All right good morning everybody welcome to meeting on the Metro link contract operations maintenance and Safety Committee
Like to welcome everybody here this morning, and we'll begin with a safety briefing from Frank
Morning, chair Wapner committee members this message serves a reminder those folks both in the audience and remotely to be aware of your environment
Your surroundings and know where the exits are in case of emergency
If we have a fire alarm activation
and we're all gonna exit the building uniformly calmly
and stage in front of the Metro customer service office
downstairs, and wait for further instructions.
In the rare event, we have an earthquake.
I'm gonna have you drop, take cover,
wait till the shaking stops, and we'll do an assessment
if leaving the building is warranted.
The event day situation requiring first aid,
I will be your first aid provider.
I'll ask Ms. Payne to contact the Metro security front desk
where the AD is also located.
And as always, in the event of an active attack
or a situation, I'll remind everybody to run, hide, fight.
And finally, I'd like to wish everyone,
All you dads out there, grandfathers, et cetera,
happy Father's Day and that concludes my safety briefing.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Frank.
All right, that brings us to the pledge.
Larry, would you mind leading us in the pledge, please?
Please join me as we salute the flag
that represents our republic.
Ready?
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States
of America and to the republic for which it stands,
one nation under God, indivisible,
of liberty and justice for all.
Thank you.
Okay, roll call please.
Director Marquez.
Present.
Vice Chair Spiegel.
Director Vargas.
Present.
Director Chaffee.
Director Dumitre.
Present.
Director Engler.
Here.
Director Barger.
Director Solis.
Director Allen.
Director Preciado.
Chair Wapner.
Here.
Do have a quorum present. Thank you very much appreciate that brings us to the public comment portion of the meeting
Do we have any members of the public that want to address the committee or any written comments? I
Have not received any written public comments or any speaker cards with requests to speak at this time
We'll close the public comment period of the meeting brings us to the regular calendar
What I would like to do concurrence of the general council members of the committee since most of these items deal with either
Stensions or options. I would like to have staff presentations
But do one roll call vote for all of them
Of course any member of the committee can remove one if they'd like to be okay with that
Okay, good any objection from any community members very good. Okay
The first items minutes if there's no questions about that will include that in the portion that we're going to take as one roll
Call vote that brings us. I number 6b and that'll be on
Laura
to present item 6B, exercise of option year
and increase in annual contract authority
with Transit America Services, Inc., or TAZI.
Next slide, please.
In order to continue to operate the Arrow Service
in fiscal year 2025,
it is necessary to exercise the option year
of this contract and approve annual contract authority.
Next slide.
Therefore, it is recommended that the committee recommend
the board authorize the CEO
to exercise the remaining option year
and exercise the contract,
excuse me, increase the contract authority
by $4,198,142 and 4 cents,
which is included in and contingent upon approval
of the FY25 arrow budget.
Next slide please.
That concludes my presentation
and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Do you have any questions for staff on this?
If not, no, I did receive a comment card
of Mr. Donald Harlan, you wanted to speak to the minutes.
Mr. Harlan.
Hi, this is Donald Harlan speaking on the contracts,
operations, maintenance, and safety committee.
Speaking at them about item 6B,
which is the contract for Amtrak,
oh, I'm sorry, no, it's the, for Transit America.
And you put in a request for number 6A,
which is the minutes of the last meeting.
Did you want to speak to 6A?
You didn't request for 6B.
I mean, I'll allow you to go ahead and do it.
Just let me know which one you want to speak to.
So I know, are you going to speak to the minutes
or do you want to speak to item 6B?
I only have three minutes, that's fine.
The AeroTrain service, I'm a little concerned
that we're a new train service for it to balloon,
30% in price or so in one year.
right at the beginning of the operations, excessive.
It seems that if it costs $13 million for the train,
I'm probably okay for that for that new service for a year,
but it's a little bit much.
And for it to grow $4 million is a sign
that they're doing way too much
that they shouldn't be doing.
Sorry, I kind of yelled at the MetroLink employees
when they're cleaning brush along the Metrolink rails.
Sorry about that.
My apologies to them.
I was upset.
I thought they were developing the real estate
along the rails.
I have a big problem with illegal real estate development
along the rails, especially in Canyon Country,
that Metrolink had added a new stop in Canyon Country.
That's totally unnecessary.
That probably should be shut down.
I would direct-
Mr. Harlan, I'm sorry, you're speaking to an item
that item number B on Aero service.
If you don't have anything else to talk about that,
we'll move on to item number 60.
Thank you.
Item 60, 20 more.
Good morning, Chair and committee members.
I'm here to present item 60,
the Annual Contract Authority for contract number OP15121,
where train operator services provided currently by Amtrak
to support the Metrolinx system.
