Good morning
like to call to order the Metrolinx board meeting for the month of September and as for
Safety briefing I attend more head our interim chief safety security and compliance officer
Sure feels like it's been a while. It has been
All right. Good morning chair members of the board today's safety briefing as a reminder that in the event of a fire alarm activation
We exit the doors head down to escalator
in front of customer service and wait for their instructions.
In the event of an earthquake, which we know we've had a rush of here in Southern California
lately, we're going to make sure we duck under something, take cover, let's wait for the
shake and the stomp, and then we'll assess after an evacuation is going to be needed.
Hazards, know your surroundings, let's make sure as we all tuck in here that we're not
leaving our backpacks, our bags, extension cords in case we do have to evacuate, we're
are creating additional hazards. In the event of a first aid situation, we do have first
responders in the room, plenty of them today. So they will provide first aid. In the event
of an AED, we do have one out in the hallway here in front of the security desk. And in
the event of an active attacker, let's remember the three key words, run, hide, and fight.
That concludes today's safety briefing. Thank you.
Thank you, Tim.
Please join me as we salute the flag that represents our republic.
Thank you.
Madam Clerk, would you call the roll?
Certainly.
Director Wapner?
Here.
Director DuTray?
Here.
Director Marquez?
Here.
Vice Chair Chaffee?
Here.
Director Nguyen?
Here.
Director Murphy?
Here.
Director Dumitrou?
Second Vice Chair Burksen?
Here.
Director Spiegel?
Here.
Mr. Middleton, Director Vargas,
Director Tremblay, Director Engler,
Director Barger, Director Corcoran,
Director Najarian, Director Solis,
Director Hughes-Leslie, Director O'Connor,
Director Walter, Alan, sorry.
Director Alan.
Director Presiado, Chair McCallin.
Here.
We do have a quorum present.
Thank you very much.
Good morning, Pan.
Public comment period, I have no speaker slip.
Adam Clark, did we get any written communication?
I did receive three written public comments
regarding passengers coming from Oceanside
being affected by our October schedule change
that will be emailed to the board after the meeting.
Okay, thank you very much.
Under our regular calendar,
First off, is approval of our meeting minutes of July 26,
regular board meeting.
Is there a motion on that?
We have a motion and a second.
All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstention?
Thank you.
It's approved.
On to 6B, an assignment and assumption agreement.
OK.
Any objection to the motion?
The second motion?
Seeing none, it's approved.
Thank you.
Next is an assignment and assumption agreement with SBCTA.
This will be presented by Luis Carrasquaro.
Good morning, Chair and members of the board.
Luis Carrasquaro, Deputy Chief Operating Officer
with Metrolink, and I am presenting item 6B.
Next slide.
As background, on November of 2019,
SBCTA executed a contract with Stadler
to produce a zero-emission multiple unit,
also known as the ZEMU.
SBCTA board also authorized a sole source negotiation
with Stadler for the development
of an ongoing vehicle maintenance contract for the ZEMU.
SCRA staff has been working hand in hand
with SBCTA and Stadler on the vehicle maintenance agreement,
which also includes the maintenance
of the DMUs and the AMF.
Once SBCTA awards the contract,
it will be assigned over to SCRA.
Should be noted last week,
SBCTA took this to their board
and that contract was approved for award.
Next slide please.
It is recommended that the board
authorize the chief executive officer
to execute the assignment and assumption agreement
number 24-1003106 between the authority and SBCTA
to transfer SBCTA's responsibilities
under that agreement with Stadler to the authority.
That agreement 24-1003105 is between SBCT and Stadler
and it is for the maintenance of the aero vehicles,
three DMU's, one ZEMU, and the Aero Maintenance Facility,
and materials management for amount not to exceed
of 58 million, 353 thousand, and 77 dollars
with a five year base term, and three one year option terms.
Next slide please.
That concludes my presentation.
I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, Luis.
Any questions?
I had, uh.
Not specifically on the item, but I'd like to,
I'm very intrigued by the ZEMU,
and how it's operated and the infrastructure.
At some point on another meeting,
can we get a little background as to how it came together,
how it's being operated and all that stuff?
Sure, I'm sure. Absolutely, yeah.
Our pleasure.
It's SB, that's you guys, so good job on that.
I'll move the item if there's another.
Mr. Chair, I have a question, if you don't mind.
Go ahead. Thank you, sir.
We did have an issue with the Zemu.
The batteries were overheating last week
and I guess there was a few days.
Have we discussed that problem
and what can we do to prevent this in the future?
Well, I'll defer this to our Chief Operating Officer.
Good morning.
Don Felipe, Chief Operating Officer at Metrolink.
So we did have an issue with the DMU.
The batteries were overheating.
We did, we looked at a series of things.
We looked at, you know, was there a maintenance issue?
Was there something that we did or didn't do
or could do from a maintenance perspective?
We worked hand in hand with Stadler.
We went through the tooling that is used
for the maintenance of those batteries.
We worked with Stadler to go through
the maintenance of those batteries.
It really came down to the design.
The design of that particular housing for the batteries
is basically like a shelf that pulls out.
And it slides in underneath the car body.
There isn't a whole lot of ventilation.
And with the extreme heat, 115, 16 degrees,
it elevated those batteries' temperature.
So the housing, the batteries themselves,
creating heat as they do what they do,
raised the heat level to a pretty high amount.
the vehicle did exactly what it was supposed to do.
It warned us that there was a heat problem
and we got a fault.
It immediately reduces the speed of the vehicle
so that you're kind of in a limp mode.
And then once you put that vehicle in park,
it shuts everything down.
So what we wanna do and to add that we did hear
that the Zemu had these heat faults as well.
So what we wanna do is we wanna work with Stadler,
SBCTA of course, and try to find a solution.
It may be a ventilation solution.
There may be a way that we can pull cool air
from the vehicle into that housing location
and get some cool circulation through there.
It may be to look at the batteries themselves
and see if there's maybe a higher level battery
that we could use, but we will work with Stadler
and we will find a solution.
We have not had, we've had faults, heat faults in the past
at lower temperatures, 105, 106, but not to this level.
This was pretty extreme.
It took us probably 18 hours to get the battery temperatures
down to about 115, from 115 degrees
to a point where they would actually charge.
And we were blowing cool air on them.
We had vents, fans, swamp coolers.
We were draining them and refilling them,
just trying to get the batteries to get down to a level
where we could recharge them.
And then once we got them down to a level to recharge,
everything was fine.
And of course, as you know,
temperatures started to deescalate over the weekend.
