All right, we're going to go ahead and call to order the meeting for November 13th.

Please call the roll.

Desmond?

Here.

Dickinson?

Here.

Kent?

Here.

Nelson?

Here.

Rodriguez?

Here.

Telemontes?

Here.

And Vice Chair Rathel?

Here.

You do not have a quorum.

We are a little short.

I'm here if that helps.

I'm sorry.

Hume?

Yeah.

We still don't have a quorum.

Oh, it doesn't help.

I know.

Trust me, Roger.

He was for two, though.

He was for two.

So since we don't have a quorum, we do have item 13 that we can take.

But well, let's go ahead.

And Mr. Hume, can you start us with the Pledge of Allegiance?

I'd be happy to.

Please adjust the flag.

Don't worry.

I'm fine.

Pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for

which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

And if you'll please read the announcements.

This meeting of the Sacramento Transportation Authority is live and recorded with closed

captioning.

It is cable cast on Metro Cable 14, the local government affairs channel on the Comcast

and DirecTV U-verse cable systems.

It is also live streamed at metro14live.saccounty.gov.

today's meeting replays sunday november 16th at 2 p.m on metro cable channel 14

once posted the recording of this meeting can be viewed on demand at youtube.com slash metro cable

14 to make an in-person public comment please complete a speaker request form and hand it to

the clerk the chairperson will call your name when it's your turn to make a comment you may

also send written comments via email to board clerk at sackcounty.gov your comment will be

routed to the board and filed in the record.

And let the record show that

Director Guerra, does that establish

a quorum? Director Guerra has

arrived. I am here. And do we

now have a quorum? We do now have a quorum.

Yay!

You can thank

Joey for getting me here. Thanks,

Joey. Try to be on

time next time, Joey.

Alright,

and go ahead, are there

any comments from the public?

Not on the agenda items?

There are not any comments from the public regarding matters not on the posted agenda.

Thank you so much.

And that moves us to the consent calendar.

I've got requests to speak on item five and six.

Any other requests or requests from the directors to pull items?

I'll go ahead and move consent.

Director Dickinson?

I just have a couple questions on item nine.

Item nine?

All right.

So five, six, and nine.

Item five is receive information on the activities of the new transportation funding subcommittee,

including the shift in focus from a 2026 to a 2028 ballot measure and related efforts.

Item six is authorize Sacramento Transportation Authority to partner with Sacramento Regional

Transit District for a Caltrans transportation planning grant for the Greenline Bus Rapid

transit feasibility study. And item nine is authorize the executive director and legal

counsel to negotiate and execute an agreement with the Clarion LLC for enterprise resources

planning, software subscription, and initial implementation. And can I get a motion to

approve the other agenda items that are on consent? So moved. Motion and a second for

the other consent items. Can we call the roll? Before we call roll did you want to take public

comment on items five and six? Oh we can do that and then take the post policy. No. They're

they're tabling five six and nine after they vote on everything every other consent item. Got it.

Thank you. Absolutely.

Director Telemontes.

Your consent matters pass with the exception of items 5, 6, and 9.

Perfect.

And now we'll move to item number 5.

And we've got public comment from Dan Allison.

Good afternoon, Dan Allison.

I've come before you wearing several different hats,

and I just want to make clear my comment on this one is just Dan Allison,

not SAC Moves or STAR, though I will do a STAR one next.

I just wanted to comment that I think STA needs to recognize that it's possible

that no sales tax measure for transportation will ever pass in Sacramento County,

and that it's also time to start thinking about how else we can fund transportation besides sales taxes

because both the current poll for 2026 and 2028 doesn't look like it's going to pass.

So I think it's important to think about other alternatives.

Thank you.

Thank you.

any comments back on item number five or any other comments on item number five?

All right. Do we need a motion on item number five? It's no action. No action. Okay. Right.

And item number, item number six, we've got Dan Allison back to the podium.

Changing hats. This is Sacramento transit advocates and riders, and I'm speaking for them.

um star believes that any study of a route to the airport should include enhancement of existing bus

routes both by sac rt and by yolo bus um and should not focus solely on brt to the airport

because that would mean neglecting other alternatives which is better bus service

which is what star supports in the near term like now and not way off in the future

Thank you.

All right.

Item number six.

I also had a comment on item number six.

When I look at this, I don't see a whole lot of value, at least from Folsom's perspective, in BRT out to the airport.

If I were to tell people, you know, hop on a bus, head to a light rail station, hop on light rail, head to the bus station.

and then hop on the bus and head to the airport.

I don't think it's going to happen.

So, you know, my preference is definitely looking at, you know, light rail all the way to the airport.

I understand that's a large dollar amount.

But I guess really my question is, does it make sense to even study VRT going to the airport at this point?

Thank you for the question, Vice Chair Rathal.

So I'm going to ask Anthony Adams with SACRT to answer this question.

And I appreciate the vice chair providing this question in advance so we could make sure staff was here to answer it.

Thank you, Vice Chair Rathal, for the question and members of the board.

My name is Anthony Adams, Director of Planning for Sacramento Regional Transit.

So, yeah, Green Line to the airport has been planned for a while since the 2000s.

We actually approved the LPA in 2002.

We have an approved environmental document as well.

We haven't been able to advance that project for three key reasons.

One of them is the Truxell Bridge.

Truxell Bridge has to be built first.

That's a $250 million project.

Does not have environmental clearance.

Needs to be designed and constructed.

That's not scheduled until late 2030s.

We discussed the funding.

The light rail to the airport is estimated to cost over $2 billion.

There's no local funding currently committed to that project.

And as such, it's hard to advance a project that big.

In comparison, the BRT costs about a quarter of that amount.

And will provide about half of the ridership.

Finally, why are we doing BRT now and not just continue on with the light rail?

we have some right-of-way expiration that's going to happen in 2029.

About a third of the right-of-way that would be used for the light rail to the airport

is going to expire by 2029.

In order for us to retain that right-of-way,

we have to put a project on that exclusive right-of-way.

And we think we can use the BRT alignment for that.

We could do BRT in the interim, use that right-of-way,

provide a short-term interim benefit to the community.

And then once the funding comes in, we could lay rails,

do the overhead cantonary poles and the traction power substations,

and hopefully get light rail to the airport.

That is the goal of SACRT.

