Hello, everyone. Thank you for your patience. I know we're a minute after just so everyone knows
I was doing the kid handoff to my husband. So appreciate the grace here.
Working parents know how it is. So again, just thank you again for your patience.
So good afternoon. At this time, I would like to call to order the January 15,
2026 regular board meeting of North County Transit San Diego Railroad. Before we begin, members of the public who may be viewing the meeting
on the district's YouTube page,
please note that in order to make a public comment
during the meeting, you must connect to the meeting
using the Zoom link provided on the agenda.
In addition, you must also register by sending an email
containing your name or phone number
and the agenda item on which you wish to speak
at clerk at NCTD.org.
And I will now look to Sahel Rodriguez,
clerk of our board to take a verbal roll call
for attendance.
Thank you Madam Chair.
Board Chair Patel.
LaPatel.
Here.
Vice Chair Sinella.
Here.
Board Member Martinez.
Here.
Board Member O'Hara.
Present.
Board Member Garcia.
Present.
Board Member Joyce.
Present.
Board Member Desmond.
Here.
Board Member Juell.
Present.
Sorry, Board Member Edson.
I knew what you meant.
I apologize.
Board Member Contreras.
Present.
Board Member Lee.
This completes the roll call with Board Member Lee absent.
Great, thank you.
And I will ask board member Desmond,
would you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?
Thank you.
So Hill will now provide a safety brief
and review evacuation procedures.
In case of an emergency, I will dial 911.
In case of an evacuation,
please take the stairs and not use the elevator.
Once clear to the building, please do not reenter
unless it's clear to do so by emergency personnel.
There are fire extinguishers and first aid kits
on each floor of the building.
There's a portable defibrillator on the first and third floor
and staff on hand trained on CPR procedures if is needed.
This concludes my safety brief.
Great, thank you, and I'm going to check in
to see if there are any changes to the agenda.
No, Madam Chair.
Great, thanks.
Do we have any general public comment today?
We do, we did have two general public comments
that were received prior to the board meeting
and those were sent to the board members earlier.
And we do have three in-person public speakers today.
I will call them in order that they've submitted
their submission.
John Mosher, you can please step up to the podium
and turn on your mic.
You have three minutes.
Hello, board members.
My name is John Mosher from San Marcos, California
with San Marcos Mobile Home Residence Association
and also Golden State Manufactured Homeowners League.
I brought a flyer today that we've handed out.
Actually, it's a copy of a letter
from the mayor of Sunnyvale.
It has to do with what happened when SB 79
was passed last year
and allowed the development around transit stops.
In that mobile home parks were not explicitly protected
the way the wording was.
So we've gone back and asked that somebody help us out.
And this bill actually covers that.
make sure that mobile home parks that are close enough to the transit
centers that could fall under redevelopment are protected and we
maintain that affordable housing for ourselves for now and in the future. My
understanding is that it's gone through a couple of Senate hearings at this
point and I think it cleared a committee Tuesday at a seven to seven to
zero vote. So it looks like it's going good and I think they have to finish by
January 31st to get it to go through. So I'm bringing that to all of you with
city leaders. I mentioned it at our city council meeting on Tuesday
night, and I'll be sending this to everybody on our city council. Um, so
I appreciate your support. I was able to send it to a few of you because I
have some of your contact information, um, and the rest I'll got a way of
forward in it. Um, I'll track you down from the website and I sent it to
Adrian in your office, Jim. So she's got it from your side. Um, the other
thing I rent it to is I got a notice from our sheriff's department today that
there's a lot more senior fraud happening right now, aggressive. So they
sent me a notice and some pliers to share with all the mobile home parks and
our seniors. So I started doing that in my city and I was able to send
something to Joe on Karina for them. That's the other thing I want to share
with you guys. That's why I'm asking you guys have business cards today. I'd love
to get it from you. If you don't, I'll find you so I can get that to you ASAP. But apparently
right now it's really overboard. And seniors are really being taken advantage of. Thank
you.
Our next speaker is Janet Rogers. Ms. Rogers, you have three minutes.
Good afternoon. I'm Janet Rogers with the Tran Coalition at Santa Fe Depot. We haven't
been to a board meeting for several years, but I felt it was time to reconnect. We're
We're really concerned about the new coaster schedule,
making trains dwell downtown for an hour at a time.
This increases noise and air pollution
for thousands of residents
in the high rise concrete canyon of Santa Fe Depot.
We believe the train should wait at Oceanside.
Years ago, NCTD made an agreement
that the coaster would wait at the MTS rail yard
when the schedule kept the trains downtown
for more than one hour.
Several years ago, your schedule changed,
so the dwell times were reduced to either 23 or 43 minutes.
That was a step in the right direction.
Unfortunately, in October, your new schedule
expanded dwell times for eight trains
to one hour and three minutes.
The coalition's position is that the coaster schedule
has a minimum of 10 minutes dwell time in downtown.
The coaster's time downtown should be just long enough
to unload, load and leave like any other station.
Your staff does a great job cleaning the cars as they go.
Since the coaster is based in Oceanside,
that is where the next train should wait.
I don't see anything in the G Corps
requiring the coaster to stay any longer downtown.
Commuters don't have luggage
and there aren't baggage cars like Amtrak has,
so people move quickly.
Making the trains dwell downtown San Diego
instead of at the Oceanside Transit Center
is a scheduling choice.
Even then, we know the coaster can stay
as short as 23 minutes downtown, which we think
is longer than necessary.
We respectfully request that the long coaster dwell times
are at the Oceanside Transit Center instead of downtown San
Diego.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Our last speaker is Paul Hurstein.
You have three minutes.
Thank you.
I'm Paul Hurstein, also with the Train Coalition.
And like Janet, a resident of one of the buildings downtown,
I want to thank the members of the board
for providing transit for us.
That's certainly a very valuable service.
I strongly agree with Janet and with my other neighbors
that it is both unnecessary and injurious to us
to have the trains waiting, idling, spitting out pollution
and threatening our health by dwelling
unnecessarily downtown.
It really is a major issue.
You might not think so, we do.
Another safety issue of even, perhaps even greater,
temporal importance is the lighting at the depot,
which is minimal, at best, at night.
But about two months ago,
we had a period of over 10 days,
I think about 12 days,
when most of the lights at the train station,
involving, of course, the coaster tracks,
Amtrak, but not the trolley,
were unilluminated.
Most of the lights, the overhead lights, were out.
Nobody from NCDD seemed to notice that.
I called not once or twice, but three times, and finally managed to induce someone to come
and install new lights.
So we had a serious safety issue.
There were blind areas.
As you know, the tracks are somewhat depressed below the platforms at that point.
There could easily have been a serious or life-threatening injury.
So I would urge you to be certain that you carry out your response, your responsibility
to see to it that the lights are always available and lit at night.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
We have no more public comment.
And let the record show that Fort Alderman Coleman arrived at 207.
Okay, thank you.
And before we proceed, I have a couple of quick protocol items to share.
First, I will ask board members to please hold your comments and questions until after
each agenda item has been presented.
When the time comes for board member questions or comments, please raise your hand and wait
until you are called upon to speak.
Please turn on and speak into your microphone.
When it is your turn to speak, this will ensure that your comments are heard for those listening
to the meeting online.
And when it is time to vote, Suhail will call a verbal vote.
So the first item is the approval of the minutes.
Do I have a motion to approve the minutes for the regular board meeting of December
18th, 2025?
motion to approve.
Motion to approve.
Second by Edson.
Okay, so motion by O'Hara, seconded by Edson, Suhil can we please call the vote?
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstained?
On the motion of board member O'Hara, seconded by board member Edson to approve the minutes
of the regular board meeting held on December 18, 2025, motion passes.
Great.
Thank you.
There are 15 items on the consent agenda for action today.
So he'll have any members of the public register
to speak on consent or requested that any items be pulled?
No, Madam Chair.
OK, so at this time, we're ending the public registration
to speak on consent items.
Do any board members wish to pull items from consent?
Board member Contreras?
I don't wish to pull a board item,
but I don't know if I just missed it.
Usually, we have a, what's it called, the toper,
the performance.
And I didn't see that in here.
Are we going to be receiving that?
Yeah, we're actually, two things are going on
with the topper right now.
Topper, there we go.
We're sort of making a few changes to it.
The one thing that I did mention in an email to the board
was our spinner APCs stopped reporting information
back to mothership.
And so we had to go onto the spinner vehicles themselves
and pull the data manually.
And so our department is working through those
to make sure the numbers are correct for the 2025 a year.
