Metropolitan Transportation Planning Organization Meeting - Oct 06, 2025

For the MTPO board meeting, October 6, 2025, 3 o'clock in the afternoon. And before we get started, Ken Cornell has called in and asked if he may join us. Due to extenuating circumstances, he would like to participate in this meeting from a distance. Move that we allow Commissioner Cornell to participate remotely due to extenuating circumstances. Second. I have a motion and a second. But I think what we need to do is have names, too, when you all make a motion, because there's so many of us, if you would. So that motion was made by Commissioner Alford and seconded by the school board, Member Tina Certains. Okay, then. Thank you for you. How are you? Welcome to everyone who is here today. It's a gathering of good group. Mr. Koons, it's good to see you in the group. Thank you very much for being here today. And, oh, on Ken's. Yes, I hate your pardon. All right. We had a motion and a second to allow Ken to participate remotely. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Like, sign, opposed. Motion passes unanimously. Okay, then. We have roll call. I don't know. Do I do that, Ms. Moss? Do I do that? I'll be glad to do that. Okay. All right. Commissioner Alford? Here. Here. And Commissioner Book? Here. Commissioner Chuck Chestnut? Here. Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut? Commissioner Cornell? Ken, are you out there? I'm here. Okay, thank you. And Commissioner Duncan Walker? Commissioner Eastman? Here. Commissioner Engel? Here. Commissioner Pritzian? Here. Mayor Ward? Here. Wheeler is here. Commissioner Willits? Here. And Ms. Brown, are you here from FDOT? Is she not here today? She's not. Who's here from, anyone from FDOT? Madam Chair, Mrs. Paige DeVold. Oh, all right. Tell me your name? Paige DeVold. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Paige. All right, then. And school board member Certain? Here. And Adrian Hayes-Santos? Here. You're with the G-Phil Airport, right? Yes. And Linda Dixon is here, UF. And Commissioner Taylor? Waldo? Here. Thank you. All right, it looks like just about everybody's here. We're only missing one or two? Two. I got it. All right, so thank you very much, everyone, for making the effort to be here. It's, if you've looked at the agenda, have you had a chance to look at your event agenda? Move approval of the agenda. All right. I have a motion to approve. Alford and Mayor Ward second. Any questions or concerns about the agenda? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Like sign opposed. All right, that motion passes. All right, thank you. And then the minutes. Move approval of minutes. Okay. Okay. Pritza. Second. And second it. Okay, thank you. Second, Chestnut and Mayor Ward. All right, then. The consent agenda, according to my agenda, there are none. But there are big action items. Madam Chair? Yes. I think you need a vote on the agenda. On the minutes. Yes, sir. Minutes. And then just a brief announcement. If everyone can please lean into the mic when they speak. Communications would very much appreciate it. And then just another brief housekeeping. We do have the podium with the microphone in the back for members of the public when such time is appropriate for public comment. Thank you for that. Thank you. All right. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Like sign opposed. And thank you for the guidance. All right. Ms. Moss, it looks like we're down to you. Okay. Thank you very much. So do you have any chair announcements, Madam Chair? I do not yet. No, I don't. This meeting. Thank you. So just a brief sort of housekeeping item. So slowly but surely, we are making improvements. We have, as I mentioned, a podium with the microphone. And in the near term, we believe we will be getting a bigger table to accommodate everybody with also appropriate AV setup, some charging stations for those of you all who want to bring laptops and not print everything. I just wanted to mention that. Thank you. They're not the hard wooden pews, I would say. So with that, I think we will go into the action items. So first item, and board members have a sort of abbreviated, printed packet, is UPWP, the Unified Planning Work Program Amendments. So the document itself is quite long. It's included in the online agenda. But the first sort of Z-fold that you see in this comes out is something that FDOT and HDR thought might be helpful to share with you all. And this just sort of reflects a summary of some of the changes from the current UPWP to the proposed changes. So I'm just going to walk through some of those. And feel free to interrupt if you have any questions. But there is, as you all know, a fairly large budget in the UPWP now. It's not always going to be the case. There's been some accumulation of funds. So we are encouraged to spend down some of these planning funds doing studies and, of course, hiring staff and consultant assistants, but also to leave some in reserves. And so anyway, the proposed budget sort of sets out what we may do until June 30th. So keep in mind, anything you see here is just until that point. And then we're redoing the whole two-year UPWP. So for the first, let me pull up everyone in the room. I'm going to zoom in on this a little bit. The first task in the Unified Planning Work Program is administration. And you see there's a significant bump up from 348,000 to 633,000. That comprises increases in personnel service. So that would be hiring a new executive director. Per suggestion, encouragement from FDOT, they think we also should look to hire, say, a mid-level planner and admin assistant to start around the same time. Ideally, we'd have a slate of candidates that the new director would be able to opine on and help evaluate to help build up his or her team. In consultant services, we have quite a few things. We have general planning consultant, which may be used to help fill the gaps. We have professional services for a very short period. That would be retaining HDR to help with minutes and agendas. We have a contract with the regional planning council to help with our transportation paratransit services, the local coordinating board. We have interim director salary. And then, of course, the county has fees for just it's sort of leaned upon services. So now that we are housed administratively within the county, there's travel funding and also just ODS, which stands for other direct services, sort of miscellaneous. One change that is being proposed from what is printed here was proposed by the technical advisory committee, and that would be to add some money to data collection, specifically for multimodal counts. So it was proposed that we would take, say, $50,000 from systems planning task 7 and put it into data collection. Again, this is for a fairly short period of time. So if we want to do a more robust countywide, you know, multimodal count program, we'll be starting anew in July 1. The TIP, what's in the budget now reflects not a whole lot of a lift, as I understand, going forward with the TIP, but that we are going to be looking to procure software. And so there's a program that North Florida TPO uses and should enable us to more seamlessly share data and information with FDOT and also with members of the public so that they can see what we're doing transportation planning-wise, more of a snapshot. And there's also a mapping component where people will be able to see projects at a glance. The LRTP, we have shown a complete carryover. So $350,000 was allocated and $350,000, we believe, will be spent. As you all know, we have the long-range transportation plan just recently having completed and believe that we'll use all of that budget. Special project planning. This is a little bit of a bump for this task. Increases for this task include additional funding for two City of Gainesville complete streets corridor studies. So that would be looking at Archer Road around the campus area and also at Southwest 13th Street, and that is south of the area where the city has recently done their PD&E study. Additionally, we're looking to supplement the bicycle pedestrian plan funding to have more robust feasibility analysis. We have a lot, a lot of projects, as we'll be presenting to the MTPO board in the next month or so, and so to really take a look and see what it will take to get these projects implemented. And so sub-task 5.1 Archer Road, you're saying that's at Archer Road and 13th, where they're just making all the improvements to the slip lanes and everything? Is now where they're doing the study? It is, and Ms. Debbie Leisner is in the audience, can jog my memory. If you don't mind stepping up to the mic, really, briefly. Debbie Leisner. The study is from 13th to 34th, and it's an area that has a lot of pedestrian crossings. There is a lot of bus stops in that area, and there's no mid-block crossings designated there. Okay, great. Thank you. If there are no other questions on that task, so public participation, historically, the UPWP, or at least for the recent current adopted version, there are $75,000 for each fiscal year for public participation. We've looked at what we may reasonably need to do between now and June 30th, and we're considering contracting with a web developer, even though we have something going right now. I would say it could definitely be improved to be more searchable, to be more engaging. Again, I'm not trying to copy everything from North Florida's playbook, but they use somebody who has a very strong understanding of what an MPO needs, what information we must share statutorily, and how to make it more interesting and engaging for members of the public. So we are looking to allocate some budget for that. And then we also have a significant challenge with the county with, I mean, everybody does really document accessibility, ADA document accessibility with tables, and just being able to present this complex information to the public. So looking to help fund that to provide more information online as well. And then lastly, we have systems planning, and this includes a lot of transit, paratransit coordination, and other sorts of systems planning. There is, in transparency, some float in this budget, and that's intentional so that the new executive director, when he or she comes in, is not starting with a sort of depleted budget because this is a pretty big program for nine months-ish, and if we would get a lot of this work scoped and contracted out, then it wouldn't leave them with a whole lot considering the recurring budget will be about $800,000 per year. So with that, at the bottom, you see that it does balance. If you compare the existing proposed balances, if you look at the blue tables in the subsequent pages in the UPWP, the amounts are not exactly the same, and that's because the unformatted bigger table includes a local match, and also a grant funding source. So that is the discrepancy there. Madam Chair, can I just