 Okay. Good morning, everyone. My name is Bruce McPherson, Santa Cruz County Supervisor and Chair of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission. I'd like to call to call to order the Thursday, November 5, 2020 meeting of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission to order. Clerk, please call the roll. Commissioner Alternate Lynn. Present. Commissioner Gonzalez. Present. Commissioner Botthorff. Here. Commissioner McPherson. Here. Commissioner Alternate Reed. Here. Commissioner Alternate Mulherr. Here. Commissioner Alternate Shifrin. Here. Commissioner Caput. Here. Commissioner Kaufman-Gomez. Present. Commissioner Johnson. Here. Commissioner Brown. Here. Commissioner Bertrand. Present. And Mr. Eads. Present. Good morning. I'd like to welcome everybody here. We do have a quorum. I'm going to change the order of business here. The personnel from Watsonville on item number 18, they wanted to make a short presentation of the update of their public works department, being that they have a commitment mid-morning and we have a public hearing beginning at 9.30 and I'm uncertain how long it might go. I've agreed to let them make their brief presentation. I think it's going to be five or 10 minutes, even before we get into oral communications. So, with the person from Watsonville, introduce himself or herself and make a presentation about your public works projects in the city of Watsonville. That's item number 18 on the agenda. Thank you, Chair McPherson. Members of the commission. My name is Murray Fontz. I'm with the city of Watsonville Public Works and Utilities Department and I am pleased to present the city's current transportation program plans. Am I up? Yes. I can see the oversight of the river and yes. Thank you very much. So, welcome to the city of Watsonville. Had we been meeting on site, you'd be in Watsonville today. This year the city has several projects that it's doing in coordination with the state. Watsonville has several highways that pass through city limits. The city completed two complete streets plans recently and a byproduct of those plans is Taltrans District 5 invited us to partner with them on a grant application using complete streets funds available to state agencies to construct bicycle and pedestrian improvements on highways 129 and 152 as part of a 2024 shop project. We're pleased that the state has invited us to participate on this. Taltrans also has a shop project that's underway at this time installing a flashing beacon on Highway 152 at Marchant Street. The city has a number of major reconstruction projects on primary arterial roads that will be taking place in the next year or two. These include work on Airport Boulevard from Freedom Boulevard to 700 feet south using gas tax and SB1 funds. Work on Freedom Boulevard between Alta Vista Street and Green Valley Road which would take place in 2022. Funding is through Measure D and STIP. A reconstruction project of Green Valley Road is scheduled for next year from Freedom Boulevard to City Limits and will use Measure D funds and next year a Citywide Road maintenance project is planned with funding through the RSTPX and Measure D sources. Watsonville has pedestrian and bicycle projects that are underway including Phase 1 of Segment 18 of the Rail Trail project. We anticipate construction to be done early next year. Funding is through an active transportation grant, RSTPX funds as well as donations from the Land Trust and the Friends of the Rail and Trail. The city also has active transportation program funding that it will use on a project built next year providing pedestrian improvements on Lincoln Street and earlier this year Measure D funds were used to upgrade one of the trails within the Watsonville trail system along Struve Slough. Watsonville uses Measure D funds to finance bicycle and pedestrian safety and outreach programs. These include bike smart and walk smart programs that are done at local elementary schools and the urnabike program which takes place with middle school students and at high school. Watsonville is also a Vision Zero City having approved an action plan earlier this year. There's a number of traffic safety projects underway and one proposed that involve installation of traffic signals. One currently being built is on Airport Boulevard at Home Road and it's being funded through Highway Safety Improvement Program funds. Another underway is on West Beach Street at Eloni using developer funds and the city is submitting a Highway Safety Improvement Program grant to install a signal at Freedom Boulevard and Sydney Avenue. The city has a number of regional projects involving trails that we feel will not only benefit the city but our neighbors as well. One is to construct a pedestrian bridge across Highway One at Harkinslough Road. This in combination with a number of bicycle and pedestrian improvements on either side of the highway are being done in partnership with Caltrans, with the county and with the school district and will enhance the safety of those who are traveling this corridor, primarily Pajaro Valley High School students. That's so very welcome addition. Thank you very much. I think Mr. Caput and Mr. Copping Gomez would say the same. The city is looking to proceed with phase two of the rail trail project which would extend the trail out to Lee Road and the city limits in 2023 and then the city is currently designing a project that would construct a trail from the high school to the rail trail along Lee Road and would provide access to property owned by the Land Trust. It's their Watsonville Slough Farms property. They're currently looking at developing it for a trail system and we're partnering with them with the hopes constructing phase one in 2022. And as much as this is a virtual visit to Watsonville, I wouldn't want you to miss a virtual walk on the Watsonville Slough trails. This concludes my presentation. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for what you're doing in Watsonville. The commission appreciates it very much. We've had a policy recently of having the cities and agencies present their numerous projects that are taking place. Are there any questions or comments from the commissioners on this presentation? Thank you. It's good to see they're doing the work on that crosswalk at Marchin Street and Highway 152 East Beach right by our Veterans Memorial Building. They started about three weeks ago and it's good to see it going in. It's been a long time waiting and I want to thank City of Watsonville, their cooperation and also Caltrans for finally getting the project going. It'll be right by the high school. It'll be a pedestrian activated crosswalk and when school gets back to normal, we normally have close, we have 2,000 students going back and forth in the morning and in the afternoons and also at lunchtime. It's an open campus, a wonderful thing and it's going to be a great improvement for public safety as far as pedestrian walking and everything like that. So yeah. Thank you, Mr. Caput. Anybody else have any comments? Yes. Thank you, sir. I really commend the staff and RTC working collectively on these projects. I know that we've adopted 33 miles of trails throughout the town and it's nice to see that every year we're getting the next segment in there. We see a lot of the pedestrians that have benefited from this. We a lot of bicyclists, a lot more bicyclists and we still have safety is a major concern on some of these pockets in town and maybe we'll find a way to sort of work through some of those solutions because we still have the pedestrian and the bicycle accidents that are around. We have a vision zero goal and so we're going to have to continue to refine that to improve the safety of our neighborhoods and it's a pleasure being here to be part of it and to see the productivity of these improvements. I see the one right in front of home and airport daily construction grinding and whatnot and I know that I will see this come to fruition. Hopefully I'll be able to push the button before I'm off council to see that that light is actually working before I've left council. So it's a wonderful project to be done and safety for our community is important. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kaufmann-Gomers. Any other comments from commissioners? I don't know if anybody from the public would want to say anything at this point. This is just a presentation. I just want to say thank you to the city of Watsonville and the cooperative efforts we've had even in county voters who approve measure D to the state as well for this just taking a lot of cooperation to get this much going and there's a lot of things happening transportation wise around the city of Watsonville. So I do appreciate your brief report and we'll continue on now with the the regular agenda. First of all, any other comments? There's a hand up from the public. I think they want to do oral communication, commissioner Batorf. Okay, thank you. I see the hand up. Okay. Okay, and then first before we get into the rural communications, I want to welcome community TV for broadcasting this and Ian is the person that is in charge of letting the public know what we're doing at the regional transportation commission. We will go now to item number 22, oral communications. We do have somebody or a few people from the public who wants to want to address us. Yes. It's not there that are not on the agenda. Mr. Vernosa, Mr. Vernosa, you'll need to unmute. There you go. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. Actually, it's very interesting that I'm following a presentation from Watsonville because Watsonville is in the news as far as what I'm going to tell you. My name is Ben Vernosa. I've been a resident here since 1967. I've been flying since 1956 and out of Watsonville, Watsonville Airport since 67. I'm going to talk about the new normal coming up on transportation and so far as aviation is concerned. I've been speaking recently with Ferris Abad, the superintendent of the Santa Cruz County Office of Education, and the county is implementing this coming year, the AOPA, Aircraft Owners and Policy Association. You can fly high school curriculum, grades 9 through 12, which leads to one or more the following skills and trades, drone license, private pilots license, aviation mechanic apprentice, avionics apprentice, FAA controller training, continuing education in college for aeronautical engineering, and all other facets of aviation. This program will be available for all public charter and private high schools in Santa Cruz County. The superintendent asked me to form an advisory committee. The Watsonville Pilots Association and Experimental Aircraft Association at Watsonville Airport are on the advisory committee, as well as a representative from Joby, the electrical transport and airplane company in Santa Cruz County with manufacturing activities and facilities at Marina Airport. I am inviting a member of SCCRTC commission or staff to represent the RTC as a member of this advisory committee. I would also like to reserve a place on the committee's commission's next agenda for Henry Michael who's heading up the program for the county office of education to bring you up to date on how this is being moved along. It's very exciting development for our community. Right now the travel industry is in the doldrums, but that will improve as the virus is conquered and it will grow back rapidly. In night 2025 there'll be a great need for high school and college graduates in the industry. The way the program is going to start is in the ninth grade first next year and then ninth and tenth a year after ninth, tenth and eleventh, and then ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth. And in the year 2025 the freshman of next year will be graduating into a boom for travel employees throughout the aviation industry. So thank you very much and I'm so glad to bring in this good news for Watsonville and for the whole county, Santa Cruz County. Any questions? Thank you Mr. Bernanke. Congratulations on your program. So I'm very exciting and that's going to present I'm sure some great opportunities for many students future. Are there any comments from the commissioners? I don't know if anybody from Watsonville might have something to say. Thank you chair. Yeah I'd be interested in being on that committee if it's possible then. All right we'll get to that sometime. That's exciting news. Thank you. All right any other world communications? Yes we have Mr. Colligan. Good morning commission. My name is Bud Colligan. I am a resident of LIVO. I wanted to just comment in general I'm not commenting specifically on the agenda item relative to eminent domain but I just wanted to note that we have now had two elections where the use of the rail corridor was the primary issue and if both voters have been clear that they do not support your current plan. You've had three failed rail operators in eight years. The last you believe the hype from progressive rail and friends of the rail trail despite the fact that it was easily disproved with just elementary due diligence. You now have a trail from the San Lorenzo bridge to State Park that can't be built because we don't have the money it's unfunded and if you look at your own charts in previous board packages you'll see that 88 million of 101 million dollars for a segment of the trail 7.2 miles is unfunded. Despite the fact that the voters passed measure D in 2016 and 17 percent of the funds was supposed to go to the trail. Now you want to spend millions on eminent domain all to produce a train that will never be built. It's time to listen to voters and reevaluate this clearly flawed plan. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Otto. Yes, a quick sound check in the commission here. Are you okay? Yes. And could you also put up my slides that I sent in yesterday? We have one there with the bicycle sound trail. Yeah if you could go to the previous slide please. Sure. So Keith Otto County resident, good morning. Sparse intro slide here first to say that I hope the comments are received in the manner intended. They are not to finger point. It's rather about ideas not individuals. Let's agree we're all good people here admittedly with a variety of opinions. It's about policy not equal. Next slide please. This past month there's been plenty to read about in the central page regarding RTC and the rail corridor. Last month there was this guest commentary train service not a realistic transit solution. You've heard me and many others make similar comments. I won't repeat them here but do give it a read if you have not done so already. On the same day on the same central page was a letter to the editor. Also read that if you have not done so already. The letter writer is an RTC commissioner. That fact was not disclosed by the letter writer or the Sentinel perhaps then not required though it would have better informed readers. The letter outlines some RTC history and actions. I would describe those items quite differently. The letter goes on to mention funding. I would invite the letter writer and the public to view the actual California forum for 60 reports which tell a very different story. The most interesting part is the letter ends asking how democracy works. Next slide please. And this being election week it's the perfect time to answer such a question. Democracy is when people vote. Consider the RTC discussion back in June when one commissioner said among other things if you're really interested in knowing if these ideas are supported by the public let's have a vote on a spending plan. Let's get it out there and see if any of these things comport with the will of the people. I don't think they do. Another commissioner spoke next and it's the same commissioner who wrote the Sentinel letter asking about democracy and he said I completely disagree with everything that my colleague just said. Wow. And I hope you also saw the editorial in the Sentinel yesterday democracy boosted by voter turnout. You've even heard from others that have a completely different idea of what should be done in the rail corridor say listen to the people and perhaps this is a place where we can agree or at least start to come together. So what's the bottom line here? Democracy is when we vote. My ask Ben is exactly that please put your rail corridor plan to a vote of the people in the county. Thanks for listening. Thanks for your time. Thank you Mr. Otto. Are there any other matters in public to address the commission? Mr. Scott. Yes good morning you can hear me. Yes. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. You know I just wanted to make a general statement of support for the current progress that the commission and the county are making on the rail trail and on you know following the measure D allocations and the intent of that of that legislation. I think we all know that there will always be detractors and kind of opponents to the current the current plans but I'm always reminded that several studies have been conducted and the transit corridors alternative analysis study is underway and about to be shared its conclusions and I think over and over again we've found that rail and trail provide the greatest return on investments and you know we're making this investment for for the future and as untenable as that might seem to some critics I think you all are doing the right thing I think this county is doing the right thing and I wanted to share that I was just off a call with the clean communities of central New York one of the clean cities coalition members from the department of energy and there is just a great deal of progress in the world of propulsion technologies for trucks and buses and rail vehicles including hydrogen which is looking to be a superior fuel to batteries which are heavy but in any event the technology is there and we're going to be watching as transformation propulsion technologies for everything from bikes to cars to trucks to transit vehicles is going to take place before our eyes and transform the way we move about so I just again want to thank the RTC for the progress and working to to meet the measure D recommendations thank you thank you mr. Scott mr. sonar taro ryan sorry for your miss saying your last name ryan you'll need to unmute yourself ah there i am okay sorry about that um yes i i spent quite a bit of time in the past couple of months walking around the district uh dealing with the supervisor race in and district one and one of the things that i discovered was that there's a tremendous amount of confusion on the part of the average person on the differences between the rail and the trail or bike roadway option and i think it's really incumbent on the RTC to create some kind of clear and easy document that would allow voters to understand that measure D funded a trail it did not fund a train that a train will require significant money from elsewhere that a train will require a tax increase in Santa Cruz county that pursuing the train option will at some point eliminate by measure D funds for building the trail and so these are mutually exclusive options here and that the decision to continue with the train especially now with the uh with the idea that you're going to use eminent domain for a train between Santa Cruz and uh Davenport where there's absolutely no commuter traffic whatsoever uh i think these things need to be very clearly explained to the public so that the public can actually start to weigh in in an informed way about how the RTC has been proceeding over the past eight years and the results of the election in that district shows that there's significant opposition to how the RTC is proceeding so i would very much appreciate it if you actually could collectively uh you know pro and anti uh train and trail people generate a document that was neutral and factual thank you mr slade you'll need to unmute yourself mr slade even slade i guess the slade we unmute yourself or we can't hear you i believe he's still on getting close to nine he's still on mute okay we have an upcoming 930 public hearing scheduled um anybody else after him no okay mr slade you've got 15 seconds to get on or we'll move on okay i think we'll move on um it's nearly uh nine well we get we need to go ahead try to get the consent agenda approved anyway we have a couple minutes to do that uh so we will move on excuse me at number three are there any additions or deletions to the consent yes other than the change that was already made there's no changes to the agenda order except there are handouts for items 15 through 17 and replacement pages for for the agenda itself and items 5 and 22 and that's one document um on our website and then there's also replacement pages for item 17 and additional handouts for item 17 and that's a separate document on our website and that's uh the only changes in additions okay um we will quickly go through the consent agenda items number uh four through 13 um i didn't see that there's is anybody want to pull anything from the consent agenda okay i'll um any uh the comments from the public on items uh four through 13 from the public i move the consent agenda second i'm sorry i'm sorry we have sally arnold on the consent on the consent agenda yes okay miss arnold what item did you want to um comment on we have a motion and a second from shifrin and i think it was cop and Gomez no shock well it doesn't matter oh shock okay doesn't matter okay did miss arnold did you have a comment on a item uh four through 13 yes i do and it's um very brief i'm sally arnold from friends of the rail and trail um i just wanted to say that we're both we're uh we had friends of the rail and trail are excited about both items six and seven um you know the the idea of creating public art around the trails in uh that will be built in santa cruz city is excellent the trail isn't just going to be a way through the town it's going to become a destination in and of itself and we really appreciate your leadership on that and similarly on item seven um it's just great to see these repairs finally being made to the rail line it's it's really exciting every every meeting there's yet another place where things are being put to rights and i just we just want to say that we see it and we appreciate it thank you thank you miss arnold any other comments from the public we do not have any other comments okay we have a motion to approve the consent agenda items four through team all those or we need to call the roll commissioner burtrin hi commissioner brown commissioner johnson right commissioner kofman gomez yes commissioner capit great young mute commission alternate shifrin hi commission alternate mulher hi commission alternate reed hi commissioner mcpherson hi commissioner bautorf all right commissioner gonzalez hi commissioner alternate lin hi commissioner capit the uh consent agenda is approved unanimously we will now skip to item 17 a scheduled public hearing at 9 30 a.m uh resolutions of necessity for the north coast rail rail project segment segment five um grace blake sleigh um we'll be making a presentation and i believe also mr mattis our general counsel but first we should have a staff report we'll open the public hearing on item number 17 morning commissioners grace blake sleigh staff and north coast trail project manager can you see my presentation yeah so this morning i'm before you to ask for your consideration of resolutions of necessity for property acquisition required to construct the north coast rail trail project first as i go through my presentation i will describe the scope and purpose of the trap hot project then i will describe the purpose of the resolution of necessity hearing explain why staff is before you requesting this hearing today for the north coast rail trail project then i will describe the property acquisition that we asked you to consider in today's resolution of necessity hearing and wrap up with the summary of the action requested by the commission today grace can you um put your slight show on oh is it not showing it's showing but you're showing that all the slides all right thank you thank you for letting me know i appreciate that okay is it still showing the um full presentation or just ever my slides now you're showing the full presentation thank you you can use the arrow thanks for your patience so the north coast rail trail is a seven and a half mile multimodal active transportation project located along the santa cruz branch rail road corridor from wilder ranch state park in the south to davinport in the north the plan project includes a paved bicycle and pedestrian trail with parallel and paved shoulders parking improvements at davinport panther yellow beach parking lot and access improvements at the bonnie viewing beach parking lot the project also includes the construction of farm access roads here i'm showing cross sections from the trail that were included in the addendum to the final e r adopted by the commission in march 2020 project is um um construction of the project and its amenities will provide a public benefit by providing public access to a safe alternative for bicycles and pedestrians separate from motor vehicles on highway one between wilder ranch and davinport the trail will also provide an american disabilities act accessible trail available for transportation and recreational users and provide designated public access to the north coast beaches and lefts the project is nearing final design stage and is scheduled to have all pre construction activities and required approvals completed in fall 2021 construction of the first phase of the project which extends from wilder to yellow bank panther beach is fully funded and rtc is seeking funding for construction of phase two it has been noted in prior meetings that the construction funding for phase one was shifted by the grantor central federal lands under the federal lands access program to fiscal year 2024 rtc is working with the central federal lands division to advance the funding to construction from fiscal year 2021-22 to bring the trail to the public as soon as possible your approval today would be another step in completing pre construction activities which include environmental review and permitting right-of-way acquisition project design and move the project towards construction it's worth noting that not only will the north coast rail trail construct construct seven and a half miles of active transportation facilities between wilder and davinport but it contributes to seven and a half miles of the 32 mile coastal rail trail that extends from davinport to washington and it will complete the majority of segment five of the monterey bay sanctuary scenic trail which includes 50 miles of trails with a 32 mile coastal rail trail as it's fine the trail in the north coast will also be part of the california coastal trail and as the project monterey bay scenic sanctuary scenic trail is constructed each project is undergoing design activities similar to this project so a resolution of necessity hearing a schedule today on your agenda as part of this item and following this presentation the purpose of requesting and hold the resolution of necessity hearing is to complete a formal step in the property acquisition process to acquire properties required for construction of the north coast rail trail project and to ask you that you consider that this project is in the public interest and that is and identify the necessity for the project consider the project's compatibility with the greatest public good and the least private injury and the need for the property for this project hearing also follows offers having been made to the owner and owners of records for these properties and the outcome of your action would be pursuing dedication of the property for public use with respect to the north coast rail trail the resolution of necessity is to move forward the ride away certification for this project by requiring railroad property that remained in ownership by ocean shore railway parallel to rtc's purchase of the branch line ocean shore railway was another railroad company operating along the coast side of the davinport branch line and later part of the santa cruise branch line portions of the um ocean shore railway property are required to construct the trail alignment on the coast side of the rail line and would bring additional rail line property into public ownership with your action today for the north coast rail trail also is considered as providing easement for drainage and locations in some locations where a 19 foot farm access road is proposed for construction on the coast side of the trail is part of the project to allow farm equipment access between drainages right away is also needed to construct the davinport parking lot to align with ocean street in davinport and allow for pedestrian crosswalk it also maintains the timeline for completion of pre-construction activities in fall of 2021 before going through each property one by one i'd like to outline the properties for which property acquisition is being considered and refer you to the associated attachments in your packet where the property is described in detail and the resolution of necessity is located also note that offers have been made to all the property owners and negotiations are underway to purchase the property the resolutions of necessities for this property is to ensure that the trail right away can be certified that the trail can be constructed as designed and that the pre-construction activities can be completed by fall 2021 so the dala more property that we'll be discussing today involves proposed acquisition of a drainage easement at the location of the farm road construction the miller miller trillium llc property is property located at the davinport parking line and is an attachment to ocean shore railway property is portions are required for the trail alignment and collective property acquisition refinance are described today and referenced in attachment for another portion of ocean shore railway property referred to as just scaroni road is also looking at acquisition of portions required for the trail acquisition and selected property acquisition limits and finally the alder then or ocean shore railway property is similarly portions required for drainage improvements and farm access road in the case of ocean shore railway the proposed property acquisition may result will result in parcels that will no longer have value as a result of the acquisition of property needed for the trail therefore staff is proposing to acquire some of these remnants which i will discuss later in the presentation the fifth parcel listed is noted as alderson and ocean shore railway and offers have been made to both parties as the ultimate ownership of that parcel is unclear in this case there is a question of the parcel was created correctly by surveys and then sold to anderson even though it belonged to ocean shore railway the obligation of rtc is to pay just compensation for the property the potential property owners have the opportunity in the combination action to to prove their ownership interest the portion of the property owned by mr. de la moda and proposed for purchase of a drain is easement is addressed in the fact sheet and resolution of necessity included as attachment one property is located on the coast side of coast road north of scaroni road and highway one so here is coast road here is to the more property and also agriculture has an agricultural easement on this parcel and therefore is also included in the offer to purchase the offer is to purchase 2256 square feet in three different locations where a drainage easement is required i was shown in this slide in the following slide these three locations where a drainage easement is required is being pursued in locations where a 19 foot farm access road would be constructed on the coastal side of the trail so the gray here is the trail and the striping in the middle and then the gold kind of color here is the farm access road here is the drainage coming across the trail and the farm access road and the sections right here on this side of the dash black line and here is where the easement would be and i'll show you something similar on the next page the farm access road constructed as part of the project provides access for the for farm equipment between the fields located on the up coast side of this drainage and the down coast side of this drainage and it would be adding this farm road in construct requires that the drainage extend outside of the rail line right away which the border is here something similar here um this is just south of that location down coast here is the farm road the gold and the drainage coming across and here's where um the footprint of the trail with the farm road extends into dale marve and this is um excuse me the earlier two exhibits showed um the trail and farm access roads and drainage footprint in the area of dale marve property and this exhibit refers to the same property as the two prior exhibits but i thought was more helpful in showing the encroachment areas the dark um the hatch line is the trail footprint and the dark areas are showing where it encroaches the drainage encroachment into dale marve property so this is the area before you today in the resolution of necessity and included in attachment one so also as part of today's action staff is requesting that the rtc consider purchase of a property owned by miller trillium enterprise llc for the purpose of constructing the davin part parking lot improvements extending the footprint of the parking lot south um of the rtc owned property designs the parking lot entrance to align with ocean street in davinport and to allow for a crosswalk to be designed as part of the project so i wanted to show on the slide that the dark um dash line here for north is the rtc owned property and i've shown here this is the trillium property the um ocean street here is coming across and here is the entrance um to the parking lot and it would like um extending into this property lines it up so that the crosswalk could be included here and from the property there was a from the parking lot there's connection down to the trail which is located on the coastal side of the tracks we um as noted here we did send an offer to purchase this property in september 2020 and negotiations are underway and similarly as with the dale moore property i thought this would be helpful to show you the hatched area is the trail and parking lot footprint and the darker shading is the area that's proposed for acquisition as this slides provides information about three parcels adjacent to our tc owned rail property and owned by ocean shore railroad acquiring portions of these parcels is needed to construct the north coast trail alignment on the coast side of the tracks staff is also proposed acquisition of some remnants that would remain after rtc's proposed acquisition of ocean shore railway property that have no economic value in these cases staff is um proposing the acquisition of these remnants either because their land would be landlocked between rtc owned property after the property acquisition or because they may serve a future transportation purposes some