Good morning everyone. It's nice and getting brighter out there and everything looks like
it's nice and clean from the rain. So I'd welcome all of you to our MetroLink executive committee
meeting. We'll begin with our call to order so we are now call to order and we have a safety briefing
by our safety officer.
We are at One Gateway Plaza here in Los Angeles, California at the Metro boardroom on the
We're going to collectively exit the boardroom to my left here,
customer service area in the event of an earthquake. We want to take cover in the
room here until the shaking stops. We can do an assessment and see if an
evacuation is required. If we do need to evacuate, make sure that you're aware of
your surroundings, hazards in the room, backpacks, cords, things of that nature
that could create a tripping hazard. In the event of a first aid
situation, we do have security at the front desk and there is an AED device out
at that front desk as well. In the event of an active attacker, the procedure to
follow is run hide fight. With that said, that concludes my briefing unless there's
any questions. Any questions? Seeing none, thank you for your advice on keeping us
all safe. Now we move on to our Pledge of Allegiance to be led by Director
Bergson. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll? Certainly. Vice Chair
works in second vice chair Tremblay here director Najarian here director
McCallen here chair chafee present we do have a quorum present we know we have
several of our directors who are joining us remotely that means the actions taken
will be by roll call at this point do we have any public commenters I have not
received any requests to speak but I do have a written public comment that will
be emailed to the committee after the meeting regarding the code of conduct
board policy. Okay thank you. With that we'll move on to a regular calendar. The
first item is approval of our minutes which is an action item. Any corrections
additions and if not may have a motion for approval. JV seconds. Madam Clerk
what you call the role. Vice Chair Bergson. Second Vice Chair Tremblay. Yes. Director Najarian.
Yes. Director McCallin. Yes. Chair Chaffee. Aye. That motion carried unanimously. Thank
you. Now we move on to our next item which is a title six public hearing to be set this
October 20, oh sorry, with respect to our October 2024 schedule change
presented by Brian Jacobs. Good morning Chair and members of the committee. Next slide
please. In October of 2024 the authority launched a system-wide schedule change
which offers increased frequency, better connections, and more service throughout
the weekdays. The authority further adjusted the schedules for the
San Bernardino line, Ventura and airlines in January
to address on-time performance challenges
and align services across multiple lines.
Next slide, please.
The authority is required to perform a Title VI
equity analysis and associated public outreach
for any major service changes,
in effect for more than six months,
to determine if the changes have adverse impacts
for minority populations or pose a disproportionate burden
to low-income populations.
To this end, staff is requesting the committee
to recommend to the board to approve the initiation
of a Title VI public comment process.
Should the board approve this request
during its February 28th meeting,
the authority will notify the public
through different mediums,
including electronic station message boards,
email notifications, social media,
and public notices in limited English proficiency languages.
Next slide, please.
In line with our public outreach plan,
A virtual public meeting will be held on March 26th
regarding the schedule change and Title VI analysis.
e-commence will be accepted through April 15th,
and then staff will present the results
of the public outreach and Title VI equity analysis
to the board during the April 25th meeting.
Next slide, please.
This concludes my presentation,
but I'm happy to take any questions you might have.
Do I have any questions from board members?
And there are no public commenters here.
Is there a written one?
I have not received a written public comment
or a request to speak for this item.
And the written comment was on some other item?
Correct.
It was just a general written public comment
regarding the Code of Conduct item
that was supposed to go to the committees last month
that was pulled.
Okay, thank you.
Are there any questions from our board members?
Seeing none, is this an action item?
May I have, go ahead.
Bergson moves.
McAllen seconds.
seconds.
Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?
Vice Chair Bergson.
Yes.
Second Vice Chair Tremblay.
Yes.
Director Najarian.
Yes.
Director McAllen.
Yes.
Chair Chaffee.
Aye.
That motion carried unanimously.
Thank you.
I believe all the rest of the items are received in file.
And so, but we will have reports on them.
