 Well, still just nine. Is Shebra in? We do have four of them. All right. We do, seven. Yeah, just I knew Shebra needed the link, and so we'll just... All right. And then Don's system just crashed, so we need to give her a few minutes to get back up on board here. All right. Well, it's just barely nine, so oh, 901. So we'll just give it just a second here for Don, and also... I just sent the link to Shebra also. Perfect, thank you. Watching for Don to come in as well. Yeah, I didn't think about that this morning, but it is likely that our system could go down. Right, and I think we've all seen that Metro's been dealing with some extreme challenges in the IT section, so we will be understanding. And keep in mind, we've got that announcement on the agenda that if Zoom doesn't work, that there's a call-in number, so people can call in, and it doesn't have to stop the meeting. All right, thank you. And let's see, do we have Dan Henderson? Oh yeah, there he is. All right, I think just Don, right? Once we get Don and Shebra in. Shebra's in. Good, all right. Yeah, we're just waiting for Don. Yep, and Don'll let me know when she's here. I'm trying to watch in case I miss. Yeah. Having a fun week, Isaac? Probably not fun. I was being facetious, obviously. I know that. We're sympathizing. Interestingly enough, I was on vacation and Maui and this whole thing went south, so. Where were you? Yeah, Maui. Oh, wow. It was in Lahaina with some friends, and of course, I also had the joy of getting yield COVID, so. Oh. So, everybody's, everybody did this. Yes. It can't come to the screen, can it? Yeah. Anyway, so, fortunately, the team was able to get things back into work. Are you feeling okay? Yeah, I'm actually feeling fine. It was not as, it was probably the Omicron variant. So, just flu-like symptoms, that sort of thing. So, I'm on the tail end of it. So, I'm getting better. Good. Well, and I've run to have, who have got it, who have got it. Dawn's here. Oh, good. All right. My apologies. That's all right. Not your fault. Yeah, major system issues. I had to do a hard reset. Okay. Well, if everyone's read, I'm going to call the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District Board of Directors meeting for January 28th to order. And our first order of business is why we need Dawn here, particularly is us wearing in of our directors. Yes. Thank you. Good morning. So, we are swearing in the following reappointed board members. Dan Henderson, representing UCSC. Shebra Kalantari Johnson, representing the city of Santa Cruz. Manu Koenig, representing county of Santa Cruz. And Alta Northcat, representing Cabrera College. We are also swearing in two new board members, Rebecca Downing, representing county of Santa Cruz. And Ari Parker, representing the city of Watsonville. So, with these six directors, please unmute themselves and raise your right hand and repeat after me. I will start by saying, I, and then if you each can please state your name, and then as a group, you'll repeat after me. Okay, so we'll start, I. Ari Parker. Hi. Rebecca Downing. Manu Koenig. Alta Northcat. Kalantari Johnson. Did we lose Dan? Dan Henderson. There we go. There we go. Okay, so I, all of your names, do solemnly swear to affirm that I will support and defend the constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state. Don, you shorter phrases, they won't follow. I'm sorry? You shorter phrases for them to follow you because it's too. Oh, no, no, no, they've already stated their names. So then I'm just gonna read. Oh, okay, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. So they need to repeat after you. Yeah, they, okay. So just do like half a sentence and then they'll repeat and then, yeah. You can't remember all of that really quick, not just kidding. I was working on it. Okay, okay, so I, and then you already said your names, do solemnly swear or affirm. Do solemnly swear or affirm. That I will support and defend the constitution of the United States. That I will support and defend the constitution of the United States. And the constitution of the state of California. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That I will bear true faith and allegiance. That I will bear true faith and allegiance. That I will bear true faith and allegiance. That I will bear true faith and allegiance. That I will bear true faith and allegiance. That I will bear true faith and allegiance. That I will bear true faith and allegiance. That I will bear true faith and allegiance. That I will bear true faith and allegiance. That I will bear true faith and allegiance. That I will bear true faith and allegiance. That I will bear true faith and allegiance. constitution of the state of California, that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter. The duties upon which I am about to enter. Wonderful, congratulations and welcome and welcome back. Thank you. Well that was the first swearing in I've seen on zoom and definitely interesting but not as I wish we could all be in person to applaud you all. Thank you. I do see a hand although I just don't see something for the public comment but I will call on Brian. Brian did you intend to have your hand up for the swearing in? Yes, thank you. This is Brian from Trail Now. Thank you for allowing us to make a public comment. Trail Now is a large organization we've been around for 10 years, thousands of local supporters. We actually supported Measure D. We initially came out opposed as a pack because of the language in it. It had a lot of money towards the train and towards giving money for a new train station Monterey and it was adjusted and we became a big supporter and we're glad that it passed and so we switched from a post pack to a supportive pack and recently we supported did a lot of the volunteer work for the Greenway initiative. But what I wanted to communicate to the Metro Board is thank you for allowing us to speak about the Santa Cruz Coastal Corridor and the importance of applying the federal rail banking process to preserve it for future public transit and opening the Interim Coastal Trail Now. The Santa Cruz Coastal Corridor is one of three transportation corridors Highway 1, Soquel and Coastal that are critical for our community. All three corridors need to be open to allow for effective transportation across the county. Opening the Coastal Corridor for active transportation has been shown to be the most effective use of the corridor to improve mobility across the county. In order to protect and preserve the public resource for transportation, the federal rail banking process must be applied. The federal rail banking process has been applied hundreds of times across America to preserve transportation for transportation corridors for future public transit. To protect this publicly owned resource, RCT Executive Director must be authorized to apply federal rail banking process. Authorizing the Executive Director to negotiate with private companies is needed to protect this valuable public publicly owned transportation corridor. We asked the Metro representatives on the RTC Board to support the Executive Director the recommendation to apply federal rail banking process to Santa Cruz Coastal Corridor. Thank you for your time and happy Friday. So I think that was the public comment for item 7. I know. And so instead of speaking at that time, Brian, that was your opportunity that would normally fall under oral communications. This was anyone wanting to comment was only on the swearing in congratulating our new directors. Next we have roll call Donna. All right. Director Downing. Here. Director Dutra. Present. Director Conn Terry Johnson. Present. Director Connick. Here. Director Lin. Here. Director MacPherson. Here. Director Myers. Present. Director Pagler. Here. Director Parker. Here. Director Peterson. Present. Director Rockin. Here. Director Exofficio. Director Henderson. Here. And Exofficio Director Northput. Here. And we have quorum. All right. Well, welcome everyone and nice to have all our new directors joining us. We now have today announcement as today's meeting is being broadcast by Community Television Santa Cruz County. Thank you. And hopefully we get through our meeting with no technical glitches. You bring us good luck. So are there any Board of Director comments? I skipped over the Board of Officers and Committee Reports assignments and that is mine. So I have submitted this late and I reached out to all the directors at that time for any suggestions and changes assignments or any input and I had heard back from everyone eventually. I had, Jimmy and I hadn't connected and misunderstood there. So I had gotten input before I had completed the slate from everyone else. And I know that one of the questions has come up is I had new information on who was being appointed by the county or Watsonville at the time the slate had to be completed. And they weren't sworn in at that point. My thinking as far as I know, I've had some outreach on placing the Watsonville representative who is now Mayor Parker and congratulations as an alternate is that when Aurelio Gonzalez withdrew and there was Watsonville had appointed Alta, who is our ex-officio director from Cabrillo into that position. I had no information of anyone that might be interested or involved with Metro wanting to be involved with Metro. So not having that input, not having someone who had demonstrated some interest and willingness to serve. I did move up Larry from the alternate to the RTC position. There's been request for Mayor Parker and my thinking and my creating that slate was to allow Mayor Parker to have an opportunity to gain some experience and get to know what Metro's challenges are so that she can best represent Metro when I'm in the RTC. And that certainly is something that I think has generated some conversation. So I wanted to explain, I would love to see the South County representation. My thinking was given opportunity to get to know Metro and challenges. I know there are some who wanted to have comments. So if I can, I think I'd open it up for a comment from the directors first. If there's hands on that. Monica. Thank you, Chair Lend. Yeah, I appreciate all the work that you have done to propose these slates. It's always one of the the pleasures and challenges of being a chair of any of these organizations and appreciate your reasoning as well. I just want I don't know if it's appropriate now, but at the right time, I'll suggest two alternate slates. One for Vice Chair nominating Jimmy Dutra as Vice Chair for I suppose Slate 2 and one alternate RTC slate that would include Kristen Peterson, Mike Rotkin, and Ari Parker. And to your point, or tried to have one representative from each section of the county on the RTC slate and as much as I do appreciate the times that ultimately really both Mike and or directors Rotkin and Pegler have shown up to the RTC. It's a those can be long and grueling meetings. And but I think it's important that we have representation from throughout the county as well as from elected officials where possible, as opposed to appointed. I am excited to have and supportive of Director Pegler as our chair for next year. Thank you. Jimmy Dutra. Thank you. And I do want to say thank you chair. I know it is hard, you know, to put it together these slates and but I do want to, you know, make it very clear that we only have two members representing South County on this board out of an 11 member board. So it's important that, you know, both of our voices are being heard through all the conversations. I highly believe that Director Parker is a person who will be able to catch on quickly and represent our portion of the of the county fairly. And her voice desperately does deserve to be on the RTC. And the voices need to be evenly shared across the entire county. So I support that. And and I, as you know, I've been on the sports since 2014 break for two couple years. But I, you know, having a voice represent South County on the executive board is it was extremely important. And we have a station down in South County that, you know, has to have a voice representing it. We have people that depend on this every single day are our are our bus trips. And and so I know that, you know, I would I would love to represent us as the Vice Chair if Director McPherson is okay with it. And, you know, I can continue to be a big voice for all of us. So thank you. And are you Parker? Okay, thank you. Thank you, Director Lynn. You know, I very much appreciate the conversation that we had last week. And I understood your reasoning. I do know that that that you're very organized and I appreciate that to becoming mayor. That's one of the key components of of an elected when you have so much to do. I am going to say I feel that the proportional representation for South County is better served by Supervisor Koenig's slate than the slate you put forward. I am a quick study. I'm 34 years a teacher. So learning is my business. And I will be happy to meet and discuss with anybody on Metro their points of view and representation. But as as representation, I am here to represent South County. And I think it's very important that an elected South County voice is on the RTC. And I thank you very much. I do also want to support Director Dutra as Vice Chair and appreciate and looking to get to know everyone that is here. Thank you for the time. And also, I want to thank you all for the opportunity, especially to direct the Dutra for the opportunity to serve on RTC for your confidence in me and being able to represent South County and for the opportunity to learn the things that I have learned. And I'm happy that we have folks who are jumping at the bit to be in this position to get those emails to be responsive to the community. I am delighted to be able to at any point mend my support to all of the work that we're doing for our community and our counties. And as we represent, but I'm happy with the I didn't find the folks who can serve in a different capacity. Yay. Thank you all time. Thank you for your service. Director Rodkin. Let me say I think that any members of this board are capable of serving any of these positions. But I support the Chair Lynn's slate of nominations. I'm not going to give a long speech about it. I think what's characterized this board over many years and even now decades is the way in which the board operates to represent the interests of the entire county. And we've been fortunate in not having kind of battles or fights in which, you know, members represent the narrow interests of narrow, let's say narrower interests of their particular constituencies. You know, so that, for example, when we're looking at issues of bus routes, I think the board has been very good about trying to figure out where the priorities are and not having everybody say, well, I want them in my district or I want them in my city. So I support the slate that's been proposed and the logic that the Chair laid out for why she made the nominations that she did. That's all I