 All right. Thank you. I will now call the meeting the March 3rd 2022 meeting of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission to order and we'll begin with roll call attendance. Commissioner Bertrand. Commissioner Brown. Commissioner Johnson. Commissioner alternate. Sorry about this. Commissioner Caput. I'll come back to that one. Here. Can you hear me? Yes. Commissioner alternate Schifrin. Here. Commissioner Koenig. Here. Commissioner McPherson. Here. Commissioner Ari Parker. Here. Commissioner Rockin. Commissioner Eats. Present. Commissioner alternate Quinn. Present. And I know we're waiting for one more so we'll keep an eye out for Commissioner Hearst. I think I was passed over to this is Kristen Peterson. I'm sorry. Commissioner Peterson. I apologize. No problem. You have a quorum. Commissioner Brown. Thank you. Yesenia. We'll now move on to oral communications. This is a time for members of the public to address the commission on items within the jurisdiction of the commission that have not that are not addressed on the agenda and the commission will listen to all communications and compliance with state law. We may not take action on items that are not on the agenda for speakers. Please state your name clearly so that that can be recorded in the minutes of our meeting and I am looking to see if we have hands raised. I see a couple of attendees. Commissioner McPherson, did you want to start and make your comment? Yeah, thank you. First of all, I want to welcome Commissioner Ari Parker to the RTC. Welcome. Nice to have you here. Also, I wanted to make everyone aware that the county has posted an analysis of the Greenway ballot initiative on our website. The board ordered the analysis last month, which discusses the impacts as such as fiscal and policy and other impacts on county operations. I really encourage everyone to review the analysis, which really contains very valuable information, no matter what side of the fence you might be on regarding the trail or the trail only or the trail next to their existing rails or whatever. I want to thank members of the public who continue to engage with the Commission on this topic. We know that we're getting a lot of comments each and every one of us. And recently, I've heard increased feedback from my district regarding transportation project funding in particular. There seems to be a wide spectrum of misunderstanding on this complex topic. And although we have discussed it many times in the context of concerning specific projects, there seems to be some confusion regarding how the projects get funded, dedicated streams of funding, competitive grant funding and on and on. I think it would be helpful if we put the topic on a transportation funding on a future agenda and ask the staff to provide us with a comprehensive overview of how the RTC identifies these funding sources and the complicated processes that they have to use to succeed in receiving that funding. I need to leave this meeting at 10 and that's why I'm making this comment now for a California State Association of Counties or CSAC meeting. But my alternate Jenny Johnson will be here to step in. And I thank you, Chair, for allowing you to make these comments. I really encourage everybody to take a look at this report that was just posted yesterday. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner McPherson. I appreciate the and I think the public appreciates the heads up on this. And I, too, encourage folks to take a look at that. Commissioner Rotkin. Just want to report that I'm here for the record. Oh, thank you. OK. So let the minutes reflect that Commissioner Rotkin has arrived. And I heard all of the director McPherson's comments as well. Thank you. OK. We will now I'll now call on members of the public who are here for oral communications and we'll start with Ben Vernazza, Vernazza, excuse me. Good morning, commissioners and public. I've reported to you in the past about the UFLY program at the airport and at high schools in Santa Cruz County. I have some good news and I have some bad news. Let me give you the good news. Salinas has had this program for over six years or almost six years. And they have they have converted juvenile delinquents into juvenile citizens or I must I must say young citizens and are still doing it and they're sharing it with our county. And by the end of or the end of this year, we'll have over 400 high schools with the EOPA program for the high schools. You can fly some recent developments. United Airlines announced several weeks ago that they have a new airport that they're going to do in West Phoenix for 500 students tuition paid to be pilots, be trained as pilots. And Delta announced just last week to make it unanimous that the major airlines will no longer require a college degree to get a job as a pilot. I have Joe Randucchi, who is my co-chair. He's a past superintendent of Sunnyvale and Kalinga. And he's been working with the county. And I will tell you that that's the bad news. We wanted the Parle Valley High School to start first. They're dragging their feet. And we and we need to go ahead with this. I ask for your help. I do the press through your pressure on the school districts to do that. Including Spanish speaking public journal. So it gets to the. That's a new signal for notification signal. OK. Thank you, Mr. Vernasa. And if you want to communicate further information, please do email the commissioners about this issue and things we can do to support. OK, let's see. Next up, our next speaker is Barry Scott. We can hear you here on mute, Mr. Scott. So sorry. There you go. Pretty good morning, commissioners. My name is Barry Scott, and I'm here representing Coast Connect, Friends of the Rail and Trail and Coastal Rail Santa Cruz. At the recent February 17th transportation policy workshop, staff presented a proposal to change the description of Highway 1 widening Oxlain's Less on Shoulder Project between State Park and Freedom as part of the environmental review process currently underway. We have asked Caltrans and RTC under the Public Records Act to provide us with copies of the proposed project document that was stated to have been jointly submitted by Caltrans District 5 and the RTC to Caltrans headquarters. This project, as described by staff, proposes to not replace the two railroad bridges that span Highway 1 in favor of a so-called interim trail alternative or phase that would replace significant portions of the existing rail line with a trail only. The RTC apparently intends to request state funding for this alternative. Replacement of the railroad bridges is included in the project description in every single place in the original and governing Highway 1, HOV, SEQUA, and NEPA document for this project, as well as in every other related programming, environmental, and policy document. The bridges are in good shape and do not need replacement other than as caused by the highway widening. Furthermore, converting the bridges to trail only would use would require surface transportation board consideration of abandonment of the coast and pelton rail lines and approval of an RTC driven request to rail bank both lines. We believe that this approval is extremely unlikely. We also believe that the California Transportation Commission is unlikely to approve any project that is so clearly inconsistent with decades of Santa Cruz County Transportation Policy plans, environmental documents, and public sentiment. We ask that the RTC commit all possible resources to restoring, repairing, and making the line useful. Complaints that there's no freight may stem from the fact that repairs need to be made. Thank you, Mr. Scott. Our next speaker is Jack Nelson. Yes. Yes. Good morning, commissioners. I'm Jack Nelson. I'm a retired professional land use planner and environmental planner. And thanks for having the public speaking this morning. I appreciate the opportunity. I'd like to say just a word about carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has increased by 50 percent due to human causes over the pre-industrial era. Now, if you went to the doctor and the doctor said your blood pressure is up by 50 percent, you need to do some lifestyle modifications. You might think your doctor is onto something. The problem with CO2 is that it doesn't conform to any laws of human empathy. It just does what it does. The only laws CO2 adheres to are the laws of physics. So with this increase in carbon dioxide, we are developing for ourselves a brutal dictator of the atmosphere, both gradually warming the atmosphere, but also with the potential to cause abrupt climate change. If you're in with the details on climate science, you're aware that scientists have found that climate change sometimes occurs abruptly. It doesn't give you a lot of warning. Right now, CO2 is marshaling its forces on our stable civilization's borders and is threatening to invade us with a kind of climate change that will forever change our lives and call into question our civilization. I hope that you commissioners begin to show more concern about this issue in the decisions you make, which are on behalf of the public. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Nelson. Next up, we have Ryan Sarnataro. Yes, hello. This is Ryan Sarnataro from Live Oak. I wanted to talk a little bit about the feasibility of freight, and I'm going to talk from a personal perspective because back in the last century, I was the president of a warehouse distribution company in San Francisco. And we actually delivered here in Santa Cruz. We delivered the staff alive food bin. We had full pallets going to Beckman's Bakery. We had 100,000 square foot building with a rail siding. And we were bringing in some pretty significant freight from the Midwest. We were bringing in grains and beans. We were bringing in soy milk from the factory in Michigan. We were bringing in full truckloads of toilet paper, bottled water from Sacramento. I had that rail siding sat there and I grew up in a place where I actually unloaded rail cars when I was a teenager. And, you know, I thought it'd be great to use this. It never made it work. The reason why I couldn't make it work in San Francisco, in the industrial district, Hunter's Point, was that there was insufficient volume. And in order to use a freight siding, you're kind of part of a network and you have to have sufficient volume. And if you look around Santa Cruz, there's no rail sidings at any of the retail places. It's not like you're going to deliver rail to Costco, the biggest retailer in town. You don't have anybody producing anything that would go out on a truckloaded basis. Let alone a railcar basis. So this whole idea that we're going to actually spend our public money to support a private venture that can't make money and doesn't serve either the public or the climate is. It amazes me that this is still on the agenda. Progressive rail projected 3,000 rail cars a year in 2022. Not true. Excuse me. Thank you, Mr. Sharnitaro. Our next speaker is the Fort Zoom host and you are on mute. You are muted just whoever's on the end of that line. Just we can't hear you if you want to press. Star six or unmute on your good morning. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. Hi, I'm I apologize for the identification. My name is Mark Masidi Miller. And I am speaking today as an individual, but I want to applaud and second Mr. Nelson's comments regarding CO2 and climate change. It should be obvious to everyone that there is no silver bullet that's going to solve the climate crisis that threatens the health and safety of of everyone on the planet. However, there is silver buckshot that we can release in the fight against global warming. Part of that silver buckshot is to transform our transportation system from a car centric polluting system to one that takes advantage of a robust public transportation system and gets people out of cars and reduces our CO2 output. It is past time for everyone involved in the transportation business to recognize that transportation accounts for more than half of the greenhouse gas emissions in our county. And we had better get to work on transforming our transportation system as fast as we can. Our very lives and the lives of our children and our grandchildren depend on it. We are counting on you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Masidi Miller. Our next speaker is Jack Brown. Good morning, Commission. Thank you. This is Jack Brown, the resident of Aptos. The county's report on the Greenway Initiative released yesterday afternoon is revealing the covers fiscal impact, internal consistency of the county's general and specific plans, including the housing element, consistency between planning and zoning, impact on land use and location of housing and the county's ability to meet its regional housing needs. Impact on the funding for infrastructure, impact on the community's ability to attract and retain businesses and employment, impact on ag lands, open space and traffic congestion and the impact on the sustainable Santa Cruz County plan. The conclusions of the report are in line with what the Regional Transportation Commission staff has been saying. There are no surprises in this report. That's another conclusion that the Greenway Initiative has no negative impacts on any of the factors studied. And we will have positive impacts from lower costs to build a trail, ability to attract competitive grants for active transportation and the fact that current repairs to the tracks exceed the RTC's current and foreseeable budget capacity. It is also important to note that all the hysteria generated by some members of the Commission, the Greenway Initiative, as the report clearly says, is not inconsistent with parks, recreation and public facilities element with the noise element, the housing element, the planning and zoning. The county also does not have any specific plans which would be inconsistent with the Greenway Initiative. I think it's high time to stop the misinformation by some commissioners. Thankfully, the voters will be able to make informed decision on the Greenway Initiative, which is consistent with the county's current general and specific plans. Thank you very much. Thank you. So this is a last call for speakers for oral communications. I don't see any other hands up. And so with that, we will move on and I will ask the staff. Are there any additions or changes to today's agenda? There's no changes to the agenda. However, there are a few handouts. There are handouts for items number seven. Nine, twenty three and twenty six. Those are all posted on our website. Thank you. Hey, we will now move on to our consent agenda. All items appearing on the consent agenda will be acted upon in one motion if no member of the RTC or the public wishes an item to be removed and discussed as a regular item. And members of the commission can ask questions now or seek clarification, add directions to consent items without removing those items. I will ask first ask commissioners if you have any items you would like