continue? Yes, please. On the data collection, I guess I don't understand, do we really need to, if we're getting ready to go into June and start a broader multimodal, do we really need to do multimodal between now and June as well? Like, is that something that's needed for some purpose? I think there was a request of the transportation planning manager from the city, and, you know, we have quite a few multi-use paths or trails in the county and in the city of Gainesville where we don't have count mechanisms there, and it sort of helps understand travel patterns and understands use of the paths if we have more of these count locations. Okay, thank you. So the 23rd Avenue path actually has a brand new eco-counter. It includes loop detection and an infrared sort of arm, and so it would be something like that. And it's barely, I think it's less than $10,000 per unit, so it would allow us to, you know, probably do, yeah. Okay, thank you. Five units or so. Got another question for you. Thank you. I just wanted to confirm what the changes they're making. The systems planning will include, like, looking at transit system governance? Is that what that is? Yes. Okay. So that includes reserve funds for exploration of independent transit authority. I do appreciate you all be willing to defer that until a new director with full staff are on board, so it would allow for, you know, a formal study of that, anything consistent with that intent. Okay. Move approval of the amended Unified Work Program budget. Second to Sanchez. A motion and a second. Any further discussion, questions from the group? Do I open this up then to public comment for this particular item? Anybody have something that they would like to add or question on the presented budget? Seeing none, if there's nothing more from this board, all in favor say aye. Aye. Like signpost, that motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Allison. This is big work. Thank you. Thanks for your patience as I shuffle all the things. So this next agenda item is a little bit of a catch-all look-ahead. We thought Mr. Brad Thoburn, who's still here with us today, helping take minutes, and Ms. Akaya Brown thought it might be kind of nice to use a slower meeting to look ahead for once and look at what's coming up because I know sometimes there's a sentiment that, you know, input is needed now or almost after. It can be practically used for planning purposes. So just calling out some things that are coming up ahead and some things that we've done recently. So we have a tentative work program. We'll be at the end of October, and there's a public hearing scheduled for October 21, 2025, and this will be hybrid, so in person at the Jacksonville office of FDOT and also online at the link that's provided here. So you're encouraged to attend that. Pull back. Okay. I don't think I'm going to go and do that. I'll just – all right. So the next thing is the Gainesville MTPO SU funding plan. So as you all may know or some new board members may not, SU is the capital project funding that we have available to us. And so this is very small, a snapshot from last year, and this is sort of the top tier of projects that FDOT is looking to fund at that point. So just giving you this as a sort of glimpse of how few projects it is, you know, every year we look to frankly add probably one, maybe two, and to know that we are also going to be looking at the list of priority projects, which is kind of how things start in on this funnel, just getting them adopted. This, I believe, will be happening, Paige, if you have any information, but sometime around May as well this year. Okay. That's confirmed. List of priority projects. So anyone who was on the board or paying attention to MTPO matters last year, it is only – we have a very long list of priority projects, but it's only the top ten or even nine that have any reasonable chance of being funded. So this is the list that we're typically looking at. There have been new candidate projects that have come to my attention since just assisting with the MTPO. So I've been keeping track of them, frankly, in a spreadsheet, but now with this new TIP software, they'll probably be a more sophisticated way for us to track those in a central location and where members of the public can see projects. So these should be familiar. Newberry Road improvements. There's a shared-use path. There are ADA accommodations from the city of Gainesville. Those are curb ramps citywide. Northeast 27th Avenue. It's a multi-use path. And I won't list all the other projects, but these are the current list of priority projects. Additional projects, as I mentioned, just a very basic list, but I wanted you all to know that I've been listening, hopefully catching some of the ones that have come through in your discussion. So Newberry Road, safety enhancements in Alachua County. So that'd be from 122nd to 98th. So staff have been talking with FDOT. There have been studies and evaluations on what can be done of that stretch of State Road 26 from 98th to 122nd. There's no signals in that location, so it's difficult to manage speeds. One thing FDOT suggested was getting it on our list of priority projects and looking at implementing capital improvements there. Post Springs Road, Signal, or Roundabout in the city of High Springs is something that has come through this MTPO as well. And then the city has a new road connection planned for Southwest 47th Avenue, an extension. And the signal at 331 or Williston is going to prove to probably be a pretty significant project, so we're looking to get that as well. Next on the executive director updates, So we have a new concept from FDOT for Stadium Road at 13th Street intersection improvements, and changes since the last iteration of this include retention of these bus bays. So there's been a lot of pedestrianization on the northeast part of campus, and so there's going to be a lot of bus traffic here on 13th Street needing to drop students on and off. I believe both of these crossings at Stadium Road and also at 3rd Avenue are going to be raised. One of them is not depicted as raised right now, but it was in another diagram that I saw. So this is very conceptual. The city worked with FDOT to ensure that there are mast arms that are aesthetically the same as elsewhere along the corridor. So these will be signals on black mast arms. Is there anything else, Linda, that you would like to say about this project? Yes. Just quickly, I'd just like to thank the DOT and everyone who's worked on this project to bring it forward. It really was an idea that was spurred after, yet again, another cyclist was hit at that location, and that got us talking to DOT and seeing what solutions they could come up with. So we have vetted this internally and are comfortable with letting Stadium be a ride-in, ride-out road, as this depicts. I think we need to have a few more internal conversations about the usage of that space in front of Tiger Hall. I think certainly keeping the bus stop there, as we all agree on that. And for us, it's more a conversation about right now there's scooter parking there, and is that something that the university wants to continue to do? It's DOT's ride-away. Is it something they're comfortable with from a safety perspective? So I think there's still some small details to be worked out. The one other comment I would make, I hadn't really caught the raised crosswalk issue, and I would just point out that that becomes a problem for the parade, if the parade still goes up this far. I know that was an issue on University Avenue. The decision was made that the homecoming parade would not go back to University Avenue because of the floats and the marching bands having to traverse the raised crosswalks. So just kind of keep this in mind if it may trigger a rerouting of the parade. Safety over parades. So that would be a raised crosswalk there in the middle where that light is, so that means those dog ears are raised also? Are you speaking about the curb extension here? Yeah, that's where the buses would be pulling in, right? Yes. Yeah, okay, I just want to make sure that that whole area would be raised for safety. And Madam Chair, this is the location where there's currently scooter, scooter meaning moped parking, and I believe that the pavement markings are such that scooter users are intended to park directly in, but they're, I've heard just anecdotal... So it's scooter parking or bus pull-aways, I'm confused. Well, the proposal is as a bus pull-out. Okay. Um, presently it is... The entire stretch? Just this part is what I saw on an interim plan. Right now the bus stops at, excuse me, Madam Chair. It's at the other end where the bus shelter is, closer to second. Okay. Well, there could be more than one, I think, as much traffic as there is along there, right? So this is the proposal. I believe this is where the scooter parking is presently. Does that seem right? It is. Okay. What's the scale of that right there, like a couple hundred feet, or...? We can see Tiger Hall there. Yeah, I'm still... It's not long. Yeah, it's not... It's a block. It's basically from second to third. Yeah, okay. So maybe two buses. Or second to fourth. Okay, you can clear. Yeah, I can clear. Casey Beals. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I, that's a, I know that with the rerouting, an extension of Route 13, there's now an additional four buses at peak on this stretch. That's why keeping a bus bay, I think, is pretty important. And that's because 13 used to stop at the health center, basically, or Beatty Hall. And you should not go all the way north and then move back. So just, you know, it's even more important. But I had the same question, Linda, about whether, is it the section that there's on the left towards the south, where it's currently, is that going to be where the buses stop? Because currently they stop close to where the sidewalks come out of Tiger. Yeah, there's a bus shelter there. And the right-hand red portion. And then I just had a question whether the median, is that going to be slightly raised? And what do we think the experience is going to be there versus just north of university where there's a lot, once it's a protected area, a lot of students and young people are using it to just jaywalk and stop because they're temporarily protected and then go the rest of the way. These look like great crosswalks, but like, are we just going to replicate that same problem up there that's currently closest to basically the public? So are we just going to replicate that further down? Any other questions? Allison? Yeah, just in my capacity as a county reviewer of this plan, I believe I made that comment, posed that question to FDOT previously, but I can reiterate that question. Sort of what are they doing? The pedestrian fence is, like, often reviled, but it should maybe be considered since these crossings are so close together. I mean, I'm sorry, Adrian. Thank you, Chair. So what about getting rid of the median and just putting protected bike lanes on either side? I mean, if you split that and put those on either side, you'd be able to have bike lanes least on the stretch and starting to build it up along the way. And then you would solve that issue of, in essence, having a place where people will stay. Because I think that will happen. More and more stuff can develop. There will people hang out there. Has that been looked at, of just removing the median? And then at the very end, at the end of this, it would just, the bike lane would go on back on the sidewalk, but at least starting to build this stretch out. Debbie, would you like to speak to that? Yeah. Debbie Leisner, City Transportation Department. This was one of the segments that was evaluated as part of the PD&E for University Avenue and 13th Street, and I believe because of the different configurations were examined here and because there is not enough space, that's what you see right here. That was the preferred alternative that was selected. There's not enough. How wide is that median? Or if the medians, the travel lanes are moved to the center and then the particular lanes are on the outside, that median looks 10 or 12 feet wide. I don't have that information here with me, but we can certainly provide those details. Because it might solve the issue of people coming across, too. And we started to build out the lot of bike lanes. Commissioner Bullock. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I was thinking the same thing on the medians. You know, in your big metropolises and stuff, you have to do all kinds of engineering to prevent civilians and citizens from crossing everywhere except where they're supposed to. And so I would, so as far as the median goes, it's either got to be very narrow or you have to have engineering to prevent people from moving there and making sure they make it to these things. Otherwise, we are going to have some traffic violence there. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. Any other questions? My question just goes back to an early on on a list of improvements. The stretch on Newberry Road from 98th to 122nd, I just wanted to be sure it includes the Parker Road intersection there at 98th, or I mean 122nd, that it includes that intersection and crosswalks and things at that intersection, because I know there's a lot of development that's just happened and been approved in that area, and the new O2B Kids is there, and a lot of people are walking their kids to school, and we're seeing a lot more car and pedestrian interactions at that intersection. Notice. Thank you. Linda? I just wanted one more time to get clarity on what is intended in that red strip. Do we have clarity from DOT, or will they be providing that later? As far as symbology, it means in transportation planning that it's a bus bay, but do they actually intend to add a new bus stop there? I don't know about that, so I can follow up with them. We're making it longer than what it is now. Mm-hmm. Some clarity on that would be. Any further discussion? Mary Helen? Yes. Commissioner Cornell. Thank you, Mary Helen. Two quick questions, Allison. On the city's new project that falls into Williston Road, is that the project in front of the Fixel Institute? The 47th Street and Williston Road? Okay. Yes. Planning Manager Deputy Leisner is saying yes. Okay, great. And then on the hybrid meeting on the 21st of October, is that a workshop, and is that for the entire district? So we've got the Alachua County piece and then the Jacksonville piece, or is it, because I believe we have a special meeting that day, what time is that meeting? It's my understanding that it is the end. And when will the backup for that meeting be available? All right. Paige DeBold, if you'd like to chime in. But I believe it's for entirety of District 2, and it's from 4.30 to 6.30 p.m., Commissioner Cornell? Yeah, there's a presentation at 6, so. Presentation at 6, open house 4.30 to 6.30. It is largely information that was presented at the open house, though, when I've attended. Hi, Paige DeBold. Hi, Paige DeBold, FDOT. Allison is correct. It starts at 4.30 with a presentation at 6, and it is for all of FDOT District 2. So the North Florida TPO will also have projects involved there. And then, Paige, will there be a recording or some way for anyone who missed the event? They did not say. I would have to double check and get back with you. Thank you. Lastly, a little bit of happy, easy news. Last MTPO meeting in August, there was some discussion about whether or not there was a publicly available map for residents of Gainesville, Alachua County, to figure out whose roadway jurisdiction a particular road was. And so GIS manager from Alachua County was actually able to pull together all streets and roads, oh, this is the wrong thing. I'm sorry. There appears to be a little bit of disconnect. Okay. Well, I'm going to share this now because this is up, and then I'll go back and share the roadway map. Thank you all. So the city of Gainesville and University of Florida are working together on a Safe Streets and Roads for All action. It's not an action plan. Supplemental planning study. And that would be on 34th Street and Southwest 35th Place. And they have preliminary crash data. Here are the corridors shown on the map. And there is, I believe, a community survey, which is live, on the website. There's a link. And I think this is in the full agenda packet, but if it is not, we will publish it and make sure it's made available. With that, here is a little bit out of order, but here is the jurisdiction map. So it includes every jurisdiction for every single roadway. So even out in the rural areas where, say, the city of Newberry meets unincorporated, and if you have any feedback on it, our GIS manager is happy to incorporate that. But hopefully this will be useful for you and also for members of the public who you speak with who are interested in knowing who to talk to about a given roadway. Where is that house? The road management? This, yes, but I think that it is not as accessible as I would like for it to be on what the new GIS manager is developing called GIS Centerpoint. So the plan is to have kind of one big hub. And then, of course, we should have it embedded in the MPO's website as well. Commissioner Boak? Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Actually, I was just going to say exactly what you did, Director. And who did it? His name is John Carlson. People ask us all the time who's the road, who's responsible, who's accountable. So thank you, Madam Chair. It helps me, too. And as well, to that point, you guys also have Map Genius, which is my go-to way to look at nearly everything. And I always recommend it to people because I think you guys did a very good job with that. You guys have multiple layers that you can put into there, and this would be very nice to include in there if that's at all. We'll run that back. Commissioner Eastman, is staffing discussion part subcommittee and part me? Yes. I think so. Okay. So I'll just start by saying we mentioned in the Unified Planning Work Program that we're looking to hire, of course, a new executive director and then also the level planning and admin. So I think Commissioner Eastman has more information regarding the executive director search. Yeah, so we – at the previous meeting, we talked about bringing on a – someone who can – a search firm that can help us bring this person in. We have that person on staff. It's – through the county, is under contract. His name's Jim Dineen from MGT. I believe he's on the call, though. I don't know if he's able to chime in. But – so we've had a couple of meetings with him just to talk through the many conversations we've had as both the subcommittee and main committee here about how we want to move forward, what we're looking for in a new executive director. He asked us to – well, I have this list here as well as – he said that what would be helpful is to say what are we looking for in the first six months of someone coming in and what would be helpful, you know, within the first year. What are – not so much as an exact, you know, we're going to hold you accountable to this, but what do – what are our expectations so that someone knows coming in? Mostly – I have the list here. This is mostly done by Allison with Ikea from the Florida Department of Transportation looking into it. I'm going to see – Alan Yader, if you're listening, could you please use the projector to share what's on the white rectangle? Thank you. Like talking to the Wizard of Oz? That's fine. I think it's happening. There we go. So the first part is just the executive director profile. These are just broad things that we are looking for with folks. It's collaborative, can communicate candidly, brings an entrepreneurial spirit to the job since they're building a new organization, demonstrates a strong commitment to advancing multimodal transportation, has a proven track record of building and leading successful teams. That's come from the previous discussion. I don't think there's anything overly controversial, but if there is something, you know, now's a good time to chime in and say that something needs to be added. The thing that was really added in that would be useful, that feedback, and we can collect that here. You can send an email afterward to Allison to include it, is the first six months and one year, what we would like for this person to be doing. Learn the ropes at the Gainesville MTPO, including FDOT systems and county support services. Take on management of all MTPO-led initiatives, projects, and consultants. Host a robust and engaging MTPO website. Adopt a new list of priority projects. Substantial progress or complete, depending on higher date, joint certification, quadrennial federal certification. Become familiar with the GMTPO TIP 2630 projects. Build relationships with FDOT local governments and regional stakeholders. And enhance communications with MTPO board members, including regular updates and clear briefing materials. The first eight of those are, I think, are very operational that mostly came from MTPO staff. And then the last two are just, I guess the last, yeah, the last two are things that I put in there that are more kind of communications and external type stuff. Which of those would encourage, like, actually getting feet on the ground in the community and learning how our roads and systems work? I guess that would be, um, uh, learn the ropes. Yeah, I mean, you're right. Hey, like, that's it. That's a great addition. It's like, go, go ride your bike around, walk around, drive around, you know? I mean, I think that's really important to put, to put, like, what's on the paper, like, what's, you know, on the ground together. Yeah. And then, um, within one year, MTPO needs to be fully staffed, have initiated one personal project, i.e. something he or she feels