wanted to say. And again, that's no not meant in any way as a slight against the alternate slate that Manning proposed here. Are there any other hands? I don't want to miss anyone. I would just like to make one comment is, and I chaired with Director Dutra, I had not listed him because last year he told me was not really available to serve on committees and just very busy as a teacher and I understood that. And so he's not been able to serve actually only on the one committee that personnel that meets rarely. So that was a challenge. You know, in a chair and vice chair, you have many, many meetings that you're on most of the committee. So that is definitely challenging when you have very important, certainly don't mean to in any way lessen the importance of Director Dutra's teaching position. But that was one of my concerns that he addressed when we spoke. So Director Dutra. Well, I appreciate your comments, but I have also served as chair. So I understand what the responsibility is as a chair, and as a vice chair. So I just felt your marks were a little bit condescending. And you know, I would hope that we can all work together. Your slate actually cuts out all of South County from any position. So I hope that the board members can see that. Thank you. Director Dutra, I did not mean it to be condescending, just explaining my thinking of feeling concerned with what I knew that you wouldn't be available to serve. And you and I've spoken and you've told me that you've made changes in your schedule, but I was simply reasoning my the reason for that decision. Director Parker. Thank you. I appreciate that. In doing my research, it does say January or February that these committee assignments can be brought forward. And so I'm bringing it as early as this. And you know, we've had a little bit of turmoil in Watsonville getting our new. We have lots of new positions that are that are happening. So we do appreciate the the board's patience with having seated us today. But I do have to say that it is not about a narrow focus. I am totally about Metro. That's who I am. And I have been since I was a kid and I wrote it all the time and through college. And I'm not about fighting for just my neighborhoods. I think Councilman Dutra and I can say that we work for the best interest of Watsonville. So we have a great given take across the whole city. So that's who we are. And as elected, that's who will continue to be. But we do bring a perspective from South County, not North County, but South County specifically to the Metro and the needs of the people of Watsonville for Metro services. And thank you, Alta. And great appreciations to Director Dutra for appointing you in the interim time between in our transition. So thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Now, procedurally, if I understand correctly, then we would need a motion for each of the two slates. If that's the case, am I correct, Julie? That's correct. You would want to have a motion and vote on each of those slates. Okay. A point of order to those slates, to those motions seem to be separate for Yeah, is it possible just to vote like, you know, in favor of slay one or slay two? Yes. Slay one being Donald, the chair slayed and then the man who slayed is the second choice. Yeah, but it would work. One additional point of order. Do we, my understanding was that we do the nominations today, but the votes on February 25th. So if we're voting now, is it simply to accept the slates? Let me, let me just check. I thought we were voting. Yeah, I thought we were voting actually to pick them. Yeah. Yeah, normally we vote in February to do the actual appointments. And this one here is just to kind of open up the nomination process. Oh, then I move we accept both slates for consideration in February. Okay. Julie, that sounds like it works to me. Yeah, that works. Okay. All right, we need a roll call vote. We have a motion. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, Deborah, I, I miss you. Sorry. I was wondering if we could have director Koenig slate posted up or just reiterated it went really quickly. Yeah, I'm happy to repeat it. If that's okay with the chair. That's laid for an alternate slate to for vice chair of Jimmy, Jimmy Dutra. And then for the representatives to the RTC slate to would be Mike Rodkin, Ari Parker, and Kristin Peterson. And then there's an all you have an alternative also for the alternates in that case, right? Then yes, both the alternates for the RTC would be Deborah, Colin, Terry Johnson, Larry, Pegler and Donald. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Is there any further discussion on and then before we have a roll call? Okay, I, I believe Mike rock and made the motion. Correct. Yeah, I did the second. Yes, director Koenig. Okay, thank you. Then the roll call would be director Downing. I director Dutra. I director Colin Terry Johnson. I director Koenig. I director Lynn. I director McPherson. I director Myers. I director Pagler. I director Parker. Yes. Director Peterson. I director Rockin. I and the motion passes. Madam chair. Yes. Can I also clarify by asking our legal counsel? I believe that people can still make another slate if they want. I'm not proposing that people do that, but that they have a legal right to make the proposal at the February meeting as well. Slates could be added at that meeting as well. Is that correct? I believe it is. There's no election until that meeting. So if folks nominate others before then or at that meeting, that's fine. Again, I don't intend to and I was not encouraging it, but I just think people should be aware that that's an option. Thank you. Are there any comments from the public seeing no hands? All right. We will move next to the next to the board of director comments. Does anyone have comments on something not on the agenda? Yeah. Madam chair, I just wanted to note that I forgot to introduce this resolution honoring Alex Clifford, our former CEO, and I have put that one together and I think we're going to go to that, but just want to let people know it got by our board of supervisors. So I did it personally as a board member and a member of Metro. So I think we should do that as well here. I will make sure I include you when we get down to the retirements and longevity. So thank you. Very good. Thank you, Bruce. Yes. Can I ask Dawn if she plans to say anything about the funding that was just received for Pacific Station North Project during her comments? Yeah, I was going to. Then I won't say anything now. That's fine. I just wanted to make sure somebody announces it. Yeah, Mike, thanks. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure the rest of the board was aware. As you all know, the Metro North, both Metro South and Metro North projects have been longstanding projects on the capital improvement list for, I don't know, Mike, at least 10 to 15 years, I believe. Really good news. Metro South is fully funded and will be breaking ground. In Pacific Station South, as we call it, will be breaking ground this spring. That's, I believe, 80 units plus the two medical clinics for very low and low income residents. And we did receive 29.9 million, I believe, in funding through the basically a transit corridor type of funding through the state. We were awarded that this week and that's for Metro North. And so really good news on that. That brings the project, I believe, to being fully funded or very close to it. And so City just wants the City of Santa Cruz really just want to thank the Metro partnership, obviously, and thank Alex on his way out as well. We did a lot of work to create the partnership. The board executed an MOU and all of that has come through with great news that we're on our way to getting a brand new Metro station. So, Mike, I don't know if you have anything to add. But yeah, what I would add briefly is just point out that on the Metro North project, two-thirds of the funding of that $29 million, two-thirds of that goes for housing that's affordable by people who make either below 60% or 50% of the median income of the county, which means this is low and very low income housing. Nothing's affordable in the world in which we live, but it's affordable as it gets in terms of housing, in terms of federal guidelines. So it's really great that there's going to be some actual affordable housing built as part of a significant percentage of this housing project, not 10% or 15%, but about two-thirds of it. Yeah, and actually both projects are realizing almost the full amounts of housing that we were anticipating in the initial design. So again, Pacific North and South are, you know, they're a combined project that, you know, really we needed Metro support to do those property trades as well as, you know, reorient the infrastructure and various other improvements. So I also want to thank John Urgo. I know that he has been working with our staff very, very closely and helped put out a very complicated grant to the state. Also, I want to thank Assemblymember Stone and Senator Laird. He's very supportive, both of our state representatives were very supportive and helpful in helping get this funding. So reason to celebrate. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you both. Director Rodkin for bringing it up and Dawn for the report. Director Dutra. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to first say thank you to Alta, who filled in last year. Your voice on Metro was big and you really were a great and fair representative. So I want to say thank you and I appreciate you and all of us in South County appreciate you for stepping up. So thank you. And then also to welcome the new directors. So, you know, Director Downing and Director Parker welcome aboard and, you know, I look forward to a good year with all of us. I also wanted to ask a quick question. Are we, I know, I know that later when Labor speaks, are we going to be able to comment when Labor speaks on their whatever they say or do they, we will be able to? Yeah. So under the Brown Act, you know, you're not supposed to have a substantive debate, but you can briefly comment whenever you receive public comments. Great. Thank you, Julie. Okay. Any other comments and any comments from the public? Let me see. All right. Let me make sure I'm not missing hands. I love screens to check. Okay. So next will be the, are there any other, we have oral and written reports from board of directors. So are there any further reports other than what we have listed? There were a couple of emails that I forwarded on to you. Yes. Yeah. Okay. And any comments from the public? I see no hands. This is a chance for the public to comment on items that are not on our agenda today. Yes, it is. If, as Director Rodkins said, if you have any comments on items not on the agenda, this is your opportunity and looking for, if there, I see no hands raised. Okay. So we, are there any alteration? Oh, no. Labor and okay. No. Recording in progress. I think I, Jordan, I believe I hear you. Jordan, if that's bonus. I think you hear Bruce because he's, he's on mute. I think you heard him. All right. If I'm, I'm going to pause. All right. We'll go to James and then come back to Jordan. James Sandoval and James you're muted. James Sandoval. Are we sure they're not being muted by us somehow? That's what I'm wondering. Somehow we are having challenges with IT. So Kingston, is there anything on your side that you can see? Okay. I was counting on Jordan speaking first, but I'll, I'll do my best to try to capture what we were bringing up for you. As you all saw, we, we sent a few emails to you all and specifically a letter in support of PERB legislation, which is the Public Employment Relations Board. And what they are is a expert agency designed in conflict resolution and making sure employers and employees are always bargaining in good faith. To give you a little bit of background, private sectors unions have something similar called the National Labor Relations Board and public sector unions have the Public Employment Relations Board. And for some odd reason, transit agencies were not included in PERB's jurisdiction for unfair labor practice mitigation. And we're hoping to resolve that with you today. What that would do is allow us recourse to remedy unfair labor practice disputes. And I think we captured what it is in the letter of support that we provided to you all with 184 signatures from Metro staff. And basically it's nothing but beneficial for Metro to be covered under an expert agency that's designed literally for conflict resolution. And I didn't emphasize this, but it is free. And the alternative right now is for us to send it to a superior court where it could be very costly and take a lot of time for the appeal processes. There should be no logical reason to not support this unless you enjoy a position of power and like to keep the upper hand on workers or you plan on committing unfair labor practices and not bargaining in good faith. The reason I say that is because it's literally there just in case either side ever needs it or if either side ever hits the wall. Even though there should not be any logical reasons to not support this, there has been some have been some arguments and concerns brought up regarding PERB. And just to be clear, these are not concerns. These concerns were not for Metro workers. And I want to give you my responses today. So first point of argument is that having PERB would make it difficult to find another CEO general manager. I spoke to the recruiter and we have many applicants for the CEO manager position already. It should not be a deal breaker for anyone applying unless they have bad intentions, like committing unfair labor practices or not wanting to meet the workers in the middle. We shouldn't lower our standards for the sake of getting more applicants because we don't do that for drivers. We need to find the right leader for Metro that will bargain in good faith. And that leader should not be concerned over PERB if they're already planning on meeting Metro staff in the middle because PERB is only there when we need it. The next one is the next CEO should decide. We have a petition with literally 184 signatures from Metro workers requesting to be under the jurisdiction of PERB, which is submitted to you all. This is nearly all of Metro staff. The board of directors are in charge of Metro and you have an opportunity right now to put something in place where all Metro managers and Metro and the unions are always bargaining good faith. Another argument that we've heard is that it's too short notice. I brought this up last year. Senator John Laird is committed to putting this into legislation, but as you'd imagine, it was strongly opposed by Alex Clifford. John Laird wanted support from both sides and he was uncomfortable pushing it forward unless we both supported it. So he told me to wait till this year to see if what we can do. In the meantime, he came up with a deal with Mike Brocken, the board chair at the time, for him to help mediate