growing on them, but we need to fix the tracks. That wouldn't be all that expensive. We have a company here that's willing to do the maintenance and whatever else needs to be done on the track to make it viable, to make it work. I would hope that something could be worked out in Watts Mill regarding the freight, even if it takes maybe doubling the track there. One other thing is on Mondays, I'm down in Monterey at one of the most, well, one of the big tourist attractions. I would love to see a day where from the west side of Santa Cruz all the way down to the old train station in Monterey, this train is actually operating between both cities. That would take a lot of cars off of highway one. Thank you. Thank you for those comments. Hi, Jessica Evans from Santa Cruz. So a couple of different things I wanna urge you to accept this extremely generous offer. From taking it to do a demo, I think it would be really exciting for the people of Santa Cruz to be able to see the possibilities of the use of the branch line for a real mass transit service. And I also wanted to just make a suggestion that maybe some kind of a, you know, you can bring in these big concrete barricades. So it's possible that maybe track division temporal separation with a physical barrier could be done with a concrete barricade on the track to allow a demonstration in Watsonville. And then the other thing I was gonna say is if that's not possible, I know that you're bringing these trains in on trucks, maybe just set it on a platform in the city of Watsonville. It doesn't have to be on the track. Allow people there to see the possibilities. It's really important that we reach out to people in South County when I do, you know, when I go out and talk to people about the rail line, when I talk to them about mass transit options, I say Watsonville to Santa Cruz because that's what we're talking about. We're talking about allowing people to come from Watsonville to Santa Cruz and then go home to Watsonville. That's gonna be the major users. So the other thing I wanna just mention is that of course, having this demonstration meets our obligation to Caltrans that we made when we got the grant to purchase the branch rail line that we would start working on passenger service and that's really important. And finally, I'd like to suggest that you may need to look at having larger cars that have increased bicycle capacity beyond the five bikes on the interior because we have year round commuters and I think that you will see extremely high adoption by bicyclists and we may need to have larger cars that have more bicycle capacity. That's what happened with the smart train in Petaluma they had to go out and redo their cars with increased bike capacity and I know that you'll be able to do that. So just wanna put that out there. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Tina Andrea and I live in Aptos. I'm excited. I live right across the street from the rail line and some of my neighbors are really worried about the noise, phenomenal. There isn't any noise, that's great. I have, I just completely support it. It's been too many years, the cost keep going up. Let's not have any more delays. This has been what, a 20 plus year endeavor and let's look at what that cost would have been 20 years ago. Let's, I'm not, I can figure out with the cost of living, et cetera. Let's move forward, quiet. Let's think about greenhouse gases, vehicles miles traveled and I also cycle, ride my bike a lot. And a lot of my friends in Aptos won't ride their bikes because they're really afraid on Soquel Drive and the Gregor Road. I do it and go down into the village of Capitola and it would be so fantastic to ride from C-Cliff to the west side and I do it now on East Cliff, Pleasure Point. I'm confident enough to ride my bike but a lot of my friends aren't. This would be phenomenal to go through it. A lot of times I go listen to music on Wednesday and Thursday nights in the summer and during the middle of that, I ride my bike but as the sun starts going down then I'm a little bit less confident and I take my car. And I know there's a lot of people in this county that support keeping the bicycle, pedestrian and light rail. And lastly, let's not forget about Watsonville and let's definitely not forget about our youth and millennials and those young people, they embrace mass transit. They wanna get out of their cars and I'm a senior citizen but let's not forget about the youth. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, Sally Arnold, friends of the rail and trail. We are so excited about this, as you can imagine. Just bringing any demonstration vehicles to the rail line is just so important. We need to be able to envision something modern. Sometimes when we hear people objecting, they're like, well, we don't walk whole fire and locomotives on those tracks. And it's like, yeah, nobody does. And this would be a real physical demonstration of a modern kind of vehicle. And I hope that this is just the beginning. I hope that you're able to bring many different kinds of modern light rail vehicles to Santa Cruz so we can see what our options are. And the technology is changing so fast. I'm sure it'll be different in a few years and better, I'm sure. So we're really eager to see this modern light rail here in town. And obviously, yeah, Watsonville is really important. It would be great if there could be some way to run it on a small section of track there with some kind of safety barrier between the freight. If not, at least bring the vehicle there so people in Watsonville can get on and see what the options might be in the future. And I know there were some concerns about, you know, November or early spring being the off season, but I don't actually think that's necessarily a problem. You know, the whole reason we want, I mean, yeah, tourists are gonna get on this train, whatever it is eventually, but we really want it for the locals, the locals who need to get around this county. And so doing it at a time when we have less tourist traffic and they'll be easier for the locals to ride it and get a feel for what is possible is really excellent. And if there's anything that Friends of the Rail and Trail can do to help support this project