 and we'll start with the roll call. Director Dutra. Here. Director Gonzalez. Director Kalantari Johnson. You're muted if you're here. He heard. Director Koenig. Here. Director Lind. Here. Director McPherson. Here. Director Myers. Here. Director Pagler. Here. Director Peterson. Here. Director Rothwell. Okay, Director Rockin. Here. Exofficio Director Henderson. Here. Exofficio Director Norcutt. Don't see her as well, but we do have quorum. Thank you. And today's meeting is being broadcast by Community Television, the Santa Cruz County. We thank them. And so board of directors comments. Anyone? If not, we'll move to oral written communications to the board of directors. And I don't. This is like the opportunity for members of the public to make comments and stuff, not on the agenda. Okay. Madam Chair, you have the item that we agendize for Mr. People's request, and he had a slide in a couple of minutes of discussion he wanted to make. Okay. Brian, do I, I don't, not finding it, Brian is here. And if we are ready for, just check, change my screen, screen because I'm not seeing attendees. There we go. There we go. I see Brian. Okay, Brian, you're up first. And I believe that Donna's, someone is working on the PowerPoint. Kingston, can you put that up? Yeah, just give me one second here. While we're getting that ready just for everyone, you each will have three minutes and to comment on anything not on the agenda for today. I'll note that Alton Northcott has arrived. Thank you. And I see Dan Rothwell as well. And member Contar Johnson just emailed me. Donna, she is needing the link again. I sent her, I sent it to her also, but maybe send it to her if you would. Oh, okay. Madam Chair, just for clarification, Mr. Peoples understands that the three minutes starts regardless of whether the slide is up or not, if we have technical difficulties. Yeah, I'm wondering if Brian, if you have something you wanna share while there's up there, just maybe, okay. Maybe not. No, that's to start the agenda again. I know. What is the correct slide? This is the only PowerPoint. Brian, if you want to share something while it's being set up, you can do that. Madam Chair, can we proceed with the next one? And if Brian Peoples does come back with his slide set, maybe allow him to come back. If I can get my screen back, yeah. You have several other hands up if you'd like. Right, David Van Brink, I think is next. Hello, can you hear me all right? I do. Great, yeah, good morning. And I see actually several board members have a great new haircut, it's looking good. Hi, everyone. I'm David Van Brink. I am a public transit enthusiast, but not a captive writer. I've used Metro several times this year, less than usual during COVID. My trip last week on Highway 17 Express was fine. The new payment app, by the way, worked great. I love it, I don't have to mentally keep track of how much is on my top card anymore. I want to speak in favor of the TCAA business plan. It shows that overall transit ridership would rise to 250% of current levels with Metro bus use accounting for two thirds of that increase. What I'm saying is the whole case for rail absolutely depends on Metro expansion. It's a package deal. The case falls apart if it were to only support rail or even more absurd, squeeze the current Metro network. If we all believe, as I do that, increasing public transit use is a net positive for, I mean, everyone, and of course Santa Cruz County, then this is the way to do it. At any rate, the next step is purely exploratory. So please accept the Caltrans grant for EIR and initial engineering. Thank you for your time. Thank you, David, and I have to, all right. Next week, if we're ready, we can go back to Brian. Hi, this is Brian from Trailnail. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you for the time and Donna, thank you for coordinating it. On the slide, we share the gridlock is back at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. It's a good thing to have the tourists and our more visitors. However, it's bringing more gridlock for our community. Santa Cruz County has three main transportation corridors, Highway One, Soquel Drive, and the Coastal Corridor. All three of them need to be open in order to have effective mobility across our county. Now that the train has been shown to not be effective, having less than 2% impact on Highway One corridor, zero impact on Soquel corridor and keeping the coastal corridor closed, we need to open it. The train is not affordable. Now, what was unique about the TCAA studies, it showed that the operating costs for a train would be 25 million a year, 25 million a year. I think the Metro budget is 50 million a year. So that 25 million a year is for a single transit line. It doesn't really make a lot of sense when our budget for Metro is $50 million a year for the entire county, placing 25 million or trying to have 25 million operating costs for a single transit run, doesn't really make a lot of sense. We're hopeful that the community moves forward with building the coastal trail in an affordable way. Measure D, there's plenty of funds to provide and build the coastal corridor. And it will have a major impact. Now, I don't know if you can see the slide, but you can see the traffic on Beach Street there. Did you imagine having 60 trains trying to go through that every day? Roaring Camp already has a problem with that and we're actively working with Roaring Camp to look for an alternative solution for them driving that big train through Beach Street. Can you imagine what that corridor right there will look like if we don't have the railroad tracks and a tourist train moving along through that corridor? Anyways, I do appreciate Metro's ongoing effort and we're hopeful that you continue to support the coastal trail. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Brian. Next we have Mark, Mrs. D. Miller. Mrs. C.D. Miller. Mrs. C.D. Miller. There you go. Thank you. You did, I think. Donna's working on getting there. You should be able to hear me. Can you hear me? Yeah, we do. Oh, excellent. Good morning and thank you. I just wanted to take a moment this morning to express my gratitude to the Metro and I have been watching carefully the progress of the transit corridor alternatives analysis over this last year and a half and the Metro staff, RTC staff and a team of nationally recognized transit consultants have been working on what's the best mode of public transit to put in the rail corridor. And they came to the conclusion and I'm sure you're aware that passenger rail transit is the best way forward for the rail corridor. And I just wanted to talk about how we're going to expand public transit and why we would want to expand public transit. There are many reasons listed in the TCAA. In fact, the team devoted an entire chapter to the subject of why passenger rail makes sense to add to the mix of public transit options. I would encourage you to read it when you get a chance but before you do that or after you do that, the two big takeaways, one which was mentioned by Mr. Van Brink earlier, is that countywide public transit use would increase to 250% beyond where it is today. So today you carry Metro carries about 5 million passengers every year, adding passenger rail transit to the mix of public transit options will increase ridership to about 12,500,000 riders a year. That's an astounding increase in public transit ridership. And as Mr. Peoples pointed out, that comes at a cost, of course, nothing's free, but that cost is $25 million as an annual operating expense. Given that your current budget's about 50 million a year, that represents a 50% increase in expenses. So a 50% increase in your budget to get a 250% more transit or 250% beyond what today's transit is, sounds like a pretty good deal to me. So I'm just gonna be grateful for your continued support of public transit and encourage you to continue pursuing the expansion of public transit to serve our entire county and beyond. Thank you so much for everything you do. Thank you, Mark. Next we have Eduardo Montesario, Montesino. Good morning, Eduardo directors. Just have a couple of comments. So we need to get our priority, get customers back in our buses and in our service. We need to open up the bathrooms, you know, relatively soon because right now passengers don't have a way when they get