to pull from the consent agenda. This is item number four through twenty one. And are there members I do see hands up. Are there members of the public? Are you wanting us to pull an item or are you wanting to speak to an item? I guess I'll I'll start with. I'll just go to the public and ask that madam chair. I don't think the public has the right to speak to items unless they're pulled. In other words, we actually do allow members to speak to items before we move the entire consent agenda and at the RTC members may request that I be called. OK, thank you. I am reading from a script a little bit. I'll take your word for it. Thank you. OK, so we do have two members of the public with your hands raised. I'll go out. I'll take it out to the public, not hearing any anything from commissioners on items to be pulled. And our first speaker, it will be Trink Praxel. Thank you, chair and members of the commission. I did want to follow up on some written comments that Fort submitted regarding item seven on the state and federal legislative program. We this may, in fact, our comments may be what Commissioner McPherson was referring to in terms of questions about funding. And we really support the concept of a funding workshop. So thank you for that. A director Preston has repeatedly stated that funding for the development of electric rail system can't be sought until after an EIR is concluded. Yet we see funding for transportation projects allocated before an EIR is completed. So it would be very helpful to understand some of those processes, what and so that we can understand what technically has to be completed before funding can be sought for any stage of a rail project on the branch line. We feel that the commission split vote in May of 21 on the adoption of a draft business plan for the TCAA was not a rejection of rail itself since the majority of the commission voted in February of that year last year to accept the TCAA study, which identified electric light rail as the preferred option for our branch line. The May 21 tie vote was instead, I think, a reluctance by some commissioners to move forward at that time due to cost and lack of funding. In fact, director Preston said at the time that he would continue to seek funding for the preferred option. Now with an historic amount of rail funding becoming available this year, the commission should be moving quickly to research these new funding opportunities, resolve cost issues and move the majority's preference for a rail forward. We believe the RTC should immediately direct staff to seek and identify funds, including from Measure D to undertake the next development and environmental review phase of the electric passenger rail project. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Praxel. Our next speaker is Keith Otto. Yeah, sound check. Can you hear me OK? We can. Excellent. Thanks very much. Keith Otto, county resident, I want to also comment on item seven, the 2022 legislative program. So these are policies and programs that the commission supports, in particular, on page 33 and 34 of your agenda packet, lists support to expand the authority, the RTC and local entities to increase taxes and fees for transportation projects and to also support efforts to lower the voter thresholds for local transportation funding measures from the two thirds super majority to a simple majority or 55% vote. This is the wrong way to go, as it will only further intensify the division that we have in this county on transportation priorities. We should at the least support the thresholds that we have now, or if anything, actually raise the bar on voter thresholds in order to focus on areas where there is greater agreement. Consider this. Last month, the commissioner stated that a majority public position would have him rethink his perspective, but not if it was a 51%, 49% split. But if there was a decisive public position. So, yes, again, let's focus on areas where there is greatest agreement. And the ask here today is to is not to simply adjust the verb used to describe your action on this item from adopt or accept to, you know, receive, but rather, right, which was done last year as similar concerns were raised, but rather seriously reconsider the commission position on these items. Thanks for listening. Thanks for your time. Thank you, Mr. Otto. Our next speaker is Bill Phillips. Yes, good morning. Is item nine being cold or can we talk to item nine right now? You can speak to item nine at this time. Yes. Oh, I want to thank the Commission for getting those goats. The goats did a great job. I'm on the weed control and I'm concerned about herbicides that it looks like somebody's going to come and spray herbicides on our tracks behind our house. And right now there's a lot of trash back there that's more important to cleaning up than spraying herbicides. That's just my opinion. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Phillips. So I do not see any additional hands up. So I will bring it back to the Commission for discussion and action. Before we do that, I'd like to ask that there are, there were a couple of questions and given the activity of the goats and the follow-up that we're doing, I'm just wondering, Mr. Mendez, Deputy Director Mendez, if you could just make a comment about that because I think that we're making real progress and I want to make sure the public is clear about how we're approaching this. Yes, certainly, Chair Brown. Yes, as everyone is aware, the Commission did embark on a pilot project to use goats for vegetation control. They did so on about a little over two miles of the rail line right away. And it seems like the worth of it was very good. They did a very good job in clearing a lot of vegetation. But of course, the goats, they don't need everything. So there are some things out there that still require mowing and the goat contractor, so you also want to do some somewhere herbicide. Using the goats going before you do the mowing and any herbicide will have a positive impact in terms of you don't need as much work to do some additional vegetation removal by human and machine power. And then also, you'll need less herbicide and probably lower level herbicides when they are needed and they'll be more effective. So the herbicides that are going to be applied or proposed to be applied would be done by hand. And two of those are not considered hazardous for the federal criteria. One of them has category five hazard, which is the lowest level of hazard. But it would be applied only to the pompous grass by hand directly at the base of the pompous grass. And that is because the contractor said in order to have something that's more effective to deal with the pompous grass that would be necessary. But certainly with employing a variety of vegetation control strategies including goats certainly will allow the ROTC to better maintain the vegetation on the line and be less reliant on any herbicides. But at some points, sometimes it will be necessary once simultaneously. Thank you, deputy director Mendes. So I just want to say thank you for all of the work that staff has done to really work towards reducing both the quantity and the toxicity levels of the herbicides that we are using and for taking this step with the goats, I think we are making progress, and of course I'm very much interested in a full transition to non non toxic approaches and and I think that we've we've we're doing a great job and I just want to thank you director men that deputy director men does in particular for your work on this. I also want to make one quick comment and I I see hands up from commissioners but just in response to commissioner McPherson's comments about trying and then a member of the public supporting that looking at trying to do some kind of workshop or one on one on transportation funding and I think that's a wonderful idea. I will follow up with staff to try to work something out to to make that happen and on a future agenda. So I I didn't want to leave that hanging. And with that I will call on commissioner cap it. Thank you. I just want to make a motion for approval of the consent agenda and a quick comment. It was good to hear Jack Nielsen's voice again. I miss seeing you man. Anyway I hope you're doing well. We'll get together and we'll talk. Thanks. OK we have a motion commissioner Bertrand. You are I mean I was going to second the motion. I'll say I'm not. He already did. That's great. OK we have a motion and a second. And so I will ask now for a roll call vote on the consent agenda. Commissioner Bertrand. I agree. Commissioner Brown. I. Commissioner Johnson. Commission alternate lowl Hearst. I. Commissioner cap it. Commission alternate Schifrin. I. Commission alternate Quinn. Yes. Commissioner Connick. I. Mission McPherson. I. Commissioner Peterson. I. Mission Parker. I. And Commissioner Rockin. I. OK. Thank you. So we'll now move on to item 22. Commissioner reports and we're moving through this agenda quickly. Commissioner MacPherson you could have done your your announcement here. But I'll ask if if others have any reports you'd like to give to to us today. Commissioner Hearst. Yes I just wanted to report that the vision zero Watsonville crew has met recently and we've got a whole big list of a transportation pedestrian and bike friendly suggestions and plans coming up in the Pajaro Valley and you know let's just get everybody moving and folks need to get to work and they need to get home as well and materials need to get to where they belong and where they came from as well. So I'm committed to trying to move the RTC agenda forward and make sure our residents in the Pajaro Valley have equity and opportunities with their families as well. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Bertrand. Thank you chair. So in the consent agenda it mentioned supporting me as CRCC member and I've tended 3 meetings so far. The main issue with the CRCC is commuter traffic on the San Francisco Bay side of this peninsula potentially all the way down to Salinas and maybe beyond. But we do have some interaction with TAMC and as things come up there I'll report on that as you know they would like to do a station in the Pajaro area and transportation south from there. So that's an issue that they're working on. We've been supportive of that of the RTC and as those actions come forward I'll bring that up and I was so motivated by the discussion that I'm going to take my wife and I to Santa Barbara. No, so San Luis Obispo for an evening. There's great restaurants there and you can take the rail line down there. It's quite a wonderful ride. I've been told I was a long commuter from San Francisco to Sunnyvale using the SB so I do appreciate lines when they do offer that kind of convenience and I think it would be a great day night or a great day weekend. So it's very romantic to anyone who recently got married I think. See you later. Thank you Commissioner Bertrand. Are there any other commissioners? Commissioner Rockin. I was just going to suggest to Jacques that you might want to tell people the full name of what CRCC stands for. You know, my memory nodule is not working as well as it should be. Oh, I'm sorry. I will report on that. Reporting council. Yes, yes. Thank you. Sorry, I didn't mean to hit that source spot there. I mean, they are seriously working on extending commuter traffic south and it's not just a minor effort. It's a major effort. And as some people report, there's more money available. And I think where something's actually actually active right now, the money will probably get used there. So I'll report it as more comes up. Thank you, Commissioner Bertrand. We appreciate your service to that rail coordinating committee. I don't see any other hands up. I just wanted to make a quick comment about the bicycle incentive, electric bicycle incentive programs that have been offered by the Central Coast Energy Board. And also, I've just recently returned to the Monterey Bay Air Resources District Board. And at our last meeting, we had a conversation about the eBike incentive program through that body. These are incentives for low income people in the county who and in actually beyond the county in the region who are interested in purchasing an eBike. These incentives are stackable. The MBARD incentive is $1,000 and you can stack that on with the 3CE Central Coast Community Energy incentives. And with that, it's a pretty good deal. We have increased the, or changed the requirements, the low income requirements that to make it a little bit easier for folks to access those incentive programs. So I encourage people to check those out. And you can find information about the MBARD incentive program. It's right there at the top. If you just go to mbardmbard.org. So really great incentives for getting people moving on electric bikes at a more affordable price. And I will now seeing no other comments move on to our next item that is our director's reports. Mr. Preston. Thank you madam chair and commissioners and members of the public. I have a couple of announcements to make today. First is regarding the county wide active transportation plan. The county of Santa Cruz has released a draft active transportation plan for public review, which will be used to identify needed investments and improvements in the county's walking and bicycling infrastructure. The active transportation plan updates previous work to improve bicycle infrastructure and will represent the first comprehensive plan for pedestrian facilities in unincorporated Santa Cruz County. It provides community identified needs as well as recommendations to support and encourage walking and biking, including possible funding sources. The goal is to support a healthy community improve affordable transportation options for low income and vulnerable residents and help the county achieve statewide statewide goals to address climate change by reducing vehicle miles traveled. The active transportation is really the best way of reducing carbon emissions. Public comment received by March 25 will be reviewed and maybe incorporated into the final draft document, which will be presented to the Board of Supervisors. The second announcement is regarding the retirement of RTC senior planner Ginger Dycar. I am both saddened by the retirement of an outstanding and dedicated employee, but also excited for Ginger to be moving into a new and rewarding chapter of her life. As customary, there is a resolution to honor Ginger, which provided as a handout to today's agenda and I'm going to read from that resolution and then hand it back over to you, Chair Brown, to see if there's a motion to approve. Regarding Ginger, whereas Miss Dycar will retire on March 4, that's tomorrow 2022 after more than 12 years of extraordinary service to the Santa Cruz County community. I see Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission employee and whereas Ginger Dycar senior transportation planner began her career with the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission on June 1, 2009 as an intern advancing the RTC's