We haven't lost our vision for that,

but we do want to provide something in the interim

so we're not waiting another 20, 25 years to get to the airport.

Thank you.

Director Talamontes.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

And thank you so much for your question.

And just for my colleagues to know,

as someone that represents the communities living north of the river,

which is over 100,000 of us that live out there,

and the only connection right now that we have to downtown is the I-5

or Northgate and then coming down to 160.

So I'm really thankful for the question because I agree.

We need light rail to the airport.

And, like, why study it now?

And thank you so much for the explanation.

And just to put it on the record, like, the Truxell Bridge is one of my priorities.

And I will either accomplish it as a council member now

or as a private citizen when I'm 100 years old.

But it's so important to be able to get the Truxell Bridge

to connect all the communities living north of the river,

especially as we expand as a Sacramento region.

So I just, you know, that Truxell Bridge is part one of anything going to the airport.

So I appreciate the education, the information.

And I look forward to hopefully continuing the Truxell Bridge project

and getting it through all the hoops to be able to someday be able to apply for federal funding.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Director Dickinson.

Thanks.

I appreciate you raising the question.

and I have to confess to a certain amount of frustration about this particular subject.

Some of you a few months ago expressed your consternation about the apparent lack of progress with BRT on Stockton Boulevard,

which I also was very sympathetic to.

But we have only been working on getting light rail to the airport since 1990.

That's when the first study was done by regional transit of that extension.

And so, well, Director Talamantes may work at 100 years old to get the Truxell Bridge built.

I'm already 100 years old and still working on getting light rail to Sacramento International.

And I do think that is what makes sense for a number of reasons, which I'm not going to detail.

I have to say this project has doubled in cost over the years by virtue of the fact that we have not made more progress.

And actually it's more than doubled from where it originally started with the cost estimate by far,

admittedly decades ago.

Decades ago.

But I have to say I think that looking at some interim improvements at least makes sense,

even though it's not actually what I would ultimately support

nor have supported for years and years.

I don't think it will give the kind of results we want

in terms of service to the airport.

But in the meantime, is there something valuable and useful

we can do in this corridor that serves people who are there

and builds support for transit for the long run?

And so given those considerations, I'm going to support the staff recommendation.

Thanks.

And is that a motion on item number six?

I'll move it unless you want to.

Okay.

Please vote.

The motion passes.

And that takes us to item number nine.

Director Dickinson, you had some questions?

Thank you.

I just had a couple questions about this that weren't entirely clear to me.

You've been using QuickBooks primarily, or totally, at a cost of about $2,000 a year.

Now, it's got deficiencies.

You want to go to a different system.

I get all that.

But is it correct that it's going to cost us $218,000 to institute this system?

I looked at your timeline.

That timeline extends to late next year to do it.

And then it's going to cost us $40,000 plus per year compared to $2,000 we're paying now.

So, and I know you got five responses to your bid solicitation.

But it does make one wonder if there isn't a different solution that might not be quite such an expansion of cost in order to get these functions done.

Yes, I see the concern.

I felt it going through the RFP process.

We actually did end up choosing the lowest of the bids.

Price was a significant rating factor in the selection.

This is also a maximum amount and it also includes some things that will offset other things that we're doing with consultants.

Budget preparation and financial statement preparation.

That cost includes technical services to prepare those ourselves.

So it will save around the edges in other places.

But yes, the cost is high.

This is fundamentally financial accounting system.

Is that right?

Or software?

Yes.

To explain it a little bit better, our QuickBooks will not hold all of our data.

We have projects that we track and programs.

And right now it's very disaggregated among spreadsheets.

And if you were to ask me a question, it may take me a week to come back with an answer.

With a more sophisticated system, we will have real-time information and be able to

budget project out quicker and more reliably. So that's the goal of this transition.

And in drafting your specs or your bid solicitation, was there any other alternative short of

specifying something that attracts this kind of bid response with the cost associated? Could

you have done something between QuickBooks and this that would have been serviceable?

I did talk to vendors prior to the solicitation and after going through some consultations

with them the RFP was decided is a better way to do this just to help them flesh out

what do we really need and get better responses to software sales is sales.

So going the RFP route and I think this is a good result.

Okay.

Let me just one more and I don't want to prolong this too much.

Did you happen to consult with or confer with county staff, any of the city staff on what

they're doing for similar functionality?

The county and the city have much more sophisticated systems than what we require.

This is what I would say an in the middle system because we don't need the customization

that some of the larger agencies need.

We also did utilize GFOA to help us with this selection process so we got some input and

best practices from them through this and it was really beneficial to have their input

on this.

Okay.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Any other comments on item number nine?

We're all entertained a motion.

So moved.

Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second for staff recommendation.

And the motion passes.

All right, that takes us to item number 12.

Item 12 is receive a presentation from the Independent Taxpayer Oversight Committee

and approve the annual comprehensive financial report,

agreed upon procedures report, and governance letter.

Thank you.

Well, good afternoon, Vice Chair and Board of Directors.

I'm Dustin Purenton, the CFO with STA,

and I'm presenting this item today.

So to give us a summary, what is this?

What am I presenting?

This was the financial statement audit for the 2025 fiscal year.

We have yearly audits as designated by our ordinance, and we also have an independent taxpayer oversight committee that oversees this entire process.

And I have Robert Holderness here to present on the ITOC's duties and involvement in this process.

Thank you, Dustin.

Vice Chair Rathel and members, Robert G. Holderness appearing today as chair of your ITOC.

otherwise known as the Independent Taxpayers Oversight Committee.

I've had the honor of serving on this committee for about seven years,

three as a voting member, no, I'm sorry, six as a voting member,

and a couple more as a non-voting member appointed originally by Supervisor Rich Desmond.

I wanted to mention who the members are and what we do.

First off, our newest member is Geraldine Kraszewski, who's a former employee of SACOG.

She's a budget analyst, financial analyst-type person.

She's our newest member, and she's a great assistant to filling out the balance of our team.

Then Jose Luis Caceres is the second voting member.

He currently works for the Council of Governments in Stanislaus County.

He is essentially a transportation planner and I might tell you he's a brilliant at that effort and I'm the guy who brings the

background in transportation

Construction development and things of that sort and so we we meet several times a year

We're responsible for working with your staff

to

Have the financial statement that you will review in just a few minutes

It's prepared and adopted, approved.

