all right well good afternoon everyone first off thank you to everyone for your
generosity and allowing us to move this by a half hour we were all stuck in
massive traffic and so we are here now and I just want to say that we are going
to call the board meeting to order it's the July 16th board workshop of North
County Transit before we begin members of the public who may be viewing the
meeting on NCTD'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 to clerk at NCTD.org. We'll go ahead and do a verbal roll call
attendance and I will pass that over to Ms. Rodriguez. Thank you. Madam Chair,
Chair Bappetell.
Here.
Vice Chair Sonella.
Here.
Board Member Martinez.
Here.
Board Member O'Hara.
Here.
Member Garcia.
Here.
Board Member Joyce is participating remotely under provisions of the Brown Act and the teleconference
location has been published on the agenda.
Board Member Joyce, can you provide an audible confirmation of your presence, please?
I'm here.
Thank you.
Board Member Desmond, Board Member Edson?
Present.
Board Member Contreras?
Present.
Board Member Colman?
Here.
Thank you.
This completes the roll call with Board Member Joyce participating remotely and Board Member
Desmond absent.
All right.
Thank you.
Board Leader Colman, would you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?
to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Thank you. And Ms. Rodriguez will now provide us with 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. Do not use the elevators.
Once cleared of the building, do not reenter unless cleared to do so by emergency personnel.
There are fire extinguishers for safe kits
on each floor of the building.
There is a portable defibrillator
on the first and third floors of this building
and staff on hand trained on CPR procedures if needed.
This concludes my safety brief.
Great, thank you.
Are there any changes to the agenda?
Yes, Madam Chair, the agenda was revised
to include the teleconference location
for board member Joyce's remote participation
and the updated agenda was sent to the board
and posted on the NCTD website.
Great, thank you.
and moving on to public communications,
do we have any general public comments today?
We do not, Madam Chair.
All right, at this time, public registration
to provide general public comment will end.
Before we proceed, we'll discuss some protocol items.
First, I'll ask board members to please hold your comments
and questions until after each agenda item
has been presented.
When the time comes for questions or comments,
please raise your hand and wait until you are called upon
to speak.
Lastly, please turn on and speak into your microphone.
it is your turn to speak this will ensure that your comments are heard for
those listening to the meeting online. So our first item on the agenda is an
overview of the low-income fare freeze program that was recently proposed by
the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System. Mary Dover our chief operating
officer bus will present this item so Ms. Dover you have our attention. Thank
you chair members of the board. I'm gonna be up here for a while so you get used to
for this presentation I have with me Alicia Pete Watson she's our director of
customer experience and a fairs expert so any question that I might not be able
to answer she'll be able to step in. Okay so just providing a little bit of
background for the board as you'll recall NCTD MTS and SANDAG started the
process to evaluate any potential impacts of a fair increase on ridership
and revenues last summer. SANDAG is the administrator of the regional fair
ordinance and so they're a key player in this and the final decision will be made
at SANDX transportation committee because the board of directors has
delegated that authority over to the transportation committee. So in April of
2026 the NCTD board recommended approval of changes to the fair ordinance that
included a fair increase. MTS's board did the same in April. As part of our
board discussion the board did express support for exploring in the future a
a low-income fare, which leads us to this item today.
In June, 2026, MTS's board approved
a low-income fare freeze program
as part of their budget discussion.
Also in June, Sandex Transportation Committee
voted to waive the first reading
and all future readings of the fare ordinance.
This was a first administrative step
in the approval of changes to the fare ordinance.
Tomorrow, Sandex Transportation Committee will vote
on whether or not to approve the changes
to the fare ordinance.
So this is a very timely discussion.
So a little bit about MTS's low-income fare freeze program.
It would keep fares at current levels
for individuals that are actively enrolled
in the following programs intended
to assist low-income individuals,
CalFresh, Medi-Cal, and CalWORKS.
This fare freeze will apply to adult fares only,
So that would be one way fares as it's structured now,
MTS bus and trolley, and the current fare structure
in that category also includes NCTD, breeze and sprinter.
Depending on the board conversation today,
we could have a conversation about MTS
separating from that so that it only applies
to trolley and bus, but as it stands now,
it would apply to breeze and sprinter as well.
The eligibility of this program would be managed
maintained by NCTD and MTS. Initially we would gather documents to verify
eligibility in the program and then we would have an ongoing process where we
would determine if somebody is still eligible for the program or not. Per MTS's
board conversation, this fair freeze program would become eligible on October
1st, 2026 if the Sandag Transportation Committee approves the changes to the
regional fair ordinance tomorrow. And I'll just highlight a little bit about
about that piece.
The changes to the regional fair ordinance
allow NCTD and MTS to develop their own promotional
or special fair programs.
The current ordinance does not allow for that.
And so if the San die Transportation Committee
does not approve the changes to the ordinance tomorrow,
NCTD and MTS would have to go back to the drawing board
on how we would provide a low income fair.
A few things to consider in this conversation.
The fair increase as recommended by the NCTD and MTS's
board for approval by the San Diego Transportation Committee
does include a phased approach.
Fares would slightly increase this October,
and then there would be a higher increase next October,
phase one and phase two.
The anticipated revenues that NCTD would expect to get
in addition to the revenues that we're already receiving
right now from fairs.
In phase one, we're anticipated to receive approximately
extra $600,000. If NCTD decided to participate in the low-income fair freeze program, we
could expect to receive about $400,000 less. This is an estimate of revenues. The initial
estimate was based off of a model that Sandag prepared for us that took into account the
revenue that would be generated from increased fares, less the amount of ridership that we
could expect to lose because anytime you raise prices, you can expect to lose some riders.
We tried to emulate that same model in determining what the low-income fair freeze program would impact in terms of ridership.
However, these are estimates at this point, because we would be freezing fares at current levels, we can expect to have a lesser loss in ridership from the fair increase, if that makes sense.
Similarly in phase two we were anticipated to receive an increase of about 1.2
million dollars in fair revenues. If we participated in the low income fair
freeze program we could expect to receive about $600,000 less from a fair
increase. With that I will take any questions. All right well thank you so
much on that. Do we have any public comments at this time? We do not. Okay at
this time public registration to speak on this item will end so I'm going to
look to my fellow colleagues and see if there are any questions or comments
regarding the item. Okay I see Ms. Contreras so I'll start off with you I
don't see any others yet. Thank you. Well thank you so much for this update. Okay
so NCTD currently can you explain to me if we are collecting any kind of
documents for CalFresh, Medi-Cal or CalWorks?
Or is this a new process?
This would be a new process.
We currently don't accept any of those.
But MTS has been doing that for a while or no?
No, this would be a new process for them.
Across the board.
Okay, and since this is a new process
and we're looking at this being effective October 1st,
when do we, I mean, say we go down the route
where we do a fair freeze like this,
what's the first day that we can anticipate
that we can take documents in for review?
Yeah, so MTS is working with their
fair system contractor in it.
I'm sure that is one of their questions.
I'm not sure if we've settled on a date
that we would start assessing eligibility,
but it would have to be before the October 1st date
so that we can make sure that when the October 1st hits,
the fair goes into effect and we can make sure that those folks are eligible so I would assume
it would probably be sometime in September. Okay, and on our side, talk to me about our
staffing levels versus needing to contract. I'm piggyback on what Mary was talking about with the
work that INIT is going to be doing with MTS. We do do our eligibility processes different here at
at North County. We do ours in person while customers are still available,
encouraged to go to ridefano.com for their eligibility of reduced fair or if
this should pass the same. Their process is done third-party, ours is done in
house. So customers, it would just be duplicative of the current process that
that we're doing right now in terms of staffing.
We were not anticipating a huge lift in the long run.
However, when we launched pronto in 2021,
we did see quite a few because we do ours in person
and in that moment,
and you don't need to go through technology.
We did see overflow at our three transit centers
at Vista Escondido and Oceanside
where customers were coming up
to verify eligibility in that moment.
So we're anticipating once word gets out
that that would likely happen again,
but probably on a smaller scale
since PONTO was a much larger regional effort.
Okay.
Alicia, can you introduce yourself for the record?
Oh, I'm Alicia, you happen.
I think Mary said it at the top.
Oh, okay.
But here I am again.
We just wanted to make sure I'm down on this end.
Yes.
Okay that's that's really important to know kind of where we start off, do we so folks
go in person on to the customer service and we only have we're only anticipating one spot
or are we at three spots okay where are those located?
We're at our transit centers currently at Vista Transit Center, Oceanside and Escondido.
Okay.
hours are Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. so we can process their
we can verify eligibility within those windows. Okay so I mean if we went down
this ride I think it's just really critical that we utilize our social
media to really advertise when and where folks can get and what the process
is if we could get it just a simple one two three you know process folks are
you're going to be probably confused about what kind of documentation they need to bring.
If folks call, is there a number to call on the phone to kind of like pre-process and
like set up an application or an appointment or anything like that or is it just walk-in?
It's walk-in and first come first serve availability and yes there is a phone number that they would
be encouraged to call.
It's customer service.
Okay and they would just get walked through what kind of things they need to bring and
And then this is something I've brought up in the past, but when it comes to being able
to have our large customer base, which speaks a variety of languages, what is our language
capacity for multilingual customer service?
So we do have a learning, we have a language line that customers, if we do encounter language
outside of what staff which over half of our staff are Spanish speakers and we
ensure that we've got a Spanish speaker at our transit centers at front counter
window when at the first of the month when we sell our fair product but
they're on hand at all times we do have to use the language assistance line and
that is available to all of staff if we do encounter someone that speaks another
Yeah, I think just as we roll this out what I would like to see, I mean if we go that
route, I would like to see just some data points as to, you know, how many people were,
you know, initiated the process versus how many people completed the process and, you
you know anything else that you think is relevant, but I think those at minimum those two things for me are important because I
want to see
If there's a drop-off, you know and kind of help to decrease
obstacles for folks if possible
um
hmm
Let me see. Okay, and then the last thing for me is
the
$113,524 in lost revenue that was pointed out.
But let me see if I got this straight.
So when we're comparing this loss in revenue
because of the fair freeze,
when we do the analysis and we're looking at
what the loss in revenue would be,
even if we didn't do the fair freeze,
but because we're anticipating a loss in ridership,
it seems as though those numbers are kind of awash.
Did I understand that?
It's around 600,000.
Yeah, so we did.
The initial projections had that ridership loss baked in.
So the 600,000 in phase one and the 1.2 million in phase two
did anticipate that we would lose some ridership.
And this was still the anticipated amount of revenue
that we would have generated even with the ridership loss.
So we did, because we're not really sure how many riders
we would keep or potentially gain
with a fare freeze program, it is just an estimate.
Right.
But Yoni Chilakovar, Director of Service Planning,
put together this estimate, and so I would bet money on it.
So it would be, so under the phase two scenario,
instead of $1.2 million in extra revenue,
we can expect about $600,000 in extra revenue.
OK.
Okay, yeah, I think that's just,
that's gonna be another data point
that's gonna be important for us to track
and to really dig in
so that we can see whether those estimates are correct.
And hopefully we're able to actually gain ridership,
which would be fantastic.
But I just gotta tell my board
I'm 100% in favor of moving in this direction,
especially because we know that public transit
is a critical support for folks
that need to get to work, need to get to school,
need to get to their healthcare.
Transportation is a huge social determinant of health,
and we understand that our mission here at NCTD
is to ensure that we provide
really good public transportation.
And the economic situation on the ground
doesn't look like it's going to get better for folks,
especially folks that have already been vulnerable.
I see them becoming even more vulnerable to outside things
that they cannot control.
So it's critical for NCTD to continue
be providing amazing customer service and transportation solutions to the
North County area. So thank you so much I really appreciate this I've been a
proponent and have pushed for us to take a look at initiating a low-income fare
system not just here at NCTD but at MTS and through SANDAC because that's the
process that we need to go through and so hopefully we will have you know an
unanimous conversation about how we can move forward to help the most amount of
people stay connected to where they need to go. Thank you. Thank you. Any other
board member questions or comments? Vice-chair Sonella. Thank you both for
the presentation. Appreciate the information. I don't want to oversimplify it, but this
seems kind of easy. Like, why hasn't this been done before? This seems like this is
going to be about a 10-minute discussion and then, boom, we're going to move forward. So
what am I missing?
So it has been done before. I was going to jump in on that. I was fairly surprised that
this came through MTS's board. One of their board members tried to make the comment that
This really isn't a revenue loss, you're still gaining revenue because you're not
losing revenue over your previous revenue.
The current place where this is happening is on a commuter rail line.
The demographics are significantly different for how their finances are impacted compared
to how we or MTS would be impacted.
In fact I believe MTS is having a meeting this week, next week, this morning.
I don't know if their numbers came out but I wouldn't be surprised if they were too far
of ours and it pretty much negates the reality for why we needed a fair
increase in the first place. I think that the discussion that we had at the
board meeting a few months ago and I and I really appreciate comments that I do
think there's a certain income level that we need to take a look at when you
take like just take CalFresh for example. CalFresh is max for one person is like
2750 or 3000 that's I mean that's you know 30,000 a year our threshold was really supposed to be
somewhere around you know we were going to look at 10 to 15 um that I think those numbers are
significantly different right like if we're really talking about uh somebody that needs help in the
10 to 15,000 range um what does that look like in terms of the fair increase um I I certainly do
think that from a from an ease of management standpoint it's easier for us to just say okay
if you're on CalFresh you're on all these things like just show us your card show us your approval
we can move on with that. But each one of those sort of has a different income threshold and some are
fairly high and would probably put us in a situation where you know riders that were in
some cases making up to 50,000 a year maybe a little less would be eligible for the reduced fare.
So I'm certainly not not in favor of the plan. I just think that for MTS to reach and grab one
agency that doesn't really have a lot of corollary between what MTS and NCTT were doing with not a
lot of information behind that was a was not a good move. I think I think when I dug into the
numbers this morning what it looked like? Yeah they anticipated to see less of an increase in
revenue pretty consistent with what ours was it was about two thirds of what they
had anticipated to receive initially in the fair increase versus what they
would receive at the fair freeze. And I'm not necessarily here nor there on
that decision I just think they just grabbed one example and really like
stuck to it as a board and then they they had a pretty robust discussion about it
last month and then you know the caveat to that I think is what Mary said which
is if the fare increase ordinance changes don't pass,
then neither one of us can do that
because right now we do not have the ability
independently to sort of create a new fare.
That is all part and parcel to moving that forward.
And I'm not suggesting we don't use this plan.
I'm not suggesting we don't do that.
I just think like we, I think to your point,
we sort of need to see what that FTE load looks like for us,
who sort of maintains that information.