mapping, transportation monitoring and greenhouse gas emission performance measurement capabilities, and whereas during her tenure, Miss Dycar has earned the respect and adoration of commissioners, management, coworkers, colleagues and community members for her demonstration, demonstrated professionalism, dedication, understanding, tenacity, cooperation, work ethic, caring and enthusiasm to improve transportation in Santa Cruz County. And whereas during her tenure at the RTC, Miss Dycar has managed and played an essential role in advancing many projects and programs, managing major planning efforts, including the regional transportation plan, the unified corridor investment study and transit corridor of alternatives analysis and demonstrating outstanding grant writing skills, securing millions of dollars for trial, highway and other projects in Santa Cruz County. And whereas as a co-worker, Miss Dycar has been a well respected team member, team leader and mentor displaying great cooperation, coordination, compassion, encouragement, enthusiasm, generosity, teamwork and tenacity work effort, and whereas Miss Dycar has served the people of Santa Cruz County with the highest level of loyalty, integrity, respect, professionalism, dedication, and she will be missed by all. Therefore, it shall be resolved by the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission that we, the members of the RTC Board, do hereby recommend Ginger Dycar, commend Ginger Dycar for her more than 12 years of dedicated and exceptional service to the community of Santa Cruz County with the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission. We further extend our sincerest and most grateful appreciation and best wishes for many years of great health, much happiness and immense prosperity and her well-earned retirement. With that, I hand it back over to you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Director Preston. Yes, round of applause. So yeah, I see that there are members of the commission who would like to speak and I also will entertain a motion. I am and Commissioner Rock and I see your hand. I'm going to go in order that I saw them go up. Commissioner McPherson. Yeah, I just want to say Ginger, having been a member of RTC for 10 years now, she has been a tremendous asset, especially in the grant writing element of our program. She has been just professional and forward-looking all throughout. She's been just terrific for the RTC and for the people of Santa Cruz County and I really want to thank her for dedicated service. Much appreciated. You're an outstanding person and we're going to miss you. Thank you very much for your service. Thank you, Commissioner McPherson. I want to remind the commissioners that we are also looking for a motion to approve this resolution. I'd like to make that motion. I wanted to give you that opportunity. I have a point of procedure. Yes. I have a question for staff when this resolution was put on the agenda. It was put on the agenda from the original agenda and then it was the resolution itself was provided as a handout yesterday. But it's part of the staff, the executive director's report, correct? Yes, it is. I have a separate item on the agenda. I totally support everything that Commissioner McPherson is saying. I think I'm very saddened that Ginger is leaving. I think she's a tremendous asset to the commission. But I have a brown act concern about adding an item to the agenda without public notice. I don't know if I understand that there needs to be 72 hours notice. So, you know, I wonder if Steve could weigh in on this because my suggestion is if we can do a motion today, I would second it. If we can't add the brown act to a motion today, I would continue this to our next meeting so that it could be on that consent agenda for approval. I think it's, you know, I know it's a little picky and it's not controversial, but I'm just concerned that where we need to get public notice, we get public notice. So, Mr. Mattis, can you weigh in on this, please? I can. Mr. President, this is part of your executive director's report, correct? That was the anticipated placement of this, correct? Yes, and it was listed and provided with more than 72 hours notice when the agenda was posted. However, the resolution itself was not posted itself material until yesterday. As long as it was listed and referenced, it is appropriate that commission can act on it today. The resolution is settled. Thank you. Okay, we have a motion and a second, and I see Commissioner Rock can house a hand up. I just wanted to add to all the list of positive attributes, which with which I totally agree to talk about Ginger's accessibility to commission members and the public. For someone who's doing really high level work that involves, you know, often going into the weeds to find statistics and information and process various kinds of very complex processes. It's great to have somebody who really can explain things clearly to the public and then such a commitment to getting the public involved in the decisions that we have to make as a commission. So I just just wanted to add that I don't want to change the resolution. I think it's got this. You can find probably words in there to attach that thought to but I just think that that Ginger's work in that area has just really been fantastic and deserves some specific recognition. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Rock and I, I, let's see, I see that Deputy Director Mendez has a hand up as well. I'll call on you next. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I've been extremely fortunate to work with Ginger the entire time there at the at the RTC. And I remember when I first met Ginger she was seeking to volunteer with the RTC to help with some of our mapping work and she actually was establishing our mapping at the RTC. And when I first met her and I, and I reviewed her resume, my immediate reaction was, why would she want to volunteer at the RTC when I was abundantly clear that she could do so much more. She's a great fortune at the RTC she decided to volunteer at the RTC and do so much much more than that so I'm extremely grateful, Ginger for all all your great work. And, and you've been a tremendous, you've made tremendous contributions, not just to the RTC but to the community as a whole so thank you very much. Okay, Ms. Daikar I see your hand is up we do have a few more commissioners and a member of the public who wanted to say a couple words so I'll I do want to give you a chance to address the commission and the public. Just a moment if that's all right. Okay. And so let's see we have commission rehearsed. I just want to say thanks to Ms. Daikar and her long standing support for all our transportation projects in the Pajaro Valley she has really proved to be a great friend of our residents, South of freedom Boulevard and north as well. So I just wanted to congratulate her and thank her for her long and distinguished service thank you. And I do see a member of the public. So I want to call on Sally for rail and trail before we ginger the floor. Thank you. I just say that I'm just so sad to see that ginger is leaving. You know, as everybody's talked about you know she's been she's very professional and smart and she's done a lot of great things but she's also very kind and respectful when she's talking with those of us in the public who are interested in these issues. And, and that is very appreciated and is rarer than you might think. And we were really going to miss ginger and I know there've been challenges and I'm really sorry that you've decided to leave the RCC I think it's going to be a real loss, but I really hope that you, you know, you just you deserve to put together the life you want. And I just thank you very much for all your service on the commission the community has really benefited from your service at the RTC, even the people who don't know you're there and what you're doing but but some of us really see you and really appreciate you. Thank you. Okay, thank you. With that, I will turn the floor over to miss die car to share some thoughts with us. Thank you so much. Thank you all for your kind words of appreciation. It's my time at the RTC has been some of the most rewarding work experiences of my career. And it's really hard to believe that I've been there. It's, I was thinking it was 12 but it always reminded me that's actually 13 ginger. You've been here for 13 years. I've worked in a lot of different places I've worked in academic institutions, I've been a consultant, obviously as a government employee, not only here but another places as well. And I just really want to make sure, you know that I get across that the caliber of people at the RTC staff is some of the most professional and dedicated to serve in the Santa Cruz County community. I've worked with over the many years of my career, really been honored to be part of the RTC team. I'm really proud of what we have achieved there. And I know, Director Preston went over some of that, but I would love to just spend a couple minutes to just go over in his last 13 years what we have achieved at the RTC join my tenure. And as with myself as the project manager, the regional transportation plan took a new direction and bringing performance measure target and monitoring to work toward a sustainable transportation system for Santa Cruz County. The unified corridor investment study was completed to determine the best investments for the main east west corridors in the county highway one so Cal in the rail corridor. As part of the unified corridor study prior to the actual planning study RTC staff worked with consultant team to develop the Santa Cruz County travel demand model, which has been used by the RTC. And both the unified corridor study, the transit card alternatives analysis, which we couldn't have done without this Santa Cruz County travel demand model, and the county of Santa Cruz has utilized the model as well and updating their general plan. And we have this as a tool for our community now, which is incredibly helpful in working toward in the future. And as part of the RTC was awarded over 100 million when the Senate bill one programs the solutions for congested corridors and local partnership program for the highway one auxiliary lanes and bus one shoulders project as well as numerous bike and pedestrian improvements on so Cal and the unified corridor study was critical in securing this funding as it was required to have a corridor plan be considered for these funds. The transit card alternatives analysis was completed with much discussion on the various ways the rail corridor should be used, none of these projects were straightforward. We were successful, not only as RTC staff as a team but as a commission to bring these projects forward as best we could. I'd like to take a minute now to just call out one person in particular for my appreciation and that is deputy director Luis Mendez. Luis has been my supervisor all 13 years at the RTC. I want to thank you Luis for trusting me to do the work that I was needed to get my projects completed. If I needed your input, I would come walk in and knock on your door. And you're mentoring over the years, sharing your knowledge of transportation planning in the history of the agency was really invaluable in my development as a transportation planner. You were always available for me, I just needed to come down and find you. And I very much appreciate that Luis always felt respected working for you. Thank you to all, all of you for your desire to put all of our skills together to better our community. This is really a case of it takes a village to get these projects completed. I know I will look back on this time with so many fond memories. Thank you for all for working so hard to make Santa Cruz County a friendlier place to get around your work is incredibly important, particularly now as we deal with the climate crisis. I wanted to say just one thing to the Watsonville community, one of my plans and retirement, I have a lot of hobbies. One of them is creating mosaics. I've been volunteering with Kathleen Cruschetti on the Watsonville Briante project. I just incredibly love that project. It is so fantastic for the community of Watsonville and so many different ways. And that's pretty much first on my list to get back there and try to volunteer on a weekly basis. It's really a fantastic project you're really fortunate to have Kathleen Cruschetti in your community. And I just feel like I just value the ability to support the Watsonville community in that way. So thank you. Appreciate your, your kind words. Thank you so much, Ginger, you are, you know, just you were really will be missed at the commission, your professionalism, your accessibility and your commitment to our community, all, all of the adjectives that came up in the resolution I as I was listening I kept thinking okay there's one more I'm going to use it and it was covered and but all of it is really true and you will be missed and we look forward to hearing about your new adventures and seeing them, the mosaic develop. Congratulations. And with that I will let's see we have a motion on the floor and I'll open that up for a vote on the resolution. Before I take the roll call I just want to say ginger I'm so going to miss you. Commissioner Bertrand. I definitely agree. Commissioner Brown. Aye aye. Commissioner Johnson. Aye. Commissioner alternate hers. Enthusiastically yes. Commissioner Caput. Aye. Commissioner alternate Schifrin. Aye. Commissioner alternate Quinn. Yes. Commissioner Konig. Aye. Commissioner McPherson. Aye. Commissioner Peterson. Aye. Commissioner Parker. Aye. Commissioner Rockin. Aye. He was unanimous. Okay, thank you everyone. Up next we have our Caltrans report. And I will turn that over to Mr. Eads. All right. Thank you Madam Chair, members of the commission. I'll start by saying we have really appreciated Ginger's work as well. And so we're going to miss you, Ginger. Thank you. Next thing I wanted to talk about is District 5. Caltrans District 5 has released our new active transportation plan that covers all of our bicycle and pedestrian facilities on state highway. District wide. It can be found at catplan.org. You could do forward slash district 5 or just you'll find it if you go to catplan.org. It provides it's really a two part. Compendium of one is a written document. Recording in progress. A tool to help us move in that direction. And also to look forward to partnering with a number of different entities to help make sure that we are moving forward with active transportation systems that really work for our presidents. Next thing I want to mention is a couple of clean California announcements. First, District 5 has reached its goal between July 2021 through June 22. Well, I should say we're moving forward with our goal where about 72% complete. We've removed 13,000 cubic yards of litter as of beginning of February. We have a total goal of 18,000. But the 13,000 we've achieved so far equates to 885 garbage trucks being full with trash being removed from our roadways and District 5 state highways and District 5 so that's a significant achievement. Last thing I wanted to mention is that the governor announced this week the clean California local grant program awards. And 2 projects were selected in Santa Cruz County. The first is in the city of Santa Cruz and it's the main beach restrooms. The grant amount was 727,000 and it's going to complete renovation of the main street public restrooms, upgrading those facilities to be ADA compliant water conserving fixtures and a number of other things. It also includes picnic tables, trash and recycling receptacles and signage to discourage littering. The second project is the Santa the county of Santa Cruz. It was the Green Valley Road multi use trail improvement project. The grant amounts on that is 5 million, and it will be upgrading an existing pedestrian trail with previous two way or two way trail system multi use to provide safe accessible connectivity between the city of Watsonville and Santa Cruz. It's a mile long path and 10 feet in width. It also included educational programs, community events, and art installations. So I just wanted to, in summary, just highlight that there were 18 grant awards submitted within Caltrans District 5. 