We saw Sunday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday,
temperatures slowly started decreasing.
And so we were able to get those batteries charged
and get the vehicles back out and running.
But it is something that we are aware of now,
and we definitely want to resolve this before next summer.
Because we feel that we're probably going to run
into the same situation next year as well.
Thank you.
We have a question of you.
Where do we stand in terms of getting the waiver
for the brake system, the DMUs?
It has been submitted.
We have not heard back yet.
Okay, thank you.
I say anything's different than that, Don.
No, no, so we did partner with TextRail, so we commuted.
I understand all that.
I just wanted to know what the situation was on the waiver.
Yeah, so they submitted their waiver,
and they got a response.
But it wasn't the same break system.
No, no, what I wanna say is that they submitted
and got a response.
We took the response, the questions that the FRA asked
them. We took those and we put them into ours so that we would assure ourselves
that we wouldn't get the rejection. So we right now we're just waiting for the
FRA to get back to us on what their stance is going to be either approving
or not approving that. Okay thank you. This is an action item. Could I have a
motion? We have a motion and second. Any objection to the motion? Any
abstentions seeing none it's unanimous approval and on to item 6C amendments to
the FY 25 arrow service operating in the capital budgets presented by Christine
Wilson and she's got her hat on today good morning chairman McAllen and
members of the board I am Chris Wilson assistant director of finance presenting
item 6C which is an amendment to the FY 25 arrow service operating in capital
budgets. Next slide, please. San Bernardino County Transportation
Authority has recently finalized a new agreement to provide equipment
maintenance on DMUs and ZMUs, including the facility that will service that
equipment. The agreement will be assumed by SCRRA and therefore requires an
amendment to the FY 25 Arrow budget. Equipment needed to support the
maintenance will also require an addition to the ARRO capital budget. Next slide, please.
This slide presents the original FY25 budget for maintenance, the amendment required, and
the new totals. As displayed, we are adding $1,811,988 to the expense budget. The amount
includes mobilization for the new vendor totaling $1.1 million. This amendment will create a
new required operating support of $17,327,538. A detailed operating statement showing the
original FY25 budget is in its entirety and the amendments and the new FY25 budget is
in the item packet. Additions to the capital budget will include $134,970 for tri-annual
overalls and 750,000 for high capacity jacks to be used on the ZEMU's.
These additions will create a capital program budget now totaling 2.4 million and the revised
capital project listings are in the item packet.
Next slide please.
The new maintenance agreement and budget amendment presented here have been accomplished in
collaboration with SBCTA.
The amounts presented have been approved by the SBCTA board of directors.
All arrow expenses are supported exclusively by SBCTA.
Staff recommends the board adopt these amendments to the FY25 arrow operating and capital budget.
Next slide.
That concludes my report.
May I answer any questions?
Thank you, Chris.
Any questions, comments?
Seeing none, this is an action item and what's the board's pleasure?
We have a motion and a second.
Any objection to the motion?
Any abstentions?
Seeing none, that's unanimously approved.
On to 6D amendment number one to the cooperative agreement
with the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority
for et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,
presented by Kevin Bleich,
our project engineer number one.
Kevin.
Morning Chair and members of the board.
My name's Kevin Bleich, project engineer one.
I'll be presenting item 6D.
Next slide.
In March 2024, both the SBCTA and the authorities board
to approve cooperative agreement number 22-100-2687
to allow for authority support on SBCTA zero emission
multiple unit project.
As test train crew costs based on SBCTA's
intended testing schedule and the need for a new
positive train control braking algorithm
specific to the Zumu vehicle have recently been identified,
approval is now needed to execute amendment number one
to the agreement to increase SBCTA provided funding.
This funding will support authority costs on these items
as well as additional staff time
based on the current project schedule.
Next slide.
It is recommended that the board authorize
the Chief Executive Officer
to negotiate and execute amendment number one
to cooperative agreement number 22-1002687
between SBCTA and the authority
to increase SBCTA-provided funding
from $1,349,640 by $2,424,100
Or a new not to exceed total of $3,773,740 for authority support on the project.
Next slide please.
If that concludes my presentation, I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, Kevin.
Any questions or comments on this item?
Seeing none, I thank you, Kevin.
This is an action item.
Is there a motion?
We have a motion?
Second.
We have a second.
Any objection to the motion?
Any abstentions?
Seeing none, it's unanimously approved. Under 6E, and this will be presented by
Christine Wilson. Next slide please. This item is to present a request for an
increase in contract authority for the bunch of consultants who administered
the disadvantaged business enterprise and labor compliance services. In January
of 2020 the board approved contract authority which proved to be insufficient for increased
activities in DBA and labor compliance initiatives. As far as the board was the budget was concerned
we recognized this and included a proper amount in the budget so this is not requesting any
increase to the budget only an increase to contract authority. Staff recommends the board
adopt this increase in contract authority
for contract number QM161R-20.
The requested increase in contract authority
is in the amount of 750,000
for a new not to exceed total amount of $7,950,000.
And as I said, the amount of funds included
in the adopted FY25 budget includes this amount.
That concludes my report.
Can I answer any questions?
Thank you Chris, any questions, comments?
Seeing none, thank you Chris.
This is an action item, is there a motion?
I'm sorry, one or the other, it's moved.
Any objection to the motion?
Any abstentions?
Seeing none, it's approved unanimously.
On to 6F, our fair pilot to test customer response to fair changes,
and this will be presented by Hitting Eichler,
senior manager of marketing insight and analytics and he has an assistant.
Good morning Chair McAllen and members of the board. My name is Lisa Barr. I'm the chief customer
experience officer. This report is an action item with a recommendation to
approve a six-month pilot program to test customer response to changes in our
fare structure. As we reimagine Metrolink to aim to serve a wider variety of customers
in our region, it is not only our service that needs a makeover. Rider fares play a
significant role in the decision-making process for those considering Metrolink as a viable
form of transportation. Our current fare structure reflects a time when people worked five days
a week in the office and a period of adjustment post-pandemic as we've done our best to lure
back riders with flexible pass options and promotions. Given the changes in
travel behavior over the last four years, not just in Southern California but
across the country, we knew we needed to make some changes. So we brought in a
team of experts to help us determine how. The study identified specific
opportunities for improvement in Metrolinx fare structure. It recommended
equitable, fiscally responsible changes that align with our vision of delivering
more service, with better connections, and an improved customer experience for Metrolink
riders.
And I'll let Henning get into the details.
Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board.
I'm Henning Eichler, Senior Manager, Market Insights and Analytics.
Next slide, please.
