Good afternoon.

We're gonna go ahead and call to order the Sacramento Transportation Authority for February 20th.

Will you please call the roll?

Who's chair?

Bouleahan.

Here Desmond?

Dickinson?

Yo.

Gera?

Hume?

Here.

Kennedy?

Maple?

Middleton?

Here.

And Director Middleton at this time it would be appropriate.

I am participating chair under the just calls rules.

Okay, man.

And there's no other individual in the room with me.

Thank you.

Okay.

Oh, thank you.

Polapati.

Rodriguez.

Here.

Sing Allen?

Here.

Spees?

Here.

Calamantes?

Here.

Vang.

Avdis.

Here.

Pluckybom?

And Vice Chair Raythel.

Welcome to STA.

Director Bouleahan.

Do you want to start us off and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance today?

And to the Republic.

One nation under God.

Indivisible.

All right.

Will you please read the announcements for today?

Yes.

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

It is cable cast on Metro Cable Channel 14, the local government affairs channel on the Comcast and Direct TV Uverse Cable Systems.

It is also live streamed at Metro14Live.sackCounty.gov.

Today's meeting replays Sunday, February 22nd at 2 p.m.

on Metro Cable Channel 14.

Once posted, the recording of this meeting can be viewed on demand at YouTube.com forward slash metro cable 14.

To make an in-person public comment, please complete your speaker request form and hand it to the clerk.

The chairperson will call your name when it's your turn to make a comment.

To make a teleconference public comment, please raise your hand and ver virtually by pressing the raise hand button in the zoom or by pressing star nine.

The clerk will unmute you so that you may make your comment during the public comment portion of the meeting.

You may send written comments by email to board clerk at saccounty.gov.

Your comment will be routed to the board and filed in the record.

Alright, that brings us to comment items.

Do we have any comments from the public regarding matters not in the agenda today?

You do not have any public comments here in person.

If you wish to make a virtual public comment, please raise your hand.

Seeing none.

Item two is selection of chair and vice chair for calendar year 2026.

Yes.

I'd like to make a motion that our current vice chair, Director Rathel, be the incoming chair.

Second.

We will be taking voice votes on all items today.

Perfect.

Will you please call the roll?

Absolutely.

Directors Boulihan?

R.

Dickinson?

Gera.

Hume?

Aye.

Middleton.

Aye.

Rodriguez?

Aye.

Sing Allen.

Aye.

Spees?

Aye.

Talamantes.

And Vice Chair Raithel.

Hi.

I'm sorry.

Also, Plucky Baum.

Abdis.

My apologies.

And the motion passes.

All right.

And then we do have a nomination for the vice chair.

I know we had put together some background information.

Did you want to add anything?

Yeah, just that uh traditionally there's been a rotation between the cities and the county, and so traditionally the vice chair would come from the county board of supervisors.

Um those interested from the county board of supervisors are supervisors Hume, Kennedy, and Rodriguez in the vice chair role.

I'd like to nominate um Hume for vice chair.

All right, we have a nomination, and we don't need a second.

We do need a second.

Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second.

Please call the roll.

Okay.

Boulahan.

Dickinson?

Aye.

Hume?

Aye.

Middleton.

Aye.

Rodriguez?

Aye.

Sing Allen?

Aye.

Spees?

Aye.

Telemontes.

Aye.

Pluckyball.

Avdis.

Aye.

And Chair Raithel.

Aye.

The motion passes.

All right.

That moves us to our consent items today.

Do we have any questions or comments from the board on consent items?

Or any requests to pull items today?

I'll go ahead and move approval.

Are there any comments from the public on the consent items?

There are not.

And for the record, there are not any public comments for item two.

I do see a couple attendees.

Nobody has their hands raised.

All right.

We have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar.

Please call the roll.

Bulahan?

Dickinson.

Hume?

Aye.

Middleton.

Aye.

Rodriguez.

Aye.

Sing Allen.

Aye.

Spees.

Aye.

Telamontes.

Aye.

Plucky Baum.

Aye.

Avdis.

Aye.

And Raethel.

Aye.

The motion passes.

All right.

That takes us to separate items.

So you please call item number 13.

Yes.

Item number 13 is authorize the executive director to execute an interim financing agreement with the city of Sacramento for the I Street Bridge Replacement Project.

An authorized sorry solicitation from commercial banks for a line of credit.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

All right.

Well, Chair, Vice Chair, and members of the board.

I am here today to present in the I Street Bridge replacement project, interim financing.

And this so this project is included in the Medre expenditure plan as part of the local art serials program and is budgeted in the 2026 capital improvement program and in the further out years.

So for those members who are newer newer to the board, uh today's presentation builds on information previously disclosed to the board in August and it focuses on updates and some of the changes that have happened since then.

So the I Street Bridge replacement project is a regionally significant infrastructure investment with an estimated construction cost of approximately $300 million.