So once we have those done,
will send a special report to the board
that has all the updated numbers on it.
And we're making a few changes to Topper,
but it'll resurrect itself in a different format.
Just based on feedback we received from information
the board might wanna see from some of the committees,
some things they don't, it kind of builds
into the information we want public on the website.
So we'll kind of mirror what that looks like.
Okay, and when that comes for,
is there an anticipated timeline for that to come?
This is a critical document for me to see.
Yeah, we're finalizing the numbers now.
Once we get the numbers squared away,
we will send our normal topper to the board that hasn't updated.
And then shortly after that, we'll
have the annual recap of where we are in ridership
and each mode specifically broken down,
like we usually do for the meetings.
OK, and it'll go back to from the last time
that we got it to retroactive.
Yeah, it'll be a retroactive.
OK.
That being tested, with that, I'll go ahead
and move approval of the consent calendar.
Second by Edson.
All right, so motion by Contreras, seconded by Edson.
If we can please call a verbal vote.
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstain?
I'm a motion of Board Member Contreras,
seconded by Board Member Edson
to approve consent items one through 15.
Motion passes.
Great, thank you.
The next item on our agenda is other business
to ask the board to consider approval
of the calendar year 2026 discretionary grant strategy.
Mary Dover, our chief of staff, and Tyler Mosher,
oh my gosh, I do this every time Tyler Mosher,
grants coordinator will present this item.
Mary and Tyler, you have our attention.
Thank you, Chair, members of the board.
As you're aware, every year NCTD asks the board
to adopt a discretionary grant strategy,
and that really guides NCTD's efforts,
sets project priorities, and allows staff
to seek state, federal, and local grant funds.
So for the calendar year 2025, back in February,
the board adopted the calendar year 2025
discretionary grant strategy, and through that,
we had some success in grant funding requests.
The biggest requests that we were approved for
was 16.8 million from the federal government
for a bus replacement project.
We will use that money to replace end-of-life CNG buses
at our east and west yard.
We got that from the Federal Transit Administration
Lower No Emission Grant Program, which was great.
We also have a few grants that are pending.
Occasionally, we will make a request in a calendar year
and then it'll bleed into the next calendar year.
So we are waiting on a few requests
for congressionally-directed spending
community project funding which are earmarks at the Senate and the House
level. The Sprinter Improvement Project would further the infrastructure
improvements that are necessary to support new Sprinter vehicles when we
purchase them and get them on site. We have to make improvements to our
platforms, some track improvements, and improvements to the Sprinter Operations
Facility in Escondido. So this will further that design work to get us to a
position where we can seek funding for the construction of those improvements.
We're also waiting on a $600,000 request to modernize the PTC on the San Diego
subdivision, the coaster corridor, and we're also waiting on $250,000 in bus
stop improvements that will be made. That's from Congressman Scott Peters, so
those bus stop improvements will generally occur in San Marcos and Escondido.
We're also waiting on a few Caltrans planning grants at the state level.
One is for a bus stop assessment. NCTD has approximately 1,600 bus stops
throughout our network, so it's really important that we get a better view of
what is currently at each of those bus stops, what type of amenities would make
sense for us to put there. It'll look at ridership, it'll look at community
considerations, heat, climate considerations to see what's the most
appropriate amenity at each of the bus stops which will be critically important
when we go back and seek more funding for those the construction of those bus
stop improvements. We're also waiting on a grant for Wayna Creek grade
separation and CTD currently has an MOU with the County of San Diego to explore
opportunities at the Wayna Creek station for housing, TOD and the like so in order
for us to do that we have to grade separate the area because of the
constraints to the operation. So when NCTD staff is developing the
discretionary grant strategy, we're looking at a multitude of different
considerations. Top of mind is what we included in the last discretionary grant
strategy. If we were successful in any of those projects, there's no need for us to
seek more funding for them, so we'll pull them out of this calendar year. But we
also want to look at what the local and stakeholder support for a particular
project is. If a project that we'd like to advance has freight considerations, we
We want to make sure that BNSF is supportive.
We want to make sure that the city in which we're making the improvement is supportive
of the project and Sandig support, MTS support, our other project partners as well.
We also are looking at what grant programs are currently available and requesting project
submittals to distribute funding and then we'll look at what the objectives of those
programs are and where our projects might fall.
We know that, unfortunately, the Sprinter is not eligible for a lot of the FRA grant programs.
So we use this document to look at what other types of grants we can go after for the Sprinter.
There are rail programs, there are bus programs.
So we want to make sure that the projects that we are intending to seek funding for
match what is out there to get funding from.
We also want to make sure that the projects that we include in this document are aligned
with our strategic goals and the strategic goals of the jurisdictions in which we operate.
then we're looking at project status. A lot of the grant programs, projects
compete better when they are shovel ready, especially at the federal and state
level. They would like to be able to give funding, have shovels in the ground, and
have the project reasonably start construction within an appropriate
timeline. So now I'll pass it off to Tyler to talk about the projects that
we've included in the discretionary grant strategy. Thanks, Mary. Good
afternoon, members of the board. As Mary mentioned, I'm going to go over some of
the projects that we've included in discretionary grant strategy this year.
here in this table you can see the four high-priority projects that we've
included. That includes the Sprinter Fleet Replacement Project, Sprinter
Corridor Service Improvement Project, the Eastbrook-to-Shel double-track
project in the city of Oceanside, and Serenno-to-Miramar Double-Track Phase 2
which is in the city of San Diego. These projects are selected as the highest
priority because they meet some of those categories that Mary was just talking
about. They're ready for implementation, they may have local match funding
already committed to the project and additionally their major priorities for
NCTD. So for the Sprinter Fleet replacement project this includes the
complete overhaul of the existing Sprinter Fleet as well as improvements
to the Sprinter Operations Facility or SOF and platform modifications at
existing Sprinter stations. As many of you know the Sprinter currently operates
with Siemens to zero diesel multiple units which are one of a kind and are
nearing the end of their useful life. Recuring parts to maintain these vehicles
is increasingly difficult and creates a strain on the service that we're able to
provide to the community. So we've identified a few programs that we think
are good for this project including California's Transit and Intercity Rail
Capital Program which the Sprinter Corridor is eligible for. Additionally
the U.S. DOT's build program is another program that we're targeting and
currently we're working on a build application. This is requesting funding
for preliminary engineering and environmental clearance for the
expansion of the SOF as well as platform modifications at Sprinter stations.
Related to the Sprinter fleet replacement is the corridor service
improvement project. So this project includes the replacement upgrade of
near obsolete railroad signals, crossing equipment, and related railroad
infrastructure. Following the completion of the signal upgrades, NCTD will begin
the design and construction of four separate phases of double tracking along
the Sprinter corridor. For this project, we've secured 30.8 million dollars and
And this includes funding for preliminary engineering and environmental review of the
eastern segment of the Sprinter Corridor, as well as the beginnings of the modernization
of the signaling system.
Potential programs that we've identified for future funding include the FRA's CRISI program,
the BUILD program, as well as California's TIRCP program.
Before you keep going, do you mind elaborating on what each of those acronyms are?
Sure.
Thank you.
Chrissy is the consolidated rail infrastructure and safety improvements program. It's a major federal real
Competitive grant program that comes about comes out about once a year
Build that's better utilizing investments to leverage development
That is a USDOT program and then TRCP is transit intercity rail capital program from the state of California
So moving on to some of our coaster projects
this is the Eastbrook-Duchell Double Track Project in the city of Oceanside.
This project consists of the replacement of the San Luis Rey River Bridge as well
as 0.6 miles of new double track railroad in the city of Oceanside.
Additionally another portion of this project that's a little bit smaller are
pedestrian access improvements to the San Luis Rey bike path or pedestrian
path. This project is located north of the Oceanside Transit Center so coaster
revenue service does not operate along the section of the railroad. However, Amtrak,
Metrolink, BNSF freight trains all use this bridge. Additionally, coaster trains use this
bridge to get to and from the Stewart Mesa Coaster Maintenance Facility. In partnership
with SANDAG, we've secured $54.2 million for East Prick to Shell. There's an approximately
$80 million unfunded need for the construction of the project. Currently, we are working
with SANDAG on a application to the federal state partnership for inner city passenger
rail or FSP program. So we're finalizing that application right now, project awards
are anticipated later this year. Some other programs that we've identified for the construction
of this project include the trade corridor enhancement program or TSEP, that's from the
state of California, as well as TIRCP, which is also a California program. The last of
The four highest priority projects included
in the discretionary grants strategy
is the surrounded Mirabar double track phase two project.
