 I have the zoom meeting open morning everyone. I'll now call to order the regular meeting of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission. If we could have a roll call, please. Exo Physio Scott eats present. Commissioner Peterson. Present Commissioner Sandy Brown here Commissioner Johnson here. Commissioner Montecino here. Commissioner Hernandez here. Commission alternate Schifrin here. Commission alternate Quinn here. Commissioner Koenig here. Commissioner McPherson here. Commissioner Kristen Brown here and Commissioner Rotkin here. You have a quarrel. Thank you. And for the record is Thursday, April 6th, 2023, 901 a.m. I think everyone is here present. So I'm assuming we do not have any AB 2449 requests. So are there any additions or deletions to the consent or regular agendas today? Yes, there are. There is a handout for item 11 and a replacement page for item 25. And those are both posted to our website. And also there will not be a closed session today. So we'll be pulling items 26 through 27. Okay, thank you. We're not going to move on to resolution of appreciation for storm damage response. Do we have a presentation on this? I know there's maybe some photos. Good morning, commissioners. Rachel Moore, County of your staff. Before you today is a recommendation to approve a resolution of appreciation for all of the outstanding work that the crews from Caltrans, the cities of Capitola, Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley in Watsonville and Santa Cruz Metro have done over the last few months through the extraordinary flooding, snow, hail, you name it, a lot of trees falling, power lines down. And we have several of the crew here today and we'll go through a little site show of pictures as you read the resolution. I'll hand it over to you, Chair. Okay, I will begin by reading the resolution, which is whereas I should say resolution of appreciation for California Department of Transportation, Caltrans, County of Santa Cruz, City of Watsonville, City of Capitola, City of Santa Cruz and City of Scotts Valley, Public Works and Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District, Metro staff. Whereas beginning at the end of December 2022 through March 2023, California was struck by several severe storms that brought heavy rainfall, damaging winds, flooding, widespread power outages, snowfall in areas unaccustomed to snow and evacuations for hundreds of residents. Whereas the storms caused the closure of local roads and state highways throughout Santa Cruz County. Whereas employee California Department of Transportation, County of Santa Cruz and City of Capitola, Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley and Watsonville worked tirelessly to clear debris and restore access to critical transportation facilities throughout the region. Whereas Caltrans and local public works departments worked 24 hours a day to make emergency repairs, clear trees and other debris, remove snow and open roadways for the public. Whereas the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District assisted with evacuation of residents most vulnerable to flooding. Whereas maintenance crews have performed their duties in emergency conditions throughout the winter in order to ensure the continued operations of the transportation system. And whereas access to roadways has been and continues to be crucial to the safety of emergency responders and residents throughout communities impacted by the storms from December until now. Now, therefore be it resolved that the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission extends to the California Department of Transportation, County of Santa Cruz, City of Capitola, City of Santa Cruz, City of Scotts Valley, City of Watsonville and Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District employees, its commendation and appreciation for their continued work serving the people of Santa Cruz County, ensuring the safety of the traveling public throughout the 2022-2023 storm season. I think we're all seeing some of the pictures of the extreme impacts to our transportation infrastructure that we saw over the last few months. I think it's important to recognize that our road infrastructure is probably the one piece of public infrastructure that every person uses just about every day. And to highlight some of the just extreme measures that our public works, Caltrans and Metro went through in order to keep the system operational, the County of Santa Cruz had 2,500 service requests through its road dispatch 911 calls, approximately 300 road closures, over 18,000 regular hours and 5,000 overtime hours worked by county crews for storm response or cleanup, almost 1,000 cubic yards of slide and tree debris cleared off of roads, approximately 45,000 sandbags and 900 tons of sand delivered to the community and 4,060 potholes patched. We do have resolutions of appreciation for all of the... We'd like to invite all of the crews and staff that helped with the storm recovery. We have several of them in the audience and if you guys don't mind coming up in front of the dais there, we'd love to do a photo of all of you guys as well, if you wouldn't mind. Come on up. Come up here and face the other way and picture this way. Good job, everybody. All right. Some of the names of folks that we have with us today are Eric DeGroote. If you guys want to like raise your hand and tell me I pronounced your name wrong, that's also fine. Eric was a superstar out there sending text messages in the middle of the night to let everyone know what was going on. Jake Bradbury. Awesome. Thanks, Jake. Ian Nguyen. Ian works in the structures and construction engineering department in Jorge, Uberwaga. Did I screw it up? Oh, I think I saw you at the bridge. Were you down at San Lorenzo River one day looking at all the pile up of the logs? I remember that. Okay. Sorry. Thank you. Thanks for all your emails also. Zeke has been a superstar with the public information team for Caltrans. Anyone else from Caltrans make it today? All right. Thanks, Caltrans team for representing Alex Sandoval from the county. Thanks, Alex for coming and organizing everyone and getting them out there. Boy, the county really thanks, Commissioner Manu. Thank you so much. Thank you for highlighting some of the massive work that you guys have and we're still working on it for a couple of years here. I think we're still working on the 1997 storm still. No, maybe not. From Metro, we have Michael Tree representing his team. Thank you, Michael, for getting folks out there, even fill in sandbags doing getting. I have a pair of transit friends that, you know, we're shuttling people out, you know, working 18 hour days. So your crew really stepped up. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I was out there doing it too. All right. And they're from Capitola, Jesse and Steve. Thanks you guys for coming. And yeah, we were sharing stories earlier about the power lines. Boy, a lot of crazy work there. And I don't think I named everyone. Who did I miss? There's a lot of you up there, but I hope you'll come up and get your recognition. But thank you guys for all of your work. That was fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm here for Claire. Can't be here today. Let's get it. Let's get it. You approved emergency funding. I'm sure. And if any of you guys want to come up and say a few things, come on back here and you can share some stories about how awesome your crew is. I'd be great. I'll share one if I could. Okay. So Scott Eads with Caltrans. And I just wanted to highlight ones. I've got many. I was not here as these gentlemen were, but I talked to my PIO person recently. And he said that Eric DeGroote standing over there in black shirt started his day at about 12 30 in the morning when he was on the train. He started his day at about 12 30 in the morning when the snow started falling. And so he went up to close the road ended up helping some motorists that had become stranded. Then spent time dealing with fallen trees down power lines, opening and closing roadways, trying to get the right equipment in the right places. And ended his day somewhere in the evening of the next day. So very, very long. That's just one day in the life of the pit. And so we have a lot of running the day ahead of us in times. And Zeke and Jake and Jorge and Ian all were at the scene throughout many of these events the Pope Paharo thing. And the just in the moment challenges of whether we were going to cut a hole through our highway or not to drain that massive lake them. Any other member of the public want to speak? Is there anyone online? We have Mr. Harry Pico. I think he's probably here for the general public comment but anyone on the commission wish to say any remarks? I just want to again extend such gratitude for all of the public works crews, for Metro, for everyone that did so much work during these unprecedented storms. I think we're all kind of done living through so many historical events but this was yet another one in terms of these storms. I am of course here on RTC in the capacity with Metro and I'd like to acknowledge Michael Tree is here today. Metro created emergency schedule for Route 79 to serve the fairgrounds multiple times with the flooding and Metro paratransit van and bus drivers, transported residents out of evacuation zones, so much work being done through Metro and again while I'm here in my capacity as a representative to Metro I would be remiss if I didn't also acknowledge as the Vice Mayor of the City of Capitola that we have Jesse Branke and Steve Niedens from City of Capitola here today or City Steve as he's affectionately referred to on the streets but also just all of our staff in the City of Capitola, everyone at the county just unbelievable work and Capitola specifically crews had the Esplanade back open to the public within 36 hours of the January 5th storm and it's just I'm incredibly grateful as I know all of our community is for the work that all of you have done to ensure that people are safe and able to get to where they need to be and are sheltered and cared for and so again just so much gratitude. I'm not sure that there's enough words for me to say today to really express how important the work that you have done has been to our community. Yeah I'd just like to add a special thank you as the 56th supervisor represented in the Santa Rosa Valley that literally got slammed with about 80% of the danger or the problems that we had. Caltrans was up there front and center our county road crews as well. It's really and I had a town hall meeting last night with Congressman Panetta and we were discussing that probably the transportation issue was the biggest thing that came up power outages as well of course too but we're going to get there highway nine it takes time we wish we could get there more quickly but you know the rains keep coming and I guess we're going to have a little more tomorrow but I think they're moving ahead. What they have done 24-7 is just phenomenal. Caltrans since my coming county supervisor 10 years ago they have been front and center working on just a variety of issues like the wildlife crossing on highway 17 or the extension of highway nine to widen it so we can have more pedestrian access between the Fetana Felton and the schools. It's just been really impressive what Caltrans has done in the cooperative work they've done it takes a lot of time and it'll be some years in the making for some of these things but they've been there and our county road crew has been really answering front and center too so I really appreciate what they have done. Thank you Commissioner McPherson. Thank you chair I just I wanted to say thank you to all of the agencies of the commissioner all of the agencies that stepped up and incredible and incredibly challenging and and and just put crews out there got to work and to the people who went out and did that work 24-7 literally with very little rest and people just stepped up and so I want to thank you for that you all your work made it possible for a lot of people in our community to continue to move about their days with as little disruption as possible and and so I just want to thank you from really the bottom of my heart for all of that work and then just recognize the role the work of the city of Santa Cruz our staff could not be here today for a variety of reasons work related sick baby so I got to receive the resolution and I want to thank the commission on behalf of the city. Thank you and move the resolution. All right we have a motion from commissioner shifrin a commissioner second from commissioner rodkin before we vote on that I do still see a member of the public with their hand up and if there is anyone that wants to comment on the resolution we'll take that comment now go ahead mr pico. Actually very quickly but I do want to speak on the other topic I do want to mention that I had volunteered my home as a refuge or you know temporary shelter and through Zach friend and he was unable to find a way to get that to work so in the future there would be it would be nice to have a place where people can offer temporary housing for people that's it thank you all right thank you for that suggestion all right we have a motion on the floor to adopt the resolution any further discussion seeing none quick roll call please I believe we have do we have to do a roll call because it's a hybrid meeting all right no all in favor any opposed any abstentions all right that motion passes unanimously thank you again to all of our staff who've done the hard work out there on the roads yeah could I say one word about it because I think in all thinking all the agencies I'm not sure we thanked our RTC staff and yet it sounded like they were out there doing a great deal of work as well so do you give a resolution you don't generally give a resolution to yourself but I think it is appropriate to thank them for all the work that they did is part of that thank you all all right we'll now proceed to item five oral communications I remember the public may address the commission on any item within the jurisdiction of the commission that is not already on the agenda the commission will listen to all communication by compliance with state law it may not take action on items that are not on the agenda because our request to state their name clearly so that it can be accurately recorded in the minutes of the meeting we'll start here in chambers yes if you have a comment please approach the podium good morning hi Jim helmer ben loman and I want to thank you thanks supervisor McPherson and congressman Panetta for last night's town hall I just wish the 50 to 75 people that were there and maybe the 200 that were at the prior town hall could have recognized the work of all these all these folks and the RTC last year I commended the RTC in the county for getting the glen arbor bridge into the long-range transportation plan for replacement this is a narrow 20 foot wide bridge that goes over Newell Creek it two officials have told me they've seen that it's sinking it's 20 feet wide and it's been the de facto highway nine bridge for almost three months and it will continue to be the highway nine bridge as we go through the long rebuilding process so the project is P 102 in the long-range transportation plan it shows zero funding between now and 2045 it's estimated at four million dollars I encourage the RTC Caltrans the federal government to look at alternative innovative ways to fund the replacement of that bridge it's called for to become 12 foot standard lanes with eight foot standard shoulders a full 40 feet um also you have a project with mark thomas and associates right now on the highway nine corridor from downtown felton to south glen arbor road bridge that is doing the engineering preliminary engineering work for student eye for pedestrians bicyclists bicyclists and and campus circulation I encourage you to look at an amendment to that contract to look at the section from the high school north to the south northerly to the south glen arbor bridge that section road has been closed multiple times due to mud slides landslides power down utilities down in the last three months we should amend that complete streets plan to one that includes retaining malls drainage systems for the benefit of safer travel for the pedestrians bicyclists and motorists so with that thank you very much thank you mr. Kerr I just wanted to give uh mr. helmer a compliment he's a former city trafficking engineer for the city of sankrews and he's a model of citizen involvement I get regular emails from him about issues in the in the center ends of valley and the things that were going up there and he's on these issues and he's not just complaining about things he often has very useful and productive suggestions for ways things can be fixed and appreciate that kind of citizen involvement thank you thank you rockin anyone else here in chambers and just to speak all right seeing none is there anyone online mr. kerry pico I hope you have my slide projector going give me one second here I wish I had more than two minutes we see it now go ahead yeah okay so I will start I'm not going to read it all because I have only two minutes so uh look on the left this is about the trail there's a cross section it shows you that this is from the segment nine there's the retaining walls up to on both sides left and right goes up to 17 feet the right picture is a is a side view of if you were walking down the path those would be the walls on in different heights throughout so um next slide please so in short I just want you to know that all those retaining