The project is primarily funded by state and federal grants, including the highway bridge program funds, which are reimburs reimbursement based and are subject to reimbursement caps on a yearly basis.

So as a result, the city of Sacramento faces a construction period funding gap between project costs incurred when the project costs are incurred and then when the grant reimbursements are delivered.

So since August, several key developments have occurred.

Most notably coordination with Caltrans has resulted in the increase in the annual reimbursement cap on a per yearly basis, which has materially reduced the amount and duration of the interim financing needed.

The measure program eligibility has also been structured in a way that multiple programs are eligible for this bridge.

And based on updated assumptions, a maximum line of credit is now 95 million dollars versus the previously discussed 165 million.

So moving on to the slide deck here.

We have some opportunities as STA in the city of Sacramento with this financing.

So this financing leverages measure A's financial strength to ensure timely delivery of this project.

So it also unlocks the 250 million in state and federal funding that I mentioned earlier and protects other jurisdictions, measure a shares.

We are structuring this agreement to kind of isolate the city's share from everyone else's, and it secures pricing for a project that has seen consistent price increases year after year.

And it also enables other larger scale regional projects like the i Street Bridge deck conversion, access improvements to the Sacramento Valley station, the intermodal station in downtown.

And this slide covers a little bit of the background.

And it's a little bit repetitive from the August uh presentation, but I'm gonna go over it for the new members.

So in 2023, STA began discussing this financing with bankers just to see what is out there and what are options that are available.

In early 2024, STA and PFM developed some early strategies with the city cash flows.

And later in 2024, STA and the city staff started coming together to develop a funding plan.

In 25-26, where we are today, STA PFM and the City of Sacramento have all come together to come up with an overarching master agreement that has been legally reviewed from our bond council as well.

So the next slide here, this is our August plan versus where we're at today.

So currently we have secured 40 million a year in funding from the Howie Bridge program versus the 20 million that was earlier.

The line of credit need has gone from 165 million to 95 million, the payback term is significantly reduced, and the estimated interest and fees have come down significantly, saving the city of Sacramento a significant amount of money.

And at this point, I'm gonna pass off the presentation to Darren Hodge with PFM Financial Advisors to go through more of the financial detail.

Director Talamontes, did you have a question now or after the presentation?

Perfect.

Good afternoon.

Uh Dustin did a great job providing an overview of what I'm gonna speak into, but I'm gonna go into a little bit more detail on the line of credit and some of the preliminary analyses that we ran.

So as Dustin mentioned, and the i Street RED project is fully funded, but any time there's grant funding, there's often a situation where there's a timing disparity between when the funds are needed and when the grant funds are received.

And so a line of credit can help bridge that gap to make sure that we have funding available for the project and provide financing until the grant funds come in.

Now, when we talk about the line of credit, we are not going to be securing the repayment of the line of credit with grant funds.

Instead, what we're proposing is securing with measure A sales tax revenues.

The reason for that is because sales tax revenues are much stronger from a credit perspective, lenders are gonna give us a lower interest rate with higher ratings if we secure it with measure A sales tax revenues.

Now, that being said, even though measure A sales tax revenues are going to be the source of security for the line of credit, STA is going to look to the city to make payments and demonstrate their ability to pay interest fee and principal on the line of credit, should there be a disruption to grant receipts.

And then STA will also not enter into any agreements with West Sacramento.

Instead, the City of Sacramento and West Sacramento will coordinate on their share.

Now I'm gonna get into a little bit more detail in terms of how we came up with the $95 million.

So as I mentioned previously, we took a construction schedule, and then with that, we layered next to it what are the anticipated timing of the different funding sources for the project.

And so you see those two in the construction schedule column and the reimbursement schedule.

The annual draw need, what that represents is the funding shortfall.

So that's really caused by the disparity in terms of when the grant funds come in relative to relative to when we have construction cost.

And so as you can see, we're anticipating needing in fiscal 26 about two million, going up to 39 million and 28.

That essentially gets us to a max facility size that we need of 95 million dollars projected by fiscal 29.

And then, as you can see, given that the HPP funds will continue to come in over the ensuing years, we anticipate paying this off by around fiscal 2032.

And on this slide, what I'm gonna do is talk about some of the estimated interest cost.

So with the with a revolving line of credit, we pay interest on the amounts that we draw.

We also pay an amount on the facilities that we don't draw.

And so we looked at this several ways.

The first way we looked at it is we took interest rates as of February 10th and put an estimate of what we think a line of credit might charge us based off interest rates on that day.

And we came up with an interest rate of about 3.42 percent.

The other way we looked at is we took a historical perspective and said, what would the average rate be over the last five years?

And that came in slightly lowered, about 3.11%.

And so if you look at these two tables up here, what this is demonstrating is what are the total interest cost and fees that we'd anticipate we repay over that time period through fiscal 2032.

And based off rates as of February 10th, our total fees and interest would be about 11.1 million dollars.