would benefit the MTPO based on their 12 months of experience, understands the federal and state oversight and funding sources, has built strong relationships with key decision makers, has begun to shape the public-facing identity of the MTPO, including considerations such as logo, name, uh, and overall branding. It comes from our discussions of us saying, you know, let's let the new executive director come in before we talk about, is the Gainesville MTPO the right name for something that is now county-wide? Should a different title be put into there? And that all came from internal. The last one is just something I added. Review current MTPO policies, procedures, and bylaws to identify gaps or needed updates. So, um, we've talked, we haven't, we have, we've passed bylaws, we've passed various policies, really just to get over this hump of the transition, but for someone within a year to really take a deeper dive and bring that back to us by that. Um, I'll take, Mary, I think that's a good addition in there. We're just trying to move through this process quickly, get stuff over to them so that we can get someone in. Um, so if you guys would like more feedback on this or you'd like to get feedback now, um, uh, please do so. But we're just, and we're just trying to get stuff over to MGT so that we can get our, all the resumes on. My only other comment is under the begin to shape public-facing identity, I would, I guess I would also say, and public participation processes. Because I think we've all talked about, you know, wanting more of that engagement and wanting to be able to, like, have more of that give and take with the public and understanding, um, their needs. Especially as we're going to be getting out the Safe Streets for All and the, um, like a pedestrian master plan and thinking about the possibility of an independent transit authority. Like, we're going to need a lot of public interaction, so. Thank you, Chair. Um, what is the current, uh, projected timeline to, like? That might be, um, we, we kind of went over that in a broad way, Allison. And this would be a good time for Jim to, um, do you have the projected timeline? The projected timeline to hire? Yeah, for hire. Um, he basically said three months from when, from when the post goes live. We're going to be planning to go live, I guess, in the post. Friday. Yeah, he said he was working on it through this time. He was going to get feedback from us from what we're talking about now and then start moving on that ASAP. And then do we have, I guess, in terms of the hiring process on our, in terms of interview, how, what is our kind of, yeah. We'll come in as on the calendar. Are they, are they scheduled yet? Or just, yeah, like, our, our internal process in terms of, like, the interview, and we're just going to hire that day. I mean, I think I was, that kind of got lost on the last one of, like, how that process is working. So I think from now until next meeting, I think it'd be good to lay that out of what exactly that process would be helpful. Commissioner Alford. I think one thing I might like to see in the one-year section would be something about building further on the relationships regionally and working with other MTPOs around the state to identify best practices and, you know, things that we might be able to implement here as well. Since we're making that jump from. Yeah. To the. Yeah. The big. To the larger enchilada. But, yeah, it just seems like it's a good time for us to, to look outward and, as we're making those relationships. So it's a great introductory question, you know, what can we learn from you? And I think it's a good addition. Yeah. Anything else? You all take your time, because this would help to get it done today, wouldn't it? Yeah, yeah. And if you have more, I think you can, I think maybe the best way to do it is just to send it to Allison for review, and then we can send that to Jim as, as he's going through the process. Okay, good. So if more comes to you, I realize that with this very last minute, we just kind of put this in front of you guys. But if you're reviewing it, some comes to your head, feel free to send it out. Commissioner Cornell, do you have anything to add? I do. My most important thing is that they work closely with county staff and city staff. I think that ties into Anna's comment about public engagement. Both, both boards are pretty intense about that situation. And so that's, that's what I, that's what I'm going to be looking for. I'm looking for our staff's input with regard to the care. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Anything else? Adrian. I guess maybe one thing in the one year is making sure that kind of our projects and what we have is aligned with our goals, kind of re-looking at everything and making sure that we're kind of all the tip and all these things. Like everything, the projects in line with our goals that we've kind of laid out when we want to, the multimodal or whatever. Yeah, I would chime in that that fits in with what Ken's saying and sort of like aligning it with like the county's, like comprehensive plan update, the safe streets for all, the bike and pedmaster plan, like making sure that all transit plans, like that all fits into what we're planning. So that we're like, so I often wonder, like, does that get fed into that? Yeah. Anything else for Allison? One more question. Would part of their role be, do you see it, Brian, to keep abreast of what the city and county and the other cities are doing and look at transportation impacts? You mean the new executive director? The new executive director. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And is that, do you see that as being in there? Because I feel like that's kind of important to just sort of, because we sometimes make decisions that have transportation impacts without considering the transportation impacts maybe as much as we ought to. Yeah. And so, I don't know, just think it out loud. No, I think it's good. But I think one of the things that, I think, as we were going back and forth on it is that some of this is, like, these, as much of a, what, obviously the operations of the MTPO need to continue forward, but these are sort of, like, broadly, what would you like to see this person get done with six months and a year? So I think kind of what you're saying is, like, is, that is a pure, that's an ongoing discussion. It definitely is an ongoing thing, but part of that whole introducing yourself to the local stakeholders is, like, you know, learning what's happening and getting involved in that. So, yeah, it may be just implied, but. Allison, do you have anything more to add? Are you excited? No. Yes. But I do realize that another thing got out of order, so I'm going to revisit it, if you don't mind. So there was election of officers. I just wanted to let you know that'll be coming up in December. And additionally, there is MPOAC appointment that should happen at the same time. I was reached out to by the MPOAC director to ask who our designees are, and I said, I do not know. How would I find this out? And so we're going to revisit that, and so you'd be attending the sort of coalition of statewide MPOs, and it would be a great opportunity, I think, for us to figure out more best practices from other MPOs and TPOs throughout the state. Okay. All right. That's in, in, okay, so that, that's, so we haven't talked about the calendar yet, right? Yeah, we, we skipped over the calendar. I was going to mention it. Thank you. We just need to talk and approve. Yes, have you all got one, a calendar? I assume that staff's already looking at this. Can I get back to the computer screen, please? One of these menu tabs. It was not in the digital agenda, but I pulled it up here, which is why I missed it. Thank you. We are going to work through the kinks on having the packet match the agenda very well so that I don't get tripped up. So here is the calendar we are meeting tentatively every month except for January. That may change if we have a candidate to be interviewing at that time. So we'll reach out to your, you know, staff assistants to schedule that as soon as possible. Every meeting so far except for the TIP adoption, which is scheduled for June 15th, is to happen at 3 p.m. So just one evening meeting for a public hearing component scheduled for this year. It's a little bit lighter in terms of some of the plans that we're going to have approved and adopted. So it still says June 15th at 3 p.m., but that one is actually in the evening? Oh, it says 5 p.m. here. It says 3 p.m. on this. Yeah. So this was a last-minute change. Okay. Yeah. So I will get with staffing assistants from your respective agencies and make sure that's updated and that our website's updated as well. Adrian. Thank you, Chair. We are going to – I think we probably need to make sure we do – This is an action item. Go ahead. No, I think we do need to probably have a January 1 because it has three months from now that's going to hit probably the higher person. We'll look to schedule a January 1. And Madam Chair, or Ms. Moss, Monday, September 7th is Labor Day. No, it feels late, but it is Labor Day in 2026. Okay. Good catch. I was only doing it that was open. I don't want a Labor calendar, so I'm just all out of school. No wonder we were all free. Any other questions or concerns about this calendar? I mean, we've got the ones, suggestions there. The changes. So we need a motion then to accept this calendar with the changes that have been – I move the calendar adoption with the change of the meeting in September moving and a meeting in January being scheduled. Second. Hey, Sanchez. Thank you. A motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. I'd like to sign a post. Thank you. That motion passes unanimously. All right. Now then, so Allison, you finished up all those items? Yeah, I re-scaned the agenda. It seems like at this point we actually have discussed all the action and information items until item 8B, which is the MB Paratransit Discussion. Okay. All right. All right. Allison, it looks like the bulk of this is on you today. I'm actually going to invite Mr. Jeff Hayes, Growth Management Director, to sort of kick off the discussion. Madam Chair, yeah, Jeff Hayes, Growth Management Director, and I know that Mr. Persons and Mr. Gomez from the city are here to speak to the city's perspective. And Scott's here. You can speak to the larger sort of transportation disadvantage perspective as well. What I had planned for this afternoon was just to give an overview of where we're at, if Jesus or Andrew disagrees. So, obviously, there's been discussion in the community. The city of Gainesville has moved forward or is moving forward with the process of in-housing the ADA Paratransit Service, which is a large component of the current service that includes transportation disadvantaged, paratransit that's all currently run by MV Transportation. As it stands