The first, is there a quarterly compensation report
presented by Agwini Bhagdasaryan?
Ms. Agabini Bhagdasaryan,
Senior Human Resources Analyst,
I'm reporting on item number 16,
quarterly compensation report for the 1st and 2nd quarters
of July 25th, on July 1st, December 31st, 2024.
And this is a received end file report.
In accordance with the Human Resources Policy 2.1,
Wage and Salary Administration,
and Salary Program Administration,
Human Resources is required to report
quarterly salary replacement for new hires,
emotions, demotions with classifications,
and other changes in employee competence.
Next slide, please.
During the first quarter, FI25,
from July 1st through September 30th, 2024,
there were 66 compensation transactions,
which includes seven new hires, four promotions,
two acting pay, four additional pay,
42 ATU salary increase, seven return
from acting and additional pay.
During the second quarter of FY25 from October 1st
through December 31st, 2024,
there were 21 compensation transactions,
which includes five new hires, seven promotions,
one additional pay, one ATU salary increase,
Thank you, are there any questions?
Director Burksen.
One thing I think would be nice to see on this report are employees that are no longer
here.
Show us the new hires and the promotions, but we have no way to compare that to what
our current staffing position is.
So something like that would be nice.
Separated employees.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you for that comment.
Any further questions or seeing none?
Let's receive and file an item.
We'll move on to the next item,
which is Assembly Bill 1234 Meetings.
Presented by Michelle Pena, our board clerk.
Good morning.
Next slide, please.
So Director O'Connor attended
the CTA Executive Committee meeting in January
Sacramento, California. The total cost to the agency was $489.20, broken down as
follows. Airfare, $244.95. Lodging, $113.73. Ground
transportation, $69.80. And meals, $60.72. And that concludes my report. I'm happy
to answer any questions. Director, do you have any questions? Seeing none, another
receive and file item move on to the February legislative update presented by
Anna so I said to necky how is that correct
community and government relations staff in coordination with the customer
experience and fair collections departments developed a program to offer
free ride passes to those displaced by the fires. To date a hundred and forty
five round trip promo card passes have been sent to community based
organizations and elected officials to distribute to their constituents and
community members in need. Additionally staff distributed approximately 300
passes to organizations and residents at a donation site in Santa Anita on
January 17th. Turning to state, next slide please. The California Air
Resources Board withdrew its request for a waiver from the US EPA that if issued
would have authorized state regulation of passenger and freight locomotive
emissions. CARB's April 2023 in use locomotive regulation requires Metrolink
and other freight and passenger rail operators in California to upgrade
locomotive technologies to reduce criteria pollutants by certain deadlines.
Without the federal waiver, key elements of the regulation are likely not
enforceable. Good faith communication between Metrolink and CARB is ongoing
and we continue to await information on how and if CARB will move forward with
any part of the in use locomotive rulemaking. And then on January 10th
Governor Newsom released his fiscal year 25-26 proposed budget. The one-time
funding provided by SB 125 for transit capital and operations remains intact in
the governor's proposal. It does include the modified appropriation timeline
agreed to in last year's budget. For the upcoming year, one billion will be
available according to the modified appropriation schedule. Finally, next
slide. Let's turn to the federal landscape. Former Wisconsin representative
Sean Duffy was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as Secretary of
Transportation last month. President Trump has also nominated David Fink to
serve as FRA administrator. Mr. Fink is the former president of Pan Am Railways
and he is awaiting confirmation. The federal government is currently
operating on a continuing resolution. By March 14th, federal lawmakers will either
need to pass the fiscal year 25 appropriations bills or pass another
continuing resolution likely going into April. If they fail to do either, the
government will shut down. As a reminder, the yet-to-be-passed fiscal year 25
House appropriation bill includes three earmarks for MetroLink, one for a fiber
network system from Simi Valley to Moorpark, and two earmarks related to
wireless grade-crossing technology. You may have seen or heard about the
various on and off again federal funding freezes. In his first weeks as President,
Trump issued executive orders pausing federal spending related to electric
vehicle infrastructure and climate change related spending. The wording of
the executive orders and other guidance was vague leading to different
interpretations by various USDOT modal administrations as well as court
challenges and court-issued stays. Metrolink has not yet experienced any
funding freezes. Finally, House Transportation and
Infrastructure Chairman Sam Graves convened a hearing to kickstart
discussions on reauthorization of the next surface transportation bill. The
current authorization, the IIJA, is set to expire in September 2026.