Is it as simple as somebody just bringing us a card
and we look at that card.
And I do think we need a little bit of time to vet that.
I really liked the previous approach of like,
hey, let's figure out for our most distressed.
And I don't disagree with you.
I think that number is gonna continue to rise
and I think we need to figure out
how to sort of manage that in real time.
And I'm just putting that out there as information.
It's not my endorsement or non endorsement
of whatever the board wants to do.
It's just, it was weird that they pulled that one example.
And I think the reason they pulled it, and rightfully so,
was it's easy to manage that in theory,
because we're not the ones really doing the,
we're not really the ones that are vetting income,
we're not vetting these things.
We're just saying like, oh, you're already on a program
that sort of puts guardrails around that.
Okay, we recognize that, let's move forward.
So as long as we can figure out how to do that
sort of internally, I don't disagree
that it's definitely something we should look into.
We just need to be, I think, thoughtful about
what that really means regionally
when we're talking about the fairs.
Yeah, I appreciate the additional context.
And I'll just kind of wrap up with my comments.
I think this whole exercise is an honorable effort
by the board, and I can definitely see the importance
to have the discussion.
If this was a one-person board, I'd
like to offer transportation for free for everyone, right?
But with a couple caveats, and it's
the same caveat for the discussion
that we're having today.
And that is so long as staff believes
that we can continue to maintain all
of our modes of transportation that we provide,
and that we can continue to pay our employees fairly.
If we can do those two things,
but let's do it for as least expensive
and try to help as many people that we possibly can,
but I'm gonna always defer to staff's recommendation
on these types of things because they know
the economics of the agency better than any of us.
And if they tell us that they can support
a program like this, I'll support it.
If they tell us that they can't, then I won't support it.
Yeah, I think from RC, we just need a little more time
to look at it, because we haven't really completely
vetted what this looks like now that we kind of know.
OK, are you done?
OK, and then, yes, go for it.
And then I see alternate Coleman, and then, yes,
I'll go back around.
I don't know if there were others.
Did you raise your hand as well?
OK, board member O'Hara.
So we'll go, if you don't mind,
do you mind if I go to Board Member O'Hara after,
or did you need to respond?
Oh, oh man.
Okay, I'll just, you know what,
Board Member O'Hara, I'll come back to you after.
Okay, go ahead.
Yeah, so just because you mentioned staff's recommendation,
I did wanna highlight that in this item in particular,
we did not make a staff recommendation.
We wanted to provide this to the board as information.
What I will say is,
because SANDAC's Transportation Committee meeting
tomorrow. If a decision is made by the board today then I will share that at
the transportation committee tomorrow and if we want to participate in the
program starting October 1st we will need to get an answer to MTS relatively
soon. The other financial and kind of getting back to your original question
about you know seems like a slam dunk why didn't we do this earlier. I think
they're one of the reasons why staff didn't recommend this as part of the
fair change process, it's just because of the revenue impacts. We never anticipated
that a fair increase was going to be the end all be all solution for some of the
revenue challenges that we have in the future, but it is an important piece
because it's dedicated revenue that comes directly to us. We can use it for
whatever we'd like. A lot of those really operational things and we wanted to
build that up and have that continue as a sustainable source of revenue. So all of
that is still, if the board does or doesn't do this, neither one of those is
gonna break or make us. I think it's just we brought this to the board with no
stack of staff recommendation because it really in our view is a policy choice
that should be you know directed from the board to us. Yeah I appreciate that
but I do think as we go through this I I'm gonna be listening to I know that
staff might be reluctant to make a recommendation I understand that but the
finances are gonna make make or break this whole thing for us right and I
I really do want to hear some level of confidence from staff before I vote yes
on this and I'm certainly inclined to vote yes on this if the staff is
comfortable but again I want to make sure that we can maintain the greater
system right and then paying our employees fairly is very important to me.
Okay I'm going to go back down the line so I had board alternate Coleman then
board member Contreras and board member O'Hara then board member Edson so.
Thanks for the presentation. I see a lot of similarities in YOP, which, of course, is
wildly successful and has increased ridership as a result. My question is really meticulous,
but it's my job to be meticulous. I'll ask it anyway. And it's really because of communication
to those who may be using this program, it says that individuals are actively enrolled
in the following programs?
I think I know the answer, but is it all three programs
or one of the programs?
Any of the three programs.
So they don't have to be enrolled in all three,
but those are the three programs
that we will determine next ineligible.
I'll make a recommendation that that is made more clear.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Board member Contreras,
and then I'll come to board member Herra.
Yeah, okay.
So, we don't have to start October 1st.
No, we do not.
The only thing that I'll highlight is if we didn't start,
so because right now MTS only has a regional,
well, we only have as a region a regional fair product
that includes both bus services, Trolley and Sprinter.
If they were to do it without us,
they would have to create a separate pass
for just their riders,
And we would have to create a separate pass
for just our riders.
So not a make or break, a little bit annoying for MTS.
But we can make it work if we decide not
to participate starting October 1.
OK.
And I mean, this is I understand going
with the simplicity of other applications
for programs that folks that are impacted economically
go through and being able to utilize that documentation
for quick verification showing hardship.
But I still do wonder about that part of the bar graph
that was shown which really looked at the 15,000 K and less. I just don't
really even know what kind of if folks are gonna have documentation showing
that you know. Do we think that staff would have the ability with the time
that we have available between now and sometime before October 1st to look at
at both situations where if we're gonna continue,
like we have to evaluate full-time employees
versus contract, looking at the capacity,
would it be something that staff could do
to see whether or not we can do an income base
at 20K or less for a fair reduction
and present that and compare that
to the CalFresh Medi-Cal and CalWORKS scenario.
So it'd be scenario A and scenario B.
And I would assume that both those things, you know,
are gonna need a more detailed process,
but that there could be a similar lift
in staff capacity for either one of those.
And I'm just curious, is I really do wanna be very surgical
when it comes to what our fairs look like.
Because I just do have concern that,
some of the goals that we have as an agency,
we won't be able to meet
if we just don't have enough operational dollars,
which is something that we continue to struggle.
And so you did say something that was really key to me,
which is the fair recovery,
Fairbox Recovery that we get is they're unattached dollars,
which we really, really need
because we can get money for capital things,
but we're constantly struggling with operations.
And what I want folks to understand is that
operation dollars equals frequency.
Frequency equals reliability.
And at the end of the day,
we really need to have a fast, reliable, and safe system.
And I think that we've made a lot of efforts as a board
and as an agency to make our system safer
and invest in those safety precautions and personnel.
We've done a better job of getting different modes
of service that really meet people where they're at.
And we've seen that with NCTD Plus,
and I wanna continue to be able
to have other communities experience
how amazing micro transit is through NCTD.
And you know, we have done a great job
of trying to balance our budget
when we have these externalities like fuel and war
that are just making our expenses so high.
So I would love to see and hopefully the board
would be responsive and we can give this direction
in a strong form to our staff
so that there's no ambiguity,
I would really love to see a scenario A,
which we can just look at what MTS is doing.
And then a scenario B, which is the NCTD way,
which might be more surgical and help us continue
to provide the type of customer service
and reliability that our population needs and deserves,
especially as we grow,
especially as our commercial centers,
educational campuses our business centers continue to grow so that's what
I wanted to add I really appreciate the board for all the robust discussion and
comments in meetings prior and this meeting included but I want to offer the
board a look at these two different scenarios since we don't have to be
tied to what MTS is doing. Thank you. I really appreciate those comments and
I'll give you an example of where exactly what you're saying kind of
became a problem with us and that's on Youth Opportunity Pass. I think that we
currently have a barrier to getting youth the free rides if they need
regardless of the explosion right like over the last four years on youth I mean
we went from 90,000 four years ago almost a hundred thousand to almost one
point said new record this year for us at like 1.4 million and you thrives that
we can tabulate. I'm fairly certain there's more than that and there's more
opportunity. One of the barriers that we have on the Y. O. P. Is it we have to
have someone come and see us. We gotta vet this thing and that's part of our
agreement with sand egg and always things. Historically where I've been,
we just put a button on the fare box and the kid got on the bus. You know,
they showed us their school ID and if they had a school ID, we hit the button
and we let them on the end. And then we figured out how to manage that
backwards. This is a similar situation where I think exactly to your point
there's a financial impact to us if we go with option A but it is the easier
option for us to manage, right? It's a regional because all we're really asking
for is like hey show us your previous credentials. The other one will be a
little more labor-intensive from an FTE standpoint but in the long run could
generate additional revenue what would stave off revenue loss out of the fair
increase and so I think we would have no problem whatsoever bringing both of
those options back to the table.
And I totally agree with you, Ray.
It's like the easiest way to go is option A
because it takes the load off of NCTD,
but there's a financial risk to that.
Option B would require us to sort of reimagine
what that looks like for our customer service team
to try to vet what that looks like.
And one of the barriers would be, to your point, I think,
anybody who's sort of in that 20 or 15,000 range
maybe doesn't have a W-2,
maybe doesn't have verifiable income.
And so we don't really have a way
to effectively manage that.
and we may be locking people off the system
that do need access to that range of transportation.
And so very much appreciate those comments.
And we'll figure it out.
We'll get a couple options together.
We'll get them back to the board
and make sure we get them in front of the board.
Thank you.
Board member O'Hara and then board member Edson.
You just kind of touched on some of the questions
I was gonna ask actually that in these numbers,
the cost to operate, there's, now I mean,
there's two scenarios we're kind of throwing around basically.
And of the $400,000 and $600,000, of course
I closed that page on the previous program,
the last revenue, which option is that under?
Which does that include?
Yeah, so when the board made the recommendation back in April,
they recommended a phased approach.
So phase one is just what would go into effect in October 2026.
And then phase two is just what would go into effect
on October, 2027.
Okay.
And so when that comes back, we'll get the actual costs,
the numbers to operate and the two consistent.
Yes.
So when the fair, assuming the transportation committee
tomorrow approves the changes of the fair ordinance,
phase one will start in October of 2026.
And so then we'll start gathering those revenues
and we'll be able to, when we come back to the board
in July for the FY27 budget,
we'll be able to have a better, sorry, FY28 budget,
we'll have a better picture of the actual increases
in revenues that we've gotten.
Okay, yeah, and so it's kind of not clear
what that cost will be and what the heavy lift will be.
Okay, it's kind of where I was asking.
Okay, great, I appreciate that.
And I kind of, you know, lean with the direction
of my fellow members up here and on the board who I hear.
I do think something left out of this conversation
is the big picture of the challenge
of getting people in public transportation.
And we're kind of isolating it to fair freezing
and fair costs in this conversation.
And the challenge,
and we're gonna see it later in this meeting today, right?
We're gonna talk about watch routes
and routes that are cut
and services that are cut,
is really multi-pronged
and not just what's the cost to get on the bus.
It doesn't go where you wanna go
or as frequently as you need it to go, what's wrong?
So I do wanna say, I agree with my board members,
I would lean towards really staff's recommendations
and input and the hard work you're doing on this.
And I would also lean over to the rest of the board
and say just remember, we need to be able to get on this
and needed to be useful so we don't want to cut off
our noses by our face if we're not careful.
I do have concerns that this program could do that
if not implemented correctly.
Thank you, I know we have board member Edson
then I'll come to board member Martinez.
Thank you Chair and thank you everyone for your comments
because I appreciate everyone's comments.
So the board unanimous decision to move forward
with the regional fair change ordinance included
sending the letter to Sandag to explore low income fairs and then the
board discussed in fact, Creen I believe it was you or excuse me
Board Member Contreras I believe it was you that had really recommended that we
run at that time with an income based discount and to examine that. Sandag
hasn't had an opportunity to come back to us with any of that so it was quite a
surprise I attended the Transportation Committee meeting when this matter you
know like the night before we found that MTS board had voted to to take this
step and it was pretty surprising because there had been a long negotiation
time between the two agencies and SANDAG to determine to get to the point of a
regional fair change, right?
It was brave, but maybe they did a little bit of a leap
without a look and I think it could come back and haunt them
because as you mentioned and as I always talk about,
having frequency, reliability, et cetera,
is key to public transit.
And if we can't do that, we're actually hurting.
we take funding away we could actually hurt our core ridership as well by not
setting parameters that really do help those who need the help most. So I agree
with pretty much everything I've heard from the board here. I know this item is
just a discussion item there's no motion to be made unless we choose to do so but
but I think we need more information to move forward
and we don't have that.
So I agree.
Let's look at a couple of different scenarios,
come back to the board with that information
and so that we can make an informed decision
and not leave before we look.
Thank you, Board Member Edson, Board Member Martinez.
Yeah, I agree with what Spain said.
I just wanted a couple of clarifying questions.
So the three low income programs,
CalFresh, Medi-Cal, and CalWorks.
Who decided on those programs as being eligible?
Was that us, or was that MTS?
No, that was the direction of the MTS board.
Okay, and then in those three programs,
is there a income level to be able to be enrolled
in each one of those, and is it different?
I would have to get back to you on the specific levels
for each of those programs, but yes, they do have,
that was one of the, I guess,
negotiation between MTS staff and the board is that they wanted some type of low income program
quickly and because these programs already do an income verification that takes the onus off of
staff because MTS's board wanted this to go into effect with the fair change that allowed MTS staff
at least these agencies already are specialized in income verification and so that would take the
to take the onus off his down.
Oh, sorry, I was gonna say CalFresh, I know for sure.
I think all three of them are pretty close.
My numbers may be off slightly here,
but CalFresh I believe was like 26.75 for one
and 56.40 for a household of four.
Medi-Cal and CalWorks I think are very similar.
And is these three were pulled from the other agency
who does exactly the same program, correct?
I do not recall, I'll have to get back to you on that.
Because MTS essentially mirrored it off of,
I think the discussion at the board meeting was,
give us an example of another agency that does this.
And they said, here you go.
And they used these three as sort of their state identifier
for that.
But it's possible for somebody to have even a lower income
and not be enrolled in any of these programs,
is that right?
It is, yes.
Right, if somebody does not seek these programs out,
then right, they wouldn't be eligible.
And similarly with us, if there could be low-income riders
that don't seek out this benefit from us as well.
OK, I just ask on that point.
I'm just curious, from the income compatibility standpoint,
is that at a state level that they looked at those numbers,
or is it a regional median income?
Because it would definitely vary.
