Good morning, and thank you for joining us. It's great to hear a lot of conversation going on. I hope
You're all doing well today, so I'll go ahead and start the meeting
So I'm going to call to order the board of directors meeting for November 5th
2025 for the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority and the San Bernardino Council of Governments
Today the board will be acting in the capacity of both entities therefore each board member will be entitled to receive a hundred dollar stipend
For doing business as the authority and a hundred dollars stipend for doing business as the cog
So right now we're going to go ahead and close adjourn to closed session
We have a conference with legal counsel regarding anticipated litigation. So first I'll open it up
Is there any member of the public that would like to speak on the closed?
Session agenda item before we go to a closed session
Seeing none. Thank you very much. So we'll go ahead and recess to closed session and we'll be back shortly. Thank you
All right. Well, thank you everyone for sticking with us and joining us for the board meeting this morning
We are adjourned now from closed session, and I'll have council report out
No reportable action was taken. All right. Thank you very much for that and
I would like to ask mr. Art Bishop across from me because I miss him many times in seeing his light
To lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance for today
the state of the state of the
the state of Ontario.
Helen Toran, 29 Palms, Dan Mintz, Epplin, Rudy Zuniga, Victor Ville, Bob Harriman,
Yukaipa, Judy Woolsey, Yucca Valli, Rick Denison, County Supervisors, 1st District,
not present, 2nd District, Armadirus, present, 3rd District, not present, 4th District,
5th District, Baca Jr., present, and our Caltrans Ex officio representative.
Thank you, we have a quorum.
Thank you.
So at this time, I'm going to take an opportunity
for some employee recognitions.
We have some employee recognitions this morning,
and we have two new team members joining the agency
this month.
So please welcome Molly Wilchar.
Molly is the new director of legislative and public affairs.
Welcome, Molly.
Where are you at?
There she is.
And we have some other members of the team.
Also like to welcome Jenny Chan.
Jenny is the new chief of fund administration.
And Jenny, there she is.
Welcome.
And we have some team members of promotions to recognize.
Monica Larson has been promoted to senior accountant,
I'm sorry, in the finance department and in the fund.
Well, hold on.
So in that one, it kind of.
In the fund administration department.
Oh, I got you.
I rolled it up.
OK.
Thank you.
So Monica Larson, thank you for your promotion.
Where are you at?
You here this morning?
She's working.
That's why she got promoted.
She's promoting.
Thank you.
So in the Funded Administration Department,
we have Jamie Crohn has been promoted
to Programming Manager.
Mark Lucas has been promoted to Management Analyst III.
Oh, are they standing?
Oh.
OK, I saw her in the back row.
Thank you.
Mark Lucas has been promoted to Management Analyst III.
Is Marcus here?
There he is, right in front.
Okay, and Naomi Maron has been promoter
to management analyst too, Naomi.
And congratulations to Jamie, Mark, Naomi.
Thank you very much.
Lastly, we wanna recognize Christina Blackwood
for 10 years of service with the agency.
Christina is the accounting manager
in the finance department,
and thank you for your service, Christina.
She in the room?
She's working too, so thank you very much.
So next, we have a writer appreciation day
and Basin Transit partnered with SBCTA
out in the Murango Basin will celebrate its riders
and support the local community with a rider appreciation
and fill the bus event on Saturday, November 22nd
from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Walmart Super Center
in Yucca Valley, so if you're in that area,
Basin Transit event.
The event combines appreciation for Basin Transit riders
with a food drive benefiting the way station,
a local organization serving the community.
All rides on Basin Transit will be free that day.
And also Daniel Romas from the city of Atalanto has arrived at the meeting.
Caucus results, so I'm pleased to announce the Mountain Desert Subarea Caucus to select one
member from the general policy committee meeting to serve on the general policy committee meeting,
remaining for the 2025-2026 term. And that'll be Josh Polin from the city of Hesperia. Welcome aboard.
the clerk do we have any agenda notifications or modifications there are none all right thank you
and this is an opportunity for public comment do we have any public comment i have one card here
i'll start off with this and if you're interested in speaking please get a card to the clerk this
will be a vet magar from s gag good morning thank you mr chair board members of atmos sia
scag government affairs officer for the inland empire with a few agency updates today foremost
SCAG would like to invite you all to the joint policy committee meeting in person for the 2005 economic summit on December 4th
at 9 30 a.m.