Next slide.
It's recommended that the committee recommend
board to authorize the chief executive officer to approve funding for FY 25 and
the amount not to exceed 48 million one hundred and sixty three thousand three
hundred and twenty one dollars and eighty five cents this concludes my
presentation unless there are questions thank you any questions of staff we have
a public comment card submitted by mr. Harlan an item number 6c mr. Harlan you
want to speak to the Amtrak contract thank you Amtrak for following met
Metrolink and working with all the passenger rails local passenger rails
That's really good program. I appreciate that and I don't know 48 million dollars for a year
Seems like an awful lot
that I
understand that you know amp I also own Amtrak and own Metrolink that I
Don't want any people paying each paying people for things that
Please make sure that
Correct accounting takes place
Right that brings to item number six D like and David and that's Tim more head
Good morning chair and members of the committee. This is item 60 contract
MS 289 does 22 for the track and signal infrastructure
maintenance and support services or
FY 24 25 contract funding authorization
For the services included the inspection testing reporting management replacement repairs of the track and signal infrastructure
for the authority the proposed FY 24 and 25 budget
consists of a total of 38 million four hundred and thirty one thousand three hundred and seven
Recommendations recommended that the committee recommend to the board authorize the chief executive officer to approve the FY 24 25
Contract authority for basement services for a not to exceed amount of thirty eight million four hundred and thirty one thousand three hundred and seven
That concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you any questions of staff
Hearing them mr. Um Harlan wants to speak to I'd number 6d on the her saw contract
I'm Donald Harlan speaking on the contract for her sock. Hi. I
assumed that the
$38 million is net cost of the total project including the parts and equipment and vehicles
and everything.
$38 million for signal infrastructure maintenance and support services is pretty excessive even
for a year.
I mean I'm assuming that includes all the components and the different things that get
broken, that they replace, that that's included in the price.
If that is, that doesn't sound like too much of a reason,
too much of out of the range price,
considering how many rails there are now.
But it's a little excessive.
Herzog, maybe there can be some of it.
Some of the contract can maybe be internalized at Metrolink.
or maybe somebody from there can pick up their,
instead of making a contract really,
there should, really the situation is,
there should be employees doing these kinds of things
and there shouldn't be contracts.
That's kind of the problem.
I'm not saying that you guys should be doing everything,
but I'm concerned about outside councils
and outside groups and different things,
trying to make deals,
and I don't want to discourage anybody who's in charge of something so important
as signal infrastructure maintenance and support.
That's very important, but I don't want anybody taking advantage of that situation either.
Okay, that brings us, I'm sorry, thank you for your comments.
It brings us to item number 6E, I believe, Emmanuel, you're presenting.
Good morning, Chair, members of the committee.
My name's Emmanuel Baez, Director of Maintenance and Equipment.
I'm here to discuss 6E annual contract funding authorization to provide equipment maintenance
services to support the Metrolinx system, including Arrow.
Next slide, please.
It is recommended that the committee recommend authorize the Chief Executive Officer to approve
the annual contract authority for contract number OP 13717 for equipment maintenance
services with awesome transportation and a not-to-exceed amount of 34,639,466 for FY20.
Thank you. Any questions of staff? All right. And there's no request to speak to this one.
So we'll get item number, what's that? So if there's no other questions of anyone in the
committee, I'm looking for a motion to approve items number 6A to 6E.
So moved, Vargas. Seconded by Engler. We have a motion and a second. Roll call vote please.
Director Vargas yes director chafee director angler yes chair Wapner yes
that motion carried brings us to item number six F and this is Eduardo
members of the committee here to present item six F contract number PO 961-24
for diesel fuel and diesel exhaust fluid recommendation to award it's like the
Authority requires fuel for its locomotive and diesel multiple units to operate its commuter rail service through six County area of Southern, California
The fuel consists of exclusively a hundred percent renewable diesel which the authority uses for on its locomotives and the abuse
The authority also requires diesel exhaust fluid
Def for its tier four locomotives and the abuse Def is used to help reduce emissions from the owner diesel emissions
Fuel and death are currently delivered in bulk to the authorities maintenance facilities at CMF and EMF and in regular on-call
on-call track side deliveries at various locations under contract number
889-22 which expires on August 31st, 2024
this new contract PO
961-24 will replace the existing contract as of April 9th, 2024 the authority moved from using petroleum
to renewable diesel to power the DMUs going forward.
The authority will only be purchasing renewable diesel
to power its fleet of locomotives and DMUs.
Slide, please.
March 15, 2024, the authority issued
PIO number, invitation forbid, PIO number 961-24.
Notifications were sent to 1,049 registered vendors
on the solicitation portal.