5 were awarded, two of them within Santa Cruz County. The total grant amount awarded in District 5 was just over 10 million. And so congrats to city and county staff for capturing a sizable portion of that. That concludes my report. Happy to take questions. Thank you, Mr. Eads. I see Commissioner McPherson has a hand up. Thank you. I just thank you for your report. I just want to point out how excited I am that the wildlife under crossing highway 17 at roll curve has begun. That was one of the two earmarks, the other one being the stretch between the Santa Rosa Valley school complex and Felton that was earmarked in Measure D. It is terrific to have that start for the interest of public safety and wildlife protection and I'm really excited that this is underway. Thank you very much. Thank you voters of Santa Cruz County for including this in Measure D. Thank you, Commissioner McPherson. Commissioner Caput. Thank you. Scott, thanks a lot. Appreciate where we're ready to go on Highway 152 and Pullahan and College Road. That's something we've been working on for about 10 years. And I think we finally got the funding and we solved some of the eminent domain problems that we were able to do it outside the eminent domain. Thank you for all your work. Commissioner Schifrin. Yes, thank you. Thank you for the report. I want to echo Commissioner McPherson's comments about Highway 17 under crossing. I had a question about the act of transportation plan. The plan includes a variety of projects throughout the county. And I just, I'm not sure the question is for you, Mr. Ease or for RTC staff, but I just wanted to make sure that if appropriate those projects are also in the regional transportation plan. If I may clarify, Madam Chair. Yes, please. The plan actually does not include projects. If we're talking about the R-active, the District 5 CalTrans active transportation plan. It identifies needs and areas of needs that we will be looking to target with projects. But the specific solutions for each location are not yet identified. But it does identify needs at this point in time. To the degree we are starting to move into projects and we have clarity on specific locations and we do in many locations that are already identified and reflected in the regional transportation plans. So yes, to the degree we already have a solution in mind. Those should already be in the regional transportation plans to the degree that those evolve and we have clarity on what the solutions will be. Then we will need to work with RTC staff to include those in the future updates. So I read an active transportation plan that Ecology Action put out. Is that a different active transportation plan than the one you're talking about? Yes, this was released by CalTrans District 5. So this is an effort that we've been working on in the past few years. It was a consultant-led effort and it's specific to state highways in District 5. I see. So the county has its own active transportation plan going through the process. All right. Well, I guess so. We have a few ATPs going down. I had another question about the Clean California grant for the trail in South County. Is that funding source? I don't know. I'm not familiar with that project. I assume it's not part of the rail trail. But I wonder whether Clean California grants could be used to help fund rail trail segments. I'll clarify what I know. And that is that this is an existing trail and the project will be rehabilitating the trail and bringing it, you know, really making it an approved writable surface and some other things associated with it. The Clean California program wasn't necessarily focused towards active transportation improvements. And I will say also that project also includes beautification with landscaping and other things. The funding source was really targeted to beautification. So it could have been used for parks or roadways. But it was aimed at beautification and trash removal, educational campaigns, and the like. So while in theory, somebody could have applied for a new rail trail facility, it probably wouldn't have competed well just because of the overall cost of the project. Considering the other candidates that were in the mix. Of course, some of us think the rail trail is a beautiful beautification project. But I hear what you're saying. Thank you. Commissioner Bertrand. Thank you, Chair. Yes, I have a question, Scott. So we just approved some legislation and earlier vote. And one of the things there was a state effort to deal with underutilized by ways and turn them into multi modal corridors. And so I'm trying to understand what that definition might be in from your understanding. Do we have any underutilized by ways in Santa Cruz that would qualify. I'm actually not aware of that legislation. So it'd be helpful to maybe have a little bit more information about that specific legislation, because probably some sort of a definition that I'm not aware of that they're using. Okay, well Sony page 8.3 of the agenda. Okay, sorry, I'll check that out. Thanks. Commissioner Hurst. I just want to thank Mr ease or is work with Caltrans and all our highway intersections in the in the power of valley highway one highway 129 and highway 152 we've got a lot of mileage here in the power of valley and there's always a great need for beautification and litter control and I want to thank our partners at Caltrans for their work also in our downtown to make our downtown more pedestrian and bike friendly and support businesses to thank you very much. Commissioner Rock and I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank Scott and Caltrans for the way in which the agency has really transformed its approach to transportation issues over the last decade. It was a time I think when Caltrans was seen as focused purely on the automobile and the most narrow kind of engineering way and the responsiveness and the highway nine project in Santa Cruz that would be working with the local county and the neighborhood. It's really a different kind of approach that we've received in the past and I think the example of working on the highway 17 underpass for wildlife, you know, with a private sector group the in our county really the land trust really demonstrates a responsiveness to sort of public changing public ideas about what's important in our society and I really feel we're really well served by Caltrans in general. Not not also in the area of the automobile where that's necessary but but this just really represents the fact that it's a supple agency that's begun to really respond to people's needs rather than simply set on a goal in a narrow way that doesn't respond well to the public so thank you. I would hear here I would echo Commissioner Rockins comments really appreciate your work your participation in our commission and and all of the things that Caltrans is doing to support local communities in their efforts to promote active transportation and sustainable infrastructure as well as those services. I see, let's see director Preston you have comments questions. Yeah, I heard a lot of comment today about the wildlife crossing and I was hoping to make an announcement today about a groundbreaking ceremony, but there's been so much interest from our state legislators including from the governor's office that we've had to postpone it to try to get schedules to correspond. So I wanted to assure the commission that as soon as we have a date for a groundbreaking ceremony that will be putting on an announcement. Thank you for that. Look for the announcement. I do let's see do I do not see any members of the public who have any comments on this item. So we will move on to our next item this is an update from the city of Santa Cruz our city engineer. Nathan when we'll give us a report, and I think I saw. Mr when yes there you are. I'll turn the floor over to you. Thank you madam chair. Good morning RTC commissioners and the public. My name is Nathan when I'm the city engineer for the city of Santa Cruz and today I have a little slideshow. Before you guys to present transportation project updates that the city public works team is working on hold up right now. Just confirming that you guys can see that. Yes, we see him. Okay, perfect. Okay, so. I'm going to slide here. So here's just a brief overview of the presentation for today. I'm I thought I'd break it down to be different parts, you know past construction, present and future. So projects that were recently completed in last year. And then projects with shovels and USA markings that are on the ground currently in the city. And then projects that we're looking forward to getting into construction in the near future. What I'm going to say about this, all these projects is that the city of Santa Cruz is, you know, we mentioned it before about active transportation, we are very committed to active transportation here. And as I go through this presentation you'll see that each one of these projects has bike and pedestrian improvements throughout. So we'll continue that tradition here. So past projects. Okay, so in 2021, we had our overlay project. The city of Santa Cruz maintains 136 miles of paved streets. We've built eight projects using city measure H, as well as the regional measure D funds. Right now we're our PCI or pavement condition index is running about 65 or not until roadways, but it's been declining year by year over the past four years. And so even with these measures, we're just keeping up maintaining our roadways. This project right here completed 0.82 miles of paved streets. It was completed in September of 21 by a contractor MCK service out of Martinez. And then some of the streets that you can see right there. Some of the notable improvements that we were able to get with regards to active transportation were like on Fairmont we added new curb ramps and new high visibility crosswalks the continental crosswalks I like to call those the piano key crosswalks. And then on Market Street also got some new green back shared shared lane markings, also known as shadows, only known as shows, and some radar feedback radar speed feedback signs so if you've ever bike commuted along Market Street in the city of Santa Cruz. There's a curve there there's no bike lanes unfortunately it's a tight narrow right away, but we've added some, you know, speed signs to help reduce speeds and then the green markings that you know help encourage bikes to take the full lane. So here, a really active street, high collector corridor, a collector street, also received a refresh of some shares. I should also note to that the city has completed some recent traffic work orders for work installing some more shares that are along the law of the agon prospect heights down to harbor high as well as the law of the elementary school. So those are those are coming coming. This next project that we completed last year, completed in September of 2021 by pavement coatings was our surface seal project. It included 37 local and residential roadways. We have about 3.51 miles of surface seal and a surface seal is, we put a slurry down with a chip seals and some aggregate and then a finished top of micro surface that goes on top of it so it's a three layer system that we use mainly for our local roadways. Here's a photo of in the background there of Delaware, where it turns into Laguna, and again Delaware being a major collector in the city. We were excited to be able to install protected and buffer bike lanes on certain sections of Delaware where they're right away allowed. This project costs is right there and then 30,000 funded with measure D and local funds. Next, we have the Pacific Avenue sidewalk project is when we were really excited about and so if you've ever been down to the, the boardwalk or the war. We've had a missing piece of sidewalk for for decades or forever. And we're really happy to complete this project last September as well. This is the annual feet of sidewalk and new bike lane, and it really is a critical piece that gets all the, the folks whether your local tourists down into that beach area. Some notable improvements that we also were able to solve was there was flooding so if you ever go by there in the wintertime when we used to have rain, you'd see that we had a low spot in the roadway and it would flood and regularly. We put some new storm drain pipes to be great. The carbon gutter out there with this new 10th of wide sidewalk, add street trees, decorative sidewalk, decorative lighting again all matching the themes in that in that area. What was also really a nice improvement is that we coordinated pretty close we recorded closely Metro, I met him on site during the design phase. We actually relocated their bus stop. So it was actually at the intersection where Pacific in front meets, and it actually improves the, the access get for people unloading and loading to get down to the beach, as well as for the bus drivers when they're crossing the intersection they have some more traffic to get in and out of that bus stop. We also felt that it was worth the improvement to add a concrete bus pad there as well. So it will last over time. They'll be excited about that. Okay. And then last project I wanted to show that we've recently completed was real trail second seven phase one. One of the stretches for natural bridges drive to Bay and California Avenue. So 1.3 miles long 12 to 16 foot wide multi use trail. Some of the cool things that kind of in the design part that came out of it was this cross bike striping, which encourages bikes to stay on their bike when crossing the roadways. We also had a cycle track, a two way cycle track on Bay Street, utilizing the existing roadways to connect different trail segments. We were able to add some bike counters bike and pet counters with this project. And based on what we're