right now, as I understand it, the city is planning on that process of in-housing the city of Gainesville Paratransit Service to happen by March of 2026, so March of next year. The issue that would remain is that and has pledged to move forward with potentially taking on all of the coordinated transportation for transportation disadvantage by October of next year, which is currently provided by MV Transportation. But, obviously, there's a process involved in that. There's a transition period that needs to take place. And so there is a gap, as it stands right now, between March of next year and October of next year, where there could be a gap in service and MV Transportation, while although still under contract with the county and with the state, processed in the local coordinating board, has said that they would be unable to continue to provide that level of service for the unincorporated area and those other services in the absence of the city of Gainesville funding and the RTS Paratransit Service. So with that, that's where it stands as of today, unless someone else has a different point of view. So the issues are really, from my perspective, from the county perspective, is trying to fill that gap one way or the other, either by speeding up the transition to a full CTC service that the city of Gainesville would run, or slowing down the Paratransit Service to meet those gaps, or trying to come up with a solution for an interim service, or MV coming up with a solution to be able to continue to provide the service as they have. Questions for Mr. Hayes? Have we received a quote from MV Transport or from the city of Gainesville about the potential to fill that gap for Alachua County? We did receive a letter from MV Transportation, because we had asked that same question, obviously, which is that understanding. They say that they couldn't provide it at the same rates that we're currently paying. And I believe there might be representatives here who could speak directly to it. But the quote that was given is basically it would triple the amount. So right now, just as an example, the Alachua County contribution to Transportation Disadvantaged is $191,000, I think, is our not-to-exceed every year. The state contribution is about $500,000. It goes to that service as well, which is provided in the unincorporated area. And there's a couple of other. There's elder care. There's a couple of other providers as well who are putting in some funding for different levels of service. So that would, even from the county perspective, that would be incredibly difficult, obviously, to fill that gap. And there's, I don't know of a way that we could, the biggest part of that is the state funding. And I don't know how we can make up that state funding tripling that $500,000 amount to go to $1.5 million, for instance. Okay. And that's just for the unincorporated, the state funding as well is just for the unincorporated area, or that covers the city of Gainesville as well? Like, how does that work? I guess I'm trying to understand how it was one big thing for the whole county, and now we're trying to, like, at least potentially they're being split apart. How does that work in terms of the... So as, and I invite Jesus to come shoulder me out of the way because he's more informed on this than I am. RTS is required where they have fixed route service to provide the ADA service within three-quarters of a mile of any of those fixed routes. And so when a call comes in and someone lives within that distance, that is the automatic routing that right now MB is doing. They're sending that as a city of Gainesville ADA paratransit trip. It's the same sort of issues that would qualify as a transportation disadvantage trip. So if a trip is outside of that area, lives somewhere else in the unincorporated area, or even in, actually, basically in the unincorporated area, then that's, those trips are being charged to the TD, either the county or the state, transportation disadvantaged. Thank you. And just one last question. Have we looked into the possibility for... I know that some of these trips, maybe even up to half of these trips or more, are for medically necessary appointments. Have we looked into the possibility of billing for these trips, or does state funding preempt us from being able to bill? We have. My understanding, and I don't have a full understanding of that system, is that billing through Medicaid is extremely difficult to do. And so a lot of the transportation disadvantaged providers in the state actually don't get involved with billing against Medicaid. We do it. We do. I think the transportation element is what I've understood to be extremely difficult, and the brokers involved. And a lot of times what I was hearing was people coming up from Palm Beach County to provide a trip in Alachua County, things of that nature. Adrian. You mentioned that MB Transit has given, has the city of Gainesville given a price on whatever cost? Not that I'm aware. Do you know what, or I guess it could be asked to say, why they have not, or what's the reason why not? I think it's time. Anybody? Okay. Come on, sir. Chair Wheeler? Yes, Commissioner Chip. Can you hear me? Yes, Commissioner Cornell. Go for it. Okay. I'm at a rest stop, so if you can't hear me, I apologize. So I think Jeff really laid it out well. And what I would like to know from either RCS and the city is, can you delay implementation? And if not, what's the plan to deal with the county? And then I would like to hear from MT today. I know we're getting a full presentation tomorrow, but I'd like to hear what solutions they have come up with to deal with the CTC piece if the city moves forward on March 1st or whatever the date is. Okay, thank you. My name is Chair. I'm Jesus Gomez with the City Transportation Department. To move that from March to an old date, I guess that's had to be a City Commission decision. Right now, what we're planning for March, and also we'll be incurring expenses until March. So we're going to be incurring extra expenses if we go beyond that. So we need to consider that when the City Commission makes that decision. When will that be? Okay, Commissioner Cornell, have you got a question for Mr. Gomez? Yeah, when will that be? I want the answer to the question. When is the City Commissioner going to make that decision? Wait just a minute. Wait just a minute. Ken, we'll get to that question in just a minute. Mr. Gomez, is that something you're prepared to answer? No. No. I didn't think so. Is there anyone from the? Yeah, I bet you. Okay, all right. Okay, which one? Wait, from? I think March 1st is the current plan. That is the track that we are on, and we're trying to find out, and I'm happy to sit here and figure out solutions, things. I've been, you know, pressing staff here or there and trying to find angles on this, and we can do it here. But I think the current plan as it stands is that March 1st, we are taking in the 88 Paratransit Service. I believe all of the 88 Paratransit Service. But then the TD program, I guess, is, you know, that is a question mark at the moment. But that is where we stand. So your commissioner, Casey, do you want to respond as well? Yeah, just to be clear, like, changing this, we made a budget decision just, what, two weeks ago. And so this, we are now budgeted to have employees, both people who are currently in their job, remain on their job, and also roughly 20 positions that are there that we think we're going to be hiring for to be prepared for this fully on March, let's say March 1st. So part of this is the question of, well, when can we decide to change? It's kind of like, when are you going to tell 10 people they're fired? And when are you going to close the 20 positions that are currently budgeted? So it's a much bigger decision than, is there some just mere delay between March 1st to June for potentially RTS to pick up the entire TD program and be the CTC? It's just, it's a much more nuanced question of not, of not just a budget, but like real people's lives and jobs in this community. In our city that they're currently working and they've been told they have a job because we passed a budget. And then also positions that are open and that we are looking to fill and that RTS has been building a plan, hopefully with MV to learn a lot about, so we prepared for a March 1st. And if I'm incorrect, Mr. Gromes or Mr. Persons, please correct me. Thank you. May I? Yes. Okay. I guess I just, I might have missed something, but if you all are moving forward, in March, you cannot be prepared to take on the county's portion of this in March because here's the point. Yes, it's a few people, I mean, it's people's lives and it's important people's lives. There's also hundreds of people who rely on this transportation to get medically necessary appointments. Like people who won't be able to get dialysis and won't be able to get to doctor's appointments because there is no transportation option for them. So it's people's lives either way. And I just want to make sure we have a solution. Like I don't care what the solution is at this point, but we need a solution because we can't leave those people high and dry with no transportation options, especially those who are most vulnerable and literally can't find another option. Those especially who don't have the resources or funds to like hire an Uber or an Uber wouldn't even work for them because of the kind of transportation that they need. Adrian, did you have something? My question is just on if the city has provided a price yet for the county. Yeah, like can we just take, can you take it on in March and could we? Madam Chair, sorry, Andrew Persons, Chief Operating Officer for the City of Gainesville. So we haven't provided a price. We haven't been asked to provide a price. Currently the contract is with, the city has no contractual arrangement or agreement for TD service that's obviously in the unincorporated area. I am, you know, potentially been entering the interim city manager position. I'm pretty sure that over promising and under delivering is something that is probably not good for me to do. We've been very focused in RTS and taking over paratransit. Obviously, I think this, both boards are well aware of the issues that have led us to this place, both from a budgetary impact from reduction of service from University of Florida, as well as cost increases over time with the MV contract. You know, we've, our price per, our average price per trip has doubled for MV. If you look at the ambulatory rides that MV provides for paratransit versus the TD program, we're paying on average $20 more a ride. So that is financially unsustainable for the city. We are, we absolutely hear the concern about the TD program. I think what we've communicated with our commission is that we are able, we know we're going to be able to take over the, should that be direction from, from both boards. And obviously there's this state CTD