It's still morning some places.
I already had a 6.30 breakfast meeting, so it's been a long day already.
Thank you very much for being here, and as we begin every meeting, we're going to call this to order and begin with a safety briefing.
Okay, I'll start. Good morning, Chair Spiegel, committee members.
In the event of a fire alarm activation, we're going to exit the building, go downstairs, and stay in front of Metro's customer service, wait for the all clear.
In the event of any earthquake, we're going to drop, take cover, wait for the shaking
to stop and make a determination at that point if an evacuation is warranted.
In the event of a first aid situation, I will be your first aid provider.
I will, at that point, ask Ms. Pena to contact Metro Security to provide further aid.
The event of an active attacker will always remind you to run, hide, fight, and that concludes
your safety briefing for this committee this morning.
Thank you so much.
Can we have the board secretary doing the housekeeping we need?
As we have participants joining us via Zoom, all action items will require a roll call
vote.
We are going to have our supervisor, Catherine Barger, do our pledge of allegiance.
I would be honored.
Would you all please stand.
Place your right hand over your heart, face the flag, and begin.
Can we have roll call, please?
Certainly.
Director Marquez?
Here.
Vice-chair Spiegel. Here. Director Vargas. Present. Director Chafee. Present. Director Murphy. Director
Tremblay. Here. Director Barger. Here. Director Solis. Director Allen. Here.
Director Presiado. Chair Wapner. We do have a quorum present. Thank you. And just to
remind everybody this meeting is be streaming live and please make sure that
the cameras are left on if you're doing Zoom. I'd like to see your smiling faces
out there in Zoom land. And make sure you talk into the mic and when you make a
motion or comment please make your motion with your name, your last name for
the record. We will begin with the regular calendar. Item A, approval of the
meeting minutes public comment oh I just skipped right over public comment
public comment please it's a maybe have a public comment I believe we do have a
request to speak thank you we'll call Elena Garza up I wanted to share some
suggestions for monthly passes and I would say that monthly passes within the
Metro link system may be a little bit unusual to the customer experience in
in that they are sold for months, specifically,
and not for a fixed amount of time, for example, 30 days.
And I thought that maybe it would be worth considering
more fixed sort of monthly pass for 30 days
with the expiry marked,
which would maybe encourage customers to purchase
at any time without feeling that they lost money
or experiencing too much confusion.
Also, for fare collection enforcement,
fare inspections on Metro link trains,
at least from my knowledge, are performed once
and do not necessarily capture all passengers.
A strategy for ensuring a full fare inspection
and enforcement like that used in Metro North,
railroad or other commuter rail systems throughout the country could eliminate potentially unruly
passengers or fare invaders. Sometimes at Union Station fare inspectors stand at the
entrances to the trains to scan tickets before passengers enter. This technique could potentially
be effective if expanded. The technique of identifying new passengers to the train at
different stations and scanning their tickets exclusively like in the new
airline could also be useful and also for locomotives there are I would say
many admirers or enough admirers of them to the point where they there would be
some popularity of their preservation whether it would be as non-powered
control unit sold to other operators potentially to carry luggage like the
Amtrak NPC use repowered in other states which do not have the same
emission restrictions as California with new prime movers sold to train museums
and or other people interested in buying them and I would say that in
conclusion try to get money from the locomotives in the Keller Yard because I
believe that there is a great opportunity to do so and I already
mentioned this before but I tried the new arrow line and it's incredible and I
believe that Metro, Metrolink and other agencies can learn a lot from the new
arrow system thank you very much now we can ask for approval on the meeting
minutes of October 13th trophy moves approval
second we'll call director chafee director Tremblay yes director Allen I
director Marquez vice chair Spiegel yes a motion carried unanimously we are now
on 6b work order for BNSF for 30% preliminary design services mr. Chris
Hask morning committee chair members of the committee my name is Chris Haskell
senior manager for the program delivery and ventral link this item is with
regard to a work order with BNSF to undertake preliminary engineering for
of the Fullerton-Locker project.
BNSF owns, operates, maintains, and dispatches
all services that operate on the BNSF San Bernardino
subdivision and to date the authority
has been awarded $152 million in TERSIP funding
for the Fullerton-Locker project.
The Fullerton-Locker project is located
on the BNSF San Bernardino subdivision
and includes changes to both Fullerton Station
and Fullerton Junction as well as a third main track segment
between Raymond Avenue and CPS Barranza.
When complete, this would afford an increase in services
for the 91 PVL line as well as the Amtrak Pacific Surf Liner
and the IEO seat line.
Next slide, please.
The NSF does not do environmental clearance
on this AMBRIN DIA subdivision,
so any environmental clearance
has to be done by a public agency,
so we will undertake the environmental clearance.
We have procured and are under contract
with an environmental consultant
to commence the environmental clearance.
And what we would like to do is have BNSF advance the design
while we are doing the environmental clearance.
So we are seeking approval to enter into a work order
with BNSF for a not to exceed total amount
of $6,817,825 for BNSF to complete
the 30% preliminary design.
Of these $6,817,825,
We currently have $3 million allocated
from the California Transportation Commission.