I'd be happy to describe the recommended changes to our fare structure to you this morning.
Our fare policy consultant found that Metrolink monthly passes are more expensive than those
of other commuter railroads. Our monthly passes are still priced for the traditional commuter,
those who commute to the office four or more days per week. Yet we know that on an average
day, less than half of office workers actually come to the office, and that rate has been
flat since 2023. Therefore, we recommend reducing the monthly pass price by about 10% to bring
it more in line with our commuter rail peers. Secondly, we recommend introducing a new
veterans discount which responds to a long-standing request from the board. We will accomplish
this by expanding the existing discount for active military and standardize it to include
military veterans as well. Next slide please. At a board workshop several years ago the board
discussed fair policy and I remember on the wish list of the board was a universal pass.
Then came the pandemic and we jumped on the opportunity to try a $15 system-wide
promotional summer day pass.
It comes closest to the Board's vision
for this universal pass.
And as the data has shown, the Board was right.
The pass proved tremendously successful
in growing ridership and increasing revenue.
But this pass is available only for three summer months.
So we are recommending making this pass available year-round.
Secondly, another new pass that we are recommending.
Our fair policy, our planning consultant,
analyzed potential demand as part of the optimized schedule
that we are implementing next month.
their market analysis found significant potential demand
in the core area around Union Station.
Our October schedule change will bring significant increases
in service to this area and will increase the number
of connection at Union Station by threefold.
We want our fair structure to support and leverage
this increase in service in this,
what is the region's most congested corridor,
and position Metrolink as an attractive alternative
to driving.
The $15 day pass unfortunately is priced too high
to be attractive for short distance trips in this corridor,
so we are recommending launching a pass,
the Explore LA Day Pass,
which is valid for this inner zone.
It is priced at $5 and is valid for unlimited travel during the day between the stations
Burbank Airport North and South, Burbank Downtown, Glendale, Union Station, Cal State LA, Montobello
and Commerce.
So this pass is specifically targeted at tourists and visitors for whom the convenience of travel
is extremely important.
Next slide please.
And finally, our recommendation is to reduce
the complexity of our existing fare structure.
We currently have 10 regular ticket types.
That is more than other commuter rail agencies offer.
And it is more than we can actually fit
on a single screen on our TVDs and our mobile app.
That of course creates unnecessary complexity
for the purchasing process.
And we do know from customer feedback
that it is also very confusing for our customers.
Therefore, we recommend simplifying our fares
by removing three underutilized and redundant ticket types.
These are the round trip ticket, the 10 day flex pass,
and the seven day pass.
This will create a more intuitive purchase process
and also reduce the administrative burden
for managing our fare tables.
Next slide, please.
We recommend implementing these recommended changes
in a fare pilot with a tentative launch in January of 2025.
The purpose of this pilot is to test customer response
to these changes and also obtain customer feedback.
we realized that it would be a challenge to isolate the effect of the fair change
from the effect of the scheduled change three months earlier.
For that reason, we realized we cannot simply look at net changes in ridership
and net changes in revenue.
Instead, we need to evaluate the pilot using a detailed analysis of individual sales
for individual ticket types and also track various metrics
that are tied to the changes in the fare structure.
We will present the findings of the pilot
at the May board meeting.
And pending board decision regarding
the continuation of these fare changes,
the pilot will end on June 30th after six months.
So at this point I'd like to ask the board's approval
for the pilot and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you very much, Mr. Wapner.
Thank you, Mr. True.
You know, I think it's a good program
but I'm always concerned about pilot programs.
If you're talking about passenger confusion,
you're hitting in with the change now
and if for some reason the pilot doesn't succeed
or we have to make some kind of changes to it,
you're gonna hit them with another one.
So I guess the question is how are you gonna educate
to the public to the fact that this is a demonstration
or a pilot program or we just surprise them with it,
give it to them and then take it back if we decide to.
Well, we will clearly communicate this violent advance
of the fair changes.
And yes, this will be clearly identified.
This is a pilot, it's a six month pilot,
and actually we are required by FDA
that any kind of change to the fairs
that will go beyond the six month period,
we have to do a full Title VI process.
So before the pilot end, we will ask for the board's vote
whether or not to continue these fair structure changes
and then also do the full public outreach
as part of the Title VI process.
I guess I'm concerned that the public enjoys it.
We decide not to do it for other reasons
and now what are they gonna do?
Especially if they realize some cost savings
during the pilot and we cancel the program
have to start paying more money.
I mean, I understand the reason for a pilot program.
I just want to make sure the agency's prepared
for those kinds of things.
Well, it really depends a lot on the customer feed again.
The whole purpose of the pilot is to test the response.
How do people respond to it?
And obviously, if there's an overwhelmingly negative response,
then yeah, we would have to make changes to the pilot
or simply cancel it.
Okay, let's see, it's overwhelmingly a success
with our passengers, but internally we find out
it's not economical, it doesn't make sense operationally,
so then we go against the wishes of the public.
Well, I'm glad you addressed the financial impact.
Yes, I mean, it's not just whether or not
the customers like the new fares,
and a lot of them will actually experience low fares,
but yes, we have taken a close look
at what the financial impacts are.
Clearly, part of the objective was we want to increase ridership.
And while we're increasing ridership and lowering fares,
we also want to maintain the financial sustainability.
That was a very important consideration for us.
So the consultants modeled the response to the fare changes.
and the impact for the pilot comes down to about $31,000 in reduced revenue.
Now that is 31,000 out of an annual revenue budget of 45 million and you
don't have to do the calculation that is a 0.1 percent reduction in revenue.
another context 31,000 that is about a third of the revenue that Metrolink
takes in in a single day about $90,000 so suffice it to say this is still a very
conservative estimate because the modeling results are strictly based on
price changes change and fares and how the customer respond to it but we do know
that customers also respond to more convenience.
Our previous fare pilots have clearly demonstrated
that if we improve the customer experience,
make it more convenient,
ridership will grow even without a change in fares.
Now, that effect is not being accounted
for in our financial forecast.
Again, it's a conservative estimate.
At the same time, another benefit is the changes will reduce our cost in terms
of administrating the fare policy, but also by reducing customer confusion.
In the last year, we paid about $50,000 in refunds.
About half of that is from customers who purchased the wrong ticket
because they didn't understand what they were buying
because they were confused in the purchase process.
So we want to reduce that type of refund cost.
Director Wapner, really good point
and we will do our best to set expectations
and communicate appropriately.
I want to appreciate that.
Yeah.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Go offense.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Any other questions of, go ahead.