If rates were lower based off the five-year historical average, the total interest and fees would be about 10 million dollars.

Now I do want to point out these are just based as of uh certain points in time.

The revolving line of credit, the actual interest we pay is gonna be based off what interest rates are going forward, which today obviously we don't know.

And so with that, I'm gonna pass it back to Dustin.

Thank you, Darren.

All right.

So this approach does not specifically approve a line of credit today.

Instead, we're it establishes a policy framework and limits and protections for the city of Sacramento to proceed with awarding the construction contract while allowing STA to defer detailed financing terms until they're required.

The debt is not required as of today.

It's required in a couple of months from now, possibly a year from now.

So any subsequent board action would be limited to approving the implementation agreement and the final line of credit documents.

So we will be coming back to to get the formal approval for the line of credit.

And it's gonna be consistent with the framework that we approved today.

So before you today is a request to authorize the framework to address the remaining gap while having appropriate safeguards for STA in the Measure A program and all the current constituent agencies.

So specifically, staff is recommending that the board authorize the executive director to execute a master agreement with the city of Sacramento to advance measure A funds for the Ice Shirt Bridge Replacement Project in an amount not to exceed 95 million.

The requested action also includes authorization to solicit proposals from commercial banks for the revolving line of credit to support these advances.

So that the solicitations will give us more to build agreement frameworks with the city of Sacramento.

So following the board approval, we will be soliciting the proposals with the commercial banks and coordinating with the city on reimbursement and draw procedures and preparing an implementation agreement to carry all of this forward.

So, and we will also be coming back to the board as things progress and providing you regular updates.

So to conclude this presentation, we're open to any questions that you may have, and the city of Sacramento has representatives here to address any additional questions.

So thank you.

Thank you so much.

Uh Director Talamantes.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh I'd like to move forward with this item.

Uh, all right.

Uh, I'd like to move forward with this item and direct staff to continue the appropriate work needed.

What kind of motion are you looking for, me, uh Clerk?

Is that good enough?

Or do you need me to read anything specifically?

No, that's good.

Okay, sounds good.

Uh, and to my colleagues here at Sacramento Transportation Authority, I know we had this conversation a few months ago, and the interest rates at the time and the and there was a lot of you know complications with uh Caltrans, uh, city staff went back and worked with CalTrans, and so did STA to give us a better deal.

And I think that what we have presented in front of us today is a much better deal for Sacramento Transportation Authority and for all the partners involved in this bridge.

And I just want to remind everybody that the rail yards is one of the largest in-filled development projects here in California and across the West Coast, and it's something that's very important for this region.

Um it's an economic driver that's gonna connect us, it's gonna bring housing, it's gonna bring commercial space, it's gonna bring entertainment and obviously soccer and a hospital.

And I'm really excited about the future of the rail yards.

And with that being said, we need this bridge to be able to connect West Sack to our core here, and it's gonna bring jobs, not just for local contractors, but also for union labor and a lot of opportunities for small businesses.

It's gonna create, you know, construction jobs in the short term and permanent jobs in the long term, and it's gonna strengthen our tax base in the Sacramento region, and it supports major venues and future development.

And so I just ask you to please vote yes on this item and allow this project to continue moving forward.

We have the funds, we have the financing, we have the appropriate partners in place, and we're just gonna continue to grow, and it requires all of us.

So please vote yes today.

Did you make the motion?

Yeah, okay.

So we have a motion for a staff recommendation.

Do we have a second?

Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second.

Director Hume.

Thank you, Chair.

I just want to tease out for the record because it was insinuated at the last time we discussed this.

This is essentially a risk-free endeavor for STA, and so I want to backstop that and call out some of the things that are in the staff report.

First is the isolation that this only is secured, this line of credit would only be secured by the revenue projected to be used for the city of Sacramento.

No other jurisdictions allocation would be um uh leveraged uh in order to repay these funds.

Is that correct?

Somewhat.

So the security is across the entire measure sales tax base, but the repayment is isolated to the city of Sacramento shares.

And we are providing a level of comfort in there as well.

So if we do have some economic downturns, we are not in jeopardy of not being able to get enough funding from the city of Sacramento from their measure shares.

So that that is how it's structured.

It's it's backstop by the sales tax, and repayment is dedicated from the city of Sacramento share.

So uh if the bottom falls out, the economy collapses.

What I'm hearing you say is all funds are on the table.

That is a worst case scenario, but yes.

Okay.

Uh that's not risk-free.

Just so we're clear on semantics.

Um, the second thing is it it talks about that the uh interest in the fees and all of that would be borne by the city of Sacramento, either through their funds or through other means that they have.

But in the staff report, it says should they not be able to meet those obligations or should STA not be able to meet those obligations through our funding, we would look to the City of Sacramento to meet those obligations.

Should the city of Sacramento have an issue, they would look to the city of West Sacramento.

What happens if West Sacramento says pound sand we're broke?

That may be a city question.