all potential and for labor practices, which Mike, to his credit, did help us out with one. And now let's imagine if Mike wasn't there or all the other board members were too busy serving their community. PERB will resolve that. The other reason we want PERB now because there are 16 transit agencies in California. Three of them have moved into PERB a couple of years ago. A transit agency was turned away due to funding issues. And from my understanding, VTA and the union there are about to propose to be covered under PERB too. And they are a much larger transit agency than we are. And PERB is a publicly funded agency, so there are funding issues. We need to move into it now before it becomes more difficult later. The other argument I've heard is that BART and the union have had more disputes since they've gotten PERB. They just got PERB back in 2020. And BART and their workers had so many disputes that it led to a strike before they got PERB. BART did what we are asking to do, which is to be covered under PERB for unfair labor practice protections. I did a public records request and found only one minor charge since they've gotten their legislation, which was back in 2020. It seems to have fixed BART's problems in the union's relationship because there are no more outstanding issues or disputes. The other argument I've heard is that we don't want a third party involved to remedy disputes. Unfair labor practice mitigation should not be contingent on the relationship with the next CEO or any board member for that sake. We need to take ourselves out of the equation and put something in place where we can always resolve disputes free of charge. I do want to emphasize PERB is only there if we need it. It does not change how we resolve disputes internally. It's literally there only when we hit the wall. They only get involved when either side hits the wall. Each board member is busy serving the community and you all don't have to mediate every dispute. PERB is a place where board members can direct either side if you don't have the time to mediate and we will continue to do everything we can to remedy it internally. We just want the ability to have recourse when we need it. The other argument that I've heard is that we haven't had enough problems to justify bringing in PERB. Why do we need it? Why wait? This is a preventative measure to make sure that both sides are always accountable. We shouldn't have to have so many issues to justify either side doing this. And the last one is that it takes forever to resolve disputes. Like I mentioned earlier it is better than the alternative which is a lawsuit in Superior Court which could take longer and cost a lot more. The Superior Court also has an appeal process which could drag on disputes even longer and they don't have the same experience PERB does with employer-labor relations plus PERB is free. So PERB is an expert agency that has decades of experience resolving unfair labor practice claims. PERB was created back in 1967 to help make sure employers and employees were all getting along. I mean it's in the name the Public Employment Relations Board. We have nothing but good intentions bringing this forward because we can because the metro workers are committed to always bargaining good faith. I'm hoping that we could get the same commitment from the Metro Board of Directors. And waiting another year is not the solution. We need to do this now. And since our opportunity was taken away to present this to you, for you all to have a discussion and to vote on this and it was removed as an agenda item, California Senator John Laird and I came up with an agreement where we could get majorities if we could get majority signatures from you all Metro Board of Directors on a letter committing yourself to labor relations by supporting legislation that will bring Metro and our unions under PERB. John Laird will submit this into legislation if we get this done. His deadline for us is February 18th. So I sent you all an email requesting electronic signatures from you and it reads the undersigned Metro Board of Directors are committed to labor relations and support legislation that will bring Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District under the jurisdiction of the Public Employment Relations Board for unfair labor practice mitigation. Please sign that as soon as possible so we could get that to John Laird before his deadline. We need Metro workers to fill the support from this board soon because morale has been extremely low for a long time now and the unfortunate thing is people have quit and there is more talks of people, more people planning on quitting. Let's fix that. Let's all be part of something spectacular and do something that's beneficial for everyone here at Metro. This will promote labor harmony. We have a chance to do it right now to bring the sense of family back to Metro by everyone here committing themselves to working with each other. Metro Board of Directors, please sign this letter of support and stand with the workers of Metro and I do want to give a shout out to Board of Directors Manu, Koneg, Jimmy Dutra, Shebra Calantari-Johnson and Kristen Peterson for having open dialogue and listening to our concerns. I especially want to give a special shout out to Kristen Peterson and Shebra Calantari-Johnson for already signing this letter of support, committing themselves to labor relations. We're hoping that we get the support from the rest of the board and thank you for your time. Thank you. James, Kathy has, no, I'm sorry, missing a hand. Bonnie has a hand up next. Wait, just one moment. Jordan, since it sounds like it was on our end that the mistake, let's elevate Jordan next. That's Jonas. Hi there. Can you hear me this time? Yes. Perfect. All right. So James did a great job explaining exactly what Perb is and, you know, describing why we want this so badly. So first off, I want to introduce myself on Jordan Vesconis for those who don't know me. I'm a CA chapter president and I just want to say James has spent a lot of time researching this topic and has put a lot of effort into this. All the information that he shared with me has been extremely just like pointing us in the right direction of why we need to do this. This is a very extremely exciting opportunity for both Metro as a whole and the workers of Metro. This is a mutual benefit and I think even the community will feel the impact of labor harmony if this is achieved. This removes the pressure of conflict resolution from the board members and costly litigation and I think that's probably the most important aspect of why we want this. It comes at no monetary cost, which I think is a very easy thing to sell and it may not be free in the future due to the demand of representation of other agencies and other public agencies across California and having this third party will definitely ensure transparency, accountability, and overall labor peace, which, you know, we're all want labor peace in this agency and I think that achieving this or this under jurisdiction under Perb will help give us this labor peace and, you know, we all are fighting for the same thing here. We're trying to provide great service to the community and this is just one step forward into getting there. So I strongly encourage any board member to hear us out and give us the support for filing for jurisdiction here. Thank you. Thank you, Jordan. Next, Bonnie. Kingston, are you bringing Bonnie in? I hear you. All right. Thank you. Yeah, I would just like to reiterate well, first of all, I'm Bonnie Moore and I am a prior employee, but I am still the legislative representative from that smart local 23. I've been an employee with Santa Cruz Metro up to about 30 years and Metro has always been a home to me and always will be and I have strong connection with public transportation here in our community as well as labor relations between Santa Cruz Metro and their employees. I want to emphasize the fact that it's been a difficult few years here with communication between the board management and the unions, the workers here at Santa Cruz Metro. You've got a group of workers that have stepped up tremendously here over the last few years during COVID and everything else that's been going on within our community. This is an opportunity for the Metro board to take a step forward and understand that going under PERV's jurisdiction for issues that arise due to unfair labor practices on either ends is a huge benefit. It would go further to strengthen the relationship between your workers and the transit district, the board, and the public if there is an ability to resolve issues that do come up. This has always been sort of a family where a close-knit group all the way across the board. Labor harmony, the fact of having a good job, being a good employer, being a good employee is huge to the success of the transit agency and I implore you to support this moving forward and getting it done as soon as possible. We have an opportunity. We have the support of the legislature going forward. What we're looking for is the support of the board in order to go further with this. Any new general manager that comes into the transit agency as our new general manager, I would think would actually appreciate having this in place mainly because it does put a little bit of distance between the board and the ability to run the agency with the employees, relationships with the management, and to wait would be detrimental, I believe, only because it's going to cause more friction and if you can move forward now, which is the best time and opportunity to do so, I think it would be the best thing for both the transit district and the employees to move forward and get this done as soon as possible. Labor harmony is huge and I think this agency deserves and needs labor harmony at this time and improve the morale and the working conditions between both the management, the board and the employees. Thank you. Thank you, Bonnie. Any other hands? Donna, I do have one more thing. It's really disconcerting to not see all the board members and only the speaker. I don't have any control over that, but I can understand. Okay, any other questions or speakers? I see no other hands. I'll bring it back to the board. Director Dutra. Thank you. I first want to say I appreciate all of our bus drivers. You know, I've, since I've been on the board, I see them just work extremely hard for all of us, whether it was working at Cabrillo College to, you know, have the students pass a fee for us to maintain bus services or whether they're at events, you know, driving our buses and parades or, you know, toy drives. The drivers have always been there for us and they step up and during COVID, they were, I consider, essential workers. They were on the front line. They were making sure people were getting up and down the county and across into, you know, Santa Clara County and into Monterey. So I, you know, I support our drivers and I want to say thank you for everything that you've done. I've read this over and I, you know, to me, cutting costs is a big, you know, point and it just seems like it's mediation that's not litigious and I don't know why it's something that we wouldn't want to embrace. I know here in Santa Cruz County, we've always been the first to, you know, support ideas that may not be either popular or that are new and people are afraid to embrace but we have done it and then everybody else in the state jumps on board. So it looks like if I'm reading this correctly, three, three transit districts have already supported this and that means we're almost 25, if we support it would be 25% of all the transit districts in California will be using this sort of conflict resolution. So I just want to let, you know, James know I will be signing this James. I will be supporting your efforts and hopefully Senator Laird will be able to move forward with this so you can count on my signature later today. Thank you. Okay. I want to say that what we're being asked for needs to be put in clear terms. We're basically being asked to have a third party oversee the way this board runs the relationship between management and the employee, the general employees of this district. And I think that that's something I would be the first in line to fight for if I felt that we had problems that we were not able to resolve internally. But I think going to this kind of a system requires what the phrase from the Declaration of Independence that uses a bill of particulars. I think you need, you know, you have to have some evidence that there have been problems. And the idea that we should put this in place basically have a third party looking over our shoulder as a board on the assumption that we're not going to be capable of resolving the problems, any problems that exist between management and employees and general employees of the district. Asking people to do that I think is not a reasonable thing to be asking for. I think if you had, like in the Declaration of Independence, they say, you know, we want to have a revolution because King George III did this, then he did this, then he did this, there's this long list of things and that's why we're having a revolution. This is not a revolution to be clear. I'm not making that analogy, but I'm just saying that a bill of particulars and there is no such bill of particulars right now. The issues that have been raised, there's been, you know, there's always conflicts and issues between management and employees of a variety of things. All of the ones that have come up have been resolved in a relatively short period of time despite the difficulties that we've had in the recent years. And so the idea that we're going to hire a new CEO, it's going to a new general manager is going to come in and they're already going to have third-party oversight because basically they can't go to their, because the board that they have can't resolve these issues. I think it's really a bad statement to be making. So as I said, if I felt like, you know, we had these conflicts and we just couldn't fix them and management was not responsive and it's not, I don't take any particular credit for this. I think any of our board members would be happy to step in and try when the union calls them. And we don't have a, we have a very union-friendly board. I think that's pretty clear. And if you asked the union to comment on that, I would assume they would tell you that that's the case. Our drivers, for example, are paid within the top 10 driver pay in the United States of America. And so we're paying salaries that are at the level of cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, for a relatively small transit district. We have a benefit system that nobody parallels in terms of what's offered to our employees. I won't go on the long list. But if it, you know, again, if there were a list of particulars, things that are like, here's this problem, we couldn't get it resolved and we're being forced. For example, PERB steps in when you have