off the bus or before they get on the bus to be able to go use some facilities. We need to put Wi-Fi on the buses to entice more people to ride our buses. And we also need to increase service. We need to get back on track better than what we before. So I have just these suggestions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have, Next we have, Oh, just a second. Renaza. Can you hear me? Yes. All right. I'm title of what I'm going to say is, Hey, is everyone out there blind? The TTA study had another option. It was the bus trail. And let's go back to 1996 where the number one choice of the study was bus trail. And I think that I have a slide that shows what their plan was then. If not, you have my handout. But basically it starts at Watsonville. And we're going to talk now about a new bus route 99XX. It's the express bus from Watsonville stopping at Cabrillo and then heading to UCSC in 40 minutes. Now, Watsonville to Cabrillo is basically by schedule 20 minutes. That's 20 minutes to when it leaves Watsonville to 20 minutes later it leaves Cabrillo. And in two years with this bus lane exclusively for buses on the freeway, that ought to be the same during the commute hours. So what happens after in this plan? What happens after Cabrillo? After Cabrillo, the bus goes down Park Avenue through Capitola up Cliff Drive to the 47th Avenue entrance to the coastal trail goes directly to the boardwalk and then directly up Bay Street to High Street 20 more minutes. A one track railroad cannot compete with an efficient bus service in Santa Cruz County. The answer is rail back, rail bank and get on with a bus hike by coastal trail. That doesn't give away train. That saves it for some time, maybe 25 years from now where you could put a train in. But in the meantime, the most efficient way is metro. Now, everything in life is like two steps forward and one back. Occasionally it's two steps forward and three back. And that's happened to all of us during the pandemic. This is a great opportunity for the metro district to get some grants to make the system more efficient. In the meantime, you can carry out this plan very effectively, especially in the next couple of years. Thank you very much. I know that everyone's not out there is not blind now. That's obviously a choice. Thank you very much. Bye bye. Thank you. Next we have Matt Ferrell. Good morning, directors. I'm speaking today as a metro supporter and customers. I've ridden the Highway 17 Express for work commute for over six years. And one of the things I like to talk about is I see transit as a community builder. I made some really close friends during those commutes. And I think it's an aspect that we lose in the conversations we have about the benefits of transit. And I also want to speak about the benefits of link modes. I not only took the 17 Express to get to work, but I took it to get to Marin County and the Bay Area. And the link between Caltrain and the Highway 17 Express was a real demonstration of the potential capacity of using supportive transportation modes, or collaborative transportation modes. Caltrain made trips with bicycles so much easier and had a broader reach. I think the same benefit would be provided by developing passenger rail on the branch line. So I encourage the board to support the acceptance of the RTC's TCAA business plan. I'd also like to point out that the resolution that's before the Transportation Commission clearly calls for the protection of metro operating and capital funds. So I think we're all on the same page here of building an integrated transportation network. And I look forward as a transit customer to support for the business plan or acceptance of the business plan. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Next, we have Veronica Alcia. Good morning, Director Lin, Board of Directors and members of the public. I would like to urge those board members serving on the RTC to please support the business plan and the funding for the documentation that is needed in this current phase. For those of you who may not know me, I am by the way speaking just for myself as a resident of Santa Cruz. For those of you who don't meet me, I am blind. I use Metro, I rely on it heavily. I do not drive, I will not drive. And one of the things that I noticed about getting around in Santa Cruz is we really can't build enough roads to support where Metro wants to go. We have a great bus system, but we don't have enough roads and we're not gonna get any more roads. My example I like to use is I have, I live on the west side of Santa Cruz. I have an appointment out in Capitola that I have to go to quite frequently. I spend at least four hours in transit for a 15 minute appointment. I would love to be able to hop on a train and just get across town much quicker, get back much quicker to that part of the world. I also would like to point out that trains can carry more passengers who need mobility devices, who are disabled. The last speaker did point out about the bicycles. The train is definitely a benefit there, more passengers per vehicle. I would also like to encourage you to understand that those of us who are paying attention are not gonna let Metro get clobbered. There is going to be money for all. This is not an either or. We need a complete system. We'd like to be able to connect easily with Monterey County, with Monterey County, with Amtrak and this would allow us to do it. So please I'm begging you not to stop research. This is getting information. Please don't stop the program because you're afraid of information. We make what decisions we make down the road, but let's learn. Thank you very much. Thank you Veronica. And next we have Barry Scott. Thank you. My name is Barry Scott. I live in Aptos. I want to thank Metro for working all these years with the RTC on the business plans and the various studies for rail transit. But I'm most distressed by the six to six tie vote of April 1st. And it's very concerning and I'm directing my comments. I hope you don't mind to board members Peterson and McPherson who voted no. And I'm urging you to vote yes with Rotkin and with South County commissioners and the other six who are the total six who support this business plan. Look, we're at a convergence of opportunities. First, we have the Biden administration that may only last four years. This is a time to invest in public transit and infrastructure in a big way. I attended the TAMC rail policy committee meeting this earlier this month in Ambag and they are distressed that we're walking away potentially from the regional plans that have been in place and under development for so long. We have funding. This, you know, the business plan for the first time lays out light street cars fully battery electric technologies. We're walking away from expensive vehicles and toward really sustainable light platform vehicles that would look just fine through Capitola. We need our commissioners to come together and support South County. With regards to Metro and Metro funding, Mark pointed out the, and this is all of it from the business plan and the transit corridor alternatives analysis that the projections for ridership which are preliminary projections that may be even better when we embark on the business plan when we do more careful study indicated 248% increase overall for transit use and the Metro share of that is just about double Metro ridership doubling and the transit plan, the rail transit plan includes both protection of Metro from the resolution funding plans and a plan to protect Metro's current funding sources but more there is funding in the rail plan. You know, so if it's 25 million I think it will be less per year. There's money in that some of that goes to shuttles and more routes and more jobs and more riders. But as Veronica pointed out, I think we're not, this is not a commitment to build. This is a likely to be pre-funded commitment to get the answers that you all have been looking for. People have been asking, what about ridership? What about the cost? For the first time we're standing here with a Biden presidency, a Buttigieg Secretary of Transportation and progressive opportunities to expand public transit and help people. And I'm asking you, Mr. McPherson and Ms. Peterson change your votes inside with Mike Rotkin and Eduardo and Aurelio and pass the business plan. Thank