information about ocean shore railway they operated along the coastline within the project area between 1905 and 1920 when the route was originally intended to connect between san francisco and santa cruz and they it was operated on the coast side and parallel to the davin port branch line in the area of the north coast rail trail project rtc acquired the davin port branch line in 2012 as part of the santa cruz branch rail line however portions of the rail corridor remain under the ownership of ocean shore railway which which originally was assembled as the parallel corridor in the late 1800s staff is proposing to acquire portions of the ocean shore railway property required to construct the north coast rail rail trail adjacent to the rtc santa cruz branch rail line and some economic remnants for the purpose of today's discussion um ocean shore railway parcels are shown in four different um as four different parcels and parcels one through three and a scrawny road parcel this image here depicts the location of three of the more northern parcels here you have davin port um and extending down as bonnie near to bonnie dune and then a section down um closer to the wilder ranch state park um cultural area so this slide depicts parcel one um the up coast portion of the large parcel or parcel one um is just north of the project area in davin port and extends south just um and extends south all the way down to laguna the remnants are areas um so let's see the acquisition area here is shown in yellow and the remnant areas are shown out the remnant areas that are proposed um they're uneconomic and proposed for inclusion um in the acquisition are outlined here in red this one continues from north of davin part just to the southern um end of davin port beach there's another section south of there that continues onto this page then another south of bonnie dune beach and then um another portion just south of the main feature south of family green farms located over and extends onto this page um it's important to note that not all remnants are recommended for acquisition either acquisition either because there is an economic value associated with them or because they're not expected to serve future transportation purchases the resolutions of necessity and fact sheet associated with acquisition of these parcels and uneconomic remnants is identified in attachment five of your staff report so again i mentioned the parcels are separated into four um separate areas for today's discussion so similar to parcel one um portions of parcel two railroad property adjacent to rtc own property are needed to construct the portrayal and that is area is shown in this map in this case there are no uneconomic remnants associated with the quarry in this parcel um the fact sheet and resolution of necessity that relates to this parcel is included again as attachment five this is um a graphic showing parcels three of the ocean shore railroad owned property adjacent to rtc owned property also needed to construct the trail alignment on the coast side of the rail in this location um in this case there are two uneconomic remnants proposed for acquisition um as part of this and they are shown outlined in red these land remnants would be landlocked between rtc owned property upon purchase of the property required to construct the trail um the fact sheet and resolution of necessity related to this slide is identified and are included in attachment five so this slide looks at the ocean shore railway parcel we refer to as scaroni um scaroni road is located here this map is of this entire subject parcel and portions of this parcel are required to construct the trail on the coast side similar to the other parcels we've um described in this case there are two uneconomic remnants all the property remnants are shown here and there are two that rtc would propose acquiring which are here uh economic remnant three and five which again would be landlocked similar to the others after rtc property um our acquisition of property for the trail this is the property I mentioned at alderson our ocean shore um and is adjacent to the rtc um adjacent to the rtc owned property um this five foot strip of this property is required to construct drainage improvements in a location where farm access road is designed um if you can see here I this parcel is located south of scaroni road um near four mile beach as mentioned earlier this parcel may have been established um due to a survey error error and so offers have been made to both parties this graphic um shows this location more zoomed in because it's a small strip it was a little hard to see but um this is the rail line right of way um this is the strip of property you can see there's a farm road um being proposed for construction on the coast side of the trail here um and it pushes the extends the drainage out into um five foot strip and so the area in the blue is what is being proposed for and here another graphic I as similar as I utilize with the day one more on trillium property to show the trail thank you for your attention as I went through all of those properties in in detail um today the process for the ron hearing is to conduct hearing and accept public comments from affected property owners and members of the public um to answer questions first from uh the council um adopt five resolutions of necessity via separate motions for each of the resolutions of necessity included in attachments one on three five and that completes my report today thank you very much ron view commissioner mcpherson thank you for that uh girl presentation miss blakesley I just wanted to ask our council mr madis if there was any comments that you think are necessary before we uh we'll put it up for comments from the commissioners or the public um thank you chair the um grace covered all of the issues that needed to be identified um the only point I would emphasize for the commission is that today's hearing is to consider the adoptions of the resolution of necessity so you're looking at the public interest of public need for these property acquisitions the issue of property valuation is not part of the determination today um that's a process that's involved negotiations with property owners right now and ultimately would be determined by a court if we're unable to reach a voluntary agreement with the property owners thank you mr madis maybe I just have a question on the 177 of the previous um do we have it says uh the art is actively seeking the remaining funding needed for the to construct phase two do we have any idea of how much that is um thank you commissioner we are right now preparing to submit a grant to proposition for propositions 68 um state park funds um they are for a rural um trail program and also for a regional park program um we were looking at about a four million dollar um gap in funding um for construction of phase two at this point but we would seek more um if possible um in order to reduce the amount of measure defining thank you um before I go to the public do uh any members of the commission have a comment you want to hear from the public first oh commission I have a comment I have a question a question sir mr shiford this is really a question for the attorney and it has to do with the the way the uh this process would work my understanding from other situations um that was similar is that there is there are tax benefits to property owners by selling their property through the eminent domain process as opposed to a negotiation sale before that process so at certain times there may be willing sellers but they benefit from going through having the public agency goes through the eminent domain procedure because it gives them certain tax benefits am I understanding the situation correctly that is correct there is a deferred um tax on gains that are received when property is acquired through a condemnation process and so the steps that have been taken to date by RTC including the formal offers pursuant to um uh state laws do confer those that benefit on any property owner that we uh negotiate with this is a somewhat unique situation for some of the property owners because one of the uh one of the property owners is a now dissolved corporation and so that corporation has um uh successor agents that we are dealing with right now but in short yes there is a there is a benefit to property owners when there is a acquisition through condemnation or under threat of condemnation which is what this is right now another question that I think is worth asking is how come uh when the uh commission acquired the rail line that these properties weren't included was because my sort of vague memory is that there was the understanding that they were included and so what was the process that sort of led us here where as I understand the vast majority of the property that needs to be acquired is essentially a narrow strip right adjacent to the land that the commission owned that um as I remember the commission thought it owned uh when uh purchased the rail line from UP so could we get a little background on how um where we sort of got to this position where we need to acquire uh such a long uh strip along what the commission already owns maybe a question for the executive director I'm not sure who is that would best answer it I'm happy I'm happy to answer that initially if you like so so um the the trail alignment and the design of the trail does cover property that was initially thought to be part of the original acquisition of the railway right away that the RTC made um through the process of certifying the alignment um so that we could uh secure the necessary um grant funding became known to RTC that some of the property was adjacent to the property we owned and that arises in part out of the fact that historically back a hundred years or so there were potentially two rail lines that were running in somewhat parallel to each other through this line through this area and so um when RTC learned that they first did look at whether or not um it was part of the original property acquisition whether or not they could acquire that uh or perfect the ownership of that through a quiet title action um but to do that you have to have at lid originally have owned had an ownership interest in that property which extensive survey research done by RTC uh suggested was not the case and in fact it was owned by ocean shore and so then we went through the process of acquiring the property um by identifying exactly which property was necessary to be added on and and the minimal amount that was necessary to be added on and then making the offers that that the staff um have made to the property owners now braces talked to the commission of somewhat today about or extensively today about some uneconomic remnant parcels and for the most part those are parcels that would essentially be between the property that we're acquiring for the railway and the property that we already own and so since the appraisals had fully valued that um meaning that the amount of money that would be paid to the property owners included that value um it is it is uh recommended to the commission that we acquired those uneconomic parcels too so essentially there won't be a an island between two parcels that we own so when the commission acquired the rail line um it would what there weren't detailed surveys of every parcel that were made I take it and it was really the commission um used the property information that was provided by up that seemed to include uh the these properties is that is that correct that that's my understanding I would defer to louise or grace if they have any further input on that issue because I wasn't with the commission at that time good morning commissioners this this is louise um yes I mean indeed the commission thought that the property I guess the footprint of the property was almost slightly different than it actually turned out to be after the surveys because part of part of the information that was received by the commission was that the track was sitting on the uh in the middle of the property that the RTC was acquiring um that was the information for Union Pacific um but then when surveys were done it was discovered that the track was actually sitting uh not in the middle of the property it was acquired but actually to uh one side uh and therefore it meant that there was quite a bit more property on the inland side um than there was um yeah ocean side of the track okay well thank you very much I just thought it would be helpful to have some clarification in the background of uh how we got to this point with this project so that those are all my questions at this time any other commissioners have some questions before we go to the public I have one um Mr. Johnson thank you thank you chair so I'm curious about the parking lot in the end the crosswalk is is the parking lot going to be on the north side and people would have to park there then travel across highway one to get to access the trail um the park is is located on the coast side of highway one okay so they would not have to cross highway one to get to the trail that's correct from the parking lot okay right okay thank you Mr. Johnson look could I clarify that a little bit because um there the crosswalk it as the commissioners may remember the commission has supported putting up some kind of additional signal um at that crosswalk because for the residents of Davenport who would use the trail and or go to the beach that's a very as you could imagine that's a very dangerous crossing and so as part of the project there's going to be the crosswalk and the commissioner has already approved setting aside some funding for the design of some kind of safety beacon that is still the discussion with Caltrans but was designed as part of the improvements so while it as staff has said the parking lot is adjacent to the trail it's currently used as a parking lot it's just going to be improved and and made better but um there's also a component of the project to try to increase the safety for the people who live in Davenport and also for the people who go to Davenport for services and then want to use the trail we're good thank you mr. different now mr. Bertrand did you have a question yes i did um as steven matt has said we're not talking about the costs but i was wondering uh it's a question to grace um is there any information we could share with the public right now there was some comments and letters etc that might give us an idea what the cost or potential cost would be you mean for the property acquisitions there at state that yes yeah roughly the total value of all the property acquisitions before the commission today is about 250 000 dollars okay so we're not in the millions thank you very much uh any other questions from commissioners okay i think we have some uh members of the public that would like to address us mr. pico yes hi kary pico from aptas a year or so ago i joined a lunch meeting with the syndicates republicans i'm not a republican but i enjoyed differing viewpoints our table conversation began with the high speed rail project but soon turned to how they hated how california used eminent domain to steal fresno area farmland for it they stated how they hated eminent domain never wanted this debate i said eminent domain can be useful for civic projects like what they asked me take the trump's border wall for example where eminent domain is being used to take farmland to build it the place erupted and several guests left the table and discussed but returning as to trump's wall billions have been spent but only if you you didn't know this or i didn't know it only nine miles of new wall have actually been built with those billions the rest is spent on repairing the existing 390 miles of fence out of like the 12 12 1200 1500 miles of border at the last at the last three rtc meetings i presented how the rtc doesn't own large portions of the corridor including most of the corridor from watsonville to the boardwalk how building a trail will violate any railroad easement regardless of the situation and that to avoid this potential cost of eminent domain it will cost you well over 100 million dollars the train is your trump wall an expensive vanity project with no net benefit first you go to eminent domain then small projects to show how you are making progress progress does that sound familiar today starts with eminent domain to take farmland to build your trail again a trump like ploy to save the tracks we're really not talking about the trail we're talking about the train that's your wall a train that will never come close come but is costing the county 10 million dollars approximately per mile already just like trump's border wall costs about that much today it is about davinport tomorrow it is about watsonville and the boardwalk corridor i hear it build the wall build the wall build a train this is all it's about we all know that there will never be a train to davinport so i don't know why you're trying to preserve it this trail effort if ever finished the way it's being done will cost well over half a billion dollars don't kid yourself it's an unattainable cost if a train would ever be built you would have to put a solid fence uh along it like the wall along the whole trail wing a fence that would resemble the cages that keep children from their parents expensive useless harm lookful and the stealing from farmers for a vanity project like a trump wall trump tower however you want to look at it the rest of us homeowners down here are waiting for it to happen to us you're going to take our backyards i am powerless but all i can say at this point