 time. Okay we will call that I will call the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District meeting of Board of Directors meeting of February 25th to order and ask for a roll call. Okay Director Downing, Director Dutra. Here. Director Colin Terry Johnson. Here. Director Koenig. Here. Director Lind. Here. Director McPherson. Here. Director Myers. Present. Director Pagler. Here. Director Parker. Here. Director Peterson. Present. Director Rockin. Here. Exofficio Director Henderson. Here. Exofficio Director Northcote. Here. And we have Quorum. Hey and today's meeting was being broadcast by Community Television of Santa Cruz County and thank you Walter for stepping in at the last moment to make this happen. Are there any other announcements? No. All right then we will move to proving the Board of Board Officers and Committee appointments and we have two slates I believe. I would like to add a third. Okay. This is Mike Rockin. My slate is completely consistent. The first two slates are completely consistent as I understand them. There's no difference in them right now unless I'm misread the packet. My third slate only changes one to two areas that related to the RTC appointments and basically reverses the appointments of the main appointees to the RTC and the alternates and I'll explain why in a moment. But my my slate would have RTC appointments as Kristen Peterson, Larry Pagler and myself Mike Rockin and the alternates would be Shabra, Conntary Johnson, Ari Parker and Donald Lind. So what I've done basically is switch Larry Pagler and Ari Parker in these two appointments and in that sense my slate is the same as at least in terms of the RTC as Donald Lind's initial slate which he then changed to be the same as to Nanakoni's second slate. So that is my slate. And if I can make a comment now about that, I will do it. Go ahead. Okay. Well, first I want to say the transit district does a lot of different things and this is one issue and it's very possible for us to disagree about things and still get along and work hard together and a whole bunch of other things that are important. So this is not the only issue before this body. Secondly, the reason I'm doing this is because I think the public are often confused about how certain outcomes come about and what happened and what's going on and I'm not sure that my slate will have any success in attracting other voters than myself, but I'd like people to understand what's motivating this. It's most important to say this is not a personal attack on anybody. As you'll see this, what's switched here is Ari Parker. I don't know Ari Parker, but I have no reason to think that she's other than a dedicated public servant and means to do well as a transit district board member. However, let me just begin with some basic facts and another thing to say is nobody here is doing anything illegal or immoral or inappropriate, but I want the public to understand what's going on in these appointments to the RTC. So here's some facts. We purchased a rail corridor, the RTC purchased a rail and you'll see that this is connected to the transit district, even though I'm talking about the RTC in part of this. Purchased a rail corridor for passenger rail service, I mean, 2012. We've in the last 10 years, we've spent millions of dollars and been involved in a lot of meetings and studies planning that passenger rail service. And Metro has been involved in this. We were one of the active partners in putting on the TCAA, the Transit Quarter Alternatives Analysis that selected passenger rail as the preferred alternative. Watsonville City Council has consistently supported rail through the county through a resolution to the RTC. Unless I miscount, I understand that currently there's five members of the Watsonville City Council who support rail and two who are not rail supporters. For reasons that I don't understand and don't need to, ultimately, the Watsonville City Council appointed the two non rail supporters to them, to the Santa Cruz Metro. Like, don't be lies. I wear, if you can find where I've ever said that I do not support rail, Jimmy, let him finish, then you can show it otherwise. Let's let me let me move on. If I could, Jimmy, can we respond or have the last word on this? I'm sure. Um, the as a result, the council now is looking at appointments to the RTC and reasonably enough commissioners are trying to, as we have pretty consistently, make sure that Watsonville is represented. And that's what I believe has led to the switch from Donald Lynn's initial nominations for the RTC appointments. However, people need to be aware that again, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. We'll find that out, but that I believe what will happen is that we will have instead of the current six six tie that is has the RTC at loggerheads will end up with a seven five split on the RTC that is basically not supportive of rail. And as a result, there'll be consequences. Who knows what those long term consequences may be. Rail still abandoning rail still would require an adverse abandonment, which is not particularly popular judging by the last RTC meeting. So it's not clear exactly what the final outcome will be, but I think it makes a difference who who the transit district sends over there. And since our policy has been supportive of rail, to me, it's important that we send people who support our past policy on this question and we have not voted to change that policy in some way. So that's the reason for my alternative slate. Again, it's not an attack on Ari Parker and her character or anything else about what you might do in life or how we might decide, for example, with Jimmy, Jimmy and I have worked together closely on a lot of different issues. This is not a personality attack. This is not a belief that anybody's doing anything wrong. It's just I to me, it's important that transit district be consistent and it's supportive of the rail project and be clear about our desire to do so. So that's the reason for my alternative slate for that one. For those two positions, the main RTC appointments and the alternate appointments to that position. Thank you. Mike, would you mind repeating your slate and just taking notes? Yes, my slate is for the main appointments to the RTC are Kristen Peterson, Larry Pagler. That's consistent with the other two slates and Mike Roth and Mike Rotkin. And what's not consistent with the other two is Larry Pagler and the other slates, Larry Pagler is an alternate and this in mind, he's the main appointee to the RTC. Is that clear? Peterson, Pagler and Rotkin and the alternates are Chevrolet, commentary Johnson, Ari Parker and Donald Lynn, moving Ari Parker from the main appointment to the alternate appointment. So in effect, what I've done is switched Larry and Ari and the two appointments in my slate. So to be clear, then your slate is this Peterson, Parker and Rotkin. Yes, that's correct for the RTC and the alternates, which we also have to appoint the alternate slate is Chevrolet, commentary Johnson, Ari Parker and Donald Lynn. And otherwise, I have no there's nothing my slate has no changes to any of the other appointments that are consistent with both of the other two slates at this point. And director Dutron. I first want to say, Mike, unless you can find something rice that I've never supported rail, you shouldn't be spewing that kind of like false information. I mean, you're but you're you should be above that, you know, the problem here is that this has become really political. And it's become about the rail trail like you go to any sort of meeting the only question people care about from the north is about the rail trail. They don't care about, you know, people's rights or whether or not you support, you know, anti choice groups or or whatever. It's all about the rail trail. And we're really moving away from what the reality of this board is supposed to be doing. And that is supposed to be about getting people up and down the community from Watsonville to Davenport. You know, we do this this board uses our numbers in South County to get grant funding and and to get a lot of a lot of the money that comes into this board happens because of the people of our community, you that so to deny us from having a voice in any part, whether it's on the executive team or on the RTC shame on you. I don't see how anyone can sit here and actually think in good faith that this is something that a good moral person would do. Yeah, I have to sit here and I have to defend myself. I have to defend my city and defend Ari because we're two voices out of 11. We are the minority on this board. And I hope you can all sit there and think about that for a minute. You want to I'm upset and I you know what an illogical person will understand why I'm upset that you are blocking us out but yet using our numbers for funding for the system. Look at the board. Look what it looks like. It lacks diversity. I'm the only Latino sitting on this board. Yeah, thank you. And then it and so let me tell you that it's not right to be, you know, shutting us out like this because your and your and thank you for being honest, Mike, at least you said that this vote is about the rail. I don't ever remember it here at the bus at Metro voting on whether we're going to support maybe it happened before I was on the board. It could have but I don't remember that I didn't vote. I wasn't part of a vote for that. It did. We had gone. I don't mean to interrupt. That's okay. You can remind me. I want to be I want to make sure I want to make sure accurate information gets out. So yes, thank you, Mike. So the vote happened before I was on the board between between your services on the board. Actually, you're on the board earlier in my service. But I was voting. I did not vote on it. So so I want factual information to go out of here. I go out into the public. So for you to sit there and say and I don't think Ari has ever made her opinion about what she feels about the rail trail. I mean, she can speak for herself. But like, you know, I for you to be saying this and you know, putting like the scarlet letter on us. I mean, this makes it's going to make it very difficult for us to get anything done in this board. We're going to be sitting here, the two members from South County are be continually continuously fighting to get our fair share down there. We already gave up when let's remember let's go back. There were supposed to be both stations were supposed to be redone. Who gave up the who gave up the opportunity to have their station redone but just took a paint job and added some murals. Who did that? That was us in South County. Well, North County is moving forward with theirs. So if we're going to talk about equity, you guys need to make sure there's representation in the positions that our voices can be heard. Because right now, this actions of some of the board members do not show that you're nice to our faces. But when it comes down to it, we don't get the same results that other parts of this county does. So I'm really disappointed. Director Parker put my hand down. Thank you everyone. And thank you, Jimmy. No, he's not the only Latino. I am a Latina as well on Native American. It just shows we're California because that's, you know, when you when you judge a book by its cover. I do appreciate I want to say first of all, directors that have reached out to talk to me to kind of get a sense of who I am. And I want to say thank you. I want to say thank you very much for having those conversations. I did not receive a call or any communication from Director Rockin. I would have been happy to speak with you about that. As being on the council, I think there's a couple points to be made here. You know, if I had your ability, Director Rockin to foresee the future, how rich would I be? Because you're just putting out thoughts about where you don't want it to go. So you think based on I don't know what the only time I've ever dealt with rail and trail really was just about rail and my vote was affirmative. At the time with a lot of comments about why don't they start in Watsonville since we're going to have the connectors in the Monterey to the rest of the state rather than start on the other end of the county. But I still voted affirmatively. Other than that, I have not spoken about it and actually gotten out there and said one way or the other. And I do have to make a point that it is telling that the city council, and you asked that question, why would the city council send two people who are anti. They appointed us. I think they know who we are. I think we know they know that there were strong advocates for South County were strong advocates for Metro. And that's why they appointed us. And that's why we're here. When we go to the RTC, that's where the money talks. And I think that's the important part. And Director Dutra really spoke to that when it came to the fact that, you know, we've been kind of shut out of that conversation because it's been about rail and trail. I want to make it about Metro. This is about Metro. This is about infrastructure. This is about infrastructure that supports Metro. And that's how I feel. So I appreciate you have another slate, but thank you once again to all the directors who actually called and have spoken to me. And I hope I've been able to clarify a little bit about who I am. Thank you very much, Chair. Director Koenig. Thank you, Chair Linn. First of all, I just wanted to point out that I think there was one other difference in the slates that were proposed. And that was in slate two, proposing Director Dutra for Vice Chair instead of Bruce McPherson for Vice Chair Larry Stiller's Chair. So that was one difference for that position. I'm sorry if I misread that. Sorry. No worries. And then, you know, it's, you know, good to hear about the past votes that this board has taken in support of rail. And I think that brings up a good point, which is that this this board as a whole has the ability to direct its representatives on the RTC to vote in a way that we feel is in the best interest of Metro. And so whoever we decide to send to the RTC, we always have that ability to reexamine what is in the best interest of this agency, the transit agency that we have today and that that does move a lot of people. And there is new information coming out of the RTC, which may cause us to want to reexamine that with Metro. And in particular, we're seeing that the two existing rail bridges and APTAS are actually restricting and may limit our ability to complete the bus on shoulder project all the way to freedom. And so I think that given that new information, it's very likely our board will want to reexamine that position in the future, given some of the cost figures coming out of the RTC. So I'll just leave it at that and say that I do support having South County representation, both on the executive among the executive team, as well as on the RTC, because, I mean, hey, they feel the pain more than any other group in our county. They see the challenges with existing transportation and transit. And I do think it's important that they're represented. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Director McPherson. I think it should be South County should be represented on the RTC. I'll leave it there. And I have a couple of hands in the public. Brian from Trail Now. Thank you. Hi, this is Brian from Trail Now. We're a organization with thousands of local supporters of interest is we were a political action committee in 2015 actually that opposed Measure D. Originally because Measure D came out with 24% funding for rail, including a Monterey Bay, Monterey County train station. Zach Friend and Mayor Don Lane at the time changed the language and moved 24% down to 8% for keeping the track, keeping the rail corridor, maintaining it. And that money was transferred to Metro. And we then became a supporter in our, our, our supporters actually contribute the most of the funds. My understanding is by myself, Brian, people that I've been in transportation for over 20 years been involved in the regional transportation patient for more than 20 years. I've written a state bill to give tax credit corporations for people to ride Metro. I've actually was on the Silicon Valley leadership group starting shuttles to Caltrans. I have a passion for transit. We believe in widening highway and having buses running up and down. I think that the idea of not having a representative from Watsonville is not fair to Watsonville for the RTC Board. We are hopeful that Metro is fair to Watsonville. They're the ones that truly need bus support, transportation support. So for the Board to go and not have a representative from South County is unheard of. I've actually I've never experienced it. And I've been going to the regular meetings for over a decade of the RTC. And then finally I'll point out that we really truly need the representatives to be elected people. What we've experienced with Mr. Rockins, for example, is he was not elected. So he doesn't have any skin in the game. And it was obvious when he was working to bring in a private company or tourist trains along our corridor and have money go and fund the tourist train. That's not what we need. We need money to go to Metro and we proved it when we supported Measure D. We're behind you. We want to expand Metro. So again please think about not having a non voted elected person on Metro on the RTC. And secondly Watsonville should have a representative. Thank you for your time. Thank you. James Sandoval. Good morning. Can everyone hear me? Yes. Okay. James Sandoval here general chairperson for smart local 23 who represents the bus drivers and paratransit drivers at Metro. And I just want to speak out in support of director Konegg's slate. No, you know this is in no way any offense to director Bruce McPherson and Larry Pegler. You know I have a pretty good relationship with them. And it's and it's more about bringing a voice to Watsonville. I've been born and raised in Watsonville. I understand. And I felt to do where we need strong voices for the community of Watsonville. And over two thirds of our drivers at Metro live in Watsonville. So we also lost you there. Can you hear me? Yes. We did. We did. Sorry. So I just want to speak out in support of that talking with many drivers. We all support the idea of bringing more of a voice for Watsonville. You know, as Jimmy and Ari mentioned, there's two voices on this board from Watsonville when they represent nearly 55,000 people, you know, compared to Santa Cruz, which is about 60,000. So it's it's very similar. Yet Watsonville has two people on our board and they're supposed to bring the voice from Watsonville onto this board. And one way of making sure there's balance throughout our community is to make sure Watsonville also has a voice and it is about equity. And I just wanted to make sure this board knows that we need to bring a balanced voice on this board. And and we strongly support Ari Parker on the RTC and Jimmy Dutra as being the vice chair for this board of directors. Thank you. Thank you. Rebecca Downing. Yeah, I don't I haven't met any most of you and I live in a relatively small community, but the daily commute does run through Aptos. So I feel that it's really important for the Metro reps that are on the RTC to reflect the entire county. And actually, I believe the RTC's bylaws state that the members have to represent the entire county. So it would make sense that the Metro reps also represent the entire county, no matter who those choices are. I think that I started working on that a while ago because the Metro bylaws don't really state that. And I think it's important that that representation happened. Since we're the choke point, I really appreciate having representatives from Watsonville on the RTC because you sort of help us. We're not quite as far south as Watsonville, but we are a part of the southern part of the county. I lived in Watsonville for 10 years before I moved to Aptos. So I feel that that community really should probably have more representation than they do now. So I think it's important to make sure that the group that goes the RTC looks like the entire county. Thank you, Director Downing. I see smart local. I think that's Nate. I had had a hand up and I see a couple more. So I will call on each of you. Hello. Hi. Hi. Yes. I am a union representative for smart local 023 representing the parachutes and the bus operators. But I want to speak on a personal note from being a long time south county Watsonville resident living there for most of my life. You know, my parents are from the Parro Valley in Salinas Valley areas. And as a young man, I use the bus system quite often, you know, almost daily. And it was it's public transportation has been a big part of my life in helping me become the man that I am the person that I am. I think it's very important that south county continue to have proper representation and in all the boards and committees making these choices for transportation in our county. It's extremely important. And I think one of the communications to the board in the Salva beach area that's on there today, it just goes to show how important representing these underserved communities is. Thank you. Thank you. And Holly Alcorn. Good morning. Can you hear me? Yes. Good morning, board of representatives and members in the public. I'm Holly Alcorn and I'm the vice president of Metra's SCA chapter of SCIU 521. Today I wanted to advocate for position on the agenda that item is supporting Manus nominations for executive board positions. We support Manus slate 2 for the main purpose of boosting Watsonville's constituencies and fluence on our board. Jimmy Dutcher support of our SCIU members as well as his voice for the underrepresented group in the county makes it clear what we need to show our support. We ask the board to understand the importance of the second slate being more representative of the entire county for transportation needs. We're always evaluating our community's needs and it's easy and conscious decision to help bring the unrepresented community members into this conversation. Thank you. Thank you, Holly and Director Narca. Thank you. I don't know if my opinion is wrong but I am thank you. I am kind of offended that this is a conversation the fact that we are asking to be a part of a conversation that should include us naturally. As a representative for Cabrillo who brought a lot of our funds to Metro to provide services to South County because of the lack of transportation and access to it. It was seen to me that the best interest will continue to have a voice on that board that provided that extra support and resource allocations. RTC in my short time serving on it as an interim has kind of lost its conversation as it relates to the Metro and the public transportation access and it's time for that conversation to be rehashed. And I don't think we need to be focusing on how much power we give to North while we're excluding the voice of the South. I think our conversation needs to be who's the best representative inclusive of the South. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Well, we've called on everyone. I see James's hand still up but we've already he's already spoken. So is there anyone else who has not? Director Connick. Chair, if it's appropriate, I would just like to move slate to actually there's a process that I think the chairs in charge of how the vote takes place. Well, my first was just to be sure we've called on everyone who's had an opportunity and then my understanding is that we start with a slate first first slate and then go to the second is that's my understanding. And I will say that I want to point out that director Dutra was our chair the last time he is just prior to leaving council. So we have certainly not excluded South County from serving on the executive board. So and I agree that representation needs to be equitable. So the Yeah, I want to be clear when the slate is made that we identify exactly what we're voting on. If it's the entire slate or is it just the RTC component of that? Man, I pointed out that it's not just the RTC his slate number slate to correct me and then if I misunderstood that his slating switches Jimmy Dutra in for Bruce McPherson. Is that correct, man? That's correct for the vice chair position. So those are the there's three positions that are so I mean what might be appropriate is to approve the entire slate except those three and then just deal with those I'll leave it to the chair how she's going to handle it. Okay, first of all, I want to just defer to our city or to our attorney my my understanding is we start order of these slates. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. So the first slate is can we do a screen save on that our screen share on that? No, okay. Could we get clarification from director Rockin for the personnel HR standing committee just because there are two different directors up for vice chair could you clarify your position of candidate or nominees? Mine's consistent with slate one. Okay. If I understand correctly which is just to be clear that the vice chair the Bruce McPherson Okay. And then the other two directors would be Jimmy Dutra and Kristen Peterson. Oh, there's five people on there. I thought the two slates were consistent for the personnel committee. Am I wrong? What changes is the because of the vice chair? So the first three positions are automatic. It's the current board chair current vice chair and then the immediate past chair with two other directors and so it kind of gets a little mixed up because of the different vice chair right, but that that will follow automatically based on who is elected to these different positions though chair and vice chair and so forth. We don't actually we're not having a separate vote in a way on that. Whoever wins whoever gets appointed on the vice chair position will end up being the person that's appropriate. We know part of the other committee. So I'm not suggesting anything other than that whatever whichever and it wouldn't matter if I did because whichever whoever wins the vice chair position will automatically be the person that's on that personnel committee and I'm not challenging how that process works. Do you need any other clarifications? So I think is everyone clear on with the first slate? No. Is it the whole slate? You know the chair vice chair all the way down? Yes. I think that there are times where we have made some adjustments to committees because people have requested I mean last time there were we had appointed people to a committee and then they some of them had not come on to the board. So we made a change by request of committees separately other committees if a member said they could not serve but otherwise it'll be the whole slate and the first slate the only difference was that I had Bruce McPherson as vice chair and Mano has Jimmy Dutra as vice chair. So I think everything else was consistent. Is that correct director Koenig? I'm just curious are we going to vote for each position independently? Full slate. That's what Bruce was asking to be a full slate unless someone I would say if someone has I would be open if someone has a suggestion or if we get stuck in a you know in a vote then we can talk about an individual one if that's the case. Well it's going to put me in a position to vote no and I want the representation of RTC in the south county so I might just abstain then I believe that so if I understand correctly chairland your slate one