And then we will later, at the beginning of next year,

first quarter of next year,

we'll bring forward the next performance audit,

which will help you see how the various member jurisdictions

are doing, performing their projects

that you all are either funding in total or in part.

And that's basically what our assignment is.

and we feel like we're a good bridge between your board, your staff,

the departments that are doing your projects, be they county projects,

city of Folsom, Citrus Heights, or whoever.

And I think we're doing good work for you, and I hope you feel the same.

And at that point, I should turn this back to Dustin

to get to the meat and potatoes of today.

Thank you, Bob.

All right, so just to go over some of the column buzzwords for how STA approaches accounting and financial aspects.

So we lead with transparency, stewardship, and stability.

We are constantly looking for ways to become more efficient and innovative in how we do things,

and that's part and parcel why we're bringing the ERP, RFP to this today.

So to go over the audit that just occurred and what you're going to be approving today,

it was performed by Lance Sol Lunghart.

It was an unmodified opinion with no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies.

Moving on to the performance audit that Bob mentioned,

this is going to be performed in the winter to spring of 2526.

We have Brown Armstrong Accountancy Corporation contracted for this project,

and we're currently scheduling with them.

and this is going to cover two years and this audit is different than the

financial statement audit it's a little bit more granular it's looking at how

things are being performed on an agency level and from an SCA staff level so

there are different results different audit procedures so the recommendation

today is to approve the two reports and then the audit communication letter and

and I'm open for any questions.

Any questions today?

Kevin?

Yeah, I just want to command

the Independent Taxpayer Oversight Committee.

They have been a really great resource for us.

They're all volunteering, right?

And they've been a great resource for us

to kind of look from the sales taxpayer perspective

on these items as we take them.

So most of these items that you're seeing on your agenda

were on their agenda before,

and they were vetting those

and looking at those in great detail

and just trying to make sure from the taxpayer standpoint,

you know, we're bringing as much value as we can.

And we just really appreciate their views.

They get into a lot of detail,

much more detail than probably you do at this board level

in really questioning us and just making sure that we're doing the best we can.

I really appreciate their efforts and

Mr. Holderness has been the chair for several years now. He's been doing a great job. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Holderness.

Can I get a motion to approve the item?

So moved.

Second.

For the record, you do not have any public comment on this item.

Thank you so much.

Director Guerra.

The motion passes by unanimous vote.

Thank you.

Next item, please.

Item number 13 is receive a presentation on a survey of likely Sacramento County voters' views on transportation priorities and a potential transportation ballot measure.

Okay.

Good afternoon.

VICE CHAIR AND BOARD MEMBERS.

NOW WE'RE GOING TO HAVE

CURTIS BELLOW WITH FM3.

HE'S GOING TO PRESENT.

HE'S ACTUALLY THE STAFF AND

SOME OF HIS STAFF ACTUALLY

DID THIS WORK.

SO THIS IS A SURVEY OF THE

VIEWS OF SACRAMENTO VOTERS.

WE DID THIS IN PARTNERSHIP

WITH SACRT.

SACRT IS FUNDING ABOUT HALF

OF THIS.

SO WE CAN REALLY UNDERSTAND

WHAT ARE THE INTERESTS IN

BOTH FUTURE TRANSPORTATION

FUNDING, WHAT ARE THE OVERALL

TRANSPORTATION NEEDS, AND

transportation needs just to get a really good understanding of what the interests are and maybe the areas that we may need to improve on as far as either education or focus areas on addressing certain pain points for the public.

With that, I'm going to hand it over to Curtis. Thank you.

All right, thank you, Kevin. I'm happy to be here to present these results.

And my name is Curtis Bailow. I'm a partner at FM3 Research.

the

first question.

Let me go through these first

a quick note about the methodology

most importantly when we conducted

the survey which was the end of

August beginning of September

pretty traditional methodology

these days which is some

interviews on the phone some

online reaching out to voters

through a variety of different

means we offer the surveys in

English and Spanish we have

some tracking data here. We did

a base sample across the entire

of the cities that were so we can get those margins of air down a little bit better.

We can't drill down to every single locality in the county without really expanding the

scope of the research.

But that gives us a little more confidence in reporting results on a couple of the other

cities in the county.

And so let me go through the first section here, which is more just big picture, how

do voters in the county view life in the county and how that might impact the way they look

at a potential revenue measure.

Here's the old right direction, wrong track question.

The wrong track wins here at the plurality.

47% said the county's headed in the wrong direction.

Wrong track, not that different from similar research we conducted a few years ago.

Slightly fewer in the right direction.

This is something we're seeing everywhere.

There's a lot of misgivings about the future of the country, the state, local governments up and down.

the state here. So this is not an unusual finding. But it does give us a little insight. There's some

uncertainty here amongst the electorate. Director Rodriguez has got a question real quick. I just

have a question. So just to clarify, when the questions went out, it was the entire county,

regardless whether it was in a city or the unincorporated, it was the entire county. Okay.

Yes. Yes. Sorry if that was unclear. But yes, it was a countywide survey, including incorporated

and incorporated portions of the county.

Thank you.

So there's that wrong track number,

almost a 50%.

What are voters concerned about?

And we ask a question of here's particular problems

that some people say are facing the county here.

You tell us how serious of a problem you think this is.

And they use a scale of extremely, very somewhat,

or not too important if they're more dismissive.

We tend to focus, you hear me say this a couple times,

on the more intense reactions,

the extremely or very serious problem,

ones that are really on people's minds, keeping them up at night.

And there are clear three winners at the top of this list, cost of living issues and homelessness.

And we did inflation, cost of housing, a little distinct.

Sometimes in communities, we've seen the distinction there.

Not the case here, but those are clearly the top three things that are on people's minds right now.

I mean, those are really, you know, frankly, when you get to 50%, 60% in the extremely serious category,

that is unusual.

So below that dashed red line,

there's still a bunch of items

where solid majorities are feeling

some level of appreciable level of concern.

We get a few of the transportation-related items here.

And we did a mixture of things

that a measure might address

and some other things as benchmarks.

Obviously, STA has, you know,

crime is a broad category,

but where does that stack up?

And it's actually kind of at the same level

as like potholes and traffic.

