 All right. Well, let's call today's meeting to order first day of autumn 2022 in the Northern Hemisphere. How about a roll call vote please roll call of who's here. Director Brown. How's that. Director Downing. Present. Director Dutra. Here. Director Cullin Terry Johnson. Okay, we're getting a lot of background. Thank you. Thanks. And director Cullin Terry Johnson is not here yet. Director Lynn. Here, and she told me she would be here so. Okay, I will watch for her then. Director McPherson. I do not see him. Director Myers. Present. Director Pagler. Here. And director Parker is unable to attend and director Rockin. Here. And ex officio director Henderson. Here. And ex officio director North cut. I do not see her. And we do have quorum. Very good. Thank you. And welcome everyone. We'll begin with announcements. I want to note that today's meeting is being broadcast by community television of Santa Cruz County. Thanks for their assistance. Any comments from our board. Any directors have an item they care to raise at the moment. Seeing none. We'll go into the oral and written communications. I know that. Donna last night sent out a, an email that we'd received from Oliver Elm. And I believe this morning she was able to distribute a response from John Ergo on our staff concerning service problems on. Issues on the West side. Looking to the audience. I do see in the public a hand up. From David loves public transit. David go right ahead and comment. If you'd like. Good morning is my audio here. Yes, it is. Great. Yes. I'm David Van Brink. And yes, I am a public transit enthusiast. I'm just some anecdotal comments from recent bus experiences. I saw that new blue bus shelter near Dominican hospital. And those just look great with that sharp lettering on top. And I hope you take this in the spirit intended. It's starting to look very first world. It will also be pretty awesome to get one of those at Juriden station. The stop for the 17 is one of the few that doesn't have like its own shade. And, you know, it would look good there be kind of nice, but it's not as good as it looks. And I think it would be a great idea in the warmer months when waiting in the sun is just kind of brutal. I wanted to share a couple of user experience notes from from the local buses. There is the digital signboard at the front of the bus, which is very, very useful. And it's important if you're not a frequent user of a route to like know where the stops are. And also the time of day is kind of nice. A lot of the buses still have these sort of hanging, but they don't. You're supposed to be on one side of the car or the other to not disturb the driver, but they block the view of the digital signage, which kind of defeats the purpose. Another thing with the digital signage is on some of the buses. As soon as you request a stop, it just freezes all that useful information. And all it says is stop requested. So that would be, you know, something to address potentially, especially for new users or infrequent users. I think that's all. I hope the free fair week is going well. And I hope we get to do it again, even if it's just for a week. I think with a little bit more lead time, some of the various supportive organizations, some of us other fellow transit enthusiasts can do a better job helping you promote a free bus week to get more people to know about this excellent service. Thanks. Great. Thank you, David. See, I can't see my participant list at the moment. You know, I see Bonnie Moore has a hand up. Bonnie, would you like to speak? Yes, please. It was good to sort of see you individually like that. But I've got two questions. One is why are we not seeing the entire board during these board meetings? That's one question. But the reason that I was actually here in order to speak is because I want to speak to the issue of the medical costs. I want to speak to the issue of the medical costs. I want to speak to the issue of the medical costs. Checks that are being mailed to retirees to deal with medical payments. That the district is required to provide to the retirees to cover a difference in some of the medical costs. Currently what you're doing is you make your mailing checks to retirees all around the country. You're giving checks and the checks could be as small as $8 or as big as maybe $50 per month. And this has been going on for quite a while. Where it used to be that you were able to do a direct deposit with these checks, which I think would be much more efficient, especially to deal with some folks that physically have difficulties getting to a bank or an ability to get the checks deposited. And I was wondering about the efficiency of mailing these checks and what the status is with our software. Because our software has always been able to handle doing direct deposits of checks that were going to either retirees or employees. And I'm a little bit concerned as we're all aging here and these checks keep coming. And I do know that some folks have been keeping the checks five, six, seven months because I've helped with getting it processed and calling people to get them to deposit their checks because they were holding on to them because they were so small at the time. And we do have some people that are in nursing homes and do need those checks deposited into their bank accounts. That's my question is the checks for retirees on medical benefits and direct deposit. Thank you, Bonnie. And why I don't see the whole