seeing right now it's about 600 daily users. And that's what you probably see right now in the winter months. But last summer, we were about peaks of about 2400 on on weekends so you could tell when it was really nice people were coming and really utilizing that trail. And so we hope I expect to, you know, to see you know those numbers actually increase in time. This one had a lot of different funding sources cost was 6.4 million. You know we use city and RCT RTC measure D at a federal earmarks and stiffness and local funds. And then the last thing I'll say to you is as far as those users, it really is split between bikes and pets. When we look at the data, it's 5050 there's not overwhelmingly a number of bikes or overwhelming number of pets using the drill. So it's really, it's really is a great mix use facility. Okay. So, current construction. Here's a picture of the northeast corner of highway one nine. And then this projects highway one nine is about increasing the capacity through this intersection. I apologize I meant to look up the volume but I do know that this is the busiest intersection in the city is or in the county of Santa Cruz. What this project is going to do is add a northbound lane on highway nine southbound lane on highway nine, as well as a southbound lane on highway one. This is going to improve the capacity of the folks coming out of, you know, the Harvey West or highway nine area to get on to southbound highway one. We were able to work with Caltrans to get new bike lanes as well so we're really excited about again a new facility to actually get on on highway nine. And then the it's in construction right now and we estimate completion sometime the summer so July of 22 there I spent right now and this is funded by a stiff and local funds. Next project that we have that's going to start construction actually on Monday is the Riverwalk lighting project. This project was funded by the ATP cycle three program as well as a local match. This project is to install 65 new LED light fixtures along the San Lorenzo River Riverwalk on the east and west bank north of the water street bridge so between highway one and water street on both sides of the river. We're adding lights will also be adding lights in along the path at San Lorenzo Park. This project is estimated also be complete by mid summer and will hopefully encourage more people to use this facility, both in the early mornings and at night. This is a great off roadway active transportation facility. Okay. And future construction. So here's a rendering of segment seven phase two, which I'll get into here in a second. Segment seven phase two, you know ends right where or begins I should say war phase one ends at the intersection of Bay in California. This section is point eight miles long, just 12 feet wide and run long runs along the railway to an ends at Pacific Avenue. Bids for this project are expected to go out in the next week or two. So, and this will be due back in early April. This project is funded by ATP cycle five grant, as well as a city measure, a city and RTC measure B. Segment eight nine is not included in today's presentation, but I do want to let you know that there will be a community open house for segments eight nine scheduled for the end of the month we're working on locking down a date and providing details in the next week or so. It will be the first of many public meetings over the next two to three months. So, just want to give you guys a heads up on that. Next project is the future project is the chestnut storm Jane and road rehabilitation project. This you may recall thank you was approved for step funds through your board so we really appreciate that and are happy to move this project forward as quickly as possible is anticipated to go out to bid tomorrow. This project is roughly 2.1 million dollars a step local measure D funds. Some of the exciting things that are going to come out of the of this project will be some protected and buffered by things on chestnut mainly on the downhill portion if you've ever come into the city from the highway there speeds are a little fast or thank you. And we're going to narrow down the lanes and add a protected bike lane, at least on the southbound working on seeing if we can get managed getting something in the northbound in the future. With these paving projects. The city ends up upgrading a lot of the required to really to update the curb ramps to the ADA compliant and with that. It's really exciting because we actually get a fresh opportunity to look at improving the cross it's not just from the curve ramps but from signage from striping from lighting so just that will also get some new sidewalks. And then in the future there will be an actually an R and RRFB which is a rectangular rapid flashing beacon. Really highly effective device for for for yield compliance at the corner of church and chestnut here and that will be a separate project in the future. Okay. Next project is the Murray street bridge seismic retrofit. The prions and specs of this project are complete city staffs working on tending the final permits as well as the right away certification. We anticipate construction to start this September and take about two and a half years. This project is construction portion is anticipated costs 23.5 million and is fully funded by state and federal grants highway bridge program as well as prop one B. There will be stages of construction when when this goes will be different stages during the construction process with regards to temporary traffic control. It will be dependent on what the contractor submits once we have one wire, but it is anticipated that the eastbound direction will remain open at most times during construction and that the westbound may be diverted or detoured at times or most of the time. But again that will be dependent on what once we actually take it out to bed and have a contractor submit the traffic control plan for review. City staff is working on creating a dedicated webpage for this project in the future so expect to see something in the coming months to help inform the public of the projects progress as well as its impacts to the public right away. I've already started beginning the discussions with our regional partners on trying to coordinate our major projects are well aware of pure water so Cal and RTC and Cal trans and as well as the county's major projects that are up and coming. And so we'll work with them to try to have a unified message messaging for the public with regards to all of our impacts. And kind of on that note, my final slide here is a major project map. So the city public works department we just created this webpage. I think it went live on Monday so there's could be some little tweaks that need to be made but from the city of Santa Cruz comm webpage, if you search construction, the first thing that will pop up is this new major projects map. This map is for major public works projects and does not include minor projects utility projects or private development projects. You'll see right there that if you click on the icon GIS based and it will pull up project information, the title project description estimate cost estimate as well as construction estimate timeline. The hope is that with this, this will help direct the public to the correct project manager to provide some basic information on the project, if they should have any additional questions. There's also additional more info link that will actually take you to the prep public works plans and specs project webpage. So if you want more detail on the plans or specs or environmental review. You can also go to that more info link. And with that that concludes my presentation for today. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you Mr when I will go to the commission for questions. I see commissioner rockin and then commissioner shifrin. Mr brief comment I really want to thank the cities public works department and all the others involved in this as a person who rides my bicycle on many times during the week. These projects make a real difference to me in terms of safety that chestnut street improvements that protected bike lane on I ride that protected bike lane on Delaware almost daily and it's so much. It feels so much safer to ride behind those little. I mean a car could go over like you know it's not totally protected but the difference between the way the Wild West was before when you just didn't know where their car was just going to like not be paying attention swipe you. It just feels so much better and it's going to make such a big deal already. It's making a difference and we'll make so much more difference in the future. Thank you so much for this work. Commissioner shifrin. Yeah, I had a question about segment rail trail segment seven phase two. The slide indicated that the project was thought this September, but not be completed till March of 2025. Is it really going to take almost three years to complete the project. Oh, it is with the slide for segment seven phase to say 2025. Okay, I know it should only take a year. I apologize not to let me take a look at that. No, it should only take we were estimating 12 months. So if project goes into construction this April, we would last until April 23. Okay, I feel a whole lot better. Thank you very much. And, you know, the bid release seems to keep getting put off. Is that one or two weeks firm or is that likely to slide for the bids to be released. We're still waiting on some final quantities. But yes, I feel pretty comfortable that we'll be able to get up to bid next week. Thank you very much and for the presentation. Thank you very helpful to see the status of the project. Thank you. Let's see. I see. Commissioner Koenig. You have a question. Chair Brown and thank you, Mr. Wim for the presentation. I'm excited to see that you added bike counters on segment seven. A for the rail trail or phase one. I'm just really cool to have that data as far as bikers and walkers and daily active users. Thank you for that. That's a good foresight. I just want to use the opportunity to express my, my concern about the Murray street bridge project. I mean, as you mentioned, the timing in many ways couldn't be worse given that we're at this point looking at construction on all three. We're at the south corridors, really at the same time, potentially starting the auxiliary lane project between so cal drive and 41st Avenue this year resurfacing so cal drive for the bike and pedestrian and new signal timing project there. I mean, it all could start this summer fall. You know, I appreciate that you said you're working with with county public works on the timing for that. But I do have concerns that this could, if not done right, could be karma get in. And, you know, maybe, maybe it's a good time to take advantage of some of those e bike rebates that were mentioned earlier. I'll say to any extent I know I know this bridge project has been in the works for many years and it's going to take several years at least. I mean, if there's any way that you can be delayed a little bit. That would be appreciated, you know, it would make sense to begin after these capacity expanding projects are done on the highway or on, you know, flow improvements are done on so cal drive. So, not so much a question I mean maybe if there's any way you can elaborate on some of the ways you can work with the county and the RTC on the timing of this that would be great. Yeah, sure. So, I've already been in discussions and early discussions with engineering managers over at RTC as well as pure water so Cal. I'll start reaching out with the county and talking more about with the so called buffer bike basic congestion projects. I believe what all projects are moving forward and they are moving forward quickly and that it is going to be a challenge to maybe manage some of the expectations but what we're hoping to do is have more unified page or front so that the, you know, we can go to one maybe one source to find all this information as opposed to five different agencies because Caltrans RTC pure water county and city makes it pretty difficult, you know, and so that we're going to be fleshing that out here in the coming months but yeah we do work closely with you guys and the county, as well as again the other regional partners to try to have a robust kind of information campaign to help folks understand all the different projects that are happening impacts in the neighborhoods. Yeah, I mean, again the timing will be essential I understand the so called drive project shouldn't have to too much of a prolonged impact so I don't know if it's a situation where you could pause construction on the Murray street bridge during that time or how you can coordinate obviously it's going to be about most importance for anyone trying to commute between North and South County. So thank you. Commissioner Racken. This is, I'm just curious whether there you're actually looking at the possibility of almost daily coordination of the project so that on any given afternoon for example, one of these routes would be open, you know, as opposed to detour and that would require that it would be easy, but you know because you got projects that move ahead according to their own logic, but the I think the point that man was raised here is an important one and the idea that you might on any given day, you know, have a project not pause construction, again not for six months or a year but for an afternoon, or, you know, two days of a week or something so that that part one of these options might be open to people as opposed to all three of them being shut down at the exact same time. Yeah, I think that's a good comment. Thank you. Commissioner Quinn. Yeah, I, not to be redundant but is there any way we can see a project timeline and flow chart what's going to happen. The way to get around the harbor is either so Cal or the Murray street bridge, and if they're both tied up simultaneously, the traffic through those neighborhoods will be overwhelming and gridlock so I think having a plan on how people are going to get across around the harbor is going to be critical. And I'd like to ask that we see that plan, including what happens in the morning in the afternoon. That's a total gridlock and those people in the neighborhood will not be happy. Yeah. Thank you for the comment and it is going to be painful I think for our community as these projects get rolled out the once the project is abided and a contractors on board they'll submit a temporary traffic control plan for review. We'll review that and we're comfortable with it. That would be the time that we could share that with our regional partners and other projects to make sure that we're coordinated closely so that you know the one of the three veins of our of our county remains open. It's not all of them. So, Commissioner shifrin. I think having been around this Murray street bridge project for what seems like decades. I don't disagree with what people are saying but when the county was doing the park project at the harbor. There