Yeah it is it's a gross monthly income of at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
And then my next question will NCT I mean SANDAC be voting on both the fair increase and the low
income together or just the one increase. Yeah they're just voting on the fair they're just
voting on the changes to the fair ordinance. So the changes to the fair ordinance include
the increase in fares, but they also include some policy language changes in
the ordinance, one of which is allowing the transit agencies to do their own
type of special promotional programs. So although they're not voting on the low
income program in practice, they're voting on providing NCTD and MTS the
eligibility to do our own. Okay, all right, thank you. If I might, also the
eligibility to do things like NCTD plus and have different affairs there. So it's a pretty
big yeah. So I'm so impatient do we know how they're meaning for tomorrow? Are you talking
about MTS or are you talking about TC? No, yeah. I have not heard too much concern out
of TC in fact the presentation that was given the last go round with Mary and the team at
MTS I thought went pretty well in fact there were a lot of good questions I
thought mayor Sanchez from Oceanside asked a lot of good questions I thought
people were very engaged in the interactive process I do think that
members of MTS's board that were involved in TC created some misdirection
that needed to be resolved in the meeting I thought Sandag did a good job
solving that problem in real time. I don't foresee this to be an issue. I know
there were some questions at the board meeting, but I don't anticipate any
issues at TC. Okay, anybody else before I have some questions and comments to go
through? I see board member Joyce and then if there isn't anybody else then it
will be me. Thank you, Chair. What do we know about uptake on the program that you
reference that's already doing this another agency that's already doing this
do we know what the specific example that MTS's board used I'm not sure but
we did as part of NCTD's after the board direction in April before the half
committee meeting when we talked about the low-income fair we did look at
Metrolink and LA Metro's low-income programs they do have pretty substantial
adoption. But one of the things that we learned from them is that it wasn't necessarily viewed
by them as a ridership generator. So they did have a significant, you know, I guess,
significant is up for anybody's interpretation, but they did have pretty good participation in
their programs, but they weren't necessarily a ridership driver. Okay, so we don't know, like,
half of all eligible riders apply for and use a program. We don't really know what that looks
like from a numbers perspective. Yeah, you only did do an analysis before the path committee.
I unfortunately don't have it in front of me so we can send that to the board after this meeting.
I just share that I, you know, I support us moving forward with a program that protects
the lowest income earners in our area. I think ultimately I know that the conversation about
this is about protecting service. I know we have to do many things to protect service,
but the numbers don't seem to have that justification in them as far as how much
we're projected to take in from it. I think as part of a larger conversation, yes, it's about
protecting and making sure our services reliable and efficient. But I think if this was like we're
making a decision to save it or not save it right here, that's an easy call. But it's not that clear
to me that that's what we're making the decision on. So I'm hoping to see us do a program. I hate to
think that we're going to be doing different programs regionally again, I don't want to see us
splitting off, I understand that we may not be fully on board, which is this kind of leaks into
the conversation of we need to be in a better communication board to board with NTS since we
share so much service. And that's a frustration to like we share the goal of protecting our low
income riders, but we're not having, you know, direct conversations about how we do that,
you know, hand in hand. So that's a frustration, I think, from the just set up of our, of our
structure. And so I just would hate to see the worst the last comment, which not to muddy the
waters. I hate to see the worst of both worlds happen where we take on the perception of raising
rates on folks and at the same time not have revenue to protect your services. I think that's
not a good situation either. So I apologize for not having a clear, succinct message on this,
but it's a challenging topic and I appreciate everybody's weighing in.
Yeah. And I'll just add a clarifying point. So you're right. If MTS's board in April
voted to recommend the approval of the fair change and our boards were aligned,
which was incredibly important that we demonstrated to the Sanic Transportation
committee that the two boards were supportive of this fair increase. It
wasn't until they were having a budget conversation that contemplated the fair
increase revenues that MTS's board sort of changed their tune and decided to
advocate for this fair freeze program. I will note that if staff doesn't receive
direction from the board today to participate in the program we will not
have time to participate by October 1st. So if the board takes a vote and says no
we don't want to participate or the board does not take any vote we will not
be participating in October. We just won't have enough time to give MTS
enough lead time to let them know that we would like to participate. However we
could be taking that time and receive you know clear direction from the board
but they want us to explore our own program but if we don't receive
direction from the board today, we will not be participating, and our affairs will increase
for everybody on October 1st should the Transportation Committee vote to support it tomorrow.
Can I clarify my speech?
Go ahead, board member Joyce, and then I see board alternate Coleman wanting to chime in
as well.
Sorry, before you go back to the live, I'll step out of the way, and then I'll offer my
Clarified comments. I think we should support. I think we should join the program given the list of options at this moment
Go ahead board. I'll turn it Coleman. I don't want to steal your time
so
Logistically if we participate in the program and then this board decides
Later on maybe between now and October
that they
Want to change paths?
What?
Do we just tell MTS that we no longer want to participate or is it once we tell MTS?
We want to participate we have to we have to follow through with it
up to a certain date and then
Yeah, does it does the program kind of it does it update itself annually? Like how does that how does that go from there?
Yeah, so we
the board votes to participate in the program
we're not locked in forever the
Transportation Committee vote tomorrow would allow us to do our own thing and so
per direction of the board staff could bring back another item with
information on what the lift would be for us to do our own income verification and some statistics around what the ridership and revenue impacts
Would be of that and we can always come back to MTS and say this is the program that we would like to do
Would you like to join us on this or would we be doing different programs?
So I wouldn't say that we are locked in forever to this program if I could just add to that
only if the fair ordinance is approved by TZ
and and I
Agree with everything that every board member has said this comment that I'm going to make is just a generality about
where NCTD has historically sat in terms of being
Managed by the rest of the region, okay
I'll choose my words wiser
We have for years said that things that happen out of our control that impact us greatly and our board has
Not a lot of say on some of these things that happen because we are not properly
engaged by
regional partners at times. I would say that's changed a lot with SANDAC since Mario's been there.
We've been involved in tons of stuff. This is a classic situation where in fairness to MTS staff,
they kind of got strong armed by their board for an approval to a fair increase that had a direct
impact on NCTD with zero conversation with NCTD. And now we're in a position where we either have to
say no we're totally against low fair income right like that's going to be the article in the paper
or we have to agree to this process sooner than later because logistically it would be difficult
for us to try to manage around that while we're finding our piece and the whole point of adding
that language into the fair ordinance was so that collectively we as agencies could say hey we want
to do this, they want to do that, whatever, let's try to figure it out. I would agree
with the sentiment that regional fair policy should be reasonable. We really want them to
try to be as close as possible together, but recognizing that in this case,
we kind of got handed this one because MTS got strong-armed into an agreement for a fair increase.
I don't know if one got votes for the other.
I'm not sure.
I just know that that's what came out of that meeting.
And that's what the discussion that came out of that meeting
was a day before we walked into another meeting
or that morning, before we walked into another meeting
to try to work on something that our staff collectively
had been working on with MTS for months, right?
Like, it was just a weird spot for us to be in.
And I would say that I'm in favor of whatever direction
this board chooses to go.
my comment is more related to like,
this is another example of how regionally,
occasionally we're sort of walked down a pathway
because larger organizations have mandated a policy
that has a direct impact on our desire
to want to have a regional fair
for all citizens of San Diego County.
So I love the comments, I appreciate everything that was said.
We could definitely go either way.
I don't think it's a matter for us.
I just always like to put that other piece out there
because I think there was a lot of good work
behind the scenes.
And I appreciated Director Joyce's comments on that too.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
And obviously, the city of San Diego
is a non-voting member on NCTD, unfortunately,
in my humble opinion.
But it seems like the board needs a little bit more time
to discuss what route they're gonna take.
Just one more clarifying question.
For the phase one and phase two numbers,
are those conservative estimates
or are those just like the singular estimates?
Yeah, so the original estimates for phase one
and phase two without the Fair Freeze Program
was based off of a SANDAC model.
Our estimates that we did in-house
for how much less revenue we would receive is conservative.
Okay. Is it okay for me to ask my questions, everyone? My questions and
comments. Okay. So first off, thank you to everyone. I feel like this is this has
been a really good discussion and I have a lot of other things that I wanted to
also bring up and I'll try to do them as succinctly as I can. But let me just start
off with a comment because I think when board member Martinez was asking her
question and then I asked that clarifying question around how folks do
get qualified for the CalFresh, CalWorks and Medi-Cal. I mean I knew this because
of my public health work but it's really interesting now being in the policy
world and realizing that like with the federal poverty level if that's the
designator and you live in California, California standard of living is so much
higher than the national average that if that's what's being utilized we must
must be missing a huge chunk of people
in all of those programs.
So all of those people may not necessarily be qualifying.
I know that's not something that we as an entity control,
but I just wanted to underscore and highlight that,
that from that particular perspective,
I know we were talking about alternative ways
that we could potentially look at it.
However, if the state's not even capturing those people,
I'm just going to go ahead and leave that there
for what is clearly a discrepancy.
So I guess, you know, I'm curious if we've captured
in terms of numbers, and it sounds like
we may not necessarily have this number,
and if not, that's okay, but this might be where,
when I end with my last question,
it might help us have all of these data points.
But in terms of numbers, do we happen to know
how many people would be impacted
if we were to have something like this in a positive way?
I would just be curious how many folks would be able to qualify based on the potential
standards that we've talked about here.
We do.
So that was part of Yoni's analysis in determining how much revenue we can expect to receive
less than our original estimations.
So there's two pieces to this that I just want to highlight.
We have a percentage of how much of our riders we expect to be able to be eligible under
these programs.
However, some of those riders are already captured
under our SDM pass, Senior Disabled Medicare.
And so they already qualify for a discount program,
which is greater of a discount
than we would be offering with this.
And so they likely would still remain under SDM.
They wouldn't switch over to the fair freeze.
It's approximately 60% of breeze riders,
50% of sprinter riders and 20% of coaster riders.
Okay, that's high.
Thank you for sharing that,
and I'm glad that I asked that question.
I'm just soaking that in for a second
because that was, yeah.
Okay, in terms of the funding,
because I know that's something that we've all,
each person has touched on that in some particular sense,
and I know we've been harping on operational funding
being something that we all need
a little bit more flexibility with
from when we're receiving funds from different entities.
in terms of, as we think about ways
that this will impact our workforce in any way,
because obviously somebody's going to have to do the intake
and I don't know if that's going to be absorbed
by someone that's currently on staff
or if that's going to be something
that we're going to discuss as somebody else
being brought on to manage what this program would look like
because obviously it's not a one,
unless it's supposed to be a one-time deal,
I'm assuming it would be a continuous.
However, somebody walks in and they say,
hey, I qualify, we're checking, we're confirming,
we're making sure we're onboarding,
whatever that might look like.
So I'm curious what that process
and procedure would look like as well.
Yeah, so as Alicia kind of mentioned
in one of the previous questions,
there are kind of two paths to eligibility.
MTS does their eligibility online.
And so our riders are welcome to use that as well.
They can go to the riotpronto.com,
they can submit their documents through that.
So they don't necessarily have to,
but we do have some folks that like to talk to a person,
furnish their documents in person
and have that conversation at one of our transit centers.
So Alicia's team does that currently
for the SDM riders and the youth riders.
So right now, we would absorb that
with the existing resources.
If we observe the lines at our transit centers
getting exorbitantly long,
then we would probably have to have a conversation
with the board about maybe adding an FTE
to the customer experience team,
because it would be, we can expect an initial rush
when the program is first implemented,
and then it would be anybody that becomes eligible
for these programs can come to us.
We are working with MTS on management
of people's eligibility continuously,
so if somebody no longer qualifies
for one of these programs, right now,
we don't have a mechanism to know that,
but because it's in its infancy,
we can expect to be able to manage that a little bit better.
Unfortunately, it'll be after the program starts,
but we'll have to have a conversation with,
sometimes the county manages these,
the eligibility for these programs,
sometimes it's the state, sometimes it's EDD,
all of these different departments
that we would have to integrate with
so that they could let us know
when somebody is no longer eligible for these programs.
But right now, yes,
we can expect a rush in the beginning,
similar that we saw with youth opportunity pass,
eligibility, the new pronto system,
we saw a lot of these things a rush in the beginning,
so it'll be a pinch for a little while.
But right now we're expecting to absorb it
with existing resources.
I'll be mindful of how I say this,
but I have to say I don't know how much faith I personally
have had issues with some of those.
Like when I had my child and I had to go through a process
and had an injury and had to go through a process,
I don't know how much folks are having to wait to find,
to bring in paperwork to show that they're
eligible for something.
So I just want to say that, and I
know you all can't control that, but that's
one thing that kind of gives me pause where I'm like,
I really hope the people that really need it
are getting the help that they need.
So OK.
And then, let's see here.
I'm just going through really quickly here.
OK, yeah.
So I think one of my questions is around,
I know folks will be using different methods to qualify
and that's because of that line of thinking
that I just shared.
What's our system to ensure we can get back to folks
quickly in terms of their eligibility?
Because of course it might take them forever
to even get that eligibility form.
So I'm just curious like how quickly we do our return
back to folks.
Right in that moment.
Okay, perfect.
Thank you.
So it falls, currently we have reduced fare eligibility.
We have instant qualifiers, a VA letter, California disability placker card with paperwork.
So once a customer comes in and presents, it's really under five minutes that they're
eligible.
Okay.
And then I think, you know, as we talk about, you know, one of the things that I've been
trying to figure out is yes, like definitely it's almost like the chicken and the egg because
we're talking about frequency.
We're talking about how this would increase cost and we're wanting to continue to provide
more frequent transit.
And but then we are also talking about our operational costs and all those other things.
And so, yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that I wanted to, a couple different things.
One piece was, I'm curious if there's any other, and it maybe speaks to what Ms. Contreras
was saying, but I know the part that makes it difficult for me to just say, hey, let's
do something a little bit differently, is because of how we would then work together
as a region, and that's the hard part,
where then you have folks confused
on what they need to submit,
and you want to make it as easy as possible
and accessible as possible to folks
in order for us to have the best outcomes.
I mean, that's a public health thing.
That's always what we do.
And so I think one thing I'm just thinking about,
and I don't know how this ties into
our legislative platform, but maybe this is something
for us to think about for each of our cities,
but then also maybe at a NCTD level,
this is just me thinking out loud.
So please stop me if it doesn't make sense.
But one of the things I had written down
was the piece around that federal poverty level
with the different CalFresh, CalWorks, and everything,
and asking why it's been utilized
for just getting folks to qualify.
Because the missing middle is not just the missing middle
for housing and everything else.
It's clearly for all of these other things.
And I'm thinking now I'm thinking, okay, yeah,
if this is the number of people that you just shared
with us that are qualifying, 60% of breeze,
50% of sprinter, and 20% of coaster,
those are just the people that qualify
at the federal poverty level.