So it's interesting to note that.

local government waste and mismanagement and we that's broadly local government.

Again that's a pretty high concern level if you're trying to pass a revenue measure

just as a note particularly that 44% an extremely serious problem.

The second slide here you'll see that those dark orange bars went from 60 50 and now the end of

the 20s and even below that number and then the dark blue bars start to get a little bit bigger

and you'll see that these are a variety of items that people just voters comparatively don't see as big of a problem.

Now, if you added all three of those orange bars and added those somewhat serious problems,

virtually everything here is seen as at least a somewhat serious problem by a majority of voters,

but the intensity is dramatically different.

And you'll see that we asked about a variety of other traffic, transportation-related items about congestion on local streets and speeding.

federal matching dollars and all these things were sort of more in a middle tier.

And then below that dashed line is where we saw things that were below roughly 50%

who felt like they were an extremely very serious problem.

And the dark blue bars got bigger.

And it was around bus and light rail service, air quality, and safe bicycle routes.

I thought I just hit the middle button.

Did I mishit something?

know why he's why we're getting that set up I did ask Curtis to drill down on

this particular question and give us a by agency kind of version of this answer

so there's an attachment to this in the to this item that that goes hey for the

here's what looks like for the city of Elk Grove here's what here's the

answers are for Folsom Sacramento unincorporated that was a request by

Kevin Spees and I made that available to everyone so it's an attachment to this.

Thank you Kevin. So a few of these items not all of them we asked in prior research and so we've

put those plotted out here in his chart. So the far right hand side is the difference between 2021

and 2025 in terms of the percentage of respondents who thought something was an extremely very serious

problem. Air quality took a real drop there in terms of levels of concern which is kind of

of interesting. But I think other items make a little more sense here, which is reductions in

state and federal funding for transportation. Those concerns are more heightened amount people

paying taxes. Many of these were kind of returning to levels that they were in 2019

after changing somewhat in 2021. I will just note here that, you know, that the cost of housing

number there that has gone up every every time we've asked about it pretty appreciably there.

So there's some of these things that are just on a real upward trajectory.

Now, all that being said, we did ask this hypothetical question, sort of a generically,

do you feel like for a variety of transportation-related items, high roads, highways, transit, bike paths, sidewalks,

do you think the county for this entire network has a need for additional funds?

And the scale is, is there a great need, some need, a little need, or no real need?

And we tend to look at that great in some need because we've seen historically that correlates most strongly with support for revenue measure.

And that's at like two-thirds.

So basically, it's two-thirds of voters in this electorate we looked at here, the November 2026 electorate, said, hey, there is an appreciable need for funding for transportation-related items.

And only about a quarter were a little more dismissive about that.

And lastly, just as probably nothing that needs to be, everyone here is much more of an expert on this than I am, but most people are driving cars around here.

We did also ask about transportation patterns in terms of do they walk or ride for transportation.

We try to be specific about that and not be about just for recreation.

A fair amount do that.

And then we also had asked about ride sharing and public transit as well.

So about one in five said they take public transit at least occasionally.

Okay, that's all the background.

So that's kind of where voters' heads are.

They're a little uncertain about the future, really concerned about cost of living issues,

and not as maybe concerned about some of the transportation issues,

but still feel like there's a need for more funding for the transportation network, broadly speaking.

So with all that, how might they react to a potential revenue measure?

and here's the hypothetical ballot language we used.

It's very similar to the language that you tested before

and I think Kevin mentioned sort of gives us

a little more of an apples to apples,

not perfectly,

cran-apple to apple comparison here

from the prior survey,

but as a half-cent sales tax

and a variety of different things

that could be spent on the transportation realm

and this is two-thirds measured.

The way we ask this question is that we say,

hey, would you vote yes or no on this?

And then we push you.

Are you definitely or probably yes?

And if someone was initially undecided, we asked them, are they leaning one way or so?

Right out the gate, half said yes, 37% said no, 14% were undecided.

And then we pushed them.

And then we get three flavors of yes and three flavors of no.

Because if somebody, particularly in our survey, maybe they're only leaning towards a yes or leaning towards a no.

But if we ask them multiple times in the survey and they're still leaning yes or leaning no, they're probably a yes or a no.

And so we try to get them out of the undecided category a little bit.

But it also gives us a sense of maybe if a bunch of leaners were to peel off on the yes side, where would that leave us?

And so right now we're at, this is a 56% yes, 39% no, with pretty similar levels of intensity on the yes and no side.

And very few truly undecided voters.

So 5% of voters were essentially asked twice, and they still were undecided.

That's a pretty low number.

fairly common for a sales tax measure.

And here's the comparison that I referenced.

The ballot language was similar.

It got a little more focused on transportation issues.

The items around job creation and things and housing,

we kind of peeled some of those out

to be a little more transportation-focused,

given some of the results,

but ended up basically the same place,

mid-50s in both surveys.

What we often like to do is after initial vote in a survey of this nature, say, hey, you said you're going to vote yes on this measure.

Tell us why in your own words.

So they typed it in or told the interviewer on the phone.

We try to cram them into categories.

It's imperfect.

This adds up to more than 100% because people can say all sorts of things.

But it gives us a sense if we're missing anything, right?

This is just they heard 75 words or read it.

Why would you vote yes?

You said you're voting yes.

Why?

And the road safety, road repair kind of stuff was at the top.

And public transportation was the next category.

About one in five mentioned that.

And then kind of, you know, your differences between 4% and 5% and 10%, 11% kind of margin of air differences.

So there was a wide range of other rationales.

But basic road repairs and transit transportation were the top two categories.

On the no side, same drill here.

If someone said there are no vote, this is not asking everybody, just no voters.

Why?

Well, don't raise my taxes.

I'm concerned about government waste and mismanagement.

And the next third kind of category there is I think there's probably already money out there to do these things.

I will note that, you know, it's a too expensive cost of living.

It's interesting here that that is a really high concern.

Like 80% of voters think the cost of living is extremely very important.

a very serious problem.

But even amongst no voters, only about one in 10 of them

cited tax fatigue as a category,

but they weren't like this is directly going to impact my cost

of living.

There's other sort of anti-tax sentiment

maybe attached to this opposition.

We obviously have the ability to break this out

in a variety of different ways.