board. I know speaking is one who sometimes has a poor Internet connection. I turn off my video so the audio comes through, but I don't know what the situation is for everyone. Larry, I only see you. That might be a setting in the zoom that you can go to a gallery and see every little box instead of just the person who's speaking. This is Bruce. Can you hear or see me now? Yes, when you speak Bruce, I can see the speaker, but I'm pretty familiar with zoom. I don't have the ability to change anything on your zooms. That's okay. I mean, as long as you're getting, well, I'm here. I was trying to get on, but I'm here. I guess. Okay. I understand that, but I think that the public would, it would be good for the public to be able to see the entire board. Bonnie in the upper right hand corner, there should be an option that says view. And if you click on it, you can switch from speaker to gallery and gallery should give you the opportunity to see more than one person at a time. It doesn't come up on the, um, CTV zoo. Honestly, I'm in here. Well, I think that the things that I could do is I can mute myself at this time, or else you ask me to mute or unmute when I go into the other portion, there, it only allows for microphone changes. Whether on my and, but it doesn't give me the ability to change the view. Bonnie, maybe our community TV folks and consider that I know because on the upper right hand corner, all, all it does is give me the ability to change the size of the screen. All right, well, thank you for your question. I'm going to have to defer to staff to find out the background to the check and direct deposits, but thank you for that question. Oh, thanks for hearing me. Sure. The next hand I see up is from Lonnie Faulkner. Lonnie, would you like to speak? Hi, Larry, thank you so much. I just want to say thank you to the general manager, Michael Tree and Wandomu and others who helped support AB 1919. I know you're probably aware that the governor did veto that, but we do appreciate the work that was done by the bus metro on that. Also really appreciate the ride-free bus weeks here at the end of September and other efforts in support of public transportation. Want to say that echoing David Brambrink earlier in terms of supporting each other in terms of getting out the message. Equity Transit did get out the message on its Instagram and Facebook about the free rides, and we hope to support in other ways as well. And just a thought, we actually did a Spanish language version of the free rides on our site. And when I went to the bus metro site, I didn't see that, perhaps I missed it or maybe it's under a different look, but I know that a lot of the community that rides the bus, some of them are Spanish speaking only and a lot of them are Spanish speaking. So hopefully there is a Spanish, the really nice marketing placards that came out. I didn't see those in Spanish online. And again, thank you for your service. You are an important service to the community. And that's it. Thank you, Lonnie. Lonnie, I see your hand is still up. I don't know if you intend to comment again. There, thank you. Okay. All right, any other comments from our directors? Bruce and Alta, welcome. I see Shebra. We've got a few other folks arrive. I do have a- All right, yes. Who was that? Alta. Alta, go ahead. Oh, thank you. I wanted to express my deepest gratitude to all of you who helped get Cabrillo students on the bus. We had a little bit of a hiccup the first two weeks where bus drivers were telling students, no, made a phone call, Michael Tree, James, wonderful coordination. Thank you for sending that email out and giving us the grace period that we're used to and allowing the students to get in and off the bus. We had an uptick in ridership. So I am excited about that. And since many of our offices now are requiring students to have an ID to utilize resources, when we tell them it's also their bus passes, they are excited about that too as a backup option. So thank you, thank you for supporting Cabrillo students. Thank you. Director Dutra, I see your hand up. Good morning, everybody. I just want to also say thank you to Metro. I was at the fair this past week. I really appreciated the presence of Metro there. I actually took my seventh graders on Thursday and they all got to get on the bus and smelled brand new. It was a really good experience. They spun the wheel, they got prizes. And I really appreciate that presence down here in South County. Thank you, Michael, for making sure that that happened. I know this has been a traditional annual thing, but it really continues with the education of what services we do have and I appreciated it. So thank you for being at the Santa Cruz County Fair this year. Thank you, Jimmy. Any other comments from our directors? If not, I'm going to go to see if any of the labor organizations here to contact us. I see a hand, Brandon Freeman. Brandon, good morning. There you are. Good morning, Larry. Good morning to the rest of the board as well. I'm Brandon Freeman. I'm the senior vice chair filling in for James today. I had a couple of comments that I wanted to make last month. Unfortunately, it was my turn for the COVID roller coaster. So I was unable to make it. One of my primary functions with the union here is to deal with the scheduling internally and making sure that those things happen. And I wanted to apologize to the board for some of the issues that we had getting the