But we have so many other people that are likely impacted,
and so I'm just, that's why it's mind boggling to me.
So anyways, really interesting point.
I think.
I do just, that was a quick Google search
that it's based off of the federal poverty level.
we will definitely verify what the eligibility is
for each of those programs and send that out to the board.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
Because I think the thing that when we talk about,
when we're talking about how do folks apply
for low-income housing, right,
that's usually based on average median income
for this particular region, San Diego County.
And so that's why I'm curious what it is,
because if that number is different
when we're talking about CalWorks, CalFresh, and Medi-Cal,
then we have completely different standards
being utilized for something else, which doesn't make sense.
So I'm so curious about that, and it
would be so helpful to know that.
And then that's where it's incumbent on us
as legislators to advocate, to make sure
that there is an actual standard so that everyone is aware
of what that means when you're looking at somebody that
might be qualifying as low income.
So anyways, thank you for, I mean,
this was elucidating in many ways.
The question I want to end with,
and maybe it won't be a fan favorite,
but I will ask anyways,
is based on the feedback you've heard,
and this might be a Mr. Donaghy question
or a Ms. Dover question,
what would you think is the best course of action
from a policy timeframe and flexibility
and then fiscal standpoint?
Because it's all three of those combined.
And I think you can hear that all of us
want to support if there is a fiscal way to do so.
But fiscally sound way to do so, but at the same time,
gives us the flexibility with the time frame
that we have available.
So I guess what I know you're not recommending anything,
but if you could give us some options based on those criteria,
and then we can obviously decide, look at that.
I know they're like, OK, all right.
Who wants to take it?
So I'll provide my initial thoughts based off
of a process standpoint.
And then if you'd like to get philosophical afterwards.
So I have to answer the hard question about the funding.
That's your job.
And I'll just note that the reason why we're bringing this
to the board today is, one, because there's a vote tomorrow,
and two, because we need to get back
to MTS in a relatively quick manner.
And so we, as I mentioned, the fair increase,
whether we do the fair freeze program or not,
wasn't going to make or break us.
It's an important source of revenue,
but we still have to find other ways to plug the holes,
which we are actively working on.
This is these entities verify income already,
and so that does take the burden off of Alicia's team
and the MTS team to figure out how to do that.
The reason why MTS is board wanted this to go into effect
with the fair increase is because they didn't want
the low income riders to see any type of fair increase.
So that's why that was the push for so quickly
having it start with the fair increase on October 1st.
I think we can manage it from a staff resources level.
We won't see as much revenue anticipated,
but regardless the fair increase that the revenue
that we were gonna get from the fair increase
wasn't gonna plug all our holes anyway.
And so we can manage around it.
We just have to try to get a little bit more.
So from a process standpoint, I think
it's important for the board to vote on something today.
I will second board member Joyce's comments
about the confusion of separate programs,
because we do have a lot of riders
that connect from the Sprinter to MTS Rapid in Escondido.
We do have a lot of riders that take the breeze down
to the UTC Transit Center and connect to the trolley.
So it would be confusing,
although there are a subset of our ridership,
it would be confusing for those folks
that have to have one fair class at NCTD
and another fair class at MTS.
That's the reason why we have a regional fair
in the first place because of those transfers.
So I think there are,
although we were kind of strung along with MTS's process,
I think that there are benefits to us joining this program
from a writer experience perspective.
Is that a staff recommendation?
No.
OK.
Vice Chair Sunella, and then I don't
know if Mr. Donaghy wants to round it out here, but.
Oh, I have a comment.
Thanks again, Marion.
Yeah, I certainly understand that the fair increases
that were proposed in the past a few months ago
aren't going to make or break us.
And I think I already know the answer to this question,
given how quick this is all kind of materialized.
But has, you know, we just passed our budget, right?
And I'm assuming that the fair increases were baked
into that new budget, or no?
They weren't actually, because we weren't sure
what the transportation committee was going to do with it,
and so we actually didn't anticipate.
Okay, well, that's very helpful because I was gonna ask,
the next question would have been, well,
has staff had a chance to contemplate what the,
it was a balanced budget, right?
So if you have $600,000 less, something has to go, right?
And so, and we already have, we're not back to my position.
We're already in kind of a really tough spot as it is.
But that's, that was a huge relief, your answer to that.
So thank you.
So next, we'll have to deal with it next year, but yeah.
Board Member Contreras.
I mean, this is, it's just such a difficult decision
because we, we just don't have that much time, right?
And so I'm wondering,
I'm wondering if we just need to go
with what MTS is doing so that we can have congruency
within the region, but potentially we can continue
to look at a more surgical way to have a fair reduction
for our most vulnerable and maybe outline a process
and try and sell that to the region
as like a more thoughtful way of going about
making sure that everybody in the region
has ease in getting discounts that they're eligible for,
but that we also maybe have a better financial situation
as a region as well.
So even though I don't feel super comfortable
Moving forward with what MTS is doing,
because I do think that we need more time
to take a look at it,
is it possible that we could do,
what I'm saying is go with what MTS is doing
and continue to get information
about alternative fare reduction structure
that, you know, we can try to communicate to SANDAG and to MTS, is that it is that possible?
Yeah, we so really feel like you all want a staff recommendation about to give you one
about to drop one on you. My recommendation would be that we follow
MTS's path. Mm-hmm. I don't like it for the reasons that I stated. We have an
agency in North County that is just as important as any other agency that
exists in San Diego County. I don't care about your ridership numbers and care
about your budget. Our team has clearly shown that over the course of years we
We are very proficient in making sure that we make budget and that we're not creating
problems in public yet when these decisions are being made at the regional level until
recently when we've seen some leadership change in SANDAG.
We're always the last to know and we always have to sort of follow the plan.
I would say from a continuity perspective, I agree.
I think that if the board is looking for direction today, my direction would be to follow the
plan should everything pass at TC tomorrow and then we can determine once that plan is made if
we need to deviate from that. The only comment that I would make is for years one of the things
that we get judged on and I would just say CEOs in our industry is hey man what happened to fairbox
revenue where'd that go and and our answer has by and large been we have made determinations to try
to do right by ridership, and that has lowered fare box ratio, right? We have been very reluctant
as an industry to raise fares, and rightfully so. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'm just
saying like we have viable explanations for why our fare box ratio went from 20% to 7%,
and that has largely been to manage the public. From an industry perspective, we're in a space
where that's starting to brush up against service we're putting on the street potentially
frequency I think we've talked about that and we're going to continue to work to solve
that problem is six hundred and thirteen thousand dollars going to make every fifteen
minute service go back to thirty no it's definitely not going to do that we'll be able to solve
those problems in real time I sort of liken it to the YOP we were put in a very unique
position where we were getting operating dollars for YOP and now we're not. And essentially
what we were advised was, hey, if you don't want capital money and you want to stop this
program, that's great. And that put Sharon Cooney and I in a very tough position to tell
the entire world, hey, sorry, your kids can't write for free anymore. I mean, that's a,
that's pretty much a job killer for me, right? Like, I can't have my face on the front page
of the paper saying, you know, Sean doesn't want kids to write for free. And I support
that program. Every once in a blue moon we do these programs that make sense and then
we have to deviate from that plan and that has a direct impact on our budget. That's
a million and a half dollars or a million won a year that was going directly to operating
expense that now we have to put some bus shelters in, right? Like not the same thing. My recommendation
to the board would be we go with the plan that's been presented by a few. I think Mary's
recommendation is spot on. I think, well Mary's never, well my recommendation is
what Mary's not recommendation was would be to move forward. We can deal with this
when we need to deal with this. Okay. My cautionary tale on the YOP part is I
don't think we can work backwards from this, right? Like once we do this it
would be insanely difficult for us to work backwards from this. So this is the
the baseline. Now we can change it, we can make amendments to it, we can do the things we need to
do. If the 613 is our only exposure, we can figure that part out. I'm very confident we can do that.
One thing you will hear in the next presentation is is that Mary and Tyler Mosher and a few other
folks in Yoon Park Lynch, we went to Sandag. We discussed sort of a reevaluation of our SB 125 money
and we were able to redirect some SB 125 money that needs to one last final approval piece
and that will probably get us through fiscal year 2029.
So now we're having a lot less conversations about emergency situations in 28 and 29 and
really sort of focused on 30 and that gives us time to work on programs like this and
other programs.
So my recommendation would be to...
Can I, am I able to make a motion?
If I could just ask a clarifying question because this was my question, so if you don't
mind I'd like to just ask another clarifying question, which was around, I hear your recommendation
and thank you because I think all of us were asking for one and so finally we were able
to get one.
However, one question I had was because we don't have a meeting next month and we have
September meeting and based on what has been shared if we did decide it's
obviously going to be shared with TC tomorrow and that then means okay we're
kind of marching in that direction however as we get more information I
know you all are going to provide us with some of the things that we've asked
and discussed could we decide once you provide all of that to go a different
way or will we not have that luxury at that point I mean and I'm not saying
that we would step away from what we've committed to,
it's just more of once we've gotten some feedback
and we decided, hey, we actually want to fine tune this
in a different way so it works for NCTD,
would we have that luxury or would we not at that point?
We can absolutely do that as long as,
and that's the thing, right, like for continuity's sake,
if we do what MTS is doing,
it relieves us of a little bit of,
well, not a little bit, a fair amount of work
that we would have to do to separate the two fair pieces
off of the regional fair policy,
the regional fair policy is a policy,
but when we add in our local policy
and they have their local policy,
we have to make changes in the INIT system for that,
to sort of manage those fair things going.
If at any time, once this passes tomorrow,
and I'm confident that it will,
we have the ability,
we could change a month a month if we wanted.
And I'm not suggesting we do that,
just saying that we have the ability to,
we have the ability to do whatever we see fit at that point
because the purpose of the language that we put in there
was so that we could sort of,
our board could manage our fair policy
the way we want to manage our fair policy,
which is kind of not what's happening in this case,
but for the interest of time,
I think it's important that we,
we don't have to agree to anything right now
other than unless we change our mind,
we're not going to change MTS's plan.
I mean, I think if there's a motion today,
it's just to say, for continuity's sake,
we're gonna move forward with MTS's plan,
And if we come back in September, and people are like,
hey, this is a different game, something's different now,
you can say, OK, we don't want to do that now.
And then we'll start to work on the process of disconnecting.
I think what would be helpful is getting,
I think we all asked a lot of different questions
on numbers and whatever else.
So if we could have that fuller picture in September
to be able to make a really solid decision,
I know it'll be like a couple weeks
before they start to roll it out,
because it's October 1st or something like that.
So anyways, the reason why I say that
is because we have some data.
I think having all of that to be able to make
a really sound decision on, of course,
I get the fiscal impacts and everything else,
but just being able to understand fully
how many people are we helping?
How is this working?
All of that would be so beneficial.
And then figuring out is there a potential alternative
that would, I don't know.
I, and we don't, none of us know that really,
that could potentially do it better.
I think this is obviously a more regional effect.
And yes, I agree, I just want to echo the sentiments.
It is challenging when, or, I mean, this is at every level,
when local entities are told to kind of do
whatever everyone else is doing.
I think from a local control perspective,
that's frustrating, but I know that we're all
local entities trying to do what we can,
so I get that that's not, you know,
So hopefully we can continue.
I know North County does what we can
to continue to advocate for ourselves.
Board member Contreras and board member Edson,
I think both wanted to say something.
So I will let you all take the floor.
Okay, thank you so much.
Did you have a question or before the motion?
Because I know she had a motion.
Okay, go ahead.
So just in hearing all of this and the timing
and is it the right thing?
Are we gonna come back and change it?
Is there such a thing as a pilot freeze
or doing something, you know, so committing to something temporarily to come back to the
board at the first of the year or something like that, in addition to the September look,
right?
So that...
Are you saying like getting data back on how it's been going or something?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I would say that, you know, to Sean's comments, if we start this, there's probably no going
back because we've offered something and it's kind of difficult to take it back once we've
offered this benefit. One thing I also will add is we'll be able to provide the
board with more information relatively quickly. You can expect to see that in
the next couple weeks. However, we will not have figured out how to verify
income eligibility by September and I you know if we brought another item to
the board in September that would be enough time for us to pull out of MTS's.
like, we will be baked by September, and so we would, we could determine at a
future date, you know, this is we're gonna start the off-ramp process and we're
gonna do our own or MTS has decided that they now have the amount of time we'll
be able to have that conversation maybe in September, but we will have the
program for all intensive purposes up and running in September, and we will
will maybe likely be accepting eligibility documents by then, so we'll be able to provide
the board with as much information as we can, and we're going to continue to tease out what
an income eligibility process would look like for our staff, but we if the board votes today
to participate in the program, we will be participating in the program in October.
So just excuse me, if I may, so really in September what we would get is an update,
but then could we have another, like I said, an actual real item on the agenda to consider
if it's if we've taken the right path, whether it's three months or six months or something
like that and what does staff consider to be the optimal length of time to be able to
to study it to see, I mean, we've looked
at expanding pilots for a couple of years
and the length of them.
But I just, I don't know what I don't know
from a statistics perspective.
We can do that.
The logistical issue is how we collectively
put our fare systems into INIT.
That's what requires months.
So if we make a change in September, it would take them.
And I'm not sure what our new contracts is,
but it's at least three months of their obligation
to go into the system and make changes
relevant to our fare product.
And it's a lot more about that
and a lot less about the fare itself.
There's a three to four month timeframe
for them to be able to,
for them legally per our agreement
to go in and make that change
and execute that change for our pronto cards
or for some of our customer service activity.
So that's really the driver behind that,
necessarily the pilot piece. So we have the phase 2 date as well, right, and so
would it be something that we might re-examine this far enough ahead of the
phase 2 change to see if it's something that's actually working or has a
positive impact, negative impact, and what those might be? We can. Lori reminded me
that I'm notorious for saying things like pilots aren't really pilots. I know.
And I've always been that way because like if you do a pilot and people like it,
all of a sudden it's not a pilot anymore. It doesn't matter how much it costs, right? Like
and I think, you know, we would be in a similar situation with this. I think logistically the
issue that Mary's bringing up is they have set themselves up for October based on the fact that
that they would have to have three months
to make these changes in their system,
which means we have three months to make whatever changes
we tell them tomorrow in their system.
And I think that's probably where the recommendation of,
we probably need to move forward with what they're doing
just so that they can focus on their thing.
We're dealing with ours.
If we come back before phase two
and decide that it's not working for us,
I think it would be very difficult
for us to back off that plan.
I think we would catch a lot of heat for that.
So I think realistically we either have to say
we're not with that program today
and then we would spend the next three months
working on just telling them
our stuff needs to stay the same.