We're just kind of keeping this high level

for this presentation.

This is by the five supervisorial districts.

And you'll see that support was kind of,

We'll just round here a little bit and say around 60% in districts 1, 2, and 3, and around 50% in districts 4 and 5.

But the intensity of the definitely S is pretty consistent there.

And then by cities here, and we can't go into every single city because we didn't have enough sample.

And even here, margins of error, 7, 8% range.

But you'll see the support is greater in Sacramento and Rancho Cordova, around 60%.

and then kind of at that 50-ish range, plus or minus a few points in Folsom, Milk Grove, Citrus Heights, and those unincorporated portions of the county.

And I told you that there's a tight correlation here.

So when we ask that need for funding question, that's independent of how money would be generated.

Just, hey, Transportation Network doesn't need more money.

And we saw about two-thirds said, yes, there's greater some need for more funds.

If a voter said there's a great need, they're at 84% yes.

If they said some need, 63% yes, which is actually pretty high.

But for a two-thirds measure, you're still having people who feel like there's an appreciable need there,

but you're not quite even getting the two-thirds quite there.

Strong majority, though.

If you feel like there's only a little or no real need for funding, you're largely a no.

You can see, like, as that funding need perception changes and particularly becomes more intense,

we tend to see much more stronger support for a ballot measure.

All right, so we do a little bit of sensitivity testing in the course of our surveys.

It's not a perfect representation of what might happen in an electoral environment,

something's placed on the ballot, but it gives us a sense of here's some rationales to support a measure.

Does it change your mind?

Here's some rationales to oppose a measure.

Does it change your mind?

It kind of models every single voter getting every single piece of information,

which is a little unrealistic.

but it gives us a sense of the ceiling and floor.

If you're throwing everything at something,

is it moving much?

In this case, we were able to push support up two points

from 56% to 58%.

So there was something kind of a little bit of a ceiling there,

that 60% number we couldn't quite get to.

And then when we came in with critical statements,

support did drop to 49%.

Now, it didn't completely flip or anything.

There's still a plurality saying they'd vote yes,

but there was some wiggle room within kind of a 10-point range.

And I think the last section here is investment areas.

So this is not FM3.

We are not transportation engineers, transportation planners,

but this is us just putting out a variety of different ways

that funds could be invested from a measure

and some of the benefits of them.

So some of these are more specific and tangible investment areas,

and some are more sort of the benefits of those investments.

And we ask the respondents to indicate, well, how important are these to you?

And they could say extremely or somewhat or not too important.

And we, again, focus on the more intense reactions,

extremely and very important in those darker blue bars.

And you'll see a theme here is that everything is seen as in this first slide

at least somewhat important, everything.

Most everything here, about half feel is extremely important.

So a pretty high level of intensity around.

And you'll see a couple themes here.

Repairing streets and roads in worse condition.

Preventing conditions from getting worse.

Fixing potholes.

Repairing streets that are used the most.

A lot of repairing roads in there.

And a few of the things about things that are in the worst shape.

There were some things around, you know, public safety items, you know, emergency responding, responders not getting stuck in traffic, safe routes to school, that was in there.

And also, you know, seniors, disabled, veterans, student transit fees, keeping those affordable, fell into that sort of top bucket as well.

And that fatalities, you know, we didn't see traffic safety as one of the top concerns.

but when we explain you know said is this an important goal for a measure yeah

a lot of voters said yeah that seems like a very important goal. And a few

slides here so moving our way down so now the dark blue bars are going from

let's say roughly 50 to kind of like mid upper 30s 40 percent still those

owners bars are small so no one's dismissing these but the intensity is

changing here and you'll see you know a few items around matching funds we

We framed that a few different ways here.

Not losing out on matching funds.

We're getting access to them.

Kind of the same.

Traffic congestion reduction.

Improving safety at transit stops.

Keeping them a good repair.

So we've got sort of the traffic congestion,

the transit stops, and matching funds

kind of in this more of a second tier.

And now we're moving down here again.

We're still seeing less than one in five.

dismiss any of these as priorities.

Those dark blue bars are in the 20s now.

And this is where we talk things about modernizing, improving.

See how we have a few of those phrases in here

versus when we talked about repairing and fixing.

Those were on the first slide of the series.

And then as we get down to the end of this series,

and I apologize, this is a lot of data to absorb here.

we start to see a couple of those orange bars get bigger.

Like a third of the respondents said addressing climate change

wasn't a particularly important goal for a measure like this.

Still a majority thought it was at least somewhat important.

So that was probably one of the more polarized item there.

We framed it a few different ways, just generically addressing climate change.

And then second from the bottom, we tried to tie it to lower polluting vehicles

addressed climate change.

Didn't make a huge difference.

You know there's some things here providing free bus and light rail fares to students.

Much lower priority than keeping it affordable for that wide range of important populations.

So there's some big distinctions here if you look at the first stuff on the first slide from the first to the last slide.

Director Besey, you wanted to add something?

Yeah, I just wanted to add something to this.

I mean there's a lot of questions.

There's actually too many questions.

So we had to split sample these questions out.

And so you'll see, you know, if you really want to get into this, you'll see that we basically asked about the same thing multiple different ways, just to understand where the interest was, right?

So I guess if an example would be, do you want to replace the existing bus fleet to meet the zero emission vehicle requirement at the state level?

Or do you want to make sure your buses are under state grid repair?

Like we asked both questions to see which one is actually more supported.

And so there's a lot of data here, but it's intended to understand where the interests are and where the support is for a lot of these things.

I just wanted to add that.

Yep.

Thank you, Kevin.

And actually, I think, I'm going to go back.

Oops.

Sorry.

Yeah, sorry.

We have the ability to sort of work with the staff on pulling those distinctions out.

Last slide in this series.

Again, yeah, thanks, Kevin.

It was split sample.

It was a long list.

This is the last slide here, and this is where we start to see the extremely very important numbers dip below 50% for some of these items here.

And again, this is a lot of the expanding, improving, connecting types of things versus some of the items we saw earlier on.