Well, I'm just curious,
I think I picked out pieces of it,
But how are we going to measure success in this thing?
In other words, is it a break-even proposition
financially and then more ridership?
Or obviously, you hope both sides of the equation go up.
But I didn't really hear a specific of that.
Plus, what happens if, God forbid, things go the other way?
Is there an emergency switch we flip
to stop that program sooner if it's clear
that we're on the wrong track?
Yes, we will definitely start monitoring the change in sales starting from day one.
So we can project from the early months on whether or not this is really going completely unexpectedly.
So we can make changes on a short term.
The default is that the program will end after six months.
And also the numbers that we are presenting here are for the pilot period.
Now we fully expect that the long-term effect new riders come in and board, ridership growing,
will turn the financial impact positive and I expect it will turn positive before the
end of the pilot.
But I guess in follow-up if that's okay Mr. Chair, the question I would have is how do
you differentiate changes in schedule versus changes in price and do you think you have
enough baseline with this three-month lag to be able to differentiate the two statistically.
I would wonder whether or not that there's enough time in between.
I'm not discounting the fact that it's good to look at all these things, but I just want
to make sure we're differentiating that we didn't put a great schedule in place that
maybe folks are willing to invest in and then we're giving money back along the way to how
you differentiate the two is, I guess, is my question.
And that is a very valid question, and as I indicated, it will be a challenge to separate
those out, so we have to take a very detailed look.
We know what kind of fares change, the ticket types that get introduced, the ones that get
removed.
So we can track changes in sales that can be tied to the changes in fare structure.
At the same time, we know which trains will experience a change in their schedule.
So we can track the ridership on those specific trains.
So it's not going to be 100% accurate isolation of those two effects, schedule versus fares,
but it will give us a very good indication of how each of those changes work.
Okay.
Thank you.
I just would suggest in final just the observation that as partner agencies in writing increasing
size checks to support this effort we just need to be sensitive on both sides
of the equation it sounds like you are and I'll read between the lines to see
what the real measures of success are statistically as we move forward thank
you I would just suggest if possible that we get an update three months into
it bring the board an update to up to that point of how things are looking so
that we can you know if things need to be modified in the middle of this pilot
program you have enough time to do that so if we can get a three-month update
that would be good. Thank you. Other comments? I just wanted to comment about the Los
Angeles area zone day pass and somebody who lives on the west side I can take
Expo to Union Station and today I could jump on a MetroLink train to go to
to Burbank, but that would cost me $6 each way, $12.
And if I wanted to go straight by bus, which
is what Google Maps offers me, it
would take two hours and 25 minutes to get to Burbank.
But taking Expo to the Union Station
and then being able to jump on MetroLink for $5 round trip
makes that, for a lot of people, they can do that.
They can afford that.
So it really is going to help with a wider region
to attract riders and allow us to get around faster and better and more efficiently.
So I think I'm looking forward to it.
Any others?
There is a written public comment that will be emailed to the board members after this meeting.
We do have someone who wants to speak to us.
I cannot read the name.
Art Reed.
Please come up.
You have three minutes.
I want to recommend that this program be expanded since it's only six months.
San Fernando Valley has five stations.
Of those five stations, Sylmar, LA Mission College, frequent bus service
from the train station to LA Mission College, 25, 35,000 students pulses throughout the day,
you know, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock classes,
meaning that one train is not going to get overcrowded.
You're going to get service riding the buses,
riding the trains throughout the day.
Number two, Olive View Hospital, same thing.
People start Olive View Hospital at 6.30 or 7 in the morning, go to 3 for the staff,
but you also have patients going through appointments throughout the day,
increase the train and bus service through the hospital.
And we go out to Cal State Northridge, the Northridge Station.
You've got Cal State Northridge, 35,000 students plus staff.
And you can go to Northridge Hospital going to the south.
And you also get the same kind of shift things 7 a.m.
to 3 p.m. for the first shift.
So you can increase your ridership.
Increase your ridership 100 persons from Cal State Northridge.
100 persons from LA Mission College.
100 persons from all of you hospital.
100 persons from the Northridge Hospital Medical Center.
That's 500, 400 times 5, that's 20,000 bucks a day.
Now, I don't have a problem with experiments.
I think this experiment will be very successful because it fits
in with January to June.
School goes January to May.
So, you can get your money back, show that the anemic ridership
in the San Fernando Valley can be boosted
and with the new schedule change, this is going to work, and so I think that this is
valuable, worth the risk, and I encourage that you expand this pilot program to
include five other stations in the San Fernando Valley and let this project be
very very successful. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comments.
Just thinking when the subway is on the purple line, you'll be able to go from the west side to downtown LA, go to one of those stations, get to Union Station and probably 20 minutes or less, hop on MetroLink, get to Burbank in what, 15 minutes. That will be a real game changer for the region.
Go ahead.
I just think that we should add Pam to the social media, like record just that, to encourage people in those areas. Like, you know what, Pam, that makes me want to write it now.
Appreciate it. Oh, that's a good good suggestion
ought to do that
Anybody else?
This is an action item is there a motion
We have a motion
and a second
any objection to the motion
any abstentions seeing none, it's unanimous
under item 6g
Quarterly fuel purchase program update presented by Alex barber our assistant director of finance Alex
Good morning. This is the receiving file report for the fourth quarter of FY 24 few purchase program next slide, please
the purpose of the fuel hedge is to minimize the budget risk resulting from the purchase of fuel on a spot basis and
to seek an overall low fuel cost in the long term while managing budget risk as of June 30th
2024 the authorities hedging account had a value of thirteen point nine million an increase of ninety one thousand
From March 31st 2024 this includes interest totaling a hundred and sixty nine thousand earned during the quarter
Next slide, please. This concludes my presentation
Thank you Alex any questions
This is an action. This is a presentation receiving file no motion necessary
Thank you Alex. Onto 6H, another receiving file on the quarterly accounts receivable status
report presented by Vivian Alia, our Assistant Director Finance.
Good morning. Next slide please. This slide shows that as of June 30th, accounts receivables
was approximately 119 million, or an increase of about 100 million from the prior quarter.
The significant increase was due primarily to a one-time special billing of $50 million
invoice for the working capital fund to help advance fund or capital program.
The second reason was the billing of the entirety of our fiscal year 24 FTA preventive maintenance
grant of 27 million that hit in June and what's typically heavy end in rebuilding activity.
The last two balances were $27.7 million, of which about $20 million related to member
agency quarterly support payments where the designated funding source was the preventive
maintenance grants and therefore collection was delayed.