is now includes Bruce McPherson for vice chair and Ari Parker on the RTC That's correct. That's correct. It's the same as yours with the only differences the chair vice chair. Understood. Let me just make sure does everyone have Donna Lynn's revised slate that was sent to the board I believe yesterday. Yes. So I shouldn't speak for everybody I do. All right. I'm a little confused we can't put this up on a screen so that everyone including the public can see this because it's all part of the agenda but it's several pages long. Yeah I know I'm looking at it and I'm just saying and there's no way to I mean you want to share I'll put it up well I don't know I asked Donna if she could do that I don't know that I don't have that on I'm on a laptop I don't have it on this one really somebody else wants to throw it up there if that's if Walter can allow that so yeah I mean one way is to look on the the Metro website it is on the website yes but we could try to do a screen share I'm terrible at this stuff but I can give it a try it would be really good for the public as well as for us to be on the same page so if somebody wanted to pull for example you could say I agree with all the slates except for I say no to that one I believe I can share this would you like me to try sure I was just seeing if I could you see anything I can't see it so you'll have to tell me but that's the first and I can go through page by page if you'd like okay so first we're looking at slate one correct and you'll see slate two below that Mike both yeah right yes this is the first this is the first difference right Bruce McPherson on slate one Jimmy Dutron slate two and again just so we make it clear all together slate three is the same as slate one for this position right I don't know whether I should raise my hand because this is a new place for me because people just tend to talk out and I want to be respectful to the chair so I'm going to raise my hand again and say yes and I want to know that are we going to there was mention that we were going to do all the slates but now that we can see it can we vote per slate make it very simple and clear for the public as we move through in the order in which it's there generally it would say generally there's a motion on the first slate then you take the second slate Chris sounds good the problem is that you have to under the rules of the Brown Act from the state legislature for COVID conditions we'd have to have a roll call vote and every one of these will be here for about an hour just on the roll call vote some committees where there's no I'm okay with taking a roll call vote if that's the case I think that's it has to be just rather we want to go through 15 every single committee in position then roll call vote on every item may I ask another clarifying question then can we pull the folks here the directors here pull the ones that they feel like they might have be a little controversial we can clean up the other slates and then go with a roll call vote on those individuals but I would say yeah I would say the two slates are identical except for two of them except for the vice chair position and Chris and Peterson did you have a question no I'm sorry I just it seemed like maybe there was some confusion in the difference between voting on a slate and voting on a particular position or committee right I was just you know one point looking for some kind of clarification amongst people who are asking questions about can we vote on each slate if they were referring specifically to where it says slate one for each and every committee in position or if they were saying that they wanted to pull a specific committee or position off entirely and vote on that separately because I think that we're kind of cross talking in a way that's blurring the lines between the difference of a slate and a committee or position agreed the slate does include all committees and like I said slate one and two are the same except for the vice chair so all the committees and I know I personally had contacted each of you to see is everyone comfortable with the committees they're serving on and there were no changes recommended by either any of us other than well either the first two are identical except for vice chair every committee everything's the same and the third is the difference only in from mine in the RTC representation so all the other committees are the same did that help clarify so one and two are the same except for vice chair and then you heard Mike's recommendation on his third slate you'd like to scroll through the rest of this does anyone want to see all the committees to go down the various pages we might do this one we've done this one you might look now to the RTC Larry if you could bring those up there's no difference there's no difference in the two slates on that for one and two but mine is different the slate three is different on that one sorry I skipped one there we are right so that's for one and two is the same and slate three switches Ari Parker and Larry Pagler right that's the only change that's what slate three does just to be clear about what we're voting on and the slate does include all committees but again there are no changes so generally is there a motion starting with slate one is there a motion for approval of slate one and is there a motion for approval of slate two I'll move approval of slate two I'll second motion by Koenig second by Dutra go back again the first question you asked was you didn't get a motion on slate one but I'm sure Bruce for example supports slate one he said he did I would move to support slate one we should do in the right order according to order I just maybe didn't give you enough time to respond I think there was enough time to respond I'm sorry I would have seconded that motion but I was moving the screen around sorry we do have a motion and a second for slate one and now we'd start with a roll call vote okay for slate one director Downing nay director Dutra nay director Colin Terry Johnson no director Koenig no oh wait I'm sorry that's my slate yes sorry I'm confused director McPherson aye director Myers no director Pagler aye director Parker no director Peterson no director Rockin we'll go back to the motion for the second slate can I suggest there's no need to you have a majority on slate one and it's director Rockin no I took it back you're right it failed so now we go to slate one is it possible that we can let a Maryland run the meeting I'm just confused you're right go on to slate two yeah so we had a motion could we repeat that motion I believe the motion was first by Koenig second by Dutra Dutra sorry okay director Downing aye director Dutra aye director Colin Terry Johnson aye director Koenig aye director Lynn no director McPherson no director Myers aye director Pagler aye director Parker yes director Peterson aye and director Rockin no now you got a majority recording your progress if you care to go through it and we have the letter from the Selva Beach Improvement Association any information on any of these from Dawn or staff comments from the board labor organization this is your chance for oral communication from the public ah thank you thank you Mike any comments from the public on these items well I meant in general this is the opportunity for that oral communication on items not thank you Mike I appreciate that any comments from the public on items that are not on the agenda I see a hand from and Martinez do I have the ability to turn this on or off or what Donna will tell Donna there we go thank you Donna hello thank you everyone um thank you for allowing me to speak here today I'm representing my family members who live and work in the Santa Cruz County and are associated with transit and invested in the needs of the Santa Cruz County public via the transit services I've also worked with an exceptional amount of clients um from Santa Cruz County who have used public transit to um just daily as they um live their lives so um let's see I noticed on the agenda for this meeting that item 7.1 labor organization communication presented by smart and SEIU is a thank you for your support flyer can you clarify that this what this thank you flyer was for it looks like it was for eight board members for signing sorry for a while no water it looks like uh it was for eight board members for signing and supporting the request of Santa Cruz Metro to be part of the public employment relations board uh this flyer also indicates that this item will be introduced into legislation soon during the last board meeting on 12822 one board member requested this item to be reviewed and presented to the full board after a new CEO is hired I'm a little confused um and not really sure how this item already received the approval of the eight board members um because it doesn't seem like it was previously in the agenda for the public to hear and review or participate in um so I'm just wondering if you're aware of this um and per the or if you're aware that for the brown act uh this creates specific agenda obligations for notifying the public um in this regard um so I'm wondering if this was a violation of the brown act um specifically section 54950 thank you thank you for your comment uh staff or julie any response sure um thank you for your comment I can certainly yeah research whether this was a violation of the brown act um I was not privy to the conversations of when this letter was circulated and signed by the board members the only official action of the board that the board took was tabling this action until after a CEO was hired and the board was committed to agendizing a discussion of curb jurisdiction within three months of that CEO's engagement and that is the only official action of the board that this board took um but I can certainly look into what this is about and respond back thank you julie any other questions from the board looking to the public I don't see any more hands moving to the next item labor organization communications do we have anything else from our folks I see james sandoval james can you hear me yes we can thanks okay I got a couple of things first off congratulations larry I'm excited about you being chair um excited that the slate was accepted as is for slate number two um just a fun fact about larry pigler he is so passionate about transit he sits in our spark meetings which is the service planning review committee meeting for metro that runs the service and talks about how to make ours routes more efficient and stuff and he makes almost every meeting so I'm just really excited about having somebody so passionate about transit and that's going to take metro in the right direction and um just another thing back to the comments over the slates like I just want to vouch for both director jimmy dutra and arie parker they have not taken a position on the trail corridor or the train um I jimmy was asked this during an endorsement process you know his comment was to let the community decide so um I just wanted to make sure that was known about that and going back to the thank you flyer for clarification um basically legislation doesn't require board support you know um we were working with uh senator john laird over legislation to bring unfair labor practice mitigation to metro and we got a consensus from this board for my understanding that uh they they support this which is basically um gonna bring protections to workers that you know we never had before and it's just basically to make sure that we're always bargaining in good faith um and uh that thank you flyer as you could see includes um quite a few board members including ex-officio all to north cut and uh these are basically people that have spoke up in support of this legislation and the idea and so um I we just felt the need to you know it's the least we could do is to you know let these board members know how grateful we are to bring um labor harmony to metro and we're just hoping that you know consensus or sentiment continues as um our legislation moves forward so thank you I just want to clarify that thank you james and I appreciate your comments I'll see you at the next spark meeting uh director mires I see your hand thank you chair and congratulations larry thank you I've known you a long time so I can't think of a better chair for us this year um yeah I just want to remark on this item um and the flyer um I do want the board to again understand my my statement at the last meeting which um I was supportive of bringing this to the entire board um I understood there was various agenda issues um didn't get on the agenda was supportive of having a conversation at the board um in a transparent openly public way um and despite many conversations with mr. sandoval and very direct responses to him um I was unable to get uh what I was expressing done with working with mr. sandoval which initially I had signed that letter via the email request uh I then within about a 10 minute period requested that the signature be taken off um this was after a few phone calls that I was able to finally have with various folks to find out more about um you know where we are heading with this and I made the conclusion that I would like to see the full board that this should be noticed publicly and that should be openly discussed by our board it's an important decision um I'm not saying I'm supportive one way or the other but my main uh point was that I wanted to have a board discussion um I explained this to mr. sandoval many times and I repeated that I would like to have a signature taken off the item uh despite being very frank about that I continued to receive communications from mr. sandoval over and over and over throughout the weekend right up to an important board meeting that I was attending as a general manager running