a problem where there's, you know, the union asks for information about something. We'd like the following information and the management says, no, you're not welcome to have it. And they think, well, our contract gives us a right to that information. Well, if the board members can't, you know, either collectively or individually, get management to give the union whatever reasonable information they're asking for, you know, then in fact, we'd be in a situation where we probably need to go to PERB. But you go to PERB after you have problems, you look for some third party to regulate your employee-employer relationship after their problems. You don't go, well, we might have some problems in the future. We might have these different kinds of issues. And I'll have to say, I don't think we're looking for the concern here was not that we wouldn't be able to recruit additional people to the list of general manager applicants. We have, our applicant list is already in. I can report that the three of us serving on that committee were narrowing the list already. We're not looking for additional applicants. But if James had reported fully what the recruiter has been telling us, he does think that the people, including the ones that have already applied, and we have some very promising applicants, I think, that they would be concerned that they're going to be stepping into an agency that already has third-party oversight. What's going on in this district that they need third-party oversight with that the board itself can't resolve the issues going on between management and labor. So I don't support this. I'm a strong union activist, and I would be the first in line to support if we had these kinds of problems and they were not getting resolved, but we've resolved these problems, even under the most difficult conditions we've had in recent years. So again, it's been the analogy of a family was used. I think in many ways we used to be a family and still would like to be and still have some of the elements of that. But it'd be like a family saying, let's go to mediation. We're not having any problems now, but let's go to mediation to see if we can find some things to work out together and see what's going to go on. A family doesn't look for sort of mediation and third-party support until there are problems, until things aren't going well. That's when you apply for that kind of support. And the idea that you'd somehow have a third party coming in to try and manage your relationship as a family before you had problems, I think it's not a particularly great idea. So those are my views. The union is perfectly in its right to ask for this. I have no, not at all concerned. It's not a bad thing for them to ask for. I see why they might have that interest because it basically gives them a stronger hand in sort of demanding things from management. But I don't think we're in a position where we need this kind of third-party oversight. I think it would mistake to go there. That's all I had to say. Thank you very much for the time to make those comments. Thank you. I'm going to call next one correction. There are three out of 116, not three out of 16, three trans agencies out of 116 throughout the state. Just that correction. Kristen Peterson. Thank you so much. I have also supported what our labor groups are asking for. And forgive me, Mike, I'm going to use some of your analogies to make some of my own here. So, you know, my thought is not that this, that moving forward with this would broadcast that we aren't able to take care of things. I think instead it reminds me more of, for example, insurance, right? For so auto insurance, we would use an example. You don't want to go out and find auto insurance once you've already been in an accident. You want to make sure that you have it ahead of time and it doesn't signify to the world that you're a bad driver or that you're going to get in a car accident. It just means that you are responsible enough to be prepared should things happen that you didn't expect to happen. And so that's kind of what I see here. I understand the, you know, sentiment that we should wait until there's problems to go forward with PERB. But I feel like once problems already arise, then things are going to be contentious and there's going to be a lot less of a chance that we're willing to come to the table and say, okay, fine, we'll bring in this third party mediator now, because then things are going to, we're already going to be butting heads. There's already going to be feelings of, you know, one side versus the other and whose side are they going to take it. I'm not sure that that would be the time to do it. I think ahead of problems is the time to do it. And again, to the analogy of, you know, families don't go for mediation or whatnot before there's problems. Well, again, I think when you think of things like self-help books or, you know, couples that go into therapy, you know, marriage counseling when there isn't a problem, these are all about having tools in your toolbox that doesn't necessarily mean there's a problem. It means you're prepared should want to rise. And so I am supporting this and I have signed onto the letter and I hope that my fellow board members will consider doing so as well. Thank you. Director Koenig. Thank you, Chair Linn. You know, I think the most important thing in any relationship is open communication. That's why I requested this item appear on the agenda today. And I'm glad we're having the discussion we are is, you know, I also want to reemphasize how much I appreciate all the work of our union members and everyone in the organization and that's why I value communication within this metro family so highly. You know, I guess right now I lean towards Kristen's or Director Peterson's analogy of this being sort of like insurance. We, as I'm sure many of you saw, there were some headlines about the county's own negotiations with SEIU recently. And I was interested to learn while having these discussions with Mr. Sandoval that the county is a member of PERB. And, you know, I didn't see in that process that PERB really stepped in and took over the discussion so much as it was a tool. I think that we might, you know, it's definitely possible, if not probable, that we're overvaluing that tool. You know, I think it does take an extremely long time to resolve anything through PERB. You know, my understanding is they have quite a backlog and it could easily be four, six, 10 plus months. So I don't think it's going to be the be all and end all. But I guess what I'm trying to understand is even if it's not terribly helpful, would it hurt? And I would, you know, I would love to hear from anyone on the border staff that if they think that there's a strong reason why this would hurt our ability to resolve issues, rather than just being an extra tool, we could resort to when necessary. Thank you. Can I just remind everybody this is not on the agenda for today for a substantive discussion. So please, please keep comments brief. I agree. Thank you. Director Calentari-Johnson. Thank you. I will keep my comments brief. But I want to just echo the sentiments of my colleagues, Director Peterson and Koenig. You've used all the great analogies, so I won't use them again. But I do feel that this is a tool and can be used as prevention to address challenges in the future. Our board will change. Our CEO will change. Our drivers will change. And this is a tool that we can lean on if challenges do occur. So I'll just keep it at that. And I am clearly, I'm supporting this right now. Thank you. Thank you. Director Northrop. Ert, ex officio. Okay. Thank you for the opportunity. And thank you, James, for the well-stated concerns and commentary. I am a PERB member. I am the union president. I have served as a chief steward for Cabrillo's Union. I have served in a number of capacities, and I have been afforded the opportunity and privilege to be covered under PERB because it was a right we were just granted. We didn't have to ask. This was a kind of left out organization. Transportation wasn't included when PERB was kind of convened and pulled together. And so I applaud your desire to ask for something that you should be entitled to or would have been entitled to if you were born years before. In addition to that, PERB standards of even stepping in are so high that they required you to do all of the work at the local level. You are required, before you even come to them, to do your due diligence on both sides at local efforts to make sure that the conflict does not get to them. They are, in fact, the last stage you want to go to. So for both the employee and the employer, the best thing to do is to resolve so that the conversation about going to PERB and taking it out of your hands is not a part of the discussion. This doesn't hurt anyone. I have not seen in the 22 years I have served in the capacities I have served as a union representative at Cabrillo College. I have not ever used PERB to resolve any of the issues and we've had a lot over the years. And so with respect to Director Rockins' comments, most marriage therapists, family and therapists, asked you to do counseling before you're married so that you can kind of get an idea of what it is and then recommend that it use counseling as a kind of ongoing support, not because you have issues, not because you are preparing for issues, but to maintain relationship so that you are able to be in that place of conflict resolution. Thank you all for your comments and sentiments. I don't think this has to be whether you're pro or against labor. This is just the right they should have been entitled to if they were born earlier. Director McPherson. Yeah, I'm not supported with this for the reasons that Mike said that there's not particulars, but there's three other reasons, time, money and history. I mean there's a reason why not very many agencies have this. The time it's going to take historically, those that do, it just, it drags out and it costs a lot of money. It's going to require us, I think, to have another staff member or two. I don't think it's necessary. I think we can handle our own issues with the Union. Thank you. Director Myers. Thank you. I'm sorry, my camera's off. I'm having a little unstable internet. I'm happy to hear more in an agendized item about this. I do truly feel like there's more information needed and I'm not completely clear that some of the support expressed, especially on the statement on the letter that was for signatures is completely, you know, if it, if that is the actual sort of stats, state of where, you know, Senator Laird is, I think we need to be very clear about what we are searching for with this, with this joining Herb and I think just deserves additional, additional discussion as an agendized item. I'm happy to have it show up on the agenda and have additional discussions. But at this point, I'm still waiting to hear more and learn more rather than picking a side yes or no at this point. Thank you. And I just like to add this was not pulled from the agenda. I received a call late from Friday and did not receive actual any information until Saturday evening from James. And what I'd explained is that there was an adequate time for me to agree to put it on the agenda without staff being able to do a balanced staff report and present both a balanced report with both sides. And then my other concern is I feel that the CEO should have a voice and be able to also be part of the process. So it wasn't a matter that was pulled from the agenda. It was not put on the agenda partly because it was last minute and then done without any opportunity to have a full staff report done. And after that's at the on of information sent me on a Saturday night when the Monday deadline. So that was that was the background on that. And I also had some concerns on as far as no costs and additional agree with director Myers. There's more information. I would want to see a balanced report from both sides and the fact that there will be fees for attorney fees that will be involved in responding to any probe issues. So for me I would certainly want more information and the appropriate time to do it. Director Koenig. Yes. Thank you chair. I would request that we add this to a future agenda within I would say three meetings of hiring a new CEO. And you know I'm I think that will allow us to have the most balanced discussion possible. You know I think this board that will allow us to certainly take into the consideration the thoughts and opinions of a new CEO. I don't think it means that we would have to value them necessarily greater than those of the arguments brought forward by the union. But it'll allow us I think to have the most balanced discussion where most members of this board will feel comfortable moving forward one way or another. Thank you. Director Deutre. Thank you chair. Yeah I will agree as well. I think that we you know I will support it. I'm coming forward to the board for a greater discussion. This should give plenty of time for our staff report. I just had a actually quick question. So on deadlines if the deadline is on Friday you said to get something on should we be moving deadlines so that we make a deadline actually within a time frame that the staff can do a report because it seems like maybe there was a deadline that was made unrealistic for a report. So maybe we should be having deadlines where this is the deadline. If you want something on this gives us the an ample amount of time to put something on to the agenda rather than having people bring forth you know agenda items within a time frame that they you know where they were technically within the date. But we were they were told that there was an ample time to put together a staff report. So how do we solve that issue. How do we address it. I can tell you that the deadline was James knew the deadline and had had the opportunity to do it sooner but did want to wait it until after he knew CEO Clifford wouldn't be there. So this was an unusual circumstance that he knew that in fact he told me I believe everything's due on Monday and I spent you can't do a full thorough staff report with that type of notice. So it's I'm sure that staff deals with this all the time and there's was no reason to there really was no reason to avoid it. And chair I'll take responsibility for it. I submitted the agenda item on Friday. I believe it was actually like 5 0 6 p.m. And it was you know my understanding within another agenda item I'll speak to in a minute on consent. But that was the deadline was Monday the 17th I believe but you know I didn't take into account that the staff report would be prepared prepared by that deadline. Of course it was a holiday weekend. So yeah I think just clarification would be helpful if that deadline is the time by which you know the item including a staff report needs to be prepared. Then so that stand is the clarification. Thank you. Thank you. All right we've definitely gone beyond casual conversation. Sorry