As we turn the page, we can see that.
The first two columns are primarily the preventive maintenance grant-based receivables plus a
sprinkling of capital program receivables.
an update since June 30th we did successfully draw down upon the entirety
of the preventive maintenance grant in July of 27 million which
was substantially earlier in the past two years so we were able to retire all of
the member support AR balances for fiscal year 24 in July and we did retire
those two other capital receivables on the screen. However as a further update as
As of today, we now have 35 million of unpaid member support receivables for Q1 and about
32 million of uncollected working capital fund AR.
These past dues are both due to the related MIU processes, which have not yet been finalized.
Next page, please.
This is a display of our unbilled balances for, on top, the grant-funded capital projects
and then below incrementally for the San Clemente
operating project specifically.
The total unbilled balances of $20 million,
$21 million on the capital program
compare favorably to last year at this time
of over $30 million, and the San Clemente project
has approximately 4.4 million of unbilled balances.
That's the end of my report.
I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, Vivian. Any questions?
Seeing none, this is a receiving file.
And the next item you're also talking about, Vivian, it's our quarterly investment report.
Next slide, please.
So the estimated total metronome cash in June was estimated at $156.2 million,
which is a drop of $23 million from the prior quarter.
order that primarily relates to the outstanding pass due member support receivables of $27
million.
$56 million, the boxed amount on the screen, or $104 million represents the population
of funds at our disposal to spend on operations and capital before evaluating prior claims
on that unrestricted cash.
Next page, please.
So looking at the far right after claims on cash, which are essentially other people's
We arrive at our estimated available cash of $50.8 million for June, which is above
the $50 million.
As an update, we anticipate that cash may be substantially lower at the end of September
and is lower currently due to two primary reasons, the $35 million of past due member
support receivables for Q1 that will not be collected most likely until the MOU process
concludes after the end of September, and secondly, the impact of the preliminary unaudited
fiscal year 24 operating surplus being recently reclassified out of available cash and classified
as a liability or an additional claim on cash.
Next slide, please.
First income continued to increase over $400,000 from the prior quarter to 1.7 million as we
feel the impact of our negotiated arrangement to have interest on our checking account that
we spoke of in earlier quarters.
Next page please.
In terms of our required investment report disclosures, there are no known instances
of noncompliance.
We cannot confirm sufficiency to fund the next six months and the $50 million threshold
June has been met. That's the end of my report and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you Vivian. Any questions, comments? Seeing none, this is also a receiving file.
Thank you. On to item 6J, our financial results for the one month ended July 1st or July 31st
presented by Christine. Back up again, Christine.
Yes. First of all, I would like to make a correction.
It has been pointed out to me, at the beginning of the item that I'm presenting, I had said
that the nomenclature for the MetroLink changes to be able to attract more passengers was
called MetroLink reinvented, and it really should be MetroLink reimagined.
Now you know I should have stayed away from the whole thing because of the extreme prohibitions
in finance against either reinventing or imagining.
Next slide, please.
This slide shows the monthly ridership forecast compared to actuals.
The actual, I can't see if there's a little dot there in the middle.
In this, the blue portion of the column
represents regular passengers and the orange portion
represents student adventure pass ridership.
Next slide.
You see here the ridership forecast for the entire year,
the green line with black dots for each month,
and the actual for the month of July,
which is the blue column.
You see that the ridership is very close to forecast.
Next slide, please.
This slide shows a numerical forecast of 575.8 thousand
or a 58% recovery compared to the actual of 587.5 thousand
or a 59% recovery or 12,000 over forecast.
146,000 of the actuals are student adventure pass riders.
Next slide.
This is the actual Fairbog's revenue for the month of July,
the green column and the budget for July
and the rest of the year are the green line.
As the chart shows, we are under budget
for the month of July.
Next slide, please.
These are the actual numbers.
The budgeted Fairbox revenue for the month of July
is 3.7 million or a 57% recovery,
while the actual revenue is 3.3 million under budget
by 0.4 or a 52% recovery.
So now, how can ridership be right on budget
and the revenue not be under budget?
It's because the two pieces have to be accurate
for the projection to be right.
Not just the ridership, but also the average fare.
If the people are taking shorter trips,
or trips that cost less, the revenue will be lower.
The student adventure pass accounted
for 0.5 million in the fare box revenue.
Next slide, please.
Onto the financial results for July,
the total operating revenue is 5.3 million
or 0.2 million below plan.
Total expenses are 22.9 million
or 3.9 million below plan.
And you see here on the slide,
the major categories that are under budget.
So before Sam could money expense,
the total member support is in a surplus of 3.6 million.
And I wanna remind you that the expenses
are based on accruals.
Next slide please.
I will go past this because Vivian has really
just recently given us a more of the current update.
Next slide, next slide.
Next slide.
So no error, arrow service.
The ridership, next slide please.
The ridership chart shows arrow
is right on forecast for ridership.
Next slide please.
The actual amount show ridership was forecasted at 11,000,
has come in at 11, just over 11, 11.2, over by 193.
Included in the number are 4,834 student
adventure pass riders.
Next slide please.
As you can see, the farebox revenue is below budget.
Next slide.
The budgeted revenue is 15.5,000,
while the actual is 18.6 thousand.
Did I say that was over budget?
I should have.
18.63 thousand over budget.
Student adventure pass included in this number is 11.9 thousand dollars.
Next slide.
For Arrow, the total operating revenue is 52 thousand or 35 thousand over plan.
The total expenses are 1.2 million or 62 thousand below plan.
And so the total support required is 98,000 below plan.
I believe that you can see that with a year of experience
we have come much closer to a realistic budget for ARRO
with the expenses coming within 5% of actuals.
Next slide.
That concludes my report.
May I answer any questions?
Thank you, Chris.
Any questions?
Seeing none, this is a receiving file,
which is what the board will do.
Excuse me.
Next is our grant quarterly update presented
by Tom Shamler, our director of grants.
Go ahead, Tom.
Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board.
This is a receive and file item providing an update
of grant activities from March 1st through June 30th, 2024.
Next slide, please.
During the quarter, five federal grants totaling $103.2 million
were obtained.
One, a federal grant from the FTA of $1.5 million was executed
to fund emergency track stabilization work in San Clemente.
Three new federal grants from the FTA totaling $75 million were executed
to fund the FY2024 capital budget.
One federal grant of $26.7 million in federal FTA funds was executed
to fund preventive maintenance activities from the FY2024 operating budget.
$125,000 in grant funding was reprogrammed
from closed projects with cost savings
to other projects in need of funding,
and one federal grant of $22.6 million
that funded preventive maintenance activities was closed.