Congressman Graves indicated developing a successor to the IIJA would be one of
his committee's top priorities in the coming year.
Among other things, Darren Kettle and myself
will be in Washington at the end of the month
to make our recommendations for reauthorization
to our delegation, key committee staff,
and members of the new administration.
Our recommendations reflect the tenets
of the legislative program this board approved last month.
Next slide.
This concludes my remarks
and I'd be happy to take any questions.
Questions from directors?
Director McAllen has his hand raised.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I've got a couple of questions.
First of all, do we still have requests
for matching funds for the Carl Warrior funds
to help us with the cheerful engine purchase?
Director McAllen, yes, we are awaiting news
from the California Transportation Commission
related to a grant application
that we cooperated with SCAG and ourselves
for the funding of the matching dollars
for the Carl Moyer program funds.
Did that request go to EPA
or other parts of the administration?
I'm sorry, could you repeat that again, sir?
Did that request go to EPA?
No, it's before the California Transportation Commission.
That is where that application has been submitted.
We do not have any applications at this point
before the federal government.
Okay.
I also wanna know, you know,
since the unused locomotive rule was,
the waiver was done away with.
I can't imagine that the commuter rail line part of that
will be done away with as part of the rule.
I can see the waiver part for the class one railroads
being null and void, but I can't imagine
that the part of that rule that deals with a passenger rail
in California will be done away with, just a comment.
I don't know that for sure, but that's my sense.
Director McAllen, we share that sentiment slash concern.
That's why we'll be monitoring what's happening at CARB.
If that is the case,
there is one railroad that will be impacted
should CARB continue, and that would be us.
All the other railroads have already shifted
either to tier four locomotives or zero emission,
as is the case with Caltrain and their electrification.
So that is something we are watching very closely.
Thank you very much.
Any further questions?
Seeing none, thank you for taking on the challenge
of trying to figure out what's going on
in Washington among other places.
Shop security.
Thank you.
All right, we now come to our CEO's report.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.
And of course, I don't normally wear a lid
to a committee meeting, but I'm doing it today
in recognition of the work we're doing as part of,
not just because it's Valentine's Day,
but because we choose Valentine's Day
to be the day we recognize our customers,
through customer appreciation day.
My personal thanks to Director Tremblay,
who was out at the Moorpark station this morning,
greeting our passengers,
and actually doing his own little survey work.
I had a chance to listen to him talk to one of our riders,
asking, hey, do you see any area
that we should be looking at improvement?
And the gentleman he was speaking with says,
no, this is the best thing, it's perfect,
guys are doing a great job. I happen to be listening to that so it made me smile for sure.
We had a number of our staff this morning here at Union Station along with Director O'Connor,
also sharing the love, spreading the love that MetroLink brings to the table. So again,
my thanks to those who have been able to participate in Customer Appreciation Day
and at some point in your social media feed or in your email you will see our what has become a
traditional a tradition of a video that our communications team put together
where we are sharing our appreciation for our customers and somewhat
recognizing the somewhat unique start to our year and I when I say unique not
necessarily in the best sense of the word the challenges that our region is
experiencing so there's that transit equity day we had a great success on
Transit Equity Day, February 4th. We had over 27,000 boardings on our trains, which is the second
highest number other than when the Dodgers win a World Series in Los Angeles throws a parade,
which was our high watermark since the pandemic, but a very successful day nonetheless.
Just a little bit of news of on-time performance, but something we've been tracking pretty closely.
As many of you are aware, the San Bernardino line had some struggles as we launched our new schedule.