Advertisements were posted in newspapers
of general circulation within the authority's five counties
as well as in diversity newspapers.
43 questions were received and answers were provided.
Three bids were received by the due date of April 17, 2024.
Bidders were Mansfield Company, Pinnacle Petroleum, Inc,
and Essie Fuels, which Mansfield Company
was the lowest total bidder
with a total amount of 54,480,535 with 56 cents.
Next slide please.
It is recommended that the community recommend
the board award contract number PO961-24
to Mansfield Company for not to exceed amount
of $72,520,051 with 33 cents.
The contract term is one year based
with the one year option to be exercised
at the sole discretion of the chief executive officer.
This recommendation is subject to the resolution
and any timely file protests.
Next slide, please.
And that concludes my presentation.
I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Thank you.
Any questions of staff?
I just have one comment.
Thank you.
No, I got one quick question for you.
Sure, go ahead.
Just on the pinnacle and the man's field
are very, very close to an overall price.
Is one more reliable than the other?
Do we have a history with one or the other?
So we do.
Eduardo, Eduardo, face this direction.
I know it's.
Yeah.
Happens all the time, yeah.
We do have our history with both.
Our current contract is with Mansfield
and the previous contractor was Pinnacle.
And both were acceptable and reliable?
Yes.
OK, thank you.
Thank you.
My own comment is that fuel is a commodity,
so it's interested that all of these companies
come up with such a diverse amount of money.
OK, if there's no other question, we can hear.
I'm Mr. Chair.
Oh, sorry.
If I might ask a question, what are we using petroleum diesel?
So we were using petroleum diesel to power the DMUs
because they were under warranty.
And original equipment manufacturer of the engine
would not allow us to use petroleum diesel.
As of April they allowed us to use petroleum diesel and we moved to I mean renewable diesel
and we moved to using renewable diesel, it's April 9th.
So we don't use petroleum diesel anymore period?
That's correct.
So why is it factored into this bid?
So when we put IFB, we were still using petroleum diesel and we did not know
That douche was gonna allow us to use renewable these on their engines
Thank you. You're welcome
Thank you. Mr. Harlan wants to speak to item number 6f
Hi, I'm Donald Harlan this I'm speaking on the item 6f
contract for
Diesel fuel and diesel exhaust fluid or Mansfield oil company. I just
have a
You know fuel buying fuel for the trains is difficult
and
It's expensive
It's a big deal
and there's a lot of different oil companies out there that
trying to sell different things I
Haven't looked enough at Mansfield oil company to really
See what they're with their businesses or some of the things they're claiming
But it's very interesting that it's a completely synthetic diesel
Fuel, there's only a few places in the world that
Can't make that it's very interesting
I
Just would be careful with the fuel contracts. I
Don't know if you really know what you're getting into when you make deals, you know
There's a lot of banned entities
that show up under the fuel companies and the fuel contracts and
foreign military
complexes and foreign nations and
so many
Big big obstacles that you shouldn't have to be dealing with here at Metro link and I don't want to discourage you guys
But I just be careful with the deals for making on I just worry about it
It's just one of the questions or discussion 6 if I need a motion for that, please
Vargas a motion
In their second motion the second roll call vote, please
Director Vargas. Yes, director chiefy
director angler
Yes, chair Wapner. Yes emotion carried. Thank you. I don't number 6 gee
We capital program we uphold good morning chair and committee members
I'm Leopold of allah railroads of engineer to providing a progress update on the authorities capital program including score and state of good repair
The total awarded funds for state of good repair from fiscal year 17 through fiscal
year 24, including reprogrammed funds, are $657 million, of which $280 million have been
expended by the authority.
As of the writing of this presentation, the FY24 funds had not been fully executed.
During fiscal year 24, the authority has expended $28.1 million in state of good repair
projects. The state of good repair program has 150 active projects with a total active
budget of $436 million. The authority also expended $22.3 million in new capital projects.
This program has 78 active projects including SCORE with a total budget of $1.1 billion.
I would like to highlight a few of the accomplishments in the capital program starting with SCORE.
On the Antelope Valley line, 90% design was completed for Balboa double track extension
in Canyon siting projects.
Value engineering was finalized for all three projects in the Antelope Valley line, and
the VE options are now being implemented.
Also, the Score Construction Request for Qualifications package was released in end of May.
Displayed here is the Score Construction Schedule for Phase 1.
The authority is approaching start of construction on the La Palma to Avery Signals Improvements
project at the end of this calendar year.
Now for some highlights on the State of Good Repair Program.
The Bombardier car rebuild program conditionally accepted and has put into service 26 cars.
Later this month, 6 additional cars should be delivered.
Also, 16 Rotom and 157 Bombardier HVAC units have been overhauled.