I'll just I'll just add really quickly.

I think um we structured this in such a way that the city of Sacramento's share of measure A should be able to fund the entirety of the thing if we had to, and that would be in the case of which some for some reason the grant reimbursements didn't come into play.

So um, you know, my colleagues sitting right in front of me though would say that should is a non-legally binding term, absolutely as opposed to shall, yeah.

And I I would say that you know this is kind of a high-level agreement uh to give the city some comfort in actually awarding a project and knowing that financing will be there about a year from now when they actually need it, or maybe six months from now.

And so we'll the actual implementation and land and credit will come back to the SDA board with probably more language like shall instead of should.

Okay, okay.

And there's already language in the current proposed agreement that allows us to to get out if as you say the bottom drops out of the economy.

Yeah, and we can even we'll put that in the implementing agreement and make it even stronger if necessary.

Okay.

Well, I look forward to seeing that language, and and if you wanted to ask my question, it was somewhat rhetorical, but I'd certainly look for uh forward to your answer.

Sure.

Uh thank you for having me, Ryan Moore, assistant city manager with the city of Sacramento.

So, as as uh both Dustin and Kevin have pointed out, this is a framework that allows us to put the pieces in place.

Really, we don't we're not committed until we award the project, and then we'll really know the up to 95 million, the up to five years is all contingent on the plan the contractor puts in place.

But to your question, um, who would cover fees and interest?

That's the city of Sacramento.

If it's not paid through STA funds, they would be paid by other local transportation funds, city of Sacramento.

Okay.

I just, you know, I I having sat on these dioceses uh for some years know that should it come to that, uh the voters would not be um uh pleased with the idea of saying that we're going to fund interest on this beautiful bridge as opposed to uh name your pet resource that the city provides, right?

For sure.

So I I only say those things to say that you know, risk-free is a somewhat nebulous term.

I feel confident that we have provisions in place and that we will see language that uh that secures that further, but this is not without some level of risk.

Thank you.

Director Pluckenbell.

Thank you.

Uh I uh agree with Director Hume's uh assessment and share concerns about um project risk.

I will point out, though, that there is a uh project risk uh if we do nothing.

And the current state of affairs uh is untenable.

The the current ice street bridge, as we all know, um uh poses some significant public safety challenges for both sides of the river.

Uh so um, you know, bridges are uh symbolic and uh uh literal uh promises between communities, and we are going to uh literally uh span that river and create uh a physical bridge that connects Sacramento and Yellow Counties in a meaningful way uh that requires us to stretch ourselves uh a little bit.

And I I take uh Directors Hume's point, we should do everything we can to mitigate that risk, uh, control and contain it, but there is nothing in life without risk.

Uh and doing nothing itself has risk.

Um so I urge an I vote.

Thank you.

Director Dickinson.

Uh, thank you, Chair, and uh I think uh Director Plucky Baum has has uh said it well, but I just wanted to go back down memory lane for uh a moment in the uh in the past jurisdictions have bonded against their measure a money, have they not?

Yeah, we've done bonding.

We mostly we when we do bonding, we do bonding for a group of projects that benefit you know across the jury across, but we did we did bonding in 2006 and 2007, 2008, 2009, and again in 2012.

So uh I mean this is not this is really not uh anything radically different in the sense of assessment of risk.

If we have and have successfully bonded against future measure a revenues in order to get projects delivered more quickly, uh STA has undertaken the risk that uh measure A revenues would not be enough to meet the debt service on those bonds, which having been prudent in how that's been done has never thankfully occurred.

And I think that's where we are here.

Is there uh I I don't want to say it over again, is there some degree risk?

Well, every everything we do in life has some degree of risk, but I think the what's been fashioned here is a framework uh uh it gets as close to reducing that risk to uh to to zero for any other jurisdiction than the city of Sacramento as as you could ask for.

So um I appreciate the work that's gone into this by by all.

I know this has not been easy.

Uh it's been uh uh uh very uh uh uh uh long and uh complex negotiation, but uh but I think it's gotten us to a point where uh we hopefully hopefully have responded to the questions that were previously raised and can and can move forward with delivering this very important project, which the benefits of which have been well stated by my uh by my colleagues.

Thanks.

Uh thank uh thank you very much.

Um, you know, and I wanted just to thank everyone for uh really multi-agencies and uh pulling together to get to where we are today.

One convincing the state to step up their obligation, uh and second, you know, for all the staff to look at how we can actually save dollars for the taxpayers.

I mean the bottom line is this uh this proposed framework saves dollars to the taxpayers.

Um I also want to highlight a unique risk that we have in this particular project, and that is that uh unlike other projects throughout the county, we only have a very narrow window when we actually have to execute these contracts because of where we're building, and that's the river.

And we only if we if we don't get our this process done, the contracts awarded, and into the river by May, then we lose our window of opportunity of actually construction because unlike any other part where it's only rain that sometimes delays us, it's our window of being able to actually enter the waterway to construct.