This project includes 1.9 miles of new double track.
It also includes some slope stabilization improvements,
including reinforcement, grading, drainage,
utility, and fencing.
Currently, Coaster, Amtrak, BNSF,
we all have to slow down significantly
when we're passing through this section of the railroad.
You may have heard on New Year's Day there was a Mudslide event in this area, and once
this project is constructed and built out, events like that will be reduced.
In partnership with SANDEG, we've secured $30.4 million for this project.
Potential programs that we've identified that we might want to pursue include TSEP, the
California program, TIRCP, as well as FSP and that's federal state partnership.
NCTD also includes projects for advancement in our discretionary grant
strategy. These include projects that may not be ready for implementation right
away, or they may be planning studies rather than major construction projects.
So grade separation, as we've talked about, is a major priority for NCTD. In
November, we actually submitted a Caltransplanning grant application to study
grade separation at the Buena-Creek Sprinter Station. The other priority project for advancement
that we've included in the discretionary grant strategy is the CP Song's double track and
bridge replacement project. This project includes replacement of bridges and 1.5 miles of double
track at a critical bottleneck in the low sand rail corridor in Camp Pendleton. One
thing I'll say about the CP Song's double track project is that it was identified in
and NCTD's and BNSF's freight pathing study,
so it's also priority for BNSF as well.
And so, staff recommends that the NCTD Board of Directors
approve and authorize staff to implement
the proposed calendar year 2026 discretionary grant strategy.
And with that, Mary and I are available for questions.
Thank you.
So Hill, do we have any public comments today?
We do not.
All right, at this time,
public registration to speak on this item will end.
Are there any board member questions or comments
regarding this agenda item?
Okay, I'll go down the line, yeah.
First of all, thank you so much
for all the hard work that goes into this.
I do have a question about
the Buena Creek grade separation.
I remember going down to the county
in my council capacity advocating
for the Buena Creek grade separation,
but how many attempts have we had
you try and secure funding for the Buena Creek grade separation? We have had a
few. We submitted a Caltrans planning grant last year. Grant programs are
sometimes we get actionable feedback from the agency that we have made the
request from and in this case we did. Occasionally there are some political
considerations or other things that tie into why some entities receive funding
and why some projects receive funding, which is why it's very important that we
receive board member and all of your city jurisdictions have been wonderful
and getting letters of support for some projects. So we had another go at the
grants program this go around incorporating some of the feedback that
we got from Caltrans and massaging the application a little bit to see if it
would be a little bit more successful. We also submitted a community project
funding request to Congressman Issa this year that was not selected by the
the THUD committee so it's been three. Yeah and that's that's been some time
that we're trying to get funding for this so one of the reasons that I want
to bring this up is that the Buena Creek grade separation is critically
important however there at this time is not a lot of like TOD around there or
other things you have to kind of take the bus to get to the business park in
Vista, which is about two to three miles away. I really want the board to consider how much
longer we want to keep the Buena Creek grade separation as one of our priorities because
the Vista Village grade separation, I believe, is further along than the Buena Creek separation
as we received funding from Congressman Mike Levin to do initial planning studies. It's
already gone through workshops. It's already been selected. Sometimes it's a little crazy
to continue trying to get funding for one of these, and already having attempted three
times to receive funding and not having any, you know, at the Vista Village Station, there
are two parcels that NCTD has for TOD. There's a lot of density around there. There's more
density going on. And I think, you know, it's also in a critical emergency first responder
corridor that it continues to suffer from the gate downtime and I'm a huge
proponent for public transit and I want us to get to 15-minute headways but it
is severely impacting the response times in my city and the circulation of all
forms all modes of transportation including our own NCTD Breeze fleet which
get stuck there and I've been stuck for 10 minutes which just throws off on the
303 it's the very beginning and it throws off the entire route so I really
think and we've had fatalities at this at Vista Village right so I really think
that we need to assess whether or not we want to continue to prioritize when a
creek grade separation which I agree is totally important it's also I think
probably potentially even more expensive, because it's such a long, you need a grade
separate it for a much longer length potentially than Vista. I don't know, because we don't
have those planning studies, so it makes it really difficult to assess. So I do want to
just flag this for the board, and I think that we should start, if we're not successful
again with Buena Creek, I really think we should move forward with focusing on Vista
village because we're already ahead and I know that you know all my colleagues
on city council we really want to see this happen so I'm sure we will have
support and then under that I was just curious so that's all I had for for our
project advancement priorities I really want to advocate for Vista Village to be
prioritized the next time around, if not today. And the second thing is just a
question on the platform modifications for the Sprinter are housed under the
Sprinter Fleet replacement. Does that mean, you know, that we're going to try
an attempt to... so do we need to get the fleet first and then are we going to
modify the platforms because they're really skinny right now because of the boutique locomotive
that we have, right?
So just kind of curious is like the cart before the horse or the horse before the cart or
how that works?
Well, they're very closely tied together.
I would say for us to, like if you've ever been down there at night, for us to be able
to run freight through there, we have to lift the platform in certain places right now where
the drop down is for the doors.
We do that from our OCC location at night where we lift them all up so freight can make
it through.
FRA compliant vehicle is gonna require us
to sort of push that back a little bit.
So until we know what vehicle type it is that we want,
likely won't be a bi-level,
but if we do a single stage FRA compliant vehicle,
there's actually a couple interesting points about that.
We'll have to fix the platforms
in terms of where the door space is,
but we actually have two, for some reason,
we have two stations that are in a curve.
And if we change the vehicles, we can't do that.
So we either have to shut those stations down
relocate them to another area. One is in right here in Oceanside in the turn
coming up to OTC and another one I think is down close to Melrose somewhere.
But those two are tied together in the sense that we have to know what vehicle
fleet type we're going to go with and then we can make the modifications to
the platforms. Part of the reason they're a little bit tied together is we do have
one manufacturer of rail vehicles that have said we can try to get them as close
close to the current spacing where the doors are now so the potential might be limited
for some of the platform reconstruction but it just depends on the vehicle type.
Okay, so it sounds like you're talking about the coast highway stop, maybe, okay, the one
right before OTC.
Okay, the coast highway stop is in the curve.
Yeah, it's dead on the curve.
Yeah.
Okay, yeah, that's interesting and just to see, I don't know if there's like visual ways
to keep the board you know there's so much information that we get but just
like even understanding some of those critical components that actually are
gonna require strategy there it is so where these yellow dropouts are yeah
underneath those yellow dropouts there's essentially a ramp that's automated that
goes up and down so that freight can run through there during the evening so we
go to an FRA compliant vehicle what we're really focused on at the stations
is those locations may need to move along the platform and they may need to
be pulled back just because the vehicle is a little smaller
than some other ones.
The vehicles we purchased may have rollout ramps.
So that may help us a little bit in this scenario.
It just depends on if we buy a standard type vehicle
that everyone else in the US is using that is consistent.
If it is, we're probably going to have
to move those spaces a little bit.
And definitely, those platform dropouts
are going to have to get pulled and reworked.
And then we'll have to figure out
what to do with the other two stations, but.
Okay, and so are we leaning towards, you know,
a less boutique style and more, you know,
just FRA compliant, right?
Yeah, I think for me, long range for the agency,
I mean, really for the region,
our connectivity to 15 with the FRA compliant rail vehicle,
I think is critical importance.
Right now, we're not able to share space
more than we would like to with our partners at BNSF
because we have to run in temporal separation from 5 a.m. until 930 at night
and then they run until 4 30 in the morning. We could have a better flow
through like we have now on the San Diego sub, you know, between here and
the border. If we had an f r a compliant vehicle, there's a lot of other pieces
that go into that. Right now, this line has very limited positive train
control. Yeah, signalization. It's only in certain parts. Our signal housing
and a lot of the infrastructure along the line itself,
all the way out to the back end of the yard
beyond our Sprinter Operations Facility,
is obsolete as in need of repair.
So we're kind of looking at it in two different ways.
Sprinter fleet replacement with an FRA compliant vehicle
and the modification to the platforms.
And then the second part of that is making the line itself
fully PTC compliant in case there was ever another need
for additional passenger runs along that corridor.
which there is at this time, currently.
I mean, it's terrible that you get to OTC
and you can't take the Sprinter if you get here
at nine o'clock, you're kind of SOL,
and then you gotta take, I gotta take, you know,
the 303 or a different bus,
and it takes like three to four times longer.