you. Thank you, Barry. Next we have Kara Lam. Can you hear me? Yes. Great. I'm a captive rider of the Metro and have been for 20 pushing 30 years and I live on the West side and one of the things that has always bothered me every time they talk about the corridors is where the corridors end. The highway corridor essentially ends at River Street. The Soquel Avenue corridor ends at the Metro downtown. Only the rail corridor goes to the West side and it would make such a huge difference in my life if I had transit on that corridor. Like Veronica, if I have to go to Capitola and now that Palace is no longer downtown, if I need a pen, I will have to go to Capitola and it will take four hours. If there were a train, I could get on it. I could go to Capitola and I could come back to expand transit on the highway. Only benefits people who wanna go all the way from one end to the other because in 41st where all the businesses are the freeways in the middle of nowhere. This is just a study but we need it and I'm pleading with you to go ahead with it. Thank you. Thank you, Karen. Anyone else wishing to speak during this time? I don't see any hands. So we will close this public comment time and thank everyone. And we will next move to labor organization communication. Chair, before we do that, can I ask a question? Sure. I'm terrified. We had a speaker that indicated that our restrooms are still closed, is there a projected time to open it back to the public? Director Clifford. Yes, thank you for that question. Thank you, Dr. Clifford, sorry. Yes, we closed the restroom of both transit facilities when COVID hit. They have been closed. We have been aggressively working on a plan over the last couple of months. Freddie is our lead in trying to develop a way to sort of cordon off the restrooms so that people can access the restrooms and we can still keep the overall space in the transit center locked down. So Freddie, can you give a quick update on when you think Pacific station? I think that's first and then we move on to Watsonville. Okay, so Pacific station, we ordered some walls already, which should be arriving within the next four weeks. And from there on, we will have installation. So Pacific station, I could certainly say that within two months, it should be open. And from there on, we'll start working on the Watsonville Transit Center. But the designs aren't ready for both of them. So it could be a quick process after one is completed. And is it that there's changes that need to be made? I mean, actually a remodeling because of COVID or is it just the disinfecting and cleaning? It's, well, it's both, but it is triggered by COVID. Yes, but Mr. Montesino is right. We need to try our best to get those restrooms reopened when we have been looking for alternatives for several, several months. Our customers do depend on those. And if you ride a bus say over the hill on Highway 17 and connect to another bus, you may need to use the facilities. We need to have them available. Now, I will say that months ago, actually soon after we closed the restrooms, we posted it both transit centers notifications on nearby available open public restrooms. So within a short walking distance at both facilities, you can get to a restroom and we've tried to help customers find those. Thank you. Anything else, Director Gonzalez, did that answer? Go ahead. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's a little confusing, right? Because here we're shutting our restrooms because we're directing them to other restrooms that may not be a, we're like, I guess we want to quit our restrooms. It'll take two months to quit, to have them access our restrooms. Yeah. Our challenge is we're trying to continue to keep the overall larger space within the facility locked down during the COVID crisis. That's the challenge is trying to cordon that off. And it took several, several months for us to finally identify a solution. And then we had to go through a competitive procurement and it's just taken some time. But we are, It's kind of interesting though because at the same time we're opening up, right? We're going to differentiate accessibility to occupy billions are coming into greater numbers. It just seems like we're now kind of behind the ball. In a sense, I can make, I can understand that if when COVID first hit, we put in these kind of procurements in that system to try to have access to the community. But now that we're having opening up to commute to the society more of these facilities, we're still holding back to create some sort of system to control that. Does that understand that? Well, we still have concerns about COVID. Obviously that there are still people not vaccinated. There are still cases. And the community spaces create an extra ordinary challenge for us to try to keep them regularly disinfected. So we're trying to find, trying to work towards a win-win solution. And I think you're saying, and I know Jimmy, I'm going to call on you next. I think you're saying part of the problem is closing the larger, the main portion of the station and finding a way to open access just to the bathroom without access to the rest of the station. Exactly. Next, Director Dutra. Thanks. I just want to comment on that as well. I agree, bathrooms should be open. It's, I mean, that's a necessity. And I would hope that when the governor opens up the state on June 15th that we're back to normal, that we're back open in there. So there should be no at that point excuses to keep our people that are riding the buses out of there. Because if the governor's opening up the state, we should be also opening up our facilities, especially use the bathroom. Thanks. Any other comments before we move on to labor organization communication? Mike Rodkin, Director Rodkin. I just want to point out that, well, of course everybody would like to get us reopened as quickly as we can. Reality is, we don't have anything like herd immunity at this point. That requires about 70% of the people to be vaccinated. We're at 30% who've had all their shots necessary, less than half of what's necessary to have happen. And I think, you know, in the hunger, all of us want to get reopened and stuff, but in the rush to make that happen. And I think we make a big mistake when we think like, oh, well, let's, we're done. Let's get it all opened up and stuff. And it makes me nervous, frankly, when people start to, I'm not an expert. I'm not the one that would make the decision when we're ready to reopen restaurants for indoor seating and having people shop without masks and all that other kind of stuff. But we're not there. And I think people are really like losing it when it comes to the question of understanding that a little bit more patients here a couple of months could make a huge difference because this whole thing could, we went from being one of the, it was in the paper this morning, one of the worst states in terms of the coded hospitalizations, people dying talking about here, deaths, hospitalizations, infections and to precipitously sort of reopen stuff and sort of not, you know, in the design, again, who doesn't think we should, everybody knows we need to reopen the restrooms, make stuff happen as quickly as we can. But I'm not so quick to think though, let's always decide on the favor of opening stuff up in a hurry because we can start all over again and go back to the bottom of the pile. And it wouldn't take that much to make it happen. So that's my view on this question. I'm happy our staff's working on this. Two months seems long, but I understand if you're gonna, it's a physical structure we're building here apparently and you have to have somebody do it and you have to order the parts and everything else. So I get it, but it takes a little bit of time and I'd rather be safe than sorry. That's my individual view. Thank you. Thank you. And Director Dutra. Well, June isn't a couple of months. So it's not like I asked for next week. No, I didn't think anybody was being unreasonable. I just wanted to make that a couple of months. And second of all, we're going into yellow tier probably next week. We're gonna be one of the first, we're probably in the top 10 counties that are gonna be in that tier. And I speak to Dr. Newell at least every other week. And the county believes that we're gonna have herd immunity here in Santa Cruz