my agency um and during that I just could not handle any more of the text my signature is still on this document but I want this board to know that I would prefer and I think everyone needs to consider that this should be done in a transparent noticed board discussion so I want to state that today um I think this was not well done and I will say I've talked with senator laird about um this and um you know I just don't think this was a good process at all and I just want to publicly talk about this board and I think it's going to lead to a lot of complications very disappointing thank you director mcpherson any other comments thank you thank you director mires I see director mcpherson's hand yeah I really appreciate the explanation and I've heard that that from director mires but I just want to say how disappointed I am I didn't I didn't think any other comments from the board all right I'll just just associate myself with bruce's comment thank you all right we were on to the next item any additional documentation for the existing agenda donna do we have anything more I sent out the slides to support item 12 to the directors yesterday and then those will get added to the agenda online great all right thank you that brings us to the consent agenda are there any items on the agenda that directors care to address separately or members of the who are interested in those none do I have a motion for it move approval of the consent agenda I'll second it we have a motion and myers I think was the second all right we have a vote on that director downing I director do track director commentary johnson I director conic I director Lynn I director mcpherson mutipers okay I director myers I director pigler I director parker I director Peterson I and director rockin I and the motion passes very good thank you we're on to our regular agenda and I believe I get to read the employee longevity awards of course that would be when my phone would go off moment thank you all right we have three individuals we're honoring for 10 years of service to the metro I'm going to read these pieces for them the first is your a strata your started working for Santa Cruz metro sorry as a mechanic one and was promoted to mechanic two you will continue to move up by promoting to lead mechanic in 2019 during work hours you will enjoys the challenges of his daily duties and his comradery of his co-workers you will has a passion for passing on experience knowledge and aid other mechanics you will has a wife and two sons on his time off you will really enjoys camping and a great outdoors I appreciate those years of service and I hope you stay with us for quite a while Marie Hoyos Marie enjoys providing safe transportation and courtesy to the public and makes it seem easy before starting as a bus operator from Metro she protected employees and the public as part of her duties as a security officer she made the decision to become a bus operator and has since been able to have a family and raise her children with her husband who is also a bus operator her calm demeanor and smooth driving have always been appreciated by her passengers last Paul Lennon Paul's career here with Metro started as a paratroops operator he enjoyed his interactions with the passengers and being a part of their lives Paul decided to come over to fixed routes and has enjoyed the challenges of fixed route along with his passengers interactions Paul is always in a good mood and always has a smile for his co-workers and passengers on his time off he enjoys outdoor activities and spending time with his family Paul is someone I personally knew before he came to Metro so congratulations to all three of these folks care to have a hand whatever we do thank you next item approval to pre fund the first principal and interest payment that comes from Chuck Farmer Chuck fine thank I'm going to share something because what I want to do is as I previously understand I want to kind of give you some of the results of our sales of our bonds for repurchasing or let me are you able to share your screen good yeah can you see that yes yes awesome all right so I'm going to go in here and give you a quick little summary so you know basically we sold the sales tax revenue bonds so a little bit of history at the unfunded liability it was sixty eight point one million and at the time CalPERS rate discount rate was about seven percent since then over time we were able to get our updated unfunded liability as of June 30 twenty twenty one that dropped at the fifty four point one million dollars which is good and that's primarily driven one by the discount rate CalPERS reduced to six point eight percent and then also CalPERS return twenty one percent which was higher than the seven percent that they expected so that's actually really kind of good news that reduced our funding so as part of it in the January board I came in and asked we want to sell up to but no more than fifty five million dollars in bonds the bonds would be fifteen years and we projected we'd save about sixteen million dollars going down this route of selling bonds versus keeping it in CalPERS so as a result we went out this past Wednesday February sixteen and from six a.m. our time to ten a.m. our time they went out and they basically put out the order this doesn't mean you sell them we do the order and based on that we had a four point six over subscribed so that means we had four point six times the amount of orders for our bonds then what we were going to actually sell which is actually great news one we priced it very well we didn't overprice it so that we get a tenfold but we didn't underprice it either in the fact that we got people back and as you can see in the chart here primarily people were looking at more of the short term that's why it was you know seven point five percent nine times nine people or nine companies effectively wanted our full amount of bonds which is this dark bottom down here so as you can see it's fairly well distributed everybody wanted to go in and buy our bonds which is actually really good news so as part of that we ended up selling our bonds and here are our investors in our bonds and as you can see as you go across it ranges everywhere from you know the big name all state to a lot of different investment firms you have wells capital management you got RBC JP Morgan asset management so this is actually really kind of good news and on the chart on the right over here on our investors we sold fifty one point fifty one million seven hundred fifty thousand dollars worth of bonds everything in blue our investors from that are based in New York based in the state of California so wells capital which being the largest almost four point six million dollars is invested in so we got a definitely a diverse group and as part of it here's our results so as our results as you can see the blue box right here is going to be our new payment stream the yellow dotted line would have been our payment stream going forward and as a result down here at the very bottom is we're going to save seventeen point one million dollars over the course and our total all in cost is three point three three percent I can tell you right now with the interest rates we are on the upswing because of what you see that the interest rates of the Fed has been talking about we're going to do multiple upticks of interest they've increased it now they're even forecasting a half a percent raise instead of a quarter percent raise and you know I would say it would have been much better two weeks ago than doing it when we did but I'm going to tell you we're better off when we did now because in two weeks it's going to be even higher so we did kind of get the uptick so it is much higher than what you might have seen around some of the counties and cities what they got maybe months and months ago but we're still on the low end I think we did really good and like I said we're going to save seventeen million dollars minimum going forward so as part of this this leads me into the request the request so the request and you can see it up here in the very top line which I'm kind of circling right here it's 3.414 274 and debt service we've moved so fast through this process that the way the structure works our major G revenue will actually be intercepted by a bank the bank will take off our part of our bond payment which includes our interest and principal and then gives us the rest of the money the problem is that won't be in place for another couple months and as part of the process we actually have to pre-fund I'll just say our first six month interest and principal payments which take place in August so effectively what I'm asking for is that we can put 3.4 million dollars into this pot and we will actually recoup that 3.4 million dollars over the next six months effectively when the intercept goes in this is where the bank intercepts our money and then takes the money off they won't take any money off so they'll give us all the money through so we won't actually have that residual until after August so I know it's kind of a little math exercise but I'm asking to pre-fund it with money now that we'll recoup one sixth of it over the next six months and effectively it'll come right back to us it's just because I don't have the intercept in place at this point because we've gone through so fast through this process very good Chuck any questions comments from the board this is an interesting piece of information and it looks very good my hands up Larry thank you I see Manu Director Cullick or Director Rockin it's alright Manu go ahead I'll follow you well thank you chair well first of all this is fantastic news great to see so much demand for our bonds and as you said 3.3 is not the best that we've seen out there but still I think it's a fantastic rate given the change rapidly changing environment so if I'm reading this correctly it looks like this will save us maybe a little over a million dollars in the very short term I just was wondering if you could comment a little bit more I know that some when we adopted this year's budget and I'm sure we'll discuss it again as we look at next year's budget but that we are still looking at a structural deficit I believe it was expected to grow to about 3.8 million dollars by 2026 so just to make sure I understand this is definitely a piece that helps with that but doesn't solve it is that a fair understanding yes you're dead on yes this is one piece of multiple pieces that have to take place in order to kind of solve that structural deficit but this is one item that will help dramatically as we kind of move forward thank you thank you for all the hard work Director Ratkin yes I want to thank you Chuck for bringing this to us also our former chair Donald who pressed hard for this over a number of months if not years it really makes a difference and without your expertise and explanations of this to those of us that are not financial wizards it probably wouldn't have happened so I really it needs to be really strongly underscore that you've made a real difference in the short time we've been with the district here in terms of saving us literally millions of dollars and it's really fantastic I'm going to wait until we hear from the public but I'm certainly prepared to make the motion for the for pre-funding the principle of an interest as been suggested by Chuck Farmer thank you Director McPherson I just want to repeat congratulations to this board and to the administration for putting this forward and for Chuck Farmer getting it in terms of seeing it through this is fantastic news as Director Connick said it's not going to solve our deficit problem but it sure does a good job of getting us back on closer to the right track so thank you to everybody very forward looking and it's great that we took this action Director Parker I want to congratulate you too because I've been looking at this for over a year not just with Metro but with the city of Watsonville I know the county has done it and more people understood they would of course like you said with the rates come in a little bit earlier but you came in just in time because everything is just going up pretty crazily so congratulations on that and I look forward to approving this motion any other comments from directors seeing none and go to the public any comments from our viewers I see no hands I'll move approval of the recommended staff action on this item which is to pre fund the first principle and interest payments in the bond due on August 1st 2022 second we have a motion and a second I'm ready for a vote please Director Downing I Director Dutruff not here I'm muted or on a bathroom break looking back to you Director Connery Johnson I Director Connick I Director Lynn I Director McPherson I Director Myers I Director Pagler I Director Parker I Director Peterson I and Director Rockin I and I didn't see Jimmy return so we'll just put him as absent the motion passes very good great work Chuck I appreciate your efforts on this and to Donna for moving this forward this has been a good effort thanks and I can't stop sharing so somebody needs to kick me out menu won't come up someone know how to do that I'm working on it okay thank you Donna there we go there we go alright we're on to the interim CEO oral report from Dawn would you like to care take this on please we still have a screen sharing coming from community TV I think I don't think so somebody sharing let's see here it says you are viewing CTV screen yeah that's me yeah okay is that there we go I can see you all again all right well good morning everyone Don I would like to share some good positive news with you we missed a couple of new hires last month when we announced new hires and promotions so I would like to honor them now our three bus