schedule off of the ground. I'm glad that we were able to find compromise internally to make sure that all of the service was where it needed to be. On that note, I do want to gently remind the board that when it comes to the service that we're providing under our current shortage and the shortage that we've had for over a year now, there's more cost to this than just what's on the paper or just numbers or just money. There's a cost to us in terms of fatigue. It used to be something special when you would have a big overtime guy that legally was not allowed to come back to work because he hit his maximum amount of 80 hours in the eight day period. That's not rare anymore. That's becoming common. And I really hope that it's not lost on the board or the public that when we have to make changes to the service, it's not because we want to. It's not because we're just looking for something to do. It's because we're really, really struggling to cover on a daily basis. And I really want to make sure that the attention is paid here to these guys who are pushing 80 hours a week to the supervisors who come in here every day and have to figure out how to cover 20 to 24 shifts, how they're going to make that happen. They're constantly working. The schedulers are constantly working. There's a real human cost to making sure that the schedule goes off every day. And while we do apologize for drops and interruption in service, I just want to remind you guys it's not ever because we want to. It's not ever because it was our intention, but we do burn out. It is very difficult and we have been doing this for a very long time. So I hope you guys understand that when we come with these different changes and these different issues, it's because we absolutely have to. We do have a limitation on how much we can perform. It does go up and down, depending on how much you use us. But I definitely want to put it out there and thank some of the people that make this service happen and make both you guys and the public aware that there are a lot of people behind the scenes from our transit supervisors, to our operators, to our schedulers, to even our managers to make sure that the service is on the street. So let's not forget about those people. And I also want to thank our new CEO, Michael, who really has been willing to be hands-on and find solutions between us and the service and the board and just any situation in which he's needed. With this last bid, when we were planning, there's contractual obligations towards when things have to be done that was not met on the last time. It wasn't an issue. It was very easy for me to say, hey, I have a problem, Michael immediately stepped in and said, okay, let's figure it out. I just really want to make sure you guys know these issues that we have come up, these used to be massive issues, big fights that never really got resolved and it's been a complete 180 from that with Michael. So I wanted to also give him a little shout out and let you guys know that internally, the things that he's doing here with terms of his leadership and his willingness to work and understand what our situation has been absolutely amazing for us. And then on the last personal note, also last month I received my 10-year longevity and I wanted to thank you for the words that you had to say for me and that award. Thank you. Thank you, Brandon. And also congratulations again on your longevity and thank you to all the staff and operators from I will say it for myself but I think the board feel the same for coming through and providing the services during this rather stressful time. Perhaps, Michael, during the CEO's report could update us on how we're doing on recruiting new drivers, that'd be helpful. And I also hope all of the directors received the promo cards that we can distribute to people who might be interested in driving. Yeah, we did. Those are great. Yeah, I've been using Mon. All right. Next item is Metro Advisory Committee. I don't know if we have James or anyone here today. There are none this time. All right. And Donna, any additional documentation to support existing items? There is none. All right. Well, that takes us to the consent agenda which has quite a few items on it this month. Any items the directors care to discuss beyond the passage of the consent agenda? Anyone care to take a motion? I'll wait till we hear whether the public want to weigh in. Thank you. I'm also looking to the public if there's any items on the consent agenda that they care to comment on further discussion. I'm looking at the list. I'll give it a couple more seconds here but not seeing any hands rise. I'll move approval of the consent agenda, Rotkin. Thank you. I'll second. Right. We have a motion from Rotkin, a second from Dutra. Any discussion? Donna, I think we can go ahead with the vote. Okay. Director Brown. Aye. Director Downing. Aye. Director Dutra. Aye. Not sure. Shebro is having some issues with her internet. I just don't know. I'm used to it. Okay. Director Connery Johnson. Aye. Director Koenig. Aye. Director Lin. Aye. Director McPherson. Aye. Director Myers. Aye. Director Pagler. Aye. Director Rotkin. Aye. And the motion passes. Very good. That brings us to the regular agenda in our Employee Longevity Awards. And this month, we have only one. It's for Leo Pena, who's celebrating 20 years with Metro. I'm gonna read a brief bio here. Leo has been with Metro for 20 years. He started his career as