is shame shame shame you don't need the train uh the train's not going to happen so why are you spending so much and you could just simplify it thank you thank you mr pico mr vernassa okay well i've been a cpa for 60 years and been involved in some eminent domain cases not from a legal standpoint but i've been able to work with lawyers and the key question you're working on today is the public necessity and i really don't see the public necessity is there i think you've got the cart before the horse i mean that's the last thing you should do from the train standpoint because there's a 60 chance at this point knowing what i know about the people in this county that are against the train there's a 60 chance there's not going to be any train so that shouldn't be done now now the other thing um uh talking about i would imagine that one of the things you're thinking about is a tourist train uh well why not uh why not extend that with metro getting involved with turret tourist buses and let's not just stop in davinport let's go let's let the tourists see the sea lions as part of the trip and then come back to davinport for a rest stop and maybe have lunch and buy uh twinkles and so forth from the merchants in davinport so there's no need for a train to go to davinport um so my my suggestion temporarily is to put this thing off secondly i don't think you were at this point yet but i think the whole solution is to rail bank and let's get the trail done i was on the sanctuary committee for four years as representing the bicycle committee as an observer and you know i mean that's what we talked about it's a trail not a train so that's my comments thank you very much thank you mr barry scott okay thank you this is barry scott in aptos and i want to thank the commission again i've attended two open houses i know that there were originally eight alternatives uh for this stretch uh for this challenge for the the north uh reach that was boiled down to four and we've been through a sequa process already and i think we have a thoughtful result uh contrary to what i think i'm others in my neighborhood are thinking this is not an imminent domain matter and and lesson until offers reasonable offers are are uh refused so um it's a simple purchase a pretty routine procedure i think for uh for for projects like this i want to say how lucky are we that we own the nine or ten miles that we already own and that we just have to add some bits to really elevate this project into a world-class trail with restrooms and parking um so we're so close to getting that done and i'm just uh i'm just delighted to hear the presentation and and to learn more about the leftover bits the remnants which really are going to kind of create a you know a sacred no build zone um you know a little bit of a sanctuary of of land between the trail and the ocean that uh if it if it needed to be developed it could be developed for educational purposes or something thus enhancing the quality of this fabulous trail so good luck with the negotiations i hope it goes well and that we can just proceed with the the rest of the planning and construction for those sections thank you Mr. Keith Otto yeah quick sound check are we good yes yeah thank you uh Keith Otto county resident uh two quick comments questions uh one is what what is the position at this point with regard from the property owners what's their level of embrace or resistance to selling their parcels and the second item uh you know if a trail only approach was pursued right all theoretical of course since this isn't the current direction would all of these same parcels would all of them need to be acquired so what is it that the rtc knows about these two items and what is it they're able to share thank you thank you we'll hear all the comments from the public and then maybe we can answer some questions if anybody else marty demer yes hello you hear me yes i wanted to comment on uh your plans for the delamora area you have uh you had a slide up briefly when i have the uh plans from people i wanted to see if you could clarify miss blakely about how the public will access the access easements that lead to the beach where there is a gate uh from the private road that leads to that delamora farmstead but then also connects with public access easement that you will now be using for a farm road and how will a public get through those gates and be able to use that a new farm road and so forth because these are dedicated easements and deeded and of course important to coastal access can you explain that yes any can i share my screen again so i can pull up a slide that would be helpful for answering that i'm having trouble pulling up the slide but i know that you know the area and i'd be happy but i can explain to you so when you come access from coast road um there's two places where you've identified a public access easement both that travel through delamora property one on the up coast side of the drainage and one on the down coast side of the drainage our proposal is that you would cross at the current existing crossing and then take the trail to the south um down coast side of the drainage and um the access there would be maintained um these decisions are subject to approval by the california coastal commission as well as um we are working with state parks to identify appropriate signage for public access in that location did that explanation give you an idea of what i'm talking about without the slide yes uh thank you i was just um concerned that provisions were not being made or a gate has shown there for for the public to be able to get around that gate there's no longer a gate proposed on the inland side okay good to hear okay thank you for that thank you mr brian peoples yeah hi can you hear me brian yes hey everybody hey um you know we've heard a lot of the you know our our regular slogan that we would be talking but i'm actually pretty surprised about how much property needs to be purchased um really surprised and right off the bat you know i want this organization the rtc to be successful in the public's eye so i don't think it's really a good timing to bring this out and um so right off the bat i'll suggest that um at the end of the day you are spending and money and time and legal fees uh for a future amusement park train um i don't understand why why that our community has to continue to battle this um taxpayers you're essentially having taxpayers funding a private train operator um so it's um i'm not a necessity i'm actually in the letter that you that we submitted portrayal now um we believe it does violate the eir requirements not to impact private lands and agricultural lands um and it it i think we need to step back and look at the other two alternative plans the trail only and the farmers plan and they doing that will not delay this project it actually will probably expedite because you'll be working more in collaboration with the community um you truly the community is reaching out to you asking you all to be more respective to us um you know having said this all this we get it the parking lot at Davenport get it only get it but there's definitely a lot of elements of this um eminent domain that you're imposing on ourselves as taxpayers because you have to keep this train um so really at the end of the day i'm not going to uh continue to go on and on and on but you you saw the community we did the elections um we're asking that you step back and say hey maybe the trail only plan from Santa Cruz to Davenport will work let's get behind the community who wants to do this the farmers you know are with us so we're asking you just to step back and this is just a great example you guys of of how trying to accommodate this amusement park training is costing us a lot of money this is you know segment 7a um is a great example of what you're going to be doing for this anyways thanks for your time appreciate it over thank you peoples hey is there anyone else from the public yeah okay hey yes can you hear me okay thank you uh my name is Faye Levinson i'm a resident of Santa Cruz county in Aptos um i've sort of been following the train debacle for about 35 years and talking about whether or not it was really going to exist in this county and right now i'm concerned about two things with this land acquisition one is the cost and the other is whether it's environmentally the sensible thing to do to continue a train from Santa Cruz to Davenport when the feasibility of actually having a tourist train going to Davenport seems very very unlikely uh so in order to save the cost of putting in a train why not use the tracks that are there and make it part of i believe it's segment seven and make it a rail trail that people can use from Santa Cruz to Davenport and not concern ourselves with the costs and the environmental impact of a tourist train that may or may not ever go all the way to Davenport and just to let you know uh just something andi shifrin said earlier there is now a stoplight a flashing light in Davenport between the businesses and the parking lot uh that was put in several years ago when a small child was hit crossing the road and killed with she was crossing the road with her parents and a light went in shortly thereafter and that's very much appreciated by the people who not only live in Davenport but the tourists and residents who drive back and forth on that road so my suggestion is rather than worrying about eminent domain and spending money on property that we don't need go ahead and put in the trail along the tracks and ignore the idea of a tourist train or some kind of commuter train which wouldn't serve anybody in the Davenport area thank you for your time thank you um david vb uh hello can you hear me yes uh hi i'm david van brink i live in santa cruz city uh just responding to an earlier commenter i think comparing public transit to a border wall is rather silly so anyway uh i've biked to davenport along highway one and it's occasionally terrifying so i just wanted to thank you for your efforts towards building the north coast trail i think it's definitely a very popular project so thank you that's all thank you uh sally arnold i'm sally arnold board chair of santa cruz county friends of the rail and trail and we support the resolution as it is necessary to complete this popular project the um you know that north coast trail project was subjected to the intense scrutiny of a full eir i i read it it was long um and the current project was compared to eight different alternatives i think somebody earlier mentioned that and they included the trail only plan and the farmers alternative and after looking at it you know people say well you should study it it was studied really well and this one this option was selected as the most environmentally superior choice and the rtc certified that final eir for this project almost two years ago in march of 2019 it's it's highly probable that the trail only and the farmers alternatives would also need a process of eminent domain um to acquire some land because this high quality plan includes features like the storm drainage that uh grace pointed out and the parking lot and that land would be neat you we need to acquire that land anyway to construct those things no matter you know which which of those three choices were made and the only reason we're not able to do like a really direct comparison about those eminent domain takings for either the alternatives with the current project is that neither of those were developed to the level where takings could be defined but you know we need that we need that parking lot the people of Davenport want that crosswalk um that this is a high quality trail and it's not just like somebody throws down some gravel and says good enough um and as your agenda packet reminds you there are 10 objectives that were evaluated as best met by this particular project including this acquisition and just a few of those things just so we keep our eye on the ball here was to minimize the impacts to private land including agricultural and residential to minimize the impacts to sensitive habitat areas and special status plant and animal species to provide an ADA accessible trail including parking areas and paths to the trail maximize ocean views and scenic coastal vistas along a coastal alignment maximize safety and serenity by providing a trail separate from roadway traffic referenced by the last speaker this resolution is necessary to meet those goals and I know that you know people's hackles get up with the words eminent domain and I was well educated by what Mr. Schifrin asked about around people sometimes choose the eminent domain route for uh for tax purposes and so I think that you're I think you're in really a good shape with this choice and I really hope that you will you will go ahead and pass the resolution of necessity thank you Mr. Slade you're on mute Mr. Slade Stephen Slade how about now here you go okay it's magic sorry for all of that and oh and the baby's gone I've been working here I'm the Stephen Slade I'm the executive director of the Land Trust of San Cruz County and as I'm sure you all know we're your partner in this project the rail trail in general and especially on the north coast our role was to raise up to five million dollars or four million dollars of matching funds for those grants to build and design we spent a good deal of that money already and the rest is waiting to be spent so we sort of view this as an implementation decision you've made this decision to proceed this way years ago and you've made it over and over and over again and every time an implementation action comes before you we hear oh let's start over let's scratch everything let's give back the money let's tear up the disaster plan and of course at the Land Trust our reaction is well what about the money we've already spent getting this project to this place where construction is going to happen in a year or so so we we fully support this as an implementation decision and it's just another round of the train never people basically holding up the construction of our trail it's ironic it's the trail now people want to proceed with building the trail and that's what the Land Trust is doing and we're putting our money behind it and we hope you stay the course thank you there are no more hands off commissioner McPherson okay thank you um we will close the public hearing portion of the uh of number item number 17 and return to the commission uh for commissioners uh any comments that they have anybody from the commission which to do yes I do thank you sir commissioner well why doesn't Aurelia why don't you go first okay I'll keep my brace I'll give you some time uh yeah I I want to make some comments because I mean I know this we need to move forward with this but I am a little bit disturbed for trail now advocates uh because you know they they're blinded uh they're to me I hear white privilege uh we want to be able to get on this trail now ride our bikes walk but you know what about the folks in Davenport that maybe want to be able to get on a train eventually to commute to Santa Cruz um they need that given that option uh what about them you're you're saying oh they don't need it what about those handicap folks that they can't ride on a bike they can't go on the long trails they can't see that scenic route and have and being given them a train to be able to give them that ability just to go and take that that uh that view um what about the seniors they can't afford a $10,000 trail bike to ride on there they have that option to be able to get on a train and go into those points of destination and and and enjoy those views um you know it just it's these heartening because they can continue to push their trail only but it's only for a limited amount of people for their trail now uh it's not really for the whole community uh it's going to show just use for a small portion of people that can afford expensive bikes um and have the luxury to have that time to walk the trail but how about the common folks that the hardworking folks the folks in Davenport that struggle to to meet and meet um they'd like to be able sometimes get on a on a train and travel uh or get on a bike and travel um but I think we need to give them the options and with that I will render my time to Andy. We'll go to Mr. Scherfer next. Thank you I just want to sort of emphasize a few points one is that this trail um in addition to the the very generous contribution by um the land trust is funded by a federal agency the the the real the the project is being pushed forward it's actually under the control of a federal agency as we've learned through this project and it's mostly federal funds that are going to pay for it uh and hopefully at least my hope is that we'll have uh get additional federal funds to finish it but this is a you know the idea that somehow if we decide to go in another direction that we could just do it right away is really nonsense um this project has has been kind of alluded to it's been in the works for years this federal agency has designed it if we decide to go in another another direction those funds would be lost the federal agency is not going to simply redo the project because the commission at the last minute essentially changes it's mine it's mine also I want to refer to the um the EIR that was done on the the the trail in that it did evaluate the trail only option at the same level of detail as the preferred project and found that that option had significant unmitigatable uh environmental impacts and was in fact not as environmentally preferred as the um the option that we are pursuing today