Yeah, so, okay, fantastic.
Well, I just kind of wanted to probe a little bit.
And, you know, if the board did want to prioritize
the Vista Village grade separation.
What is the process like to do that?
Is it at this meeting?
Is it at a future meeting?
Does it need to go to a different committee?
Can you outline what that process would be?
Yeah, so we do, I'll just preface,
the reason why we don't include a lot of projects
of the same type is because they typically compete
for the same grant program.
So if the board says, we want to prioritize
Buna Creek and Vista Village,
we kind of need to know what the board's top priority is.
for most of the grade separation programs,
we will go for that project.
However, we can keep both of those priorities in mind.
If there is an instance where unincorporated county
is eligible and the cities aren't,
we can kind of look at the different considerations
to make a decision, but I think this would be the forum
where we would be looking to the board
to see what is the priority in terms of grade separation.
If the board would like to adopt
the discretionary grant strategy as it is now,
the Buena Creek would be the top priority,
knowing that we would be working with the City of Vista
on trying to find some other grant programs,
or a motion I think could be made to change it
to have Vista Village or any other
Great Separation Project be the priority.
I would note just for information purposes,
somebody must have been watching our last board meeting
because we got a call about Buena Creek development
almost the next day.
Somebody reached out to us via email
was asking about is it in the TOD zone, does it qualify,
kind of just some general information
about development along that corridor.
And I think where they want to build
is slightly outside of the TOD range,
but I thought it was interesting that we got that call
right after we talked about that last month.
But I don't think I disagree with your assessment
that at what point in time do we shift to another priority.
I do think Wana Creek, and I don't think you're saying
it's not, I think we all agree it is definitely
a huge priority.
I'm surprised we haven't gotten the planning money
for that yet it's been a little disappointing.
I mean, we've really worked hard
to put a good package together.
And I think between the city of Vista and the county,
there's a, I just don't understand
how we have this partnership, you know,
that wants this thing to kind of move forward.
And that's been a little bit of a struggle
for us to manage.
Right, okay.
Yeah, and then there's other issues
with the Buena Creek area,
because there's a flood zone.
And so like development will be restricted
unless there's like a 65,
it's probably like now $95 million to redo that area,
which the County has not moved forward on,
which just makes it more difficult for TOD.
But, you know, I won't add it to the motion,
but I did want to flag it.
And if other members of the board want to consider
putting the Vista Village station as a priority,
I mean, we can have that discussion right now
out in the open.
If it doesn't seem like the board has appetite for that,
I would like to have on the agenda
in the near future sometime this year,
hopefully in the next few months,
a discussion where we do look at prioritizing Vista Village
and we have the data showing the number of fatalities,
where we are on the planning side, where we need to go,
because we need to have a deeper engineering plan,
which is gonna be several million.
But I think that we can,
that project can continue to move forward.
And I'm just really sad
that Buena Creek hasn't gotten anything,
so it's already behind.
Okay, well, thank you so much.
Board Member Edson.
Yes, thank you.
Thank you, Council Member and Director.
Are you Council Member or Deputy Mayor?
No.
What are you?
Okay.
I don't know what anyone is,
when the years shift.
But, and Director Contreras,
about bringing up that matter,
I'm much more familiar with the coastal run
than I am with the sprinter run.
So it's really good to sit in these meetings
and hear from those who actually experienced them
on a day-to-day basis, you know,
I can tell you all what's all going on on a coastline,
but not there, so thanks for sharing that.
And even before you made the plea,
I was going to suggest that perhaps we consider
approving the discretionary grants strategy with the exception of wayna creek and asking staff to come back with maybe a
agenda item that compares the two so that we can make a decision, but I will leave that up to the rest of
Directors to decide whether that's something they want to do and also for staff's input into whether that is actually something that's
feasible
so
Interestingly enough, I also I want to sit on that side of you. So
When I was reading this page for talks about the high priority project for submittal
I looked at Sprinter fleet replacement and Sprinter corridor service improvement projects and immediately wrote aren't these two?
Inextricably linked because I had the same questions. What comes first the chicken or the egg here, you know
If if we get the money for one
Can we do that because we don't we need part of the money for the other one in order to make it work
So I think it's kind of complicated with the
With those two being so linked. Hopefully we'll get the money from both and it'll flow really well
Then I had a question so that was comment I had a question on page six on the spiron corridor service improvement project
There's a matrix here and it shows that we've funded or we're partially funded
on certain projects, the first two that are on the matrix. And so my question is
will the current partial funding make our applications more competitive for
additional grant funding in order to, in other words, can we leverage that funding
to get ahead you know maybe you can answer that but and also what stages or
phases are considered shovel ready I saw Eastburg to Shell is shovel ready and I
saw Sorrento to Miramar is almost shovel ready are any of the others that are
listed shovel ready near shovel ready or just kind of hanging in the wind until
we get more money. Yeah so Tyler explained a little bit the local match
funding or any funding on the project does make a project more competitive. I
think most funding agencies see that funds have already been committed. Nobody
wants to be the first dollar in but they're happy to fully fund the project.
So in the case of the Sprinter Corridor Improvement Project we do have some
money to advance preliminary engineering and design of the double tracking but we
also have money for signals and so both of those will help us get both of those
two pieces of the project pushed forward. Shovel ready is really anything that's 90%
designed. A lot of the funding agencies will give you that last little bit to
make those final design considerations knowing that you'll feasibly start
construction pretty soon thereafter. The East Brook to Shell project has state
and federal money on it already and is completely designed, so that's why it's
still one of our top priorities. It's a very old bridge. We've made some
improvements to it but we really need this project to get it over the finish
line. Serenito Miramar I believe is about 90% designed and so in partnership
with SANDAG we're trying to look for ways to get that last little bit of
design and get the there is some I believe local money that SANDAG has
used to further some of the design that we can use as leverage to get federal
state money assigned to the project. Thank you. Well as someone who has set
both at East Brook and Shell and the Miramar curve, couldn't happen soon enough.
Thank you. Sure. I think I need to defend Buena Creek here. So I'm okay with as
presented in the staff report here and I appreciate, you know, Councilmember
Contreras is a comments on this but one of the first things when I got elected
to this office was I got I got I sat down with Vista Fire Department and they
said they're getting it's taking 90 minutes for you know for to get through
the 90 more than 90 seconds I'm sorry to you know to get through the stop lights
and things like that in this Buena Creek area and it's really hindering their
their response times in in that area here complaints from the unincorporated
areas, how long the lines are, you know, whenever a Sprinter train comes in, and so I really
think this, you know, I'm not ready to throw it out yet to some other, to another project.
And it's kind of the chicken or the egg, you know, if we, until we get the infrastructure
in place, then the TOD and then the, you know, transit oriented development can come into
place. And so it's, you know, you got to have one or the other. So I'm not quite ready to
give that up, and as far as Vista Village,
I don't know if that would be the best project
if we were to give up Buena Creek.
Is that the best one to go to?
I'd rather have staff come to us and say,
instead of us telling from the dais,
here's the project, we want to happen next.
It's like, well, what is the most worthy,
or what's the next highest priority and things like that,
as opposed to us, you know, picking them up,
picking them out of the air,
or picking them from different regions.
I think that's what I would like to see.
So I'm happy with the way this is being presented
and I'll make a motion to approve item 16 as is.
Great, thank you.
I'm gonna just go back to board alternate Coleman
and then I'll come back this way, thank you.
I'll make it quick and just say
for the Soreno to Merrimar double-track,
I think we've sent letters of support before on it,
happy to do it again, exciting that it's at 90% design,
We'll shovel ready.
Just want to make a request on behalf of our office
that when you continue to apply for grants
with SANDAG as your partner, you just
send us a notice so that we're aware of those things.
Thanks.
Great.
Thank you.
Coming back down.
And I'm just going down the line.
So OK.
I'm going to go all the way down so everyone gets a chance.
And then, yeah, Board Member Joyce.
Come back for seconds.
thank you for the presentation the can you talk a little bit about the Caltrans
bus stop assessment grant is it when you say pending where is it in the process
is it it's been awarded it hasn't been the money hasn't arrived like where are
we at in the in that process no we submitted the application and are
waiting for Caltrans to make a determination on whether we've received
the funding or not okay and do you know if we've had letters of support from all
of our local state representatives.
Yeah, you know.
We have gotten some letters of support.
I'd have to get back to you on who sent them.
Sandex supported the project.
I do know that.
A few others sent in letters of support as well.
OK.
All right, I just think that's a really important one.