Now, again, in order to address traffic congestion on local freeways and highways, which is towards the top of the second slide,

these are some of the ways you get there but you know it's sort of the output

versus the input sometimes voters focus more on the benefit than how you get

there and I think that gets us to just our couple quick takeaways here there's

some anxiety about the county's direction but that's not limited to the

county that's sort of a national anxiety I'd say they're you know homeless cost

living things top the list and you know there are things like traffic concerns you know they

have those have they drop and they've kind of come back to those pre-pandemic levels

but at the same time concerns about cost of living have also escalated quite a bit in that time

period. So while concerns of traffic are more pronounced and would suggest that may be of more

you know an electorate that's more open to supporting a measure the cost of living concerns

have just surpassed those.

So that's creating a different dynamic there.

At the same time, voters, two-thirds say the county needs funds.

So in the big picture, the support levels haven't changed that much

from when it was last evaluated in 2023,

kind of in the mid-50s, mid-upper 50s.

We're seeing this in many other counties as well.

And trying to push that support up with a variety of rationales

got us a little more support but suggest that that two-thirds level is just is way up there and

there's no data that suggests that that's sort of viable right now although the 50% number

staying above that that that seems like a different ballgame. So I think that kind of gets me to the end here.

Director Rodriguez.

Thank you for the presentation.

That was incredibly informative, and I did actually look through the whole entire survey

because there was so much valuable information.

But something, being on STA now for five years,

one thing that I've noticed is all the different cities and the unincorporated

have all sort of different needs when it comes to transportation.

Just looking at the ballots, I think it was in 18 and 22,

you've got Elk Grove and Rancho that have a tax measure

that they have been investing into their roads.

And it's been evident because their PCI has gone up.

For the city of Folsom that doesn't have it,

that PCI is going down,

but there are some financial challenges that are happening there

in addition to, say, Citrus Heights

that is investing in transportation

and has certain needs.

But when we do a measure out to the entire county of Sacramento,

I think one of the reasons why it has failed

is because all of these cities have specific needs.

And if I lived in Rancho or Elk Grove,

I've already got a one-cent tax that I'm being taxed on

and my city is investing in the improvement of roads.

Therefore, why should I support something that is countywide?

so I've learned a lot from the 18 and the 22 measure a and and so I think one of the conclusions

that I've made that really even may coincide here I haven't looked at it broken down by cities

is that every city is going to have its own specific needs but when you do a county-wide

measure I think it just may continue to fail just because I all of these cities have their own

specific needs. That's just my

beliefs and

even like the unincorporated, you know,

for the unincorporated, the PCI

is 41. There are some

pretty serious needs when you drive

around the unincorporated parts of the county

and you have nice neighborhoods

and really bad roads

and so it's just interesting

to see the dynamics of the cities

and the unincorporated and some of the

needs that I think are just

being, that have come out in this survey.

But thank you for the presentation. The survey information was very valuable.

Director Hume.

Thank you, Chair.

So my first question is kind of splitting hairs a little bit, but I just want to get a better idea of the sentiment of the respondents.

on the right track, wrong track question.

Was the sentiment more around things in general,

a malaise towards government generally,

or was it more specifically our local governments are failing us?

Yeah, I mean, that question, the way we structured it,

is high level, virtually as you described it,

right direction, wrong track.

So it is not, and we said just in the county,

and so we didn't say narrow it to a specific locality.

And what we do this, we include that question for a couple of reasons.

One is it's a pretty good warm-up question, frankly, to get people into the cadence.

And it gives a sense of whether or not people are sort of optimistic or pessimistic, broadly speaking.

We do see as national optimism or pessimism changes that reflects those questions

even when we ask about in your county, in your city.

So I think it's a little hard to parse out exactly that question, and is that entirely about their perceptions of local government, or is there a bigger statewide and national factors influencing their sort of perceptions about the future?

Sorry, I don't have a perfect answer for that, but it's not about your local government right direction, wrong track.

And actually, before you answer Mr. Buskey, you did answer my question, which is it is a general discontent and not necessarily that those guys there have been doing a bad job.

Was that fair to say?

It might.

Well, in fairness, it could be a little bit of both.

And that question is not designed to tease that out.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

I was just going to clarify.

We did have a question that was going to be specific to every city and asking that question.

And we did not include that in the polling results.

So for sure that was not asked on a specific city by city or county by county basis.

It was a very general question.

Well, I mean, like I said, it is splitting hairs because for these respondents,

if you ask them to name one of their local elected officials, they would probably be hard-pressed to do so.

So, I mean, it's a general, you know, discontent and not necessarily something that they can attribute to any individual.

Now I want to make more of just an opinion statement, and I made this case at a SACOG meeting recently.

and that is that unfortunately I think many of us sit up here and we look at these things as a

value proposition or a statement of values rather not necessarily a value proposition but a statement

of values and when we ask people what's important to them they tell us and yet we continue to reject

what they tell us is important to them in order to pursue what we perceive as higher value and I

think that to the extent we continue to do that, these numbers are going to

continue going in the wrong direction as far as support and trust in us to do

the right thing as far as the constituency is concerned.

Director Talamantes.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Okay, so I know we just got the presentation and I know that there's a subcommittee on it.

So did we decide as the subcommittee, did they get the presentation before us before it came here?

Yeah, they did.

They got the presentation before, and they made sort of a recommendation, which we included,

saying that 2026 did not make sense for a county-wide measure, and we need to take a

little longer approach on it and look at 28.

So we did a little receive and file item just saying we're looking at 28, but our chair

of that subcommittee can probably give you a little more detail.

Okay.

I was just wondering if today we needed to take any kind of formal action to let people

know that we would not be pursuing this.

Yeah, I think I intentionally, you know,

we're talking with the chair of the subcommittee

as well as the chair of the board.

We intentionally wanted to make sure

there was something on the agenda under receiving file

saying that we're looking at 28 instead of 2026.

And we intentionally put that in the agenda title.

So hopefully if someone just reads the agenda,

they'll see that.

Okay, wonderful.

And for me, the presentation that we received last time,

it wasn't from SMART.

What was the name of the group that presented all the active transportation advocates?

SAC Moves Coalition.

SAC Moves Coalition.

I think that these results show us that people still, I mean, like Director Hume said,

I mean, they want to make sure that they know where their dollars are going.

They want accountability.

They want transparency.

And the biggest strength that we have here are the people that presented to us last time.

the smart, you know, coalition, the nonprofit,

and the coalition of transportation advocates

that are from our communities

that do the work day in and day out.

