Good morning. It is 10 30. We will begin begin the committee meeting for our contracts operations maintenance and safety committee
Begin like we always do with our safety
Morning director Spiegel committee members as a reminder in the event of a fire alarm activation
We are all going to calmly uniformly exit the building
We will stage by the Metro customer service away from the building and wait for further instructions
If we have an earthquake I'm gonna ask you to drop take cover wait till the shaking stops
And then we'll do an assessment if an evacuation is warranted
In the event we have a situation requiring first aid. I will be your initial first aid provider
I will ask Miss Pena to contact Metro security front desk where the ad is also located and make EMS aware
And as always in an active attacker situation I remind you to run a fight and in conclusion of this morning's safety briefing
Whoever your team is this weekend
I wish the best of luck to them and also be aware that folks may be driving out this weekend may be impaired
So keep that in mind as well that concludes your safety briefing this morning. Thank you
Either impaired or angry who knows?
Hopefully their team is winning
Mr. Del Rio, will you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance? Thank you
Speaking of roll call please.
Director Marquez.
Vice Chair Spiegel.
Yes.
Director Vargas.
Yes.
Director Chaffee.
Director Dimitriou.
Director Engler.
Director Barger.
Director Solis.
Director Allen.
Here.
Director Presiado.
Chair Wapner.
I'm here.
We do have a quorum present.
Okay, we will now move into public comments.
And this is a reminder this meeting is streaming live
to ensure that the recording can be captured video.
It is requested that when a member makes a motion
or seconds a motion,
please announce the last name for the record.
Those of you participating on zoom,
must keep your cameras on all the time
and we will go back.
Is there anybody here to address this board?
We have not received any requests to speak
and I did receive a written public comment
from Lucas Chang that will be forwarded
the committee after the meeting thank you was it regarding an item on the
agenda it looks like it is regarding the proposed optimized schedule and it has I
think suggestions for implementing the schedule we should always read those
because we'll be voting on something so if someone sends us something in that's
on the agenda we need to read those so just for future because we can get
ourselves in trouble if we don't acknowledge those that were regards on
the agenda. Okay, we will now move to the regular calendar, the first item is 6A,
the approval of meeting minutes from the January 12th 2024 committee
meeting. Thank you Mr. Chafee for the motion. Thank you Mr. Walter for the
second. Roll call vote. Vice chair Spiegel. Yes. Director Chafee. Aye. Director
English absent director Alan I chair Wapner yes that motion carried thank
you next we're moving to six B is the contracts for master product purchase
and license agreements Andre good morning chair and community members
DeAndre Conley presenting for item 6b here which is a contract for H 1 6 6 7
20, this contract covers our master purchase and license agreement and engineering support
tools for PTC and our 220 megahertz network.
We need to extend as well as increase the contract authority for this contract.
Next slide, please.
As we see here, our contract for the authority for this contract will be ending at the end
of this fiscal year, June 30th, 2024.
And so this contract extension will again provide for the support of PTC as well as
for the software and hardware that we need for this endeavor.
These softwares will include things such as centralized or CTC, our centralized training
control software over ITCM, as well as our annual professional service costs, our wireless
crossing technology endeavors as well as our ARM tool
or our advanced radio management tool.
Again, our wayside message servers and PTC radios
are keeping all these things in the state of good repair,
so this item will cover all of these tasks.
Next slide, please.
And so it is recommended to the board,
or the committee, that we recommend the board
to extend the contract H1667-20 for five years
and increase the contract authority
for by a total of $8 million, from the current total of $2,248,640
to $10,248,640.
And again, this amount includes our annual fees
for software licenses, support agreements,
or tools for our new anti-replacement hardware.
Next slide.
And that concludes my presentation.
I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Any questions from my colleagues?
I just have a couple.
Madam Chair, I'm sorry.
You missed it, my turn now.
Just kidding, go on, Alan.
I don't want to talk to you.
Remind me what the turn of the initial agreement was.
I'm sorry, I couldn't hear the question.
What is the initial term of the agreement?
Initial term, well this is an ongoing agreement
and so it's been renewed a couple of times.
So this was five years in the past
and so this will be for another five years.
Did you get that, Director Wapner?
I got it but I noticed when an eight million dollar increase in the existing contract was
two million dollars, I guess I'm trying to figure out what two at a time was two million
dollars for.
So the question was, although it looks like Luis Carrasquero is coming up to also participate
in this, Luis, are you or are you not?
Okay.
So, all right, I'll let you guys tag team that, see if we can respond to Director Wapner's
question.