This annual presentation provides comprehensive overview of the region's economic performance and outlook with analysis to support Southern California's local and regional
policymakers. You can join us in person or join the live stream for remote viewing.
SCAG has launched the Future Leaders Initiative, a new six months civic leadership pilot program for young Southern Californians interested in learning
learning how regional and local governments collaborate.
Once a month, participants will engage in interactive virtual sessions led by practitioners, community
leaders, and SCAG staff to explore planning, policy, collaboration, and advocacy.
Participants who complete the program will receive a $500 stipend, and SCAG invites individuals
ages 18 to 26, living in the SCAG region to apply.
The application for the Future Leaders Initiative is open through November 25th, and if anyone
needs more information please feel free to reach me or visit the SCAD website.
That concludes my update. Thank you so much. Thank you Yvette. So one notice do
any members have any conflict of interest? If so please disclose them.
Notify the clerk. So next up on our agenda item are informational items.
Informational items will be items two through seven. They do not require a vote.
These are receiving files that are routine and non-controversial. Moving on
consent. So we have a move by Navarro and a second by Tran. Any comments or
questions on consent? Seeing none all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Thank you.
The consent calendar passes unanimously. So move on to discussion items. First one
is item number 24. This is award construction contract for US 395 phase 2
widening project and Parcella Amada will be presenting the item. Good morning.
This item is to request board that the award of construction for US 395 phase 2
project to the lowest responsive and responsible bitter Griffith Company in
the amount of 41.85 million and to approve a contingency and allowance
Expenditure Authority for Agency Furnished Materials and Services.
On October the 2nd, SBCTA received four bids ranging from $41.85 million to $49.66 million.
The lowest bidder was about 35% lower than the engineer's estimate.
This project will widen US 395 from 2 to 4 lanes between Interstate 15 and Palmdale Road,
approximately 7 miles.
Overaging this contract will allow us to move forward with construction and continue improving
safety and mobility in the corridor.
This concludes my presentation.
I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Thank you very much for the presentation.
Do we have any public comment on item number 24 as presented?
none. I'll bring it back to the board for questions. Moved by, oh I'm sorry, moved
by Marquez, second by Baca. Thank you. All in favor? Opposed? Abstentions? The
item passes unanimously. We'll move on to our last discussion item, which is item
number 25, San Bernardino County Office of Emergency Services and Suzanne
Peterson will be presenting the item. Good morning Board of Directors. I'll be
Introducing your presenter for this item,
Christa Gonzales.
Christa serves as the director
for the San Bernardino County Office of Emergency Services.
Her and her team have provided valuable insight
for a number of projects that we've worked on here
at the agency, including the Cajon Pass,
Emergency Bypass Study,
the Emergency Evacuation Network Resilience Study,
and the project that we're just about to kick off,
the Emergency Resilience Center design study, lots of studies.
We will continue to collaborate with her and her team
on these projects and others, but we just
wanted to give her an opportunity to present
before you today.
Thank you, Suzanne, and good morning.
And thank you for having me this morning.
Again, my name is Crisanta Gonzalez,
and I am the director for the San Bernardino County Office
of emergency services, so I wanted to come here
and present a high-level view
of how the county Office of Emergency Services supports the
county in addition to our partnership with this group.
Next slide.
So we're going to discuss today kind of an overview,
a high-level overview of what is emergency management.
We'll go over kind of what is an emergency manager,
a little bit about our county, how the Office
of Emergency Services functions,
under what delegation authority, and then the hazards
that affect our county including one of which is very important to this committee.
Next slide.
Could we press the video and start this video?
This video is from the New York jurisdiction and they created this video about what an
emergency manager is.
They base it on a nuclear attack, but I'd like you to think about it from our region
as a catastrophic level earthquake.
So as you watch the video, think about your emergency manager and your jurisdiction and
how they would fit into this picture.
Can we begin the video, please?
All right.
If we're not able to begin the video,
I'll talk through it a little bit.
So as an emergency manager, during an incident or an event,
your police and your fire and your public works
and your responders generally report to the incident.
When they run out of resources, then
they will ask to activate your emergency operations center.
Everything in an incident is based on resources.
So when it becomes beyond the scope of their,
of your jurisdictional resources,
they would reach out to the County Emergency Operation Center
and ask us to activate in support of your jurisdiction.
And so an emergency manager's responsibility
is for collecting all the incident information
and making sure that the elected officials
get that information.