And again, a lot of us are going to be doing
those same trips at the same time.
So it would be great to have the same message coming out
about these projects.
Can you explain why Section D was funded on the Sprinter line, as opposed to the A through C?
It has a 12 point some million in funding?
Yeah, so occasionally we, so we want to put forth whichever phase of the project we think will have the best chance of receiving.
So phase D is, it doesn't necessarily mean it's fourth,
it just means it's the portion in Escondido.
So I believe in this case,
there were some areas of persistent poverty.
There were some other areas that we felt
would make the application more successful
in the grant program.
So we look at each grant program and we determine
what are the considerations,
what do we think is going to have us push forward.
We put that under the Biden administration.
And so they really, that was the Justice 40 initiative.
That was all of those different considerations.
So we chose that section first,
just to start the preliminary engineering and environmental.
But we will go back and depending
on what administration is in office,
what are the priorities of each grant program
will determine which section.
It also depends on which member of Congress
is representing those areas
and is willing to support the project
put it forward so we look at all those things when we're submitting for
particular phases. Okay, great answer. The Eastbrook to show double track project
is great that I'm so glad that it's as close as it is. Could you send us
visuals and descriptions of the improvements that are not related this
or the pet improvements or other improvements that are going to be for
the community around it? Yes definitely. And then just talking about the double
tracks I think I just I've been talking a lot with our staff about it and I
would hesitate to think that there is a a intersection that it is as bad as
College and Oceanside Boulevard.
Nordahl is worse. All right, we'll have a bad intersection off. It's a sad, sad, sad
trophy to win but yeah I think if we're gonna start moving things around we
should have comprehensive conversations about what we're why we're prioritizing
which projects and I think it's a good conversation to have I just I'm not sure
we're prepared to have it today so thank you and if I can just talk a little bit
about so we have the Buena Creek in there right now because right now it's
the only MOU that we have with a jurisdiction to seek funding for so
That's why it's in the discretionary grant strategy now.
We're starting the process with the City of Vista
and any of city staff that would like to establish
a similar MOU, we'd be happy to do so.
When we're looking at which grade separate,
which intersection is the worst,
we're looking at a lot of different things.
Pedestrian traffic, vehicular traffic,
how many trains pass through the area,
how many buses pass through the area,
and unfortunately, if there are fatalities
at the area as well.
So we are looking at all of these different things.
We've started the process with SANDEG
and I believe an appendix to the regional plan
that was just passed has a prioritization
for a lack of better word.
They have some of those vehicular pedestrian numbers.
So I will confirm that it is in fact an appendix
and if so, I will circulate to the board.
If it's still in development, once it's completed,
I'll make sure that the board gets that information as well.
Great, thank you.
Board member Garcia, do you have anything?
Just a couple of things.
I agree with my colleague here
that we're probably not ready to have a discussion
regarding water cake versus Vista Village,
but if it, I think it should come back
so we can have a discussion regarding that.
I'm excited to hear about the bus stops
with some focus on Escondido.
We have been waiting about the timeline I got
And by email from NCTD, this was before I was on NCTD,
was like five years old.
First year we're gonna do this,
next year we're gonna do this,
next year we're gonna do this, this year,
and then finally we'll have some money.
So it seems like we're in the we have some money phase now.
So I'm really excited to see some of these things
come to fruition.
So I know we thank you.
All right, Board Member O'Hara?
Just a couple of questions before I get to the,
what seems to be the predominant question on here.
Regarding the buses and the replacement funds
and the assessment, first off, with the bus replacement,
does that include the number there?
Is this more a question of clarification?
The addition of the hydrogen buses
or is that a separate number?
Yeah, we received funding from the same grant program,
I believe two years ago for hydrogen buses.
So the hydrogen buses are not included in this.
We're planning to replace existing CNG buses
with more CNG buses.
And then on the bus stop assessment,
it's not the hot button today apparently,
but I know I've heard Councilmember Garcia,
Councilmember Joyce, Supervisor Desmond,
and Councilmember Contreras talk before
about challenges and concerns about bus stops,
which is very reasonable.
I'm curious, as we assess them,
we're constantly up for changing routes for different things.
And is there a level of minimum investment that we look at?
Do we have parameters that is a standard type of bus stop,
a permanent bus stop.
For example, a bus stop at a train station
probably isn't going anywhere soon.
Maybe there's a higher level of standard.
A bus stop in my neighborhood may not be there in two years
because no one takes the bus
or everyone takes the bus and we need a better one.
Is there something like that involved in that assessment?
Yeah, so we certainly look at our core routes,
the 302, the 303, 304, and Encinitas
that are relatively fixed,
not meaning that we're never gonna make changes to them,
but they typically have our highest ridership
and they typically are good candidates
for larger scale amenities, shelters,
certainly benches, lighting, all of those things.
But we also wanna look at the routes
where there isn't a lot of infrastructure in the area
or the frequency is low because we recognize
that the people that do ride those routes
might be waiting for longer.
There isn't other things nearby
them to kill the time while they're waiting for the bus. So it's a holistic
assessment. We look at the street considerations. If there is no ADA
accessibility, we have some bus stops in areas where there's no sidewalk. So this
assessment will look at number one, we want to get a picture of what we have
out there. 1,600 bus stops is a lot to manage and then that will help us create
a framework for what those priorities are and where with the limited resources
that we have, where we focus as funding comes in,
the construction or implementation of those amenities.
Yeah, and I would just piggyback off of what Mary said.
Managing a bus stop is far more expensive
than it used to be.
The 1,600 bus stops in our systems,
I would say several hundred of them
were put in at a time where we had no requirements,
so we would just run out in front of somebody's house
and drop a sign on a pole.
And I can give you, just from my own time in the business,
I can tell you that back in the day,
We would go out to put a shelter into a stop.
So we would send our facilities folks out,
and with a couple bags of Quikree,
and we would just build an ADA platform.
We can't do that anymore.
Now we have SQL requirements, we have NEPA requirements.
So what was a $5,000 bus stop
turned into a $30,000 bus stop.
And so when we go back and reevaluate those,
we're very careful to figure out how we touch that bus stop
because the second we decide to make an improvement on it,
we have to bring it up to code.
And so somebody who had a bus stop in front of their house,
and they love it every day.
And now maybe they want an ADA pad.
Well, if we go and reassess that,
what we'll find is there probably shouldn't
be a stop there at all.
Now we have a different type of customer issue.
So we're just very careful, I think,
and I think our bus stop manager,
she does a great job of categorizing what they are,
what are the top priorities.
In fact, we just did a pretty robust move in Fallbrook
a few months back to try to fix some of those
that had been honestly had been neglected for years.
We've had a few along, uh, vista that, um, are bus stops that were across the
street from places that didn't really have good access. They were safety
issues. Uh, and that's a tough place for us because we had people who were
essentially running across a four lane highway to try to catch a bus to stop.
Really probably shouldn't have been. There should have been a near block a
quarter mile at the road, but they were folks that lived in a, um, in an
aging community. So you know we try to be very careful when we get into bus
stop improvements because it can lead to a whole lot of other things that are
far more expensive than they used to be back in the day. And then I also wanted
to thank staff for a really good look at a plan that it's an elephant right and
you're giving us a 30,000 foot view of an elephant. So I appreciate you giving
them very digestible pieces that we could kind of dive into without it being
we could take all day here. It would take all week here, really, if we'd open it. So, thank you for a great report.
Really have some of the double tracking. Eastbrook and Shelley, I can't believe it's not double tracked already,
and I'm glad to see that going forward. I think it's going to be a great asset.
Yep. So, and just to kind of fall back on this concept of talking about Buena Creek and Vista Village,
I think, from what I understand, most of these projects with the FRA require us to be done in a certain deadline,
we try to get to a certain point of completion
before we start kicking projects around.
And I rely on staff to know which projects
are the closest to be there.
And so I look forward to them bringing it forward to us.
So I don't think we have enough information in front of us
to go beyond the discussion of what's on this piece
of paper in front of us, as opposed to adding or editing.
It's more of a yes or no in this case.
That said, I think, you know there are,
we've heard from the aspect,
there's Guinequique Vista Village,
We heard Nordahl and college and issues, and I think we have to really careful we get into this we yet we we all have
Things in our city. We'd like to have looked at and may be included on this list
so I think we can't necessarily say it's this project or this project especially with limited information, so I
do think in the future I would support the idea of
Looking at something like a CIP project list that we could go over and developing a list of future projects
That's beyond this list, and we have a great starter on this report here already
the funding status report but something like that we're constantly keeping tabs
on trying to move things up that up that ladder maybe grade them would be really
beneficial I would definitely support you in that I think we could put a
project like Vista Village on that as well as other projects I hear around
this around this table so I'm gonna support the motion on the floor and I
appreciate everybody's conversation on this. Thank you board member O'Hara and I
I think Mr. Donaghy you wanted to say something really quick.
