Note: The agenda listed the meeting at 5:30 p.m., while the summary instruction referenced 12:30 UTC; the date (February 3, 2025) is consistent.
All right, call to order Bullhead Area Transit Commission meeting uh February 3rd, 2025. Madam Secretary, roll call. All commissioners are present. Join me in a pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the Republic, which is one nation. Indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. All right. So we have a uh presentation this uh this evening on the uh metropolitan planning organization, an update presentation from the interim uh MPO executive director, sir. Yes, good evening, Chair, board members. My name is Johnny Loera. I am the interim director of the MPO. Um I wanted to give you a very brief update. I think uh Mr. Peluso has already explained the MPO, the reason behind it, how it's formed. So really I'm just gonna talk to you a little bit about what we've been doing so far. And the first update that we have is that we are now fully staffed. We're a staff of two people, myself and we have a staff member that just came on actually today was her first day fully with the MPO. She's a transportation planner and grant writer is is her title. So what she's doing for now is helping with the budget, physically getting the office up and running. We have an office now over at the Monarchs Plaza 2135 Highway 95. We've well, I've attended a couple of meetings in Phoenix. We've melt met with the other MPOs and the uh the councils of government and with ADOT. Uh some of it is educational, some of it has been uh going towards you know future agenda settings and and uh conferences conferences, things like that. Uh they've been talking to us about what's required of the MPOs moving forward. You know, this only happens once every 10 years with the census, so we are the only new MPO in Arizona. There's I think another 10 or so throughout the country, and they're all kind of going through these the same issues that we are. Um, first real task is to produce a work program. It's called a unified planning work program. And we are into that now. What this does, it kind of sets the stage for the next couple of years of what the MPO is going to do, what we have to produce. So the first thing that we really have to do is administrate the the MPO. So that's the day-to-day operations. We have to get funding for these things. So that's staffing that is going to meetings, that's financial records, staffing support for the advisory committee, and for the executive board meetings, which those meetings will start in March. We'll I think we'll have our first advisory committee and our first executive board meetings. We have to create a public participation plan so that when we do have plans to actually present to the board, there's a plan to get that out to the public as well. There's a Title Six Civil Rights Act plan that we have to show that we are in compliance with all civil rights uh act laws. And then the first kind of real big piece of that work program is the long-range transportation plan. So that is a plan with a 20-year horizon that we have to go out and get a consultant for uh that process takes 12 to 18 months once we choose a consultant for them to study our transit system, study the condition of the roads, you know, potentially uh upgrades to the roads, um turn lanes, you know, new new signals, things like that. Uh but once we have once once that's actually in process, we will be presenting uh to the executive board with updates, and their their task will be to give us kind of priorities, right? So as the consultant presents the different things they think uh are required to update our system transit or any uh physical upgrades, the board will then give us direction as to what they think the the priority projects will be. Um and then we get that uh approved officially at after the part the public participation, we'll get that piece approved. Um, and that leads into the transportation improvement plan. So that's that's a plan that has to be has to be updated every couple of years with the actual projects that we're trying to get funding for. So we have to create this list, uh different projects, it could be actual construction projects, could be funding for the transit system, could be new buses, new vans, uh expansion of the system potentially, but that will be in that plan, and that those are the projects that we then go out to to ADOT and we go to the federal highways to try to get funding for. And really, I think those tasks will keep us busy for the next at least year or two, uh, as far as the MPO goes. Any questions? Okay, go ahead.