operators that started at the end of December are Vincent Garcia Roberta Rodriguez Edgar Garcia Ramos so like I said they all started end of December starting next Monday the 28th they will start their line instruction which if you're not familiar with that they're on the bus and they're doing things but they're being supervised by a current bus operator and so once they pass that they'll be out on their own and we'll have three new operators out there for us so that's very exciting in the month of February we also had a paratransit operator start with us and the name is Ramiro Arrepeza I probably butchered that last name and I really do apologize we also for promotions we had a promotion in our paratransit division as well and her name is Veronica Hoover and she was promoted to dispatch scheduler from driver so that's exciting and then we had two employees promote into our management team so we're excited about that we were able to promote Freddie Martinez and he's our new revenue account manager yes and we were also able to promote Joan Jeffries and purchasing manager you're here as well congratulations very exciting news that's great to the not so exciting news but getting better news we'll talk about COVID so when I reported to you last month I gave you a really high number that had of our positives from January 1st since my last report we've had 14 new cases however only one case in the last 14 days so that goes along with what I explained last month where we hit that really high peak with the holidays and the fact that Omicron is so contagious and now we've come down so only one in the last 14 days which is awesome now due to as many positive cases that we had in our operations division we ended up hitting what's called a major outbreak and where I fail with information Curtis will jump in and help me here but if you have 20 positives in a 30 day period you hit what's called major outbreak so there's some things that need to happen with that we went to twice a week testing mandatory testing for everyone so regardless of vaccinated or unvaccinated everybody had to test twice a week everybody had to mask up even in areas where you don't have to wear a mask and even now with no mask mandate in Santa Cruz County if you're in operations you still need to wear a mask because of the major outbreak so it sparked an OSHA audit so an OSHA auditor came in checked our facilities so things they looked at were cleaning our cleaning stations how things were set up how an operator comes in receives their their pack and goes to their bus and just basically watched the whole process our safety director Curtis walked with them the whole time answered questions we also shared our contact tracing form so each time somebody tests positive you know that we contact them right away we do a contact tracing we share that with the public health department and then we also turned that information over to OSHA make sure that we're covering all of our basis from what I understand it could take up to three to six months for us to get a final report back but I did the exit review with Curtis along with the auditor and they shared with us that nothing stood out that caused concern and they were very happy with all of our policies and our procedures that were in place Curtis if I left anything out let me know that's good that's accurate all right perfect so you know the way I feel about an audit is it's not a not always a bad thing I feel like it's not something where you know you're worried about oh my gosh we have an audit I feel like an audit is a help you know is help because we need to know if we're failing in any area and so you really don't know that unless you get audited so hopefully it comes back flying colors though I'd like to believe that we are not failing in any any area but I wasn't upset at the fact that we got audited I think it's a good thing that is all I have to share with you today unless you have questions for me that's good news I appreciate your taking care of that both Curtis and you very good director McPherson I just want to thank Don for an excellent job interim CEO there's been some of the audit is something you probably didn't need to have on your plate at this time but you've done a fantastic job and the whole administrative team thank you very much it's been really outstanding and you're to be really applauded for your great work that you've done in this interim period thank you Bruce that really means a lot to me and I honestly 100% cannot do it without my without everyone of the whole admin staff you know Margo I think calls me daily and says do you need anything can I help you do anything and or something's going on she's you know she'll always close the call with let me know if you need anything Curtis check everybody like my assistant Monique I mean if I didn't have her there's absolutely no way I could do this so and Donna Bauer has been amazing just everybody you know there's no way I could do it without everybody so much thanks to everybody out there director Lynn and I just wanted to add my thanks as well he just you know you've risen above even what we'd hope so excellent job stepping in and and you know challenging times and you've just really really made this all proud thank you very much means a lot is my pleasure thank you very good work any other comments alright let's move on to our state legislative update we able to Walter are you able to pull slide 52 can I speak really fast sure Don go ahead I want to make sure that we have Josh's current slides I think he's sent something after and I think what he's seeing in the packet will not be the current and he can share his screen with the current that will help Don if you want to have this check real quick we can look at our fifth slide sorry board members but just we found it Michael and I found a couple of typos if you go a couple more down we can check real quick that's fine couple more down it's going to be like slide 56 and I can check a date just to tell you slide 56 click on that we're just checking the date on slide 56 there we go actually I think you've got correct versions that's correct perfect thank you take it away if you'd like thanks chair Peggler and board members I'm Josh Shaw with Shaw Yoder Intuition if we could have CTV go up to the beginning of our slides I appreciate that how about we start on slide 52 probably go to 53 hey we're not 53 there we go hi I'm Josh Shaw with Shaw Yoder Intuition I'm here with my colleague Michael Pimentel Michael co-leads with me your state advocacy effort for the state capital in Sacramento California this morning we're going to talk about some key legislation we've seen introduced this year already in the 2022 legislative session we'll talk about some transit funding opportunities as well that should be exciting for Metro possibly some challenges next slide please folks you'll recall the California legislature operates in a two year cycle from October of last year to debrief on the results of the first year the 2021 half of the 21-22 biennium next slide please so we're now 56 days into the second year of the two year legislative session in fact a week ago today last Friday was the deadline for legislators to introduce meaning put into print for the public to see any bills they want to try to move to the governor August 31st deadline that's at midnight on the 31st will be the last night of this year's session so they get the bills to the governor by then or they're done and would have to come back into a new session next year so we've combed through since last Friday more than 2,000 bills introduced this year and while about 640 of those are still just technical non substantive bills we call spot bills which can serve as a vehicle for legislators that have decided yet what they want to do with their entire bill package but they had to have a vehicle in public print so now standing those 640 or so of those spot bills we have looked at more than 1400 substantive bills and we have seen several bills already that we think should be of interest to you and Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District so Michael Pimentel is actually going to move through three or four bills that he wants to call to your attention so next slide please Michael thank you Josh and director is good to be with you this morning Michael Pimentel with and the legislative session has just begun but already as Josh had mentioned we've seen some significant legislative action already one of the first emergency actions that the legislature took this year upon the return to Sacramento was to reestablish COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave now the requirement which applies to all employers with more than 25 employees entitles those employees to up to 80 hours of COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave there are two buckets of hours that comprise at 80 hours 40 hours for certain specified conditions largely related to after effects from the COVID-19 vaccine or instances where folks are going in for a COVID-19 vaccine the second 40 hours would be made available to individuals who happen to become a COVID positive case now the requirements are retroactive to January 1, 2022 and there are retroactive requirements that the agencies or employers rather provide payment to employees who may have qualified for the supplemental paid sick leave earlier this year though the bill of course just recently went to effect and it will remain in effect as a body of law through September 30th 2022 and so let's go to the next slide next slide please now among the other new bills that have been introduced this year that would provide benefit to Metro is SB 922 now this bill would permanently extend and expand TECO exemptions for certain transit projects including certain project types that are key priorities for the district zero emission bus charging and refueling infrastructure now we understand that in the near term the district will be bringing on a permanent CEO and we intend to discuss with them the potential for Metro to support this bill given that it aligns so well with overall priorities that you have as an agency next slide please all right now another key bill is AB 2622 which would extend the sales and use tax exemption for zero emission buses purchased by transit agencies through 2034 now we estimate that this bill would save Metro between 30,000 and $50,000 per zero emission bus purchased obviously you are on a path to 100% zero emission bus fleets in a manner consistent with the California Resources Board's innovative clean transit regulation in a real life of your transition this may save you several millions of dollars and it's with that that we will be discussing with the permanent CEO the potential for Metro to support this bill so let's move to the next slide now you may recall that in early 2020 prior to the pandemic we brought to you three bills that would have required transit agencies including Metro to provide their free transit to various populations as a condition for receiving state funding now those bills would have challenged Metro's budget and undermined among other things your agreement for student passes with Carillo College and it's with that as context that Metro had opposed those bills now ultimately the bills were tabled because of the pandemic many legislative vehicles were repurposed for other uses that were pandemic focused but now that the pandemic has improved legislators are once again revisiting the concept of their free transit albeit in different ways now SB 878 which is the first bill that is noted for you in that yellow box by Senator Nancy Skinner from Oakland focuses on free transportation for K through 12 students now notably it doesn't place subordinate on transit agencies to provide this free transportation but rather it charges school districts to with making arrangements to provide free school transportation that would be backed by new funding now part of the way that school districts may be able to provide this service would be with contract with transit agencies and that is allowed for in the bill now there is one other bill that leads into the space and that would be AB 1919 by assembly member Chris Holden from Pasadena which is potentially similar to the 2020 measures though at this point it's what we call in Sacramento an intent bill it simply states at this point in time the intent of the legislature to enact legislation to provide their free transit however the parameters of those requirements are not yet in print and it's something that we're going to be tracking over the coming weeks and months and then be reporting back to you particularly if we see challenges for the district and your budgets and so at this time I'll hand it back to Josh to run us through some of the high level takeaways from the state budget that was introduced in January could I ask some questions about these bills we're right ahead Mike so for Skinner SB 8 that seems to me a very positive thing you know if we can get young people or K-12 students free bus rides and they start to learn how to ride the bus as part of their regular routines in life they may become lifelong transit riders and I think that's not just for our district but for the work plan as a whole in terms of getting people out of 5 automobiles and onto public transit but right now Skinner basically saying the legislature will pay this cost it wouldn't be unlike the bills last year wouldn't fall on the districts to provide the service for free what risk do we face that you know this switches you know legislature things great idea and stuff and then in some committee it gets amended to say yeah let's do this but let's make sure that the public transit districts pay for it and to what extent should we be tracking this bill as