walls for a one and a half mile section there's about three two point seven miles of retaining walls and that requires a lot of concrete which means a lot of cement which if you don't know is a huge source of greenhouse gases and it's equivalent to about five million combustion car miles but more importantly it's equivalent to about 20 electric 20 million electric car miles and in 2035 if any train were ever to come on they that would grossly outweigh any benefit that a train would have so in short a trail designed causing is causing more environmental damage than it's supposed to do next slide but while you're switching the sides I do want to say that it with the it well none of these these trails will grossly outweigh with co2 with all the cement than any benefit of a train in the future um the next slide is I just want to show you the cost which is about 13 million to 30 million per mile and I want to compare that with the smart train trail which is a third 2.7 million per mile because it's on flatland without all these retaining walls uh freeway project our highway one is 40 million a mile and my point is when a trail does the same or more than a freeway lane something's wrong so here you are trying to build an environmental project by saving the tracks where they are and you're actually creating a higher impact on greenhouse gases and you're actually saving and I don't mean just for one year I'm talking about over 30 years so something's not quite right I recommend and I know that you're not going to do this but I really wish you would is take that money build a low risk uh interim trail I'm not talking about the greenway trail or anything but like just an easy cheap trail that people can use that's sufficient which is what they use I can moderate and stuff like that thank you very much thank you mr pico okay we have Johanna light hill good morning commissioners thank you for taking my comments um today I'm requesting that the commission establish a minimum standard level of service or LOS for the Monterey Bay sanctuary scenic trail um like many in our community I've been following the development of the trail and I found that there are several publications to aid trail designers I found that most trail designers first ask themselves what type of trail will serve our community or how wide should we make our trail well our trail planners haven't had that luxury and instead of asking how wide should our trail be they ask how wide can our trail be because of the challenges of our constrained corridor they're limited and are doing what what they can with what they have until recently the trail has been mostly conceptual now that the designs are becoming a reality I asked the commission to consider whether the ultimate trail will provide the service the community is expecting on segment nine the trails width mostly meets the absolute minimum required by caltrans and um on near el dorado it's less than the minimum one guide explains that a path of this width should only be used in rare instances where bicycle use is expected to be low and pedestrian use not more than occasional as with vehicle traffic on roads a shared use path level of service can be calculated based on the number of anticipated users determined by the ucs and using the trail width designated by caltrans standards this trail scores an f trail conflicts pose dangers and will discourage use by the most vulnerable users the elderly and children the general plans of the county and watsonville have minimum required um level of services of d for vehicular traffic since the goal is to increase the use by bikes and pedestrians I asked the commission to establish a minimum level of service on the trail to assure trails designed moving forward meet the needs of the community and goals and objectives established in the master plan thank you for your time thank you miss leo mr barry scott uh thank you uh commissioners I am uh I'm calling in today with nothing but praising gratitude first of all I'm I'm very delighted with the the city council Santa Cruz city council vote recently to approve the ultimate trail unanimously that's remarkable I am grateful to RTC commissioners and staff for several things first briefly the goats all right have been in my neighborhood and real don't marvel of art it was delightful to see them a couple of days ago thanks very much as I look at the news and updates page on your uh on the RTC website I'm reminded how much you're working the RTC uh is working with other organizations ambag and camcy and coast rail coordinating council and metro and I thank you for that it's really a regional effort to get trails and transit and streets and roads working well thank you for that um I want to I want to congratulate staff for their remarkable skills in grant writing and look at your page I see 72.16 million for state highway auxiliary lane bust on shoulder another 30 million in federal grant funding for multimodal projects 115 million for the coastal rail trail these are record setting grant amounts and you guys must be doing something right I think no small part of it is that so many of them are multimodal and so the rail with trail ultimate plan I think is easier to fund than as expensive as it may be is easier to fund than one or the other alone I uh finally want to thank thank you for doing so much public outreach presentations to the capitol city council the c cliff association and the Rio del mar improvement association coming up on april 19th thank you uh sarah for coming to speak with uh marcus pimentel ken edler and curin kelly to update the community on what's going on thanks so much thank you mr scott equity equity transit hi good morning and thank you commissioners and staff for your ongoing work on bringing zero emission passenger rail to our community and recent presentations that include replacement bridges spanning a number of important sections as a part of segment 12 I was reviewing the letter written by the california coastal commission sent to the executive director guy preston in 2021 and here's a summarized quote from that letter on behalf of the californ the coastal commission staff thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on the tcaa rail network integration study because of the wide range of equitable access that can be provided to users of all ages and abilities through the combination of rail transit bike and pedestrian uses the california coastal commission staff supports the recommended locally preferred alternative of electric passenger rail by connecting santa cruz with Watsonville and bahara this locally preferred rail transit alternative can be expected to meet the needs of the diverse communities through which it passes by being one of the key facilities for providing rail service throughout the monorail bay connecting to the greater san francisco bay area the plans for passenger rail and santa cruz align with the vision of the 2018 state rail plan connecting cities by rail across the state of california this letter from the coastal commission shows clear support for passenger rail on our branch line in order to further this important project and position us to be competitive for federal and state grants we urge the rtc staff and commissioners to consider a more robust 30 percent engineering plan instead of the current 15 percent and we urge the rtc to include 15 minute headways in their studies as the most important driver of ridership is frequency and high ridership equates to the mt reduction and our key measurements for california and federal grants including the fast art grants the cap T which aligns with the cap T and measurements and determinations for most california grants available for a project thank you so much for your consideration thank you miss falkner mr brian peoples sorry brian can you unmute again yeah can you hear me now yes can you hear me okay thank you this is brian peoples from trail now um i provided a picture of the historic capitola trestle landmark um in 2018 measure l the capitola community voted yes for measure l which is the trail on the trestle not through the village so the community capitola community wants the trail on the capitola trestle at the march 23rd city council meeting executive director guy preston gave an explanation of what it will take to open the coast the capitola trestle as a trail and he basically said the interim trail is the plan that needs to be implemented he actually provided detailed assessment of that years ago and explained the federal rail banking process that needed to take place in order to use this valuable asset for our community building the trail on the existing trestle is the quickest way to open the corridor for transportation that trestle is not capable of a passenger train nor a freight train it's actually five separate trestles neither similar trail projects uh that uh use the corridor um progressive rail has no rights to prevent the use of it nor does roaring camp have rights to prevent the use of it we're asking the community to to move forward and um listen to mr preston's desire or recommendation to open the corridor open the trestle as an active transportation corridor please support the opening of the capitola trestle as a interim trail today we need that open today and appreciate your time thank you thank you mr peoples quite seeing no one else online or in chambers that wish to address some public comment then we'll proceed with action on the consent agenda this is items six through 19 as any member of the commission wish to pull an item from the consent agenda yeah would it please the commission to poll number 13 which is the status on measure d revenues just a quick question i would point out um i you know certainly could pull item 13 but that we do have a review of the 23 24 budget later on in the meeting so okay we still would like to all right then we'll pull item 13 and hear that before moving on with item 20 any other member of the commission wish to pull an item or comment on any item any member of the public wish to comment on any items on consent seeing no one here in chambers anyone online move the consent agenda that's that's amendment second all right now we have a motion from commissioner shifrin a second from commissioner rotkin to adopt the consent agenda uh accepting item 13 any further comment seeing none all those in favor all right any post any abstentions that passes unanimously i will proceed with item 13 then and commissioner johnson is there thank you chair so i i have just i didn't bring my laptop but i believe it's on page 69 the neighborhood um grant towards each jurisdiction i think it lists the different from the county to the different cities in terms of what they receive percentages oh yeah thanks right there so um you know i have the deepest respect for capitol that were like sister cities were small um but scott's valley happens to have probably 25 more population um happens to have twice the the amount of square miles for its city and also more road miles but if you look at this on column one the rate uh we receive less in terms of dollars than capitol now in 2016 i think it was baked into some sort of agreement but traditionally uh the formula used for um uh processing and granting funds for jurisdictions is based on population and not so much road miles and so you know i get i understand the kind of some of the historical reasons why that happened but i'm just wondering if if this is fair and equitable to a city that has more population more road miles and more square miles and so i don't know if there is a remedy but or if it's um i'm open to to understand why this is defensible but from the perspective of our city we should be receiving based on just basic formula and maybe fairness uh a fair share so maybe the executive director can explain why given those factors we receive less in terms of dollars uh so you're correct that most um uh transportation sales tax measures do um create by formula the distribution and it's usually done by population and road miles my understanding is that this measure that was passed in 2016 and that was prior to to me taking this position also included point of sale um in the equation that was written in the ordinance and voted on by the public so unfortunately that could not be changed without another vote by the public and i'll hand it over to um uh deputy director mendez who was here in 2016 who may have additional information on exactly how the formula works as you miss president is correct as the the format three variables that that were uh approved in the measure as well that the voters uh approved with over two-thirds uh vote and so it doesn't it doesn't include population doesn't include road miles but it also includes a factor for the area where the tax is raised so then that means areas where you know that there are more more sales that raise that that um uh the revenue for that uh transactions and use tax would also benefit from from the fact that they you have those sales in in their area so that's so is that a status thing or is it revisited every year where the point of sales are updated the um well the formula um um it's the same formula that gets used i understand the formula every year but what happens is it every year is it updated each and every year to reflect the fact that these are the points of sales this is where it's coming from and so forth it is new data every year which is the same formula so so we we will update the population numbers uh each year we will update the um um uh road mile numbers and also update the information on you know where the the tax sales were done and we get that information from the state department of tax and fee administration through their reports we use their reports to determine that all right thank you any other questions from commissioners comment move the recommendation on one moment please uh commissioner rocan i just want to point out um many now decades not just years ago the city of santa cruz forgo the opportunity to develop 41st avenue into the capitol mall and it got taken over by the city capitol and maybe to avoid a little fight between capitol and scott's valley over this issue the numbers between those two cities jump out at you but the reality is that the city of santa cruz also suffers relatively in this because we didn't take that great sales tax generator um i'm not sure it was a good idea because you were required to pave all the streets in between 41st avenue and the city of santa cruz whatever but it's just the reality of that mall being created and the fact that it's a huge tax generator compared to what goes on in the other cities and so that's just kind of the fact the historical fact of why that imbalance and randy's right it's an imbalance goes on in terms of what's going on here they took a big sales tax generator and the other cities don't have it no i i appreciate that and like i say it's um i i love capitol i met my wife there okay so the edge water okay so um but um so it's nothing against capitol we're not taking it personally so um but thank you for the explanation all right thank you commissioner johnson any member of the public wish to comment on this item seeing no one here in chambers is there anyone on zoom no all right is there a motion the moved second motion by commissioner shifrin second by commissioner montecino to accept the measure d revenue uh report any further discussion seeing none clerk uh or all those in favor any opposed any abstentions motion passes unanimously all right we'll now proceed with item 20 which is commissioner reports any members wish to make a report yes commissioner person now thank you mr chair a couple things um like to report i'm sorry that michael three the ceo metro uh had to leave but uh there was uh in many of us uh attended a share ride event at the monterey bay marine sanctuary headquarters at the foot of santa cruz warf um and it was um what uh metro has been a great partner with us uh and for the people of santa cruz county and it is sharing uh some of the revenue or the potential for that to go to the sanctuary uh and it's really a great program and you've seen we're giving or the metro is giving some uh that money to the sanctuary as well as share a ride friends haunting and his wife uh just uh tremendous the book that they have on the sanctuary and the marine life around here uh it's just a great statement for metro to make and get out in front of something to protect our environment it's very much appreciated and metros to be commended because they've been great partners through and through and uh i know some of us others of us uh attended that event uh secondly i'd like to mention and i as i have in a couple of other uh forums that uh a couple weeks ago i went to san josepispo uh to uh to testify before the board of supervisors there for the expansion of the community choice central coast community energy formerly monterey bay community power uh we did we tried to get the unincorporated area of san josepispo uh to join us uh they did not do that pre-covid but uh there's a couple weeks ago they voted and uh they've accepted to join us now we have 35 agencies from san josepispo county to san abarbara and the reason this is important is that community choice energy is the electrification of power it we're uh it has grants for electrifying buses and and put into some charging stations and all throughout this probably now more than 8,000 square miles the biggest uh community choice aggregation agency in the state and maybe the nation i just like to thank all the people who worked on that and did it uh this is a tremendous thing uh we are in track now