You need to pull ours out of what your changes are
or we're gonna go the course with you
and we can reevaluate at some other point
what that looks like for us
if we wanna make changes to it.
Not an easy decision either way.
Okay, looking around to make sure,
but board member Contreras.
Okay, I mean, I've gone back and forth.
I feel like this is like a,
it's an interesting dance that we're doing.
I'm wondering how you all would feel
about this type of direction where
we go for a one-year low-income fair freeze
utilizing CalFresh, Medi-Cal, CalWorks,
subject to change upon verification.
That maybe we have a one year
where we're taking the paperwork in,
we're in line with MTS
so we can have regional continuity and congruency.
And then that gives us a year to really look at
if there's a different structure
that makes sense.
Where maybe we do some of the work for MTS
and we create a really compelling
and thoughtful, fair structure that makes sense
for the financial viability of regional transportation.
So I mean, that's kind of where I'm at hearing staff's
recommendation and hearing all the board comments.
So I'll go ahead and make a motion
that we adopt a one year low income fair freeze,
utilizing CalFresh Medi-Cal, CalWORKS,
which is subject to change upon a verification
a year from now and that staff returns to the board
with more information about what a financially viable
fair reduction looks like that is more targeted
to our very vulnerable writers.
Very long motion, I don't know.
Does everybody understand it?
Are there?
You could say income based.
Income based, okay.
If I could just make a small amendment to that.
Yes, please.
If I could, Dr. Conte.
I'll hear it and I'll see if I'll allow it.
We really probably need to shrink that down
less than a year because we're gonna be,
we're gonna be looking at revenues
related to the 28 budget, probably sometime in,
worst case, April.
So we probably need to sort of revisit that
with the board as a function of the 28 budget.
So, and then all I would say is instead of the year,
I think we would just wanna reevaluate
before we approved next fiscal year's budget.
Okay, so it's a 2020, but just a point of clarification.
That's essentially it's a pilot program, right?
This was, we're back to a pilot program, right?
And that we're gonna, I mean, you can call it
what you want to call it, but we're gonna try something
and we may end up trying to pull up unraveling.
You may or may not be out of order, Vice Chair,
because it's my turn, but yeah.
Okay, so and that's fiscal year 28?
Yeah, I would say we would need to reevaluate
how that's impacted the H.C. for fiscal year 28.
All right, so how about this?
Let me see if I can get my words out.
So my motion is that we adopt the low income fare freeze
utilizing CalFresh, Medi-Cal.
Cal works to be in motion October 1st in line with MTS
and that the board reevaluate this decision
discussion for fiscal Year 2028 budget I see board member Joyce seconding
potentially okay he nods yes I was gonna second but I'll third okay so yes we
have a question by board member Martinez did I understand you to say however that
once we vote for it we're kind of stuck with it so therefore how can we
reevaluate it in three or four months.
We're never stuck with it.
If we choose to make a change, we can do that.
It's just going to take us three months
to activate that with MTS because we have back office
things we have to program.
In my experience, once you make a leap like this,
it's very difficult to walk it backwards.
And if I could just offer a little bit of an offset
to what we're kind of talking about,
let's pretend we needed four additional FTEs
to sort of manage our own program internally.
That's probably close to 300 grand, fully baked.
Maybe a little more.
Yeah.
So six, seven.
No, I mean, fully baked.
When you put in retirement and you put in benefits,
I mean, you're probably looking at 250, 300 in total.
That's going to offset whatever that 613 is.
So I mean, there's wins and losses there across the board.
I mean, if we do our own program,
It's going to require us to set up our own program.
It's going to require time for our IT group
to do some of that stuff, our customer service team.
So there are offsets to it.
I don't want to act like there's not.
But I do believe that once we make this move,
the changes that we would make realistically in real time
would be to either change the conditions of the program,
but maybe not necessarily the program itself.
I think that would be tough to do.
I think I see Vice Chair Sannal and then Mr. O'Hara,
were you raising your hand?
Okay.
Hi, thanks everyone,
and I'm probably gonna support this motion,
but I do wanna just ask one question
because it hasn't come up yet.
And the reason why I'm asking the question
is because while I am probably gonna support this,
it's, I wasn't at MTS when they came up with their plan,
but from what it sounds like,
it sounds like it was hastily done,
and it sounds like there's definitely opportunities
to do it better.
Weren't, clearly, I heard from everybody,
there's a level of uncomfort with this
and I just feel like making two wrongs don't make it right.
And if the first one's wrong
and we're just gonna just pick you back onto that wrong.
I'm kind of uncomfortable with that.
Is there any opportunity to try to engage with the MTS board
and ask them to put the brakes on their proposal
and then come back and work with us for something
that's gonna be a grand compromise?
think there is. However, I believe that this decision, I believe that this
decision was, I mean we can ask whatever we want. We can go to their board meeting
and engage in a conversation. This is gonna be fair. There's a lot of folks on
their board that I think are super reasonable. I've had great conversations
with them. I think they they pay attention to the things that are sort of
happening in real time. There are a few members of that board who support
districts in the San Diego region that have some of the lowest poverty levels in the county and so
it's very difficult for them to sort of greenlight this need for a fair increase and counterbalance
it with not being able to manage longer and I very much respect that. My understanding is you
know just from watching it from afar enough from having conversations with everybody is just that
one led to the other. The fair ordinance was likely not going to get approved by their board
without sustaining the need for a low-income fair and so I think the goal
was we need something in the short term to get us to the tax initiative and and
and so that was sort of the give right like I think not related to us the
panacea for MTS is the tax initiative passes because that's that's bigger than
the fair increase right that's that's billions of dollars over the years that
are gonna help sustain we're a little bit different of a situation where
regionally, the fair increase matters to us, but it's a little less of an impact and some
other things that we can move around to make the operation work.
Eun is going to get mad at me after the meeting when I said that, but that's the reality of
it.
We can move some other stuff around to sort of make that happen for, just for the sake
of argument, we can have a conversation with them.
I don't think that it will change their position if I can be pretty blunt about that.
Well, I appreciate that.
And I don't have the context from NTS's perspective.
But it hadn't come up in the entire 200 plus hours
that we've been talking about.
So I just figured before we go down a road
that none of us are comfortable going down,
we might as well ask the question.
And can I just, so taking the sentiment of your motion.
So just typing.
Did you rewrite it?
And Lori, please confirm that you're comfortable with.
So just to make sure that it's feasible for staff,
and that it's something that can be worked.
So a motion could potentially be participate
in MTS's low income fair freeze program
beginning October 1st.
Direct staff to bring additional information to the board
to reevaluate participation in the program
through the approval of the FY 28 budget.
Amen.
I love it.
That's my motion.
The seconder still-
The seconder agree.
That was Mr. Joyce.
Okay.
All right, let's call further votes.
And the third vote is good.
All right.
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstain?
Aye.
On the motion of board member Contreras,
seconded by board member Joyce,
to participate in MTS's low income fair freeze program
beginning October 1st, 2026,
direct staff to bring additional information to the board
to reevaluate participation in the program
approval of the FY 2020 budget motion passes with board member O'Hara abstaining and board member Desmond absent.
All right. Thank you. I know we're almost two hours into the meeting I don't I'm gonna look to my colleagues to see if we want to take a quick five minute bathroom break so in five minutes we will be back so at 215.
All right, so we are back in session at 2 16. Just before we start, I just want to say I know the other item went a little long and there are many of us that I believe have to depart at 3 30. So to be mindful of that time and mindful of everyone else's time if we when we have our questions and comments if we could have them all organized I know things will come up.
that we're going to be doing.
Thank you, Chair. I'll be quick as well. So we wanted to bring this item to the board at the
request of some board members and also just to prep for any future service and budget conversations
that we might have in the future. As the board is aware, transit agencies nationwide are
experiencing budget shortfalls in part due to declining sales tax revenues, inflation,
rising costs in general, uncertain state and federal funding sources, among other factors
that are unique to each transit agency. NCTD's FY27 budget is balanced. However,
as the board will recall, we did project some deficits in the out years. As Sean
mentioned in the last item, we do have a plan involving SB 125 funding to help
cover that gap for the next few fiscal years. However, if that strategy doesn't
materialize, if there is a significant change in state or federal funding
sources or local funding sources.
We wanted the board to be prepared
for some of the conversations that we
might have to have as a function of balancing the budget.
So everyone on this board is familiar with NCTD's service.
But as you're aware, we cover a 1,020 square mile service
area in northern San Diego County.
Our coaster service goes into downtown San Diego.
And we serve a population of approximately a little
under a million people.
We have breeze fixed route with flex deviated route service,
sprinter service that mirrors the 78 corridor,
coaster service that mirrors the five,
NCTD Plus in San Marcos and Vista,
and then ADA paratransit lift service as well.
Providing a comprehensive transportation network.
When NCTD is evaluating the effectiveness
and efficiency of our services,
we do have some service design guidelines.
And we've brought this to the board through some of the service changes that we've asked
for the board's approval on in previous board meetings.
These are not the only criteria that we look at.
We have some routes that would not meet these service design guidelines, however they serve
an important piece of the transportation network.
They serve a hospital, they serve a major educational institution, or they provide some
other value as a public service.
NCTD does have some consistent top performing breeze routes. The 303 is our
most effective, followed by the 101, but we do have some other routes that you
wouldn't typically think would be big ridership drivers. The 388 is very long
and it doesn't have the high frequencies that you would see on the 303 or the 101,
however it does have consistent heavy ridership loads. Conversely, we have some
routes in Escondido, the 351, 352 that serve as more of a circulator. They're
more urban, they're dense, they have very high frequencies, and those also have
very high ridership loads as well. Some of the breeze routes that we are
continuing to monitor, 315 and the 325, we recently did a reroute of those to
try to better serve some of the communities. The 347, similarly, we had
some schedule changes that we've made. The 304 and the 308 are one of those
examples that I mentioned of routes that we do see as incredibly valuable in the
larger transportation network but don't necessarily have those very high
ridership volumes. The reason why we're bringing this to you today is to talk
about our funding gap in the out years. This is pulled from the FY27 budget that
the board approved last month. We, as Shawn mentioned, have a plan to cover the
gap in the next few fiscal years but we wanted to have this conversation with the board in
case something changes and we have to make some service decisions in order to balance
the budget. Now I'm going to talk about some of the things that we could potentially be
asking the board to do. This slide we really just wanted to contextualize what the funding
gap is. So in FY28 right now we have a projected $7.7 million funding gap. That equates to
In order to close that, one thing that we might look at is reducing all weekend service
on all modes to hourly frequencies and eliminating NCTD Plus on the weekends.
That would come up with roughly $7.7 million.
In FY29, we have a projected $23 million deficit.
In order to close that, we would have to eliminate all breeze, flex, and NCTD Plus service on
the weekends, discontinue Sunday sprinter and coaster service.
I believe FY31 we have a 33.6 million dollar deficit in order to close that we would have to reduce all
weekday service to hourly frequencies and eliminate NCTD plus in its entirety in order to close that gap
Some potential service options that we might look at if we're unable to close the funding gap in the interim
Those are obviously from the previous slide very drastic changes
But that's just kind of giving the board and the public a picture of what this dollar value really means for the service
one thing that we could look at if we
Are really in a bind and we're unable to close the funding gap through other strategies
Would be the elimination of NCB plus vista and San Marcos the re-implantation
Reimplementation of breeze 334 and Vista and breeze 347 weekend service in San Marcos that would equate to about 1.7 million dollars
If we eliminated flex 473, which is a coaster connection route out of Soreno Valley coaster station that equates to around
$700,000 if we reduce
hourly or more frequency
Reduce to hourly or more frequency on breeze 304 325 or 353 that would equate to about 1.6 million dollars
Or if we reduce late night Friday and Saturday service to hourly frequency on Sprinter currently 30 minutes
that could save us approximately a million dollars, $970,000. One of the
things that we are looking at in the interim, we're always looking at how to
improve the productivity and the efficiency of our services so that we
can try to stave off some of these really drastic service changes. We're
looking at some things that are cost neutral right now. We could potentially
reroute Breeze 325 and 353 in Escondido to improve productivity and access of
the routes. One things that we're consistently looking at is travel
patterns and making sure that the routes that we are currently serving
still match shopping centers and other things that might pop up. The makeup of
our cities is continually changing and we want to make sure that the service
that we're providing is still consistently connecting to the places
that people are traveling to. And with that I'll take any questions. Yes, thank
you. I was in the middle of writing a question. So thank you for the
presentation do we have any public comments to speak on this item sorry I'm
just double-checking no we do not all right thank you at this time public
registration to speak on this item will end are there any board member questions
or comments I know I have some but I will wait till the end and I see board
member O'Hara I'll start on this end and I'll go down go ahead I just had a
question clarity start with basically 325 a road 325 isn't that a route that we
recently looked at, or is that was that a different route? Yes the board was asked
to eliminate the 325 and on the weekends when we made that change we also did a
reroute of the 315 on the weekend to serve a portion where we had a few
riders so right now the 325 is only operating on the weekdays so we could
go further and that's one thing that the planning team is looking at right now is
Is if we do a further reroute of the 325 to try to be a little bit more efficient
So is it getting ridership or is that not hasn't has the change not resulted or anything in?
We see about the same ridership that we've seen on that route
I think the the deviation for the Saturday piece on the 325 was specific to one portion of a neighborhood where we had some
riders that used it and so when we
really weren't
Necessarily looking to change a lot of the fixed route that one never really got moved
I think to your point and it's a good one and this is one of the things that their planning team has been looking at
Is we have several corridors that sort of?
converge and at points of time have two to three routes that travel along one corridor at like
Ten minute 15 minute intervals across with three different routes
I think what we're really trying to look at is how do we service areas with a
Smaller footprint and then just have like one frequent service along the corridor that takes people
between transit centers, and that will help us sort of reduce cost. The visual piece of that,
which people get hung up on, is that's another transfer I have to make, right? So instead of
having a one-seat ride, now I have to catch the circulator to a frequent stop and then ride that
to this to TEC or ride that through and then jump on another one. And I get that, but if we can make
your ride a half hour instead of 45 minutes on two buses instead of one, that's kind of the goal. I
think we do have these sort of pockets of places where historically there was
one or two people that always rode the bus there and we were reluctant to sort
of manage that effectively but the 315 fix has been pretty good because we
still see same core ridership on a 325 and we're still sort of collecting those
folks on the 315 on the weekends without having an impact on 315 so it's I think
that change has been a maybe not a positive in the sense that we're gaining
a lot of ridership but positive in the sense that we were able to reduce cost
still manage the same customers.