opposed to it's something I would support it now in its current form but the question is I'm asking about the details of how lobbying works and how our support operates what should our position be about a bill like this that looks very promising but has I would assume some risk at least that it might turn bad for us I would say that at this stage it's first policy committee it makes good sense to just continue to watch the bill and certainly as it moves through the budget through the legislative process we'd want to continue to track to see if there are any substantive amendments that are taken to the bill there are a few things I think would support the bill moving forward in its current form one is that the bill does make a commitment to identifying funding and Senator Skinner does have the advantage of serving as a Senate budget chair which means that she is in a prime position for helping to secure funding to actually bring the bill in place in its current form and then secondly Oakland Unified School District is a school district in the state that partners very well with AC Transit and actually provides direct funding support to that district I think she would be very cognizant of not wanting to disrupt that type of relationship between her school district and her bus agency by creating new requirements on the transit agencies that may undermine their ability to get funding from the school district and so I think there are a number of factors that will manifest within these conversations that would lead us to a positive outcome on this front but again on this at this early stage would recommend just watching the bill and as it moves through the various transportation committees possibly the education committee will want to see if there are any significant amendments are taken that may create new challenges for school districts in transit agencies across the state. So my view is again if this goes in a positive way and the legislature does agree that they're willing to fund this to me this is really critical it could really really make a difference through California in general and to the planet as a whole and so I guess I'd like us to be informed about you know the earliest opportunity if it continues to be a positive bill for us to jump in and boost some serious lobbying around this issue because I think it could really make a difference so I guess that's just I think I'll take your advice we should be following the bill or studying where it goes but at some point please I think the direction from us ought to be please get back to us when it looks like it really is happening and we could be helpful. Absolutely we're committed to continue to monitor this bill and we'll certainly raise with the new CEO the potential for support or position on this bill we'll be bringing it back to you all as a board. Even to the extent that we go out to our local cities in the county and look for resolutions of support from them as well so we really put everything we think possibly you supported if it continues to move in a positive direction. And I might ask for a brief elaboration on intense language only how does that apply and I'm sure directors Henderson and Northcott would be of an interest in this issue representing UCSC and Cabrera College. So with intent language is generally introduced by a legislator when they're still working on a concept and they may be working with a sponsor to really understand the parameters of what they intend to move forward with and so they'll introduce what they call intent language that just directionally sets where they are going but there will be more specifics that are provided in future weeks and months through an amendment to the bill. We would anticipate that probably within the next month we'll see the true parameters of the bill meaning that the requirements whether it's mandate without funding or a new program that provides funding and it's elective pursuit all that will be sketched out in the coming weeks and months as we see new language introduced. Thank you Mike. I interrupted you on your way back to Josh. Josh we'll hand it back to you. Yeah if we could have the next slide please and I'm going to talk about the budget and funding and of course if Senator Skinner and others find the solution to the question that Director Rockin raised about that fair free transit bill in terms of providing funding to the educational to the school districts and or transit we will of course report back in any case. So let's talk real quick about the state budget. On January 10th Governor Newsom released his proposed state budget for public transit. The legislature of course has to now craft their response to Governor Governor's proposed legislatures actually legislate and send the budget to back to the governor so they may take some of his ideas they may reject some of his ideas they'll certainly add some of their own ideas and the budget is owed back to the governor for signature in the law by June 15th so we've got a few months to figure these things out and what we'd like to do similar to the interaction with the public. So we're going to talk about the legislative priorities that we have with the governor and Director Rockin just had with Michael on bringing back legislative priorities relative to your expressed funding priorities this is a information item today but we'll work with Don and then hand off to your new CEO and come back to help work with you and your agency to shape the message you want us to deliver to the legislature relative to your budget priorities. You just to set the stage though for these proposals this year you may recall that last May with the April tax receipts then in hand the governor made a supplemental budget proposal to the legislature recognizing the state's revenues were then coming in much higher than projected he proposed several billion dollars in new general fund spending across a variety of programs in our world he made some transportation spending proposals including for instance on new public transit capital spending zero emission vehicles etc now that whole aspect of his budget proposal for the most part did not get enacted in the current year 21-22 budget although there are some zero emission dollars that got in there we'll come back to that these larger billion dollar multi-billion dollar transit spending proposals didn't get done so on January 10th of this year he basically doubled down on that proposal but also plused it up because again state revenues are materializing in the middle of the 21-22 budget much higher than originally projected in fact there could be a multi tens of billions of dollars surplus projected at June 30, 2022 leading into the upcoming years budget so you can see here billions of dollars in new transportation spending including 3.25 billion dollars in transit capital he would propose to run that through a program with which we're very familiar that rewards agencies are moving to the zero emission and cleaner transit operations that's a billion dollars more than he proposed last year you can see some of the other pots of money including a lot of money north of two billion dollars for zero emission buses and other heavy duty equipment like that the key will be frankly can the legislature resolve with the governor his ask for the final 4.2 billion dollars in high-speed rail prop 1A bond funding approved by the voters in California in 2010 but still not fully appropriated by the legislature there are various legislators who care about how that money would be spent on the whole planned high-speed rail system the governor wants to have a package deal I'll give you transit funding if we in fact can find a way to fund the high-speed rail system so those conversations which could be thorny will continue but we'll want to figure out your voice and your specific key message points in those budget discussions now Michael is going to give you a little bit more on some of the specific transit funding programs that pop out of the governor's January 10th budget proposal so we can see the next slide and thank you Josh board members I do want to highlight for you the governor has put forward again a really robust package of investments in zero emission vehicles in zero emission infrastructure the budget includes 6.1 billion dollars in new funding for zero emission vehicles in infrastructure in combined with the 3.9 billion dollars that was approved last year that is a 10 billion dollar investment package over these past two fiscal years now of the 6.1 billion dollars that is on the table this year 460 million dollars is specifically earmarked for zero emission transit buses and related infrastructure those are monies that are exclusive to transit agencies to ultimately support with compliance with the California resources board's innovative clean transit regulation now the proposed investments are multi-year in nature they're intended to support the deployment of 1700 zero emission transit buses in the state roof fiscal year 24 25 of that 6.1 billion dollar total there is an additional 1.1 billion dollars for what is defined as zero emission trucks, buses and off road vehicles and related infrastructure those monies ultimately pass through the California resources board the California energy commission there's always a sub allocation process associated with that a portion of those dollars will ultimately come to transit agencies but at this point in time we don't yet know the level of additional funding that will be provided to agencies as part of that 1.1 billion dollar line item we're going to highlight an amount of 383 million dollars for zero emission transportation now as contemplated this program is largely going to advantage the transition to zero emission rail technologies but the state does recognize that as part of the rail network in the state of California there is a robust network of commuter buses that help create linkages to those rail lines with that there will be new monies that will flow from that 383 million dollars for the electrification of over the road coaches operated by public agencies very familiar with the fact that Santa Cruz Metro operates over the road coach on state route 1 that it is going to be an opportunity for Santa Cruz Metro to ultimately secure some monies from those programs now you will see that there are green cells that are included in this slide these are all the funding programs that we see as being either directly advantageous to public transit agencies or for which public transit agencies will be eligible and so we'll be coming back to as Josh noted as the budget process continues to unfold to better inform you on how the process is developing whether or not we're actually going to see these dollars flow as part of the fiscal year 2022 to 2023 budget and that will be something that we'll come back to you for after the introduction of what the governor calls his May revise which is a mid-year update to his proposed budget so we'll move to the next slide where I do want to provide you with just a high level overview of the status of ongoing transit funding we just spent a few minutes talking about the new funding that was proposed largely discretionary these are monies that are going to flow irrespective of whether or not the legislature the Newsom administration come to an agreement on high-speed rail and the larger transportation funding package and with this there's a lot of good news the state transit assistance program which serves as the lifeblood of public transit in the state is projected to be up more than $15 million in fiscal year 2022-23 over the current fiscal year of 2021-22 and this brings us to a historically high $854 million for this program additionally the local transportation fund is projected to be up $87 million in fiscal year 2022-23 over the current fiscal year and that brings us to over $2.1 billion in funds for that program now you'll see here that the transit and city rail capital program or TIRCP choose to decline in funding I'll just note that such declines are fairly typical to be presented in the January budget and that is because the administration takes a very conservative approach to the projections of funds for this program as to not influence the market for cap-and-trade auction proceeds that serve as the basis of funding for this program and I'll head it back to Josh and together we'll take questions on the balance of this presentation Thanks Michael Board members that's our presentation just as a reminder again this is an early look at key legislative and funding priorities that will play out for the rest of the year and we're happy to work with you and your staff to shape up specific action items and or advocacy messages as you see fit at this point we'll take questions or bow out if you're done with us Very good information, thank you very much for this Josh and Michael I see Director McPherson has commented Yes as you know I think thank you Josh and Mike for the presentation I appreciate it very much as you know that Santa Cruz County and its four cities has a lot of energy that has many incentive programs itself for zero mission vehicles could that fact help in our application for some of these funds or do you have any idea can there be a nexus there of some type that we're forward looking we're well we have 35 governing agencies in this program triple CE at this point can that help in any way Director McPherson I assume that there are at least two three I can think of four grant programs that would be funded by supplemented by the proposals that we showed you that the governor made and if the legislature sends that back to the governor with those plus step dollars that very well could advantage you based on your CCA connections there in the county and we would be happy to