So for me, as we continue to 2028,

we need to make sure that we partner with community leaders

to be able to start having these conversations

with neighborhood associations

so that we can get this done.

And so that's my director,

my ask to the team to, you know, to pursue that.

Director Guerra.

Thank you very much. And thank you, Director Busey, clarified there that we did do at least a receiving file here on what our collective next steps are.

And I do want to thank the members of the subcommittee and also those of the regional transit leadership as well that participated.

Thank you, Chair Rathel and also Mayor Singh Allen as well for under different hats.

And that's the interesting part is we're at SACOG, we're on our team, we're on STA.

And I think in this process, we probably had much more interagency discussion about the mood of the voters and the challenges we face.

So I think that's an important thing moving forward that we have to continue.

And if there's something that STA can play a role on, is that interagency convening.

I think that's an important factor, a takeaway.

The second thing that came out of this discussion was that the voters, and correct me if I'm wrong here,

the voters basically recognized that these projects cost a lot.

And they also recognized that the work needs to be done.

There was at least two specific points that wasn't in this presentation,

but I think was drilled down to regional transit and the subcommittee working groups,

the two working groups, was that their biggest concern was that they feel already that there are tax dollars associated to get accomplished this work,

both at the state level and the current measure level.

And there isn't a true understanding or a recognition from voters on how those dollars are being spent

and whether they're actually affecting the condition of the roadway in front of their home,

on their way to school, on the way to their business.

And so those, I think, that will continue to be a problem until 2008

if we don't address that significant challenge that every one of our jurisdictions face.

So the subcommittee, and I think both subcommittees for regional transit and STA,

had the direction to staff that they work with our professional advisory group to discuss what is the level of education outreach needed so that we engage voters more.

Because right now when voters and residents, I don't want to say voters, just residents in general, are feeling as a frustration that they are paying into transportation funding, but they're not seeing the results of that.

And so why would they ever support any new tax dollars if that linkage isn't addressed?

So we have our work cut out ahead of us, not as STA, but as also independent agencies.

And even those in areas that have good pavement right now in the next 10 years,

that pavement analysis will continue to decline without any dedicated revenue for maintenance.

But can you clarify if I articulated those conflicts of how voters see where the challenges are and where the needs are,

and they recognize that those needs are there, but they don't see that connection of their government doing or using it for the intended purpose?

Yeah, when you see in this presentation that 68% feel like there's an appreciable need for funding,

so that funding need is understood, and then we didn't go through the details,

but I think you're referencing one of the more compelling rationales for voting no

was the gas tax and stuff like that.

So, exactly.

Very good. Thank you.

And I think just for staff, our continued work for our board

is to work with our agencies, our Department of Transportation,

and figure out what's our collective strategy in engaging our community

and whether that means STA doing more work or having it at the local level,

I think that helped us out in Measure B,

and we missed it by that much, as for those who remember that show.

But that's because our local agencies were involved at that beginning.

Director Rodriguez?

I just want to make one more comment.

But Director Guerra really hit the nail on the head when it comes to

I've had a lot of conversations the past several, I would say three months,

on transportation-related issues.

And one thing I hear back is,

what are you doing with my Measure A and the gas tax money?

Because that seems to be like something,

you should have enough money.

But the other thing I hear quite a bit is,

why don't you go tax the electric car owners?

And so there seems to be this,

they're using the roads as well,

but they're not getting taxed.

And so I think that issue needs to be addressed

at some point is because people may be gas-driving cars,

but they feel that now that we have a much more higher number of electric vehicle drivers,

they're not getting taxed on that, but yet they're also using the roads.

So I just want to share that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Rodriguez.

Any other comments from the board today?

Director Dickinson?

Thanks.

I would make a number of observations that could be made,

But one of the observations that I think we have not fully appreciated is what worked and what didn't work with SB1 and the effort to overturn SB1,

which was a campaign premised on public safety, not on transportation.

For those of you who think back to 2018, when that effort was on the ballot statewide to overturn SB1,

the campaign to defeat the effort to overturn it was premised on the need to protect public safety.

so that first responders could get to wherever they needed to go in an expeditious and timely fashion.

You touched on it in the survey.

You asked the question.

It wasn't quite the highest, but it was at 82%, I think.

But part of this, I think, effort to try to have a discussion that the public responds to is also about what kinds of issues you emphasize.

So going into that campaign, I can tell you that the people who had been involved in getting SB1 passed

weren't thinking at all in terms of arguing against the effort to overturn it by emphasizing public safety.

They were thinking about all the things we talk about.

They were thinking about fixing the roads.

They were thinking about cutting down commute times.

They were thinking about better transit connections,

all those things that are embodied in the substance of SB1.

But that's not what worked as the message to the voters.

So there's that element that I think we probably don't appreciate enough.

And I think, secondly, an element I think we do appreciate, but we haven't been successful at communicating, is what we're doing, what the resources are, and why there's a shortfall.

It includes things like why aren't EV drivers getting taxed?

And they're not getting taxed because one of the deals made in SB1 was, thanks to the governor at that time, that they wouldn't be taxed, pay more than $100 a year.

That was part of the deal.

They don't necessarily appreciate that gas tax revenues are declining over time.

They don't necessarily appreciate it, nor should we expect somebody out there living their life to get all this without somebody presenting it to them.

so education I think continues to be

an elemental part of our job

so that the public and ultimately the voters

can make rational decisions about what they want to do

in terms of spending more money

and what they want to spend it for if at all

and I think that's why when the recommendation

will be coming in February

to this board

on what next steps make sense,

education is going to be the foundation of that effort.

We have to do a better job of that.

And frankly, not in so much an advocacy sense

because of the outcome we're looking for,

but so the public more broadly can get to the kinds of things

that Director Hume is talking about

and making those kinds of decisions for themselves

about what they want to see, what they don't want to see,

what they may aspire to, which often I think people don't think about.

They don't necessarily realize what the benefits of better transit service may be.

They live with life as it is and adjust to that.

So I think these are all elements of the discussion that we need to do a better job of framing.

and then we need, when we get to the point,

if we ever do, of putting something on the ballot

of understanding how we characterize those things

the public cares about in order to promote

the ultimate success of any measure

that they have a chance to vote on.

Thank you, Director Dickinson.