County probably a lot sooner than other places in the state. So I mean, I'm following the direction of our, our leaders here as well. And if our leaders saying it's starting to look good and that are part of the health department, I think we should be following that. And my biggest thing is that I think using a restroom is a necessity. And we're not to try to like, you know, say, oh, because we're in the middle of COVID, we're actually coming out of COVID. I mean, I'm already back in school teaching. I'm with the students. I mean, if I can be around students and, you know, out in the public and as everyone else is moving out, I don't, and we're not allowing people to use the bathrooms. That's a problem to me. That's all I'm saying. And in two months, we should definitely be at least allowing them to be back openings about the room. Thank you. And Director Gonzalez, you're muted, thanks. Yeah, thank you, Chair. Just, just to wrap it up on my end. You know, it's not so much that I want to be in a hurry but again, you know, we do have to look at who we're serving and we have individuals that we want to get on the bus. But of course, you know, with age sometimes comes a, you have to be a little quicker, as they say. And if you're handicapped, you know, your limitations, right? So if that bathroom was essential for me to be able to get on the bus and commute and know that I can get on the bus and be serviced with a complete service, I'm going to get on that bus. But if I find barriers of saying, well, you know, now there's no facilities open. Well, I'm going to shy away, right? And especially if the facility says, well, you know what, go across the street and use the bathroom at the target or the CVC. They'll let you use their bathroom. Again, we're pushing our clients away, right? And that's not a good marketing strategy. We want our clients to be comfortable, be serviced. And that's part of the things that we need to make sure that we incorporate in our system, right? The strive is to bring ridership back and seeing the station at Watsonville it's a really small building. We've isolated already the salespeople there. It's all out through a window to the side. So walking into that little room and isolating it even more, I just can't, you know, it kind of puzzles me for this Watsonville station, right? It's a little hallway. There's only two bathrooms in there. How much can we do for what's required? We want to try to do for that facility to have it accessible to our community and to our patrons, right? To the people that we want to ride the bus. I want to make sure that we move forward as quickly as possible. I know two months seems like a long time, but, you know, when you have a medical condition and you need to use the restroom two months is an option of saying, I'd rather get a Uber and get to my location quicker. Thank you. Director Koenig. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I also want to agree. I'd like to see the facilities open as soon as possible. You know, let me correct a few of the facts. Today, 50% of the entire population is vaccinated and 87% of people 65 plus the high risk group. 87% of people 65 plus 50% of the entire population of Santa Cruz County. Those are probably underestimates since many people have had to leave our county to get vaccinated or at least, you know, in the early part of the vaccination scheme. So we are doing very well. We fully expect to enter Yellow Tier next week. County facilities are open. The bathrooms in the county building are open. The bathrooms at Metro should be open. Thank you. Thank you, Director Koenig. And Director Henderson. Thanks quickly. Sorry for continuing the bathroom discussion, but it is important it sounds like. Freddie, can you reiterate and just clarify to me an apologies if I missed this. What are some of the challenges that we're facing about reopening the bathroom? Is it a concern about surface cleaning, ventilation? Can you just quickly summarize what some of the challenges are that we're trying to overcome in the reopening process? Okay, so what we're trying to do, we're trying to create a clear pathway to give access to the bathrooms. And we're also working on installing a HIPAA filter so they can dry their hands. So we're trying to get the bathrooms ready and safe as possible for our customers when we come back. So like I said, it's been difficulty going through the procurement process of getting, one of the hardest stuff was we would have to get either an engineer that luckily we were able to find another solution. And that's where we're currently working on is giving a clear pathway to protect our own employees and the public. I'd like to say some of the problems are, like I said, HIPAA filters will help out so they don't distribute all of the, like you said, on the pandemic morning to Watsonville especially, the roof at Watsonville and the lobby is shared with our customer service people. So that one is particularly, it's more difficult to protect our employees and the customers. I don't know if I answered your questions. Yeah, I appreciate the additional clarity and just want to let you know, I understand that there's a ton of layers too, even what seems might seem like a simple thing, but I know that there's a lot of layers and a lot of things that are involved. So keep up the good work, I appreciate it. Madam Chair, if I might try to close this discussion off, we will take all of this information under advisement pulled together to the proper staff and reevaluate. Obviously when COVID hit, it's easier to lock everything down than it is to reopen. So we need to talk about that reopening a little bit more. Also in the last week, I believe CDC has published some information downplaying the need to sanitize surfaces. The transmission doesn't occur very much if at all on surfaces. So we'll go back and reevaluate that too and then let you know what our decision is on timeline and whether we can improve that timeline. Thank you. Okay, seeing no more hands from directors on this, we will move to Labor Organization Communication. I saw that James says his hand up. James, we hear you. Hello. Okay, good morning, Board. James Sandoval here, General Chairman of the Smart Transportation Division representing the bus operators and parent transit operators at Metro. Donna, can I confirm whether that petition was submitted on time? Okay. But we will, let me clarify from, I know we received it, so Alex. It's on the screen now. All right, here we go. Yes, I see it now. Perfect, thank you. And on that petition, you'll see our message and with about 170 signatures and basically it's asking in good faith to have Metro sit down with our unions, both SEIU and smart to talk about some type of stipend with over the $30 million plus of COVID money. You know, I just wanna reiterate that Metro staff is hurting financially right now. Metro was able to keep itself out of the red by lowering operations costs by slashing service and overtime. Our drivers specifically depend on that overtime to live in this county. Cost of living is not cheap here and some of them even have to start working a second job now. And, you know, we've answered the call to provide a solid service during this pandemic despite us being exposed, being in the front of this virus and potentially bringing it home and, you know, hearing stories about over 136 drivers in New York dying from COVID and even more across the nation. Hearing stories about drivers being beaten to death over a face covering requirement. You know, even our own drivers have been spit on. You know, the tensions are real high inside the bus. As you can only imagine, you know, with so many passengers inside the same bus breathing the same air and even a little cough or sneeze. You know, it's just, what we've been asked to do has been, it's very difficult. And, you know, let's remember that our unions forego our raises to help Metro stay afloat when we're in a deficit before. And right now Metro has the money to really show, you know, their employees that they really care about them and what we've been asked to do. And we step up and work tirelessly through this immensely challenging past year. And all we really ask is to sit at the table to talk about this $30 million plus to see if we can figure out some type of reasonable stipend and just go from there. And we really appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you, James. Next we have Jones, Joan Jeffries. Okay, hi, good morning. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Yeah, this petition, it's been signed by over 90% of both of our unions. We really came together on this because we feel that this is something that could benefit us all. And so many of our members have stepped way up, above and beyond throughout this pandemic. Speaking, especially on behalf of the union that I'm in, SEIU, I wanna say that we've all been working especially hard over this last year plus. Some of our members, by the very nature of their jobs, have never had the option of working from home, such as our mechanics and our vehicle service workers, our facilities maintenance workers, and our custodial staff. All of these jobs are so important, but I'd especially now like to call out our custodial service workers who are among Metro's lowest paid employees but who do the most physically challenging and especially since the start of the pandemic, the most dangerous work, cleaning biohazards and keeping our facilities and our buses clean and safe for us and for the public. They are the unsung heroes of our agency. And if any of our members are deserving of hazard pay, it is certainly them. Thank you for considering our petition. Thank you, John. Thank you. All right, anyone else under labor organization? And we will move to Metro Advisory, Mack. Actually on the last item, can I ask a question? Yes. Because of the Brown Act, we can't, we got a petition, we cannot respond to it today. We have to be noticed that it's on an agenda for discussion. And my guess is to our attorney, is this something we would discuss, it's an effect it's, I don't know if it's formally a demand to bargain, but it's an effect, you know, asked for a discussion. And my question is, can it be discussed in closed session? Does it have to, should it take place in an open session? Obviously, again, not at this meeting, but if a month from now or something, if we want to respond to this, what's the legal way we do it? If you want to engage in labor negotiations over the subject, you can agendize a closed session to do that, to give direction to your negotiator. Thank you. That's all I needed to know. Director Gonzalez. You need it, Aurelio. So long I've been doing it, don't forget. Sorry about that. Thank you, chair. I have a question for council in regards to the American rescue plan, maybe she, maybe we'll answer it or not. Does the American rescue plan allow agencies to give bonuses to their employees for this COVID time period that we've been working on? So I would need to do some research, but my understanding is generally it's the same type of rule you follow with gift of public funds, which is that you can't go backwards with the money, meaning no bonus for work that's already been performed, which is that's, that's generally the rule for any, you know, gift of public funds matter, but that you could offer a bonus looking forward. That's just off the top of my head. So please don't quote me on that. And I would have to research it and get back to everybody. Thank you. Yeah. And that was, I had a question was I, oh, and I will, sorry, Jamie, I saw your hand up, but let me just finish this real quick. I understood that there were some restrictions in, in how those funds could be used that didn't, did not allow towards salaries or, or pensions and things too. So, but I'm assuming you would be checking all of those. Yeah, I don't, I don't think you can use that money for a pension. You're allowed to use the money for operational costs, which can include salaries, but I've never heard about anyone using it for a pension, but I, but salaries are okay. All right. Director Dutra. Oh, what's the process of getting it agendized for close session? Do we need to make a motion or do we just, no, I, if you want to agendize it, we will just get it on the next meeting. Yeah. I think I would like that. Thank you. Yeah. I thought that was what, what we were doing. So, okay. All right. And then next, if there are no other questions from directors from the board, then we will go to the Mac, to Mac for next Metro advisory committee and a written communication. I don't see. There's no. So there are none. Okay. Thank you. All right. The next. Additional documentation support existing agenda items. Do we have anything additional to add? Okay. So the next is consent agenda. Are there any. Request for changes to the consent agenda. And do we need a motion to approve? Ask if there's public. Issues. Well. Emotion. And I did mean that, but I should have made it clear. Does the, does the public have any items on the consent agenda? All right. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Motion by director. For approval. I was second to approve the consent agenda. And roll. Okay. So motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Motion made by. Director Rockin and seconded by director Gonzalez. Director Dutra. Yes. Director Gonzalez. Yes. Director Connelly Johnson. Yes. Director Koenig. Yes. Director Lin. Yes. Director McPherson. Yes. Director Myers. Yes. Director Peterson. Yes. Director Rothwell. Yes. Director Rockin. Yes. Yes Director Rockin. You didn't call on me Larry Pagler. Oh I'm sorry Larry. Larry Director Pagler. Thank you. Okay. Motion passed. Yes and I'm trying to pull up the bios that were sent to me and having a little difficulty. Are we able to put those on the screen? Let me see if I can it's one of the files I cannot open but let me which I thought I printed just one moment I've got I think we will I've had some issues with my email program not opening a few of the maybe I can do it this way if we could put the bios on the screen that may solve my may move things faster for me. I think the item you're on first which is the longevity awards we don't actually have a bios on those we simply have the certificates there's only bios on the next item that's coming up number 11. I thought those more accessible. So you just announced the longevity awards. Okay well we do have the presentation for the Employee Longevity Awards for Michelle Fitzpatrick and David Valdez each 25 years of service and want to thank them for their service and maybe give them a round of applause and thank you and then I will hope that I have the Retaria Appreciation and I know I do just one moment while I pull those up I could read those for you if you like that would be great I do have them but they didn't pop up for me as quickly so you've got them right there Mike. Yeah so the first I believe is a resolution of appreciation for the services of Eduardo Biddlecombe as a bus operator for the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District and I'm not going to read all of the where as is but this is a resolution that's an appreciation of service people who are retiring and Eduardo Biddlecombe served Metro with distinction and the services provided the rest of Santa Cruz County by Eduardo Biddlecombe resulted in reliable quality public transportation being available in the most difficult times and while he was here he made a lot of improvements and expansions of our service and makes a real difference to the people that have worked here. He has been a member of the Operations Department of Metro since August 10th 1987 up until April 23rd which would be today and we want to recognize these years of service and his retirement and I'm going to I'll do these if we're a person we'd be doing is individually and handing out things but we're remote so I'm going to say that there's also a resolution of appreciation for William Dove for the service for the district and has also been here during the period when we've made a lot of changes to the service and including you know expansion of the Highway 17 service and a number of other kinds of things the he's been working for us since December 10th 2009 up till yesterday and that's a lot of years of service for both of these folks have made a real difference we also are recognizing the service of Jose Herrera as a bus operator and he's been working for us from the time period of August 10th 1999 up until March 31st 2021 and also again while he's been here and while he's been working as a bus operator there have been a lot of changes in the system and he's obviously helped us