involved. So it's not like I can just snap a finger and take it over because there are, there are other decisions that have to be made even outside of this room. But we are committed to be able to take that over in October of next year. We are, if the direction from the city commission is to try to accelerate that timeline, we will absolutely take that direction. But again, paratransit is the bulk of the service that's currently provided. We want to make sure from RTS's perspective that we absolutely deliver a seamless service. And I don't want to stand up here and say, yeah, just give it to us all. And then you all are going to be like, well, we gave you money. Like, why is, you know, why are we getting calls from, you know, from angry constituents? That doesn't help either side. So, so we just want to make sure that whatever we do, we do in a deliberate way. Um, and then we do without, um, without taking on too much at once. So, so again, just to reiterate, like from the city standpoint, um, our focus has been on paratransit. The TV program is, is, you know, obviously in the unincorporated area. Um, should that, should we get that direction? We will absolutely make every effort to, um, continue to work together with the county on taking that over, but I don't want to promise that I can take it over into March, um, and then not deliver that. Okay. Well, I guess I'll just find it, finish up by saying one, yes, we're really disappointed that the university of Florida cut their bus service. And my opinion, that was sort of a fee in lieu of, you know, not paying taxes and owning so much land and being in our city and providing that service to our community and being a partner with us and being able to provide good transit service across our, our city. And it was really, really disappointing to see those cuts. Um, and it's left us all now in a lurch apparently, but I hope that it doesn't then translate as like a cascading effect to now we're in the lurch and then it would just, you know, we just keep passing the buck along. So if we can ask, I just ask our fellow city commissioners to consider trying to accelerate the timeline to March and giving us a price for what it would look like to take over that TD, um, as a possibility so that we can begin to weigh our options and figure out what we need to do so that we can make sure that there isn't a lapse in service for those people who need it. And that would be, um, uh, if I may, I think the, the, I think commissioner Cornell mentioned sort of moving forward or slowing down paratransit. I just want to be clear, like we're not going to slow down paratransit because I think as, as, uh, commissioner Willits indicated the commissions, our city commission has already made that budgetary decision. We've already been working, uh, to, uh, to, you know, to hire people, um, to purchase capital equipment, we'll be getting the 17 buses that we currently provide to MV for service back to the city. Um, so we're, we're taking steps based on, uh, direction that we've already gotten from commission. Mayor Ward. Thank you, Madam Chair. So it would probably be helpful if you could describe, um, when we talk about ramping up to take on the county portion, what that means. In terms of number of trips is about 50,000 more trips a year. What, what, what does it mean? What, what do we, how do we ramp up to that? What, what is, what does that process look like? Yeah, we're going to need additional vehicles. We need to include different programs because, uh, they're all problems have different eligibility. So we need to have a staff to set that up. It's a major database that we need to include and, and put it up and running. Um, it's, it's, uh, additional, I said, vehicles and, and equipment on the, we estimate it maybe some five or seven more vehicles and stuff. We're going to need another, uh, at least 10 more staff members. Yeah, of course. Oh, yeah. The, uh, agreements with all these agencies that are going to be, that we're going to be buying trips from, from us. And we, um, so city staff has not, at this point, worked with county staff to, to create any kind of substantive plan for, for what the prices would be on that, what, what the costs would be, what would the timeline would be. Is that accurate? Exactly. Okay. So I move that we do that, that the city commission direct the, um, uh, city staff to work with county staff to, to provide numbers and timelines at various reasonable, attainable calendar points. Yep. So there's also other pieces that need to be considered, like the state TD commission. I guess we're, we, Mr. Dean Guffrey, can I talk a little bit about that piece? So, so I would amend that motion to say that, that, that we prepare costs and timelines with calendar points specific, considering all necessary input. Second book. I mirror that motion for the county. All right. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second to leave it to our staffs to, to work out the details. So a motion and a second. I'm sure. Commissioner Cornell. I'm sure. Yeah, I guess I need to understand just from a process standpoint, I know the former MTO used to have a city commission motion and a county commission motion, but I thought that we are one body now with just one motion. Am I incorrect in that? Okay. But we're directing county staff. I guess we can't do that at an MTPO meeting, maybe. People can make a request to the, we can make a request to the county commission. I love the, yeah, I love the mayor's motion at a city commission meeting. Yeah. But the MTPO, this body doesn't need to make that motion. What I heard Andrew say is we, we are moving forward. So that answers Jeff's option of slow down. We can't do that. That leaves MV for RTS to the county residents as of March. City commission needs to provide that motion to their, unless we as a body and MTO want to provide a different direction. I'd like to hear from Scott Coons and some of the other folks there before we do this. So the city commission will agenda this for Thursday. All right. Good job. I'll bring it up at our, I'll bring it up at our meeting tomorrow. And we have it agenda for tomorrow. But I, I can, if I could, I've had my hand up for a while. I would also like to point out that we have a, at least one other provider that has contacted us by email offering services. So I think that getting a few prices or a few estimates of costs might make sense. Given the list of services that are, the list of equipment that the city needs and the number of employees that they would need to hire to provide services for the county, that sounds pretty darn expensive to me. So I think getting, you know, some prices from some organizations that already have that equipment, already have those employees, it may or may not be in be transport. I think that would make sense. And to add on to Commissioner Alford and Commissioner Prizia, I want to make sure dealing with the unincorporated areas with the MV transportation to make sure that if there is a transition, that it does not slow down as being a former driver of MV transportation. There are a lot of clients, customers that are out in rural areas. And if they did not have MV transportation, they would not be able to make it to any of their doctor's appointments. They would not be able to make it to go grocery shopping, anything. So they really do depend upon MV transportation. If it is transferred over to the county, please let it be a smooth transition, no stopping services for the clients that are with MV transportation. Again, city, county, all of the unincorporated areas because they really, really, really truly need it because they live down on some roads that you wouldn't go down 3 o'clock. And we have to clock in at 3.15 in the morning, 3.15, 3.30. That's your first driver leaving out. That used to be me. And then I have to pick up, say, maybe in Montee Oak. And I have to be in Montee Oak. I clock in 3.15, 3.45. I may have to be in Montee Oak picking this person up to have them back on Main Street at 4.15 or whatever time the dialysis opens. Then I may have to shoot to Hawthorne and pick up someone there way out in the middle of nowhere. And this is a woman now that's moving this vehicle this time of morning. And then I may have to go to a Lachua and come back. But the thing is, a lot of these folks, I'm trying to use the correct word because I see they're not able to get around on their own. They're legally blind. And they really, really do need M&B transportation. So please, let's make a smooth transition. Let's not stop any services. Because if you do, again, these are people's lives that are depending on it. Thank you, Chair Pruitt. So my question or my comment was similar to what Commissioner Taylor had. But I'm a little bit confused, and please pardon me, so I'm sure someone can answer for me. The TD funding or the state funding, the 500K, with this break, how would that be split? Or would it all stay with the city? Or would it be split between the county? Or can someone direct me to where I can get caught up on the whole discussion? And I'm willing to do that outside of the meeting. But I'm a little, I mean, I understand, I've heard some of what the city has said that their challenges are. But I'm just trying to figure out what is of this pot of money that the state and these other agencies are contributing. It would be available to the county to either partner, continue to partner with the city, hopefully with economists at scale. Or if they have to break off and explore the options, as Commissioner Alford said, they've gotten some inquiries. I mean, what are we talking about here? How is that $500,000 from the state funding split? Do we know that? Or do we even still be getting it? Yeah, right. Or does it all stay with the city? Well, I'll let the RPC answer that. But the state TD commission have a contract with the CTC, whoever is the designated coordinator for the county. So that's the money the fund has to go there. So they don't have any extra money for, you know, three times the cost. They only have the allocation that is calculated by formula. So that formula, that formula calculation, that allocation goes to every single county in the state. So our CTC right now is MV? Yes. So you're saying the whole pot goes to MV? I mean, the whole $500,000. But with the city, with you all saying you're going to pull it back in and allow RTS to? It's different transit. I think that's the challenge, right? There's paratransit and then there's TD. They're like two different and they're pulling the paratransit, which is like ADA. So is this, is RTS now going to become the CTC for the city limits of Gainesville? Is that what we're saying? Or maybe I'm just confused and I'll have to talk about this. The CTC doesn't affect the paratransit stuff. Paratransit completely. All this is basically a spot. Go ahead, speak into that. James? Go ahead. I'm sorry. Because everybody, it's good explanation for everybody. So as I understand it, and it's like probably the least senior person here, I'm not sure you're the one to explain it. As I understand it, that $500,000 is for the unincorporated areas of the county. I guess my question was about that. Does that automatically, so they don't have a contract with MV, they've got a contract with whoever the CDC is for the county. So if that was to change, that $500,000 doesn't have to be reapplied for or go through any of that stuff, it would automatically change with whoever the CDC is. Is that correct? Yeah. If MV decides to leave, for example, the RPC needs to issue RFP for the CTC service. Gotcha. We have RPC staff that can explain that. Good enough. So that was my basic explanation of it, if that's helpful. I do have a question or comment myself, since I'm already on the mic, if you want. All right. So if I've got it right, 80, 85-ish percent of the MV contract now is paratransit. Is that correct? 