um another point somebody asked what do the property owners think I think it's uh meaningful this the the eminent domain process is partially to really make sure uh that property owners are not taken advantage of by public agencies so they have very significant rights under it's it's a big deal to take um property under eminent domain and the public agency has to go through a complicated process that the property owners have the ability to participate in I think it's it it's a it's a it means something that no no representatives of property owners came and testified today against this project the people who came to testify against it were largely people who just don't want to train and I find it fascinating that the people who say they want the trail are essentially opposing a trail project because that's what this is going to be this is not a train project this has nothing um I may agree with Aurelio's desire to eventually have a train but that's not what this is about um we're trying to increase public access along the coast by pedestrians and bicyclists uh to use the coastal this coastal trail that's what this project is all about and that's really all it's all about and other issues will be dealt with whether it's other segments of the trail on how they'll be developed or whether they'll be a train or not a train are issues that we're going to have to grapple with in the future here we've got the opportunity to move forward with a significant rail a trail along the along the coast going from Santa Cruz hopefully all the way to Davenport and I think it's really important to support it so I would like to make a motion to support to approve the staff recommendations for this item and I don't know whether there needs to be a separate motion for each of the resolutions of necessity or not if there is all my motion would include the first resolution and I'm sure staff will tell me or the attorney will tell me how many more resolutions I'll have to be but if this passed my intention would be to move the subsequent resolutions as well so that'll start cannot that's for attachments one through five maybe shoot if in the the midst of your motion uh mr council uh can all of the attachments be approved in one motion or do each of them have to be um I'm sorry mr chairman we would recommend that the that the commission take up each resolution individually it creates a separate record for each uh each of the actions themselves and so we would recommend that I'm happy to walk the commission through each of the five resolutions if that would be helpful um once all the commissioners have had a chance to talk okay well uh before we entertain a motion then uh you don't mind I'll go back to you mr shifrin after we hear uh there are any other comments from commissioners hi one uh mr johnson thank you chair so um I did want to point out embedded in the purpose of the project uh that mr shifrin said this was all about trail um item three says develop the trail so future rail transportation service along the corridor is precluded is not precluded so they've embedded that tenant in there specifically for the purpose of of the train so that's number one number two um I don't have a $10,000 bike I have a $300 bike and I ride it three times a week so to kind of proclaim that this is just for the privileged class uh number one is really a misnomer and misguided I think in my position and the other thing is it's just ironic you know south county is one of the reasons why trail now is so fervent in its belief about moving people there's a utilitarian argument here and that's the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people and that is a guiding principle I think that we in the RTC transport you know it's regional transportation moving the greatest number of people to uh different places and you know I I have to agree with the people that say that this is something of a boutique sort of project from the standpoint that this serves very very few people okay it doesn't uh get a lot of people off of highway one although that's part of the EIR alternative to travel on highway one um I guess I could get a response from grace on what do you mean by that okay uh there aren't going to be lots and lots of people that are gonna that are gonna take this trail as an alternative to travel on highway one it's just not true so you know my argument is we're concentrating efforts right now on this kind of isolated property north of Santa Cruz um when we should be concentrating on getting thousands of people on a trail from Watsonville to respect my south county commissioners from Watsonville to Santa Cruz that's where the people are okay that's where we should concentrate our efforts and notwithstanding about the plans that have been been made two years ago uh everybody here who represents their constituents because of COVID-19 has had to do what we've had to pivot we've had to look at things as the way they are right now and change and and adapt and I don't see that happening with this commission so the resolution of necessity is a misnomer I think and I'll do respect to you know the different entities that have put in money here and put in money there my goal is to move people from one place to the the other and do it in a way that is not boutique or retail but in a broad sense sense of the term of transportation of moving people and making a true difference in the transportation habits of our community so I won't be supporting that as you might tell okay thank you Mr. Johnson um the other commissioner would like to address us uh miss colvin romance you're muted but go ahead thank you I have a street sweeper so I need to make sure I stay mute until the very end um yes we we have transportation blight and it isn't just Watsonville that has that issue we have a large uh segment population of the community action board um constituents that are in the north county as well and so our voice that we're talking about making sure that we don't have a transportation blight or that there's just the exclusivity of transportation options um we we need to encourage and and have available the resources for those that are at the north end as well that are still in the financial situation the way we find the south county um population to be the other benefit too of this is when when you're when you're throwing something down for the improvement you might as well take care of what you need to in the process of doing the improvement and this provides the RTC with the ability to do so the benefit of the drainage is not only going to be for the trail it's going to be for whatever else the adjacent parcel is going to be um that that's there in the improvement of that so we're probably going to see the benefit not only of the ag component that's adjacent to the drainage but um any future mass transportation component as well as the the trail system itself and when it comes to getting to the north end i'm sure that the three hundred dollar bicycle as well as the ten thousand dollar bicycle could benefit from the trails as they get developed and it would be a nice opportunity if if the south county were able to reach the north end that way and not having to go through and now we're 25 minutes to traffic to go 17 miles um to take a bite before they can even get to some of these trails to a beautiful north end of our county as well so there is a limitation and a barrier as a result of not having these trails built and having a the ability for some of the not all the recreational purposes as well as the process of mass transit for others so this is not a boutique method but obviously there's a lot more recreational use for those mid and north county that the south can they do not have the ability or opportunity to get to and this will provide them with the resources to do so and ownership of the process there conversations have taken place with those particular owners with these parcels that are not sold for them right now and that will benefit from any kind of capital improvement the rtc can invest in so this is something i do support and that i want to make sure we recognize that we do have a low income population at that north end that need to be heard as well with their voice thank you thank you mr. Bertrand did you have a comment i guess you were next i'm not sure i think so go ahead john oh that's all right share um in general i like the idea of assembling the small pieces that are adjacent to our right away and for historical reasons we didn't get them we thought we did andy sort of pointed some attention to that i think with this assemblage it will make it easier for the rtc in the future to move on any kind of plans that the board at that time agrees to in general i think that discussion is going to come to a head in terms of what we move on what the comics of the situation becomes apparent to the public i think someone from earlier comments from the public talked about that and i think all of this are going to have to realize that we do have things that we would aspire to because we like the idea and we think that there would be a lot of utility for the public but the economic viability won't be there and since the beginning when i first got on this board i do believe that the rail options around watsonville make a lot of economic sense um our current providers backing out on that so maybe i was wrong and whoever we get to replace them may be able to make that economically viable but this is a future discussion what's going to happen whether we're going to do a rail or just um despite errs and stuff like that reevaluate just doing a trail or some other kind of combination that's for the future so i support this because we are assembling little bits and pieces that will enable the rtc in the future to better optimize the right away thank you thank you um any other commissioner i um am i sure bachdorf had um his hand up mr bachdorf uh thank you chair uh first of all i want to uh uh command uh staff grace and probably corey probably put some time in this effort also so i want to acknowledge the hard work of our tc staff to bring this project to us i think the thing we got to remember here is any way that we can get a trail portion completed if there happens to be a train alongside but that doesn't bother me at this point i think we're all here about getting the trail done and the generosity of the land trust along with the grants our our staff reaching out finding those grants you know when we're not paying taxpayers using taxpayers money to build a trail i think that's good for all of us we may have future decisions or you may have future decisions down the road uh for what goes on with this trail but for right now this is a fabulous project i think that we wouldn't be moving forward to do these acquisitions if there wasn't in conjunction with some kind of agreement with the homeowners and i totally support this project thank you thank you mr after the other commissioner your hand up mr mulherm uh chair um who was that was that yes yes thank you chair yeah good thank you um i uh thank you very much uh for the opportunity to speak um i'm i think probably if everyone knows i'm uh dubious for the feasibility of rail transit in santa cruz county so i i don't really think of this project in terms of of transit um it it is true though that that the the this rail line was acquired the project that we submitted to the state to acquire the rail line to access prop 116 funds was a dinner train from santa cruz davin port and so this project really is the realization of that initial vision that the rtc has been working towards this whole time um i think that as other people have mentioned there's a future discussion about what the transit might look like and the rest of the county but um for now i think that that um as commissioner batoff also mentioned this is an opportunity for us to to complete or at least extend um some tourist facilities to the north and there certainly are a lot of beautiful places that will be accessible now once this project is built that will be both bicycle adjacent to the rail line and perhaps a tourist train or a dinner train of some kind like i said realizing the vision of the prop 116 funding application um that being said uh this process that we're going through right now i think um all commissioners need to bear in mind that this is what the development of the rail line is going to look like for the rest of the 25 or whatever miles of rail line that we're going to have to do because there are great many the ownership of a great many of the parcels that we're going to be crossing with with whatever project we end up building on here have uncertain ownership um and we're not we don't even now know who owns or what number of parcels have uncertain ownership uh between santa cruz and rio del mar and in south of rio del mar is also a huge question mark so i think the commission needs to bear in mind that this is what the process for the rail line development his forth is going to look like we're going to have uncertain ownership uh we're going to have to take who knows how much land and so i think that those proponents of of some kind of future rail transit project need to realize that that imminent domain is going to be inextricably intertwined with any efforts to move forward with rail transit in this county very well um the other commissioner would like to address us commissioner brown thank you yeah i i just wanted to add my uh my support and i uh agree with many of the comments that have already been made um but i i do just want to highlight that um the the purpose here today is not about debating the whether or not we should have rail along this uh uh trail line it's about whether or not we should use the process of imminent domain um which i believe is a legitimate way to uh consolidate these parcels to make that space accessible and it is um moving the the trail portion of the project forward and it's it is not delaying we are not delaying that and that's what i've been hearing from the trail now folks is that you know our uh our wanting to do it you know have a train is is making things take longer and it's you know it's it's creating all of these delays and that's just not the case and um as others have suggested um the resources that have have been made available to us have largely come from our commitment to exploring passenger train service in the future and um so i you know i just wanted to to put my two cents in there and um and just say that and thank you to staff as well i know this is you know since i uh it wasn't uh appointed to the commission it's been uh a lot of work in a long haul and i just really appreciate all of your work to make it happen thank you any other comment from commissioners looks like commissioner burtrane wanted to speak again okay uh briefly no there's nobody yes anybody other commissioner would like i do want to speak okay yeah um i forgot to thank gray speaks of blake's league because um the presentation helped me greatly understand all the different uh parcels and the purpose of the different parcels that we're going to be voting on and so thank you very much for that okay now any other commissioner would like to address us i would like to say a few words myself um i cringe at the uh phrase in a domain in general uh but um i think that um i have been a long time supporter of the monterey bay city trail and the california coastal trail uh i do not think this is um saying that we're going to uh this is not an issue about supporting the train up to davin port at this point uh we are going to go through procedures and negotiations with the property owners and to see what comes up so um i know that there's others that say well when in the heck are you going to stop if you're going to do it in the future um and i think it like i said it's unfortunate this wasn't addressed but understandable it wasn't addressed initially years ago uh for the what is needed under our circumstances of a trail uh to go alongside the rail line but i do not think this commits us to a rail line to davin port i'm not seeing it that way but i it allows us to have negotiations and continue with the aspects of uh of a trail between uh well the seven mile line i believe that's seven miles uh and so i'm i'm going to support this but i do not wanted to uh indicate that i support a train uh going from santa cruz to davin port at this point that's still an issue that's to be decided so um i think if um i don't know that any other commissioners would like to make a brief comment but mr shifrin wanted to uh was ready to make a motion some time ago before the commissioners um and uh would entertain any uh would just not so much comments but uh if we have to take these uh attachments one through five independently uh according to our council so i would uh offer the uh the floor to mr shifrin who was ready to make a motion uh but a half an hour ago or so and i'm gonna make a motion but i i can't resist making a few comments first if you'll permit me really i can't believe that first of all i want to uh character i say in character for sure um that i that commissioner johnson enunciated a principle that's very important to me and i think it really underlies uh what the commission has been doing over the last several years and that's the notion of the greatest good for the greatest number what is the benefit to the public and i think preserving the rail line for both the trail and the potential of the public transit transit does do that and that's one of the reasons why i support it because it does increase options for the greatest number in the long term that doesn't mean any of