Furthermore, the Authority replaced 1,515 ties on the Antelope Valley line over 4 different
locations.
Two CIS display monitors were upgraded at the Buena Park station on the Orange County
Line.
Passengers can now easily view the train schedule for that station in real time.
On the San Bernardino Line, the authority replaced four out of 10 signal crossing houses.
I would like to emphasize that upgrading 30-year-old crossing and signal equipment to the latest
available technology will increase public safety, service reliability,
and reduces service interruptions.
The replacement of crossing house at San Antonio Avenue can be seen
pictured in this slide on this slide.
All operational locomotives, locomotives have been upgraded to TMC five through
the onboard train control system rehabilitation program.
This concludes my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions.
thank you very much any questions of stuff
i have a question that some of these items like the the real ties and
crossing gates
is that pretty much a prevent a maintenance thing or is it a replacement
because there's something that's been down
it's a it's more of uh... state of good repair so they're old uh... and
it just uh...
betters the uh...
the track and uh... our current system to prevent it's more preventive uh...
just to keep it up to
to the latest
Great.
Thank you.
Perfect.
Any other questions?
Seeing none of this.
Yeah, Mr. Chair.
Oh, go ahead.
Commissioner Bargas.
Just a quick thank you to Darren and his staff.
Those new monitors are really wonderful.
That's kind of having that much display
with this scheduling is gonna be really awesome
for our customers.
Thank you on that.
That's it?
That's a compliment.
There you go.
Yes.
Very good.
Anybody else want to say good things about Darren?
That was pretty short, Darren.
Okay, that's good.
6G was received in file.
That brings us to Darren's report.
All right, thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, I was gonna say, thank you, Director Fargus.
I appreciate that.
It's the work by the great team that we have.
But to your point, those monitors,
those new monitors are really, really
very helpful to the customer.
I see it personally as a user of the system.
It just does, it's far better than those old amber ones
that we have still somewhere throughout the system.
I just have two quick items, Mr. Chair.
because I read into the record
during the Audit and Finance Committee
some very complimentary words provided to Metrolink
actually through the Orange County Register
by the San Juan Capistrano mayor.
I won't go into detail on that,
but I just wanna again thank the team
for the great work we've done
with the Smart Crossing technology
where we've now implemented the first
outside of San Bernardino County
where we have started this new service,
this new technology in San Juan Capistrano.
So again, great work everybody.
And then secondly, as has been indicated,
our Chief of Safety, Security and Compliance, Frank Castellan,
he has performed his last official duty
by doing our safety briefing at today's meeting.
Frank will be departing Metrolink at the end of next week.
But we have, thankfully, we have someone
stepping in to fill those shoes on an interim basis.
You heard from Tim Morehead just a short time ago
with the contract extension for Herzog.
Tim will be jumping into the role
as interim chief safety security compliance officer.
Tim also has some background in transit safety and security
so he will be leading that group
as we go through recruitment.
That concludes my remarks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Darren.
It was an incredible report.
Thank you so very much.
You're the best.
I know you're the best.
I know you're the best.
It brings us to committee members' comments.
Any comments from any members?
Seeing none, I have no comments.
I mean, these are interesting.
Mr. Chair, this is Ray Marquez.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
Sorry, sir.
No, I already turned the meeting.
You're in the happy mood.
That puts a smile on my face.
Two things real fast.
Regarding the ad hoc Olympic committee,
have we had any movement on that?
Director Marquez, we are still struggling
to get a date that all can meet as recently as yesterday.
I think we have a date that Mr. Wasserman is available.
We're working through it to see if we can get
one of our own to make sure that it fits for their calendar.
The good news is is that we do,
there is an absolute intent and commitment to a meeting.
It's just trying to get a whole bunch
of very busy calendars to align.
Thank you, sir.
My last question real fast.
In SBCPA, we're talking about MetroLink
and safety came up as far as a police contract.
And I just have a simple question.
Police officers going to work or coming home,
Can they ride MetroLink for free like we do with the students?
Is that something that we do or don't do?
So I will be corrected if I'm wrong,
but so long as they're in uniform,
they are able to ride for free.
Okay, and have we reached out to the police departments
that are adjacent to our tracks
to give them that information?
I don't know if we've made that.
We have MOUs with all of the local law enforcement
throughout our system or most of local law enforcement.
I don't know that we've been specific in saying,
by the way, your officers are able to take the train.
That's something we'll follow up on, Director Marquez,
but it's something that we should certainly
get the word out on.
Sir, thank you so much for your time.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Ray, you didn't ask about firefighters.
He's a retired firefighter, yeah.
Okay, any other committee members' comments?
And I have no comments.
The meeting is adjourned for the second time.