This resulted in a total portfolio of $1.98 billion
as of June, 2024.
This concludes my report.
I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, Tom.
Any questions?
Seeing none, this is your receive and file.
without objection that's what the board will do thank you so much next we have
assembly bill 1234 meeting meeting update presented by our extinct
distinguished clerk Michelle Pina our board clerk so this is just a report on
director O'Connor's to California Transit Association executive committee
meetings but included in the written report I did want to let you know that I
I accidentally omitted the registration fee
for Chair McAllen's APTA conference attendance,
which was $1,100, and that wasn't included
in the report in July because the paperwork
was from a completely different month,
so I totally forgot to do that.
So I just wanted to include that in this report.
Next slide.
So for Director O'Connor's attendance
at the May Executive Committee meeting
and Spring Legislative Conference.
The cost of the agency was $762.30, broken down as follows.
We had conference registration for $280,
airfare for $303.96, lodging at $107.20
and ground transportation at $71.14.
And next slide please.
Director O'Connor also attended
the California Transit Association's June
Executive committee meeting in Sacramento and the cost to the agency was seven hundred and one dollars and five cents broken down as follows airfare
469 dollars and ninety-six cents lodging a hundred and seven dollars and twenty cents ground transportation
Sixty-eight dollars and eighty cents and meals fifty-five dollars and nine cents and that concludes my report
I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you Michelle any questions
None, this is a receiving file and without objection. That's what the board will do
Next we have our legislative update presented by Jeff Redone, our Director of Government
and Community Relations. Jeff.
Good morning Chair McClellan, good to see you sir.
Good to see you.
Next slide please.
Local affairs as described in the report, our community relations staff are focusing
on community-based organizations through direct outreach and individual in-person presentations
to share information of our reimagined service expansion,
Commencing next month and the flexible and discounted fare programs
We offer to expand accessibility of our service to a wider group of prospective passengers last month
We held a virtual meeting of CBO's as well attended over two dozen organizations from around the region
Share the information and requests that they make their membership aware of the forthcoming service expansion and the fare products
In addition to leveraging those messages on their communications platform
We received overwhelmingly positive response to both our expanded AVL service and the reimagined
expansion beginning next month, and we will continue to hold these virtual CBO meetings
at regular intervals to strengthen our engagement with communities and to grow ridership at
the grassroots level.
Also, we're pleased to report that our Tier 4 Locomotive Outreach Plan, commencing last
month and continuing through Clean Air Day in October, has yielded impressive engagement
from community residents that will bolster
our future grant applications to procure these locomotives.
To date, we have over 150,000 next door views
to our outreach messaging.
We're approaching 100 individual responses,
whether through our survey questions,
online and physical forums,
and comment cards from our community pop-up events.
The feedback has been extremely positive of our efforts
to replace our older engines with the tier fours,
which will be assimilated into future grant applications
as we look to match our grant funds already secured to procure this necessary and important
rolling stock.
We will keep the board apprised of these ongoing efforts.
In state matters, as discussed in the report, our CEO, Mr. Kettle, again testified before
the Senate Transportation Subcommittee on Lower San Railroad Corridor Resiliency on August
13.
Mr. Kettle provided clear description of the compelling need for assistance from the state
to enable Metrolink to meet the requirements of the in-use locomotive regulation passing
last year by the California Air Resources Board. By far, the nation's most stringent,
of which the aforementioned effort to acquire Tier 4 locomotives is an integral part.
Mr. Kettle also outlined the known areas of support Metrolink will need to prepare for
the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games as it provides backbone regional transport service
to support the Games. We maintain close communication with the Subcommittee at the staff level to
address issues related to the corridor itself as the subcommittee continues to work to secure
needed resources in the corridor to ensure the resiliency of the infrastructure and viability
of the service for the future.
Next slide, please.
Finally, in federal matters, the FY25 appropriations process continues with the House Appropriations
Committee passing the T-Hut Appropriations Bill, which includes a $1.7 billion haircut
from current year levels, including a proposed $100 million cut to the Chrissy Grant program,
which is a principal grant program we compete for.
However, the formula funding in the bill
is retained at current year levels in the FY25 bill.
In the Senate, the transportation bill is more robust
with $3.3 billion more funding provided to USDOT
than the House bill, and importantly,
there is under consideration a $200 million allocation
reserved for Olympics-related transportation assistance,
of which $24.7 million potentially
would be allocated to MetroLink.
Senator Padilla is leading the effort
to include this funding in the final bill
passing the Senate.
MetroLink is closely monitoring any developments
related to this bill.
Unfortunately, there have been none to date.
As the House failed to vote on a continuing resolution
scheduled earlier this week,
did a lack of support and a government shutdown looms
when funding of the federal government expires
on September 30.
The situation remains fluid and we'll keep the border prize
as Congress continues deliberations this month
prior to its scheduled October recess.
A government shutdown on the eve of a national election
is not good for anyone, and it remains likely
that a CR will pass to keep the government open
at status quo funding levels.
Less certain is the timing of passage
of the appropriations bills just mentioned,
though likely any CR passing would extend funding
through December of this year to be again considered
by a lame duck Congress following the election.
Other federal news I did want to mention
is covered in your report.
The meeting our CEO had with FRA Administrator Amit Bose, who visited MetroLink last month
and engaged with Mr. Kettle on a broad range of important priorities for the railroad.
Additionally, we hosted Senator Padilla's Washington Legislative Director, Commissioner
Joshua Escaval, and new transportation deputy Jacob Hulse last month during the August recess,
and look forward to close work with the Senator's office to advance the Olympics funding desk
in the appropriations bill, as well as other priorities.
This concludes my report.
I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you very much, Jeff.
Comments, questions?
Seeing none, this is receiving file and without objection.
That's what the board will do.
Next is our system safety security and compliance update
and presented by Tim Morehead, our interim chief
of security, safety, and compliance.
All right, good morning again.
I'll be presenting on item 6N.
Next slide, please.
All right, system wide strikes.
Or system wide strikes, we did see an uptick
in quarter four versus FY 23 of plus 10.
The increased strikes correlate with quarter four
being the highest number of reported homeless encampments
on the territory with no isolated areas of increase
in strikes rather than spread out throughout our system.
With the vehicle strikes, the increase of six.
These strikes, many different causes for these strikes
such as driver impairment, police pursuits,
or wrecks that occur off the right-of-way
that end up on our right-of-way
and ultimately get struck by a train.
So those are the system wide strikes for quarter four.
Next slide please.