was a big concern that it would conflict with when the Murray street bridge project was done and need to be enabled meetings and there was all sorts of worries about the congestion. That our project has been done for seven years for a goodly number of years now in the Murray street bridge project still hasn't happened. Some of these projects tend to be delayed. If they all actually start construction at the same time. And then I think it is going to be a real challenge and it's going to take a lot of coordination. On the other hand, I'll be more concerned about all of that whether that's actually going to happen when they all go out to bid. And until that happens, I remain a little bit skeptical based on past experience whether in fact this gridlock is a problem that we're going to face. Commissioner Koenig. I just want an additional comment. I mean, you know, certainly agree hope for the best and plan for the worst and to that extent I do think Commissioner Quinn's suggestion that we have a clear schedule for for how these projects will be phased will be really helpful to provide that information to the public and establish some confidence. And that will be a way through. And then one additional question. Have you considered anything within the contract for the Murray street bridge any incentives to the builder to complete the work faster. The project has been done in the past with some of the construction of highways in Southern California, where you know there was a direct monetary incentive, you know for every, let's just say month that the project was completed ahead of schedule will be sort of a bonus to the contractor and any month after schedule or. Beyond schedule would be you know a detriment to the contractor financial ease. You consider any of that since it's it would, it's so important that we get it done on time and keep people moving. Yes, I think we started looking back at the highway bridge program as well as that prop one defense I don't think we found anything that necessarily precluded us from looking into that. I don't recall if you know staff, but the effort in or or determine whether that was going to be feasible so I can follow up with you on that. Great thank you. Okay, I guess I'll jump in here. I have a kind of a comment and a question I want to say thank you so much for the presentation very clear overview. It was nice to see all of the projects and the work that's happening that that we approve as member of the city council I see but it comes in in pieces as agenda items and so just to have that overview was really helpful. I would let's see as you were with as you were opening your presentation and you said exciting really exciting projects coming. I agree. And I just wanted to moving around to the Murray Street bridge project say only a seasoned and and really dedicated engineer would call that Murray Street bridge retrofit an exciting project. It clearly is going to challenge our community in terms of how we move around. And, you know, I just want to say it also has been a long time coming and so I recognize Commissioner conics concerns and I also want to acknowledge you've expressed those to the Santa Cruz City Council. I do think that that high level of coordination and, you know, communication with folks who live in the immediate vicinity about the scheduling and you know kind of getting as much detail as possible into the public's hands will be very important. And so I guess I wanted to ask if what the communications plan is for people in the immediate vicinity recognizing that many, many people move through that across that bridge and through those intersections on a daily basis. The people who are going to be most impacted clearly will be the neighbors and so just checking on what the plans are for communications there. I think we're still in the early stages about the communication plan for Murray Street. We know that we want to develop a web page. There likely be notification mailers that go out to, you know, so the surrounding residents are there but the online platform will be will likely be the place in which people can get their regular updates for construction. There'll be staff contact information as well but, you know, with once we have the contractor hired and on board, that's going to be the time we'll have the details for the actual construction process and staging and I would say that the same thing for, you know, all the regional projects that we have is that we really do have to wait and see when they're bid, when the project, who the contractor is and what plan and how they submit it. You know, again we have that review and approve authority. We have a general idea of how these projects get constructed but agencies don't dictate the means and methods and so we review and approve them. Absolutely. Thank you. I will now take it out to the public. I see one, two hands up. I will start with David Dates. Thank you. Yeah, I think the 800 pound gorilla and this conversation is the rail corridor. The Murray Street Bridge is incredibly dangerous. We lost the cyclist in 2018, Benjamin Donniak. He was struck by a car and now we're talking about making this bridge even more dangerous for a period of months and years. Why not open up that rail corridor as an interim way of pedestrians and cyclists of bypassing that and provide some sort of, you know, alleviation to the situation that we're creating. I think that needs to be part of this conversation. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dates. Next up we have Ben Vernauza. There we go. Well, that's amazing. I was about to suggest the same thing, except I was going to go a little further and say that you take the rails out from that certain distance and you pave it over and in the morning you go one way and the afternoon you go the other way for cars. So anyway, we'll throw that out. It's a wild idea but who knows. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Cook Construction. Thanks for the time. My name is Bill Cook and without any criticism of the staff presentation. I don't see any attempt at slowing the speed of cars where bicycles are involved. We're in the process of adopting Vision Zero. 20 miles an hour is according to Vision Zero is an appropriate speed where motorists and cyclists and pedestrians share space. Culturally, our prejudice as a society is to avoid any impact on the speed of motor vehicles and that's an operative assumption that I see ongoing in these conversations. In my view, it's incorrect. So if we don't involve traffic calming measures, we're not going to see any appreciable change in the safety for cyclists and pedestrians in our roadways. Thank you. Thank you for your input. I do not see any more hands up from the public and nor from commissioners. So I think with that. Thank you, Mr. Nguyen, and move on to our next item. That is item 26. This is the final draft of the 2045 Regional Transportation Plan, the RTIP, and Amy Naranjo will provide us with a staff report. Amy, take it away. I'm getting my setup here. All right. You can see my screen. Yes. All right. Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Amy Naranjo, and I am here today to provide an update on the 2045 Regional Transportation Plan. There we go. So work on the 2045 RTIP began in late 2019 and is nearing completion. Throughout the development of the RTIP, staff has solicited input from the RTC, RTC advisory committees, partner agencies, sponsors, and members of the public at key milestones, including the review and approval of the policy, financial and action elements. The latest round of outreach efforts began on December 2nd with the release of the draft 2045 RTIP and ended on January 31st. Staff solicited the feedback on a draft document from the advice, the RTC advisory committees in December and January, and these included the interagency technical advisory committee, the bicycle committee, as well as the elderly and disabled transportation advisory committee. Additionally, staff requested input from project sponsors, partner and resource agencies, stakeholders, public interest groups, and members of the public. These groups were notified of the release of the draft plan and the public comment period via the RTC's email distribution list and social media channels. Additionally, input was also sought from the public at the public hearings for the RTC and the draft RTC which were held by AMBA. The public hearings were advertised in several newspapers county-wide. The comments received represent a diverse mix of transportation insistence in our county. Some of the comments are about which projects to prioritize in the plan. Many comments are in support of electric passenger rail and public transit in general. Some people support and want the rail with trail, while others prefer trail only options. Some people support prioritizing the repair and maintenance of existing infrastructure, while others want highland improvements prioritized over rail line improvements. Additionally, some people support buff-on-folder efforts but are opposed to the installation of auxiliary lanes and or any highway widening. Furthermore, some people expressed the need for more to be done with the climate change, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and vehicle miles troubles, while others requested a greater emphasis in the document on linking the project list with the RTC goals. However, overall, the final draft RTC really provides a balanced set of projects that represent the diverse interest in Santa Cruz County. Attachment 4 in the staff report includes a summary of all the comments that have been received thus far, including at the public hearings as well as comments that were emailed. The main areas of the draft that were revised include revisions that were in the chapter text and figures based on comments and feedback received. Also changes that were, excuse me, changes made to the financial elements that reflect recent state, federal, and local revenue estimates and 2021 actual. And then also we made changes to the project list that were based on revisions from project sponsors that include removing projects that have already been completed and updating costs are excuse me to reflect more recent information. And finally, we added some new projects to the financially constrained and unconstrained project list. And the list of those projects are included in your packet as well. And then a summary of the proposed, excuse me, summary of the proposed revisions for the final 2045 RTC are included in your agenda packet as the attachment 2 and 3. So, as noted in previous staff updates to the board and bag is the lead agency preparing the EIR that serves the 2045 metropolitan transportation plan and sustainable communities strategy, as well as for the 2045 regional transportation plan for San Benito, Santa Cruz and Monterey County. So to finalize the MPTS DS and the EIR and bag needs the final draft constrained project was to develop the final EIR and to run the travel demand model on the final project. Your input today on any changes to the RTC will be incorporated into the final model runs in EIR work. And then release the draft EIR on November 22. For public review and receive comments during the 70 day period that ended that also ended on January 31. So and they get currently working on preparing the final EIR and it's expected to certify in June. The final EIR will also include responses to all the comments that have been received. And after the EIR has been certified by Ambeg, the RTC will then consider adoption of the EIR finding and approval of the final 2045 RTC. So with that being said today staff recommendation is that the RTC provide input on the final draft RTC and for in and provide any comments or input for the inclusion in the final 2045 RTC. So this is my update and I'm happy to take your comments and questions and it has been Ambeg staff is on the call to answer any specific questions related to EIR. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ron Ho. For that presentation. Definitely helpful overview there. Commissioner Rockin, I see your hand up. A lot of the comments I spent about 4 hours reading through this this report. It's an amazing amount of work went into it and thankfully it's clear writing that I think the public can actually understand which is not always the case in public governmental documents. But if I understand correctly, many of the comments were suggesting very broad kinds of responses such as all of this doesn't this is for example, I'm not saying this is true but makes a comment. It's inconsistent with the state's goal of reducing the carbon impacts at the level that the state sort of planning for that to happen and so forth. I'm assuming that the EIR looks at those kinds of that's not in this draft plan that has to happen sometime before a final plan within EIR is adopted. I don't want to presume what the EIR is going to find or what's going to happen but let's say for the sake of argument. There are major ways in which the draft EIR is inconsistent with state requirements or and bag finds other kinds of in their EIR work that there's other major kinds of changes that need to take place. I assume that requires that we then revise this plan and some or provide mitigations one or both. Do I understand correctly that in fact, it's not that we're ignoring all those comments people made, you know about the in that what they felt was the inadequacy of the plan but that's going to be addressed in this period between now and June when we look at a final EIR on the project on the plan overall. Do I understand that correctly? I believe you do and Heather Adamson is available to speak more to that. Yep. I'll call on Miss Adamson right now. Great. Thank you. This is Heather Adamson planning director for AMBAG. As Amy mentioned, AMBAG is the lead for the four agency joint EIR effort. We did receive comments on directly on the EIR. We have a consultant team we are working with Rencon environmental consultants who are working to prepare responses to comments. We also did receive similar comments as on as RTC did on both the MTP SES as well as the EIR. In terms of different modes, support for projects, things like that. The final EIR will include responses to all the comments received. It will for those sections of the EIR that do not adequately meet thresholds. We will be preparing mitigations similar to previous EIRs for such a large programmatic level. There are statements of already consideration and mitigation measures that are included that will need to be considered and approved by both AMBAG and RTC as it pertains to its county level RTP. And we expect to release the final EIR. We're scheduled to release it mid-May timeframe in preparation for final action in June. Thank you. If I can add, I'll make my comments now so I won't have to make them later based on that comment. I think that this draft final report does an admirable job of moving forward on the question of addressing climate change issues. It's definitely an improvement over our past plans for how we were going to move people around the county and so forth. Whether it adequately does so or to what extent there need to be more significant mitigations or additional kinds of work done remains to be seen. So I'm going to not go through. I can see all these places where I would say, well, I would change this or I would change that. I think that the staff has done a really good job of presenting us with a plan that moves us forward and in the right direction. Whether it's fully adequate is something I think that's better addressed when we have an EIR that sort of lets us know to what extent the environmental that's the big issue for me. The environmental impacts particularly on carbon and climate change kinds of issues, alternatives to the automobile and so forth are adequate. I'll reserve those comments for our meetings when we get close to maybe a May on the EIR draft and then again in June. So I want to thank the staff for their work on this. I'm prepared to support this plan at this point. Of course, pending comments from the public about it, but hope the public understands that this is not the final plan. This is a draft plan that requires some environmental review before we can fully understand the impacts that would be a result from the plan. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Rockin. I do not see any more. There we go. I was just going to take it out to the public. Commissioner Koenig, Vice Chair Koenig, apology. Thank you, Chair Brown. I just want to thank staff for including the SoCal drive study of a flex lane opportunities. Flex lanes are what are used on the Golden Gate Bridge, as well as down in San Diego on the Coronado Bridge to expand the number of lanes and in the direction of peak demand. And it's actually used close to 50 times across the United States. And so I think it's important that we study opportunities like this on major corridors like SoCal drive where we can use the infrastructure we have smarter. You know, we're really running out of the ability to add a lot of new road capacity. So we have to think about new ways of using the infrastructure we have. And I also think that there could be a lot of opportunity here given the development pressures we're seeing in the county as represented by some of the Rena numbers being handed down by the state. You know, we're going to need to put 4,600 units on our zoning map here in the county and hopefully we can make as much of that as possible. Transit oriented. And, you know, flex lanes could include lanes that are dedicated for transit to ensure smoother and faster transit access throughout the county. I had a question then, you know, we also saw some questions about in public comments about similar types of uses on the highway. So there was one request for looking at congestion pricing. You know, we have some pretty lofty goals in the RTP here as far as the promoting more, more carpooling and reducing single occupancy vehicle trips. I noticed that in the project list. At the beginning of the SEC RTC Cal Trans section, there's, there's a highway one corridor investment program and it has your dollars associated with it. I'm just wondering, can we, is, can we look at that as sort of a catch all for, you know, those types of, of studies or programs that might help reduce congestion and ultimately emissions as well. So if this commission decided they wanted to look at things like congestion pricing in the future, can we point to that project and the RTP and say, well, you know, this is more or less what that is accomplishing. If that sounds like a question for staff, right. Yeah, possibility. Okay. So Ms. Naranjo, you want to take that one. Oh, let's see. I'll let him address the question first. Okay. There we go Deputy Director Mendez. Sure. I think the, if I recall the intent of that, that project was yet to be a to be a catch off for all the improvement projects on on highway one. And the reason why has zero dollars attached to it to which is a cost to think they're component pieces of the makeup that entire, you know, highway order improvement program throughout the throughout the RTP document. But you know, as Sarah got is our, our lead our highway projects and most got more detail on that and she can provide. And I do see Ms. Christiansen's hand up and so I'll call on you next. Thank you. Commissioner connect. You are correct. I think the way that it would happen is that would be kind of a catch all and then if a project actually is developed and moves forward we would then add a new project in the RTP. At a later date. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you. Right. Or do commissioner, any other commissioners have questions or comments at this time. And I will, I will ask members of the public I don't see any hands up but if anyone in attendance would like to speak. Now is your opportunity and I see Jack Nelson has a hand up. Go for it. Yes. Thanks for the opportunity to comment. I did submit comments by email on this and I was by January 31. For some reason they're not included in your agenda packet. So I'm going to speak briefly about what I had to say and also like to draw attention to the comments submitted by the campaign for sustainable transportation, which are on page 20 of your packet for this item. I began my comments. Revealing my angst about what is contained in this RTP draft. And I began this way. My overview reaction 2045 RTP is that it is well supplied with aspirational green language about livable communities climate and sustainability. Then come the contradictions and can take capitulation working in appendix ease RTP project list. We see the greenhouse Goliath, a steady sequence of planned highway one expansion projects, poised to continually to continue incrementally turning the urban portion of the highway into an eight lanes wide river of cars, trucks and poisons. The Goliath is positioned to capture a lion share of future expenditures while confounding any sideshow attempts to escape the unsustainable climate ruin assignments of the automobile. So what I'm saying is this RTP is like a very good person on a mistaken suicide mission. And I'm sure I'm sure everybody struggles with that. But I needed to say it to you so thank you for the chance to speak. Thank you, Mr. Nelson. Mr. Vernazza. You're you're next. Okay. I was so happy to find out, Commissioner Brown, that there is a subsidization subsidization for a bikes. It's going to make it wonderful, especially for the South County. And we're looking forward to that that also comes into the planning for how they're going to get to Cabrillo easily and safely. And under the train trail plan. It doesn't include any trail beyond Buena Vista and San Andreas to get there. So I think you need to take that into consideration. And so I just want to remind you that 2000 in 2045, all our high schools students in the county today will be 40. So I'm going to be sending in my co chairman will be sending a letter to the commissioners about what needs to be done now to get this moving. You can fly. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we have equity transit. Commissioner's and staff. I appreciate the extensive work done. There are concerning issues with the final draft 2045 RTP were funds that should be prioritized to bring rail to our community. Instead seem to be reallocated to highway widening, despite the requirement for matching funds for highway widening a concern RTC staff brings up regarding funding rail. We received proposition 116 Clean Air and Transportation Act funds from the state of California which enabled us to purchase the tracks specifically for the purpose of passenger rail. In 2012 only 10 years ago we began the concerted step by step process of bringing passenger rail to our community. Repeatedly community surveys show our majority support passenger rail alongside a trail. Rail is the preferred scenario identified by the unified corridor study, which studied and rejected the trail only option in February 2021. The transit corridor alternatives analysis was completed after looking at 18 different transit configurations across our corridor, and the RTC identified and approved electric passenger rail as the locally preferred alternative selected by the RTC, not highway widening transit. The award winning coastal rail trail is being built now. And after more than two decades of work numerous community meetings investment a substantial funds towards bringing environmentally wise electric passenger rail to our community. Greenway an organization founded in 2017 developed a misleading information campaign that has led to the deceptive June ballot measure in attempts to rip out our tracks and end passenger rail permanently for our community. We're entering a brief window of time where federal infrastructure funding is available and we need to position ourselves to apply for these grants so we can join the state rail system which will connect Santa Cruz to cities across California. Imagine taking rail to Monterey. We need to stick with the TCAA plan and as requested by the California Transportation Commission in 2019 move forward on a business plan. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next caller is Trink Praxel. Thank you, Chair Brown and members of the Commission. I just have a simple question. This is an update of this particular draft of the plan as an update from the previous draft and between those two drafts I noted that in the project list, the rail line repairs and bridge rehab project RTC-03A has had $59,200,000 added to the unconstrained section of funding. And I would just ask if staff or others could explain what's included in that amount. Thank you. Thank you. I will take note of questions and try to get some answers at the end of public comment. Thank you. Okay, next up we have Judy Giddelson. Hi, good afternoon or good morning. I'm Judy Giddelson from Watsonville and I just want to say here here to the previous speakers encouraging the RTC to support rail transportation in the 2045 draft plan and prioritize rail transportation in the 2045 draft plan. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next caller is Barry Scott. Well, thank you, Chair Brown. I want to echo what Ms. Praxel mentioned about item RTC-03A infrastructure preservation. There's in the unconstrained column, $59,200,000 and I'd like to see more, no surprise here, more committed to the constrained column for rail repairs, which we're obliged to complete. I want to, on a related note, I hope I'm correct in assuming that the idea of adverse abandonments against the Felton line and the branch line have been set aside and rejected for any further consideration. It should be clear that rail banking and abandonment are unlikely to be approved, and we should really be, you all should really be planning for the preservation consistent with the acceptance in February of last year of the transit quarter alternatives analysis. I don't see how the commission can accept electric rail transit as a preferred alternative and at the same time be considering interim trails that require the abandonment and removal of parts of the track. So I hope that we'll get right, right to it. And finally, there's a public misunderstanding around the San Andreas Road trail, what might be called the diversion. And I wish that the RTC could clarify that, regardless of, I've read the final EIR for segment 17A and 17B, and it's really not the rail line that presents the problem of the environmental challenges there. Yet Greenway and rail opponents present that it's the rail lines fault that the trail would go to San Andreas Road. I wish that could be clarified. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is David Dates. Thank you, Chair. I'm here on LaSalle Beach. We haven't had bus service in about six years. It was canceled before the passage of measure D and I supported measure D believing that this would patch our potholes restore metro service and get Santa Cruz moving. And none of that's happened. So now we're looking to 2045. We still don't know how to restore metro service. We still don't know how to get our pavement index above an F. And here come the callers asking for prioritization of electric passenger rail in our community over all other needs. And that doesn't resonate with Santa Cruz voters. And it should make any commissioners supporting this nonsense concerned, just as Leopold, just look no further than Leopold. So we need to prioritize things that can be done now that benefit people that live here currently. So I appreciate looking forward to 2045. But let's really let's really just put the impetus on what can be done within our lifetimes to get people moving and that's that's going to do. That's going to that's going to do well at the at the ballot at the ballots. Thank you. Okay, our next speaker is Jack Brown. Thank you. Chair Brown and commissioners and Jack Brown resident of Athos. I just want to make a comment. I think it's kind of funny that equity transit is making comments about greenways longevity when equity transit was basically started last year and formed by friends of the rail trail just another entity within itself. But my main point really here is I think we should we should move cautiously on any rail preservation, especially with the greenway initiative being on the ballot in June. Again, 16,000 people 170 volunteers gathered signatures to get those signatures 13,000 were certified. This is the largest in Santa Cruz County so back in the time when the RTC was mostly composed of a rail centric majority where decisions were made not to look at an interim trail to proceed with looking at rail. We've seen the composition of the change we're seeing more involvement by the community. This will be the first direct vote by the people of Santa Cruz on what they want. And I was one of the 170 that went out to to talk to communities and you know is to get out of this echo chamber on social media and the RTC meeting people that you have the time to be able to attend, and people are really Mr. Brown, I'm really sorry to interrupt you but I just wanted to ask if you have a comment that's specific to the RTP plan. Yeah just I mean for the RTP plan is just be cautious about moving forward with any moves to preserve rail and the sections that were noted until we have our election in June. Thank you. Okay, I don't see any additional hands up from members of the public so I will bring it back to the Commission for deliberation and action I see Commissioner Rotkin has a hand up. A move approval of the draft 2045 plan as presented to us by staff and look forward to the environmental review of that and that will be I think more robust debate and discussion among the commissioners about this whole issue before we get to a final plan. Thank you. I second that movement to move forward. Thank you. Okay, we have a motion and a second and I see Deputy Director Mendez has a hand up. Perhaps just respond to some of the questions. I just want to add one thing that the final draft after the final draft was posted to the to the website