a vehicle service worker in 2002 and promoted the bus operator after four years. Leo has always focused on his education and improving in any job he does. He attained his college degree and applied for and was promoted to supervisor. As a transit supervisor, Leo was proficient at every job he did and demonstrated he was a good candidate for the position he holds now, Safety and Training Coordinator. Leo is a proud father of two successful young women, one of which recently graduated and is now pursuing her career in nursing. He continues to train new operators and take pride in his work and the success of Metro. And I'd like to acknowledge him for that great appreciation. Training is important right now, maybe more than ever. And with that, we go to the oral report from Michael. All right. Can you hear me okay, Chair? Sounds great. Sounds great. Well, listen, yeah, happy first day of autumn as the temperatures are falling, the ridership is rising, which is good for Metro. I had the chance to get out yesterday and be in the system during the official first day of class with UC Santa Cruz. And you know what? I think it's what the bus operators live for even though they're working really demanding schedules right now to pull off the service level that we've promoted to the public. When there's a full bus, they're happy. I mean, it's what we're in business for is to carry people. And so I just wanted to say, I think staff's totally recognizing that we're not up to pre-COVID service levels and that's creating issues. And I think there are even issues before pre-COVID in the first couple of weeks, usually up the fall semester. You just have a lot of students wanting to ride the bus. And I think, I view that not as a problem. I view it as a challenge certainly, but I view it as an opportunity as well to be able to accommodate in the future, not having pass-ups or at least not as many and being able to capture that ridership. So it endures through this semester. But I will say, we do have a lot of service on the road, especially in regard to how many operators we actually have. And I think Brandon brought that out. And it just goes without saying, I'm deeply appreciative for the operators, whether they be on the fixed route or the para crews, the door-to-door that are really working a lot of hours to make sure people can get from one point to another and get that transportation need taken care of. We're aware of the pass-ups, especially on Bay Street in that corridor which leads directly onto the campus. And I think dispatch is doing a really good job of taking any available operator if there is one and getting them onto the route when there's pass-ups to basically start mid route and pick those folks up. Chair or a board member, Roth can ask about kind of where we're at currently with operators. We do have nine still in the current class and we're hoping to get them graduated, licensed and trained and on the road in November. There's just a lot of training that goes on to make sure that as they're driving and operating there and they're doing so in a real professional manner. And we have a current recruitment that's ongoing right now, we've currently got 16 applications and that recruitment closes here in the next week or so. So much appreciated if you've got a card that you're handing out to friends, neighbors whoever it might be in regard to our need for operators. I think that makes a difference. And so we're hoping to have another class. Hopefully we can get that class similar to the past class or the most recent class of where we entered 10 into training. We've got a ways to go though. We're at least 20 to 25 operators down and I kind of give you a range because we have some folks that are considering retiring in the near future. And so when you take them into consideration which is important that you're not only losing really experienced operators but just simply how many you're short today is not how many you'll be short tomorrow. And so I think staff as I've certainly taken a renewed interest this week as classes come back in and I've seen how busy the bus system is to just do whatever we can do at the staff level to not only get folks into classes but to have more classes. I know Margo's been working with Anna Marie and the trainers on how to have more classes and move more people through so that we can have that additional support. I do wanna say something about Fair Free. That was an idea from John Ergo. And it is a great, I felt like it was a great thing to do to introduce the fall changes to introduce new students who may have been pondering or considering the bus system. And I have seen definitely an uptick in ridership not only from students but from the general public as they're out and about. And I do wanna give a big shout out to ParaCruz because whenever you take the fixed route system for Fair Free, you automatically take your ParaCruz system for Fair Free and they've had an uptick of about 20% in the ridership. And then of course you've got your customer service staff who handle the phone calls to book those rides who have had an uptick in the volume of calls coming in. So these are folks just going way above and beyond I think to make sure folks get accommodated. And it's just great. I think there's a general great vibe at the agency about lots of people being on the system and how to keep that going. I do have just a couple of other thoughts. I know we've got a workshop