to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions that are set by the state that they set for 2045 by 2030 so it's uh it's a real credit to everybody who's worked on on this to expand this agency and uh community choice energy uh central uh coast community choice energy has done a fantastic job and um we we've got 35 agencies that are working together and uh on the same bus so thank you thank you commision mcpherson mcpherson rockin on that same topic people may wonder you know how much does it matter to us that san louis vispo county joins with pre-ce um these storms that we just talked about a little earlier this morning are not just uh random or an accident or something they're directly related the the uh extent of them and the uh power of them and the destruction they they wreak are directly related to generation of greenhouse gases and um having our neighbors in san louis vispo county reduce their greenhouse gas emission makes a difference to us we live on one planet and it's not just what we do here locally in our city or our county but the fact that we get uh involved in things that have other communities joining us in this effort really does make a difference so i really do want to commend three c for finally getting all five counties into the that are in the central coast region as part of this effort and it makes a difference to us directly thank you commissioner rockin any other commissioners wish to make a report thank you just yeah commissioner christin brown yeah i just wanted to remind folks about metro's youth cruise free program that's allowing uh free fares for k through 12 students uh on metro 24 of the metro routes um students in eighth grade and under might be asked to show their grade level uh or school id writers in grades nine through 12 will be asked to to show their student id um those without one can get a uh youth cruise free id at one of the metro centers either at the watsonville transit center the pacific station in downtown Santa Cruz but it's a really great opportunity for students in k through 12 uh to utilize our transit system uh free of cost so i just wanted to continue to share that uh with the public thank you commissioner brown i'll just add one more report on the theme of regional collaboration on march 15th executive director press and i traveled to sacramento for the central coast coalition day this was with other county partners in the n cities and the central coast coalition which include monterey county santa barbara county san bonito county san wasbispo county and of course the santa cruz and we were advocating for a generally speaking projects transportation projects that will benefit the entire central coast region and in particular advocating for increased funding of the tersep is the transit intercity rail capital program which um as the name suggests funds transit um in the coming state budget as well as more funding for active transportation we saw some historic highs with the budget situation at the state last year and we were explaining that we need to see that level of funding continue if we're going to continue to make progress on this important issue of improving transit and active transportation usage i think also uh we did have an opportunity to talk to folks from calsta who are reviewing the tersep applications i think it's of note that this year the santa cruz metro submitted a tersep application that would help pay for 24 new hydrogen buses a hydrogen fueling station and funding for the watsonville transit center redevelopment project that would include 60 units of low-income housing and of course we also have a tersep application on the planning side of things through the regional transportation commission here for our passenger rail eir and the eir for the remaining segments of the trail so i believe we'll hear back about those in the next month or two and it should be indicative of how things are going it's also worth noting that monorail county applied for a tersep grant for a paura station which in many ways would be the this is the beginning of the santa cruz branch line um and we'll hopefully our fingers crossed they do well with that as well um it's also interesting to hear that monorail county has been experiencing challenges with the coastal commission for their surf line their surf bus line which uh they've been proposed for uh between where they have their coastal trail and the railroad tracks so just um something to keep in mind and that's uh entirety of my report extra participation and if there's no other commissioner reports will uh any public comment on commissioner reports sitting down here in chambers and online just i just had somebody raise their hand mr brian people's go ahead mr people's hi this is brian people's trail now um so when the santa cruz city approved the u ultimate trail on segment nine um they did not the the city staff incorrectly communicated to the city council that they could not do uh the interim trail and that the funding from this grant from the ctc would not allow that so we contacted the ctc and now we have a communication network with the the funding group that's funding active transportation when i spoke to them they were actually fairly surprised of the pushback and the the the big issue and the decisions being made by the city and that the city staff incorrectly communicated to city council the true process of allowing the interim trail to be funded with the grant and so the uh i want to remind us all that we want to make sure that the california transportation commission um is um in in parallel effort in agreement with what the community wants and it was actually interesting because the director of active transportation um was a little um little shaken up because she's not used to this kind of pushback we're having people call her and sending her emails and now we've got that connection so we're really we really want to make sure that this community gets the funding and we don't create a lot of swirl with our california transportation commission so we're hopeful that we continue to move forward with building the interim trail and not doing damage to our community as carry pinko pointed out at the the 400 trees that are being cut for the segment thank you for your time thank you mr people do any other comments online we do not have any other comments all right then we'll proceed with item 21 the executive director report thank you chair cunning and i appreciate um your update on our legislative trip that was a good and fruitful trip and i have met with assembly member don addis recently and um i gave her the scoop on all the work that's going to be happening in assembly district 30 um that's a new newly drawn district and has most of the work that um we're going to be commencing in the next few years and she was very happy to hear how much work will be coming to her district um i do have an update on rtc's storm damage repair contracts on thursday march 9th i consulted with chair cunning and we agreed that emergency contract was needed to repair two partial washouts of the railroad and bankman at milepost 8.49 that's about 800 feet east of san andreas road rail bridge near manresa state beach and at milepost 14.65 in um new brighton state beach area north of the campground value to address these two sites expeditiously could have resulted in additional damage due to a failed culvert and due to drainage channels being blocked by debris rtc staff has had received two bids for the work and as consulted and agreed upon um with chair cunning i subsequently executed a contract with the low bidder industrial railroad company for a lump sum amount of 328 522 dollars um also on thursday march 9th i consulted with chair cunning and we agreed that another emergency contract was needed to remove storm damage debris at 23 locations from harkins lube in watsonville to the western end of osback avenue and capitolah the debris uh needed to be removed from the branch line to restore proper function of the rail line and its stormwater drainage system rtc staff had received two bids for the work and as agreed upon with chair cunning i subsequently executed a contract with the low bidder again industrial railroads company for a lump sum amount of 194 868 dollars under both contract slopes will be stabilized with erosion control treatments to prevent future damage due to the emergency declaration both fema and caloes funds are available to fund this work however agencies must first perform the work and then ask for reimbursement uh to account for these emergencies rtc has passed a resolution allowing rstpx funds to be used as a temporary loan such that invoices can be paid prior to receiving reimbursement from fema and caloes sufficient capacity exists in the rstpx uh fund to fund this contract while staff pursues disaster relief funding reimbursement by fema and caloes staff has been working closely with caloes and fema um who had inspectors on the site yesterday um they're also here today uh riley drew brand i'd like to thank him for all his work he's here today he'd leave the room he was here today he'll be back or maybe he won't maybe he ran back out to the line since his item passed on consent um but uh i i do appreciate um uh commissioner shifrin's comments on rtc staff as there's been a lot of work by um our senior engineer sarah christensen our associate engineer riley drabrandt and our junior engineer um brian um and i'm i'm forgetting his last name help me samora um who is out there right now inspecting the rail line and making sure that things are getting done as expeditiously as possible um i have one other um update um and it's regarding meeting locations um at the last rtc meeting i announced that we would be rotating meeting locations across various jurisdictions in the county including uh county chambers um and city halls for watsonville santa cruz capitol and scott's valley that today's meeting was actually supposed to be in watsonville um at the time uh we understood that all of the locations had the technology in place for attendance in person or by video conference since then we have learned that watsonville has not yet implemented their virtual meeting technology um due to various constraints and priorities watsonville staff has indicated it may take some time before it could make this technology available to um rtc um in light of comments made by commissioners and members of the public in the past indicating a strong desire to maintain public virtual attendance options today's meeting was moved here to the board of supervisor chambers at this time staff intends to rotate meeting locations but to only have meetings at locations where remote participation by the public can be accommodated that said if technical difficulties result in the loss of communication for remote participants rtc staff will work to restore communication however the meetings will continue while efforts are being made to restore communication to remote participants uh we value public participation and apologize in advance for any potential disruptions and for those who choose to attend via zoom it would be helpful if commissioners would provide feedback on whether staff's current plan to rotate meeting locations but only hold meetings where um remote participation is uh possible for the public is acceptable a three month look ahead for the meetings is attached to today's agenda as item number 14 as noted in the may fourth um rtc meeting will be held at the city of capitolah and we will be back here at the board of supervisor chambers on june 1st uh capitolah city chambers is quite small uh it's going to be a lot tighter up there but i do see value in and moving the meetings around but i would like to hear um commissioner feedback and with that i'll hand it back to you chair clinic thank you executive director preston other comments or questions from commissioners i'll just say i'm supportive of the proposed plan to rotate meetings to uh any location that has uh hybrid meeting capabilities and hope that watsonville is able to outfit their city council chambers soon so that we can hold meetings down there all right there's no other comments or questions any member of the public just to comment on the director's report sitting down here in chambers is anyone online mr brian people's hi it's brian people's trail now i first want to thank rtc staff for the tremendous job they're doing on providing the remote access um that's a game changer i like to say that the pandemic really forced us to the future and i'm hopeful that the commissioners are continue to allow to do the remote because i think it ought to add to a lot of value um the other thing i wanted to comment on is um is the director's report on the cost of maintaining the branch line and and the continued damage to that in harkin slew for example and the the fact that we're not using that valuable transportation resource today and it's our community has been waiting and meeting that transportation corridor it's been almost a decade and a half that we've owned that property and not having a plan we don't even have a plan to open the corridor from watsonville to aptos um we really need to focus on how best we could use this when we've only built 1.2 miles uh over a decade and it costs more than widening the highway to build that trail and that trail actually as we heard from toanna is not going to be wide enough to sustain the volume of active transportation we will have in segment nine in the central section so again um i do appreciate rtc staff on the work on the hybrid meetings um and i'm hopeful or we are hopeful that we could get the coastal corridor opened in our lifetime in a cost effective manner thank you for your time thank you mr peoples map ferrell good morning chair cone again commissioners i just want to commend um the director preston and staff for working to rotate meetings throughout the county and for his efforts to maintain remote access for all those venues and um i think it's very important for uh community access to these conversations secondly i'd like to say that i think it's very commendable that staff is pursuing repairs and maintenance of the branch line for the purpose not only of protecting the rail line but also of protecting the trail so these uh both goals are not exclusive they're uh they're connected and i think that um as staff has said there's a good chance they'll be federal reimbursement through emergency disaster relief for these costs so thank you again for your time and consideration thank you mr ferrell we do not have any other speakers all right great then we'll proceed with item 22 the cal transport director eats all right scott eats here district director um with cal trans pleasure being here in person today so nice to see faces and uh thank you mr chair and members of the commission so a few items for you today first just uh um as we have been doing road closure updates great news to report actually in that we um we had every state route in santa cruz impacted with the significant storm events we let out six major contracts with work in santa cruz county in excess of 20 million to respond to those events um but we're happy to report that all state highways in santa cruz are now open to traffic there are closures as you know um of notes the holiday slide area which was closed completely um as of last week reopened on friday to one way reversing traffic control and then there's other locations with one way to reverse reversing traffic control throughout this county as well of notes the holiday slide that we know where we understand there were some challenges with the signals at the holiday slide area those were addressed on friday so hopefully it's functioning much better now than um and we heard about that and tried to address as quickly as we could all right i want to do a little bit deeper dive on one particular project this time and that is the scott's creek coastal resiliency project on highway one north of davin port so in october caltran signed a project initiation document which identified the cost scope and schedule for the next phase of work related to restoring the lagoon and putting in a much larger longer bridge structure at that location to allow the lagoon to function more appropriately as well as along about a lot of other work um this was a accumulation of a lot of many years of work by many people um and it's involved a number of different entities and agencies and it was a unique effort in that we focused on together we focused on the larger needs at the specific location and the larger solutions that really were needed to occur which were much more multifaceted than just one functional area which was not just a transportation problem and it couldn't be solved by transportation alone there was a much larger solution that was needed to address you know historical factors that had led to the situation we have now so really interesting efforts and the consensus solution that was completed through the pit points to a much larger bridge structure than currently exists returning the creek to its natural channel lagoon restoration and coastal access parking so the great news is that we were able to caltrans was able to seek funding through the protect program and the ctc at the march ctc meeting allocated 4.5 million in shop funds the pay in ed phase for the next phase of the project uh this has been a a lengthy effort i won't go through the the names well i will go through the names of agencies that are and entities have been involved so caltrans um santa cruz county resource conservation district sec rtc california department department of fishing wildlife us fishing wildlife snow