So some of the security activity updates in quarter four
include the artificial intelligence cameras.
Artificial intelligence cameras
that track trespassing activities.
We currently have two deployed on the Ventura Sub,
a CP Ramer, another on the San Gabriel at Santa Ana River.
These cameras give us the ability to set the geofencing up
and established parameters to alert for trespassers.
These cameras send alerts to the SOC
and the contact of law enforcement for response.
These cameras have helped to arrest
approximately 10 trespassers.
So these are paying their dividends.
We do, note we do have four more
in the process for deployment,
and those will be deployed hopefully
by the next quarter's report.
Some of the covert operations that have been conducted,
there has been two separate operations conducted
in the city of Santa Ana in April
during the overnight hours utilizing drone technology
with night vision to try to catch the vandals
that are contributing to our wire theft
and our vandalism.
In April, we also held an active shooter drill
with first responders.
We held that at our AMF location.
Joint drills with our legacy equipment, our DMUs,
as well as our bus to allow first responders
training and access in San Bernardino County
to familiarize himself with our agency's equipment
in the event of an active attacker situation.
This was well received and participation was great.
Next slide please.
So our NTD reportables, the good news is
there's no major in the quarter.
We did have 12 non-major and seven non-major physicals.
Sorry, non-major 12, seven non-major physicals.
The non-majors, the nature of a verbal threat,
intimidation, something that didn't result
in a physical contact.
The non-major physical is something such as a push,
a bump, a shove, so we did ultimately have seven of those.
Next slide, please.
All right, with the law enforcement's presence
at the platform's trains, grade crossings, and right-of-ways,
you see on the train rides we held steady
with a plus 10 from quarter four from FY23.
Our platform fare enforcement increase of 251
from quarter four FY 23 with intention to detour those
without proper fare, because we all know that fare evading
is the number one cause of unruly passenger.
So that supported our increase there.
Grade crossing details, the increase of 36 from quarter four
is intended to combat bad driving habits
such as going around gates or dashing
while the lights are flashing.
This enforcement is essential to try to drive down
the vehicle strikes that I made mention of
in the first slide, right away details.
As we mentioned about the trespasser strikes,
the highest number of encampment reports,
this correlates with that, the details,
we've seen an increase of 205 from quarter four of 23.
And this is, of course, for the removal of encampments,
right away trespassing enforcement
and to try to prevent trespasser strikes
in their misses and also to assist in preventing vandalism.
Our quarter four rule violations, we did end up with one, up tickle one.
As you see on the slide, those are the rule violations.
Next slide.
Good news for the FR portable injuries, we did net minus five on this, and the two we
do have was both exposure to fumes.
One was a battery fire and the other was inhalation of diesel exhaust.
All right, next slide.
All right in training in April staff coordinated our annual 239 emergency stimulation drill at the Paris layer facility
Metrolink board member and city paris mayor Michael Vargas participated in the event
during quarter four
The department staff held 59 classes during which 522 participants were trained
That's uh, that's a huge number of training and a lot of participation out there. So just wanted to highlight that
and uh next slide
That concludes our quarterly report.
Thank you very much.
To have questions, go ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Can you, I need to say a slide, I think it was like four back or so.
Right there.
Stop.
I had asked for this before, but I'd appreciate it if you could give us the same chart broken
down by counties so we can see how many rides and right-of-way enforcement are taking place
within San Bernardino.
I'm sure the other counties would be interested as well.
But I'd like to see it annually, not just for a quarter.
We're having discussions internally about law enforcement presence in San Bernardino
County, so this information would help us as we have those discussions.
Understood.
Thank you.
All right.
Those AI cameras sound interesting.
Can you explain where we have four of them, I think you said, where they're going to be,
and what's the basic concept of the detection?
So the basic concept on the four we have are not been deployed.
We have two that are in the field.
They're just not active yet.
The two we do have are the ones I described in my slide.
We do have four that we purchased
in our waiting deployment.
The basic, I guess what I'd say is that
it allows us to be alerted when there's somebody
out in the field through a geo-fence.
You can set up the parameters.
If it's five feet, 20 feet, 30 feet,
you could set up these parameters and it can detect,
is this a person, is this a car?
And it feeds that information back
which allows us to then send law enforcement
out and respond to that.
So are we looking at the most impacted locations?
So we do, we grab our data and we compile where the most near hits are, near misses,
our strikes and then that's where we're going to deploy these cameras to in those high trust
pass locations.
Director Najarian and then Tim correct me if I'm wrong, I believe the two we have right
now, we have one on the Ventura County line in the Van Nuys area, again a fairly hot spot
for us, and then also on the San Bernardino line, I believe are the two locations that
we currently have in the field. Of course, what we're also looking at, and the board
may recall that we received some grant funding to allow us to test technology that allows
these same cameras then to, with AI, then communicate potentially with PTC. So right
Right now it's all, I'll call it low tech, it's visual determination and then we work
through and call law enforcement for the purposes of clearing the right of way.
The concept that we are going to study is how do we potentially link it to PTC so that
it alerts the engineer directly if there's something that's in the right of way.
There's going to take some work on that but we are going to be testing, we'll be the first
railroad in the country testing that kind of thing.
It's gonna be a game changer if we are successful and we expand it and because you know the strikes are just such a
Aside from being a human tragedy. It really is
troubling for the
Comments questions just just one more question relay. How much do these systems cost just just out of curiosity?
They are personal about a hundred grand apiece
And I'll tell you and I agree with with every everyone here that
understands this has been a major problem.
It's worth the money, really worth the money.
Cut down on a lot of problems and a lot more money.
So thank you.
I think it's great to move in that direction,
technology-wise, and I think it'll save lives
and also a lot of money.
I think most of us agree with that.
Thank you.
Other comments, questions?
Saying none, this is also a receive and follow
without objection, that's what the board will do.
Next comes our chief executive officer's report.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Next slide, please.
I'm really pleased to announce
that we have hired a new chief technology officer.
Kevin Gray is in the audience.
Kevin, if you could join us and stand up, please.
Kevin joins us from the city of Burbank.
He's formerly the private sector VP
with Viacom Paramount Pictures.
He's very highly regarded in the technology field
and is really going to elevate where we are.
He's an innovator in technology.
I'm super excited.
He, again, he comes to us from the city of Burbank.
He lives in the city of Northridge.
He's going to be joint, or the community of Northridge.
He's going to be on the train with us as well.
So just if everybody would help me,
welcome Kevin Gray to the Metrolink family.