coming up so I'll just kind of temper my thoughts knowing that we'll meet again soon but I do wanna just update you on COVID. It just seems like that's becoming more and more perhaps in the rear view mirror in the recovery process. It's manageable here at the agency. We currently only have one positive in operations and all of our departments have left that minor outbreak status. So that's important and certainly everybody's happy about that. I do wanna note that on September 28th we'll have our safety department and our fleet maintenance department hosting our annual electric bus refresher training electric bus fire refresher training so that all the local fire departments can come and get acquainted with our electric buses and how to work with them in the event of an emergency. So that's again on September 28th. As you've heard in regard to legislation, AB 1919 had passed through the legislature was on the governor's desk for consideration. It was in regard to a grant program that would allow youth to ride free on public transit and the governor vetoed that basically citing that the bill would have a significant pressure on the state's general fund in a more of a long-term fashion. And so I felt like that was a good program and that would have made a difference. I really feel like it'd be great to get a pass in the hands of junior high and high school students and to fill in gaps with the university and the college. So we'll keep working on that with advocacy behind the scenes and keep working with RTC, I think, on ideas and ways in which we can successfully get that pass program up and going. Final thought on legislation, Wandomu, your capital planning and grants manager was selected to be on the legislative committee at the California Transit Association. So I think that'll help even gain some more influence on the legislation that moves and being able to make sure things that are important to Metro are being talked about in that committee because that committee decides how to support and emphasize legislation that moves through Sacramento. Lots of opportunities to promote the bus system coming up. So big kudos out to Danielle and what she does there, you've got the California Clean Air Day on October 5th, which is a Wednesday. We'll run fair free and have a booth at the Pacific Station. You've got UC Santa Cruz downtown day on Friday, October 7th, just two days later and we'll be having a booth downtown at the Pacific Station to talk to students about the ridership and the bus system and how to make that an easy transition for them. And then I, under public comment, we had a comment from David and Chair, if it's okay, I'd like to, you just show you a couple of slides real quick. Are you sure? Let's see here, everybody see that, all right? So actually it wasn't David that brought this up, but you did have a fantastic booth in regard to the fair and what happened at the fair. And it doesn't- Jimmy Dutcher brought that up. Jimmy, yes, Jimmy did. You know, this shows the booth kind of, during setup, I think. But every time I went by this booth, while I was at the fair, there were like 20 people in line to spin that wheel to get a prize and to talk about the system. And I do wanna recognize just the tons of volunteers, folks that man the booth to talk to folks about the bus system and to get them up onto the new bus and smell that new bus smell, sit in the seat, get a picture of their young, their youth-aged child in the seat. Those are big moments of introducing the bus system to the public. And certainly James Sandoval, you know, your local 23 smart president in the picture with operator Donovan Castaneda, you know, just showing a lot of smiling and a lot of positive energy at that event. So the next slide is in regard to what David brought up in public comment. And I do wanna highlight these. This is entirely the work of your marketing department, you know, Danielle. We basically took delivery of some shelters and rehab them. I think they came from VTA down in San Jose, but we put a really great looking blue onto these shelters to really match, you know, where we live and the environment. And then Danielle came up with this really creative idea of having, you know, die-cut lettering that's acrylic at the top of these stations to give it a really modern look. And so we've got a handful of these shelters. We're gonna put them on to SoCal. This one here is on SoCal next to the hospital. There's a sister stock across the street that matches it. And additionally, we're gonna unroll or unveil some new trash receptacles to accompany the stops on SoCal in Santa Cruz. It'll be really attractive and keep the area clean. So I did wanna give a shout out to Danielle. I thought she was like amazingly creative at, you know, putting a bus shelter in place that you just don't normally see in a city. I call it eye candy, but it really is attractive as you're driving by. So that was, you know, just a total go above and beyond effort by Danielle. And I think the maintenance team, the facility team in making that happen. And it'll be fun to get your feedback on what that, you know, how you like that shelter and that design. And we'll talk a little bit more about it at the workshop coming up. And I, you know, I think that's it. Other than just to recognize on October 14th from nine to one, we'll meet in this workshop. Again, I just wanna remind the board we're gonna talk about the results of the survey