and nymphs the coastal conservancy the california coastal commission cal poly swanson ranch and others that i'm sure i'm missing it's a lengthy list um and there's others that make up the integrated watershed technical advisory committee so a lot of folks involved in the fact that we were able to reach consensus as an impressive achievement so uh the other thing that's happened is uh the the caltrans the rtc and the resource conservation district kicked off the coastal hazard study which was funded through a grant by california fishing wildlife which um will develop a technical analysis to support sea level rise and coastal hazards analysis in the same area so much work remains the consensus solution is very impressive and very costly and so this is a good start in the right in the right direction in terms of all these different funds coming together in the efforts that have led to this point um but much work remains to secure the funding that we need for the future phases of work will be in the p&ed phase for a few years um and we continue um to to look forward to working with others including the rtc to see um what we can do to fund the next phases of work we'll certainly be looking towards competitive funding sources as well with other entities so just want to do a little bit deeper dive on that one is pretty exciting and interesting effort that's close to home and then the last thing i want to say is um there's an overview of key projects in your packet it's on pdf page 117 in the packet or item 22 we include this every month again it's a status update on key projects with recent changes are shown in bold so you can do a quick study and see which changes that have been since the last time and now i also want to highlight that the that it also includes key points of contacts for inquiries that are caltrans related as well as how to submit a customer service request so if you see a pothole out there or something else that needs to be addressed we call it a csr or customer service request you can see the linked online um to be able to submit that and then there's other online resources as well so that concludes my report happy to take any questions thank you director reeds commissioner shiffen yes thank you for that we uh more detailed report on the status of the scott creek project um supervisor comings it's within his district it's a priority in the office as you know and so it's exciting to see that the project has been awarded um four and a half million dollars for the next phase i one question is what is the next phase i know there are multiple phases that have already occurred and it really is a exciting cooperative effort between environmental agencies and caltrans and transportation agencies to try to do a project that improves the transportation public safety and yet really enhances the environmental quality of that area um so what will the four point five million dollars cover so the four point five million will cover the primary work products that would be in caltrans wheelhouse in terms of how we develop projects so that the the pned phase stands for project approval and environmental document so in that we study a formal range of alternatives we completed environmental documents all the technical studies that are needed to support the environmental um the environmental documents are completed at that time as well as more detailed engineering studies that would ultimately leave to a project report in our world which is an engineering document that identifies cost scope and schedule and more details it's about a 30 percent design work product um and then the environmental document which of course there's depending on the level of environmental document it would have a public hearing draft environmental document released and ultimately a final environmental document thank you that's very helpful so if i'm understanding correctly at the end of this phase there'll be maybe an eis or environmental assessment there'll be 30 drawings and so there'll be a project that can then go after construction funding is that how normally works with caltrans that uh once you have the environmental document you have some sense of what it might end up costing then it's possible to start to seek the funding for construction is that is my understanding of the process somewhat correct somewhat correct okay totally correctly you can start seeking funding there is another phase before you get to construction so there's um the the final what we call final design phase there's also a right away phase which goes in parallel with the final design phase depending on what right away needs there are um so that the final design phase would so you at the end of the p&e d phase you have a preferred alternative that comes through the environmental document in the project report and so then in the final design phase you know you're only working on one preferred alternative you're focusing on that work getting it to a hundred percent design all the right away clearances that you need all the permits that you need and then um then you're ready to move into construction so during the design phase you would be working to seek funding for the construction phase do you have thanks do you have any estimate of how long this next phase is going to take i should have that in front of me but i do not so i it's usually depending on the level of environmental document which is usually driving the schedule um two to three years is probably um likely for something like this potentially longer will the work be done in house or will it be will california's higher consultant to do the environmental document i believe the work will be done in house director prestin is shaking his head so that gives me comfort it's shop funds you require your shop funds to be done in house true however this is a really unique situation where even some of the technical work will not necessarily all be done by caltrans because there's some parallel technical studies with related to lagoon restoration and other things that are happening associated with the lagoon which is not something that caltrans is usually working on not that we can't handle some of that work but um this is again a bit out of our wheelhouse in terms of the other aspects of the projects that are not transportation related however we'll be coordinating with this group making sure we have the supporting technical studies some of which may or may not be done by caltrans most of which will it's a unique project and that caltrans owns of course the highway and the bridge and they'll be doing that i'm sure in house but um when you start looking at the lagoon it stretches you know beyond caltrans property and there's a lot of desire by the resource agencies to be very involved in the technical studies to ensure the proper function of the lagoon with a longer bridge so there will be some work by consultants outside of the work being done by caltrans but caltrans will lead the bridge design and the i know the grant will cover that other work my understanding that it it does but i i know that we're seeking additional funds because there's a desire by a lot of the resource agencies to design to a higher level they feel they need that additional detail to ensure the proper functionality of the restorative ecosystem appreciate the commission giving me some time to follow up on this this is a unique and innovative project with caltrans working very closely with environmental agencies to try to come up with a solution that solves everybody's problems it's been in the works for years and one of the reasons i really appreciate the report today it's been very difficult to follow exactly what's happening when so the fact that it's now moving into the production of the the preparation of environmental document is very gratifying and you know i understand that with the complexity and with everybody's finger in the pot it's going to take a while but it's just wanting to give our encouragement to keep the process moving uh it would be it will really be exciting when this project reaches completion thank you thank you commissioner chevron one follow-up question do we have any estimate of how much this project is going to cost i know it's still very early phase but i was afraid to ask that question i don't have an estimate today but we can get that number for you be a preliminary estimate right any other comment comments or questions by commissioners mr chair just wanted to mention um i i notice in the the monthly report uh as usual more than half of the projects are in or joining of my fifth district and so uh that shows you what what damage there is up there especially on highways nine two thirty six and seventeen but i i just wanted to give an extra shout out we thank so many people but last night at the town hall meeting zeke delamus from your your agency spent more time at the mic understandably than anybody else and he was uh is very well received and uh people understood the situation much clearer so thank you for that thank you commissioner mcpherson are there any comments from members of the public this please approach the podium good morning um thank you for that report uh at last night's meeting i want to also um add on to what the supervisor just said out of the six emergency contracts and the 21 million dollars expanded uh over 18 million of that was in district five and to mr rockins earlier point yes i was the city traffic engineer in city of sanacruz in the 1982 storms and had the unenviable uh one of those people roles to replace the so kill avenue bridge where half of that bridge uh fell into the river uh leaving only eastbound lanes and it did take two years to widen and replace and um raise the level of that bridge as we did to many other bridges so once again i will say that out of all of this emergency work that is going quickly in some cases bridges take years and there's two bridges known as the twin bridges that are nearing 100 years old on highway nine one of them is 20 feet wide travel lanes that's 10 in each direction carrying the type of traffic we have the other bridges i mentioned the glenn arbor bridge i'm hearing that it's sinking and the kueya hollow bridge you can actually uh it's called the ziany creek bridge over kueya hollow road it has also been the eddy facto highway nine bridge when glenn arbor was closed along with highway nine the kueya hollow bridge you can actually see the rebar on the surface deck and matt machado assured me last night that he would be looking into making sure it's strengthening we have to look at multimodal funding besides bridge replacement funding since we're widening for the benefit of bikes and peds on our our um critical infrastructure thank you thank you i'm seeing other comments here in the chambers anyone online there's to comment on the district director's report we do not have any speakers all right thank you director it's we'll now proceed with item 23 the ghost santa cruz county program update like to invite up transportation planners amanda marino and amina ron health we're pulling up a presentation don't see her because you've got slides we don't see them just yet looks like okay here we go well good morning commissioners and members of the public my name is amanda marino and i'm a transportation planner for the rtc and today i'm going to be providing you program update um for the ghost santa cruz county program ghost santa cruz county is the rtc's carpool matching multimodal trip planning and commuter rewards platform the backbone of our platform runs on ride amigos cloud-based commuter management software the platform includes a mobile app and web-based user dashboard where participants can track their commutes and progress towards personal goals in one convenient place the primary focus of the program is to reduce single occupancy vehicle trips and greenhouse gas emissions in santa cruz county and to support the efficiency of the existing transportation system by providing information and resources versus for sustainable transportation options participants must first create a commuter profile at mycruz511.org to begin earning rewards for their alternative transportation commutes once registered participants can earn 10 points for every walk by carpool transit or telecommute trip logged on the platform once the user earns 250 points they can exchange their points for a $10 gift card and that's capped at a hundred dollars a hundred dollars annually per year staff also runs monthly drawings where participants have the chance to win a $25 visa gift card for logging alternative commute trips which can be used at local retailers one of the features available on the ghost santa cruz county platform is the ability to create commuter networks for individual employers interested organizations can create a commuter network for free customized employer-based county-wide functions that will be under the county parent network this would connect employees with commute options offer additional incentives and track organization savings carbon emissions reductions and more this can be managed by the employer themselves or by rtc staff in addition rtc partners with ecology action to offer the following commuter commuter workshops to participating employers we offer urban urban bicycling urban commuting 101 intro to e-bikes and the new 2022 winter riding workshop workshops are tailored to an organization specific needs and participants must enroll in the ghost santa cruz county program to receive a free bike helmet and light set either 4,760 or 76 participants enrolled in the ghost santa cruz county program with close to 1800 new user registration since january 2022 participants have logged more than a hundred thousand walk bike carpool van banpool transit and telecommute trips burning over 10 million calories and that's also saving 215 metric tons of carbon carbon emissions and 300,000 in commute saving costs prospective carpoolers have sent 588 messages to prospective ride matches with the platform so this yeah this chart is included in attachment one of the staff report and shows the new user registration by quarter since 2022 new user growth remains steady in 2022 averaging 330 new users per quarter new user registrations have increased by 42 percent this year compared to last year's quarterly average one of the challenges we face is providing sufficient incentives for participants countywide to incentive incentivize continuous participation in the program the spread of COVID-19 brought with it among other countless challenges wide raging implications for employers in their commute programs for the past few years transportation choices narrowed including for example the discontinuation of the santa cruz bike share program we're excited for 2023 that now that e bike share is coming back as well as more community events to attend to to spread the word about our program in the coming months staff plans to participate in the in the following events we have bike month in may midtown fridays throughout the summer pleasure point street fair in June open streets in october and the santa cruz county chamber business expo in september we will also be working with our marketing firm miller maxfield to create new promotional materials in both english and in spanish refresh our email and social media campaigns and promote the go santa cruz county promo video that was released in late 2022 the rtc is currently partnering with the santa cruz metro to support the launch of the one ride at a time campaign that was mentioned earlier for every 25 trips logged in our platform participants can earn a $10 reward and can choose to donate it to the monterey bay national marine sanctuary fund or the bay of life fund metro is leading the campaign with one ride at a time and go santa cruz county promotional materials social media outreach community events and wrap but buses of the monterey bay that is from the bay of life project there is growing support nationally to accelerate the adoption of e-bikes to make healthy green transportation options more affordable california air resources board other night our carb um the state has a statewide electric bicycle incentives project that will be providing up to 10 million worth of out of vouchers available for californians to purchase purchase a class one two or three e-bike but demand for vouchers are likely going to exceed available funding the monterey bay air resources district regional electric bicycle incentive program exhausted all of its fiscal year 2022 2023 funds in august 2022 and is no longer accepting applications the m bar board of direct um sorry the monterey bay area resources district regional electric bicycle incentive um is going to be meeting on april 19th to discuss this and to be continued in fiscal year 2023 2024 the electric bicycle incentive kickstart for the environment otherwise known as the e-bike act was introduced by california congressman jimmy panetta last month this would provide refundable federal income tax rebate of up to 30 30 sorry 30 percent of the cost of buying an e-bike capped at 1500 dollars staff will be following the status of the e-bike act and statewide e-bike rebate program and promote these options with our ghost santa cruz county participants all right so the city of santa cruz electric bike incentive program administered by ecology action is limited to individuals who work downtown or who also work for the city of santa cruz as a result more than 600 individuals who applied including 250 plus income qualified were not eligible for these incentives therefore our tc staff is exploring options to build upon the success of the downtown e-bike rebate program