So as you can see on the screen,
they're able to provide adequate embedded information
to your public, to your constituents.
And that kind of in a nutshell is,
summarizes what the video is about.
but if you are able to go and look at this video,
it's called the Essential Emergency Manager on YouTube,
and it will explain very clearly
what your emergency manager in your jurisdiction
kind of is trying to achieve.
Next slide.
A little bit about our county.
As you all are very aware,
we are the largest county in the United States
with over two million in population
and 20,000 in square miles.
So that kind of sets us apart
from the rest of the counties in the United States.
We're also number three on the FEMA hazard risks.
So the Cal OES likes to term us
as the Disneyland of disasters.
It's their nickname for us,
because we are fortunate and unfortunate
to experience many different things.
Next slide.
How does my department support?
So we work under the mandate of the county charter,
specifically section 21.0103B,
which dictates that my department
needs to have emergency planning.
So we take not only our plans, but also
the departmental plans from around the agencies.
And we put together training sessions,
which is the second column.
And we invite your emergency managers, your fire chiefs,
to come participate in review of those plans
and also in the training.
And we also ask them to invite us to their trainings as well,
so that we can all get to know each other on blue sky
days, so that we all have each other's names and phone
numbers.
in the event of a gray sky event,
it's too late to get to know each other.
So we try and review plans, support plans,
help with any planning issues your jurisdictions may have.
If we reached out with Adelanto and supported them
in an issue they had with developing a plan,
and we do that for other jurisdictions as well.
And community engagement.
We have a team that's specifically delegated
to go out and improve the CERT program.
As many of you are painfully aware,
there's not enough responders ratio to your residents.
So it's very important that your residents understand
that they are the first line of defense.
In any disaster or event, you can go back across the globe
and see that the first people to respond are the neighbors.
And that's something that my department pushes very strongly
is join a CERT team, learn those CERT skills.
And we're also coming up with a new process
called Block Party.
So if you don't wanna join a large CERT team,
we have a program that will prepare you at a block level,
whether that's your apartment building,
if it's a large apartment building,
whether it's dividing up your trailer park
to make sure you respond,
or if it's a small apartment building,
I'm sorry, if it's a large apartment building,
one floor, if it's a smaller one, the whole building,
if it's out in the country, in our countryside,
three to five homes,
if it's a small urban community, 10 to 12 homes,
so that you can come together as a block and be prepared
and learn ahead of time the skills you need
to stabilize your block until responders can be there.
Because as we all know, as much as we'd
like to have a responder go to every house,
that's just not possible.
So that's the mission of that division.
And then, of course, we have EOC readiness,
the Emergency Operations Center.
That division is responsible for ensuring
we have the latest technology.
We're looking into innovations.
How do we connect, interconnect with fire, law, public works?
What does that look like to have our EOC ready?
How do we train the EOC responders
So when they come to sit at a seat to support the functions there,
the emergency support functions,
that's not the first time they're sitting there.
And we're able to disseminate that information and train them up.
Next slide.
Here's a little bit of how my department is structured.
The four columns on the right, you'll see represent that charter mandate.
And then the left two are my finance and admin and my grants division
to support grants across the county, which includes the Homeland Security Grant
and the Emergency Management Preparedness Grant, ENPG.
And then to the very left is our warehousing
and stockpile program.
We're starting an initiative to identify as our stockpile
instead of putting everything in one warehouse.
How do we jurisdictionally and regionally
look to all the county departments
and see what we have as a whole and be transparent as a whole
so we can use the entire county stockpile
in the event of a disaster or emergency.
Next slide.
So preparedness and coordination, how do we,
Why is it important to prepare and coordinate
with your jurisdictions and county agencies?
We're gonna go ahead and discuss the disasters
that affect our county, next slide.
Here's the county disasters by decades.
You can see that the two lines that grow exponentially
are floods and fires.
So here historically you can see that we're trending up
as a Disneyland of disasters, we're not trending down.
So it's very important that we prepare
with all of your jurisdictions and our partnering agencies.
We know what the hazards are.
Every time we face a hazard,
even if we have the best plan written,
plans are meant to fail.
Plans are not meant to succeed.
Those are meant to find gap analysis
so we can become stronger and stronger
with each activation and each incident.
As something fails, we're able to recognize it
and jump ahead of it and mitigate for it
with your support, of course.
Next slide.