So we would execute a limited notice to proceed
with BNSF to get started on the design.
We will be requesting the remaining amount from the CTC.
We are on the agenda for March to get that approved.
And then we will execute an amendment to the work order
for the remaining amount.
Happy to answer any questions you may have.
Does anybody have any questions?
Seeing none, pleasure of this board.
Questions?
I just want to comment, this is a important project
to advance, but there are concerns with OCTA,
the board I am on, and also City Fullerton,
which is where I live.
And I think the concern is moving the passengers
all over to the south side of the tracks
instead of being able to board
on both the north and south.
The north is where the parking is.
I think the proposal we worked out in the environmental analysis so it's fine at this
point is how does that work when you only can board from the south side?
So that is the concern but I support moving forward with a 30% allocation for the design.
Okay.
Thank you.
Is that the motion?
I will move the item.
Mr. Allen, did I hear a second?
Second.
Director Chafee director Tremblay yes director Allen aye director Marquez
vice chair Spiegel yes a motion carried unanimously thank you okay thank you we
are in item C 6c it's a quarter report of contracts awarded third party
So, I'll bring you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, one contract and one third
party agreement between the threshold of $250,000 and $500,000 for Q1.
Next.
That concludes my presentation.
I'm happy to answer any questions.
Any questions?
Can I entertain a motion?
I guess I can entertain it, but no one's going to give me one.
Okay, that's a receiving file.
For me, it's your turn now.
Oh, great, thank you, Madam Chair.
So CEO's update, CEO's report.
Several of you have already heard this.
Let's first talk about our very successful end of 2023
with our system-wide closure from December 26th to the 29th.
A lot of work done by our contractors,
our operations team, program delivery team,
and our customer experience slash communications team.
Getting the word out about the closure and all the work that was done to complete the modernization of LA Union Station
and on all of our platform switches and signal systems, rounding out a three-year effort of somewhere on the order of about $80 million.
We'll have more to share with you at the board meeting at the end of the month that better explains the full work that was done.
but we were very, very successful in getting the word out
so that we had a very limited number of people
that had either bought tickets
or showed up at platforms expecting to buy a ticket
and catch a train.
So our effort for six weeks of getting that word out,
particularly by our communications team,
was very productive in that.
I, as several of you walked in
as we were doing our photo op,
That was to do the best wishes and a send-off to Alyssa deCaspres, our Chief People Officer,
who is going to LA County Metro to be the Chief Pop People Officer there,
and for Alyssa Cunningham, our Chief Technology Officer,
who is leaving the very mild climate of Southern California to go to the Northeast,
specifically Pennsylvania, the Southeast Pennsylvania
Transportation Authority, commonly known as SEPTA,
where there is a frozen rain occurring as we speak.
But they're both amazing opportunities
for these two top class women professionals
and I wish them the best going on
to those new opportunities.
They will be missed here at Metrolink.
And then just as a quick reminder,
board meeting is January 26th.
It's also our board retreat,
which will be held in Ontario.
And just real quickly, I understand in our briefing yesterday
with RCTC and that's commissioners,
Director Vargas and Director Spiegel,
some questions came up regarding on-time performance
on the 91 Paris Valley line,
particularly in the month of November.
We're looking into the issues related to that.
Preliminarily, we had some issues with BNSF signal systems
as well as a somewhat unusual number of police activity,
which is oftentimes trespasser strikes
that were on that 91 Paris Valley line
that were somewhat out of the ordinary.
But we will have a more thorough explanation
In the coming weeks that I just wanted to give you a heads up as to based on the question in coming up from the
briefing yesterday
That concludes my report. Thank you, sir
Do we have any members that have report your comments?
Mr.
Thank you, ma'am. Um, I I have two concerns and one of them
I did talk to Darren this morning when I first got here this morning from the train
I was walking in and they noticed the door directly to the left
had barriers in front of it front and back and I understand it's been like
that for a little bit Darren if we can sort of check with maintenance to see
if we can do something about that because that is sort of a concern as
far as blocking an exit door we could do something about that and a you know more
positive note coming in from Pomona North to here that train was fully
packed had a hard time finding the seat so whatever we're doing hey
Congratulations. Thank you. Good to hear. Thank you for sharing. Anyone else have any
comments? Seeing none. Chair's comments. I know Monday's a holiday. I do hope those
of you who have that day off will certainly take a moment to recognize why
that day is a holiday and have a time either in our reading or looking on the
internet or something to have a brief history refresher on Martin Luther King
and what he has done to bring us to the point we are. His style of leadership as
non-disobedience and non-violence, but definitely one of the best advocates
and activists that we have had in our history. And we can't let all his efforts
and work, be altered. That's one thing I've been frustrated with, is with history. You
can't eliminate or cover up history. You're just going to take it, move forward and make
things better. And I think that's what we should all be doing, and taking on his path
and go forward and what a great country we could be. So I look forward to seeing how
know we can spin it forward working together and using his non-disobedient and non-violence
leadership. So thank you. Thank you for that Madam Chair, well said. And with that we will
adjourn this long meeting. Thank you Madam Chair for your eloquent comments. Have a good
weekend everyone.