more information about this program can be found on attachment floor in the packet staff are considering expanding the ghost santa cruz e-bike rebate program to income qualified county residents presenting an opportunity for equitable access to electric bikes and or regular bikes in santa cruz county this would leverage the city's investment in setting up the rebate program so staff is recommending that the commission provide input on the possibility of a pilot program to provide e-bike or a classic bike bike vouchers staff is also recommending to approve the attach resolution which is included as attachment five to authorize the executive director to extend the contracts with miller maxfield and ecology action and improve the fiscal year 2022 2023 budget amendment shown as exhibit a and that concludes my presentation and our team is also welcome to have happy to answer any questions we have ecology action staff and miller maxfield staff available as well thank you thank you planet marina are there comments or questions from commissioners commissioners different and then commissioner johnson i wanted to ask um i think it's very exciting um to be considering moving more um actively into providing maybe countywide vouchers for income qualified people for e-bikes but um as i think staff knows there are many lower income people in the community who live in situations where there's no place to safely store any bike so would you talk a little bit about uh the potential of having rebates to users of the bike share program when that's set up and if there's some way the commission can be helpful in uh supporting that because i think uh i think it is a way of really encouraging people to not eat their cars take their bikes but not having to uh lay out a bunch of money in advance and try to figure out a safe place to store them so yeah um amy and i have been discussing also providing maybe some sort of incentive for the e-bike share program um we want to talk to city uh of santa cruz staff to figure out what the best option um would look like and the cost estimates for that potentially doing a discount code or some sort of free month um of bike share but we definitely um are excited about that program and want to get users on board with that as well could i follow up and ask is uh i i forget whether the rtc itself can apply to the airport for uh funding for alternative um programs that reduce greenhouse gases sorry about that but i i mean it used to be that the the airport would fund a lot of bicycle programs but um we're not sure how much they actually offer now for bicycle programs we can certainly talk to them about that and one of the challenges that for the for the industry has been obtaining uh data that shows that the funds that they provide actually do reduce emissions and that's one thing that they are they are you know thinking about and considering whether they will extend their electric bike uh uh incentive program is they feel that that without doing a lot of administrative work it uh it might be challenging it to really demonstrate that the decent centers actually do what what everybody would think they would like them to do so i'm understanding from your response that the rtc can apply for funding i don't know i think so you avoided my question all right sorry but let me just say that in answer to the substance of what you said um it would seem to me that a voucher program using bike share would really provide data because uh you don't only use vouchers for people who actually use the electric bikes um because it would reduce the cost that they're paying and the company that was running the program would i'm sure as part of their contract we keep being uh data statistics on how many people are using it how often they're using it and that is all data that could justify to the uh air board how much um bikes are being used and um partially that i think that provides evidence of uh reduction greenhouse gases obviously maybe there have to be some survey about whether people have stopped using their cars to use the bikes but it's definitely it's definitely going to reduce the trips that um that people would otherwise take in other ways i know if the executive director wanted to respond to that yeah we had um extensive conversations about this um and preparing the staff report um and i was quite surprised to hear that um they weren't continuing the program part in part because they didn't have the evidence that it was actually reducing the amount of vehicle trips um as we discussed that um i couldn't help but think about the um application that we do have um and that um by using that application we could actually obtain the data that they're looking for so i do plan on contacting the air board and seeing what opportunities exist and whether they're um that there's some flexibility in their willingness to to continue to promote um rebates for either bicycle purchases or for uh vouchers for bike share you refer to the application we do have is that the online that's our application yeah so people could use that potentially to rent a bike and we could have them have to respond how would you have made this trip if this bike was not available and it could be a car in which then we would be able to provide them with the data they're looking for okay thank you thank you commissioner shiffer and i was actually just made aware yesterday that there are some sounds like the university is offering some pretty significant discounts to its students for the bike share program that's about to be released i don't know exactly the details but i think there's you know with the new bicycle program you'll be able to buy something like a one-year uh 30 minute unlimited 30 minute rides for something in the neighborhood of $150 whereas through as your university student you'll have unlimited 60 minute rides for something in the 10 to 20 dollar range so 30 30 dollars well $12 okay that's what i that's what i thought i heard but it was um so remarkably low i couldn't believe it so i mean i'd be interested to understand the details of that contract and if it's something that we could extend you know specifically to applicants maybe who applied for the e-bike rebates or who we've identified have a relatively short commute where they could utilize a bike instead or might be able to take a bike to school or something to that effect commissioner johnson thank you chair i was interested in how the income qualification is administered i mean tax returns or how do you how do you determine that so our partners um our partners process the applications and when you need a mic okay so when applicants submit their their application there's a there's a question on the form that asks them to they need to provide some sort of um confirmation that they're enrolled in in another income based program um whether it's pgne cares medic hell or cares forget some of the other program's names but they provide their proof via that so it's like a passport to be able to um i was i think as i do with some friends at cat and cloud next door was a i think a shop called gazelle um beautiful bikes right um and the people that we were with were from carlsbad and it brought up a conversation that there have been many many accidents involving e-bikes and the majority of these and even some deaths are when the these bikes are transferred to perhaps teenagers or kids who go to school who don't know the rules of the road so are there any limitation on who once these once e-bikes are you know bought and used um is there any qualification that says you know you have to kind of know the rules of the road in order to use these for yeah the city of santa cruz for their e-bike rebate program they require to take an educational um course on e-bikes um and that's administered through ecology action so that is a requirement in order to receive a rebate um but the the age requirement i think you just have to work you have to work downtown um and uh to to be eligible um i'm not exactly actually exactly sure if there's an age requirement but maybe that would be able to in okay yeah 18 mr. peterson thank you i think this is a great program but i i also would be worried about um issues with extremely low income access especially because they will need to buy the bike up front and then wait for a rebate i'm wondering if there's been any um talk about a possible like a loan program to subsidize that so the upfront cost could be um more accessible to a wider range of applicants yeah so there's like there's a couple of options there so first of all the the downtown program and which we're looking to expand is is a point of sale vouchers so the applicants apply for the apply um either get confirmation and then um they choose their bike and then they get the voucher itself so they complete the education course then they get the actual voucher they take that voucher with them to the bike shop pick up their bike and then that that voucher or that rebate amount is taken taken off the the total at the time of purchase similar to the statewide uh e-bike rebate is also a point of sale purchase so applicants apply get approved in advance and then get the funds up front before actually putting it down or putting pain for the bike so it's a way to limit the amount of up cut upfront cost for for an e-bike great thanks and i'd also uh encourage looking into uh rebate programs for the bike share as well i think that would be a great idea other comments we'll get a bunch of people all right we'll start with commissioner modusino yeah so um you know a great opportunity but like i said interest a lot in the low income bracket and we can advertise it more because you know all this all the stuff that you they you you have outlined here it's all sanikers base so um where the what some of the opportunities south county opportunities to it um because you know advocates from the bike community you know stayed a lot a lot of efforts but um but what we see on the ground there's no there's no advertisements there's no opportunities like i said all these outreaches are sanikers base right um so what are you going to do to enhance that yeah um so in the past we we've we've looking at different opportunities where we can go and promote outreach at existing events so many of the events that we are participating are our base in and around sanikers uh last year we we partnered with equity transit and and did our promotion and outreach in downtown watsonville and then as we continue moving forward with uh with the program as well as a potential e-bike program in marketing that we would work with our marketing consultants to help us develop the outreach and the promotions where we can go specifically in downtown or specifically in watsonville in that in that general area and do some more outreach and our partners at ecology action also have um a new a new community workshop facilitator who can provide more of the workshops in in english and spanish and that wasn't something that we had access to prior uh well uh just to follow up i mean one of the greatest venues in our and our committee is like um uh the uh fiesta spot the cinco de mayo and in september and the strawberry festivals which were all missing you know in action right uh and that's what gets a lot of the community there in downtown area you don't have to look for them they're there yeah so those are those are opportunities available to us but one of the disparities that i saw in the outline also is in the and this is a different conversation but in the parking rides we don't you know we want to get people off you know the car trips and we don't provide a parking ride in watsonville um where we keep putting off and off and off and off and that's one of the things that would probably get you you know some trips off the road so this uh it's the potential uh you know future conversation on that thank you thank you commissioner hernandez i think i just want to piggy bank off of uh commissioner montesino's comments um but in terms of the e-bikes you know it'd be great if we can expand that program south county and i think the perfect opportunity is of course the city of watsonville but also once the west marine um buildings open up i think that's like also a perfect opportunity because we'll have a lot of south county residents that will live and work there as well as instead of commuting to santa cruz to 701 ocean or emeline so that'll be a perfect opportunity as well as the freedom uh campus uh that'd be also another opportunity to expand the the bike programs and all the other programs but especially the e-bike program uh this this can is considered part of the downtown right 701 ocean or the bike program as well um i don't think it's in the part downtown parking district oh okay well the city of watsonville has a parking district too if we can i mean i i think they got they yeah they just established a parking district so that'd be perfect too another opportunity thank you mr rockin i want to appreciate that uh this program includes this uh ride tracking aspect and recognize that when the transit district set up the one ride of the time program we didn't have to start from scratch developing a way that people could report their rides it already existed to the rtc and um manu at the um at the event sort of on the one ride of the time thing actually i was really impressed went through and actually taught everybody in the room had to actually use the app and uh it was i thought really really useful and to actually have that you know it's something as concrete as that this is how you get on this app this is how you record your rides and participate in the program and it it we did this program in six months a little under six months and if we had to start from scratch building a you know how are how can our riders report their rides and who's going to do it and how we're going to gather the data it would have been years and so it really is helpful to have this program set up ahead of time and we could just join it it was really great thank you commissioner rockin commissioner brown thank you um really great to hear your presentation and to see all of the progress that's been made uh this is a program that uh makes a really big difference with uh what i would consider to be a nominal investment relative to a lot of what we do here and so i wanted to ask and i absolutely support expanding the program countywide um i love the idea of the watsonville parking district also putting in so we can get as many sources together to um to create a uh seamless system and uh you said you're working on uh this and that there are um you know some some possibilities um if you could talk a little bit more about that because i want to make sure that you've got the support uh that you need to make this happen and if it means that the the commission uh might consider uh funding this uh for as part of the pilot um and and then how long you think it might take to to move in this direction i'd love to see this happen quickly i i know of some opportunities with um some bikes that we can possibly use through this program at a lower cost and and so it just seems like a really great investment and want to hear a little more about um working on it yeah um so one one of the first things that we need to identify um we we know that there is a demand um we we found in the downtown program there were more than 650 applicants who who couldn't apply for the program um and 250 of those are plus were were income qualified applicants who were were looking to to get this program so we're looking first for a funding source um we've we've looked we've talked with management we've looked at the the budget and the potential that we we see at at the moment is either applying for either rst our stbg or rstpx funds that's a that's a mouthful um and and potentially applying for this for this concept project uh in the consolidated call for projects in the fall um so that's one that's kind of one item there it's seen what what funding we have available and how much we have available and then that takes us to the next step is well what type of eligibility criteria would we determine is that going to be similar and in line with the state's eligibility criteria um or would we make it more in line with the downtown program which has a lower incentive um and then and then that takes us into the next question or the next option which is leave out your amounts um what would they be you know really substantial and that would then help really help a lower income individual actually purchase a bicycle up front and having a larger incentive or just making more incentives available at a lower um a lower amount and and then finally it's uh and then and then also deciding is it going to be ebike only or is it ebikes and standard bicycles and having either options and having vouchers available for both and then finally it's uh bringing this item and and some of our our criteria and our and our draft ideas uh to our rtc committees and and just out to the public in general um for their input and and how do we build this program and making it um cost effective and equitable to tell all individuals about the county thanks i i think i'm good right okay got it all right thank you commissioner ron i'll just add a few comments which is first is uh just really appreciate the program and i think it's uh pretty telling that in our measure the expenditure plan even under the highway funds voters approve transportation meant a demand management program like this so um very forward looking and of course has been mentioned other times during the meeting it was really that multimodal approach that has helped