Welcome Kevin. Next slide please. So this is just a quick announcement for board members
as well as member agencies. We were able to adopt our current year budget on time and
schedule without any major issues in spite of the work we were doing with the optimized
schedule and all of the challenges of putting that program together. We're not going to
to stop there we're gonna do better to get the budget ready and accessible to
our member agencies as well as to the board so we just this week we kicked off
the preparations of the FY 26 budget so I joked with the staff pretty soon we're
going to be starting 18 months in advance of doing a fiscal year to get a
budget I'm ready to go just because it takes so much work in an agency such as
ours with in working with our partners and the member agencies. Next slide. We
We have about a month or so before we launch our optimized schedule, the first phase of
what we call Metrolink Reimagined.
It's not just the schedule of Metrolink Reimagined, it's bigger than just the optimized schedule,
but what we will have committees, we'll have a conversation at committees in October, but
I wanted to, the board will not meet again until after the optimized schedule has put
in place.
So I just wanted to make sure the whole board is aware, October 21st we'll see a 22.5% increase
in the number of weekday trains, and what I think is going to be really exciting for
our future is that we go from having 67 trains that come into Union Station where we have
a transfer or a connection that's 10 to 20 minutes to 225 trains that have that level
of connection, a massive increase in the amount of connectivity through LA Union Station,
so that again it's recognizing how we use trains for something other than the commute.
So you will be hearing quite a bit about that.
Our full campaign for the program starts next week.
And so you will be hearing quite a bit
about the optimized schedule.
So this is also a thank you to this board.
We would not have been able to do this
were it not for the board's commitment to saying,
hey, we're gonna reimagine who we are,
and we wouldn't be able to do it without our member agencies.
So my thanks to the board and my thanks
to the member agencies for the support
in letting us really try something new
and innovative to the degree we are.
So I'm really pleased about that.
Next slide.
Board members, you may have been hearing
about some of the challenges we've had
on on-time performance the last several months.
Within the last week, our operations dispatch team
and myself have met with senior leaders
at both the Union Pacific and BNSF.
Historically, we have had a challenge with one,
the UP or BNSF. Well, in the last three months, both railroads have impacted our on-time performance.
We are doing everything we can to remind the Class 1 freight railroads the responsibility
of dispatching our trains as a priority. And we have certainly struggled, we have elevated
it, and we're going to continue to push that because we have certainly heard sometimes
will have on-time performance issues due to some of the issues that Mr. Moore had described,
but a big part of our challenge has been the interference from Class 1 freight railroads,
which has now become our number one reason for delay. Most recently, that was shared
with me by COO Felipe a couple of weeks ago that it has now become our biggest problem
child. So board members just know we are aware of it and we're pushing on it.
Next slide. We talked about heat, is it related to came up with the issues
associated with the diesel multiple unit in San Bernardino on the Aero service.
You'll see the very low-tech cooling mechanism that we use right there in the
bottom right corner where we fully we just pulled out the battery compartment
and went old-school with fans and tried to cool those things down. You will see
the measurement that's really relayed there 132 degrees on the temperature of
those rails any sort of extreme heat or cold damages the system and has impacts
on our equipment and of course on our infrastructure the most recently this
morning in fact we had to take the Antelope Valley line out of service just
north of Vista Canyon due to a broken rail which was caused again by the way that the
temperature, the heat, we heated up, we cooled down, we heat up, cooled down, not good for
the rail. So we are addressing that. We also had some trains that had to be annulled due
to heat in our cabs to the point where our engineers were having to, would have been
subjected to 100 degree temperatures inside the cabs. We're working on some low tech solutions
to that, simple sun shades, better tinting, that kind of thing, but the heat was really
rough on us and it's not going to cool down, so we better be prepared to start looking
at these other solutions to try to keep our system resilient and particularly as it relates
to the nature of our locomotives and our passenger cars. As this board knows, I'm a regular user
of the system. I went through one of our cars a couple weeks ago. Poor Rod Bailey, our deputy
chief operating officer, gets tired of me texting him about having air conditioning
problems and I get tired of using the joke that the CEO is going to start to do hot yoga
in one of the cars because we had so much discomfort. It's unacceptable. My team knows
it and our contractors know it. So we are alert to this and we're going to work to do
better. Next slide. Later this course, we're in rail safety month and next week we are
part of an event here at LA Union Station that involves the San Bernardino Railroad
Historical Society as well as LA Metro and Moreland, the operator of Union Station, where
we're going to be part of a special event where we are recognizing rail safety. We will
have a locomotive and are wrapped, one of our wrapped cars at the event.
It's always a good family event free so you can see the date, time, that kind of
thing on September 21st and 22nd. Next slide. Thank you Mr. Chair that wraps up
my report. Thank you very much. Any questions, comments from our executive officer? Very good. Any
board member comments. Thank you just to let everyone know our member agency
Metro was very happy last week when we announced a 893 million dollar full
funding grant agreement by the FTA for the East San Fernando Valley light rail
line and that's irrelevant to us because it will connect our Van Nuys stop on the
adventure, a county line, and we'll go north along Van Nuys Boulevard and eventually phase
two, when it's built, we'll connect with our San Fernando-Silmar stop for the Antelope Valley
Line.
And that area right in the middle is the Van Nuys Government Center where there's a lot
of jobs, a lot of activities, so it won't be done next year, but we're starting to accumulate
the money and tie up all the necessary land acquisitions, etc., to make it a reality.
So good news for the future for the interconnection.
Thank you.
Director Trevly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Two quick items.
First of all, I want to compliment Darren.
He provided an update to the Ventura County Transportation Commission on September 6th
did a very good job.
Secondly, just a note that Director Wapner and I as the ad hoc committee for the board's
LA28 ad hoc committee will be having a meeting next Monday with LA28.
I understand their new CEO, Mr. Hoover, will be present.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Very good.
Any other?
I don't have really any comments other than to say the reason I've been coughing so much
is because of all the smoke that we've been breathing out in the Inland Empire and I'm
sure a lot of you are also affected by it throughout Southern California. Too many fires
going on. Fortunately in our area, in Highland, we're pretty safe there. But there are other
areas in the mountains that are still in deep trouble so we need to keep everyone in our
thoughts and prayers and pray that no one is really harmed
and that our homes are safe.
A lot of activity going on.
Fortunately, the guy who set the line fire
was identified and arrested.
So this time of year, arson is expected,
but after all these fires,
the biggest concern is all of the mud flows
now come down if you're living next to the to the forest so we'll have to worry
about that coming up in the rainy season. I want to thank all of you for being
here have a safe weekend and we'll see you next month.