I think what may be helpful for us and I think in this case we have the MOU with VISTA related
to Buena Creek and it is no matter where it falls under the equation we know it's something
that we want to continue to push forward on.
I think while we're trying to evaluate some of those things the course of action we may
want to add into the plan today is that we as an agency will engage the city of VISTA
to see what an MOU looks like on VISTA Village and then we can really put a list together
of I mean we have it we just need to sort of put some some parameters around
to bring to the board of what really are those priority ones. I would say in
Vista Village case that's not something that's new to the group. We've we've had
a lot of conversations about Buena Creek and Vista Village. There are equal
parts to both that are problematic to the movement of vehicles around the area
so you know if the board is amenable to that I think that would probably the
best course of action is us to engage the City of Vista to work on an MOU of
of what a Vista Village grade separation looks like.
That way we can continue to try to hopefully
get that planning study money for Wayne Creek
and then once we have that we can move
into some of our other priorities.
Okay, great, thank you, Board Member Martinez.
Hi, just a couple of quick things.
So thank you very much for the information on bus stops.
I thought that was kind of an easy fix
because I've seen some issues and you know,
we all want people to be safe and shaded and comfortable,
but that brings a whole lot of other potential issues.
But assessing that and doing what we can
is important to me as well.
I'm wondering at some point in all your free time,
if you could have some criteria
to look at the different intersections for assessment.
I mean, I can think of several intersections more in my area
that traffic gets really backed up,
and it's annoying to the people in the vehicles,
but my main concern is emergency access,
both for fire or medical.
So at some point, looking at the top 10 issues
that you know of, or we share with you,
and coming up with a criteria of different things
that could prioritize the next five or 10 years out
of trying to get some funds
to make those intersections more safe.
Yeah, absolutely, thanks.
Thank you, Vice-President.
Yeah, I'll keep it short.
I definitely agree with the last four or five
of my fellow colleagues.
So I won't repeat everything they said,
but it does sound like there's overwhelming consensus
to have this come back with regards to the grade separation
and take a deeper dive into them
and maybe come up with some sort of strategic plan
as to over the next 10 years,
what's the approach and what's the priorities.
And then I would like as a board member
to kind of better understand,
I just learned about this MOU
between the cities and the district,
like a little bit more about the process
and how can we as board members and our other roles
as council members, or supervisors,
kind of help push that along or help the grant process
or whatever that might look like.
I mentioned kind of half-jokingly about Nordall,
but it's pretty well known between the stoplights
and the Highway 78 kind of runs right parallel with it.
And then the added urgency with that one
is you have all the emergency ambulance
going to Palomar Hospital from the 78. So I would imagine that Nordall would probably
be pretty high up there on that priority list once you develop that. So with that, I'll
second the motion. Okay, it's already been seconded? Okay, great. Then I'm supportive
of the motion on the floor, and I appreciate the conversation. I appreciate the presentation.
Thank you.
And Costco, we keep going to.
And Costco, Costco gas, you got,
there's a lot going on over there.
Great.
I have a couple of questions,
and then we can take the motions.
Or actually, I think I needed to go back, yes, okay.
So, one, the first question I had was
with the current budget considerations,
not specifically for this agency,
but just looking at the state and federal government,
And then also the political environment that we're in.
What are we predicting in terms of the likelihood
and getting some of these funds?
I think that's kind, and I know we are always conservative
and thinking of what we're actually going to get,
but I just want to be realistic on what we're going
to achieve and then what that looks like
in terms of priorities for next year and forward.
So I'd love to hear about that.
I would say in full disclosure that that's going to be maybe not problematic is the word but
Challenging. Thank you. Thank you. My legal team said challenging
And and I'll give you a couple pieces that are kind of shifting around than the DC sphere
And when we when I was there a few months back one of the conversations that was happening was
Should we take money set aside for transportation projects that are in discretionary grant funding and move them to formula funding?
because what we're finding is that locally public transit agencies, and we're not immune
to this either, are struggling to generate local dollars to pay for some operating and
maintenance or some capital improvements.
And so what the federal government would prefer to do is flip the formula a little bit where
historically it was—well, historically it was 60-40-ish, 60 of it went to formula funding,
40 of it went to discretionary funding.
When the discretionary pot became bigger over the past eight to ten years, they flipped
it.
It was 70% discretionary and 30% formula, and they would prefer to flip that back to 65-35,
which is 65% formula and 35% discretionary.
So what that does is it immediately shrinks the pot for potential projects that are out
there, but what it does is it filters more static money into the transit agency.
us as an agency we're probably somewhere in the middle to which one
helps us more. If I'm a large agency like a LA Metro, San Diego MTS, BART, it's
better for me to have that money in formula funding because I already get a
specific chunk off of that. It's already in the federal register that large
agencies that qualify for certain areas that have X ridership statistics and
population numbers already get 35 to 40 percent of that money right off the top
and then the rest is distributed to the rest of the transit agencies in the
nation. Small systems are available for rural so where it becomes a little bit
problematic is we're gonna have to lean into more where does this touch defense
where does this touch energy and be a little more thoughtful about how we're
trying to ask for grants because that that public that public money I think is
for transit, I think that discretionary pot is going to decrease a little bit, even if
the number increases, the number available for discretionary grants is going to be less.
The agency will see that in incremental pieces in the formula funding, but they haven't necessarily
made that decision yet. That's part of the agenda that's happening right now. I was refreshed
to see that the President's budget did have an increase in transit funding, but what you're
starting to see, congressionally, is a move away from that. You're starting to, I know
the currently one of the ideas that's being thrown out there on a continuance
funding bill is to put transportation with defense to continue the
transportation funding. And I it's not necessarily uncommon with the ties
between HUD and some of the other groups that are sort of all mashed together in
that group but where that becomes potentially problematic is it will
likely decrease the transportation budget available or it will make it or
or they will make it where you can move transportation money
to defense or defense transportation to transportation,
which will never happen.
But so I think we need to just be careful when
we see that the numbers may look the same,
but how they're sort of allocated is a lot different.
And I think to your question, the short answer
to the long answer is, yes, there is a potential impact
because historically, we would have put in for these.
And we probably would have scored really well for some
of our, especially for our shovel writing stuff.
The two things that are gonna be problematic for us,
giving those money shift scenarios,
and you have to throw the state into that now is,
a lot of times we use state money for local match,
if we can.
If it's a grant strategy that will allow us
to use the local match to the federal,
so we owe 30 or 40% on top of,
depending on the project, when we're shovel ready.
So if the state doesn't have those funds available
that we can use as local match,
we locally don't have the money to put toward that project,
just based on our current desire to continue operations.
So I think it's kind of all of those things in one piece,
and I know Mary and Tyler, they're just every day
trying to figure out what the new plan is
between D.C. and Sacramento,
and I think they've done a good job of that,
but we do have some legal-set challenges in front of us,
so thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, my other question was about
how we're moving our chess pieces to be strategic
about where to apply, and you just answered that,
So I appreciate you thinking about what my next question was.
While you were talking, though,
the other thing that I just wanted to confirm,
and I'm guessing this is more of a yes or no,
is that based on what you were sharing
with regards to the formula of discretionary funding,
it seems like that connects to the legislative strategy
of asking for more flexibility with regards to the funding
for the operations and maintenance.
Yeah, and in fact, one of the things
that we've asked the federal government to do,
one of our federal agendas at our national association
has really been to be able to use federal funding
to manage safety and security.
Right now, our contract with the San Diego Sheriff's Office
is tied up in our SB 125 money,
which is an okay use for that.
But if we could federalize our security contracts
and our San Diego Sheriff's Office contract,
that frees up more local money for us
to keep in reserves so that we can continue core services or use them as local maps towards
some of these shovel-ready projects if we get the money right away.
I think the thing regionally, and we're not poking at anybody here, I think collectively
the three agencies in San Diego have to do a better job of making sure that these projects
get off the mark the second that they're funded.