Any other comments from the board?

Do we have any public comments?

You don't have any public comments.

All right.

I'll entertain a motion.

on item 13.

There's no action on this.

Oh.

Alright. There we go. We're all good.

We'll turn it over to

Director Busey for the Executive Director's

Support. Wonderful.

We've got three items

for you to talk about. So countywide

VMT mitigation strategy update.

We presented

twice to the board

and we plan to come back in February

with another

presentation and a recommendation.

So we have a VMT strategy working

group made up of the staff from all the

agencies

receiving Measure A or doing transportation

including

SACOG and our

transportation demand management agencies or TMAs

actually. We did a survey

of all those

users and we got feedback

on some preliminary recommendations

at our

October 16th meeting. Essentially the

working group reached a general consensus on the establishment of a countywide VMT mitigation

bank to mitigate VMT associated with both transportation and land use projects.

Revenue generated from the bank would be eligible for mitigation measures such as active

transportation, transit, rail, infill housing, and transportation demand management program.

And nearly all the agencies expressed support for SDA to serve as the lead agency to establish

AND ADMINISTER THE PROGRAM. BUT THERE'S A COUPLE CAVEATS TO

THIS. SO I THINK THERE IS STILL SOME

ISSUES THAT NEED TO BE WORKED OUT. THAT'S WHY IT'S NOT HERE TODAY.

SOME OF IT HAS TO DO WITH THE METHODOLOGIES THAT WE'RE USING,

MAKING SURE IT'S COST EFFECTIVE. THERE'S ALSO CONCERN ABOUT RETURN

TO SOURCE AND CONSISTENCY WITH THE SEQUEL REQUIREMENTS.

THOSE ARE ALL THINGS THAT I THINK WE NEED TO WORK OUT WHICH WE'RE

WE'RE IN THE PROCESS OF DOING THAT.

HOWEVER, IN PARALLEL, SACOG HAS

RECENTLY INITIATED ITS OWN

EXPLORATION OF A REGIONAL VMT

MITIGATION STRATEGY.

PRIMARILY INTENDED TO SUPPORT

GREEN MEANS GO.

SO WE'RE COORDINATING WITH SACOG

CURRENTLY AND WE'LL HAVE TO SEE,

I THINK THEY'RE MUCH EARLIER ON

IN THE PROCESS OF TRYING TO

FIGURE OUT WHAT THEY WANT TO DO.

AND WE'LL SEE WHAT WE CAN DO TO

SORT OF ACCOMMODATE THEM WITHIN

WHAT WE'RE DOING.

And then ultimately I think the recommendations will come back in the spring of 2026 with what we think we could do from that standpoint.

Director Dickinson may have some questions on that item.

Oh, I just had a comment actually with respect to the VMT mitigation strategy, which I think makes a great deal of sense to develop.

but I hope the discussion with regard to return to source in particular

appreciates that while the first priority might be to try to mitigate

within the jurisdiction in which the impacts are felt,

that it won't be limited to that.

In other words, you wouldn't want to have a policy, it seems to me,

or a strategy that couldn't be applied if for some reason

it either couldn't be mitigated,

the impact couldn't be mitigated within the jurisdiction,

or there was something that was a better,

more efficacious use of the resources to mitigate impact,

but it fell outside the jurisdiction.

You know, we do, we all live in the same county.

And so, well, I think, as I say,

it's desirable to mitigate within the jurisdiction if you can,

if it's feasible and cost effective to do that.

I wouldn't want to have a strategy,

at least I would hope, let me put it this way,

I would hope the strategy wouldn't be limited

to that as a requirement

because there are things you might be able to mitigate for

but outside the jurisdiction

that would be very, very valuable.

And so that's just a thought, I hope,

for the conversation on that particular issue.

Thanks.

Okay, wonderful.

And then at the last board meeting,

we talked about the regional project prioritization

and trying to identify

countywide priorities.

So we met

with the professional advisory group on October 9th

and we came to

some agreements on certain priorities.

Actually, sorry,

we met on October 6th and we came to agreement

on certain priorities.

And then we met again on November 7th

to try to come up with

finalized a few more. Unfortunately, we were unable to do that.

So there are a couple of programs we just felt like we couldn't prioritize at the county level.

But for the programs that we could, we did. And so we submitted a letter

to SACOG on those priorities. And it is attached to the executive

director's support. And then finally, I Street Bridge

replacement project financing. So we've been, you know, working since

August. We got direction to put together an agreement on the interim financing

FOR THAT PROJECT. WE CONTINUE TO WORK WITH CITY OF SACRAMENTO, OUR FINANCIAL ADVISOR,

LEGAL COUNCIL, OR BOND COUNCIL TO REFINE A PROPOSED FINANCING STRUCTURE. WE HAVE DETERMINED

THAT A MEASURE A MAINTENANCE FUNDS ARE NOT AN APPROPRIATE SOURCE TO SECURE A LINE OF CREDIT

FOR THE BRIDGE PORTION OF THE PROJECT, BUT OTHER MEASURE A CAPITAL AND ONGOING FUNDS COULD

SUPPORT THE FINANCING, LIKELY COULD NOT SUPPORT THE FULL FINANCING THAT THE CITY NEEDS.

but we are working with the city

to and its

legal counsel to come up with a solution

to try to move that project forward although

it's likely SDA will likely

be a part of the solution but we may not be the

entirety of the solution

I just wanted to give an update because it's been a while

since we had that discussion so

open any questions

Director Talonantes

does this delay

impact any of the funding

that we've received from Caltrans

does it jeopardize any of the funding

Not to my knowledge.

My understanding is that the city of Sacramento does not have authority to expend those funds yet

and is still seeking authority to spend those funds.

So I think the city is still looking at maintaining their current schedule for the project.

Any other questions for Director Busi today?

All right.

We'll move to item number 15.

Director Dalamontes, do you have a report out on CARTA?

No, nothing exciting, but I didn't realize it takes like 10 hours of my week every single week.

Well, thank you for doing that.

Yeah.

And, Director Guerra, I know we covered a lot of the transportation funding subcommittee.

Anything else to add?

Asked and answered.

And Director Hume, SDA's role in the region subcommittee?

I have not met.

All right.

Any other comments from the board today?

And we are adjourned at 244.

Thank you.