Julie but I think there are no more hands we will I think we have an agreement to put it on a future agenda and I felt the board was I should ask that this was a recommendation can I see a show of hands. Do we have a consensus for this. Rather than take a vote just ask if there's objection to it. Yeah I would say objection to Director Koenig's request. I see no hands. All right thank you. We will move to additional documentation on any agenda items are there any further documentation Donna. You're muted Donna. Donna you're muted. Everything got posted in the agenda packet. All right and any items on the consent agenda that someone wants pulled it sounds like Director Koenig may. Nothing that I'd like to pull. Thank you Chair. I just wanted to comment on item 10.7 and thank planning director John Ergo as well as fellow director Bruce McPherson and his staff for working with me on this. This is a request to our state legislators Senator Laird and Assemblymember Stone to carry legislation that essentially allow for billing for Metro on property tax bills or what I would call Metro as a utility. The idea here is this would allow us to create a new transportation demand management policy where we could offer new developments a chance to reduce their parking requirements in exchange for a deed restriction on units that says that they will pay for Metro like utility and perpetuity going forward. The need for this has been clear to me in the first district here in the middle of the county where we have a lot of development interest on the Soquel Drive corridor. Of course as you all know that is really our best transit route in the county and yet still many of or actually all the stops on Soquel Drive fall short of what's determined as a high performing transit stop under state definitions which is every 15 minutes or less. So there's sort of this chicken and egg problem of how do we get additional state resources for infill development along high performing transit corridors if we don't have high performing transit corridors and I see this as a potential solution to that where the new development will essentially agree to offer those funds in exchange for helping to turn it into a high capacity transit corridor. I've done some research with our county tax collector and actually thanks to the half cent sales tax for Metro that already exists. The sort of financial plumbing is already there for this. Metro already essentially banks with the county. There's an account available where these funds can go and so all Metro would need to do is submit a list of the property addresses that have made these types of agreements every six months when the property bills go out and the tax collector will add this to their rolls and the fees would be collected and of course if it wasn't clear any property that was enrolled in the system the residents would get their you know monthly bus passes in the mail so that they could use them whenever they wanted as well. They are you know they are getting that service. I'm happy to answer any questions anyone had about that. Thank you Director Koenig. Director McPherson you're muted Bruce. Glad to be able to answer this with Supervisor Koenig. You know some people complain about owning no more taxes more taxes more taxes but this could result in having the property owners or developers having to put in more parking spaces too in their properties when they build so I think there's that aspect to it that needs to be pointed out. Thank you. Any question any how anyone have questions and our thanks to Director Koenig and Director McPherson and staff. All right I see no other hand. Oh Bruce is just on all right. Any other comments on any consent items or I move the consent agenda. Should we ask the public if they have comments first. Dan Henderson has his hand up. All right Dan. Regarding item 10.12 is Isaac Holly available to kind of give a brief discussion of what that status and what that means. My understanding is Metro is moving away from that firm but it looks like that might be changing course a little bit. If you like I could do that for you Isaac. Either way. Yeah so this is just as you know yes we are moving away from that firm from that vendor but we do have their equipment already installed in the buses and as part of our settlement agreement with that vendor if the new vendor takes you know a particularly long amount of time to get the new system installed and the old system off then this vendor would be engaged to continually support that equipment during that period of time. We have built in several months of free support through the settlement agreement but at a certain point if it takes longer than we originally anticipated for that transition period then there's just a support fee so it doesn't change anything with what the direction of the agency is in our settlement. It's just a stop gap measure if the transition takes longer. We may not actually have to pay them for that support. It only kicks in if the transition takes longer than anticipated. Got it so this is just part of the process. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions from either I see no no questions from the public no comments no other from board sorry Dan that I missed you and I will I will move approval of the consent agenda I second all right I know that director Rodkin was the motion I'm not sure who was the second Larry Pegler was the second okay a few of you chimed in and all right so we could have a roll call vote all right director Downing aye director Dutra aye director Colin Terry Johnson aye director Koenig aye director Lynn aye director McPherson aye director Myers aye director Pegler aye director Parker aye director Peterson aye director Rockin aye and the motion passes thank you unanimously passed and next through the regular agenda which is authorizing sales tax revenue bonds under major g series 2022 Chuck Palmer cfo hi hello everybody um bring a lot of good news this is hopefully the last time I need to come and talk about bonds because now I'm requesting that we actually go forward with the sale on February 16th I got some really great news that we got preliminary ratings from the s&p 500 uh this week final review final number or final ratings will be next week but it looks like we're going to be double a which is very very few transit agencies specifically bus oriented get triple a so that's great news um so as part of this process um I'm going to introduce you to the the team of individuals who are doing all the work and like I said this started late October early November and um hopefully this is kind of coming to the end now and we'll be good to go with funding our uh outstanding pension liabilities and so there's three uh people versus Julio who is um our financial advisor and then I'm going to also have one talk who is um our legal counsel which I think he talked at our last board meeting or special meeting and then um I'm also going to introduce you to Raul and Mike and I think Mike's going to be doing the talking and he's going to be our underwriter he's going to be selling the bonds and this will happen on February 16th so mark your calendars so that will be the day that they go to sell so what I'm going to do is right now uh you're going to be officially looking at and you know it's a lot of words but just they're going to explain quickly what are the documents that are contained in the board package right now and then from there I'm just going to ask you to prove that we move forward with the sale of the bonds and of course until we sell them we don't know the exact dollar amount uh that we're going to sell them for but this is gives us an approval to move forward so I'm going to introduce you I think uh Juan you're going to be up first thanks the most Chuck and good morning everyone Juan Galvan as Chuck mentioned uh uh Jones Hall is legal counsel to Metro on this financing we've uh taken the lead on preparing the resolution as well as the variety of documents that are before you uh for approval this morning uh in connection with the first uh series of bonds uh for the purpose of as Chuck mentioned uh refunding Metro's obligations to CalPERS for uh retirement benefits for district employees uh the documents before you and which uh are being approved in the proposed resolution include the indenture of trust and the indenture of trust uh at a high level really sets the terms and conditions for the bonds for your first series of bonds the 2022 bonds uh including uh payment dates the source of repayment which are your measure g revenues and I think we talked about this at the special meeting in December the bonds will be secured by a pledge and lean on uh measure g revenues which are levied by Metro under an ordinance adopted by the board in 1978 uh that's your half cent sales tax um the second document that is being approved this morning uh under the resolution is the form of preliminary official statement that is the document that your underwriters will use to market the bonds again summarizes the indenture it has information regarding Metro uh it describes the security for the bonds it has a description of risk factors that have been identified for investors to consider as well as general information regarding uh Metro's finances and other demographic information about the county and then the third document is the form of bond purchase agreement that is the agreement pursuant to which uh your underwriter Ramirez will agree to purchase the bonds that document would be signed at the pricing of the bonds that's the February 16th date that Chuck mentioned um at that point the terms interest rates dollar amounts um and other financial provisions relating to the bonds will be set uh and then approximately two weeks later the bonds will be delivered to the underwriter and eventually uh so transferred to uh the uh the investors themselves uh I'll also mention that all of these documents are being proposed to be approved in form Chuck and your CEO would also have authority to make any additional changes that are necessary to finalize the documents in consultation with jones hall and the rest of the financing team so that that is a brief summary of the documents before you for approval thank you all right thanks and um we're proposing to go out with uh bonds no more than I think it's 53 million dollars so it's up to that amount and no more than so um when we go out on the 16th and they know the pricing and they know the amounts that will really kind of determine how much we go out with but it will no long will not exceed 53 million thank you Chuck director McPherson yeah I just want to give a shout the uh the announcement that we're at AA rating is phenomenal I just want to give a big shout out to the board of directors the past uh recent years and our former CEO uh Alex Clifford for return to ship around and getting the bus moving in the right direction I mean we couldn't have been there AA four or five years ago I'll tell you so congratulations to the board of the past and uh to our former CEO of tooth just think that should be mentioned thank you director Rodkin first I totally agree with uh Bruce's comments but let me ask Chuck if you could just very briefly give the this a complex complex issue and we've I'm totally supportive of it and it's fantastic and I appreciate your work in making this happen Chuck but I wonder if you could just briefly tell the public how what's the you know order of magnitude amount of money that the district basically will be saving over the long run by by using these bonds rather than you know incrementally paying these off over the years yeah so uh when we first initially came back um and like October we knew that we had a huge outstanding balance the great news is the CalPERS actually had a 21 percent return on the money so it actually reduced our outstanding balance so right now we're projecting somewhere in the neighborhood of about 15 million dollars over the course of bonds and like I said that's assuming that we're at a higher interest rate than what we think we may get just you know on error on the worst side so hopefully it'll actually be more savings for the district beyond 15 million but that's money that would go into generals either capital or operating expenses for the district means better service to the public and that's why we're using these bonds as a mechanism to pay this off early in effect yes thank you direction conic thank you chair lind you have fully supportive of this as I you know as I've said in the past the county went out and did a similar process of getting bonds for our pension obligations and it's going to save us a lot of money as well I think the best analogy I've heard is that this is like refinancing your house and of course it's a historically great opportunity to do that and I and I think it just goes to show you that we're doing this none too soon given that the Fed has announced they're going to be raising interest rates in March I'm glad we're going to be getting this in mid-February so thank you to all staff for moving this along as quickly as possible agreed thank you any other hands any other comments any comments from the public seeing no hands I'll move the recommended action okay I heard the motion by McPherson not sure who the second was from second by conic thank you roll call vote director Downey aye director Dutra aye director commentary Johnson aye director conic aye director lind aye director McPherson are you muted oh your group muted Bruce aye director Myers aye director Pagler aye director Parker aye director Peterson aye and director Rockin aye and the motion passes unanimously thank you thank you well now we get to go into the fun things after some of the business and that's the presentation employee longevity awards now I get the honor to do that so I'm going to bring these up on my screen I won't be able to see all of you for a moment but I want to start with acknowledging Ron Bushnell Santa Cruz native Ron started his career with Metro as a bus operator but has been transit supervisor for the past five years enjoys the challenging daily dynamic nature of supervision on the road and thrives on keeping metro buses operations running smoothly other than Metro his personal interests are fitness snowboarding cooking and entertaining so a round of applause virtually for Ron please and I'm not let me look to see if Ron might be here I know some I don't thank you I don't see him um Ron if you're here raise your hand so we know don't see him all right next Blanca Esu Valdez Blanca is passionate about her job as a bus operator she loves helping the community especially the elderly and persons with disabilities she is a caring and compassionate person and has received several commendations from the public as such she is a safe driver and has loved her job for the past 10 years in her spare time she enjoys gardening traveling with her husband hiking learning new languages and has recently picked up learning to play guitar wow impressive a round of