our county win such incredible state and federal grants recently and so um it's great that we also are doing it through the the software and transportation man management side um i would also echo um commissioner hernandez's comments that i think the new county facility um in south county is a great opportunity to pursue a park and ride location it's very close to the highway um and it could be it'll be a natural jobs hub itself and hopefully will also be a great place for park and ride so i'd invite you to reach out to county federal services and real property to discuss that um you mentioned some of the challenges with continued use um can you talk a little bit about how many monthly active users we have on the app yeah um i emailed you that information i didn't put it right here on my notes i can read it if you want i just want to give you that opportunity sure go ahead and read that i don't have that in my notes right here okay okay sure so i mean you mentioned about i think 4076 total signups for the ride of makers platform however um looking at a month by month basis how many people are using the app the average is 141 users and we had a high in the last year of 202 users so i just want to point out that is about one even if you look at the higher number the high of 202 users per month that's five percent of everyone that signed up is using the app on a regular basis or one in 20 so this may just i think we need to recognize the possibility this may not be the most effective way to encourage people to reduce their or have the biggest impact on the community to reduce trips right is the opportunity to track rides i mean i recognize that no matter what program we have we need the go santa cruz um umbrella and marketing program and we need great partners like ecology action to help promote the program but i think we should over the next year i mean we're launching the one right at time campaign with metro hopefully that will have we'll see an impact i think that over the next year we do need to look at potential alternatives as far as like really the core of this program if it's you know literally just giving away more e-bikes or giving people the opportunity to ride it to greatly reduce cost on the on the bike show program or anything else so that's probably what i'm hoping that we'll see i think that when i say you know the year time frame my understanding is that the contract we have with ride and me goes is for another year right it was a two-year contract we proved it last year okay um and of course we're rolling out the one right at a time campaign now we'll see what impact that has so i think by the time this comes back to us next year i'd like to see some of these other options as far as how we can directly invest some of the funds that we're currently using for this program as well as potentially other options um you know coming down the line from federal actions as well as state actions that we could plug into this program actually my final question is as far as the um was it CARB the state program for bike vouchers is there any and i know it wasn't listed in the report uh the entity that was going to help distribute those vouchers do they need like local partners how does that work pedal ahead right ahead based out of san diego is operating the entire statewide platform they're handling all the applications review and then disbursement of those vouchers um and then bike retailers are can also participate and and apply to be a participating vendor um and then yeah are they like limited by region like per capita number or is it just however many people apply they give them out until we they're all gone oh so i think um about 50 of the funds are are set aside for lower low-income priority populations um and so they'll the all the rebates will be on a first come first serve basis up until they reach that 50 uh limit uh or funds have been claimed 50 of the funds have been claimed and then after that it'll just be based on uh the priority criteria okay we'll show a little competitive streak here you know i want to get as many of these vouchers for santa christ county residents as possible and particularly i think in in the first district in the live oak area there's a lot of great opportunities to get bikes into uh the the hands of low-income folks who have maybe relatively shorter commutes so i'd hope that um you know given that two-thirds of the folks who applied for the downtown program which is very limited doesn't include the even 701 ocean street here maybe we could reach out to them directly and say hey there's a new opportunity go ahead and apply for this or you know somehow communicate with petal ahead um you know any way to sort of use the information we've already collected to to to jump uh to the next level faster would be great absolutely those are all my comments if there's no one else on the commission then we'll open it for public comment yeah podium please hi everyone good morning uh good morning yeah it's morning hey matt miller here from ecology action thanks so much uh good to see you all here i wanted to ingest a few things but uh among them commissioner peterson you had some questions about the the voucher versus reimbursement model as well as financing so just wanted to kind of color in some detail from uh from the downtown program so we have a base rebate of 400 and we have an income qualified rebate of 800 and so it's a voucher style program where people are guaranteed if they're eligible they go through the program requirements they fill out a baseline survey they complete the bike safety education uh and then they are given their voucher and they can use that and it's immediately deducted from the price but what we've seen is that 85 percent of the people who've come through the program have taken advantage of other e-bike incentive programs like m barred three c e sometimes both of those last summer all three of those programs were functioning uh so a wide majority of people are stacking rebates to make it all possible we also have had 31 percent of people come through who are low income uh at at the point of pre-approval but the actual conversion rate is 43 percent of people are actually low income who've gone through the entire process so we have actually disproportionately higher number of low income individuals who are using the program uh and in terms of financing what we've seen is a couple things one many of the local bike shop retailers have a zero interest most of them have a zero interest and a couple have very low interest uh bike loans that people have taken advantage of and then through the ecology action membership program which covers the downtown parking district we have a zero interest e-bike loan up to $1500 which people who have come through the rebate program have taken advantage of to make the whole the whole picture work so yes financing is being utilized and then also the voucher style program just gives that guarantee upfront a couple of things that happened that we observed last summer is that right as m barred was running out of funding people had made the purchase applied and didn't get funding because it ran out and it put people on a really difficult spot so having a voucher style program guarantees that you have it in hand and you don't have to worry about that 30 60 day reimbursement window or potentially not get that money back at all so a voucher style program that the downtown program runs on would be a in our in our strong opinion would be a great model for rolling out a countywide program and also like many rebate programs stacking them makes that whole picture work quite well so as we're thinking about what's going to happen with the statewide rebate I agree uh commissioner conig hopefully we can get a lot of that but there's maybe 10 000 vouchers available in that program and millions of people so what can the county do to focus and and really build on a successful downtown program I think we've got a lot of really strong indicators that it's working that it's effective that it's replacing car trips and it's reducing emissions and it's changing transportation behavior so let's keep that momentum and bring it to the entire county building off this pilot that we've been working on the last year and a half thank you yeah everyone else here in chambers wish to comment is there anyone online we have matt ferrell thank you chair conig and commissioners I just want to speak uh in favor of this this evolution of the go santa cruz program uh it is really important for it to have a regional focus um and what commissioners from south county has spoken to is definitely an area that needs attention and energy but I think you know every journey is a series of steps and this is a big step forward uh finally I'd say that this is really a critical component this regional approach or an effective bike share program when individual communities were pursuing bike share individually it had huge impacts on the ability of people to use the vehicles so thank you to everyone who's worked on this project I think um for a lot of working people electric bicycle is a real opportunity and I'd just like to mention that one thing in talking with people about bicycling one barrier to um writing in traffic for people is that the bicycle has a hard time competing with vehicle speed and a lot of people feel more secure on an electric bicycle so I think this will help move people to this mode thank you thank you mr ferrell equity transit hi I'd like to thank santa cruz county go rgc team for the vital work that you've been doing to move our community out of their cars and onto bikes buses and carpooling to address our climate crisis um just wondering if go might consider doing a short online training video just to help new people get on boarded in Spanish and English and we really appreciated that go santa cruz county hosting an educational table at our national equity day festival in Watsonville we're really excited to see all the partnerships that go is fostering with ecology action and metro and others um I also wanted and it was great to hear matt from ecology action talk about um e-bike stacking of rebates or um uh the bill of vouchers and that's really exciting because as many of us know it's so expensive to live here even people who are not necessarily consider low income need ways of being able to get access to these bikes financially it's been hard for for most everybody um and also I'd be remiss to not mention that santa cruz county has one of the highest rates of traffic violence in the states um many people in our community that I've spoken to would love to get on their bikes and get around but they don't because of the aggressive driving and unsafe streets so just want to give a plug for prioritizing infrastructure that prioritizes the safety of all on our roads rather than our current typical infrastructure that prioritizes speed and hope that you'll look at when road work projects go in and narrowing streets fully separated bike lanes adding visual and physical deterrence to speed for example we can plant trees and while we remediate um the removal of trees in other area we can provide a service of uh that is both climate addressing and safety addressing on our streets with trees and other ways so again thank you go santa cruz county for all your work and I look forward to seeing you at all the upcoming events thank you miss falkner piet hello commissioners it's piet can and with ecology action um I'd like to address a couple of points um about e bike rebate programs in the region so m barge program was mentioned and that program um I don't think the staff ended it I think it ran out of funds for its fiscal year and the fiscal year doesn't start until this July so I think in five in five weeks I believe they you know exhausted all their funds for the e bike program and then the other regional program run by 3ce um they had 1234 um approved applications so that that program was wildly successful they did decide to end that program um which is a little bit of headscratcher because that was one third one quarter of their energy program participants went through the e bike rebate program um and so those programs to me were a victim of their success um and you know a point in case for how popular these rebate programs are um so I would um you know um you know encourage the commission to look at expanding the current um downtown program for e bike rebates to the whole county and then also I did want to also talk about um the bike share program because that's a crucial program coming online I think both you can have a rebate program for electric bikes and a robust bike share program and and I I I would ask the commission and transportation um you know staff to think of the bike share program as a public transit program and to subsidize it as such so you can have low income rates so you can have support so you can make sure that unbanked um users can can access it that people without apps can access it so provide the support to make that program accessible to all users in Santa Cruz county from north county to south county thank you very much thank you mr canon is paula bradley bradley sorry about that hi everyone I wanted to applaud everyone for bringing back the e bike rebate program I think that's wonderful I also had a question about the federal tax credit if any anyone might know it would that be a tax credit that would only apply to those who itemize on their taxes and and and those who do not would not be able to take advantage of that tax credit I I just thought it should be more equitable if if everyone who files can get the tax credit thank you thank you I do not see any other speakers right now let's return to the commission for action Brad kushar again the three resolutions that the staff recommends I also would add um directing staff to continue work on the e bike share program as russians originally by andy shifrin but others commented on some great length I don't have specific details to that but you know basically there's a lot of work to be done to actually put it into place and um finally that uh that we do pursue our air boards uh support for the programs that we're talking about I would second that but we'd like to add a couple of um additional directions sort of related to that and one of them would be a direction to staff to return in two months with program funding options for both the any bike voucher and a bike share program that would including the possibility of using funds from the rtc budget I thought to comment by the chair in terms of um the various sources uh in measure d that could be used for tdm programs is worth looking into I'd like to also add a direction that when this returns there be a discussion about outreach in the south county so that the commission could have a better understanding of what's being done there so if that's acceptable to the all friendly amendments and part of the main motion at this point okay and so if I could speak to it the point of this is I think as I think staff can see there's a lot of support on the commission to move forward with both vouchers and um bike share that the intent of the motion is to try to operationalize that by having something come back that really looks at how could these programs be funded how much could be made available sooner and later and how can it be you know what's a what's potentially available both within our budget and from other sources that could be used to kick start these programs all right maybe a motion from commissioner rodkin a second from commissioner shifrin i'm sorry for the discussion right seeing none all those in favor high high be opposed any abstentions motion unanimously thank you very much all right we will now proceed with item 24 which is fiscal year 23 24 proposed budget it's a presentation by director of finance tracy new good morning commissioners and members of the public can you hear me okay can you make sure it's on just press the button i believe it's on maybe just getting a little closer would be would be helpful can you hear me now so maybe straight in the mic and yeah there you go good morning commissioners and members of the public rtc my name is tracy new i'm part of the rtc staff here to present the fiscal year 23 24 rtc and measure d budgets the first fiscal year 23 24 proposed budget is presented early to allow the rtc to inform claimants of projected apportionments of transportation development act funds and projected measure d funds for use in developing their budgets revenue estimates for the new fiscal year include transportation development act from the county auditor state transit assistance and state of good repair from the state controller's office and measure d from hinder lighter delamus companies per tda statute and rtc's rules and regulations tda revenue estimates are provided by the county in january each year the rtc maintains an 8% reserve and is responsible for administration and allocation of revenues to eligible claimants based on a formula share the rtc is also responsible for the allocation of state transit assistance and state of good repair revenues actual measure d revenues received each month are distributed in accordance with the ordinance expenditure plan under lighter delamus provided an update following the f y 23 quarter two results on california's retail economy based on data through december 31 2022 various industries experience slight inflation improvements but real change has yet to take hold consumers remain nervous about the economy experts vary on whether recession will occur and to what extent hdl's forecast indicates a slowdown in taxable taxable spending