it's going to be easy or any of it's gonna or all of it's gonna end up being feasible but that's the operating principle i think that's very important um the idea that we're just concentrating on this project instead of all the other projects doesn't really make sense to me we're doing this project now because we're lucky enough to get a major federal grant to allow us to do this project and we're pursuing other segments of the trail as funding becomes possible as the commission knows there's a segment under construction at this point in the city um we're also doing a alternatives analysis to look at what the heck what's what's going to happen with the rail line if anything so i think it's important to to recognize that this is all part of carrying out the master plan that the commission adopted um that um where we're we're doing the project as we can and it's it's it's naive to think it all could be done at once there are those who support this project there are those who oppose it there is those who support other projects under measure d uh like the uh highway projects and there are those who feel that we're spending too much time concentrating on the highway projects so different people have priorities this is a project that i think it's um it's finally moving forward in a in a uh effective way and so i'd like to make a motion to approve the uh resolution resolution of necessity for an attachment one also second okay there's a motion by mr shifrin and a second by mr burke friend and i think um mr calso could uh i won't go through the role in number one but i will offer mr shifrin and burke to make motions on each of these and could we um just take a general or do we have to call the role for each one of the five mr chairman i would recommend that you call the role for each of the five so that again it's creating a separate record for each one very well very well okay we we have a motion and a second to uh approve the first number one of five attachments uh please call the role commissioner burke friend hi commissioner brown hi commissioner johnson no commissioner kaufman gomez commissioner capit hi commission alternate shifrin hi mission alternate mulhern hi commission alternate read commissioner mcpherson hi commissioner bautorf hi commissioner gonzalez hi commission alternate lin hi what's the account on that then is that my tender one now yeah one no uh johnson no and how many were i mean i know it's was a 10 that motion passes 11 11 yes 11 to one yes i make a motion to approve a resolution a resolution of necessity and attachment number two second no sorry patrick second oh sorry okay um commission alternate lin hi commissioner gonzalez hi commissioner bautorf hi commissioner mcpherson hi commission alternate read commission alternate mulhern commission alternate shifrin hi commissioner capit hi commissioner kaufman gomez yes commissioner johnson no commissioner brown hi and commissioner burtrant agree 11 to one i'd move a resolution of necessity and attachment number three to clarify may the yeah we just know for the record that the commission did receive updated attachments for some of the ocean shore resolutions and so uh with the consent of commissioner shifrin these motions related to the ocean shore property would include the latest attachments fine with the maker of the motion commission alternate lin commissioner gonzalez commissioner bautorf hi commissioner mcpherson hi commission alternate read hi commission alternate mulhern hi commission alternate shifrin hi commissioner capit hi commissioner kaufman gomez commissioner johnson no commissioner brown hi commissioner burtrant i agree 11 to one i would move a resolution of necessity uh and attachment number four with the updated information i'll second commissioner burtrant i agree commissioner brown commissioner johnson no commissioner kaufman gomez yes commissioner capit commission alternate shifrin hi commission alternate mulhern hi commission alternate read hi commissioner mcpherson hi commissioner bautorf hi commissioner gonzalez hi commission alternate lin hi 11 to one before i make the motion to um uh approve resolution of the necessity in the attachment five i also wanted to add my thanks for staff for all the work they've done on this project and we'll have to continue to do uh to keep moving forward uh through the rest of the steps to construction so i do move um a resolution of necessity number five with the uh updated material also good commissioner burtrant i agree commissioner brown hi commissioner johnson no commissioner kaufman gomez yes commissioner capit all right commission alternate shifrin hi commission alternate mulhern commission alternate read hi commissioner mcpherson yes commissioner bautorf all right commissioner gonzalez and commission alternate lin hi 11 to one okay thank you that concludes our discussion on item number 17 the public hearing we will return to the regular agenda uh item number 14 um commissioner reports does any do any commissioners have an oral report that they would like to uh address the commission being none move to the item number 15 the director's report an oral report from our executive director a guy christin thank you chair mcpherson and commissioners um i have several project updates i'll try to go fast i know we have a long agenda today and have been going long already um the highway one improvement project from state park to bay porter planning to release the draft environmental impact report later this month um there will be a 45 day public review period um we will have an announcement shortly i'll update the commission at the december meeting but i just wanted people to be aware that we're moving forward with that highway one project um the um mbs st segment five the environmental assessment for the north coast rail trail project is open for public review and comment until november 25th um there's a link on my uh director's report as well as on our website um for the public to make comment on that um as was mentioned in the uh recently completed uh ron hearings the rgc certified the sequa document uh the eir in march of 2019 this is the federal equivalent under the uh national environmental policy act um segment seven phase one of the mbs st project um construction is moving along just wonderfully i was out there uh recently and took a look at some of the improvements and um the the city is just doing a great job in getting this completed we think it's going to be completed early in december um we're hoping to to have a uh ribbon cutting ceremony virtually and um i will have announcements as the actual date um arise at the next rtc meeting um the transit corridor alternatives analysis um open house is now scheduled for november 6th to 27th um rtc invites the public um to provide input for milestone three of this study um through an online open house um november 6 through 27th um we performed a performance analysis on the short list of four alternatives community members will be able to review the results and submit comments through the um open house in addition the tca team has scheduled live chat sessions on november 12th and 18 and there's a link on my um directors reported on our website for these events the Santa Cruz branch rail line um recently completed some storm damage construction work at sites one and two i provided some photos in my director's report to show the a wonderful progress we we have made in getting the rail line repaired um there's one other um a thing i need to mention um chair mcpherson has let me know that he's uh formed a subcommittee to make a recommendation for our next chair and vice chair it is that time of the year um he wanted to remind um uh prospective candidates uh that um uh chair mcpherson and i made it uh made it a regular commitment to have breakfast uh at um at al palomar uh we both always ordered uh huevos rancheros and um and uh my next chair um i i look forward to really getting an opportunity to know you um chair mcpherson and i got to know each other real well um over breakfast when we went over the agendas prior to these meetings so um the subcommittee is made up of um uh commissioners bachorf and commissioners koffman gomez and they'll be making a recommendation for you to consider at the next rtc meeting and that concludes my director's report okay thank you mr preston um we will move to uh item number 16 uh the cal trans report and i don't know who is might address us on that is there anybody that's been patient enough from cal trans to uh pick with us um to give a report yes thank you mr chair that's the scott eads with cal trans here for the district director thank you um as you yeah as you probably remember i am the um deputy district director for transportation planning and local assistance and environmental stewardship i have just a few items for you today informational items uh the first is that cal trans is hosting an innovation expo first ever for us it's a virtual event uh november 16 through 20th and it's um focusing on our organization's top five priorities safety mobility innovation efficiency and partnerships and both cal trans and externals partners will be presenting information and giving demonstrations and um all of it will be available online after the events it's free you do need to register ahead of time um and you can at cal trans innovation expo.com see me if you have any questions or uh want to have want to help registering second item is um that the kind of a big deal the um monterey county transit operations uh for monterey salinas transit has been um given a 8.4 million dollar loan through the kipia program transportation infrastructure and innovation act it's a federal program that gives low interest loans for transportation projects this will help them finance a 14 000 foot uh square foot south county operations and maintenance facility in king city so uh good news for mst and then the last thing i just wanted to highlight in the interest of time is um cal trans is continuing literary removal um we had to stop there for a while um because of um concerns with the covid um pandemic and making sure we had operations protocols in place we've resumed that effort since june um and this also includes our adopt a highway and special people program um where we're um removing litter from the roadside and last year's cal trans with his partners collected 287 000 cubic yards of litter from california highways enough to fill up more than 18 000 garbage trucks so unfortunately it's a continuing problem and we're continuing to tackle it uh working with chp also to um work on enforcement activities to try to stop people from littering in the first place that's all i have happy to take any questions okay thank you miss risa i uh i wanted to say thank you to cal trans um it's noticeable in each of our cities and uh the unincorporated area in our districts in the county about how much work is going on with uh cal trans and overlays on the highways and so forth and people want to know why can't you do the overlays and striping right away but you know we'll just wait two or three days it'll get done uh so uh once we let people know you can't do it uh all in one day that's that's been uh very well received um i want to just thank uh you know the state legislature for passing senate bill one and for the voters uh letting that stand and a subsequent election and then also for the people who passed measure d in sanacris county because this has been very important for us to have cooperative projects of state um thank you very much for your patience and waiting uh is there any comments uh that related to uh state highways oh mr. impression did you have something yes just real quickly i wanted to give a plug to sarah christensen rtc's engineer who will be doing a presentation at the innovation expo that um commissioner ease mentioned the presentation will be on our highway one bus on shoulder um pro projects okay any other comments from commissioners on uh projects that are being undertaken by the by cal trans by the state mr. captain mr. captain i can make a quick comment just uh thank you cal trans for the work they're doing now at uh highway 152 on march and street by the watsonville high school thank you very much very good uh anyone else to make a short comment directed to cal train at the state we do have public comments okay um mr. vernasa yes i i would like to thank scott and cal trans i contacted them about three weeks ago about the trestle and the railing that's hanging over the freeway and not not only am i concerned but there are dozens of people and apt us that are concerned like posted it on next door and got all kinds of responses i uh scott put out a maintenance review with cal with his organization cal trans and they came down a couple days later and looked at it they can't do anything about it rtc has to do it please make that it's a threat people are worried about it they're taking their eyes off the car in front of them because they're looking to see if that thing's gonna fall on so please do something about that thank you thank you we did not have any other hands okay we will go to we've already had a public hearing on 17 and the update from watsonville on 18 so um the legislative updates uh rachel marconi marconi will uh transportation senior transportation planner and um christ jillio i don't know i think he's back i don't know that he's here miss marconi good morning commissioners rachel marconi of your staff i apologize for the background i realize it's still set for a halloween party we had with our sister agencies last week where i was uh snow white so i apologize for that and my zoom skills are not quite uh on par to get rid of it really quickly but um i'll just make this very brief we do have christ jillio our federal legislative assistance with with us this morning who will provide an update on federal activities in 2020 on the state level um as you may have noted the legislature was on break a significant portion of the session because of covid and really focused all of their efforts on um covid relief and and fire um relief this session and so they ended their legislative session a little bit early and passed about um 70 fewer bills than in years past and so on the transportation level um they were also very limited to the most significant transportation bills really did focus on um reacting to covid providing some relief for transit agencies um expediting delivery of projects as as we had forward towards economic recovery and um making it possible to have more virtual meetings like this where that we can make sure to continue to encourage the public to participate in transportation decisions um looking forward to 2021 we are just starting the process of updating our legislative program and i would like to invite commissioners um by mid december to send guy or i any um specific issues that you think you would like the commission to consider and highlight in 2021 we will again be focused in 2021 on economic recovery stabilizing transportation funding um reducing greenhouse gas emissions and um promoting programs that will um allow us to implement the priority projects of this board and our community so with that i'd like to just hand it over to press julio who's over in washington dc and joining us virtually over to you press thank you rachel uh thanks also mr preston commissioners for allowing me to come virtually wish i were there in person uh but uh wanted to give you a quick update on on what's going on here in washington dc at least uh you know maybe a little bit in the short term a little bit in the long term i know you've got a long agenda so i'll keep it short there was a little memo uh in your packet that you could uh refer to as well uh start at 30 000 feet uh we don't know the uh the results you have of the presidential election but i can't say that uh uh that the impacts on the department of transportation would would be different given uh given you know who it's if the if the president is reelected we would expect that uh elaine chow the current uh department of transportation secretary would stay on her job for at least uh part of this next term and the department would continue a uh a path that it's been going on in recent years uh in trying to support uh rural projects it's it's been uh it's been something that dott has slowly been doing over the last four years and as a matter of fact in the cal chance report the transit facility that mr ead's discussed for monoracilitis transit as a result of expedited uh processes for this very major loan program at dott that kept a lot of rural and smaller projects out of it and so that this is it's one of the first transit projects in the country that this loan project is funded so um so we would expect that to continue uh if if vice president biden is elected we would expect probably a different a different direction at dott um if i had to guess who the transportation secretary would be i'd look down state to uh los angeles mayor eric carcetti who probably would uh if he wants it could have it uh and and we would probably see a return to um sort of more uh a focus on more multimodal projects and i'll give you a quick example the largest discretionary program at uh a dott competitive program or one of the largest it's called the build program it's about a billion dollars each year it was created in the recovery act of 2009 uh and was meant to to sort of handle multimodal multi jurisdictional large-scale projects uh under this administration uh they changed the name of the program from tiger you build all goofy acronyms and uh and have mostly funded sort of rural road projects so i would