applause for Blanca and I'm looking I do not see Blanca here okay she's probably out on the inner bus and working for us next is Howard James Howard is one of those people that has an infectious smile he always comes to work with a great attitude and seems to never have a bad day he has always been dependable and makes the effort to assist passengers with transfers and information thank you Howard and another round of applause I'm looking for Howard I don't see him as well next we have Elizabeth Thompson Liz's career with Metro has mostly been supervision as a second most senior transit supervisor she can make a challenging job of running daily bus operations look easier than it really is Liz takes pride in her job is a true professional especially when handling emergencies Liz enjoys her trips to Hawaii and is a true cat lover as demonstrated when she recently rescued a mom with all of her kittens all have warm loving loving homes thanks to Liz well that warms my heart Elizabeth thank you and again round of applause and I'm still watching I thought I saw Elizabeth earlier but I do not see her here okay um I may have missed then I have Lyle I'm not sure I hope I'm Tolin Lyle service to Metro in the community has been a job he is very proud of each day of work he commits to performing his duties as a professional bus operator he is always willing to go the extra step to help his customers Lyle plans to retire with Metro just as his father did keeping it in the family thank you Lyle and again round of applause hey Eduardo Villa Villa Lobos I I'm so sorry I hope I can even close oh thank you Mike Edgar has always looked out for the safety of passengers especially during a crisis he is calm and level headed it is a great example of a true professional in all situations Edgar looks forward to many more years serving the community of Santa Cruz County thank you Edgar and I don't see him as well but a round of applause and now we're going to 15 year employee bios Dean Brown has enjoyed working for Metro he's always available to put an extra time to keep service on the road enjoys being outdoors on his time off and especially on a dirt bike thank you Dean 15 years then we have Antonio Tony Castillo Tony has been with Metro since December 2007 started as an entry-level mechanic he was promoted to mechanic two in 2008 in 2013 he was again promoted to lead mechanic mechanic and in 2017 he became a supervisor during his free time Tony enjoys surf fishing working on his 1959 Buick attending car shows with his son Tony also assists his son with editing videos for his youtube channel cars and and chango Tony looks forward to many more years of service with Metro and is grateful for the opportunity Metro has given him and a round of applause next we have Efron Escamilla Efron was born in Tijuana Mexico he came to the U.S. when he was nine years old growing up Efron worked in the fields and he graduated from high school he enrolled in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1982 to 1985 before he came to Metro he drove both fixed route and paratransit for the county express in San Benito County Efron enjoys jogging tennis reading camping and hiking thank you Efron and thank you for your service in the Marines as well round of applause and we have Peggy Fletcher Fletcher Peg was born and raised in a small town in Ohio graduated from Ohio State with the BA in communications before Metro she worked in television as a producer newscast director for over 25 years she her partner and children moved to Aptos in 2006 to be closer to family Peg states there isn't any other job that allows you on a daily basis to experience the healthy I mean I'm sorry experience the beauty of Santa Cruz County and also serve as citizens it's been a great ride well thank you Peggy we next have Leo Herrera born in Watsonville graduated from Watsonville high school he has two brothers that have also worked for Metro Tony retired and Oscar before coming to work Metro at Metro he worked for waste management and couch distributors Leo enjoys fixing motorcycles and cars he also enjoys traveling thank you Leo next we have Hung Lee hung as an operator with all the information for customers and co-workers he's very knowledgeable in many areas especially in cooking he enjoys his trips back home to visit family in China thank you hung we have Todd Pinsky Todd is one of those operators that enjoys his daily challenges and interactions with the public he has always been dependable and ready for each workday Todd has many interesting stories from his life and also hidden talents such as being a published author Todd always looks out for the safety of all and he does his best to protect Metro and the community we next move to 20 year employee bios Mario Arilano Arilano Mario walks in to start a shift with a great attitude he always has a pleasant greeting for everyone never seems to have a bad day he makes 20 years of service seem effortless he is a safe driver and he is appreciated by his customers thank you Mario then we have John Bartholomew John is known as Johnny Metro takes his job as a transit bus operator very seriously he is proud of his service to the community and enjoys his work he always offers great service to all operators drawing from his 20 years of devoted service to Metro thank you John wow 20 years oh I do not I'm gonna have uh Don I don't have Rhonda's letter can I'm gonna come back to to it and um and if you can oh that was attached to the back of that at back of the bios um I will look for it because I'm on my screen okay it's not showing um we have Harlan Glatt is receiving the award in absentia we'll have Delvis said I will go back to to uh Rhonda Delvis is a dedicated employee and enjoys his daily interactions with the public when help is needed to cover service he is the first to step up he's grateful for Metro and being able to own a home in the Redwoods Delvis uh enjoys his time with his wife two children and is a lover of various forms of art and music and let me see I think I found oh good because my system crashed um sorry I did find it um so Rhonda oh my goodness um and this is the handwritten one yes okay hi number 493 that's me Rhonda Carter also known as a nice bus driver lady with a pretty flower in her head when I first became a bus rider I quickly realized how important we are in our community and to the people that rely on our services and not just taking people here and there when each one of us pulls in to a bus stop and opens our door how we interact with that person boarding is so important we had a chance to make someone's day a little bit better I've reminded myself daily for almost 20 years that when I pull into a bus stop and open my doors I don't know what's going on with that person they could have lost someone important to them lost a job a home they could be depressed struggling with anything or just feel not noticed so every time I make sure to say hi or good morning and when when they devoured I always tell them to have a great day I love it I love driving my bus and I so enjoy the community that rides with me that to have an opportunity to put a smile on someone's face is wonderful my years here at Santa Cruz Metro have been and have been an adventure from lays off lays layoffs strikes contract negotiations management changes union brothers and sisters and supervisors retiring and passing on and now this pandemic I love my Metro family they're all amazing people I was a single mom and raised a son and fostered another I took care of my grandmother and my mother I could not have done this without my job and the support of my Metro family so I say thank you Santa Cruz Metro for hiring me and making it possible to enrich my life well thank you all wow what a blessing to have so many um you know appreciative employees that that that uh show share their appreciation and service so well and a lot of longevity so thanks so much and next have retiree um resolutions of appreciation and I know Dennis Baldwin is here so I'm going to get those ready so Dennis um Dennis's career with Metro started 37 years ago goodness he was always has always been active participant in all Metro activities from Metro's baseball teams company picnics community events Dennis would always be ready to get involved and motivate others as a father he has a strong protective instinct but it was part of his character look out for some for everyone else especially his passengers during his career he received commendations from Metro there are several attached and the board of directors when his bus was caught in a police shooting on Pro Kail Avenue Dennis's bus was in the middle caught in the crossfire he protected his passengers by physically assisting them to take cover during the gunfire Dennis was modest humble and felt it was just instinct and something anyone would have done I wish that were true Dennis you you were definitely above and beyond he loves his Metro family he will miss everyone Dennis will enjoy his retirement and beautiful Santa Cruz and take advantage of every moment spent with his lovely wife Lenore and family and many friends thank you Dennis and I want a round of applause but I also want to offer him a moment if he'd like to share a few words Dennis would you Dennis Baldwin would you like to speak if you know how to can you raise a hand if you'd like to you just raise it next to his head if he's here and doesn't have to be an electronic thing I'm going to I'm going to look and see if I can see Dennis on the screen and if Don if you can help me looking to if if he would like to speak we'd love to hear from you but if if you would rather just let us share our appreciation and thank you for your service and wishing you the very best in your retirement oh there is hand goes up all right join us Dennis and Kingston can you help us okay try now all right thanks for all the the great words I'm recovering from surgery oh and I'm kind of slow right now well you know what you earn a right to take a little rest and recover we wish you well um hope you hope after you recover you have some exciting plans for your retirement yeah to learn how to walk again hey if you can learn to drive that bus and protect people on a shootout you can learn to walk again it's pretty hard I'm I had a stroke on the left side I'm so sorry well we will keep you in our thoughts and just wish you the best and thank you for coming to the meeting and and letting us appreciate you well thank you guys for appreciating me all right take care I will thank you uh-huh okay next we have Alex Clifford and the I have both his bio that served with the general manager seven and a half years I'm I have a mirrors proclamation I know that Bruce McPherson I believe has one as well and I don't Bruce are you still with us I know he had another meeting he had to head to well I will share yeah I don't see Bruce so I will share summarize the proclamation that I have in front of me Alex Clifford is served with a distinction for over seven years as Santa Cruz Metro Transit District's CEO general manager during his tenure he helped guide Metro through unprecedented challenges past for posed first by the existing 6.3 million structural deficit fiscal deficit then by COVID-19 pandemic as a result of his leadership the transit services that Metro's committees depend on are well prepared to survive the COVID-19 pandemic and will emerge equipped with the resources needed to improve services and address the congestion and connectivity issues that will return Mr. Clifford's accomplishments include tackling the structural deficit guiding Metro through the COVID pandemic with no employee layoffs during either period and with the utmost concern given to employee and customer safety throughout his years of service Mr. Clifford led Metro to make major improvements in the quality of his public transit service to include establishing a robust bus replacement plan overseeing the completion of several important public works projects procurement of several key technology projects creating a zero emissions bus plan and initiating the process to replace Metro's engine enterprise enterprise resource planning system as a 30-year leader in the public transit realm Mr. Clifford was able to address Metro's challenges rather big or small and in partnership with his leadership team he created fully funded created a fully funded complex reserves plan a number of new fiscally responsible policies and plans initiated the process of paying off Metro's unfunded personal liability and created and filled key departments and roles within Metro and as he retires he leaves Metro in a solid position with his bus and paratransit services poised to regain ridership and ready to take on the next generation of growth and mobility options with a competent and dedicated senior leadership team. I, Donna Lynn, Mayor of City of Scotts Valley on behalf of our entire City of Scotts Valley Council and staff hereby express our appreciation to Alex Clifford for his leadership and dedicated service he will be missed. Thank you and we next have George Felder. George has made 37 years of service behind the wheel oops I've got I've got the wrong one I think nope I don't um look effortless he never complained about a single day of work and was an outstanding employee and co-worker George was a true professional in every sense especially when assisting and looking out for his passengers his laughter and his smile will be missed by all and I know he submitted a letter and I will look for that but I don't have it right here Melody Martin started work for Santa Cruz Metro in 2004 is retiring after 17 years with the agency before working with Santa Cruz Metro Melody served the community by being lead I'm sorry by being head start preschool driver and then working for a lifeline that eventually merged with Metro where she became an asset to our community service department. As a customer services representative Melody took a proactive role in her position. She arrived early to work to prepare for her work day and was always ready to take calls for our pair of cruise clients and provide route information promptly Melody was flexible always ready to step into any task assigned to benefit support the department Melody has made lasting impact on customer service department team and our customers many of which still call and ask for her by name because she ensured that all customers felt acknowledged and were taken care of Melody will be missed by our customer services department and we wish her all the best in her well-earned retirement and last of the retirees I have Gina Gina was a member that's only problem with the landline that she can't mute a landline Gina was a member of our administrative department for seven years in the capacity of executive assistant to the CEO general manager she also served as recruiting secretary to the board of directors she acted as representative for Metro at various internal and public functions and welcomed all to Metro her co-workers will remember