So I think for us right now, this is one of the key things where we should allow the staff to move forward and then can and be cognizant that uh we can't uh allow time to uh, you know, just we know how hard it is to get contracts approved and and whatnot.

We have to get into construction into the water in the appropriate time before we lose our authority to be in the water to construct.

So uh thank you very much, Chair and uh Iridge and I vote.

All right, we got no more requests to speak.

Do we have any uh comments from the public on this item?

We do not have any public comments at this time, and for the record, Director Gera joined the meeting at one forty p.m.

Thank you so much.

Alright, we have a motion and a second uh for staff recommendation.

Uh please call the roll.

Directors Bulahan.

Um Dickinson, Gera.

Aye.

Middleton Rodriguez, aye.

Sing Allen.

Aye.

Spees.

Aye.

Telemontes.

Aye.

Klucky Baum.

Avdis.

Aye.

Vice Chair Hume.

Aye.

And Chair Raitle.

Aye.

And the motion passes.

All right, that brings us to item number 14.

Item number 14 is direction on the future of Sacramento Abandoned Vehicle Service Authority, including potential November 2026 ballot measure.

Um good afternoon, board and um vice chair and chair.

Um my name is Jennifer Dahl.

I'm the special programs manager with Sacramento Transportation Authority, and I'm here with my boss Kevin Busey, the executive director, to present on the direction of the future of the Sacramento Abandoned Vehicle Service Authority, SASFA, um, uh, including a per a potential November 2026 ballot.

Um for the new members, we want to do a quick review of the uh program.

Uh what is SASFA?

Uh per the California Vehicle Cold Code section 22710, SASFA was formally established in 1992 with the Sacramento County and the cities of Galt, Isleton, and Sacramento as the original members.

The fee uh is collected by the Department of Motor Vehicles and allocated to the authority by the state controller pursuant to California government code 9250.7.

The revenue collected um by the DMV is then um distributed to the jurisdictional members uh by a formula and on a quarterly basis, and that formula is uh based on two factors relative population is 50 percent and the uh 50 percent for the relative number of abatements.

Do you want me to wait till the this is not a verbal presentation?

It's actually really fun graphics that we're waiting on.

Hold on.

We can can we had it in our packet.

I think we've got a comfortable.

Um on average, uh STA deducts about two percent of total revenues to pay for administrative and overhead costs throughout um uh fiscal year.

No worries.

Here we go.

Um historical program performance um in the 30 years of its um since its inception, there was about 30 million dollars in revenue um collected, 1.3 and average per year.

That equals to about 300,000 abeta vehicles um in that 30-year period of time or 10,500 or 10,500 average per year.

Um one of the big uh influxes was in between 2011 and 2020, during which the time um the program significantly increased with 20 percent increase in revenue, but more so um with um coordinated efforts between staff and member agencies.

Um we were able to better fully utilize the revenue in each jurisdiction, and so that grew abatements 207 percent in that period.

And then historically, the last uh fiscal year, full fiscal year before the sunset in 2022, which was April 2022, um, we had um about uh almost uh 20,000 um vehicles abated that were reported, and um over you know one point three six million um annually uh this is good information other than you can see each jurisdiction, but the chart also historically shows that they're um on average the top three, and that um and because population is such a big importance.

Um obviously we have city of Sacramento, the county, and Elk Grove as the number one um top three.

Um in that period, City of Sacramento was 42 percent on average, and county of Sacramento, 26%, and then City of Elk Grove.

And then I will give it off to executive director PC.

Okay, wonderful.

Um, so just uh really quick um you are all members of the you're all on the SASPA board just so everyone knows, right?

So you're all serving both on the STA board and the city for that one.

Just a reminder, uh SASPA hasn't really existed as a program since 2022.

However, we have been collecting late fees.

We've um so we actually keep getting like really small amounts.

Um that's why we still have the still have the program in the budget.

Um a little bit more history here.

So uh when proposition 26 was passed, um, they changed the definition of of fees, certain fees to taxes, uh, and it required us to go and we had traditionally every 10 years uh city council supervisors would extend it by a vote of the boards.

Um, but with that change, we had to actually uh go out to the voters.

So we went out to the voters in June of 2022.

We've received 57.7% of voter approval, which is because this is viewed, even though it's like a dollar on your vehicle license fee, uh it's viewed as a special tax, and we needed to meet that two-thirds threshold.

Um we felt that was a little funny because it's a fee for something that you know we're using.

It doesn't make sense to us um exactly.

So we did go through a legislative effort in 23 to see if there was interest in in make trying to make sure this was classified as a fee and not a tax.

Uh unfortunately that did wasn't that was unsuccessful.

Um, and then most recently we did reach out to all of the um uh cities and counties to try to get a little feedback.

You know, what's happened since 2022 uh as far as your programs, right?

And so the the response that we heard was um really there's a lack of resources in in addressing abandoned vehicles.