Right, and that was that change we made around,
where we basically changed the square routing
of around Carlsbad Village at the time, right?
Yeah.
Okay, it just seems like we come back to that route
and we're at some point we're looking at a square peg
in a round circle, a round hole, whatever.
I did have a question on the 23 million number.
If we discontinued on Sundays,
This is only because we talk about this frequently.
Does that include trips to the Padres games,
trips to the track, trips to Comic-Con?
Yeah.
I would say we would likely try to find a way to manage that.
An agency I worked at years ago,
we did not run Sunday service on commuter rail.
It just wasn't, there just wasn't a lot of traffic
between Dallas and Fort Worth on Sunday.
But if the Mavericks were playing
or if there was a Cowboys game or something like that,
we ran ad hoc service, but that service was paid for
and managed a little differently.
And so I think if we were going to go down that road
and run 6.99s for Padres on the weekend,
on Sunday if we didn't run it,
we would want to try to find a way to get that funded
to another source.
Yeah, because to me those seem like
as much marketing as they are moving, right?
Moving people from place to place in transport.
So I was just curious about that, that was included.
Those were really just questions of clarity.
I appreciate the answers, thanks.
Yeah, I would say the dilemma for us,
especially on Coaster is that our weekend ridership
is starting to outweigh our weekday ridership in some cases.
You know, historically, we had a lot of ridership
that was Monday through Friday
for a lot of our government workers in a few other areas.
I think one of the things that we struggle with
is we essentially doubled,
or in some cases, even a little more,
two and a half X'd our weekend service on Coaster,
and we're seeing the yield from that.
Like if we were really gonna go back
evaluate where the gap would be it might be a Monday or a Wednesday and it just looks weird
when we're having that conversation. I would say on the hourly weekend service piece there are a
lot of agencies that do that. I mean they stabilize at a one hour bus frequency on the weekends. We
don't because the county like our service area is so big we almost need that half hour service for
connectivity on some of our rail lines and other things but yeah the coaster piece is interesting
for us given our past couple years our rise of weekend service. Super. I appreciate that explanation. Thanks.
All right. Board Member Contreras, I think you had your hand up and does anyone else have their hand up?
Because I haven't seen one yet. Yeah. Okay. Do you mind Vice Chair Sonella if I go to Board Member Joyce and then
I'll come to you Vice Chair Sonella. Okay. Go ahead Board Member Contreras and then I'll go to Board
member Joyce and the Vice Chair Sanel. Yeah you know um I really appreciate
getting this information in and just starting to look at potential options I
think that's really important. I don't have too many questions I really just
have a comment in looking at and I and I wish our our representative from the
County was here to hear this but the 388, I just want to call out I didn't
realize that this was one of our higher ridership routes but I have been on this
route and I I do think that we have a huge disservice for such a large
population that's utilizing this where our bus stops are wholly incomplete and
And on the county side it is totally not fair that we have these things are in the
They're in the Sun. There's no benches. There's no bus shelters. There's no lights
So I just want to call out the fact that there needs to be a little bit more
Capital improvements for our bus stops for the 388
and
And you know what it's something that I would love to advocate to the county
that they help out NCTD
bring dignity to the 388 and its ridership.
So I just need to call that out. Thank you.
I appreciate that comment. One of the things I can tell you is specific to sort of the Paula area and Fallbrook is one of the reasons
we haven't invested a ton of energy into that and we have actually put some shelters in to Fallbrook.
we have a really good relationship with a few people out there that ride
frequently. That was sort of on the list as a potential look for micro transit.
388 is interesting because they're, even when you sort of break out of Escondido,
there are some spots where it's very difficult for us to put in shelters, even
something is like a mini bench where it's got like a stop with the two little
seats on the side. There are a few spots going out Escondido, out toward
Paula that creates some problems for us.
And I think I don't want to put all that on the County.
I think some of that's on us to sort of go back
and reevaluate some of these best locations.
In fact, we're having conversations
with the casino right now about maybe trying
to get into the casino instead of being on the street
so that people don't have to walk out and stand in the sun.
So there are some options for us, I think, to fix that.
Fallbrook has always been like going up the hill
For some reason, every time we put in a bench,
five minutes later, somebody's crashing through it.
That's been a weird spot for us.
Right by that airport entryway,
where you take the left to go up the hill to the airport,
every time we fix that bench there,
five days later, somebody's crashing.
Paul Burke's missing a lot of important infrastructure
for safe, just all modes of transportation,
whether you're biking, walking,
or taking public transit, or driving a car.
Yeah, but I just wanna call that out
because I do wanna see us move forward,
and I think there should be cost sharing.
I know in my city, we spent some good money
to put some amazing bus shelters on North Santa Fe
and I'm gonna continue to advocate for,
that's the 303 bus, which is the highest performing bus.
But just seeing, I was not expecting to see the 388 on here
and the fact that it's there,
I think that we really should focus in
on where it makes sense for us to improve the right of way
and do that with the county.
And have them give us some money for it too.
It's a good route.
I've been on that route.
It's very consistent customer base
and they usually are going out pretty happy
and coming back pretty quiet, but you know,
it's a good group out there we like.
Thanks.
Board member Joyce.
Thank you.
Could you explain the math on slide 18,
the 1.7 million in savings?
Can you just explain what the cost of eliminating
and then the cost to operate are specifically?
Yeah, so, and just for some additional context,
when we implemented the NCTD Plus VISTA program,
we saw the breeze 334 service to be duplicative,
and so the board voted to eliminate that route.
So this is kind of a,
if we were to eliminate NCTD Plus VISTA and San Marcos,
would save us approximately 2.5 million dollars looking at our CFO. However, what
we would do in order to maintain a continuity of service is we would
reinstate the breeze 3.3.3.3.3.4. Similarly the board voted to eliminate
weekend service on the breeze 3.4.7 because NCTD plus again we viewed as a
duplicative service so similarly we would add that back in and so that gets
us to the $1.7 million number. Okay, thank you. Um, just so I'll just stay with entity plus first,
I think, I think we have to have a local contribution plan if we're going to continue to
be part of that service. And I just because for a few reasons, one, it's, it's, it's a different
type of service, it serves different individuals. And if we really want to see it as part of our
long-term system, then we have to be able to see it into all of our really denser, you know,
spaces that we're working. And so if we're going to make that part of our system,
NCD plus is going to be part of our system, then we need to find a way to make it, you know,
extendable to our other areas. And I think the only way that we can do that given our situation
is to require local matching. So I think local matching is necessary. And I think it also
brings forward the reality of continuing this service as part of our overall map.
So I would just plant that flag with NCD plus, you know, again, it's a great, it's exciting service,
and it is very different than I think it also is a little bit of a shift in the mission of what we
do. So I would just advocate that we take that very seriously on it's not mass transit, it's not
the same thing. And if we're going to do that, then we should do it responsibly and get local
matches to be part of it. So I think I'll just leave it there in the interest of time.
Thank you. Mr. Joyce and Mr. Overhouse something and then Vice Chair Sonnala.
Yeah, the only thing that I'll add is that we actually have started engaging the City of San
Marcos in particular as our longest standing NCTD Plus pilot about what a local contribution would
look like. We're starting the process of drafting an MOU and we've started negotiations with the
the city about what the city is able to provide for NCTD Plus, it's not much but
we'll take anything I think to to be able to sustain the service so we have
started that process. I'm not a term but our school or school districts involved
in that or just the city? So that's a great question. I have been very reluctant
across that bridge almost every other place I've worked we had received a
significant contribution from the school districts to provide service to the
schools and I can tell you that what's not really listed up here is we deviate
a lot of 600 routes we don't deviate we provide service that drives by schools
per the FDA regulation that that is not necessarily part of that normal route
outside of the deviation of schools.
And that costs a few million dollars a year
for us to do that, maybe a little less.
I think it's right around the same cost as NCTD Plus
last time we looked at it.
So we get a lot of requests from the school district.
In fact, we have really good relationships
with all of the leadership teams at the schools,
but that's a bridge we have not crossed yet.
I mean, and as we continue to see this break away
from Yellow Bus Service,
we don't mind stepping up and doing that,
but for us to sort of manage new schools
that are being built, or in some cases,
schools that are being closed
and relocated to another school,
we have to completely redo the service grid.
We do a lot of our service built around Bell schedule.
That's not necessarily the most optimal time
for us to run some of those vehicles.
So we have this like school schedule
that's sort of baked in between
the other normal 30 minute schedule.
And it throws things off sometimes.
But that conversation is something
that we are gonna have to have at some point,
which is we're gonna need a little bit
contribution from the school district to continue forward with that and we haven't crossed that
bridge yet I've been super reluctant to throw that out publicly because I know that's a super
touchy subject but um I appreciate the question appreciate it I think board member Joyce had one
other uh comment and then I'll come back to Vice Chair Sannella oh my gosh sorry
thanks I just uh just because of the clarification that was given the my call out to my board here
to our board that serves the whole community is that if we're doing one-off negotiations,
which I'm glad that those conversations are definitely happening, I really think we should
have a policy that says this is the contribution that we expect from municipalities that are
benefiting from this very specific service, that I'm not I'm not 100% sure and haven't seen the
real data that shows that increases our broad ridership across the board. I know that there
our access improvements for sure,
but I think from what was initiated with the programs
to now, I just think it's a real conversation
that we need to have about the responsibility
for continuing the service, which I think is vital
in a lot of our spaces where we're the first
and last mile of the challenge,
but also only serving specific communities.
So again, I'd ask the board to take up a policy on this
so that we can have a direction going forward.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Joyce, Vice Chair Sonnala.
Yes, thanks, Mary, for the presentation.
Can we go to the slide that was kind of looking out
two, three, four years with the big,
like, yeah, the drastic changes?
Oh, the one they were just there.
Yep, thank you.
I know that these are just kind of hypothetical in nature
and to kind of give examples of what may be cut,
But as board members, should we be asking staff,
is there anything that we can start cutting today
or start taking some steps towards today
so that when we get to these fiscal cliffs,
they're not so painful?
Yeah, so we have, that's gonna be all day.
So we have started the process at Sean's direction
when he came in, we looked at a comprehensive look
at all of our, in particular, breeze routes.
And so we have, in as comprehensive as a way as we could,
brought forth some recommendations to the board
that the board has voted on to do schedule changes,
frequency changes, on occasion route eliminations,
because we have looked at some of that low hanging fruit.
The services that we deemed were really not productive
or maybe had two higher frequencies that weren't necessary.
So we have started that process
and we are continuing the planning department
does continue to look at
where we could be optimizing our services even if it's not a
Cut or a change in schedule looking at could we serve this community better and could that drive ridership and revenues?
So we are doing that in the interim
Yeah, I think
The difficult part of that conversation and I appreciate director Joyce's comments
Like the example on NCTD plus I'll give is my predecessor was adamant that that was
premium service
So it was five bucks of ride all day long
There was never going to be a success point at five dollars of ride
So we made the collective decision under the pilot which we had the autonomy to do
without necessarily make the board was just to
Drop it down to our regular fare structure, you know, so it's three three and a dollar and something something
I mean we had we had the autonomy sort of drop it back a little bit dollar fifty for going to the transit center
You know three bucks a ride. I ride it all the time. I pay my three books. It's amazing
It largely depends on how we view the statistics right like we could put all of our fixed routes up on the board
And I in fact, I remember talking about this
In my interview years ago was like if you look at the 347 for example
It is historically one of our not very good producing routes
But it serves the community college a high school in Cal State right so like
There's a value in that and there are routes in Oceanside
That are the same way that sort of serve these pockets that would not have access to
Transportation and it would be easy for us to cut that off and say 250 grand
But that would be counterproductive to like the mission of trying to provide transfers if there are glaring
spaces within our grid where we have overlap.
And the overlap is what we need to solve long term.
We need to sort of figure out why we have these redundancies
and try to remove them from the system
so that we're providing maybe more frequent access
and pockets where we've removed a route
that wasn't productive, right?
It's a combination of all of those things.
We can look at them as a number from a dollar perspective,
but there are legitimate reasons why some routes
don't perform as well as others because of the way
that either the geography is set up
or where those individuals are going in that service.
And so we try to combine all those things
when we make those determinations.
And I think the team's done a really good job of that.
The piece for me that we're sort of at now,
which planning is working on, is when I go to a bus stop
and I see three blades for three different routes on a bus stop,
that is significantly unproductive.
And we need to find out why we got to that space.
And that's not a reflection of our planning team.
They weren't here when that happened.
They're helping us build out of that.
It could be a situation where somebody's got to take
two buses instead of one,
but we're providing that same frequent service
across the network.
Probably the biggest piece of that is
mid coastal cities trying to get to Vista inland, right?
Like not up and over, they're going straight through.
So there's places along those lines
where we have three different routes
at some period of time along those roads.
And those are the things we're trying to address
that can help us solve like a million and a half year,
two, three million there, and we're getting to that.
I think one of the things that every transit agency
ever has been plagued with is like,
if you put a map up of 25 years ago,
transit system is probably very similar
to what it was 25 years ago.
People have moved, there's been sprawl,
there's been economic changes, right?
Things have just changed along the line.
and outside of the rail, which can't move,
the bus sort of has to move with that.
And I'll tell you like, Yoni Shlakova,
who's our director of planning, she is phenomenal.
Like she's thinking, like we're on level two,
she's on level 25.
Like she's already working on stuff
that we haven't even thought about.
And it's just gonna take us some time
to kind of put that together,
kind of pull the suit together
and kind of take a look at what that looks like.
But I think that's a great question
because when we talk about things like NCTD Plus,
one of the things that we kind of look at
is we eliminated a 343,
how many other new riders have we brought to the system
that now have access to the network
because geographically we couldn't put a 343
in certain neighborhoods or in certain hills?
And I'm not suggesting that that's necessarily,
I think to the director Joyce's point,
I'm not suggesting that that's necessarily worth
the additional 1.5 million,
but that's what we need to evaluate.
Is it worth something and what is that number?
What's that number worth, right?
So a little bit of a long-winded way to get there, but.
I really appreciate that.
I hope that, you know, from all my actions on this board
and my comments that staff knows
that I have full faith and confidence in you.
And well, usually 100% defer to your recommendations.
And I just know that, you know,
these are some big fiscal cliffs that we're facing.