her best as a resident foodie and love when she brought in her latest creation to share with others and thankfully we got to wish and send Gina off at our recent workshop I know that there is a letter and Donna I don't have it do you can you do you don't it was at the back of the packet again all right let me just double check that was the last of our retirees it was in the form of like an email it looked like an email all right let me see if I can't pull that up I am not seeing it all right my system still isn't that's all right I'm I'm trying to check for like you know after those years we definitely don't want to neglect I have it up Donna if you oh thank you I would love to have you read that if you wouldn't mind I would like to start off by thanking Santa Cruz Metro for the opportunity to serve the community of Santa Cruz I've enjoyed my 37 years of service my retirement is bittersweet due to the fact that I will miss my fellow operators and supervisors who I consider my second family union strong I would also like to thank the board of directors for acknowledging my service thank you sincerely George Felder thank you you're welcome and Cherlyn uh there should also be a proclamation for the outgoing CEO that was prepared and I'm not seeing it in the packet on Donna do you I missed that too I haven't seen it but I haven't gotten all my emails did you send it Julie I did oh okay I let me see if I can find that quickly and I'll just look at can be prepared on the um oh I actually see it too as well it's in there somewhere I saw it last night yeah well mine was mine was but I was looking and asked Julie about that too because I knew there was a metro one as well um we what we can do in the as we I can move ahead a moment while you look for that and see if there's a mac update do we want to make a a motion on the resolutions retiree resolution I'll make that motion I'll say that's a motion approving all of those resolutions second second and then we'll we'll do a roll call and we have Donna looking so you probably have a hard time doing a roll call yes yes uh if there are comments or discussion oh I just wanted to say congratulations to everybody for all the accomplishments um good luck to all those who are retiring um and you know so I want to say um especially thank you to Donna who's who was around for so long and um only one of the best people to keep us all in check so thank you okay Gina Gina's like yes I'm sorry I'm looking at Donna Gina thank you all right did you find that Donna or no it's Julie are you did you find uh I do have it I'm gonna send it to Donna okay okay maybe go to the map yeah so let's go to the uh map report let's do a roll call thank you okay so Mike made a motion and Larry uh seconded yes all right uh director Downing hi director Dutra hi director Colin Terry Johnson hi director Koenig hi director Lynn hi director McPherson absolutely uh director Myers hi director Pagler hi director Parker hi director Peterson hi and director Rockin hi and the motion passes thank you so we will look I will go to the map report as we pull up the other proclamation resolution and that would be James Bond Henry Mac chair if James is here yes I am indeed here James Bond handy I am chair of the metro advisory committee uh serving for my second year in that capacity and I am reporting on the second half of our MAC meetings from 2021 normally this would be done in November but I was unable to do so at that time for our conflicted meetings so a little bit late for those of you who are new to the board the metro advisory committee is consists of members of the public who have applied to represent interests of the public and to serve in supporting of the board um in the second half of 2021 we continue to be extremely committed to the board and to the citizens of Santa Cruz county who use metro transit um we are especially I wanted to acknowledge how much the board and our bus operators have done during these COVID times to ensure that public transit service serves the community and serves it well um COVID is a constant theme as I'm sure you are all aware and it will show up repeatedly throughout my brief summaries it began to in this in in our communication to the advisory committee it's just something we get in most meetings vice chair Martinez was informally asked by a bus operator about training on wheelchair assistance and and asked if based on that request if accessible service coordinated uh an accessible service coordinator position would be filled uh CEO Alex Clifford responded that the job description to metro needs were under review but in the meantime customers could call customer service um and as a side note based on that uh MAC member James Cruz praised para Cruz for their help with people in wheelchairs and suggested that might be a resource um prior to the October meeting which was our last meeting of 2021 we received two short letters from the public advocating once again for adding a metro stop at the enterprise technology center in in uh scott's valley um in the case of these requests director ergo um responded by letter to members of the public stating about the impediments to providing such stop uh some of that is due to physical plant and obviously also to the lack of resources in terms of um uh bus operator shortage and also the inability to add new routes at this time um I would also point out that director ergo spent time investigating that uh that site and provided uh detailed photographs in support of uh the metro's position that that's currently an unfeasible uh possibility um we also received a letter uh from a member of the public asking for the roof fence be opened on the highway 17 buses for ventilation marco ross chief operating officer addressed that with us and with the public responding that we cannot open those vents but that we actually have merve seven filtration metro buses and provide that information to the public um we again appreciate the board's responses and consider responses to the public in these matters um as a routine part of the last couple years um uh ceo alex gliford gave us a detailed accounting of the current covid situations as they occurred in august not october of last year i don't where that was before omicron arrived in our vicinity um but he pointed out that um generally speaking there had only been one infection among metro operators from someone who was fully vaccinated but he did point out that we continued to monitor cdc cal osha county and state health agencies and to make any necessary adjustments to the services that we offer um and this he said they were investigating all employee vaccines the vaccination mandate um which we had asked which uh one of us on our committee had asked well i fortunately i can't tell you who i don't didn't record that um we did um matt oh yeah mac master uh mac member mr pizzano especially thanked the metro for keeping bus operators and passengers are safe during covid uh he asked whether or not that extended to flu shots ceo cliford said they are not mandatory but you have a flu clinic every fall in the metro um is lc who's also a member asked about highway 17 passenger restrictions in august and again in october um in august at that time vta had restrictions on the number of people that could be on the bus and we had to abide by those but in october those were supposedly lifted obviously i don't know what the current status is given oh macron um finally um miss lc lc asked for an update on the bus operator sorges ceo cliford explained to us that we were actively recruiting and human resources and marking our attending local events advertising the radio and television and promoting a four thousand dollar signing bonus at that time uh miss miss taylor also a member asked if the metro had considered operating uh raising bus operator pay and as already noted in this meeting ceo cliford was able to say that metro bus operators will already rate near the top 10 percent of highest paid operators nationally um in information technology systems update uh it and it s director isaac holly uh told the metros were indulging to make the intelligent transportation succeed but that the vendor had failed uh the metro and that metro had sent a letter of default outlining the requirements that had to be met within 30 days mac members unanimously thanked director holly for his efforts and dedication we know how trying this has been for him and for the metro in general uh in october director holly announced the metro had issued a note of note of termination of contract to that vendor and was working to award it the contract to new vendor um miss lc and mr pisano offered to be beta testers with the new vendor when that new vendor is selected and in place as a regular feature of the mac meetings john ergo planning and development director summarizes quarterly ridership reports in august and october mac meetings he noted ridership was increased by had an increased approaching 50 percent of pre-covid numbers in august and ridership approached 90 percent on the usc routes especially on the new route 18 by october he said that bloke of ridership was about 65 percent of pre-coved numbers which we were greatly heartened to hear and the highway 17 was at about 33 percent of capacity also as part of his discussion director ergo was able to tell us that the bus stops the new bus stop signage is in place uh by october that meant that all bus stops in the santa cruz county had the new bus stop signs um miss lc asked for a status on researching adding a braille component to the signs this was something she requested earlier um director ergo said that some research had been done and some options were not possible to implement some of that was due to the signage itself and obviously also to the expense of adding full braille one option that he did see say seen possible is to place a marker on the poles to identify the bus stop id as lc was indicated that would be helpful since that information with that information one can access route information um and uh we agreed to shell further discussion of that until our first meeting in february of 2022 also on the agenda for the mac meetings were three route request suggestions proposed by mr pizzano um those of you who know mr pizzano will know that he's a very strong advocate for increasing uh bus access and bus stops throughout santa cruz county um um director ergo agreed to study uh so let's see one was uh with the uh the county's acquisition of a county alternate building in watsonville uh scheduled for occupation in the 2023 time frame uh direct um mr pizzano suggested that the bus route to be uh adjusted to accommodate that location director ergo agreed to study the proposal with the county but the current workforce shortage makes it a challenge to add any service anywhere so this affects the additional additional requests mr pizzano asked about adjusting the 69 w route to service the new kaiser facility i believe that's somewhere off so cal have uh director orgo stated we don't have the resource in so but that pete rasmussen transportation planner is working with kaiser for kaiser provided shuttle thirdly director ergo again said metro currently does not have the resource to elevate uh to deviate service to the new capitol library which was his last request mr pizzano's last request um finally um director ergo addressed the maintenance of the seamy seats and bus stops um as chair i had noticed a number of these seats tend to be rusting out and director ergo said facilities were surveying those stops noting the condition and he reported that metro had spare seats that can be used to replace any important conditions ceo alex clifford also suggested that uh make the facilities could provide rustolium two seats that were rusted to counter that rusting um also um there director ergo were reported on a pair cruise an on-demand micro service trans uh service pilot program in post august in october he indicated there was very low demand a less than 10 requests a day and that the micro transit service would likely be negatively affected as regular pair cruise use increased again however he noted that most micro transit customers were regular pair cruise users who appreciated the ability to book same day travel uh finally um um regarding um bicycle carriages on buses um this has come up a number of times as our way to increase capacity uh director ergo said research indicates the major improvements in the last 10 to 15 years was the three position bus bike rack already in use but he said the board recognizes the limitations and will work with city and county partners to encourage more bike racks bike lockers and bike share programs at the august meeting um ceo ross uh ceo uh ceo ross announced that the santa cruz metro would again extend the route 79 bus service and pair of crews to the santa cruz county and again the mac um wanted to applaud that decision she also noted by the way uh that metro would have a booth at the fair with first responders and will have a new electric bus and pair of crews vans on display yeah in august miss lc asked if the metro plan to re in uh to reinstate the disabled passenger training ceo ross said that training had to be suspended due to covet but the ada training is part of the syllabus uh some concern we we expressed some concern at the loss of the of the training disabled training practice that brandy freeman bus operator added that ceo ross and director moses had made improvements to the training we acknowledged miss lc's concerns also thanked ceo ross and director moses and mr freeman for their assurance to continue the training when safety do so and let's see i think that is everything i have to offer from our last meeting oh well thank you very detailed report appreciate your work all right it's a pleasure to serve here here yes we get we're as you you're getting some applause here and other here here so thank you thank you okay uh do julie do you have that proclamation i sent her on us i'm hoping she's able to screen share i am not i'm having trouble opening up the the document again i can get it open uh would you like me just to read it or well why don't i see then maybe i can screen share i'm here give me a second i'll try to do it so you have it open on your desktop and then yeah it should show let me know you got it that's it it's there okay okay so donna yeah how would you like to i can read it if you'd like but i'm happy to have you read it i've been reading a lot okay would you know go ahead mike i'm just gonna say i'm not sure it's necessary to ask we all see it in front of us the members of the public members of the public can see it as well give us about two minutes to read through it and let me know let me know if I need to scroll down maybe just a little bit and there you go now we should be able to see most of it might be helpful if anybody's on phone oh oh that's a point sorry it would it would take a long time to is there can someone load it to the website maybe yeah we can probably add that to the