provide the service level that's critical to this community so we have I'll make a motion that we approve these resolutions and then we're going to I think we'll be giving these people an opportunity if they're on on the call here to make comments to if they like in their retirement but I move that we approve all three of these resolutions a second motion a second actually a couple seconds Larry too but unfortunately I think we have to do a roll call okay so a motion to approve the retiree resolutions as presented director Dutra yes director Gonzales yes director Colin Terry Johnson yes director Koenig yes director Lind yes director McPherson yes director Myers yes director Pegler yes director Peterson yes director Rothwell yes director Rockin all right okay and I have that with the the motion made by director Rockin and the second by director Paygler okay there were a couple seconds right at the same time so whichever one you got first okay I did I want to go back because I did find the bio for Michelle Fitzpatrick on the longevity that I should have read and would like to share with the board and the public that Michelle relocated from the Midwest to be closer to family Michelle applied for a bus operator to avoid the daily commute over the hill as suggested by a transit supervisor she knew she was a postal worker as was her mother and now needed to get used delivering a completely different kind of package she still enjoys the daily challenges of her job especially when her passengers show appreciation and their thanks she's been married 35 years and is the proud mom of her daughter or proud mother of her daughter who has accomplished violinist Michelle is a flutist artist actually herself and since COVID has become an accomplished baker and gardener she continues to enjoy the long routes from the from one end of the county to the other so didn't want to neglect Michelle's very cute violin she shared was hired in 1996 okay now you want to offer an opportunity if they're on the call opportunity for us to retire and make any final comments they'd like to make to us here can I make a comment real quick yes director Gonzales thank you I actually just want to comment on Tony as he was introduced I've known Tony since we played soccer in junior high he's a very dedicated and aggressive individual and kind hearted at the same time he's actually lives down the block from me so I've been able to see him work on his cars he has some beautiful vehicles but again his dedication to the community and just those who show how small this county really is and how knit and how we where the fabric is knitted together so Tony enjoy your retirement I hope to see you cutting the that y'all lawnmower often out there thanks for your service thanks for sharing this director Gonzales and I see Bill Dove has a hand up can you hear me I do my first time on zoom everybody I just wanted to thank everybody for the career I have I know it's kind of abbreviated but it's still a career and he supported me through some pretty rough times with my health but I managed to stay on and get to this point I just want to thank everybody and thank my supervisors at Para Cruz for their support as well and thank my union brothers and sisters for their undying support thank you thanks for joining us and I really you know appreciate the work you did with Para Cruz real service to our community for that service too so thank you let's have a round of applause for this yeah I was looking at it make sure there was no one else but yes all right well there I don't see anyone else was able to join us but we we really you know everyone appreciate your service and we've been blessed to have each one of you so thank you and next we have our CEO oral report and COVID-19 update thank you madam chair directors I always like to start off with the new hires from in promotion since the last board meeting we had two individuals that were promoted by qualification Ivan Balistaros and Cesar Alvarez Castillo both promoted by qualification we also had Para Cruz operator to bus operator Jose Caronco so congratulations and then in the way of new hires we have a new hire in the human relations department the human resources analyst HR analyst Montese sub sub sub yes sub these I apologize if I mess that up and bus operators Isaiah Benavides Amara Jesus Estrada Matt Kaminsky Gabriela Martinez Johnny Ramirez and Mario Rodriguez and we're particularly pleased to have that class of the new bus operators because they will help us to be able to provide UCSC service in the fall so congratulations to all of those folks and then in the way of CEO comments and COVID updates I'll run through a number of items so again I'm pleased to report that we have not had any new COVID cases at Metro since March 15th so that's really nice to report the updated information about employees that have chosen to obtain the vaccination we're now at 62 percent I saw something about a nationwide survey today that suggested 61 percent nationwide so maybe we're a little bit ahead there although we'd like to see that number come up substantially closer to the so-called herd immunity number bus capacity will increase from 15 to 25 seated on 40 foot buses and 17 seated on 30 foot buses effective May 1 so as we start opening up we will also open up our service I think goes along nicely with the earlier discussion about restrooms following the governor's June 15th announcement on whatever that is this new green tier or whatever he announces on June 15th we'll reevaluate bus capacity again at that time again our journey is to try to get to full capacity by the time the students return and then as soon as May 1st Flix bus you might remember Flix bus you approve the ability to do a contract with them last year I want to say and then they went away for quite some time we pulled our contract they came back we put him on a new contract so thank you Chuck for his work on that Flix could start at Pacific Station as soon as May 1st and they're kind of like mega bus in some ways kind of like Greyhound their inner city interstate type of service discount service this week we were also notified by Congressman Panetta that one of his five district priority projects that he's submitting an earmark for in the reauthorization earmarks is for one CNG articulated bus and two fixed route CNG buses our ask on that is 1.84 million so we've made it through that first step which is for our congressmen to put us on the short list so we'll monitor that and report equally important congresswoman Eshu notified us this week that she's submitting two metro projects for consideration is earmarks and reauthorization one of those is a 10 zero emission bus procurement for highway 17 over the road coaches and of course highway 17 service spans across her district and also she's also submitting seven pair transit band replacements so that's really great news if we happen to get those seven pair transit bands in particular we would be up to a hundred percent state of good repair on pair transit side also apta notified us this week that they the apta organization is supporting or sending a support letter in support of congressman Panetta's HR 583 which is the green bus tax credit for zero emission bus manufacturers and the transit industry is excited about this because if that were to pass and the the manufacturers take advantage of the tax credit the presumption is that some of those credits will flow down to us in the way of cheaper electric buses or reduce price electric buses i'm happy to report also that our fourth protera electric bus has arrived and we are also aggressively training bus operators on the zero emission buses so that we will have everybody trained and be able to launch those zero emission buses in Watsonville in particular in the fall session on that new circulator you've probably also read that this last week earlier this week our on-demand service started so that's exciting for us and weekly ridership into another interesting number as of April 7th was over 23,000 riders now that's way way below still way below pre-covid levels but it looks good on a graph and it's a nice increase from March 20 which is when we started to rise that was 17,000 riders in a week so that's good news going in the right direction unfortunately we had 75 pass-ups the week of April 10th because of our