to 0.4 percent in fiscal year 23 24 as the higher cost of utilities food and other necessities limit dollars available for discretionary spending forecast considerations include inflation interest rates personal debt and savings we also have a national election in november of 2024 unemployment at is at the pre-pandemic level at 41.1 percent which is a good thing overall for our economy during the early months of 2023 fluctuating key indicators led many experts to draw mixed conclusions regarding the fluid economic outlook strong jobs numbers and low employment rates allowed consumption spending to stay solid recent bank closures have tested the stock market and as a result both investors and customers are nervous about the security and accessibility of their funds one of the most vulnerable segments includes taxable discretionary merchandise as consumers are closely monitoring their own financial situation from a sales tax perspective hdl's forecast is not different from recent estimates while no recession is anticipated current year results will slow and then decelerate into little or no growth for fiscal year 23 24 analysts are looking to the fed and how much they responded to cool inflation for the overall economy interest rates since march of last year are up 475 basis points a lot of good information is coming out of the fed treasury right now with where they are overall for the rest of the calendar calendar year anticipating just one more bump they're being mindful they do not wish to push the economy into what might otherwise be considered a recession or an extreme pullback it is not likely we will go back to fiscal year 21 and 22 growth levels that were in the double digits for measure d one half percent transaction and use tax the fiscal year 23 quarter two which is october through december experienced a 1.3 percent decline over fiscal year 2022 quarter two this this is down from the previous quarter which saw a 4.2 growth with consumers continuing to spend and traveling for the summer months year over year growth is up 4 percent for fiscal year 23 quarter one and quarter two through december in fiscal year 23 quarter two inflation and interest rates increases have a big effect on spending and the economy transportation development act is a one quarter percent sales tax that comes from the general sales tax of 7.25 percent general sales tax of california in fiscal year 23 quarter two which is october through december there was a 2.6 percent decline over fiscal year 2022 this is down from the previous quarter which saw a 4 percent increase year over year growth is 0.7 percent for fiscal year 23 through december 2022 the fiscal year 2022 23 approved budget for tda included estimate revenues plus a 1.3 million dollar in carryover revenues from the prior two fiscal years minus funds needed for the tda reserve fund the amount of tda revenues in the fiscal year 23 24 budget is only the estimated revenues of 12 million minus the funds needed for the tda reserve fund this results in a 12.3 percent decrease for rtc and metro when compared to fiscal year 22 23 because revenues are now coming in below estimates it is not expected that there will be any carryover tda funds to be distributed in fiscal year 23 24 affecting tda revenues starting in january 2021 was a change in reporting sales tax revenue of e-commerce revenues that were previously reported in the pools are now being shifted to direct allocation for e-commerce retailers attributed to fulfillment centers fulfillment centers are the big warehouses that are truly fulfilling orders often with robotics and across the state of california they are the largest component of the business and industry group there are over 30 percent now which used to be only 20 percent this has been growing consistently each quarter as more fulfillment centers come online sales out of those fulfillment centers are considered places of sale then becoming direct allocations to county the warehouses located and come out of the pools this change does not affect measure d as measure d is a district tax and we receive it's a transactional news tax we receive our portion on that on those sales presented to the commission is the fiscal year 23 24 budget program and project revenues and expenditures are based on the estimates for work to be completed in the coming fiscal year the proposed fiscal year 23 24 budget is balanced and includes the funding to meet the rtc state and federally mandated responsibilities as well as continue the rtc's priority transportation projects and programs in june staff will prepare an amendment to the budget based on actual spending to determine the carryover revenues and expenditures based on work completed the budget and personnel budget and administration personnel committee met on march 9th to consider the staff recommendations presented in the staff report the committee did not have a quorum but the four commissioners who participated in the meeting did not have any objections and express their support for the staff recommendations so staff recommends that the santa cruz county regional transportation commission approved the resolution adopting the fiscal year 23 24 budget except the transfer the 23 24 transportation development act revenue forecast provided by the county auditor except the measure d revenue forecast for fiscal year 23 24 through 27 28 provided by hdl companies except the 30-year revenue projection which incorporates the hdl forecast for fiscal year 23 24 and except the five-year rest revenue estimates for the measure d recipients which incorporate the hdl forecast for 23 24 in calculation of the revenue distribution for local jurisdictions with updated data this concludes my report and i'm happy to take any questions thank you director new comments or questions from commissioners uh commissioner shifrin i just want to thank uh staff for the work on this and the budget seems to get more complicated every year um but um it's we end up doing really well in terms of our audits and beating all the requirements and uh you know it's i appreciate the detailed work while i have the floor i forgot at the last item to uh with the last time to compliment staff on their work on the gosanna cruise project i thought the staff report was very helpful um so thank you to staff on on the work on this and uh i was at the budget and administration committee uh well i think it was a rainy day and there was a lot of confusion and we never ended up with it we're moving to uh in person meetings so we didn't get a quorum but those of us who were there did feel that the budget was uh worthy of support so when it's the appropriate time i'd be happy to make the motion to support the staff recommendations thank you commissioner shifrin for comments questions thank you it is a you know cautious report we can see a little bit of slowdown in terms of our revenues of course the other part of this that is not really directly encapsulated by the budget but of course it's the increase in cost we've seen and i think in a lot of the agencies that all of us are part of are seeing that and struggling with that and thinking about ways to address it um i appreciate that you called out the issue with the state sales tax allocation um that is also something that you know we recently looked at at the county board supervisors and we'll be writing a letter to our state representatives asking for maybe a closer to a return to the old way of distributing sales tax i mean after all if you'd um we have to build the housing and provide the services for the people who are buying the stuff um and i think ultimately that has a greater need for government services than the robots moving stuff in the warehouses so um anyway with that is there any public comment on this item um chair conan i would like to say that there is a movement that has been going on for years because this issue has been on the table since the wayfair decision and that is that the california league of cities has they launched their second study on how it can be more equitably distributed and the issue is is that you know there's winners and then there's or there's positive and negative effects on um any change that's made and they weren't able to last time come up with a recommendation or you know something that would be um accepted so they're doing it the second time around it'll be two to three years um but we'll follow it closely and we'll get back to you on on their progress but it's a very strong movement to make it more equitable because there are a lot of the smaller cities and counties that are being directly impacted by this in an extremely negative way thank you for sharing that right if anyone in the public there was to comment on this item seeing no one here in chambers is there anyone online we do not have any hands up all right then i'll return into the commission for action i move the staff recommendations i'll second that motion by commissioner shifrin second by was it commissioner montecino to adopt the staff recommendations any further discussion all right saying none all those in favor say i i are you right any opposed any abstentions that motion passes unanimously thank you thank you director now we'll now proceed with item 25 which is Santa Cruz county climate adaptation vulnerability assessment and priorities report consultant contract for on this item we have transportation planner briana goodman go ahead oh see we do see we do see the slides yes okay and then the next thing i need to see if this works oh just trying to um yes i've never seen no you might just need to call out the next slide next slide okay it was worth the try yeah good morning commissioners briana goodman of your staff i'm before you today to recommend approval of entering into a contract with a firm wsp to assist rtc and the county of santa cruz with completing the santa cruz county climate adaptation vulnerability assessment and priorities report or kava next slide please our community has been through a lot in recent months i would hazard a guess that after this winter there will be a lot more interest from the public about this project than there would have been six months ago next slide please our community has experienced severe flooding slide and some neighborhoods many times in a matter of weeks slide transportation agencies have been required to respond quickly to a range of hazards slide commute patterns have been impacted some residents have been trapped and required rescue and we are grateful to all our first responders heavy rain has also resulted in saturated soils leading to landslides which have impacted transportation infrastructure but the impacts to transportation go beyond the commute to work many rural areas experience being cut off entirely at times from vital services access to groceries children couldn't get home from school the storms also resulted in storm surge and accelerated coastal erosion leaving local agencies to ponder next steps and consider constrained resources intense rainfall resulted in culvert failures and washouts they occurred with such frequency the decisions had to be made as to which facilities to prioritize for emergency reconstruction but as we know extreme precipitation is not the only hazard to transportation assets that can be accelerated by climate change this slide shows a concrete freeway buckling from extreme heat extreme heat is not kind to asphalt paving either and as we experience a range of local climate hazards with greater frequency and severity evacuation routes and their consequences also become a factor in determining priorities climate change is happening now here state and local agencies are pushing back hard with rigorous greenhouse gas reduction targets and strategies but we also need to come to terms with the reality that even as we work towards these targets we will still need to adapt our transportation system to this new normal of more extreme weather sea level rise temperature extremes and wildfire risk next slide for those of you following along an assistive devices we've been paging through a series of images of transportation climate hazards as described in the alt text and we are now on slide 20 in 2019 caltrans completed a climate adaptation vulnerability assessment for each of its districts and district level adaptation priority reports in 2021 our kava project is funded through a caltrans sustainable communities planning grant and proposes to follow and build upon the framework outlined in these reports first by assessing the vulnerability of all santa cruz county maintained transportation infrastructure and the santa cruz branch line to climate impacts next slide for the subset of assets exposed the degree of impacts and timing of impacts will be determined after which the consequences of these impacts will be determined and the assets will be prioritized based on the timing and consequences of their impacts including effects on safety the economy and vulnerable communities throughout the evaluation process we will seek robust input from stakeholders and the public with a range of opportunities for participation across key milestones working with the county of santa cruz we will integrate findings into a long-range transportation and housing planning as well as ready projects determined to be high priorities to compete for funding for further analysis and adaptation or hardening design and construction along with the santa cruz county departments of planning and public works rtc will be partnering with the county office of response recovery and resilience or or three rtc staff are looking forward to forming a stronger partnership with this important local agency contracting with the firm wsp will complete the team the agency team has already begun exploring opportunities to improve on the caltrans model such as adding slope failure to the set of climate hazards to be analyzed the kava will also differ from the caltrans efforts and that it will include multimodal infrastructure such as rail and trail on the santa cruz branch rail line prioritization metrics in particular need to be unique to santa cruz county we have seen how some groups within our region will face higher consequences from climate hazards and we must work to prioritize the needs of these vulnerable communities wsp usa incorporated as a leader in climate adaptation analysis the firm developed all of the caltrans climate adaptation vulnerability assessments and priorities reports and the proposed team members for our project have had extensive experience with the district five analysis this is just a small fraction of their climate adaptation experience they were the highest ranked firm in both proposal review and interviews this proposed project schedule has already been modified slightly since i prepared these slides but it can give the commission a rough idea of timing the major public outreach will occur this fall again in spring and fall of 2024 with a final report coming the beginning of 2025 thank you this concludes my presentation and i welcome your comments thank you very much other comments or questions from commissioners commissioners person yeah i have just a question climate adaptation vulnerability assessment come out is that the first time that's come around or is that a new well whatever it's a it's a brand new rtc program yeah all right we'll get used to it okay my concern is when we're looking at this the climate changes that are coming upon us uh i'm really concerned about the rail corridor and the impact and i know that met with some staff about my concerns about this if in the end the coastal commission in particular where they're going to allow a rail corridor to go along a reroute eroding cliffside in waselba or capitol or not i i i'm going to want to need the uh i'd sure like to have the answer to that or what their projection is before i really look further into this rail line i mean are we going to have to move in 100 yards inland or i don't know i just a big concern of mine and i think of some others too yeah just as a clarifying point on that this this study does not in itself propose adaptation designs or strategies it merely prioritizes identified assets and so you know that location you're talking about supervisor would obviously we all know it's going to be pretty high near the top of the list for the rail corridor in terms of um assets that would require further study and prioritization or further study and you know potential hardening or other um design changes but this study will not actually propose any of those changes in itself it will just give you a a list of what to attack first clarifying what kava is yeah commissioner shifrin yes i wanted to respond to commissioner macpherson's concern which is definitely a real one one thing is to point out to um that under the coastal act public access to the coast is a critical concern and the coastal commissions has been very supportive of rail rail transportation along the coast obviously there's going to be a problem in areas like some of our areas um but i think i would turn now to the executive director because i know that uh there have been conversations with coastal staff regarding some of the projects that the commission is trying to pursue to maintain the rail line and um allow it to be maintained so we have been in close conversations with the california coastal commission we had some challenges as you're aware commissioner shifrin with their approval of um the trail in segment five up by davin port we were able to work out a compromised solution that allowed the trail to be built with a minor amount of um coastal armoring which is fortifying the coast