website and then with the agenda item yes it's similar to the resolution for his retirement yes oh you did cover the judy k susan that's yeah good point let me know if you're ready for me to scroll i'm ready and maybe read the um action items you know now therefore be it resolved maybe you guess okay now there be it resolved that the board of directors of the santa cruz metropolitan transit district does hereby express its appreciation to alex clifford for his leadership and dedicated service to metro and that the board of directors of the santa cruz metro transit district offers its best wishes for good health fulfillment and well-deserved happiness to alex clifford as he embarks on his next adventure passed and adopted by the board of super while we will have that as we take a vote do we need a motion on that yes we do i'll move approval of this resolution okay conic okay motion and second by conic all right and okay and row call uh director downing hi director dutra hi director collin terry johnson hi director conic hi director lin hi direct director mcpherson is gone uh director mires hi director pagler hi director parker hi director peterson are you muted christen she is i'm sorry did you can hear me yes now there was an eye okay and director rockin hi and the motion passes thank you you okay and next is the ratification of engagement letter with interim ceo and summary is that alex retired from metro effective january 21st on december 17th metro board of directors appointed don chroma to the position of interim ceo gm provided direction to staff to negotiate an engagement letter with don general counsel recommends board ratification of said engagement letter the i think all of you have it here and so we just needed a ratification of the engagement letter to make this official i think we need a motion i'll move move i will second that okay thanks one and and thank don for stepping up into this position so transitions are always difficult we appreciate her willing us to serve in this capacity till we have a permanent uh uh general manager and ceo agreed thank you don okay and roll call then is director downing hi director dutra hi director collin terry johnson hi director conic hi director lin hi director mcpherson oh i'm sorry uh director mires hi director pagler hi director parker hi director peterson hi director rockin hi and the motion passes thank you and now after we ratified that contract we're gonna ask don for her ceo report and covet update good morning thank you very much um i just have a couple of of items to share with you i will start off with the not so great news um since january first of this year we've had 36 positive cases um for covid obviously this is due to the omicron variant it is highly highly contagious um we noticed most of our our positives within the first probably two weeks um and have traced that back to holiday gatherings and things like that um i am happy to report that we have not traced one back to metro yet so that's that's very um that's very good news um a lot of it in the last couple of weeks actually has been um exposure with children so um our employees with their children or nieces or nephews or things like that and those children have been exposed by a student or a teacher and then they come home and and pass that on to to an employee so negative but then a bit of a positive there with that as well so we are continuing to process many of those um next item um we have a career change uh transfer that was done uh deli brubeck has transferred to our operations department um to be administrative assistant so we wish her well with her her new career change and then another positive item i'd like to share is that we received six new gilligs um we do have them on property now they're being assessed by our maintenance department and we hope to have those on the street within two months um that is all that i have for you this morning well thank you you're very welcome okay and uh director deutre you have a question yeah thank you and thank you so much dawn um quick question for you so how are we looking with the um last class of um drivers that we've had i think we started what with eight or ten where are we now with that so we started with eight or ten way before the before they even started so before they even the class even started we probably lost about five of those um and then if margo can can jump in i believe we have two um that actually have finished the class is that correct margo two or three no they're well prior to that yeah we we had two that completed the training the current class we have i just spoke to the training department um they're doing an awesome job on um in the class uh everybody's moving along and um they hope to graduate on time how many are in that class my frozen she frozen yeah i don't know who freezes anymore strike and oppose there you go margo you're back sorry what was the question how many are in the class what was the question how many are in the class now was there more than two no we have um we made it through the meetings so yeah i know it never happened at any time this was the best time for it to happen jimmy i will get back to you with that thank you yeah so um how many graduated in the last class um how many i guess are in the current class and are we still offering the um bonus yes we are we are we've also opened that that bonus up to our paratransit drivers as well because we are our um we had a recruitment for paratransit as well how many drivers are we down are we down a lot or yeah we are down currently 22 oh yeah 22 as of the 14 so um um if i can make a comment on this um for the people who are new to the board uh to our um hr department you can get a little uh business card that gives information about you know applying to be a bus driver for metro in santa cruz county it's worth saying that we pay very well um i'll say this bus drivers make more than lectures at the university of california who have phd so uh most of them have phd's uh we have an amazing benefit system uh that covers people this is just pointed out a four thousand dollar hiring bonus that you know the day you get hired you have four thousand dollars um and they're also incentives for other employees to recommend people but if you get these cards you can pass them out to people in the county it's a really good career and as noted by these people who we just recognize for serving us for between 20 and 37 years in a couple of cases um it's a it's a career it's not just a temporary job it's a really well paid career with good benefits and it really does help help to have the board members reach out to members of the public because i think people are not aware of this the um i'll add that the uh the the people who often drop out of training it's not because it's so hard to learn to drive a bus the uh what's amazing about our drivers um all of our employees that particularly our drivers is their public service and their ability to relate to the public and what we can we can quickly train someone to drive one of these buses what we can't train people to do is be good good at public relations and dealing with other people and so it was long so really what you need for this job is a clean driving record a high school diploma or or GED and and uh an ability to work with public and and you know be a good terms of good you know personal relations so really you want to reach out to people and try and help us because we have a huge gap of drivers we're down as 22 drivers and our class has i think it's something like six but we'll get their official number but so we're hiring maybe if we follow let's say they all get through and the others we all have hired eight people to fill out a gap of 22 drivers so we still need a lot more and the board of directors can help us in this process and their recruitment cards that yeah you can get a stack of them so uh director Calantari Johnson thank you for that director Rotkin I was going to see if the staff could send uh the board of directors um like social media messaging or things we can send out through our emails uh if you have that that's another really great way to do outreach and and I would be more than happy to do that multiple times yeah so we've done commercials and radio ads and we have links to those and we have sent them out on our own social media between myself and my deputy director we've sent those out and and our marketing director Danielle has helped us tremendously with that so yes when we do that we will send that out to the board as well so that you can you can share as well and we will get you some recruitment cards I I want to say it might take a little bit to to get some new ones because the ones we have it doesn't have all of our social media tags on it and I'd like to give you the most current one so um within the next month or so you guys uh should receive a stack we'll send those to you great and and when you're posting things I mean I would be happy to be tagged on your posts oh yeah absolutely yeah yeah I send them out like on LinkedIn so I can um get with the art if you're on LinkedIn if you guys are all on LinkedIn I can attach to you and then we can do that as well okay thanks no no problem director conic thank you yeah just a question so within the shortage of 22 drivers um are we how much of that are we able to cover with overtime pay for other drivers uh and how much are we actually reducing service and then when we make if we do have to make a reduction in service uh how do we select which routes to you know where to cut a bus um if I can answer that question so right now we are covering it with overtime um can you hear me yeah yeah um we are covering uh any shortages with overtime um at this time we don't have plans to reduce service but when we do reduce service we're very strategic we're not going to reduce service on a route that is um an hour headway certainly you know certainly a route that's 10 or 15 minutes headway will reduce service um you know one way um the dispatchers are very good at um kind of gauging where and when we can reduce service um they do a good job at that um and as I said earlier at this time we have no we're kind of working within the boundaries of the number of um operators that are available to us um so luckily um the run cut reflects the number of operators that we currently have thank you director downing uh yes I because I'm new I haven't spent a lot of time looking at the way that you recruit uh new bus drivers and I was curious is um have you had current bus drivers do testimonials about why they want to work why they enjoy working for metro and um have you posted any of those on things like instagram um I don't know metro has their own instagram account um I'm just curious if you've done work like that yes I seen the ads by the way thank you on uh the really nice uh the ads I'm seeing on tv and and social media I'm seeing on facebook I I'm seeing it on my instagram so yes I I have seen that but but please mark go ahead and share I well I can share that part so we're done we have done yeah we have done commercials and and within those commercials and Danielle can jump into um we have used employee testimonials so um and I believe Danielle you had something upcoming as well is that correct yeah that's correct so tomorrow we're doing a ksco interview about our open promotions um and then we do have the testimonials from drivers and all the other vacancies that are running on Comcast right now um and then we have other additional radio spots and plugs um and you know on websites and some printed magazines and things like that so we're trying to get the word out there more but I've I really think you I see a lot and it's it's a good job and I really creative and I love the testimonials it's um you know so many of the ads you just kind of zone out and these really do catch your attention so good work it's it's also worth noting this is a national problem it's like unique to our district and that's not a reason to slow down or not do our best to really address it because it's a very serious problem but we're not alone in this and not even our even our industry is not alone in this it's just really hard to hire people these days for a variety of reasons we don't have time to get into this one but serious issue okay if there are no other questions let me make sure um if there are any hands on the public if not then uh we'll move away there is one hand that just went up all right okay look too quickly James Sandoval muted Kingston can you help there we go can you hear me now yes okay um yeah uh I think we spoke on to how we could you know tackle this problem together which is you know what we were talking about earlier by um bringing bringing back the sense of family I really feel like um a lot of these operators when we felt the support um from Metro that they were out recruiting for us you know family and friends and when you know we felt like this was a great place to work um the recruiting kind of did itself um we have a lot of family that works here um dads moms sisters brothers and um you know I've I've seen a difference when it comes to recommending this job to their own families because they don't this is not the same feeling anymore and that's why we're really hoping to bring that sense back because I feel like everything will take care of itself um if we if we were to accomplish that so I don't know where else I could appropriately bring this up but I'm asking Donald in you as the chair of the board of directors to call a special meeting before uh February 18th which is the deadline um for us to get an answer to Senator uh John Laird regarding the prohibition issue it sounds like some board members are wanting to discuss this a little further and look into it a little bit more and I'm hoping we could do that together um we have had a couple more signatures come through on that letter since this meeting and I'm just really hoping that you know we could open up the dialogue and and look into this together and work on this together and we really hope that you give us this chance uh the next board meeting is not till February 25th which is after the deadline I already got confirmation from John Laird that he can't hold anything for us he needs an answer before then so I'm hoping that you exercise all right I believe it's article three in the bylaws for the board of directors to call a special meeting to put this as an agenda for us to discuss further all right thank you thank you the and obviously there was a motion related to that uh for after the CEO comes in next moving to the announcement next regular meeting will be Friday February 25th 9 a.m and it will also be via teleconference stay well everybody um thank you all and uh thank you Don for your work and Donna with all the challenges with it so um you're really doing Ylman's work so thanks so much welcome to the new board members yes yes welcome all Rebecca uh Ari thanks so much for joining us bye everyone happy Friday everybody bye bye bye thank you