work with you and other folks on your staff who handle those grants to make sure we're highlighting that aspect in the right way when you make the applications later this year good thank you for your your energy and getting our programs up in the front of the line there appreciate it very much thank you Director Henderson so just to go back a little bit to the assembly bill you indicated that we would start to see additional information as it came forth is there any place that I can find information as it is now other than the public website for the state of California which I've already gone to and give me a little bit of information or some sort of rough timeline on when we can start to see additional information something like this while it sounds wonderful to relieve students of cost burdens like this could have some unintended consequences as I think we can all imagine so I'm this does you know like Larry indicated does raise a little bit of a red flag for us at this stage the information that is available is that which is available on the state of California's ledge info website we can certainly reach out to the author's office or to the public and as you can see there's perhaps a pre-draft a document that they may be able to share with us but anticipate that they'll be keeping that language close to their chest before introduction but with regards to your question on timeline the soonest that we'll see a bill being amended is within 30 days of introduction that means we've got amended and in print potentially heard for a hearing and so we'll be able to report back to you we'll reach out to the CO Cromay and provider that information as soon as we see it in print make sure that you all have visibility into whatever is introduced as soon as it is and if I might director Henderson kind of underscoring a point that Michael made in his exchange with director Rockin on the Skinnerville and then to the same topic going back two years that your board is concerned about the impact of these kinds of bills and we're not going to just watch them Michael Pimentel's talking to Senator Skinner's office talking to a Senate member Holden's office constantly to try to figure out exactly where they do want to go with these bills because as you said could be really great for transit but if we're left holding the bag that's going to be difficult so we're pushing to find out about these bills not just kind of passively watching to see what happens to them and if you need any sort of assistance anecdotal or otherwise to help support or at least try to get it you know these potential gotchas in front of the folks who are pushing this just so they understand I'm sure you guys are on top of it but I just want to make sure that we're checking our boxes and doing our due diligence so that a good deed potentially doesn't work on our collective faces got it thank you for the offer and Dan I'm sure that the other colleges and universities in the Bay Area that you stay in touch with will have a similar interest and you'll probably like to involve government relations from UC yeah the emails being drafted as very good alright any other questions Mike I see your hand yeah it's not a question I just want to thank both Josh and Michael for their work and we made a good decision when we selected you to represent us in Sacramento because this comes to the bottom line for us in so many different cases and we appreciate the work you do for us you've been doing a great job thank you very much thank you Director Rock and Chair Pegler thank you and all your board colleagues and the Metro staff we really love working with you and we will keep you up to speed and come back and ask you for additional direction as needed throughout this legislative year thank you Josh we appreciate it and look forward to your next visit thank you next we have a federal legislative update let's see with Chris sir thanks Chair Pegler congratulations and Mayor Lynn thank you for your leadership as well Chris Gileo here from from Washington D.C. to give a federal update and if you recall since the pandemic started I believe I'm contractually required to tell you how poor the weather is here and that I really need to be out there so this morning when I walked my dog it was 35 degrees in gray so well trust that it's cold out here as well I could see Larry's I'm freezing up but that means it's like 70 right oh it was about 32 but it does warm up during the day it does anyway I'm looking forward to the time when I can it was actually exactly two years ago the last time I was out there for the February Metro Board meeting so and then everything happened any who I I do have some slides that I get that if you could kind of put them up there with regard to a federal update since we last spoke I believe we spoke in October last and so that was right before Congress approved and the president signed into law a big infrastructure bill so I think while you probably know a lot about it I might go over a little bit of that as well so if you go to the next slide please here's the three things that I was going to talk about the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that's the infrastructure bill Build Back Better is the president's sort of second infrastructure bill that's still pending a human infrastructure bill a social infrastructure bill a lot of people call it and then of course we'll talk about the FY 2022 Department of Transportation budget which impacts us so next slide please so I don't you know I find this funny and it's weird but you know Congress approved this bill in November signed it into law and they gave it an official name the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and so right after it passed we all started calling it the IIJA well the White House really insists on bipartisan infrastructure law BIL so you probably see those two terms interchangeable clearly it makes sense that the White House would want to call it this I'm not sure why they didn't ask Congress to you know make that the official name but those are two inter interchangeable terms so as you can see here it passed the Senate in August of last year with the support of 19 Republicans and that's where the bipartisan came from that it was that it was a group of about 20 U.S. Senators about 10 Republicans 10 Democrats who came up with this with this bill passed the House in November with 13 Republicans that's not a lot that's a lot you know out of 435 members of the House it wasn't exactly a bipartisan vote in the House but 13 Republicans did vote for it and then the President quickly signed it into law in November and since then has been able to implement this so the bill totals about 1.2 trillion dollars that's what you hear it's a 1.2 trillion dollar kind of generational investment in what we would call traditional infrastructure transportation bridges roads transit water water infrastructure cyber security things like that broadband infrastructure about what I call new money in that in that of that 1.2 trillion is about $550 billion and by new money I mean money that Congress was not going to allocate for programs if we if we didn't have this infrastructure bill there were things in both the transportation and water areas that Congress was likely to do and we'll talk a little bit about that in a moment even even if we didn't finish this infrastructure bill so of about $550 billion in new money billion in new money about half of that goes to the Department of Transportation 21 billion out of it or so goes directly to the Federal Transit Administration the largest investment there for our purposes is about $5 billion over five years for what they call the low no program low and no emissions grant program and as you might imagine it's used it's a competitive program that is used to purchase infrastructure and low emissions low emissions buses and the infrastructure associated with it it's $5 billion over five years so it's a little over a billion dollars about a billion dollars a year for the next five years as a competitive grant program that previously received somewhere along the lines of $150 million from Congress over the last few years so you can tell it's a huge increase coming at a really good time for us of course as we sort of move to fully electrify our fleet so the Department of Transportation having half of this new money has been very busy implementing this program they're trying to get as many programs out as they can and quickly I will say especially the elected officials here on the board sort of the first question that comes up when you see this generational federal investment this big infrastructure bill what's in it for me and it's hard to tell it's approximately 60% of the funding through this infrastructure bill is in the form of block grants to states and so the states have the authority they're getting formula funding based on population or poverty or different things depending on the program and then they have the ability to pass that down another 28% of it I guess let's call it 30% is through competitive grant programs some of which a transit agency or a local government would be eligible for others not and so when you're talking about back when we had the American Rescue Plan, the pandemic relief bill you can kind of see what you were going to get there was lots of formula funding for transit and for local governments you could see what you were getting this is a little more difficult there's going to be competitive programs with the state trying to get money passed down but as I said the department of transportation is really ramping up and trying to get that money out I will say for instance in recent months they released $7 billion I believe in bridge money to states they've also released $1.5 billion competitive grant program called the raise program called the tiger program the build program it's a very competitive discretionary grant program and that's on the street so to speak and the administration will continue to try to get as much of this money on the street as it can leading up to these November midterm elections and so but I would also say that this is most of this money is going to be distributed over five years so we will probably see an application process for this low and no emissions grant program coming up soon but it will only be $1 billion out of that $5 billion so we will have additional chances down the road to hone those applications improve them if need be and time them in the right way the IIJA also includes and this is where I talk about it this is not what I would call the new money it includes a five year reauthorization of federal surface transportation programs including programs of the federal transit administration which we participate in it's about a 36% increase in existing formula and grant programs Congress is probably going to do this anyway even if they didn't do the infrastructure build but they rolled it all in there and so some highlights again about 36% increase in existing formula and grant programs a 50% increase in the what we call the stick program the small transit intensive cities program those of you who don't know this is a program that was created by Congress sort of at the urging of Santa Cruz Metro we were big players in the creation of this program it's a formula program that provides sort of a bonus pool of money for high performing smaller transit agencies those that serve urbanized areas of less than $200,000 so we do very well for this program we created it and so thanks to Congress from Panetta they got a 50% increase in that program in this over the next five years the 36% increase in formula funding adds up to probably at least FTA estimates of about 3 million additional additional funding annually for Metro so that's where we can say what's in it for me that is hard money that formula funding that is going to be guaranteed over the next five years for the agency next slide please can I ask a question about this slide? sure yeah absolutely so the $5 billion for LONO emissions is that out of the $21 billion for FTA? yes sir I'm sorry if I'm anticipating your question the capital investment grants program which funds light rail projects and bus rapid transit things like that they got a big chunk of money from some rural programs the ferry boat program for instance got some of that $21 billion as well and then the fact that there's the transportation got $550 billion in new money but only $21 billion to FTA the remainder goes to automobiles or rail or where is that money going? yeah I think if you're someone who is looking for this bill to really address climate change there is some in there but a lot of it goes to roads and bridges half of the $500 so about $275 billion of the $550 billion goes to DOT but still yeah a lot of it is going to roads and bridges but Amtrak gets a pretty big chunk of money too that's about $66 billion in there for what they call intercity passenger rail most of it's going to go to Amtrak in some way they have no interest in the roads buses drive on roads but in terms of the relative shares as you point out the majority of it's not going to public transit it's going to other kinds of transportation modes that's correct $130 billion of that $275 is for federal highways thanks for answering my questions the next I'll just talk briefly about the bill back better the interest in passing this in Congress seems to be waning every day but as I mentioned before the president calls the bill back better we call it kind of a human infrastructure plan a social infrastructure plan you can see in its original format as approved by the house last November it had a bunch of money in it for childcare universal pre-k, community college lots of affordable housing funding in there energy assistance, home health