self-imposed capacity constraints and 25 pass-ups the week of ending April 17th and of course increasing the capacity on May 1st should help us with reducing pass-ups and providing a better service overall so Madam Chair and Directors I will include my remarks and I'm happy to answer any questions Director Dutre has a question has his hand up thank you um quick question Alex um the if you do get the vans are you are they going to be electric if the replaced vans so not yet um Daniel and Margo are monitoring that side of the business carefully we've seen some electric vans come across you probably saw that a year or so ago lift line bought some electric powered zero emission vans unfortunately our uses are different because our range is different we need more range out of those so we're monitoring that and and we'll jump over to zero emission vans as quick as they produce a product that will work in our our business also CARB California Air Resources Board currently doesn't mandate the purchase of zero emission vans yet because of these range issues okay and um okay thank you very much Director consults thank you Madam Chair uh Alex I just wanted to uh uh say out um you know for our electric buses and our cng buses and uh hybrid buses that I'm glad to see that the Watsonville fire department and other fire departments that we are being trained on that and how to go in response if they ever need to so thank you for for writing that for our community and that's all thank you Director Gonzales yes and I know that I saw the training in Scotts Valley as well it's good to see the fire department's working on that and appreciate your proactive approach and and scheduling that as you know soon after we got those buses so thank you by the way Madam Chair Kudos for jumping on that you know he's relatively new here and saw that as one of the things we needed to do right away because those buses will be in service in the fall so good job Curtis thank you all right so okay next item and is there any comments from the public on that topic don't see any hands oh wait we do have one Edward Eduardo Montesino yes I'm 17 Eduardo you're breaking up Edwardo maybe turn oh try again Highway 17 the connection's not good Eduardo it's very good hello hello have you heard that try it yeah nothing after your hello Madam Chair he mentioned Highway 17 he might have been asking a question about bus Highway 17 and if that was the question Highway 17 buses will remain at their current capacity constraint because we're restricted to what the Santa Clara County Health Officer has stated as a mandatory capacity constraint for buses so we have to follow for Highway 17 we have to follow Santa Clara County restrictions so their restrictions are they have more strict we are limited restrictions on the passengers Highway 17 bus beyond what Santa Cruz County has and if if you're able to make a comment in the chat if we can try to address it if because we're not hearing you otherwise Eduardo sorry about that hopefully we answered it and we have a hand up for Kernman Kernan good morning members of the board can you hear me yes good morning my name is Kearnan Colby I'm the lead internal organizer for SEIU local 521 just as you know is one of the two unions for Metro workers I'm here today to comment on your evaluation of Alex Clifford the reality unfortunately is that our members have I would be later that would be later in the meeting actually yes oh I'm sorry I'm so sorry so so sorry no that's fine do you want me to comment now or should I just come back later on we we there um we need to have it at the proper time okay I will come back later that's fine all right about that and we are our next item is um going to okay and I'm going to turn to our city attorney review of items we're discussing closed session we're actually number 13 we're not at the closed session yeah I jumped ahead one oh yes and that's I thank you consideration of board support of virtual meetings legislation AB 703 and AB 361 and CEO Clifford will speak on that topic thank you madam chair directors yeah briefly these are two pieces of legislation that are moving through the process if AB 703 were to pass and be signed by the governor that appears to be legislation that would allow I think a permanent change to the Brown Act so that public agencies can continue to use virtual meetings in the same fashion as they are today that one seems to most closely rep replicate the two orders the governor has put in place AB 361 a little bit more restrictive AB 361 would only allow virtual meetings when the agency declares a public emergency either of those would be nice and keeping in mind that they just allow the agency the option doesn't mandate that you do it so to have that option out there for example when we get to the other side of coven returned in person meetings the board might want to explore some all or some number of their committee meetings being virtual if 703 passes you might be able to do that so with that introduction what I'm asking through this item is if you would allow resolution of support to be communicated through cta to the appropriate legislators thank you do we have a motion and do we have discussion first any comments on that on the two assembly bills long as it's optional I'll move that we support that like both of those bills I'll second that we have a motion and a second are there I don't see any hands from the public all right a motion second and we would call for a vote okay motion to approve the board support of virtual meetings legislation AB 703 and AB 361 as presented director rocken making the motion and director Myers making the second I have a question we did a question from yeah so what's going to what would be the cost on updating the infrastructure because if you're going to be in person and then allowing video to come in isn't that going to be a huge upgrade to how the system will be work is there going to be chat I mean how how does that work how does that work yeah I think as it relates to 703 the one that replicates what we do today it would be what we're doing today you you wouldn't have an in-person meeting I mean I suppose you could but you wouldn't have an in-person meeting you would go virtual in lieu of an in-person meeting and director due to our city's talked about that same question and yes that's the feedback we've talked about if we were to do return to in-person meeting but still have some members virtually that there's definitely some expense and some challenges in adjusting and we have looked at the possibility would would to allow public maybe to participate with Facebook or another method but definitely I know I think there's some questions we'll all be looking at is if we were to continue a combined virtual and live meetings there's some challenges and you're probably facing I'm assuming you're looking like I am we wanted anybody else have answers let's get them so that's why I'm confused like that's why I'm kind of you know unsure about this because I feel like there's so much to be you know ironed out in so and I think all the cities and probably the county is going to be dealing with this question as well you know and what happens if you know one city or two cities decide to come back in person and two don't this is going to be like well they are why aren't we you know I just it's going to be it's I think we're we're we're we're about to enter some really I think maybe turbulent times with this with this question because every city is different the county is different every organization like Metro if everyone's doing everything different I think it's going to cause a lot of confusion and and there's going to be a lot of upset people there is I know with us we're something I think similar to what CEO Clifford said we've thought that particularly for some of the closed session emergency meetings that come up you know it would be particularly helpful for those but and then we're looking at as I'm sure everyone will the challenges of how we open up for in person and the staffing to cleansing and what those requirements are going to be so a lot of it's probably unknown and we'll all be hopefully sharing what we learn through either the monthly uh mayors and and directors meetings and city manager meetings and stay tuned we'll we'll be looking to each other for information on that