I think we've struggled with that, and there's been a combination of reasons why it could
be legal reasons for areas affected, it could be CEQA and EBA, it could be coastal commission,
it could be a myriad of a million different things, but we as a region have to get better
at the second that those get approved. We're not adding costs to it by delaying it two
years and three years. We've got to get right out the jump and start moving. And some of
that is legislative changes, some of that is I think what we're seeing from the federal
level, which is maybe a rework of how we manage our environmental process, so I
think that's kind of the key to keep those things moving in real time. Thank
you, and I just, you know, I don't have any other questions, but I just want to
make a couple of comments. First, just a thank you to both of you. I don't know, I
am assuming many of us up here have done grants before, whether in their, in our
own personal capacity in work or otherwise and it is so hard to write a
grant application. I know I've done it years ago personally and gosh hats off
to both of you for doing that and for securing. Tylians? Yeah well and and to
you too Mary because I know in the past you have definitely gotten us so much
money and thank you Tyler for continuing that streak because it is so much work
it takes so much effort and then for us to be recognized and then receive that
money is a huge deal so just thank you even in this environment to be able to
get that money I just want to say you know kudos to our team more clearly we
clearly have the best so just thank you on that front and then other than that I
know I have to go back around so anything else
board alternate comment. Okay and then board member Contreras.
Awesome well you know I love to be thought provoking and it looks like we're
looking at this very dynamically now and and like I said I'm not looking to kick
Buena Creek grade separation off because I know it's imported and you know in the
past Vice Chair Sinella you weren't here but the two stations that I have
elevated you can roll back the tapes is actually Nordall and Vista Village in
in particular because of the emergency response,
I ride the Sprinter a lot, I see what happens,
but also at Vista Village we do have
our Vista Transit Station, right?
And so you have a lot of buses there that get stuck,
either trying to get back into the station
or trying to leave.
And we do have the number one ridership is the 303
by a lot, I think it was like 17% or something higher
than any other bus, so we have to keep that into consideration.
We don't want to throw those things off.
What I'm looking for is it sounded like, Sean,
you had some suggestions that we could even move forward.
I didn't hear it in the original motion,
so I will ask for a friendly amendment from the motion maker
if we could add to the motion that we, the NCTD,
we'll work with the city of Vista to move forward on an MOU.
I don't have a problem with that.
Does that really need to be part of the motion
or can't you just do that on your own?
Well, and to answer your question,
this is something that I have been having
a lot of conversations between my city and NCTD,
but it is really necessary for the board
to give NCTD a certain direction.
And I think if the direction is amenable to you,
seeing is how Vista is also some a place that you represent in district 5. I think
that it would be great to add it to the motion. For us to
discuss and NCTD to discuss an MOU with the city of Vista. I think that's what
you were saying right. Well maybe there's a little without maybe without an
amendment. I think our goal would be to we know Vista Village has been a
priority. We've been working a lot on the station that's been our main
conversation right now but to add to the list how do we get to a solution at
Vista Village for a great separation and then I think once we get to a point
where I think we may have an MOU we bring it back to the board to see if we
want to add it to the to the list. I think we hear you okay we'll do we also I
think are gonna have an agendized discussion again we hear from the board
it seems like an agenda is discussion on grade separations as a whole.
Might not be February, maybe it's March or April, but because we'll want to, you know,
number one confirm with Sandaig if they've come up with that.
So there's some considerations, but I think we can certainly, you know, I've received
staff direction to advance the MOU with the VISTA and then agenda as a discussion.
Okay, fantastic.
Yeah.
I think I also heard from the other end of the board here, other cities might also be
interested.
Yeah.
time because it's actually my time right now but um so so the answer is no okay
yeah that's fine people will hear you loud and clear um so I look forward to
this item coming back because we do really need to look at how we're gonna
prioritize and I think if we go for now on Buena Creek something's got to change
so that's it thank you thank you anybody else have any other comments or
questions. Okay, and for clarity, it sounds like this conversation will come
back to us. You don't need a formal direction in the form of a motion right
now. Okay, I just want to make sure that it's on the record that we're going to
come back. Okay, we will. Great. Perfect. I see board member Joyce. Just very
briefly. So when this comes back, we're going to be talking about potential
criteria for identifying other grade separation projects. Because I heard
density brought up as a potential thing. You know proximity to emergency services.
I just want to make sure I'm clear about what I expect to come back when we have
this conversation the next time. I think what we were thinking would be brought
back is the list of grade separation potential grade separation projects that
are out there, how we deem them in the priority cycle and then have a
conversation with the board about whether they agree with that strategy or
they would like to see other strategies built into that. The list identified by
is what you're talking about.
We'll use that as a framework, but there are some projects
that are more advanced than others.
VISTA is one of them.
We also, a couple years ago, you'll remember,
I think maybe you're the only member that was on the rail
safety and community enhancement committee,
it was an ad hoc committee,
where we had some of these discussions.
A key piece of when we're looking at grade separations,
it's NCTD infrastructure, but it's also city infrastructure.
So how we've been operating so far is if a city
is an equal partner with us,
that's how we're kind of advancing.
That's how we got money for this transit center.
That's why we have Brandon Creek is one of our priorities.
So we'll bring back Sandex list and their criteria.
If anything that I've heard from the board today
is not on that list, we'll take a look, emergency response.
I'm sure it is, but in case it's not,
we'll add that to the list.
And then to Sean's point,
if the board would like to place weight on vehicular traffic
pedestrian access or those types of things in determining the priority we
can have that conversation but we'll come with a staff recommendation on what
the priority is based on existing criteria okay great I was also on the
receipt committee I remember that one I was like hey yeah Sharon and Kelly also
Oh yeah, perfect.
Anybody else?
All right, great.
So we have a motion and a second.
I don't remember who the second was.
Garcia.
Okay, great, thank you.
Can we read the motion back just to make sure?
It was just, so both the gyms.
All right, great.
So board member Desmond and board member O'Hara,
that was the motion and the second,
and it was the staff recommendation.
Correct.
All right, we can go ahead and call for the vote.
favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? On the motion of board member Desmond,
seconded by board member O'Hara to approve the calendar year 2026 discretionary
grant strategy. Motion passes. Great, thank you, thank you both. All right, the last
item on the agenda is a presentation to review the financial audit results for
fiscal year 2025. Yoon Park Lynch, our chief financial officer, and Connelly
Thank you very much for being here and we will present this item.
You and Connolly, you have our attention.
Good afternoon members, every year NCDD undergoes a financial audit of its financial statements as well as it is compliant with the federal funding that the district receives.
Ms. Kinalisokasem, a partner at Ade Bailey, will be making a formal presentation on the results of the audit.
Afternoon, can you guys hear me?
All right, good afternoon, and thank you
for having me participate in this meeting.
My name is Kenali Sukasum, and I'm with Ide Bailey.
We've completed our audit of the fiscal year 2025,
a financial statement audit and also the single audit,
and I just wanted to briefly go through
what our responsibilities were,
and also to discuss the results of the audit.
So as far, okay, so as far as the scope of the audit,
We were hired to provide an opinion on NCTD's financial statements and also to conduct
the single audit, which is a compliance audit of NCTD's federal expenditures.
As part of the audit, we considered NCTD's internal controls and designed our audit procedures
to gain reasonable, but not absolute, assurance over the financial statements.
We also perform tests of compliance with laws, regulations, contracts, those that could have
a material impact to the financial statements.
In addition, we also reviewed the required supplementary information section of the ACFER
to ensure that the information presented in those sections were consistent with the information
presented in the financial statements.
As far as the results, we've issued an unmodified opinion on the financial statements of NCTD,
which is the highest level of assurance over the financial statements.
As far as the GAGS report, we've identified that there were no material weaknesses or
significant deficiencies identified in internal controls for the fiscal year ending 2025.
As far as the next components,
we've complied with all ethical legal requirements
regarding independence.
The summary of significant accounting policies,
that's where we draw attention to note one,
identifies the significant accounting policies used by NCTD.
We noted that there was one new accounting pronouncement
that was issued and implemented by NCTD in fiscal year 2025
and that's GASB statement 101
dealing with compensated absences.
We noted that the implementation of this accounting standard
did not have a material impact to NCTD's financial statements.
As far as our significant risk identified,
we've identified management, override of internal control,
revenue recognition, estimates related to the pension amounts
reported in the financial statements,
and also estimates related to the other post-employment benefit
amounts. We've performed our testing over these estimates and over the significant risk
identified and we found no management bias. We also wanted to draw attention to sensitive
estimates and disclosures in NCTD's financial statements and that deals with the pension
liability reported in note 13, the OPEB liability reported in note 14 and also disclosures related
to NCTD's interest swap in Note 7.