Here's the top hazards for our county.
The one in the middle is specific to this organization.
There is an increase in lithium battery traveling across our interstates and our transportation
routes.
And then we also have railways in our county.
So that leads to the column on the left, the hazardous materials.
Those are transported many times through railways as well.
So these are the top man-made risks that we look ahead and try and anticipate.
The next slide.
Here's the top hazards of the natural risks.
you saw in the graph, wildfires and flooding, we're the two that were climbing exponentially.
We have storms and of course we have climate extremes, whether that's a 100-year snowstorm
or extreme heat in areas that we are not expecting to have heat.
Things of that nature is what we try and work closely with things like the National Weather
Service, NOAA, all those agencies who are subject matter experts and help us estimate
or anticipate how we can better support our residents as these climate issues change and
move forward.
The one I wanted to talk about specifically was, what about earthquakes?
That's the one the home pass will be affected by.
We all are aware of it starts in the Salton Sea.
The predicted big one starts at the Salton Sea and will crack through over to the Western
Ocean, which cuts right through the middle of our county.
How does that affect us not only to our residents, but it also affects us financially?
As you can see in your screens, we have about a $2.4 billion trade when that corridor that
Cajon Pass fails.
When we shut down for the I-15 lithium battery, the economic development department was able
to provide some numbers for me, and those are the numbers you see in front of you in
the screen.
Next slide.
That concludes my presentation.
This is our website.
That is my contact number.
It's my 24-7 cell phone in case you all need to use it.
Please feel free to download it.
If I am in the middle of a disaster,
it may take me a while to get back to you,
but I will get back to you.
Emails, a little bit trickier, they do get buried.
I prefer you text me if you really need to reach out to me.
And I'm gonna pitch for our new app that my department,
I'm very proud of them.
They developed this new app.
So if all of you could do me a favor and download that app
and then let me know what your feedback is,
If you feel it's a good app or anything that we can improve, we did pass this out to your
emergency managers and asked them to amplify the messaging.
We hope it's a one-stop shop for your residents to be able to be prepared.
With that, I'd like to thank you for your time, and that concludes my presentation.
I'm open for any questions.
Thank you for covering our county so well.
We are the Disneyland, I guess, of dangers out here, so I want to open it up real quickly
for the public.
The public have any comments on the presentation?
So we'll bring it back to board, any comments or questions?
Seeing none, thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
So this will receive and file items, so we'll go ahead and move on to board member comments.
Anything to add?
Yes.
Larry McCollum.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
As the chair of the MSRC, I am pleased to say that we have awarded $3 million for the
to San Bernardino County Transportation Authority
for the Highland Redlands Regional Connector Gap
bikeway project.
And at the same time, we've awarded $1 million to SBCTA
to offer free transit passes for rail and bus
during the Olympics.
So I'm happy that we've done that,
and those will be finalized at our Southern California Air Quality Management District
Board Meeting this Friday.
Well, thank you very much.
Great news for the city of Highland and certainly the residents of San Bernardino County.
Any other comments?
Yes.
Art Bishop, please.
Thank you for staying, Rick.
I was trying to get away with it.
I had two things, comments I wanted to make real quick.
Last month the Inland Empire Chamber of Commerce held their annual meeting on Bright Line.
I was very pleased that Carrie, along with Sarah, the president of Bright Line, John,
the outgoing city manager for the city of Rancho Cucamonga, and other people were on
an excellent panel.
I thought the panel was very, very interesting and well attended.
I know Aquinnetta, oh, she left the cochis quick.
I know Aquinnetta was there, and it was just a really well attended meeting.
You would all be very, very proud of Carrie, because the comments from my table were really
all about how well, evidently, run this agency truly is.
So Carrie, thank you for myself and my counsel.
Thank you.
one other thing I'm I'm a little pissed at Kerry because I had a shining star in
my engineering department he was a young man who helped the town of Apple
Valley with engineering projects and I from my understanding he has now been
hired by the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority to help you all
get grants, so whatever. But I know it's good for this agency, it just wasn't good
for the town of Apple Valley. That is all, thank you and here comes Aquanetta.