expect these sort of discretionary decisions in a biden administration to sort of even out a little bit more uh with regard to that as far as what needs to be done between now and the end of the year the only thing that congress needs to do is pass a f y 2021 budget and that includes the budget for the department of transportation they've need to try to do that before december 11th which is where we've got legislation that's keeping the doors open to the government uh until december 11th and uh and congress is hopeful uh that they can they can pass the 2021 budget uh the budget for the department of transportation at least uh as approved by the house of representatives looks pretty good increases for highway and transit programs uh the senate hasn't done anything on their end but in the past they've been supportive of of of of increases uh to those programs so that needs to be done the other thing that needs to potentially needs to be done is covid relief uh both sides want to do some sort of covid relief uh you elected officials in the crowd here would be very interested sort of the the major sticking point of right now to uh to a deal is is aid to direct aid to state and local governments uh speaker polosi has been insisting on that the white house and senate republicans don't want that um after the election i think there'll be more negotiation going on we may see two different packages uh done sort of low hanging fruit done before the end of the year and then next year sort of uh taking another bite at that covid relief apple as far as transportation is concerned uh there has not been a lot of uh interest in congress to provide more money for highway programs for the highway programs uh but federal transit programs on the other hand are expected to get uh a little bit funding as uh might um track uh in regard to that uh next year congress is going to need to reauthorize the 2015 fast act the fast act is another uh you know federal government acronym that's basically the legislation that authorizes funding for federal highway and transit and rail projects it's usually a five or six year bill that congress passes um they were not able to extend it when it expired on on september thirtieth of this year so it's been extended by one year to september thirtieth twenty twenty one earlier this year the house passed its version of a five-year five hundred billion dollar fast act reauthorization uh that five hundred billion dollars represented about a almost a thirty percent increase for highway programs and uh over fifty percent increase uh for transit programs senate uh did not take that up and one of the big reasons the senate didn't take it up is because paying for that is going to be uh difficult right now the uh the funds that are coming into the federal highway trust fund that pay for these programs are lagging as everybody knows uh and so estimates are that uh that congress needs to find an additional one hundred and forty billion dollars in order to fully fund that five hundred billion dollars in proposals so uh again sort of depending on how things go with regard to the makeup of the senate next year and who's in the administration well there will be uh discussions over how to um how to pay for uh this kind of bill uh you know of course a gas tax increase is something that they'll talk about uh also talk about other ways to do things such as the vehicle miles traveled um you know a way of doing things it's not doesn't seem to be fully baked yet on the on the federal level at least um but that'll be uh that'll be um on the uh discussion next year uh with regard to fast back so i will cut it short there but happy to answer any of the questions if anything i missed or if uh anybody has anything else they want to talk about i think very much thank you for your representation of the commission and county in the east i think we've been very successful comparatively uh and uh i appreciate your efforts very much um and and the members of our congressional delegation they've been fantastic as i think is evidenced by some of the programs you mentioned are there any comments from the commissioners commissioner reid yeah i have a question for you chris um i'm concerned here locally um about uh some of the aftermath of our federally designated disasters regarding the forest fires and the expected associated debris flows that we may see um and if the it's my understanding from a FEMA standpoint and funding standpoint that if a debris flow occurs and damages state highways or perhaps local roads that if that specific event is not designated as a disaster that we as a local jurisdiction would be on the hook for the entire repair bill and i didn't know if as forest fires are becoming more common in ancillary or secondary events associated with those event those disasters are occurring if FEMA is looking at different funding strategies or if there's ever been any conversation legislatively to address that to couple those things since they are related but they're not the same federal disaster so that local or local municipalities and communities can get federal assistance on essentially the out you know a negative impact from another federally designated disaster right that's that's a great question and it is something that folks i know in congress think about a lot and try to legislate with not a lot of success you know sort of FEMA's you know job is to sort of look at these requests for reimbursements and try to figure out a way to deny them right because they don't have enough money to handle it all and so but i but i do know that that uh that you know sort of the overall issue of climate change was something Rachel i talked about recently she inquired about uh the you know the air quality problems that that result as a result of wildfires and is there any way that you know that that we can access you know funds for that sort of thing and that again you know if you brought that up to FEMA they would you know they would get very very nervous because again they've got they've got limited resources like everyone else but that's part of the discussion and but i but i'm not sure again if if congress is ready to go that far and so what that brings us to is sort of those individual fights and again we've got a good congressional delegation so that helps to go to FEMA to go to the White House to go to whatever is needed to get that the civic declaration to help us out Mr Bertrand you know i um Chris i appreciate your background i don't know if you're from San Francisco but i have a question for you i'm not sure it's appropriate um so one of the things that concerns me is um clearing brush and trees that might be of fire Dancher near Rhodes i noticed we do that on highway 17 here and good work there but um a good example here is San Lorenzo Valley the fire came to the roads like highway nine and crossed over and so there's several problems there and one of the main ones is people getting out and people that are fighting fires getting in and i don't know if um i'll transfer anyone you know can help us in that regard but it seems to me from public safety for people who may be trying to get out getting into fight the fires and also the idea of preventing fires crossing the road so if that's something you could talk about yeah i could probably talk a little bit about i know that um you know again that uh uh when FEMA funds come into a state the state has to spend a certain percentage on hazard mitigation type of project and so this sounds like that might be one right you know so sort of you know being able to prevent that uh from happening if uh if there are um if there are other fires and you know and again you know continue to think about you know back in 2017 we had these horrible storms and we're still working with with uh FEMA department of transportation to get reimbursed for a lot of that that road work and uh Chairman McPherson has worked really hard on that uh among others so um yeah i think FEMA's a good option i you know they may be it's you know certainly it doesn't help uh doesn't hurt to inquire uh with Cal OES or or FEMA on those sorts of issues just to piggyback on that i'll so sorry Rachel sorry no problem just to piggyback on that Commissioner Bertrand during the highway nine complete streets corridor plan for San Lorenzo Valley we did also discuss the need for possibly a more comprehensive evacuation planning effort and I know Commissioner McPherson has discussed this with our local OES folks in the past Caltrans does have a planning grant that um we're gonna talk about if with OES if that would be something that they might want to pursue as well there have been other regions in the state that have utilized that Caltrans planning funding for hazard mitigation and evacuation planning as well as adaptation planning and resiliency planning for climate change so that's definitely something that's on the radar okay i'd be interested in that and maybe if this would be a public partnership type thing where property owners could do it and contract out or something like that but that's not the discussion now but i am interested in this having lived in rural areas before i i know a great fear for getting out i was up in San Lorenzo Valley for instance in other areas getting out by or any other kind of natural disasters is extremely of concern to residents any other comments from the commissioners okay moving targets sort of speak and what's going to what's going to come in the future but thank you for that presentation chris we'd love to have you here in our counting again and look forward to that and then very near future but thank you for your great work and dc for us as a spin-off i just want to thank our congressional representatives too they've been great in getting some things done for us especially congresswoman eschew and congressman panetta they've been just great for us they when we ever address them they they listen and so and they've been very very proactive in trying to do some things for us i think these upcoming things about debris flow and all our very good questions to ask and that need to be addressed because i i know it doesn't just affect our county and i hope we can move forward and getting something significant done in that regard in their future we have public comment commissioner mcpherson okay uh brian peoples yeah can you can you hear me yes thank you hi brian peoples with trail now you know i've been involved with this organization probably for over 20 years and you know you guys all get to thank rachel there for bringing me in so whenever you get a chance to thank her um if you get tired of me um our organization you know is thousands of supporters in santa cruz county um you know we we supported measure d d as a pack and we again supported measure l and measure and we were packed this election and we've been successful so we're a big supporter of this organization right i'm a i personally have been in transportation i actually wrote a senate bill at the state level to give employers a tax credit uh to give to their employee using federal federal uh leveraging the federal commuter check i don't know if that still exists or not to be honest with you anyway so i believe in this organization so i want to and and and i've seen a lot of commissioners coming up i and i'm actually i think i've been here longer than all of you except for rachel um so i'm and we're going to see more um and i'm hoping that our people continue to get expertise i you know mr ganzala's comment that we're going to have a commuter train from davin port is a little concerning but actually what was more concerning was his racial indication to me that a white elitist i want this you to be careful making those kind of statements you're not if you were white if bruce said that to me okay but you're not white and you call me a white elitist are you kidding me we don't need that kind of communication on before that's unacceptable um i'm i'm so irritated that you've said that that you are racist like that so i'd expect an apology and i want this i don't want that to i come here for 20 years so please be respectful thank you thank you mr vernazza okay can you hear me yes chris uh i'm also san francisco and a cow howl on north beach boys so uh i want to thank you for what you're doing i i would like to also uh suggest and get your opinion uh the senate's going to stay controlled by the republicans are they going to stop some of these things that the democrats would like to do and uh also do you think that there's going to be more auditing on projects to make sure that they're increasing productivity since our big push now is to get over unemployment and that means creating jobs not just in the short term but in the long term and of course that's one of the great advantages of this new program with the county of santa cruz and regarding air so anyway i want to thank you and if you could tell me also if what the status is on the federal financing of the train between san francisco and los angeles first of all mr jillio i don't know if you have a crystal wall there to tell us what the new federal legislation is going to be aside from your uh overall report so don't feel obligated to do that i don't know just a couple words i don't know san francisco to la if you i don't know if you can say it's in the book in the works or whatever but we want to move on yeah high speed rail uh at least on the federal level you know all all quiet on that front uh the the trump administration certainly has not wanted to spend any money on that and it's been it's been several years since even the obama administration spent any money on that so i think that that uh at least the federal piece on that is probably is not good uh i think that oh i shouldn't say not good not there uh right now with the with that high speed rail with regard to the senate i think that uh on transportation issues uh whether the senate is democrat or republican it's going to be pretty close uh and i think they're going to be willing to negotiate uh infrastructure seems to be something that uh both sides uh seem to be willing to to negotiate on so i i can see something like that uh occurring next year and then you talked about auditing projects congress usually doesn't provide enough money for these projects to do sort of a really hard look backs you know there's certainly some funding in there to do that but um my impression is that that there's not as it won't be with with funding so uh tough to come by uh i don't think that they'll they'll put a lot of money into that sort of thing i agree i in my sense of it and talk and discuss it with some legislators members of congress if there's any place where there can be some agreement it'll be in uh related to transportation that's probably the best shot of anything back there uh mr shifrin i think did you have a question um i guess i was concerned about uh testimony that had nothing to do with uh this item and that attacked personally one of the members of this commission uh i would hope that that would be um prevented from happening in the future i don't think it's uh legitimate for any of us and members of the public as well to individually attack a member of this commission especially to engage in the kind of name calling that that testimony involved so i just didn't want to let that pass um without uh expressing my uh disagreement with with that kind of activity okay all right we don't want to have anything else that the ministers would like to ask mr gilio okay i think thank you very much and uh i obviously you're in san francisco so have a nice flight back yeah no i wish i was in san francisco just just might you know the best background i could find uh you you don't want to see what's behind me right now it's not pretty i got thank you very much mr gilio your efforts are very much appreciated thanks thank you for your time take care all right uh we will go to uh amendments uh i remember 20 amendments to the fiscal year uh 2021 budget and work program crazy new the director of budget and finance will give that report good morning commissioners um on june 29 2020 the rtc revised revenue projections to address potential economic impacts on transportation and measure d revenue since then economic indicators including jobs unemployment housing and spending show california's economy started to recover in may and has continued tda cash receipts for july through october 20 higher than budgeted and 4.9 percent higher than the same period last year measure d is 7.3 percent higher and this increase can be largely attributed to a new tax generated since the passing of av 147 to include out-of-state online purchases effective october 2019 the state controller's office um august 2020 estimate for state transit assistance are based on june 2020 estimates included in the state budget actuals are expected to be higher based on recent trends um actual revenues in 2021 will depend on the pandemic while the f y 2021 budget adopted on on june 29 2020 attempted to reflect the potential impacts of covid 19 the projections were based on what we knew at the time the ultimate effect will depend on the state and public's responses to the pandemic presented to this commission is the fiscal year 2020 21 budget reflecting the august 2020 state controller's office revised estimates for sta and state group repair revenue allocations to the rtc and metro the measure d five-year plans adopted at the september third 2020 rtc meeting and incorporating information from prior year imbalances and updated estimates the rail budget includes an increase of 2.7 million dollars for additional sites moving into the