We know that we're going down this road
not close coming and so are there things that we can start to anticipate and do
now? It's like the conversation we had with our rate increases if you don't
if you don't increase rates for 20 years when you finally do it's going to be a
huge impact right and so this is kind of the same the same thing and I will
just say that I do agree with Director Joyce's comments that if we are going to
have something and I'm a huge proponent of NCTD Plus and we'll advocate it both
from my position on the City and here but if we are going to have in CTD Plus
probably should be system-wide or all of our all of our city should be able to
benefit from it. It does kind of say I understand we were rolling it out on a
pilot program but you know it does make some fairness sense that we would do it
everywhere if we're gonna do it so. I would just add to that that there has
been a big shift in micro transit in our industry 15 years ago it was all the
rage and I wasn't totally sold on it just yet I think there are definitely
situations where it works there are like from a holistic perspective it
doesn't necessarily work for everybody everywhere and I think what you're
finding is is there a few a fair amount of systems who did these pilot projects
in 20 small cities and it just didn't yield the ridership that they were
investing into the operating expense so all points well taken and I'd agree
with all of them there are benefits to some in some areas and then there are
others where it's like okay is that really being effective do we need to
morph the grid is it is it costing us too much on our we so I think everybody's
points are extremely valid and we need to keep a close eye on NTT plus it's
Contreras if I may ask my questions only because I think we're getting close to time to try to shift over to the last item
But I will get back to you before we transition to the next one
So I'll try to go through this as fast as I can because I had quite a few but I know we took
Some time and I want to try to get to our last item and have a good discussion there as well
But if I could you know
The hard part for me, and I'm just going to say it and it's not a reflection on anyone
It's just more of you know whenever we talk about
Reducing routes that's really hard for me our job obviously. I know you all know this
It's like I'm just putting it out there as like what can we continue to do as a board to advocate?
It's hard for me to say that we need to optimize our routes and like reduce our services and really try to figure I
I always am trying to figure out,
okay, what more can we do to make sure
that we're actually advocating for this funding?
Because what we continue to hear,
and one of the questions, you know,
and I won't keep harping on that
because we are limited on time,
but I'm curious is, and maybe you shared this,
and I apologize if I missed it,
but what percentage of this is operational or maintenance
when we're looking at these funding gaps?
If you know that, and if not, that's okay.
I'm just curious, like, in terms of projections,
like what percentage is looking like
it's more operations versus maintenance?
It's a combination.
I mean, it's a, when we talk about operating expense,
I mean, it's essentially what's not necessarily in here
or probably is in here a little bit,
but not clearly spelled out as state of good repair.
If you look at the budget for years out,
what you'll see is historically we forecasted
a five year state of good repair capital budget.
And if you look at the one we approved this year,
right around after fiscal year 28,
There is no money designated for capital repair.
That's probably the biggest dangerous.
This money here is more related
to the operating expenses related to personnel
to operate the service and maintenance.
And that was the question.
Yeah, and I appreciate you mentioning that
because it sounds like that continues
to be our biggest issue.
And based on what we just shared,
if it is that, the question I have is,
and I know we've been talking about this
over the course of the last few months
is how do we get more of that funding
and how can we look at ways
to diversify our revenue stream, if anything,
because I don't want to keep getting to the,
I don't like having this conversation
and us continuing to have this conversation
means that we aren't getting to the point of what we,
I mean, why we started as an agency, right,
is to be able to provide that reliable transit.
And so my question would be back to you all
and if we don't have that today, that's fine,
but as we continue to have this dialogue,
One of the things I'd be curious to know
is if there's a way for us to really think about
how do you utilize us?
That was another question was what can we as a board do
with regards to our operational funding?
Does that mean we need to go advocate?
I know you all go there, but sometimes us going there
and maybe us activating our bases of support of hey,
let's get people voting on this
and making sure they're actually changing things.
So what does that look like in terms of advocacy
and getting us in front of people
that are going to make those decisions.
Yeah, I think that's always been our long-term plan
is to do that, where things are a little bit,
things get a little bit complicated in our current setting
as we have a new governor
that's gonna come into the state.
It's not necessarily,
I think it would be difficult for us to go to Sacramento
just from a state perspective
and try to lay down some thoughts and objectives
in the absence of sort of knowing
what the guidepost is gonna be in a couple months.
once we have a better view of what that looks like.
And we've had some complications in DC with that,
not necessarily related to our formula funding,
but there's some significant changes
that have been suggested through
the Office of Budget Management
through FTA and FRA specifically.
In fact, one of the budgets that came out
essentially gutted $130 billion worth of rail funding
to essentially negative.
Essentially, they would pull from other buckets of money
to fund Amtrak's one half portion of their public side
of the budget.
And then everything else would sort of stay status quo
on the bus side, which is fine for the bus folks,
where we've got both.
So that complicates things greatly for us.
I think we would like to see,
I think there's a lot of interest to see what is happening
in November, both at the national level
and at the state level to decide
sort of what that framework looks like.
And we go to D.C. three, four times a year
for various different agendas,
but March is typically when we go
for our big meet and greet with folks.
And we do want anybody that, you know,
feels like they want to come on that trip
and help us advocate, please do.
I think there's definitely a power in that.
We go to Sacramento a fair amount.
A few times a year, we can run up there for day trips
on a pretty reasonable price.
So I think where I get hung up at the state level sometimes
is at the last minute, which was sort of course corrected
in this one, is carbon funding, right?
Like a cap and invest, and then there
was an initiative put out to sort of eliminate us
from cap and invest.
And those are things that, like at the last hour,
they totally changed the way that we're doing business.
I know I've said it before, I've mentioned it again.
I really struggle that the state is putting
billion a year into a project that I don't think will yield anywhere near the
results they hope it will. I mean it's way far beyond its intended original
purpose and we're in a place where we're just writing checks that could be
distributed across the state to solve transit problems. Local tax
initiatives are a difficult conversation for us because we know that our fellow
Californians are already getting taxed a bunch so we're trying to be very
thoughtful about what that looks like from our perspective you know how do we
sort of manage different ways of looking at that but I think we really won't know
what that looks like until we sort of see what the governor's race looks like
and what we see from November in DC and their willingness to want to try to put
a new bill forward in DC on reauthorization so I mean I don't know if
I don't know if you want to add anything to that.
Well said.
OK.
Just a couple more points.
Then I'll go to Ms. Contreras.
But I would love for us to transition to item three
in the next five minutes.
OK.
OK.
OK.
And if we could keep our responses, yeah, perfect.
So one thing that I wanted to ask
is when we change a route or consolidate,
what does that look like from a, of course,
I know from a client perspective like for somebody
that's utilizing it, but curious what that looks like
from a workforce perspective,
like how does that shift what folks are doing
or, yeah, otherwise, so.
Very short answer.
We do, whenever we have a service change
that results in like a reduction of the total hours
of breeze service that we have,
we usually just shift staff from scheduled routes
to what we call extra board,
where they are there to fill in for vacations
and things like that.
So it's never a reduction in workforce.
However, if we get to a point where we need to make changes
of this magnitude, then it would likely result
in a reduction of workforce.
Yeah, and that's one of the comments I had was,
of course, reducing routes means impact on FTE,
which then means impact on workforce in general.
So that's helpful.
Okay, I have other things,
but I feel like this is a larger conversation in general.
I appreciate you all bringing this forward,
and I think you've heard from all of us
some of the apprehensions and some of the things
that we'd like to discuss maybe at a future date.
I don't know what that would look like.
I don't want us to get to a point
where we're having to have this discussion
once we're eliminating a route.
I do think having a larger discussion
on how you utilize all of us.
Believe me, if you told me, hey,
we would need you in the next month to go out,
I think many of us would be open to doing that
if our schedule allowed.
So please, I know I say this a lot,
but please actually use us,
because I think it's necessary in this particular sense,
the operations, money.
I mean, I've been talking about it everywhere I go,
as much as I can.
But if that means that you can provide us
with something that we can then mention to our constituency,
we have a lot of people that might be willing
to also write to their representatives
that are voting on these different things.
So that, use us as much as you can.
that's what the grassroots support is for,
and that's what representatives are for.
So whatever we can do to help,
I mean, voters do make a difference, right?
I mean, we're seeing it across the country.
So whatever we can do to activate folks
to really engage on something like this
is going to be critical.
So please let us know what we can do.
We're here to help.
And with that, we can transition to item three.
Madam Chair, finally, just for the record,
I just wanted to note that Board Member Garcia
department at 214. And board member O'Hara is departing at 258. Yes. Thank you.
Board member Joyce, did you have something on this particular item? Okay, go ahead.
Are we able to bring back a conversation about an NCTD Plus cost sharing possibility?
Oh yes, I think they already took note of that. But I appreciate you mentioning that
and I had a comment on that, but I can talk about it when we get get to that conversation
when it comes back. So Mr. Donaghe said it's always been part of our plan if you didn't
hear him. So all right. So item three is our last item which will be an overview of the
board governance and board committee structure. We will have a board discussion regarding
the governance structure of the agency providing an overview of NCTD's enabling legislation
that's codified in the public utilities code and policies of the board. So Ms. Dover will
this item and I think Mr. Mosher is joining you as well so I will go ahead
and pass it off to you all. Yes thank you chair I do have with me Tyler Mosher
he's our government affairs officer so we'll try our best to answer any
questions that you may have so we wanted to bring this conversation to the board
because we've had some requests from board members about what is at liberty
for the board to change that's in board policies and what would require an act
of the legislature in terms of the board's authority governance committee
structure, things of that nature. So I'll just start with some high level aspects
of our enabling legislation in Public Utilities Code 125050. It does list the
constitution of the Board of Directors. So it lists the cities that are in the
district and it does also contemplate who the member of the San Diego County
Board of Supervisors is. It's the district that has the largest population
within the district. It does also mention that the City of San Diego is a non-
voting member so if we decided to change that we would have to it would be an
act of the legislature. Public Utilities Code also has our area of jurisdiction.
It also does talk about when the board elects the chair and vice chair in
enabling legislation it does say that that has to happen in January. It does
though delegate the authority to the board to appoint advisory commissions or
committees as it deems necessary.
So in the course of the board's governance,
the board has full jurisdiction to determine what committees
it wants to have of the board.
Board policy number one, which is well within the board's
purview, stipulates NCTD's mission and vision.
So if there comes a time when NCTD's board
would like to change the mission and vision,
that is well within its purview.
The board policy one also outlines the policies
for the adoption of board policies.
So board member Joyce's comment about a board policy
about NCTD plus cost sharing,
that is well within the board's purview to adopt.
Board policy three is the policy that stipulates
the committee and external appointment structure.
So board policy three, as it's written right now,
establishes the executive performance administration
and finance and marketing service planning
and business development committees.
It provides the composition of the executive committee.
It states that the executive committee is made up
with the Chair, Vice Chair, Vice Chair of PATH,
and Chair of Misbata.
It also sets the committee responsibilities
and allows for the establishment of ad hoc committees.
We had a rail safety and community enhancements
ad hoc committee that was established by the board
a couple of years ago.
So high level overview.
If the board would like to change the composition
of who sits on the board or who is voting and non-voting,
if the board would like to change
when the Chair and Vice Chair are elected
or the compensation of the board,
those are acts of the legislature.
If the board would like to change the mission and vision,
the structure and the purview of the committees,
or any other policies related to projects,
redevelopments, anything like that,
that is well within the purview of the board.
And with that, we'll take any questions.
Great, thank you.
Do we have any public comments to speak on this item?
We do not.
All right, at this time,
public registration to speak on this item will end.
And we can start with some questions and comments.
trying to make sure I don't miss board member Joyce. Anybody have, I mean, I know I have some,
but oh yeah, I do, but I can wait. I see board member Joyce potentially moving to raise hand,
are you? Yes. Okay, go ahead board member Joyce. Yeah, so I don't know. I feel kind of funny
having this conversation with our board, not complete.
But I would like to see our committees,
I have felt like the committees
have been more of an afterthought.
And that was one of the reasons I brought this forward
a few different times.
And I have frequently watched the executive committee
basically have the same exact conversations
our full board has and they have it earlier. And so I think it kind of in some ways undermines
our ability to act as a board and do it well. So I do think there are some changes that
need to be put together to make sure the committees are active in doing what they're doing. I
know we've changed the time to the committee that I'm a part of to happen right before
the board. And so the committees that I've been a part of have never have never felt
like a very advisory committee, where we can get down to the details. And that's kind of
when I think of a committee what they're with their job is to do to like really get into
the nitty gritty a little bit further than you do on the general board. So I'm just throwing
that out there. I think it's going to take some like work shopping. And I don't know
that we have like alternative structures here in front of us but I would I'd like
us to take up some of that work to try and set up a vision of what an active
committee structure would look like that could support the board and really
enacting strong policies. So we do every October the board reviews all of the
board policies and has the opportunity to change them to in order to help with
the ease of scheduling the committee meetings. We did try to put them on board
meeting days, however we've noticed that it becomes kind of duplicative that the
committee is having the same conversation as the board, so we're likely
to change that in October. We will have a set time so that the board at least is
aware of when the committee is meeting, but we're probably not going to advocate
for them to be on board days anymore. It just becomes a lot for the board members
and for staff, so we'll likely move that. We wanted this to be a staff facilitated
conversation but a board directed conversation because they are committees
of the board and so we wanted this to if the board has thoughts on what the
committee structure should be we're happy to adopt that so again no staff
recommendation on this item October would be the natural opportunity to make
changes to board policy 3 in particular on the committees so if there's any
any direction that board would like to give us ahead of that to look at a different committee
structure or if any board member would like to come up with a proposal for a committee
structure, we can work that into the changes for the board policies in October.
So we can certainly bring this back because of my long-winded way of saying that.
Board member Joyce, did you have anything else or was that it?
That's a general vision.
No, I don't have any, I don't have any specific amendments at this moment.
No, no that was that's fine. I just wanted to make sure I didn't cut you off if you had any other questions or comments.
Okay. Anybody else? Board Member Edson.
So I was here before when we had meetings at different times and then
when we had, when we moved to having them before board meetings and I agree to the comment, I mean to have the
executive or the
Budget and finance immediately before the board meeting that talks about that budget isn't enough time for anybody. I
still like the idea of
scheduling them on regular board days
But maybe they need to be a month earlier for the committee so that staff has the time to work through the committee's
recommendations and adjust things
The problem I think before when we didn't have them on regular board days is that there was a lot of
difficulty scheduling those meetings and we couldn't get a quorum and
So that's how we move to the other direction
But I do think it the it's the devil's in the details on the scheduling, right? So schedule them with enough time for
For staff and everybody to absorb stuff and be able to come back with new questions and comments
I think that's an excellent point. One of the things that we've talked about internally is
Everybody knows what the board meeting is and so to try to schedule the group outside of that
Occasionally has been difficult.
The best time to do it is a couple hours for the board meeting.
One thing I've seen other places is
you have a meeting of the full board every other month,
and then the month in between that you have a committee meeting.