Well thank you Art for that and thank you Kerry for building a good team with
the best of the best. Yes, John DeTrey. As you know the Los Angeles Dodgers are
the World Series champions, so we're just excited fans here but Monday morning at
At 7 o'clock I was at the Montclair Transit Station to help all the fans to get on the
train to go to LA, Union Station, and I was there from 7 to 9.30, there was a train every
30 minutes out of Montclair or coming from San Bernardino, and the trains were very packed
standing on it to the point when it got to Montclair from San Bernardino, they had to
move the fans to the Montclair train going back to Union Station, it was very packed
I understand the way back a lot of fans were there were standing in lines to get on the train to come back from your station
Back to San Bernardino. So it was a very successful day on Monday's from Metrolink
Hopefully we can continue that every day, right?
Yeah, great news on ridership
Yes, ray Marquez. Thank you, sir
On November the 24th, the skag will be going up to the high desert. We're gonna be meeting at Apple Valley gonna be touring
Victor Vielma Espirito, so if anybody would like to join us just let us know on the 24th
Yes, Aquaneta. Just want to announce that supervisor Jesse Armaderis in the great city of Fontana is
hosting a youth summit on mental health and
suicide prevention at the Jesse, it's not the Jesse Turner Center, but most people know about that park. It's the Fontana park and the
roller hockey rink. We have over 25 vendors coming to aid families on what
they can do to make sure their kids are safe. Earlier that day we're gonna have
Fontana walks and we're partnering with a hundred black men here in the IE
March for dads where they are promoting fatherhood. That starts at 8 a.m. I'd love
to see all of you all there to walk, particularly Ranch Cucamonga and Upland
since we're partners with the supervisor. So I hope you can all join in this
Saturday and we're going to feed you at 12 o'clock. We're passing out good old
Raisin Cane, better known as cracked chicken. Great resources, thank you.
You're welcome. Any other comments from board members? Yes, Larry McCall. Thank
you very much. I'm surprised that Aquanautta didn't mention the opening of
the San Seveen Trail that happened, ribbon-cutting this week, and I was happy to participate
in that as the chair of NSRC.
We provided a small amount of money compared to the overall project.
It was only half a million, which the total project was 17 million.
It was a great event, and unfortunately, I wasn't able to participate in the walk on
the trail afterwards, but Aquinnett led the parade in a blue dress to
celebrate the Dodger's Wren. Sounds like quite a celebration and another good
project in our county. Thank you. Any other comments from board members?
Seeing none, I'll turn it over to our executive director, Carrie. So I have a
few things to highlight. Kristi Lynn Harris, our director of project delivery
and express lanes, is not here with us this morning because she's in LA and
and just texted that the agency won
an engineering news and record, ENR,
it's a prestigious publication that's out there,
we won an award for the First Avenue Bridge in Barstow.
So, Highway Bridge, which is a great thing
for the agency to be recognized.
Very good.
And then, the First Avenue Bridge, yeah.
So, next year, Mount Vernon, we'll go after that one.
I wanted to highlight that we, as you heard today,
you just approved delegation of the award for US 395.
Part of Felicia's presentation was that that bid
came in 35% below, so we might be turning a corner here.
That wasn't because our engineer's estimate was incorrect.
It's because we are actually seeing across a few projects
in our region, bids coming in lower,
which is very good for us.
We have two bid openings next week,
I-10 Mount Vernon interchange,
and I-10 contract 2A Express Lanes Project.
So hopefully we continue to see that trend
because it would be very helpful for us
to be able to deliver more.
And last but not least, stole my thunder a little bit.
We do have a great candidate coming
that was working as a contract engineer
for a handful of cities, not just Apple Valley.
Very talented.
But with that and with the promotions
that you heard about today, we are technically pretty much
fully staffed.
We still have two positions open,
but they're lower level positions
and that's pretty normal for us.
So it's a big step forward to actually see
all these promotions, get all the high level positions filled
so that we are fully staffed and can move forward.
That's all I got.
All right, well, thank you very much.
And all I have today is I would like to take the opportunity
to close our meeting with a moment of silence in memory
for deputy Andrew Nunez.
He was someone that was raised in our area,
in the West Valley primarily.
Born here, raised here, started his career here,
his family here, and he was a deputy
with our San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department,
quite loved in the community,
and was murdered recently, as most of you know.
And so it's a tragedy for all of us
to have this happen in our own community,
especially for the beautiful County of San Bernardino.
I believe we have the best Sheriff's Department
the entire country for law enforcement and we're very proud of that department
and we mourn his loss so if you would please join me in a moment of silence
and recognition of this loss thank you very much meeting adjourned