and, you know, get the word out so people get on this train when it gets to town, we are behind it and we're very excited. Thank you. Thank you. Very Scott, I live in Apotos and I'm on the Fort Board and a big advocate as you know of rail transit. I just checked the maps and there are switches to my friends in Watsonville, switches at Olin Parkway and at Lee Road that might be helpful in getting a short demonstration there. I think it's important that we try to do that. What a marvelous time to have a demonstration train project. We've got the alternatives analysis to look at buses versus rail vehicles, yet we don't have any real rail vehicles to compare our buses to. We can look outside and get on a bus in practically any direction, but there are no rail vehicles. So this is perfect timing. I think you all need to have as many demonstrations as possible. The last time there was a demonstration project in this county, some of you may remember, you see these pins, the Flexliner and this one is the Santa Cruz Coastal Cruiser train. This was a Reggio Sprinter, a diesel multiple unit that came from Norway I think and the Flexliner, these were all in 1996. The Flexliner came in for one day. The Reggio Cruiser came in for one day and a third demonstration was a return of the Sundown Special, 1996. We haven't had anything like that since then. The Christmas trains, of course, were 1959 vintage locomotive pulled, whatever, and left the community with the completely wrong impression of what trains would be like. So it's no wonder that there's some resistance to something. When a vehicle like this comes to town, and especially for more than one day, my goodness, and people get a chance to actually ride it, bring their bike on board, roll on to level boarding in a wheelchair for two weeks and gotta like to see four weeks, this is gonna be profoundly useful. So I thank you for hearing the presentation. I hope we get to see this thing soon. Thanks. Thank you. Anybody else like to speak on this topic? Okay, I'll close the public college. I have a question for staff, just for clarification. Is this type of vehicle compatible on our tracks? Yes, it is. I mean, it's a standard gauge track and the vehicle is built for standard gauge. I just wanted to clarify that. Commissioner Leopold. Yeah, I appreciate the comments. You know, half the time we hear from critics saying, well, we've got the line, you're not doing anything with it, shame on you. And then when we try to do something, they say shame on you for bringing something that might people might use the line. This demonstration, whether it be for two weeks or four weeks will not require all the tracks to be ripped up. It will not require the laying of new track. There will be, wow. That hasn't happened to you in a long time. No, it hasn't. No, it hasn't. Some people complain that you speak. Yeah. You know, so it's a very doable demonstration of a vehicle that people would like to see, a hydrogen battery hybrid like this, zero admission that doesn't make any noise. That meets a lot of the concerns that people have had. So I think it's great to do it. It does not affect the alternative analysis in whatever its final decisions gonna be made, but it does give people at least some chance to experience something different. And if we wanna make a decision at the end of the alternative analysis, we might have some better idea of what might be out there. So I look forward to this. I look forward to you bringing it back in agreement. And our comments from commissioners. We're no action today. We're just receiving the presentation. Okay, thank you very much. I think you can tell by the flavor in the room that everybody was inspired by this. And I think it's something we're all looking forward to. So thank you. Okay, that takes us to our next item. This is 23 ad hoc committee for alternative analysis for high capacity transit. Ginger. Good afternoon commissioners. I'll keep this short. It's been a long meeting today. I'm a senior transportation planner on your staff. My item is to discuss the appointment of an ad hoc committee for the alternatives analysis for high capacity public transit on the rail right away. At the August 1st, RTC meeting, the commission approved a motion that included direction to the RTC chair to consult with RTC and Metro staff and return with the proposed ad hoc committee for the alternatives analysis. Based on communications with staff of both RTC and Metro and commissioners, the RTC chair proposed the following RTC commissioners as members of the ad hoc committee. Commissioners Botorff, Rotkin and Kaufman Gomez to represent Metro and commissioners Leopold, Coonerty and McPherson to represent the RTC. This composition does consider balance representation from both Metro and RTC as well as geographical equity. The ad hoc committee will be involved at key milestones of the project to oversee the analysis prior to soliciting input from the entire Metro and RTC boards. This committee will only be effect during development of the alternatives analysis. So after completion of this alternatives analysis, the ad hoc committee will no longer exist. Without the RTC staff recommends that the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission adopt the proposed appointments of the RTC chair to an ad hoc committee for the alternatives analysis for high capacity public transit. Happy to take questions or comments. Any questions, Ms. Dicar? None, thank you for that quick presentation. Anyone from the public like to weigh in on this item? Seeing none. Air recommendation. A motion by Schifrin. Second. Second by Brown. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Have motion carries unanimously. Can we get a review of items for closed session? We do have one item, we do have one item for closed session today. The matter identified as anticipated litigation. And do we expect to report anything out after this? I do not anticipate a reportable action. Okay, then with that, we're gonna adjourn to a closed session and our next meeting will be on Thursday, excuse me, Thursday, October 3rd at 9 a.m. at the board of supervisors chambers, TPW meeting on September 19th. Thank you for your attendance. That would be fine. Thank you.