Luis Carrasquero, Deputy Chief Operating Officer, so as we've known, there's been additional
new technology that has been implemented since the original contract was deployed.
Wireless crossing, we are looking to deploy that technology across our system.
We have the ARM tool, we have new technology such as CTC over ITCM.
So as we, as the industry, not only Metron looks to expand our technology improvements
on PTC, we also need to make sure that we have the necessary hardware and software support
from our vendors to be able to implement this successfully and be able to maintain it in
a set of good repair.
So if I could, Luis, the first, the agreement we're working off of today is a five-year
agreement that was $2.248 million.
We would be extending that agreement with one, a five-year term, but increasing it somewhat
substantially by 8 million but the reason for that the reason that the cost
is so great so much greater than the current one is there are a lot more
features that are that we are now utilizing out of this out of this
contract that we didn't have in the first five years is that a fair
statement yeah that's correct so back when this was initially implemented we
had just I'll call it the basic hardware warranty software maintenance for our
our radios and our wayside and as over the past several years new technology has come
up so we need to make sure that we add on to the basic plan that we have to ensure that
it remains in a state of good repair.
Thank you.
Director Wapner did that capture?
It did but I don't agree.
This is my concern is that we now have a $2 million contract and certain firms submitted
RFPs for $2 million and now the scope has widened four times we might have other firms
might have been interested had they known it was a $10 million contract. So I guess I'm curious as
to the amount we're expanding the scope, why is it that we didn't go back out for RFP before extending
the contract? Yeah, so this software is pertaining to technology that is proprietary to Meteorcom.
Meteorcom is the only vendor and supplier that provides PTC radios as full as a software for
ITCM not only for Metrolink but for the industry. So at this point we don't have, there is no other
viable or approved vendor that is able to provide these services not only for us but for the industry.
Okay I get it. Proprietorians who are kind of extorted by them just like all the proprietary
licenses and I guess it's just where the industry works. Thank you. I find that interesting when
when you said approved vendor what do they prove themselves? How do you be approved vendor when
you're the proprietor? Well without going into the weeds so there are. Oh I love the weeds.
There are governing bodies, for example, the PTC 220 spectrum that is governed by outside
several railroads, but the firm that does the studies, for example, the Wireless Crossing
Modeling Studies is done by Meteorcom, and then it is then up to the governing body,
the spectrum committee, that is able to review and approve that. So we need that mechanism for
us to be able to conduct these studies, the modeling, and then plead our case to the
governing body for us to use that. See, the weeds were important on that. That's a
good information. I feel more comfortable now. Thank you.
Mr. Allen.
You know, and I usually will ask a question. When you're talking about software, since
we have such a cybersecurity problem worldwide, particularly in our country, what parameters
might be involved with the new software you're getting, and has that been raised by anyone
in terms of possible cybersecurity issues with this system?
Yeah, so when we talk about the PTC system as a whole, we leverage established industry
standards and ICDs that are governed by the AAR.
So they include security measures that everyone has to abide by and there are ongoing industry
efforts to expand and increase that.
So this is another reason when those standards are available,
we will need to make sure that our vendors
are compliant to those and we are testing those appropriately.
So cyber security is evolving.
There are current measures for that,
but we are expanding not only as MetroLink but as an industry
to make sure that our systems are kept safe and secure.
Any other questions?
Mr. Marquez, is that a motion?
Alan?
I'll move it.
Vice Chair Spiegel, yes.
Director Chaffee, aye.
Director Engler is absent.
Director Allen, aye.
Chair Wapner, yes.
That motion carried.
Thank you.
Okay, I haven't heard that one yet.
Okay, we are now on item 6C,
adjustment to the annual authorization
for operating service agreements, mouthful.
Yes ma'am, good morning Chair,
Vice Chair and committee members.
Before you as a rather straightforward request
adjust contract authorities for the four private bus agencies that we use during
emergency and plan service interruptions. The annual contract authorities were
initially approved by the board during the June 2023 board meeting. Next slide
please. As we have progressed through the first half of this fiscal year,
we've realized that the Sure-Ride Charter Company has available
availabilities that exceed what we initially had anticipated. So we are
asking the committee to adjust the respective contract authorities amongst
the four. It does not adjust the overall contract authority for alternate
transportation nor does it affect the overall budget. So with that the staff
recommends that the committee recommend to the board to authorize a CEO to amend
the annual authorization of the operating services agreements as
outlined above. I just want to real quick we have your motion what's nice to
see is some reductions everything's always an increase you get out of the
four items that you're presenting three reductions I mean that is not quite a
lot of money but by reducing the other three we're able to increase the fourth
Don't ruin it.