and and making uh um it's such that it can withstand sea level rise but it comes out of compromise that over time we could be losing our beaches and the space that we have for our beaches so we have to kind of um work with them to to balance this um part of that approval was based on doing an ongoing study of wave run-up analysis we're working with them right now on permits for segments eight and actually in advance of um the environmental document coming out for segments 10 and 11 that run along park avenue they want to see a wave run-up analysis in that area we are seeing if we can get funding for that we heard some of the caltrans planning grants um are still available and and we're considering applying for funding for that um with regards to the upcoming concept report for electric passenger rail we have it in our scope of services to work early and identified several different locations that are subject to sea level rise including um the beach street area right in front of the boardwalk i'm sure you're aware of the recent storms had waves crashing up onto beach street park avenue of course just mentioned manresa beach area is another area and then harkenslu that area actually goes underwater during storm events we expect that they're going to expect the rail line to be raised in that area i'm going through that analysis i think we'll get a good idea as to what is going to be necessary and whether it could be a phased approach over time um we'll be working with them on their requested alternatives analysis they obviously want to minimize the amount of coastal armoring but i haven't heard um them say that they wouldn't be willing to work with us on trying to come up with a solution that can be implemented over time if you consider what's been going on down in del mar that's where the existing surf liner runs between los angeles and um san diego you'll actually see waves crashing up onto the racks they have required they have permitted um retaining walls which is considered coastal armoring but they're looking over time that the rail line do be moved in inland this would be similar to a lot of the discussion that's happened with this city of san apri regarding west cliff um so we do know that we're going to have to respond and and that things may need to move but we don't know exactly when and we'll work with them to come up with strategies so we can um meet their goals of providing coastal access and they do um like the coastal access provided by both rail and trail but also uh address their concerns about um armoring the coast and and ending up with no beaches over time so it's a complicated issue um fortunately we have a good relationship with the coastal commission and we'll continue to work with them and provide answers to the commission thank you commissioner johnson thank you excuse me thank you chair what is the total cost of this program including from caltrans and from us and everything um well i didn't bring my laptop up here but it's um a little over four hundred thousand dollars for a two-year project okay so um that includes um staff time both the county and rtc right so um if it were me i think i might take a little bit different approach i mean we have in the past winter and going back to 2020 real world experience in terms of what has happened to our communities flooding fires i mean even in scott's valley we were evacuated for a full week um to me it seems that instead of going with a third party that we get together all the entities that participated in you know from caltrans to to all the emergency procedures um getting caltrans getting fema chp share of police public works from all the entities and maybe have two or three symposiums different parts of the county and but inviting the public and shared the information i mean we just heard about 300 road closures we talked we heard about caltrans wondering if they had a dig a ditch to uh because there was flooding on highway one you know there's a lot of to me if we shared those experiences school districts you know what emergency procedures we would take and take an afternoon where all these people got together and shared this information directly that could actually talk about how we would most effectively come up with alternative plans to meet these emergencies uh not only would it be i think more efficient but it would certainly be more cost effective um i'm just worried about when i see slides from this provider that go from 2025 to 2055 to 2085 speculation on how things are going to be with sea surges surges and so forth um that's one thing and maybe they're going to be right but i think the immediate information that we could gather from all the entities that i just mentioned from the cities to the to the county to all these entities would be much more efficient in terms of reaping the knowledge that we need to deal with these emergencies and just much more efficient so um so i guess i'm just looking at maybe from a practical standpoint of you know just you know sharing information okay directly immediately and not waiting for till 2025 to get some sort of report but having a real world right now that we can that that i think serves our county better thank you commissioner johnson commissioner rockin um well first i in a honest and totally friendly way and they respond a little bit to my colleague um scott's valley um the idea that putting together a multi agency meeting to discuss these kinds of questions would be more efficient than having one uh agency that actually does this kind of work and knows what they're doing it's it's a little it's all it's a hard argument i think um i'm not against having those meetings i think the data that randy's talking about is important i would hope that they group doing this work would be of course consulting with those groups to find out what their actual experiences are so i don't disagree with this idea about having those meetings they could be very productive but the idea that substituting that or stopping this effort of the rtc to actually figure out what our immediate needs are and to probably be able to prioritize the climate change needs we need to address seems to be not a good idea i also want to just say about the this is just more specific about the the uh real corridor the people who want to argue that somehow we would be better addressing this issue by not having a train or not we're not thinking about looking into and planning for a train i i respect the right of all of our members here to reserve their right to totally support this effort until they know you know what's it going to cost what are the consequences is it what's its real feasibility we many people have expressed that and i i express my own sense of like you know i'm i'm on board with the train at this point but who knows what the information will get and whether at some point we'll decide it's not a feasible project but the people that are arguing for immediate abandonment that we should like to start building the trail and forget about the train and never going to happen first of all in terms of the coastal commission's views not only the comments from our director but also the comments that's the woman from trail from transportation equity brought up you know that there's actual the coastal commission's views are they support rail transit i think that's important but most importantly of all i'd like to understand what people think the pathway to even a trail without a train is on that quarter without having a train or at least continue to sort of plan for a train tear up the tracks the idea of rail banking i was a supporter of that i think it was a great idea but it's there's no pathway to it and the end result is you lose the corridor not just for the train but for even for a trail uh because the right of way we have there is based on freight uh the freight planning for freight service to return at some point again whether we do it and whether how that integrates with the passenger service and a lot of huge complexities here and lots of reasons for skepticism i get that for sure but this idea will like just cut and run right now because it's just not feasible i think that can't do attitude is not helpful for our county and we do have in terms of what the public wants a vote a very clear vote the three quarters of the county in every supervisory district are in support of the idea of at least pursuing the train see where see where it goes find out what we what the obstacles are how we can overcome them and we also have an 11-1 vote from this commission that that's the path we're on right now and the idea that we just should abandon it so i always think about somebody who's tuning in for the first time to hear one of our meetings when they hear from the members of the public they just go oh we need to you know get tear up those tracks and just get right to work on the trail it's not a feasible thing to do it's less feasible than the train at this point because we'd lose the right or at least significant portions of the right away if we went in that direction so those are my issues about that thank you thank you commissioner rockin um other commissioner shiffen yes let me say that as much as i may agree or disagree with commissioner rockin it's really the rail trail isn't on this agenda item today so um i wanted to speak to the comments from commissioner johnson because i think he raises a very important point but i'm not sure it's any different than what is being proposed in this contract which is really what's before us because as i look at the contract it does have um outreach stakeholder meetings and so i guess i think the point that he raises about getting the various agencies together to talk about their experience share their experience and start have a starting point of you know this is what we've learned this is what the problems are now this contract is what are we going to do about it and that that's kind of was my understanding of what this contract was all about so i did find i forget i lost an honest thing um that they're that as part of the contract tasks are at least one stakeholder meeting and probably maybe several and i just wanted to clarify with staff whether the kinds of issues that commissioner johnson raised as important to talk about will be incorporated into this contract the shorter answer is yes commissioner but um there will be three opportunities for stakeholder meetings which will include local jurisdictions and response agencies our primary partner in this at the county is the office of response recovery and resilience they are the ones that have been spearheading all of the efforts in the last few months to keep santa cruz moving through these storms so we will be attending to a lot of the concerns uh commissioner johnson raised regarding getting getting the knowledge from the people on the ground and also one of the items in the framework would be looking at where do where do these assets already fail under climate hazards a lot already you know um that's going to be one of the factors using and determining where there are areas of highest risk because we're seeing it happening already and i would assume that as part of the state stakeholder meetings that elected officials would be participating as well um because oftentimes they have a really a comprehensive view of the public impacts of these disasters uh while staff has you know very important technical understandings but i think getting the public um concerns that would be reflected by elected officials is important so i hope they would be included in the stakeholder meetings as well we haven't yet prepared our outreach plan for this project but i will definitely take your thoughts into consideration and that's a great idea thank you thank you commissioner shifrin the comments or questions or we'll just add that um you know as much as i understand uh commissioner johnson's frustration with that with another study um you know i think that as as commissioner shifrin mentioned this will incorporate a lot of the outreach and feedback from the different agencies mentioned um i will also say that in looking at the local coastal program amendment that the county has pursued um one of the biggest pieces of feedback from the coastal commission when they reviewed that was hey guys go get a vulnerability assessment and come back to us with this and so i think having a vulnerability assessment like this for transportation infrastructure is going to be a vital step as we look to you know ultimately secure funding to improve all this transportation infrastructure so to that extent i'm supportive of it um i just understand what we're going to get here as an end product so it's not actually going to recommend it'll identify where there's risk and vulnerability as the title suggests um our new acronym kava here um but it will not actually recommend projects is that correct um it will not recommend designs for projects it will recommend a list of prioritized projects to seek funding for further analysis and again potential climate hardening or other adaptation so this is the first step to decide um where where the areas of highest risk are and what the risk specifically might be to specific kinds of assets and on what timeline okay yeah one wouldn't go so far as to you know suggest any engineering or design right okay um and then in terms of a priority list how would it rank that i mean is it going to be in terms of daily trips on the facility i mean for example we all talk about the rail corridor a lot um but i was surprised to learn during these recent storms how many people use bear creek road every day i mean i think it's in the order of over 10 000 maybe even 15 000 people a day it's a major artery in the county um but for people traveling from the vat from san lorenzo valley to silicon valley um i mean so are we going to look at this in terms of daily active trips for prioritization or is there going to be also some factor as well you know there's so many risks to this facility that will cost an exponential amount of money to try to maintain it into the future and so even though it has a lot of trips will i mean we don't recommend prioritizing the project i mean how can you give me um is any can you actually page back to the there's a slide with the list of the possible metrics and um average daily traffic is one of them but we've got a list that's one of the things that we will be coming up with with the consultant and the team as the first milestone um we'll be developing the framework and a component of the framework is the consequence metrics and prioritization metrics so uh daily use is one of them other things would be evacuation routes transit routes um one way in and out that have active transportation along it um does it allow access to vulnerable communities or um key um you know medical facilities or schools um there's going to be a lot of things that go into what what makes that priority list okay thank you yes i just wanted to follow up to a little bit about what you said yourself um chair conag was um by doing these studies we put ourselves in position for additional funding oftentimes the big funding grants will be looking to see that we did this first um before they even determine whether or not you're eligible for for funding so that's why we we do these things and i'm glad we also got clarification on uh commissioner johnson's questions that there is going to be a significant stakeholder um outreach um and um opportunities for input those are all very important components um that the state and federal funding agencies that will be providing the big bucks are going to look to see that we already did that we're not just applying blindly for individual projects i would um add to executive director's comment that we actually use a caltrans sustainable planning grant for this and then the next cycle of grants there was a new climate adaptation and vulnerability assessment funding pot for plans just like what we're doing um so i anticipate that this at the very least will be a requirement for future climate adaptation funding um and that we are ahead of ahead of the game because we're doing it on our own first before um everybody else in the state commissioner johnson thank you chair so um with respect to stakeholders you know we heard earlier that in the center of the valley there was a meeting where where the public attended got to share some of its uh concerns or what have you but i would also we awards were given to people who in my mind they're kind of in intermediaries but they're the stakeholders sometimes with the most information that's that's kind of my point as well so engaging them in a meaningful way and maybe even expanding it to schools you know they're affected you know how are they affected and what can we do for them and a ride from the public works and so forth so i guess we're all on board on the same on the same page here i just wanted to make sure that those um uh people were were engaged with so thank you thank you commissioner johnson or to know other comments from commissioners we'll take it out to the public anyone here in chambers was to comment on this item seeing none is there anyone online we do not have anybody online all right and i'll return it to the commission for action move the staff recommendation second motion from commissioner shifrin second by commissioner rodkin any further discussion seeing none all those in favor all right hi any opposed any abstentions motion passes unanimously thank you thank you all right and seeing as we do not have a closed session today that brings us to the conclusion of our meeting thank you everyone meeting adjourned