construction phase to complete the repairs from the 2017 storm damage to manage cash flow the rtc request reimbursement from cal oes and femo regularly um the budget and personnel committee recommend the commission approve the fiscal year 2020 2021 amended budget as proposed um and included in this packet is a revised salary schedule um it is an administrative update only and does not change compensation to any classification and with that i conclude my report and would be happy to answer any questions okay thank you um any questions from the commission commission alternate read yeah just a quick comment um i think uh as we start to move through this calendar and fiscal year and into future fiscal years and calendar years and hopefully come out of the covid crisis or revenue streams that have been covid impacted i think it would be helpful when we start reviewing budget materials that we don't just have the covid impacted year as a comparison but the prior year that would have been more normal so that as we're reviewing revenue streams and we're seeing how those revenue streams are changing the delta that we're looking at isn't isn't skewed by that covid impact so it's just a a content presentation note that i was thinking about in reviewing these materials yeah so in essence yeah i just get a consistent um um normal um presentation but maybe some have put that points out over 19 or the covid years or year hopefully only year uh good point thank you any other questions from the commission i think that's um i see this does need to we need to adopt a resolution uh for the uh i'm sorry commission rickerson we do have input from community oh i'm sorry okay thank you um this has been for not so again uh excuse me i'm a forensic accountant so i like to dig into the details so i'm looking at the schedule d attachment 228 at the end which has to do with the forecast of what you're going to spend by highway projects and again i sent all commissioners plus staff plus other people my opinion putting off segment 12 that's a 40 million dollar a mile project and maybe not necessary so i want you to consider that i'm not going to go into a lot of detail because i already sent you uh the opinion it's not just my opinion it's the opinion of a group of us and a growing group of us in the apta seascape seaview area so thank you thank you we do not i'll move the uh the staff recommendation to approve the budget amendment a second it secretary we have a motion uh second please call the roll commissioner bertrand i agree commissioner brown commissioner johnson hi commissioner croffman gomez yes commissioner cap it commission alternate shifrin hi commission alternate mulher commission alternate reed hi commissioner cap it commissioner mcpherson hi commissioner batorf all right commissioner gonzalez hi and commission alternate lin passes unanimously we will move on to item number 21 the organizational assessment consultant contract mr preston thank you commissioners you may remember last year i brought this up several times as part of my director's report i discussed the fact that the the rtc has last one and organized last underwent an organizational assessment back in 2006 several things have happened since then um the rtc acquired the branch rail line um in 2012 um significant responsibilities were taken on by the commission as a result of that purchase um also in 2016 rtc passed measure d um which made us a self-help county with a dedicated um um revenue source for uh for local transportation projects um included in that measure is um rtc serving as um the regional agency to deliver a lot of these projects um that has created uh significant work for the commission in terms of developing and delivering these projects um uh significant contracting has gone into place i think you've seen um our agendas of as of late um how many contracts we're doing that's been a significant strain on our administrative and financial services at this point we have issued a request for proposals and received um three responses interviewed two firms um and selected a firm to perform the organizational assessment um the the amount um is uh 36,445 dollars they'll do a full engagement survey of staff provide us with recommendations um and an implementation plan moving forward so with that um i uh recommend that the commission authorize me to um enter into an agreement with the uh selected consulting firm um and that is regional government services to perform an organizational assessment of the rtc for an amount not to exceed 36,445 dollars thank you um questions from the commission we'll ask for this um anything from the public i do not see any hands up commissioner okay very well this is our recommendation we have second second oh second commissioner Bertrand a motion by mr shifrin to approve the staff recommendation the regional government services for 36,400 not to exceed 36,445 uh please call the roll commissioner Bertrand i agree commissioner brown i'm commissioner johnson hi commissioner kaufman gomis commissioner capet yes commission alternate shifrin hi commissioner moher hi mission alternate reid hi commissioner mcphearson hi commissioner bautorf all right commissioner gonzalez hi thank you commission alternate len unanimous unanimous vote on item number 21 we will now move to item number 22 the highway of one bay porter state park auxiliary lane and bush on shoulder project contract amendment with mark thomas and company for the final design phase uh mr sarah christensen will our senior transportation planner will make a presentation thank you commissioner um my name's sarah christensen i am the rtc staff in charge of the highway one corridor investment program uh the purpose of today's item uh we would like to get the final design phase of this project going it's the project uh on highway one between the bay porter interchange and the state park drive interchange um i request uh that the commission approve a resolution authorizing a contract amendment with the professional engineering services consultant mark thomas and approve an amendment to the measure d five-year plan for the highway corridors program so i'm going to give a quick status update on the program we have three projects currently i'm going to give uh some details and description about the specific project the status of this project uh review the staff recommendation and then talk a little bit about next steps so as you are aware we have three active projects on highway one the first being the highway one auxiliary lanes and bus on shoulder project between the 41st avenue interchange and the so-called drive interchange that project is uh very close to being construction ready and we'll begin construction next year pending availability of funds for construction the next project down the corridor um going from north to south is the project of note today it's between bay porter interchange and the state park drive interchange uh and the third and final project that's currently active is the uh state park to freedom boulevard project that project proposes auxiliary lanes and bus on shoulder improvements between the state park drive interchange and the freedom boulevard interchange we went through a scoping process that project is somewhat early in the environmental phase and the project includes replacing two railroad bridges and a mile and a quarter of the coastal rail trail as well so moving on to the uh details of the bay porter to state park project this project proposes auxiliary lanes between the bay porter interchange and the park interchange as well as uh from park to state park drive interchanges it extends the bus on shoulder facility by three miles replaces the capitol avenue over crossing and constructs a new pedestrian and bicycle over crossing at marvista drive and haptos the current status of the project uh we awarded the uh professional engineering services contract mark thomas back in june of 2019 that was for the preliminary engineering and environmental components of the project um the environmental review for this project will begin this month our current schedule um our current schedule shows the draft environmental document being posted on november 17th and the comment period will be open through the second week of january so that's actually a 55 day review period more than the um required 45 days uh required by sequa as you are also aware we submitted a grant application earlier this year um for sb1 funds and that grant if successful would fully fund construction of this project ctc staff recommendations are expected in mid november and the program adoption is scheduled for december of this year we would like to kick off the final design component of this project to expedite the schedule and have the project construction ready sooner which is planned for the end of 2022 and have construction begin in 2023 and that would be consistent with our grant application the implementing agency for this project for the final design phase and the right-of-way phase we discussed um went back and forth between caltreans and the rtc and that at the end the pdt recommends that the rtc continue on as the implementing agency this provides a smooth transition into the final design phase and is consistent with the previous project um which is the 41st to soquel um project which has been successful in the delivery um so what we are recommending is that the rtc continue as the implementing agency for final design and the right-of-way phases and doing so um it would be required to amend the professional engineering services contract with mark thomas and the amount uh the amount of the amendment would be four million nine hundred ninety nine thousand eight hundred and ninety seven dollars this amount um is supported by the staff's independent cost estimate for the work it is quite a sizable project with multiple structures and walls and retaining walls sound walls um it's a it's a large project so um with that i request that the commission approve the attached resolution um to amend the consultant contract and amend the five-year plan for the highway program a measure d the next steps um assuming the commission approves staff recommendation would be um to negotiate a caltrans co-op for the final design and right-of-way components uh and then we would also begin negotiations on a cooperative agreement with the county of sienna crews and that would be um specifically for right-of-way support services for the project and this is um consistent with the arrangement we have for the 41st to so cal project um which has been successful to date in um delivering the right-of-way component of the project so with that i could take any questions from commissioners thank you been very active been very busy thank you very much um any questions from the commissioners no questions uh any questions from the public yes we do um mr brian peoples okay mr peoples hi this brian trail now um we absolutely support the continue investment of um of widening the highway um one of the we really want it widened to larkin valley open up the uh for the south county um we are a big advocate of actually not a lot of people know this but the cost of of widening the highway i know it's not part of this scope um to rio del mar is actually a hundred million more because you have to lower the highway to get under the two train trestles um that's actually came from cal tram and um so what we recommend is that you don't replace those two train trestles you you keep the tracks on the or the trail on the ocean side of the highway and you just have one um overpass into aptos village it's actually would be ideal even when it's a trail because then we would reduce the volume of of users which is going to be significant going into the into that the other important thing about this item is the that you're going and reaching out to the california transportation commission so our organization actually talks to the california transportation commission they're your pity bank they're the ones who provide you the funds and they actually listen to us they listen to the to see how the small governing agencies are are managing their money and are they are they realistic in how they allocate their funds and so it's really important for us to go to the california transportation commission and be an advocate of this organization i really like to be able to go to them and say you know the santa cruz regional transportation commission they got they know what they're doing they're really on top of it which you are on highway one widening um you know we like to say that because that adds a lot of value and it actually increases the likelihood that you're going to get the funding you know that's at the end of the day we can have great days great ideas and everything but if we're not going to get our money because the state the ctc says what that organization is not really managing their money well that's reality so again support this but we really want to support you at a higher level at the agency level at the federal level and at the state level thank you very much thank you mr people so anybody else from the public would like to address this mr vernasah okay well there's 15 million dollars allocated to state park to freedom boulevard in the next five years beyond that you're talking 40 million dollars mile may not be necessary we don't know a new normals coming up autonomy is coming up autumn is driving meaning you just want you sort of follow what's going on but the efficiency becomes very high under those circumstances plus that's the tail end of the commute so i again suggest you take that 15 million dollars and finish everything from 41st avenue to state park drive get it done in the next two years that's my suggestion i don't think you know i just don't think it's going to be necessary to do 40 million dollars a mile let's wait and see you have time that can be done later you have time to make let's put it off and get take that money and put it in widening the highway between 41st avenue and state park drive thank you thank you i do not see any other raised hands commissioner okay um any comments any other comments from the commissioners i just want to say thanks to uh sarah christensen uh got a lot on your feet on this one uh this is very complicated and uh needs to be updated at times so thank you very much for your efforts it's really much much appreciated uh it's a big big issue for us um we need to have a motion to read has his hands up good mr read all right bruce um sarah just a quick question i had heard that there was some um evolution at the county level in conversations with proposed development on the soquel frontage road and mitigations and recommendations associated with that kp medical office building um as it relates to overpasses or interchange dynamics at 41st avenue i didn't know if you were up to speed on that stuff and how your work on this item um are being informed by those conversations and potential mitigation recommendations we the rtc did uh reveal the development proposal uh and provided comments and a lot of our comments were um to encourage active transportation connections definitely to the new shanna clear bridge um but beyond that you know our project is going first so um we're just encouraging that development to uh connect to the infrastructure that we are building there yeah i just maybe would recommend reaching up to matt and and county staff and getting an update on where that uh that eir processing is that's matt machado the public works director right yeah matt right thank you any other comments from the commission i think we've already asked we've got some from the uh we closed that from the public uh this does need a motion to um approve the resolutions for the five-year plan and the draft contract okay uh please call the roll commission alternate lin commissioner gonzalez hi commissioner botorf our commissioner macpherson hi commission alternate reid hi commission alternate mulhern commission alternate shifrin hi commissioner cap it i commissioner kaufman gomez yes commissioner johnson commissioner brown hi and commissioner burtrin i agree unanimously okay now we will now go to item number uh 23 we're going to review the two items to be discussed in closed session um one with uh conference with a labor negotiate three excuse me three issues um we have a labor negotiator uh property negotiators um on the santa cruz county branch railway and then to review the public employee performance evaluation of our executive director mr council mr mattis is there anything reportable from the closed session issues um there there may be one reportable item by mr chair would that be which one would that be um um i would recommend we discuss that in closed session first excuse me i got nice sorry okay uh so we will um we will move to the closed session and with the possibility of a public comment when we get down so what we'll do is to it's exactly noon i think i'm just right about there so we will take a uh 10 minute break is that all right with everybody or do you okay then we don't have to change um we can just stay where we are right let's just take a 10 minute break um after um you'll have to go into the um zoom meeting for the closed sessions you all should have received an email this morning if you please um call me or text me okay we will uh it's uh noon we will come back at 1210 and go to the other uh zoom meeting that you have you should have so thank you and um we'll um recess to the closed session good afternoon everyone closed session has just ended at um 118 and we did not have any reportable items thank you everyone for your participation