Yes, ma'am.
Can we have a motion by Mr. Wapen, do we have a second?
Thank you, Mr. Allen.
Yes.
We'll call vote, Vice Chair Spiegel.
Yes.
Director Chafee.
Aye.
Director Engler is absent.
Director Allen.
Aye.
Chair Wapner.
Aye.
Yes.
That motion carried.
And we're now on item 7 our chief executive officers report. Thank you madam chair exciting part of the meeting every hang under your seat
Yeah, everybody leaves building quickly the as we all know we had quite a bit of weather this last week
This is just a report out that generally speaking our system handled it extremely well
We had some delayed trains and in places, but for the most part
We got everybody where they needed to get maybe a bit late, but they got we got them there
So we want to make sure we have thanks to our give thanks to the operations team
And tracking signal when you have the amount of water that we took on in Southern, California
with flash flood warnings water over rail
you know water into various pieces of equipment to continue to sort of to run our system and get people where they need to go it was a
Overall a very positive situation given how much water we did take on
San Clemente continues to be a challenge.
It did handle the storm relatively well
thanks to the placement of the plastic
over the slope failure area.
You would have probably seen the pictures
that were sent out by the communications team,
Mr. Johnson in particular, and most recently,
I think pictures that went out yesterday
that showed the plastic having been removed
and the nature of the material
that is right up against our tracks.
I have approved moving forward with an emergency contract
for a design build that will,
for a design build contractor to build a barrier wall
similar to what we did at Casa Romanica over the summer,
this last, in summer of 2023.
That emergency contract will come back before the board
for ratification later this month.
And we're hoping to try to get ahead of some
of these hotspot issues related to slope failures.
OCTA has performed a study that has identified
seven hotspot areas along the San Clemente Bluffs
into Dana Point.
We're hoping to try to put together a package of projects
that allow us to get ahead of these landslides
instead of having to react to them.
And doing so with the full support
of the California State Transportation Agency.
On Sunday, of course, we did have quite a bit of rain,
but that was also transit equity day,
which is a day that we allow people
to ride our trains for free.
Normally, we have about 5,000 riders on a Sunday.
We doubled that this year.
We had a little over 10,000 in the rain.
So yes, they brave the weather.
It does, you know, the upside is that our passenger cars
aren't convertibles, so they kept everybody
nice and dry and warm, so we were pleased with that.
And just a real quick, hats off.
We had planned, we certainly couldn't plan for the weather,
but we had planned for transit equity day, free ride day.
The last time we had this on a weekend,
we were busting at the seams on our passenger cars.
So our Alstom, our mechanical contractor,
had made arrangements to take some of our,
a number of our four car sets
and put outfit them to six cars.
Just to be ready for this real big surge of riders
that didn't come because of the rain.
But nonetheless, we were ready if it did happen.
So our thanks to Alstom for thinking ahead in that case.
And lastly, the next week, the February 14th,
Valentine's Day is customer appreciation day.
The board secretary has sent out notes to all of you
saying, hey, we would love to have you at our stations
in your neighborhood to greet our passengers,
to thank them for being loyal riders.
So please, if you could, go back and take a look
that email from Miss Peña and and if you can show up bright and early one
that morning of Valentine's we'd love to share that platform our staff would
love to share the platform with you as you greet our riders. I will be at LA
Union Station greeting riders there so hopefully some of you will be able to
take some time but reach out to Michelle and Madam Chair that concludes my
remarks. Thank you. Thank you sir. Committee members, do we have any
comments? Mr. Wapner, Mr. Vargas? I'm good. I'm good, thanks.
Okay, Chair's comments. Okay, we already acknowledged the Super Bowl. As I'm
sitting here in downtown LA, I am promoting what Riverside County is
doing our Angels Train. No applause? Come on guys. There are two teams here. Anyway,
we're working with Darren and the team to get our trains all lined up for the
games. Weird times because the games are weird times. Like 648 or some bizarre...
whatever it was. Anyway, so those are always well received and certainly keeps
people jamming at the gates when they go into the stadium so and it's a fun time.
People have made parties and fun things on this so thank you all for
cooperating and knowing about that. You didn't know you don't care about the
angels. That's a good anyway I won't go any further. With that do not forget
Valentine's Day as Darren said you could start the day in a great way but you
Better in that day in the right way.
So I won't say any more.
I won't even be here, I'll be in D.C.
We have NACO, National Association of Counties.
Anyway, with that, if there's nothing further,
we'll go ahead and adjourn this meeting.
Thank you all.