there's there was some additional comments that came in from from CalTrans to the public and so then you know there were revisions made and then we posted to to incorporate those comments and primetics unfortunately somehow we did not receive the CalTrans comments until they sent them to the you know within the time frame. But I just want to clarify that the final draft includes some modifications made sense first posted for this meeting. Let me clarify my motion is on the plan that was posted just yesterday or the day you know a few days ago that the latest one was in red on our website and that's the one that I spent four hours reading through. I hope it was the right one. Thank you. That includes all that includes those revisions. Yes. I approve. I approve the same one that Mike read. All right. So before we call for a vote. It looks like there is one more member of the public who has a hand up Miss Andrea were you trying to speak to the the art tip. Before we take a vote here. I'll give you an opportunity. Hi, can you hear me. Yeah. Okay. Yes. Thank you. A 2014 addendum to the final EIR for the coastal rail trail ads and alternative alignment for segment 17 call 17 be that routes the trail away from sensitive wetlands and agricultural lands. This alternative has fewer environmental impacts and is not recommended because of the rail line. It would have to happen with or without tracks. Thank you. Thank you. For your input. I am I we have a motion and a second on the floor. I don't see any additional hands up by members of the commission. I did just want to ask if there was a question about the the unconstrained I believe it's $59.2 million associated with the rail and the request for a breakdown on that. Not sure that's something we can necessarily provide today but I am hoping that we could potentially get a little bit more information. Perhaps as a follow up memo and if you have any comments now director Preston or other members of the staff to just give a sense of what that total includes. That would be great. I want to say something about that chair Brown. I think as was noted by a plan or a I mean around the updates made to the to the project list and those updates included our project costs. So there was an update to to those project costs associated with the with the bridges on the on the rail line. Unfortunately those are those updates and haven't made before and so those those are included. So it's updated to reflect the cost. It's updated to reflect the most current information of the RTC staff. Yes. Thank you. It's broken down in the plan. I remember reading the details then. Thank you. Yes. Okay. Commissioner. Jenny Johnson. You I see your hand. Thank you. This conversation or this my sense of all of the public input regarding funding. I find there's a great deal of misunderstanding about how transportation funding works and to commissioner McPherson's comments earlier in this meeting. I think there would be a great deal of benefit as a former transmission funding project funding person and grant writer for many years. I understand it very well, but there's a lot of people who don't understand it both. I think some maybe perhaps some new commissioners as well as members of the public. And you can tell by the level of misunderstanding or the spectrum of understanding is really a better characterization because of the questions that people bring up. There's money to do the IR through measure D for rail. There was not money this and that. So not to be redundant, but I think it was all of us were greatly benefit on him on a workshop to talk about how transportation funding works. How it relates to this plan both constrained and unconstrained projects and sort of connect the dots for folks who really continue to ask questions and make comments regarding funding when they don't really understand the entire universe of it. It is really complicated and I get it. I would love to see. And I know all this information has been brought to the commission and the public various times by the staff and they've done a great job. But usually we talk about it. And in the context of a particular project, or a particular plan in this case. To your point to Brown about how to you know how to explain that number. But I think in general 50,000 foot level explanation of how transportation funding works and how it's changed on the federal level would be really Excuse me, but official and I would love to see that agenda is for the future. Thanks for the time. Thank you. And I will just say here that I agree in and as I mentioned earlier, I will work with the director Preston to try to find an appropriate time on and hopefully a lighter RTC agenda. This month is looking to be a little bit lighter but I'm yeah coming up soon because I do think that is very important. And there's a lot of interest from the public. Thank you. Commissioner Connick. Thank you chair Brown. You know, with with the time horizon of the, this being the 2045 regional transportation plan. I think it is important to to address the climate crisis question we've heard it so many times from the public. And I think I expressed that I completely agree that the need to address carbon emissions in our community is urgent. We know that those emissions are coming from cars. And, you know, as some of my previous comments that I don't I don't think that we've completely fleshed out a solution here in this plan but it's it's going to be incumbent on this commission to do so in the very near future. I just want to address this point a lot of people keep who bring up the urgency of addressing the climate crisis, then go to the train as a solution and, you know, I agree with the problem but not that particular solution and, you know, I think it's a gentleman named Steve Katie he was the principal construction inspector for the BTA for 23 years I encountered him once. And he said, you know, he was a little, I think ultimately disappointed in the results of his career. He said, look the problems with the trainer this, how are you going to get people out of their cars and onto a train. Not where people going to park their cars when they drive to the train to get on it. And how are you going to prevent people from hitting your train with their cars. So, I mean, we have 100,000 cars using highway one every day if we're going to address the climate crisis we need a solution that allows us to use cars better faster and cleaner. And a solution that ignores the huge number of cars on our roads. You know, it is not really a solution to the climate crisis we've seen that where we're trains are built that people are not migrating from cars to trains in mass. You know, I think that this this plan has enough in it that we can move forward I'm supportive of the motion today but I do think there's some serious work for this commission ahead and figuring out how we reduce congestion financially incentivize electric cars car pool, use car share and ride services like chariot and lifeline or Uber pool and increase trends at ridership. No small task. And again, a lot of work ahead but I just want that to be present everyone's minds and know and for the public to know that I myself and I think this entire commission is deeply committed to two finding ways to address the climate crisis. Thank you, Mr. Koenig, Commissioner Rockin. In order to be brief, I'll just say, there are alternatives to taking automobiles to get to retrain other communities have found ways to do that they involve public transit, and a number of other kinds of options that are quite realistic as well as possibility of electric bikes and other options for everybody. But I wouldn't, I will not letter the conclusion that there's no way to escape the private automobiles the way to get between your house and whatever kind of public transit options we develop including both both buses and trains as public transit options Thank you. Commissioner Bertrand and then I see Commissioner Johnson after Well, since we're giving local or personal flavor on this discussion, I commuted on the SP from San Francisco to Sunnyvale boat by bike to the station with the bike and a bike locker and then then walk the last two and a half miles to get to my place of work. So it was worth it for me because the ride on the SP coming down the peninsula was great. I got a lot of homework done, you know, because the work, you definitely have a lot of homework in the engineering field. And so I really, really appreciate it. And so I think there is a time and a place when the community can afford it when the community has the demand, because all these infrastructure features cost a lot. And so you have to look at whether or not that is a feasible fiscal possibility. And I think that's what people are needing to understand in Santa Cruz. The feasibility on a financial scale in an area that doesn't have many jobs relative to like the Bay Area, for instance, doesn't have infinite resources in terms of water to build new houses. And a lot of other features which makes it very difficult to complete and finance over time. That means paying the people who operate it doing all the work to maintain over time. So I think someone phoned earlier and said that I voted for D because I thought I'd get my metro bus back in my community. There's no metro. One of the easiest solutions right now to our transportation problem, especially for considering Watsonville, is to increase the metro rides. So we are not looking at solving a problem in the easiest way we can do right now. We're working on something that is, you know, I hated the idea that rails were taken out of LA. I hated the ideas that rails were taken out of the scent of the Oakland Bay Bridge. My father took them. That's the way people got around the San Francisco Bay Area, but now we're in a different era now in a different area that has different cost structures. And to build something from scratch is going to be a huge burden for Santa Cruz. We need to get real. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Bertrand Commissioner Johnson. Thank you chair. You know, in some ways, and I appreciate Manu's comments in some ways, organic solutions are presented themselves aren't they I mean there's a state mandate as far as electric cars that in 1520 years. You'll see a huge shift away from gas consuming vehicles. The pandemic has meant that just fewer and fewer people are actually, you know, using their cars I can speak for myself and my wife. We fill up our tank, you know, once a month almost now but we're before is once a week. And I don't know how productive it is with the preaching and the demonizing that we hear from different groups of people who use cars. I do know that those very same people use their cars. I've seen it. When we've had commission meetings how many times I've asked people how they got to the commission meeting. And everybody use their cars. Even though people are preaching that in fact, we should not be using our cars. So, I think a little less demonizing a little bit more solution oriented kind of dialogue is much more effective. Thanks. Thank you Commissioner Johnson. I will now bring it back around to the matter at hand the approval of the RTP plan. I do just want to make a quick comment and I'm going to say I have lots of feelings, you know, and I'd love to talk about my, you know, my personal practices and, you know, my, my feelings about our, the climate crisis and how we are are challenged to address it in a meaningful way, particularly when we look at, you know, expanding and improving car capacity. I do deserve those comments as commissioner rockin that until we get into environmental review and and looking further into the consequences and possibilities that that that kind of study presents to us. But I did want to make one comment about your TP and just remind folks as I have been reminded by fellow commissioners I've spoken with recently and our director. And this plan is, you know, so when we look at what's in the unconstrained budget what's constrained. This is a, in many respects a living document as well and we will make changes depending upon funding that becomes available. Depending on what environmental review finds. There are many variables and so our decision today is not a final word on how we will move forward and in the specifics of that so I just wanted to remind folks that this is a this is a guidance for us as we move forward. And I appreciate the work of our staff to present it to us and and produce the report. So with that, I think we will we're ready to take a vote and I will ask for a roll call. As far as. Hi, Bruce. Commissioner Brown. Hi. Commissioner Johnson Randy Johnson. Which one. Commissioner Randy Johnson. Hi. Commissioner alternate Lowell Hearst. Hi. Mission alternate Hernandez. Hi. Mission alternate shifrin. Hi. Mission alternate Quinn. Approved. Mission alternate Jenny Johnson. Yes. Commissioner conic. Hi. Mission or Peterson. Hi. Commissioner Parker. Hi. And Commissioner Rockin. Hi. It's unanimous. All right. We are now we've completed our agenda for open session. We will now move into closed session. We have one item on the agenda. And I'm not sure who will. Give us an overview of how this will go with that being you, Mr. Mattis. Yeah, I can do that. Yeah. So we're just starting labor negotiations related to the two bargaining units for RTC, the mid management. And the community of our TC employees, the core group. And so we are the moment, not anticipating any report out of closed session. And. All right, I will note that we got an email from Ian Berry that has the link to the closed session. Yes. Yes. So my question. So we drop out of this, Madam Chair, the session and go into that. Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you. That link. I see it. Mr. Hearst. I just tell me again where I can find that link. You got an email that was sent to you by Ian Berry, B-E-R-R-Y. Thank you. It gives you a link to the closed session. Thank you. Are we sending it to you Commissioner? Thank you. So we will move into closed session and since we do not expect to report out, I will just announce now that the next RTC meeting is scheduled for Thursday, April 7th, 2022 at 9 a.m. And with that. Madam Chair, I think Commissioner Parker was attempting to make a comment. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see it. No, I was just going to say, I was going to, wait, I want to make sure I got it too because I just got appointed. So some of the things are coming in and some of them aren't. So thank you very much. If you could send me the link as well. I appreciate that. Thank you. And with that, we will. Madam Chair, if I may, I just wanted to remind folks that we will be having a TPW meeting. This meeting, the main purpose of the TPW meeting will be to have the AB 361 findings necessary to continue to have hybrid and or virtual meetings. Got it. Okay, so TPW on the third Thursday and our next regular meeting will be April 7th. And with that, we'll adjourn our open session and see some of you in closed session. Thank you very much.