topic director Gonzales thank you chair uh just really quick I don't know if I'm freezing or not but I know that Clifford throws on me chair you froze on me and jimmy you froze on me while you were conversing so for me that whole conversation was just uh totally lost this is one of the problems with uh this this type of meetings right how do we make it equitable for those folks that can't afford good broadband and so I'm I'm looking forward to the in person meetings where we can record as long as this is an option I favor it because it also opens a window for everybody to have access and how we do that in the future is to be seen right uh but again looking through the lens of equal equal ability uh can I afford that brand bandwidth uh into the future maybe not uh as it is right now you know donna you're you're having problems just with your system and so I think those are the questions we need to keep in our mind um we'll move forward thanks yep and I think that's what you miss is sharing some of the same things how we make it equitably and and do it and try to have some consistency in our county which is going to be a challenge all right and I see director right hand yeah as I said when I made the motion I if this we're saying you've got to do this or the other about this I wouldn't be so quick to have made the motion because it's not clear where we want to go and there's a there's certain virtues to these uh meetings that are remote I mean ask ask Jim if he wants to drive up highway one to the meetings that you know early in the morning um but at the same time um or for us to drive the other way for that matter but he's going against he's going with the traffic problem which we don't have usually when we go the other way but this is simply the option for us to consider these possibilities and so that's enough to support because that's a good idea and we can try and figure out what works for us and so that's why I thought this was not a bad idea to support these monthly bills think of it as a tool in your tool bag you don't ever have to pull that tool out if you don't want to got it and I saw that James had his hand up but maybe we addressed it up there it is back up and I'm sorry I saw director McPherson do you want to respond as we and no I just wanted to just relate it to action now for the past three days CSAC has been in its legislative conference and at the top of its list is to address and have the state enhance broadband throughout California especially in the rural areas this is going to be a real effort on the CSAC and I know the League of California Cities is probably going to get into it too so I just encourage you under respective cities and so forth to write your legislators on these bills regarding broadband I don't have the numbers in front of me but it's it's a top priority for CSAC and throughout the state of California I think 20% of California's do not have access to broadband as what was stated well thank you director Pegler and I'll offer appreciation for that effort Bruce because I am one of those individuals who will be losing my DSL service in June and I currently have no options except fairly expensive and slow satellite I think there are between 100 and 300 people in Santa Cruz County affected by AT&T shutdowns so I may be driving into town to connect wirelessly to our meetings wow the worst of both worlds exactly okay all right sorry James um you have your hand up and I'm I'm back to you you may be muted you know he's he's he's James all right can you hear me now yes okay I just wanted to echo the the bandwidth or internet problem I I literally had to hop in my truck and drive a couple miles down the road to you know fix the connection issue so it is a up and a consider when we do finally make that decision I see benefits making this virtual and or in person but you know as long as we're considering all obstacles for everybody and I think just as as thank you James and I think we're all anxious to be able to get back to in-person meetings and from what I'm understanding from CEO Clifford would be we'd probably in in Metro's time it probably more on a special or a co-assessor special meeting more than the regular board meetings some of our committee meetings but it would be just an option to have as as said the tool in the tool bag I know I'm anxious to be able to have in-person meetings again as soon as we safely can do so all right next now I'm going to turn to Julie for description of the I think we need to do the vote oh we do need a vote we did do the motion so I'll do the roll call yes director Dutra yes director Gonzalez yes director Kalantari Johnson yes director Koenig yes director Lynn I director McPherson yes director Myers yes director Pegler I director Peterson yes director Rothwell yes director Rockin I thank you okay it was a good discussion I got distracted sorry about that so now we were to item 14 review of items be discussed in closed session yes thank you chair we've got one closed session on a public employee performance evaluation it's the position is the CEO general manager and as provided on the agenda following the closed session and this is only assuming that the board concludes the evaluation process the board may consider potential actions to amend the employment agreement of the CEO that conversation must take place in an open session so that would be after closed session if the board gets to that place and what what's been suggested is that we will post the results I believe afterwards will be shared with the with the public and then we'll take a recess of or suggested to take a recess 15 minutes to allow everyone to review the recommendation and then we'll have some public comment after that so everyone will have an opportunity to to have some moments review and be prepared to speak on that item after after we return with a 15 minute recess and that's when we would then possibly vote if there's a motion right we would we would not vote until we hear from you do I have that procedure right Julie that's correct okay so we'll move into closed session discuss come back share whatever results that we come up with and then allow time for everyone to prepare any comments and then we will hear from everyone who wishes to speak on this item and I asked that can ask that we resend the link to the closed session and then we should we use the same existing link when we come back to the general meeting can we clarify that before we question or someone I just you should have gotten an email from me with the session to us okay and yeah I would and you would use the same link that we originally logged on for the open session so when we come back to the general meeting we'll go back to the same link from this morning right okay could I ask that you please resend the closed session link I do not have it okay I'll do that right now and then Donna do you want to um address when the meeting is in case some cannot come back yeah that's a good idea thank you um our next meeting will be Friday May 21st at 9 a.m and at this point we anticipate teleconference but we any changes will be announced all right so we will be moving to closed session and see everyone there in a few minutes and come back to public in the uh after the completion okay sorry for such a long delay we had a lot of discussion but we are resuming our board meeting back in regular session as lots of people are joining us and after our closed session we have uh decided to continue this matter to closed section next month and looking for a little more information and we'll have opportunities for for public comment next month on this same topic Julie is there anything that I didn't cover uh just to say that the board took no reportable action in the closed session today yes so no reportable action and but we will be returning next month and there will be an opportunity for public comment at that time before we go into closed session and after and I think that if there's nothing else and no other let's just double check here see any hands or any questions or comments as I can see so we will I believe be adjourning to next month's meeting which was announced I don't have that date in front of me okay so we will be adjourned to Friday May 21st at 9 a.m on teleconference and appreciate everyone's patience and waiting for us thank you okay bye everybody thank you