So the actual amount of abandoned vehicles being um the time it takes to actually address a band of vehicles has gone up, and uh because there's no specific funding for it, um, those resources have been directed in other ways.

Um, and that's the generally what we're seeing.

Okay.

Uh so we have sort of three options, three policy options for you today.

Um the first is we could just end SASFA.

We have uh we like I said, we have a couple hundred thousand dollars.

We could just distribute those funds based on our uh population abatement formula.

Uh the other option is we could pursue a ballot measure in 2026 since we are not pursuing one for a sales tax measure.

Um we would need to meet that two-thirds super majority approval.

Um we looked at successful abandoned vehicle service authority ballots in other counties in 2022 and 2024, and we see that their ballot question was significantly different from ours, and they were successful, and they were they were successful.

We think a change in the ballot question itself could push us over the edge.

But we, if you go with option two, we are recommending doing polling.

Um we have put a lot of measures on the ballot in the past, and I think having another unsuccessful uh measure was probably not in the best interest of us, so we would want to do some polling before we we did that.

We would need to find a little bit of money for that polling.

And then the third option, option three is you know, I is like we think we want to move forward, but maybe 2026 is not the year for us, and that could be determined through maybe polling, or it could be determined because uh a lot of your agencies are looking at efforts on your own ballots potentially in November of 2026, um, and that would be you know something else we can look at.

Um, we could go down the path of well, we're not quite sure yet, do some more work, Kevin, on option two and three, and then we'll make a decision, or we can just go with option one.

I think from uh a soft staff recommendation is probably looking at option two and three.

If I'm if I'm thinking about what I'm hearing from the other agencies, I think they're interested in having those those revenues back, even though they're very small.

Um, and then it's a question of timing.

Um, so that with that I'm uh would love some direction and open to any questions.

Director Dickinson.

Thank you.

Uh I'm not sure if I'm if I if it was in the staff report, um I missed it.

I apologize, uh, but I I wanted to ask what what would be if if it went on the the ballot, what would be the financial impact to a household or a voter or a property?

That's um a dollar per vehicle registration.

Okay, so technically um I've been the amounts that we're getting right now, the one dollar late fees are you know just for late registrations, but when the program is active, it's just one dollar in your registration fee.

Okay, so I don't I don't know what the average would be, but but probably two or three dollars a uh a household.

Okay.

Uh which um seems fairly modest.

And I'm interested in your and Kevin's comment that looking at some other uh ballot language that has been used in different jurisdictions has been successful.

It seems as if there may be a path here that had, although it's some time ago um almost 58 percent uh before.

So uh I mean I think this is um something that uh that um is worth pursuing, and I uh it seems to me, and so I want you comment on this as well.

Um you you uh nodded your head in this direction, but we could blend two and three, it seems options two and three.

We could proceed on the basis of of looking to put a measure on the the this November ballot, but we could always take temperature with the polling or otherwise and and make a decision subsequently that that we we want to hold off.

It wouldn't mean the work that's done to be in a position to put it on the ballot this year would be lost and it would still be valuable, valuable information, it seems to me for for the future.

If we didn't go in in 26, uh is that is that viable from your point of view?

Yeah, I think that's the intent.

I think um I think you captured really well, actually.

Um I mean there's some in order to extend it, we have to go back to the cities and the counties and do some work, right?

And so we could, you know, we could make sure that we're a little bit careful about specifying the exact um year it goes on the ballot, right?

So but we can use that polling to inform when actually it gets on the ballot, and I think and we can do the work that helps improve the ballot question.

Um and I think that's all reusable work.

Um I uh just a comment.

I would say that uh uh long ago and far away, meaning meaning in the in the early 2000s, when when we had this in place, it was really valuable.

It was really helpful to the at least to the county's efforts to remove abandoned vehicles.

I was sort of struck by the numbers, looked awfully low for the the chart, but but I remember it it being uh extremely helpful, and I know it would be helpful if we could bring it back to the city of Sacramento and I suspect every other jurisdiction.

So I uh I, as one would support pursuing it with the idea of putting it on this November's ballot.

But uh I've leave leaving open the possibility that as we get closer, we might decide no, that's that's that's not what we want to do, but that would be a decision made in late July or so uh mid-July, maybe, um the with the uh timing.

So um I would hope that we would uh give direction to adopt uh option two with with the um additional flavor of option three to um move toward this November, but if if it becomes wiser to do so, put it off, uh but make that decision later down the line.

Thanks, Chair.

Director Red.

Oh, I think um Dr.

Dickinson, you are correct that the numbers do look a little bit small.

Um, those are based off of what we report to the state controller's office.

This does not actually show all the vehicles that um were tagged and removed.

This is just the ones that were towed off properties.

So there are other numbers that I could provide for you if you if you guys wanted to see that, but this is what is the ultimate goal is getting the the abatements counted, but that doesn't mean that all the other efforts that they did to tag them and then people actually you know self-serving themselves to move them are not in these numbers, yeah.