aids big chunks of money in there so it's about a $3.5 trillion program as approved by the house in November of 2021 all pay for offset with tax increases on wealthy folks and that sort of thing but that's the size of the bill not a lot of transportation programs in that bill back better there was kind of a handshake agreement between the president and the folks who did the IIJA that the president wouldn't try to get more transportation money in this bill back better bill and make it bigger but I will say that there's a couple of really attractive things in there $10 billion so $2 billion $10 billion over 5 years $2 billion a year for a new program that would be at HUD and FTA and it would be to sort of link affordable housing programs and projects with transit service and so you think about a downtown Watsonville transit center or Pacific station as you read that legislation they really dovetail perfectly into that and then again thanks to Congressman Panetta and conversations that we've been having with him over the years the bill back better as approved by the house has a 30% tax credit for the purchase of zero emissions commercial vehicles which includes buses and so that would be in the form of a rebate similar to what we get through the alternative federal alternative fuels tax credit unfortunately this again as I said interest in this bill while it was passed by the house along party lines in November it needs all 50 senate democrats to pass and that's not the case right now there's probably about 46 or 47 democrats who are supportive of bill back better and a couple of holdouts for various reasons and so again like I said every day that we don't see a vote in the senate on this the white house has said that they are reaching out to the senate democrats who are having heartburn with the bill trying to pair it down in size but like I said as we get closer and closer to the midterm elections in the summer and a stop the chances of this bill back better get slimmer and slimmer and I do think that if we do get something out of it that those two programs above that I mentioned the tax credit and the affordable housing program with transit would probably go by the way side as they slim it down but the president is continuing to push he's a little distracted right now with other stuff and as are others next slide please so the next is the fiscal year 22 budget particularly for us for the department of transportation federal fiscal year 2022 formally started on October 1, 2021 so we're several months into 2022 but for various reasons congress has not approved a final budget for FY 2022 so right now the government is running under what they call a continuing resolution it's basically a stopgap measure to avoid a shutdown and it funds programs at their current levels so their FY 2021 levels until the final budget is passed that continuing resolution expires on March 11 we're hopeful that this will be the last continuing resolution that's needed and congress will approve that an FY 2022 budget that would include some increases for programs that we care about if for instance the reauthorization that I was talking about that's included in the IIJA the 36% increases for formula grant programs begin with fiscal year 2022 so if congress passed this year long continuing resolution if they couldn't decide on an FY 2022 budget and just kind of kick the can down the road and said we'll just do it at FY 21 levels and start the FY 23 process and forget about 2022 that could conceivably cost us about $3 million in new money with formula funds so I think everybody is hopeful that a final budget will pass and we can start with FY 2022 money but politics is a funny thing and congress could get involved we're hopeful it's not transportation is really not the contentious thing it's more sort of the republicans and democrats have some arguments over policy provisions in these spending bills that some people like some people don't like and also parity between defense and non defense spending democrats have proposed about a 13-14% increase and non defense discretionary spending for FY 22 while about a 5% increase in defense programs and republicans would like that delta between that to be a little bit smaller and so that's part of the problem as well some people say well why don't we just pull out the transportation department budget if everybody likes it pull that out and pass it and let's be on with it well you need the stuff that everybody likes in order to make people swallow the pill that they don't like in that gigantic budget it's no way to legislate but that's the way we're doing it right now in DC I think those were the big things I'm happy to answer any questions about any of these expand or if I missed anything that you've been hearing happy to talk about that too thank you Chris good information I see again from director Dutra hi hi Chris hi how are you I'm good I'm good nice to see you two questions one is when was the last time we received a like a LONO grant or a grant that we were able to use for our our system what year was that yeah I think and maybe Wanda Mu if he's here or John was it was it 2017 that was 2016 yeah that was the the LONO grant which we didn't spend for a while because we had problem issues that's when we got the grant initially and we just held on to it until we could expand it director John oh I wasn't finished oh I'm sorry Jim Mike interrupted me Councilman Dutra too Wanda Mu can probably expand on this too there's also been sort of this kind of because of the big difference right between the cost of a compressed natural gas bus and an electric bus we've been sort of looking at both right and so like you know as opposed to saying oh we need 50 new you know 50 million dollars for 50 new electric buses looking at kind of layering that process while we still can so thank you I think that's 2016 that's a while ago and I think that it sets us up pretty nicely to be competitive in the next round of grants so I think that you know maybe working with our staff we should figure out what our match could be so that we could you know put in a really strong submission for these for this next round what do you feel is there anything we could be doing to make to be successful yeah I think I think you've been doing it over the years right you know sort of you know approving that plan you know the the fleet you know turn over plan passing you know local transportation measures you know that say we've got skin in the game and you know being able to provide that match I think you know we've talked about this a lot this administration really is favoring projects that address equity issues and I think that that a lot of public transportation kind of is all about equity right and so if we can you know kind of talk about how the services we're providing in places like Watsonville I think that that makes for a strong application great thank you well we'll be in touch then even more so Director Calentari Johnson thank you so much thanks for that presentation really a lot of rich information I wanted to ask about the IIGAA you mentioned that 60% of the funds are in the form of formula block grants that would get doled out to states so how much room is there for local communities to advocate with our representatives to ensure that our state and our region get some of those funding how much does the formula block grant piece restrict us from doing advocating what would you recommend thanks councilmember it's a good question it really does depend on the program so for instance just recently CalTrans you know got a big chunk of money for bridges from the department of transportation through the IIGAA but the department of the federal department of transportation gives CalTrans a pretty wide berth as to how to spend money they could spend it on all state owned bridges or they could use it on what they call off system bridges it's really kind of up to them so yeah I think on the local level advocating with CalTrans that you've got projects that are in need of funding makes a lot of sense you know again this isn't transit related but cyber security there's a big chunk of money for cyber security the IIGAA actually specifically said that states will get that formula grant money but they must pass 80% of it on to local entities so knowing that kind of helps you you know to do battle in Sacramento so to speak thank you I have one follow-up question mentioned with the build back better that likely what's going to go is the 10 billion for 10 billion for the HUD FTA affordable housing and transit program and the 30% tax credit I mean our community is just so prime for those opportunities what can we do to help save them or is it just do we say goodbye yeah unfortunately you know like I said we've got a strong we've got a congressional delegation that is strongly in favor of these you know and like I mentioned before the tax credit for the you know the commercial electric commercial vehicles was authored by congressman Panetta yeah I unfortunately it's folks in West Virginia and Arizona so if you know anybody there you know they're kind of folks who are stopping this I don't know if they're necessarily stopping it but they're saying it's too large they think that inflation is you know kind of out of control and they don't want to do too much more federal spending and so that's at least what they're saying with regard to that but I will say that you know that even if congress doesn't approve the funding for these programs this administration does actually kind of look at those things in a positive light and so there hopefully will be other competitive programs that we can look at that we can say hey look we're providing these services you know in conjunction with affordable housing and I think this administration would think that that's a competitive proposal great thank you so much again for all this great information my pleasure any other questions directives Chris great information appreciate your efforts on all of this and keep in touch I will thank you very much great job thanks for representing us thank you okay moving along we're on to the Pacific station update from John Ergo thank you sir thank you very brief as has been reported at previous board meetings the Pacific station north project which includes metros bus tarmac new operator break room of facilities ticket encounter and a 95 unit affordable housing community affordable housing development has received over 50 million dollars in state competitive grant awards in recent months including 20 million dollars in state affordable communities grant I just wanted to give a quick update on process and schedule so from talking with the developers and our party and our partners at the city it looks like construction should begin in November 2023 so we're looking to probably move out of the current Pacific station for the fall bid in 2023 into a temporary facility and then the city will begin amending the current MOU that we have between metro and city which as a quick reminder this board has proved I think in 2020 where metro is committed to contribute four million dollars in exchange for a turnkey project I don't have any more details on what the city wants to amend but we'll be bringing that before the future capital committee in March or April and that's it thanks thank you John any questions directors director Calentari Johnson I just wanted to thank John for the update and thank the Metro for the continued partnership with the city yes I do see a hand from James Sandoval James would you like to comment please yeah first permission to speak on the previous agenda item I had my hand raised I'm sorry I didn't see it okay so it's fine go ahead so I just I think it's an appropriate spot to bring it up you know what we did for the per legislation thing was you know to meet deadlines obviously nothing's official nothing's finalized and we are working with our attorney and as far as I know procedurally we didn't do anything wrong and I want to still remain inclusive as much as possible for Metro so I'm proposing or I'm hoping to get the drafted language for what's the spot bill is SB 957 so that way we continue to be as a team and continue moving forward working together and you know and in a response to the things that were brought up about how I handled it and stuff I'm a little disappointed I will say things were taken out a little out of context but I just I hope everyone understands that I had every great intention with this to making sure everything operates as smooth as possible for Metro to protect Metro and to protect Metro workers from any unfair labor practices in the future I'm not accusing this board of ever doing that I'm not accusing of anybody or any history of it happening I'm just preventing it or wanting to prevent it from happening moving forward so you know we have a language like I said if we could somehow work together on trying to make it the team effort from the public and the board to make that decision together I'm all ears and I just I just want to make sure that we're continuing to be on the same page and that that's all I had to say on that thank you thank you James and I know it's on a future agenda and we'll keep tracking this issue any other questions or comments on John's presentation anything else we'll reach the end of our meeting announcing the next the board meeting the director's meeting will be Friday March 25 at 9am we'll again do it by teleconference and I do want to remind folks that we have links to a special meeting this afternoon I hope you've all received the links to closed session and open session and with that I will adjourn the meeting Good job of sharing your first meeting Larry It's all new to me I appreciate your support See you later Good job, thank you