We made some adjustments in that about a week and a half ago, and it has been a great success.
Our on-time performance that we control on the San Bernardino line has had several days
of over 100 percent on-time performance and regularly in the 95 percentile.
So doing very well on the San Bernardino line.
So the adjustments we've made seem to be working, and we've seen a corresponding increase in
ridership as well.
So the word is getting out that our reliability is already back on track.
So we're excited about that and I hope that that trend continues.
And we continue to work with the freight railroads, of course, particularly BNSF on the lines
that go into Orange County where we continue to see steady improvement.
And then the last remark, Mr. Chair, I have is just an introduction.
I mentioned the name at our last board meeting, but today in the audience we have our new
Chief of Safety, Security, and Compliance Officer,
Hillary Consul, Hillary is there, he's joined us.
We did not subject him to have to do
the safety briefing this morning
because he's still trying to figure out,
frankly, where the men's room is.
So asking him to do the safety briefing
fell on our Assistant Director, Cody Nelson.
And Cody is very happy Hillary is here
because the next safety briefing will be done
by our Chief of Safety and poor Cody won't have to come up to the podium. Mr. Chair,
that concludes my remarks. Thank you.
Thank you. Those remarks, at this point, do any of our directors have comments that you'd
like to make? Mr. Chair?
Yes, please. Thank you very much. I wanted to follow on
Darren's comments. I had the good fortune to be out at the Moore Park platform this
this morning for both the 620 a.m. train
and the 7-11 a.m. train into Union Station.
And I got to work with three Metrolinx staffers
who are just outstanding.
I just wanna do a quick shout out to Sabrina Davis,
who's our Director of Marketing and Partnerships.
I'm Meredith Yeoman, you recognize all these names,
who's our Public Relations Manager
and Christopher Bryan, our Signal Systems Supervisor.
They are delightful to work with.
As our CEO said, I did an informal survey,
but I also, there were some additional individuals.
I surveyed a couple of whom were students at CSU Northridge,
who are very grateful for the student youth paths
that we provide.
It's very helpful to them.
I regret to inform you that I fell down on my job
as a board member, and I was not present
for either the 4.20 AM or the 5.20 AM trains,
I just couldn't get up that early. And finally, as our CEO has done, this will be a fashion
accessory. I realize my lighting is so bad that you can't even see my face. It's completely
obscure because I'm wearing the cap, but I am I am confident that this baseball hat will be
a collector item. So I want you to know it's a really nice hat and kudos to our marketing staff
for having thought of this. That's it for my report. Thank you for indulging me, Mr. Chair.
The other director reports like to thank you for eat Larry. Sorry, I see your hand up. Go ahead, Dr. McKellan. Thank you very much.
I was I'm glad today I wasn't coming in by train because of the power lines down on the tracks, and I was wondering how that affected
our activities relative to Valentine's Day?
Director McAllen, we have a whole lot more chocolate left here at Union Station than we
normally would. The San Bernardino line accounts for close to 25% of our daily boardings, so it did
certainly impact our, you know, we share it. We still have great appreciation for our customers.
Unfortunately, it did affect people taking our trains.
We had to cancel, for all intents and purposes,
cancel the schedule on the San Bernardino line.
Last we heard is that unless there have been any updates,
3 p.m. is when we may have the lines are repaired
and we're able to operate trains.
So it was a bit of a disappointment for sure.
But yes, we have plenty of leftover candy.
I'm disappointed I'm not able to participate.
I always enjoyed passing out the candy,
especially with Pam O'Connor.
A good time was had by all that was here this morning.
Thanks.
Any further comments?
I don't see any other hands.
So I'd just like to thank all of the staff
that participated in the Valentine's Day event
and particularly Dr. Tremblay in your efforts.
And I think it's forgivable that you didn't get up
for those early trains.
Thank you for that. Mr. Chair, I appreciate the forgiveness
And so I'd like to wish everyone a happy Valentine's Day and with that
We are adjourned