Well I'll leave it to my my county colleagues to to uh address the issue of what's going on in the unincorporated area at this point in time a few years ago would have been me, but not now.

Thanks.

So Director Rodriguez.

And just really quick question on what you just said.

Those that are tagged and removed are those personally uh individuals who personally pay for the um for the uh destruction of the car.

Is that correct?

No, those fees are not included in these.

What's not included is if they were tagged and then they have 72 hours typically, depending on the area and where it's located, um, then they can move it themselves.

This is only counting abatements, which are actually having to be removed by the jurisdiction.

Okay.

And uh the question that I had on this is um option one, do nothing.

Then each jurisdiction now is responsible for this amount.

Is that correct?

Correct.

Okay, which they have essentially been for the last couple years.

Yeah.

I would um I would personally, I wouldn't mind asking voters if they are comfortable with one dollar um on their registration fee, and if we were to do that um this year, it seems appropriate.

Director Hume.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh I'm probably gonna be in the minority on my overall opinion, but I would like more data.

I'd like to know the total number of cars and if you have it where from where they are um uh abated.

Okay, um, is it okay if it's prior to the sunset so that I don't have to ask the jurisdictions to do extra work on stuff they're not reporting currently?

Back of the napkin to make give me an idea of scale.

Yes, thank you.

Director Sing Allen.

Thank you.

Um I would support the option two, three hybrid.

What would be helpful is to get data.

If the polls indicate that there is widespread support for this, then I think it would be prudent for us to support sort of the will of the voters and and the public.

But without that, it's it's hard to make that decision.

So I I would be interested in that poll.

All right.

Any other questions?

Yeah, just for clarity, we did get an estimate on the polling cost.

The polling costs were somewhere between 35 and 40,000, and so it's not a ton of money.

Um, so what we had done in 2022 was we actually went back to the agencies that received the benefit of SASFA and asked for them to provide the money proportionally to the benefit they got out of the program.

So that's that will be our approach.

We'll be coming and asking for a little help.

I've got $20 for fulsom today.

Chair, I have a question.

Uh chair, I have a question.

Yes, uh, if we want to expedite this, because I'd rather know sooner rather than later, as all the jurisdictions consider what they're gonna put on the ballot for November.

Can we just um green light that dollar amount as part of this motion?

You mean green light the polling amount?

Yeah, the dollar amount for the polling.

We go ahead, Bill.

Bill wants to, I can't tell if Bill's gonna say something.

If you're asking about the contribution for the polling contract, right?

Yeah, that's that's in the uh recommendation.

Oh, okay.

I can read it out of the staff report.

You're thinking we would uh do that work and then seek reimbursement later kind of a thing from the cities, or are you thinking?

Well, I mean, this board you can't commit, like you can't commit the city yourself here, but it you can authorize the director to go seek those funds.

Okay, so you want to provide direction to seek those funds and move forward with option two and three.

Got it.

Okay, all right, and that was the motion.

That's a friendly amendment.

Friendly amendment, is that okay?

Well, do you need a motion on this or just just sense of subscription?

You want to you want a motion?

We need a motion because we need some clarity on what the what at least nine of you want us to do.

Then I then i then i then I will move that that uh we direct uh the staff to pursue I I like the hybrid uh characterization uh of director sing allen so the the uh option two three um hybrid uh and you want to give direction that the funding come from the juris the jurisdictions sure give them authority to go find the funding for the for the poll so that we can move quicker on on this and not have to come back to the with additional direction to seek funding from the from the jurisdictions uh that are members of SAFSA and to do the polling okay that's a great motion I won't repeat it but I'll second it all right do we have any public comment today?

We do not have any public comment.

Perfect we have a motion and a second please call the roll yes Bulahan.

Dickinson Garaye Middleton aye.

Rodriguez aye sing Allen aye Spees?

I telamontes aye plucky bomb no Avdis Vice Chair Hume no and Chair Rethel aye.

Alright that takes us to item number 15 the motion passes.

Oh thank you.

Our executive director's report it's mostly people driving the second then wonderful suburbs.

First I just want to um before I really get into this I want to say that you know really appreciate our two new board members.

We have uh Portia Middleton city council member from the city of Citrus Heights and we have Pamela Bulland from the city of Ialton and I just want to we didn't get the chance to say anything because of the kind of busy meeting but we appreciate you know you being here and uh we'll be reaching out as well so um a little bit about uh on the executive director's port a couple of items we'll go kind of quick here since we're on a Friday um so as you know SACOG is doing its uh regional funding round they do that every two to three years um that funding round is to provide grant funds federal grant funds for transportation projects and um this year um they've given us kind of a range of how much money um grant funds that we should plan for uh although it is competitive process that range is between um a hundred and twenty five and about eighty four million so there's about a 40 million dollar range it's still a competitive process and so you know there's gonna be lots of applications because it's a six county process and so from SDA standpoint we want to make sure that our measure A funds are being leveraged by those federal dollars right and in addition to do that we need to make sure that we're competitive so what we've done is we've used some of our administrative or smart growth funds sorry to prov develop a series of grant training seminars for agency staff we're gonna provide uh one training that's gonna be here's the big picture SACOC process for you that are not familiar with it.