One of the reasons why these are considered
sensitive estimates is if you look at Note 13 and 14
to the financial statements, there
is a sensitivity analysis that's displayed, which shows,
you know, if there is a 1% increase or 1% decrease
in the discount rate used in the net pension liability
or OPEB liability calculation, that
could have a material impact to NCTD's financial statements.
As far as corrected and uncorrected misstatements,
we did identify one uncorrected misstatements
to the financial statements, and that
deals with the GASB 31 adjustment, the fair market
value adjustment at June 30.
We determined that by NCTD not posting this adjustment,
there was no material impact to the financial statements.
You'll also see in the auditor's opinion
that there was an emphasis of matter disclosed
and that was only to draw attention
to the disclosure of the new accounting pronouncement
that was implemented in fiscal year 2025 by NCTD.
As far as significant difficulties,
I'm happy to report that we had no significant difficulties.
We actually never have any difficulties
when dealing with Yoon and her team.
So I'm happy to report that.
We had no difficulties and we also had no disagreements
with management during the course of the audit.
And with that, that concludes the presentation
and also the results of the audit.
If there are any questions, I'd be happy to take any
that deal with audit and Eun would be happy to take any
dealing with the financial statements.
Great, thank you so much.
I'm going to first look for any public comments
that we may have today.
We have none.
All right, at this time, public registration to speak on.
This item will end.
Are there any board member questions or comments?
Board member Desmond?
Well, thanks for the presentation
and thanks to our staff and Sean and the team
for a job well done and another great audit, appreciate it.
Great, thank you, anybody else?
All right, I'll echo the sentiments as well.
Thank you so much and looks like we did a great job
as an agency and I know it's under the leadership of you
and so thank you and thank you so much for being here
and with that I'll go ahead and move on
because I don't think there's a vote required
for this items, this was informational,
so thank you so much again for the presentation.
Now we'll move on to the chief executive officer report.
Mr. Donahue, do you have anything to report?
Thank you Madam Chair, members of the board.
First of all, I want to say congratulations
to the reelection of our chair and vice chair.
Thank you for that and congratulations
on another year to serve as chair and vice chair,
excited for that.
This is an FYI.
We were asked, I think MTS and NCTD both were asked
about our thoughts regarding Fair Evasion
by a local news agency.
And I did do an interview last week regarding Fair Evasion
and was very blunt about sort of the struggles
surrounding Fair Evasion, what that means to the agency,
and just things in real time that we're trying to address
as we move through those.
I know we're gonna bring that conversation to the board
as well when we have conversations
about what the new fare structure may look like
that they're going through the public input process on.
So just wanna give you a heads up on that
in case you saw it.
I wanted to give a shout out to our maintenance of way team.
On New Year's Day, we had a mudslide in Miramar
and I went out there to,
and I really appreciate those guys.
They make me feel like I know what I'm doing out there.
So I appreciate the group.
But within a matter of hours,
they had that entire mudslide cleaned up
and had dug out some space to come in that night
and put in K rail to sort of divert some of the mud
if we had an additional rain on Saturday beyond Thursday.
And I just really wanted to give those folks a shout out.
We had a skeleton crew on New Year's Day
and they grabbed all the heavy equipment, went out there
and I think we had trains back and running
within four to five hours.
So pretty impressive to watch in real time
how those folks operate
and was glad to be out there to see that.
Thanks again for the human trafficking proclamation.
That's a serious issue.
Every agency I've been at has been fairly close to a border.
I think here specifically, we have a lot of training
that we put in place for our employees,
but this sort of builds off of that.
And we've got a lot of folks from our rail team
and bus operations team and Maury and Safety
who have put a lot of energy and effort
into making that program what it is.
And so we're excited to really be a part of that
and hopefully have some real impacts
on the devastating effects of what that is, not regionally,
but really nationally.
So we're going to continue to do that.
We had an all work window this past weekend.
Went out on Sunday to, again, see how everybody was doing.
I got to tell you, it was impressive to watch
within about a 40-hour period.
We were literally cutting concrete, pulling up asphalt,
changing the rail out, welding the rail back in,
and then asphalting the space back down,
Mainly at Leucadia and Instance Boulevard,
but we did a little work in Del Mar this weekend too.
Got another work window coming up,
but I always want to make sure they get recognized for that.
I mean, they were out, it was pretty hot on Sunday
and we were laying asphalt all day
and I could tell they just really wanted to get that,
get out of there, but they did a great job.
Update on the illegal train trespassing piece.
I'm pretty sure you saw the video circulating
of people surfing the coaster.
I mean it's tough to explain in real time
like what people are thinking when they're doing that stuff.
We had a report a couple months ago of a couple guys
that did it actually on the 101 bus
while they were coming through by Torrey Pines there
down to UTC.
I'm not sure why people think that's a thing.
I will note that we did find those two individuals,
they have been arrested.
Social media is great when you wanna put stuff out there.
It's also great when we're looking for you.
so good news we found you but those individuals are having they've had
charges pressed against them and you know anytime we see something like that
we are actively looking to get video and press charges against those individuals
and that is not okay. The last thing I had today is just sort of a an issue
that we had where we have our non domiciled employees had their CDLs
revoked we had a little bit of a I don't want to say a disagreement but the
state of California extended to March 6th and the DOT came right back in
behind them and said we did not grant you an extension to March 6th. The day
the deadline is January 6th. We immediately have acted on the DOT's
report because we get money from the federal government on that. So our
operators who were affected have been pulled out of service. We are keeping
them, we've signed an MOU with our union to find them other work for a very
determined period of time and to see if they can get their non domicile status fixed and
get their CDO reinstated. If they cannot after that period, we will move on from that. And
one of the things that we have done to try to mitigate any potential service issues that
would be out in the system since it was pretty immediate to us was we got a new run cut today
that we're sending over to our union so when they pick their runs, hopefully there's the
least amount of impact to some of our folks. That probably will increase our overtime expenditure
a little bit just to try to figure it out in the short term, but we're working through
some of those items.
I wanted to get that out there just in case anybody's reaching out to your offices or
asking for assistance on how to manage those things.
If they do, send them back our way.
We're doing everything that we can from an agency standpoint, but the reality is it's
largely on the employee to try to figure out how they're going to manage that status.
I mean, then once they do that, we can get them back in the system for their CDLs, and
that is all I had today unless anybody had any questions for me.
All right, thank you. Mr. Donegal and any board member reports
I'm seeing mr. O'Hara. I
Just wanted to follow up on the CEOs comments and give a shout out and a thank you to your staff to Brian Helms
And his staff for coming out to located this weekend
It's hard to close anything down on the coast on a sunny weekend and you guys did an amazing job
Getting things done on time getting tracks open and closed and while there's obviously traffic on a weekend
Conduct was professional and it was a really grateful city thanks you.
The surfers did okay, they made it across the hot blacktop.
The dogs were what we were really concerned about so we worked out a way to get the dogs across the track and worked out okay.
Other duties as assigned, I believe that's what that's called.
Thank you. Board member Edson?
Yes, I just wanted to, in case anyone hasn't heard the news,
The Low Sand has a 13th round trip that they've reinstituted between LA and Santa Fe Depot.
As we know, the bread and butter of Low Sand, of the Pacific Surfliner, is actually the
traffic between LA and San Diego, which is primarily tourism.
Great.
Thank you.
Anyone else before I make my comments?
Okay.
I'm not seeing any.
Great.
Just wanted to thank everyone for the vote of confidence again and looking forward to serving you all this
Year as chair if you have anything just a reminder
I'm always available to chat so feel free to get in touch and I'd love to be able to do that
Wanted to also just echo the sentiments with regards to the human trafficking proclamation
I worked in that space for quite some time with the Family Justice Centers and
And just wanted to mention that it's so important for us and I'm so glad that our agency takes
it seriously and that we're training our employees.
So thank you, just wanted to say that.
And then with regards to this weekend, I know it's going to go out there, but the Carlsbad
Marathon is happening, it's in our city, so I'm excited about that.
We will have road closures, I'm just saying that.
So if you need to take public transit, that's a great way to get out there.
I'll be out there running, so hopefully I'll see folks out there.
And other than that, I think we just have to check in about our remaining public comments.
Okay, great.
So I will go ahead and say that at this time, public registration to speak on remaining
public communications will end.
The next scheduled meetings are performance administration and finance committee meeting
Thursday, February 12th at 11am.
And then the regular board meeting Thursday, February 19th at 2 p.m.
And we are adjourned at 3.35.