that we're doing with the community. It's a fantastic survey that asks them about trade offs and what's important to them and what they wanna see in the bus system. And we'll talk about opportunities for some adjustments in the routes and increases in the ridership, have an opportunity for the board to get way in and give some input on that. Again, from one of the most talented transit planners in the nation that'll be visiting during that workshop. We'll talk about zero emission buses what we're doing with your master plan and your implementation plan and get your comments on that. And then also talking about a pretty innovative partnership that will unveil soon with the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and the saving the Redwoods League that's designed to increase ridership and really just reaffirm to the community that we're a powerful force and being able to protect the environment and mend the environment. And then finally we'll talk about housing. You've got several housing projects in motion on Santa Cruz Metro property. So we wanna make sure the board's aware of not only what we're doing, but the opportunities that are coming up that the board can have as consideration. So Chair Pegler, that concludes. I'd be happy to provide any comments or answer any questions you might have. I see a couple of hands up from directors. Let's start with Director McPherson. Yeah, I just wanna say talking about reaching out and so forth, Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary had its 30th anniversary of over, I think 300 people there. And Michael was there. I was just sorry I wasn't able to take you around and say hello to more people, but it's great to see him out there. And just expressing as he just said, the importance of public transit in our environmental protection. It was a tremendous event at the, I was really happy to see Michael there. Not surprised, but it was great to see you there. Great, thank you. Director Rotkin. Thanks, Larry. I have three brief comments. First, it's only anecdotal, but this fall, yesterday, my first class at UCSD, for the first time in 20 years, nobody was late because they had been passed by a bus. So I know we're having problems, but let's put it in perspective. I mean, it's always been an issue on the first day of class, even when we had full workforce. And I think people are doing a good job of trying to manage the shortage. And as good as it could be done, given the problem. So I wanted to appreciate that. And as I say, it's only anecdotal. I'm sure somebody was passed by and late for class, but it wasn't my class for the first time in 20 years. The other thing is, I wanted to appreciate Michael Tree and his work for us already in the short time that he's been here. First, just quickly, I got a call from a local politician's aide asking about help for a Ukrainian family to get transportation needs met, the refugee group here. And Michael fixed that problem, like literally in a day or a couple of hours and incredibly responsive. And I really wanted to appreciate that. But even more, I want to appreciate, and this is based on Brandon's comments, but things I've heard from other drivers and other members of our staff. It's nice to have a positive morale among our staff and to have people really feel good about the general manager and the work that he does for us. And I don't want to take that for granted. Michael, you can just get it because he has a nice smile or something. He's been out there working and connecting with people. And we should appreciate that morale means an awful lot to our district. And you can't buy that with just money. Money always helps in some way, but it's not the only issue. And the direction that we're getting from the top of our management staff is I think really critical to that. I just wanted to really appreciate it. So thank you, Michael. Thank you, Mike. Any other comments from our directors or questions? Not seeing any hands from the public if they have a moment. Oh, I do see one from Lonnie Faulkner. Lonnie, would you like to raise a topic? Have a question. Yes, I actually have a question. I am really excited to hear about, I've heard that Jared Walker is gonna be coming and speaking. I'm wondering if that workshop is going to be recorded for the public that we might also attend and also want to just piggyback on David's earlier comment, just these beautiful bus stops. I've been noticing them as I ride my bike around town or even drive around town or have ridden the buses and they are beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you. Michael, can you respond to that? Yeah, Donna may be the more appropriate person to respond but I do know that it's in-person, it is a public meeting so the public is invited to attend that workshop and we'll certainly put an agenda out and post it as a public meeting. Donna, I can't remember. Remind me, have we contemplated recording that meeting? We will be, we are required to have an audio recording of that and that'll be available after the meeting. Very good. All right, thank you. And I'm sure we'll keep you posted on the access to the upcoming workshop. Any other comments, any other questions? I'm seeing none. That brings us to announcement of our next meeting, our next board meeting, which will be on Friday, October 28th at 9 a.m. Once again, a teleconference call. And with that, I believe we adjourn today's meeting. All right, thank you all.