There's kind of an iterative process to it and so as you go through that process um whether it's the pre-application or the application or even before that here's the things that your staff should be thinking about as far as trying to make sure that you're submitting competitive projects and then we're gonna do a second training which is more about okay you're putting the grant application together here's what really here's what a successful successful and competitive grant application looks like not all uh agencies quite understand exactly what SACOG is looking for so there's a little bit of translation needed um and you have a a lot of variation happening on who's actually preparing those grant applications between engineers and planners and others and so we feel like this training will give the the cities the county uh your transit providers kind of a leg up in that competitive process and we'll hopefully capture a good share of those competitive dollars um and then the other item I had was um just for everyone's knowledge so there's a uh some legislation that SACOG is pursuing um so essentially what they're pursuing is uh SB 375 reform, which is the current bill authored by Steinberg that um requires um metropolitan planning organizations to prepare a sustainable community strategy every four years uh to show that they're going to meet their greenhouse goal reduction targets.

And one of the challenges that we've seen as we continue to get to this this goal, which is uh 2035 target, is that uh it's getting harder and harder to show that we're gonna actually meet that greenhouse gas goal reduction under a sustainable community strategy.

And so there is a ability to um do something called an alternative planning strategy, uh which is hey, we couldn't quite make it, but this is our best effort.

Um, but because a lot of these SB1 competitive grant dollars for transportation are tied to showing you're consistent with an SCS or a sustainable community strategy.

You really have to uh we want they're looking at doing legislation to say, hey, you have to be consistent with a sustainable community strategy or an APS, which is that alternative planning strategy.

And so they're pursuing that legislation.

That legislation has been introduced as SB 1087 uh under uh author is Cabalden.

Um and just from SDA standpoint, I think what we're specifically want to make sure we're watching is um, you know, as they start getting into the funding world of things, we want to make sure that we can leverage our measure A dollars to get grant funds, whether that's SB1 or or federal dollars, right?

Uh in this case we're talking about SB1.

Um, we want to make sure that that bill doesn't introduce anything that would negatively impact the cities, the counties, trans providers from leveraging those measure A funds.

And so we're gonna continue to watch that bill.

That bill's been introduced, but it's not.

I would say that it's probably gonna go through a pretty large amendment process here shortly before it goes to committee.

Um but we're gonna kind of watch and see where that goes.

Uh another item is the SACOG is looking at a regional VMT mitigation strategy.

They got direction from their land use and natural resources committee to continue looking at what a regional VMT mitigation might look like, those costs of that, and um the administration of that, uh, how do you deal with the return to source model option that I think a lot of cities and counties are interested in?

Um, and then they're gonna continue to coordinate with STA.

STA is you know, is last year we went through a series of workshops to look at hey, would a countywide VMT mitigation strategy make sense for us?

Uh we actually have a report that we plan to present to you in the spring, uh, hopefully March or April, looking like April at the moment.

Um, and so we'll need to continue coordinating on, you know, does do these two strategies make sense?

Are they both viable?

If they're both viable, how do they should they work together?

That kind of thing.

And so that effort will will likely continue.

Um for those that you're not familiar with that work, I know we have a lot of people new on this on the board today, but uh, essentially, you know, there is a we see a need for additional funding for active transportation, transit, rail, including infill housing, and we think a VMT uh mitigation bank at a countywide level could be a great way of doing uh funding some of those, especially when you consider some of the toll revenues that may be coming in in the future.

How can those can be directed to some of the other transportation needs?

Um and then finally our SDA governing board outlook for March and April.

Um we have two items that we're looking at.

One is an update on the Stockton Boulevards called Step Forward Project, which we used to be called the Stockton Boulevard BRT and multimodal partnership, I believe.

Um they're they're going through a big series of outreach events.

There was one yesterday, I believe one of our members was there.

Okay, Mr.

Garrett was there.

Um but they're gonna provide the same uh presentation to us so the full board uh can talk here about that project.

That's something that many of our board members asked for.

And then um we anticipate that BMT mitigation strategy memo will come back as well in in the March-April time frame.

And that's that's it.

Open any questions.

Any questions for Director BC?

All right, seeing that we'll go on to item number 16.

Uh Director Talamantes, any report out on CARTA?

No report out.

We're looking for our executive director and doing interviews.

Uh Director Guerra, a report out on the new transportation funding subcommittee.

No report out.

Uh Director Hume, anything on the STA's role subcommittee?

No report out.

All right, any other comments today?

Seeing none, we're gonna go adjourn at two twenty seven.