So that they stay at those static times.
So in January you have a meeting of the full board.
In February you have an executive committee meeting
on that same board meeting day, third Thursday, whatever time.
That gives an entire month for the executive committee
to disseminate information to the rest of the board
they choose to and then they come back in March and they vote on it as the board
whole and then and you could almost have two committee meetings in one month if
you wanted to or spread them out where over those six months you have two
executive committee meetings, a miss bit of meeting and a finance meeting right
like whatever whatever that timeline sort of look looks like I agree it is
difficult to do that and I think we've run into a few situations where we gave
a presentation and then three days later had to make a decision at the board and
And I would agree that's not a great period of time
for people to absorb that and ask questions.
So just a thought that's out there.
I've seen a lot of agencies cut it up a couple of different
ways where the committee meetings are in the off month
where there's no board meeting.
So essentially the board's still coming every month,
if they want to come to a committee meeting,
I mean, they can attend whatever,
but just something throughout.
So if I could, through the chair, follow up on that.
Is there not enough business at each board meeting
to meet monthly?
I mean, with this, sometimes our meetings go until late, sometimes they don't.
I would say sometimes there is, I said I would I would say every other month, it would probably
be a little more consistent on the length of time that the meeting is for because we
would have essentially a couple months worth of stuff.
There are some months during the summer where meetings are a half hour.
And I, you know, feel some kind of way about that because I don't want people to have to
drive all the way up here or get you know stuck in traffic or in Joe's case
have a have a train issue where sprinters not running but I've sort of
seen the workaround that said like you know I've been places where we had a
meeting every month and they lasted 15 minutes and a lot of that was just
because a lot of those decisions were made at the committee level and that
committee happened a half hour before that meeting so people would come to the
committee meeting and ask their questions and by the time I got to the
board meeting. It was, you know, we approved consent. Yeah, here's the
budget presentation. We're out of here. I like a little more robust. Hey, what
presentation do you want? What can we bring to the meeting? Give that
opportunity at the meeting before, whatever that committee meeting is so
that they can absorb that information and come armed with questions when we
take it to the full board instead of having 48 hours or 48 minutes in some
cases to make that decision, right? So certainly not advocating that we for one
way or the other and not suggesting that we don't have enough business
to do that just may be a way for us to sort of manage that in a way where the
committees have their own structure that time's already blocked off on your
calendar and then the next month can just be for full board agenda items and
if we have to do something on the fly we can figure that out. Okay anybody else
with questions or comments otherwise I know I have some okay I'm not seeing any
so all right I'll start off with this item and then I have things for the
because it was three different things that I know we as a board could
potentially act on and so when we talk about the committees I don't know I just
to talk about the reducing the cadence of the meetings personally it just
sounds like I mean I get it it makes sense but then also doesn't at the same
time just because to me I'm like well it's our job even if we do show up for
a half hour or an hour or two hours we do have to show up it's every month it's
not like it's every week right and I think the other pieces is I don't want
us to get to a point where we're not acting as fast as we need to especially
because these are critical services and I know that folks and I know you weren't
intending for that it's just I want to make sure that we're moving as fast as
we can on certain things, especially given that I know people always think
government moves slowly. So if we end up moving it to every other month it'll
make it so much harder for us. I do appreciate you all trying to reduce and
trying to include us in terms of our committee meetings and I do like the
suggestion that board member Edson made. Maybe it is stacking it but stacking it
the month before if possible, if it makes sense. Obviously from a staff workload
perspective that might I don't know if you can have everything ready ahead a
month ahead of time so maybe letting us know if that's even feasible would be
helpful I don't think we should tell you to do that unless you all can figure out
whether or not that's going to be manageable or not I think the other
piece around the preview of what the committees get to see and why they get
to see it prior to the board personally, and I understand, you know, the thoughts around
that, and I do think that the board still gets an opportunity to push back on if there
are recommendations from the committee to push back on that, change what folks want
to say.
I think the reason why they were created, they were predate me by many, many years,
doesn't mean we can't change it, right?
Like obviously, I don't like when people say because we've been doing it, we should continue
you're doing it right like I'm not that's not my intention when I say that
however based on the opportunities even before I think many of us joined that
have been here for almost like seven or eight years I think we I've seen that it
helps because we have members engaged on certain things prior to the meeting so
they're able to help lay it up might deviate from our thinking might be in
line with our thinking but it allows for us to have a bit more of a robust
discussion, if we all come in not having an under full understanding of what it
meant prior it makes it a more challenging discussion or a lengthier
one I know we saw that earlier today and so I think at least from my perspective
I do think it's helpful to have those I do understand the hey wire they getting
a sneak preview before we are what I had mentioned as a potential and I think
Mary and I had talked about this as a potential way to ensure that everyone's
receiving the information at the same time.
Maybe it's through the memos, yeah,
or anything that Mr. Donaghy already sends out.
So that way everyone's aware of what's being discussed.
And that way, if you do have feedback,
you're always welcome to share it with staff.
And that feedback can be shared
with the rest of the committees as well.
Obviously, minding the Brown Act
and making sure that we're not, you know,
and so that's why I mentioned that it should come from staff
and it can be disseminated to the rest of the board
so that way everyone's aware.
Again, what we're discussing, what it's gonna be about.
And nobody feels like we're trying to take
any sort of autonomy away from each board member,
that's not the intent of committees.
It's just really to make sure
that we have robust conversation.
I hope that's an avenue.
However, again, I know we talked about
that we can have a more tailored discussion
on what this makeup and how we do it looks like.
I just wanted to put in my two cents
based on the experience I've had, so.
Yeah, so one thing that we're definitely gonna look at,
the executive committee and the PATH committee
always have items that go to the committee
before that then have to be adopted by the board.
So we're definitely going to make sure
that that is not happening on the same day.
So you will definitely see that changed in board policy three.
We'll be able to shift those for the PATH.
Because of the development of our budget,
we will likely want to keep the PATH committee meeting
in May in particular,
just because we don't want to rush
the development of the budget.
But we'll probably put that in the beginning of May
and then the board meeting will be in the latter half of May.
We do prepare committee reports after each committee
and that is part of the board packet in the following month
because we've been doing the committee meetings
on the same day, you see it after the fact.
So the June board meeting you saw a preview
of the earn overview of the May path committee.
So there's a lot of opportunities for us to be able
to disseminate information to the board,
the full board about what the committee discussed.
So those are definitely gonna be changes.
Ms. Bada, the only thing that is discussed at Ms. Bada
is the service implementation plan that's fed
into the budget, but that can certainly happen
maybe before the April board meeting
and then it gets factored into the path committee
and then the full board in May.
So we can definitely come up with a proposal
of a committee, a cadence of meetings for the committee
make sure that the times make sense. Thank you and while you were saying all
of that I was just thinking I know the hard part for folks it for all of us I'm
sure because many of us are juggling multiple roles it's not just you know
being on council we have jobs that are paying for every day so I know that
sometimes being able to provide feedback in a lengthy format can be challenging
so I'm just throwing this out there and again brainstorming out loud if there's
a way that you all could potentially, as you send it out, if there's a way to capture,
and I'll leave it up to you all, some sort of feedback that would be easier for us to
provide feedback on instead of us having to write you a long-winded email.
I don't know what that looks like operationally.
I'm just thinking out loud because I can understand where the sentiment's coming from when there
are committee meetings and not being able to provide feedback until the board meeting,
But if there's a way that, again, is not cumbersome but at the same time allows for each of our
board members to feel like we're providing whatever feedback we need to, I would love
for us to figure that piece out.
And we don't have to answer now because I, yeah, at all.
Because I understand we're just throwing things out there.
Looking at the time and being mindful, there was one other piece that I personally I know
have talked about, thought about, and would be interested to hear my colleague's perspective
on.
around the legislature and it would have to be a more of a legislature change but
I know that we have our county reps and one of the piece and I'm sad that our
county rep is not here but one of the things that I wanted to entertain and I
was curious about is if we could have it be either of our two North County reps
that we have because from a service perspective it is both that are
representing that particular service and that area and so wanted to see what
folks felt about potentially having that advocacy to change that obviously it
wouldn't be us that would be able to change it would have to happen at the
legislature level we just have to see if any of our representatives would be
interested in carrying that so I'd love to hear feedback on that from folks and
then I see board member Contreras raising your hand. Board member Joyce
after? Just following up on the point of advocacy to the state for that change, I
am 100% in favor of advocating for that. So I think that you know our service
area is unique in that we have two supervisors that are within our service
area so I think it is completely appropriate to open up this discussion and, you know,
hopefully the board, this is something that we can put in our legislative platform and
maybe do some letters to our representatives into the state advocating for that.
So I would be in favor.
Thank you.
Board member Joyce.
Yeah, I would just say if we're going to get them to open up language, let's get them to
fix all the things that we want to fix at the same time.
So yeah, I would support advocating for that kind of change
as well.
The other piece, just to revisit back to the committee pieces.
I forgot this piece of it is I don't see our committees have
like a path as a lane.
Each of the committees seem to have like a lane, right,
that they're operating in,
but the executive committee doesn't seem to have a lane.
So I'm just not sure why the same thing
that our full board gets,
the executive committee weighs in on twice.
So again, I'm just flagged at that.
That doesn't make common sense to me,
and perhaps I'm missing some other justification.
Just flagging.
Yeah, so the executive committee is charged with general governance of the board and things
that are related to the two positions that report directly to the board.
So in the executive committee's purview, you'll see Sean and Lori's performance evaluations
and you'll see things related to that.
You'll also see the overview of changes to board policies, so it's meant to be a general
governance committee as it's codified right now I think if there's anything
that the board would like to add in that scope or change in that scope I think
we'd be interested in staff can certainly make any changes that the
board's interested in changing well and if through the chair if I might add that
during my time on the executive committee we also hired Sean for example
and made those choices.
So the executive, you're welcome.
But it would have been very difficult to go through that process with the full board
versus being able to have a subcommittee, which was the executive committee,
schedule these four meetings and go through the whole interview process and whatnot,
then bring it to the board, bring those choices to the board.
So there's, I think it does serve a good purpose
and I think it's out the duties and responsibilities
of all of the commissions are outlined
in our board policies.
Vice Chair Sonal.
To answer your question, Chair,
where we stand on the county representation.
Mary, do you happen to know,
and I hate to put you on the spot,
but like what's the kind of rough percentage
of the other county district that overlaps
with the transit district?
I will certainly get back to you on the specific percentage
of population.
However, maybe you can take this for some homework.
More than just population, because that
could be kind of misleading.
Just geographic population.
And the reason why I'm asking is to answer your question,
Chair, is that I'd be open minded to it, supporting that.
but if it's like 90-10,
then I think we're gonna disenfranchise
a very large part of North County residents for no reason.
If it's, I don't know what that sweet spot is, 50-50,
which I know it's not, or 75-25.
I don't know, I haven't made up my mind
what that looks like, but if it's like really obvious,
like 80-20, then I don't, I couldn't support that.
Yeah, so we do, and I just pulled up a map
while we were talking.
So the fifth supervisorial district
is entirely an NCTD service area.
The third is mostly an NCTD service area,
but there are sections of the third district
that leave NCTD service area and go into MTS's.
Does it reflect population for each of those?
I haven't looked at population yet, but I can do that.
Yeah, and I think we're not making any decisions today
just to confirm.
This is just more of a discussion, yeah.
So thank you for bringing that up.
Board alternate Coleman.
While you're doing that homework,
if you can also look into city of San Diego as well.
That'd be helpful.
Thank you.
Do you mean from a population perspective?
Yes.
Okay.
And geographical.
Okay, perfect.
Any other questions or comments on this particular item
based on what we've discussed
or anything additional?
Board member Joyce and then Contreras.
I was just gonna also join you
and the effort to keep it monthly.
I don't think a reduction or frequency of meeting
it makes sense to me.
Thank you.
Okay, so board member Contreras and then.
Yeah, I'll just say I think monthly as well.
And I just wanna offer, you know,
when I was on the executive committee
before I got kicked off through a ridiculous weighted vote,
I did enjoy my time on the executive committee
being able to really dig in.
But I think that there's certainly room to modernize
and maybe take a look at the scope
and maybe the makeup of the committee
or if there's an additional representative
that could be on there.
I don't know, but I think it's,
I'm good taking a look at it
and seeing if there's any additions or modernization
that can happen to just create more efficiencies.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Any other last minute additions, comments, questions?
Because I know we're getting up to 3.30, which
is where our hard stop is going to have
to be to keep quorum.
OK, do you all feel comfortable with the conversation we've
had, or do you feel like you need any clarity from any of us
before we wrap?
No, I think we definitely heard direction
on the cadence of meetings.
We will, as part of the review of board policies
in October at the executive committee
and then at the full board level,
we'll go through the timing of the committees
and we will look at the purview.
We will look at whether we could add
into our legislative agenda about which
supervisorial district or opening it up
to the county to appoint whoever they would like
within our service area.
Yeah, I think we have clear understanding.
Okay. Board Member Joyce, you had something.
I was just going to ask if we could figure out also how to, um, with the
committees, the marketing, like doing the work of the committee, I feel like
is something that I'm also seeking from this and that's like in the marketing
space, like, Oh, I do want us to have some work to do rather than, uh, I love
congratulating staff on, on the amazing work that they do, but the
considerations we just haven't, we haven't had.
So I'd like to like have a conversation
about how we set up the work plan for the year
and expectations on how we do that kind of work.
So that's the only other thing.
Yeah, totally agree with that.
Thank you.
And through the chair, if I could,
I wanted to also support board member Joyce's comment
about let's look at all the things we might want to
for advocacy. Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, no, that's a good one.
And the work plan piece, by the way,
We did that with our commissions at the city level.
And I have to say it's been really helpful for us
to all stay in line and make sure
that we're transparent to folks.
I appreciate that suggestion.
So this is now the CEO's report, which hopefully is very short.
I did not have one.
I looked at the agenda.
It wasn't on there, so I'm not sure where this slide came from.
I'll just say a shout out to the staff.
They've been doing amazing work.
And Madam Chair, that's all I have.
Yay, awesome.
All right.
Board members, do you have anything very briefly to report?
I'm seeing head shakes.
OK.
Any remaining public comments?
No, Madam Chair.
All right.
Thank you.
At this time, public registration
to speak on remaining public communications
will end the next scheduled meeting.
So no meetings in August.
Marketing, service planning, and business development committee
meeting will be Thursday, September 10th at 11 AM.
Our regular board meeting will be Thursday, September 10th,
2026 at 2 PM.
and we are adjourned at 3.29.