88, 75%. 75%. So, I mean, if only we can take on 75%, we can probably take on 100% somehow, and I think that's going to be the trick, is figuring out what that looks like. Obviously, it's going to take some more resources to be able to buy some more buses and everything else, so I think it is important to make that motion when we get back in session as a city. But there's a lot of things we're going to have to cooperate on as a city and a county. There's all sorts of things that we can really only do together on stuff, and I think this is one of them. So however that comes out and whatever that system looks like, I'm sure it can be done. I don't think there's any magic that can't be accomplished by the two of us working together on this stuff. I sure hope so. It's just a matter of coming up with what that looks like. My aunt depended on MV transfer. She was a single amputee on dialysis. She couldn't drive. So she fortunately lived at the 100th building on 8th Avenue and 1st. But there are so many people that Commissioner Taylor described that this is their mode of transfer. They're like my aunt, but they live in the unincorporated area or outside of the city limits. And they really desperately need the transportation. Uber calling a ride. Share isn't going to get it. I mean, and even if they had a family member that could try to come, you're not able to get their wheelchair. Like when I had a power wheelchair, I couldn't take her in my car. And I guess that's the point I'm making. We're not talking about stopping these services. We're talking about changing who's driving this bus. And every city, county, transportation, jurisdiction in the state manages to do this. So I don't think there's something we can't do. It's just going to be a matter of figuring out what those resources are. I think we as a city and a county get together on it, hammer out what that price is going to be, figure out where to get those resources to move forward with. Commissioner Chestnut. I just want to share a historical aspect of the program. I can go back from 2000 to 2006 when I served as a city commissioner. It was horrible. It was CTS that had the services at that time. They were not picking people up on time. They were leaving people at their dialysis appointments. They weren't coming back for those folks. It's not about the service. It's about the level of service. That's the problem. The level of service is the key. Not doing the service, but the level of service. Because as I can recall, that there were a lot of complaints from those folks. That's the most vulnerable in our community were complaining. And they were asking for a new CTS company to come in. And MB did. And all I can say, whatever they did, they satisfied those folks. And those folks have been happy. So the only problem I'm having now is that level of service. Are these folks going to get the same service? You know, because that is something that is very difficult that companies that did it for a living could not do it right until MB came. That's the only thing I can say from historical that I know of. And those people are very vocal. They're very vocal. And they will let you know. Because back in 2006 and 2000, we heard it all the way to that point until we got rid of CTS. So, and then it went great up until now. So, I can talk about that. But I'm just worried about the level of service. Not who does the service, but will we have the same level of service. That's what I'm concerned about. That's all I'm saying. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Any other comments from the board? Okay. Oh, yeah. I mean, and just to reiterate the point about, I mean, level of service is, I will say that I remember when I was working in outlying counties as well. I mean, transportation disadvantaged is, I mean, it's in every county all around the state of Florida. I remember working in Bradford County, and we had a contract out there. I mean, Alachua County is not unique in having to do rural TD service, right? So, you should be able to compare apples to apples with the cost of things on that. I will, and I just to, I want us to figure out the transition. There is a third party here, which is the MB currently in the role of the contract. I know that they're here, so I'd be happy to hear from them, but I know that I run businesses most of my adult life. I know a lot of us here have, too. I've lost contracts. If this is the direction we're going, and it's not like this is the direction we're going, then I'd like to figure out with MB as well as that third party that's there, how do we make sure this transition is smooth? How do we make sure that, you know, that right now, I mean, MB's reputation is stellar, I think, within our community, as you pointed out. And I think that having a really solid transition between the contract that they had into whatever the next contract did, I think, would go a long way in retaining that stellar amount of how they're viewed throughout this community and just generally as a company. But, you know, I'd like to hear from that. But I think that is a third thing that is here, that is, you know, we're trying to figure out how to get this transition. We need to figure out how to do it. We want to figure out how to do it in a way that is, you know, affordable for Alachua County, but still making sure that we're given that level of service that everyone deserves. And as you guys pointed out, that might be, you want to over-promise and under-promise, over-deliver, the opposite, right? Under-promise and over-deliver. I will say that during these transitions, it's going to be bumpy. So if the direction from our city commission, from the county commission is, hey, this is important, we've got to move quickly on this, just understand to give us a little bit of grace as we do that, if that is the direction that we end up going. I just want to say that here before we move to that next one, is that our staff wants to do a very good job with our level of service, with everything. And they do not want to drop the ball, and that is part of why we are having this conversation now about saying, hey, we feel like we can do this. We're sure we can take on this ADA paratransit. There might be some bumps, but we can move forward with it. But how, you know, that if we are asking to push them faster, that there is an impact to that, too. Thank you. Madam Chair, for me, a few points I wanted just to touch on. And I think, as you've heard, I think the TD service is a different type of service than what the city currently provides, whether it's respect to fixed route or mobility on demand or paratransit that we're taking over. Those services are generally in line with both the hours and the geographic location of where we run fixed route. So we run paratransit. We start paratransit at the same time we start fixed route in the mornings. Some of the TD trips, as you heard, start much earlier and go out. They tend to be longer. They're out into the county. So that's all to say that I just want to make sure that as we're talking about this, things don't get too reduced down to just an issue of writing a check or hiring staff because there are logistics with a different type of service. And I think to Commissioner Chestnut's point, we don't want to bring a bunch of angry people to MTPO complaining about this. We want to do a good job, and we want to make sure that we continue to provide the best service. And, again, as it's been said, but it's worth saying again, our issue is not with the service quality of MTP. That's never been the case. I think we've generally also had great experiences working with MB and the service that they provide. So we're going to strive to provide the same, at least the same level of services MB provides, whether it's paratransit or, if it comes to that point, TD service in the future. We just want to make sure we're delivering service that you all will be proud of us. Mayor Ward. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just so everybody's on the same page, we are not here today, the city's not here today to ask for this business. We're not here to pitch you on it. We believe that we can develop it into a service that works for everybody. But we were put into a situation where we had to make changes budgetarily. We had to make changes. We did not have an option financially about how to make this work. What we are doing is saying, we think we can make this work for the entire Alachua County community. I have complete faith that RTS drivers can be at least as responsive moving forward as anybody else can. I think we have a really good team, and I believe they can provide the service necessary. But we are not here to pitch a service. We, I believe, can fill a hole. But we're not, don't think of this as, oh, the city's just trying to get in on a contract. We are not. We'd be okay not doing it. But we see a need, and we're here to offer the opportunity to do that. But details need to be worked out, and we will, I mean, I don't know what the results of a motion will be, but we will certainly take up this on our agenda at Thursday's GPC meeting. Thank you. Thank you. And you're talking staff to staff. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Anything else for these two gentlemen? I guess I would just ask, like, you know, I think there's, like, these things that happen, and they happen in a way, like, because it's, like, it was your budget decision. It was, like, you were focused on the city, and I totally get that. But, like, it is impacting us, too. And so where there are intersections between whatever cities and the county are, and we have those joint relationships, I would just ask, like, if you could give us a heads up, like, when you're starting the conversations, I think maybe we could have headed this off at the pass and could have come up with a plan earlier in the process. Because much like you have kind of given you guys the heads up, at the end of the summer, we felt a little the same way, like, kind of caught off guard by this information. And so I just – I guess that's my only request is just, like, if there are things that you know we're kind of partnering on, even if they're separate types of transit or separate types of whatever it might be, if you could just give us the heads up, we would really appreciate it. Because I think then the dialogue can start a lot earlier, and we're not in defensive mode. We're in, you know, we're in collaboration mode. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay. Anything else? Okay. Commissioner Booth. Yeah, it seems like we've said everything as it relates to discussion. I know the county tomorrow has got it on their agenda. You know, just for me as a 107, budget was clearly a factor, but it wasn't the key factor. I do have faith and confidence in our city staff that they can do the job because we've been talking about our concerns. And the concerns are making sure, I think, Commissioner Chestnut, you alluded to this, is we've got to do this professionally, and we've got to do it compassionately and with dignity because, you know, the cliché about you're only as good as how you treat your most vulnerable citizens, but that's not a cliché, right? And so we have got to do this well. And if we have bumps and we don't do it well, then we have failed miserably because we're not going to leave people that have medical needs on the side of the road because we can't schedule them, we can't get them to appointment, we can't pick them up at 5 a.m., those type of things. So we do have, we've had a lot of conversations with the city staff, and they have, when they talk about ramp and implementation, they're talking about the software, the scheduling, not just the drivers, but a scheduler to make sure that we're not missing and dropping the ball on someone who's sitting, you know, for example, on the side of the road. One thing that probably gives me a little bit of less concern is the fact that we've done so much paratransit already. So we've done the vast majority of the trips and the people picking up, just not those ones that require the additional expertise. And that's the piece that we're really going to have to focus on. So I know the county is going to probably have a little more discussion about it tomorrow morning. We're going to do it well, or we're not going to do it. You know, and we'll have to just turn our back and say, you know what, we failed, and I just don't see that happening at this point. But the manner in which we provide the service with integrity and dignity is going to be absolutely essential. Thank you. Anything else for it? Mr. Koons, do you have anything that you might want to add? I know that Commissioner Cornell has wanted to hear from you as well. We're glad to see you. Nineteen years of working with us, you should know what we're trying to do here. Thank you, Madam Chair. Scott Koons, Executive Director of the North Central Florida Regional Planning Council. As all of you know, the council serves as the planning agency for the state-funded Transportation Disadvantaged Program. It is a county-wide program. As was pointed out earlier, it serves all 67 counties. What occurs here in this community, as was pointed out by Mr. Hayes at the beginning, and he framed the situation very clearly, because the city of Gainesville has a contract, the MB Transit for the Federal Transit Administration required paratransit service, within three-quarters of a mile of your fixed route system. When they get calls for medical appointments for someone who needs paratransit inside the RTS service area, those are paid for through the Federal Transit Administration funding from the city. So the Transportation Disadvantaged Fund, the state funds, of $525,000 for services each year, largely go to the unincorporated area and the outlying communities, primarily for medical appointments. So the situation is, there's a formal process. There's a state commission that designates the Community Transportation Coordinator for a five-year period. MB Transit is the current coordinator and has been for quite some time. They were just redesignated two years ago, July 1st of 2023. So they're just starting year three of the current five-year cycle. If this plays out where the city assumes paratransit service from MB Transit, and MB Transit says we can't afford to do transportation disadvantage, it boils down to very simple situations Mr. Hayes pointed out. Either the city needs to accelerate and take on the state transportation disadvantage March 1st, or to move back the assumption of the paratransit to October 1st. We cannot have, and the community cannot afford, a seven-month gap in service. As was pointed out, most of these trips are for medically necessary, many of them for dialysis. And we all know what happens if folks can't get to dialysis. People are going to die. This is serious. And we're not aware of any other organization, but I'd be very interested to hear from Commissioner Alpert who approached her about wanting a service. The last time we went out for a request for a proposal, two-and-a-half years ago, we only got one response from MB Transit. There wasn't any other organization interested in providing a service in Alachua County. So in terms of the formal process, if MB Transit does say March 1st, we're no longer going to provide its service, the state commission can, on an emergency basis, designate a temporary community transportation coordinator. They only meet four times a year. They're going to meet in December, and they're going to meet in late March. So if that's going to occur, it's going to have to occur at their December meeting. And then under state law, if it's going to be a private entity, we'd have to go through a competitive request for proposal process that we have here in Alachua County. However, under state law, in some of the other counties in north-central Florida, we use public agencies. If it's a government-to-government contract, that can be done on a non-competitive basis. But again, that formal designation has to be made by the state commission, and they only meet quarterly. So that has to be factored into the schedule of when this transition occurs, that there is a formally designated community transportation coordinator that would receive those $525,000 to provide those 10,000 trips for medically necessary appointments. Happy to answer any questions. Anybody? Questions? Thank you. Oh, you did somebody else? I was going to say maybe Ken. I don't know. Ken, do you have a question for Scott? I do. Thank you, Madam Chair. Scott, thank you for that explanation. So, essentially, Commissioner, I think you just heard that we need to hear from MB as to what the plan is, because if RTS cannot provide that service, it's not an option. So, we're at MB. We need to know what the cost is. So, if we can hear from MB, I know we're going to hear from the tomorrow, Mary Ellen, but if they could just summarize behind Scott's explanation what their thoughts are, that would be helpful for everybody. Yeah, I agree. Ken, I was just going to ask if we could hear that. I guess I was really surprised that the price would triple if we do have that gap in service. I mean, that seems like quite a huge jump in cost associated. I understand that they have carrying costs associated with it, but maybe we could hear from MB. Do we have somebody here from MB? Yes, ma'am. Where are you? Come right on. Hi, come here. Good afternoon. Introduce yourself. Yes, sir. Good afternoon. My name is Randy France, and I'm the Senior Vice President of Operations for MB Transportation. While I, we were upset of the city's decision to insource, it is in our value, it is in our culture. For the 50 years that we've been in business as a company, and for the 22 years we've been here in Gainesville, that no one will be stranded or left behind. We are diligently working, trying to solution a means in which 15,000 trips per year, over 1,000 individual riders per year in the county are not left stranded. That's our core value. That's what we care about. Do I have an answer for you today? I do not. Unfortunately, in this business, when you lose the ability to leverage volume, which is 77% of our volume is RTS business, it creates major inefficiencies. You have increased deadhead. You have increased miles. You have less revenue. It creates a lot of inefficiencies. So we are trying to work a means, work a solution, to make sure that our clients that we have cared for for 22 years are not stranded. I look forward to bringing those solutions at future meetings, but oftentimes those inefficiencies create higher costs, right? And that's where the 2 to 3x cost comes from. And I'll be more than happy to share, you know, specifics with you at later meetings once we have those. And candidly, our solutioning has been working on keeping the business that we've done for 22 years. But I will tell you with integrity, we are working as hard as we can to make sure that our clients are not left stranded. Questions? Anna, do you follow up? Well, no. I guess I just – I guess my only other question is when you are doing the transition for the insourcing, and it sounds like there's potentially a gap in service in that – in those few months. Like, do you see an opportunity or a solution for MV supporting – Yes, ma'am. With regards to the transition of the RTS business, you'll hear it from Harry Wilson, our chairman, or myself. We're going to operate with integrity through that transition. What I am talking about, what we are working to do and find a solution that means is that timeline gap that you're referring to, right? How can we, MV, help support, help continue that business through major inefficiencies? It might come a higher cost, but that's what we're looking to solution. Yes, ma'am. I appreciate you being here. Yes, ma'am. I have two specific questions for Mr. Scott Koons. You mentioned two junctions, junctures at which the state may step in if there's not a transportation disadvantage provider, December and March. Yes, the State Transportation Disadvantage Commission makes the formal designation. And they meet quarterly. So they'll be meeting in late or mid-December and mid-late March. So if there is a gap, what I just heard from MV Transit, though, is I'm taking that as a commitment to continue to provide the transportation advantage service during that seven-month transition between March and October. If that's the case, then we don't have to worry about that. If that's not the case, then timing is going to be very critical about when an emergency provider would be designated and when a new permanent provider would be designated. And can you specifically provide any information regarding Suwannee Valley Transit Authority and any potential to use services provided by them for Alachua County and then, like, drop dead, you know, needing to sort of fill a gap scenario? The Regional Planning Council serves as the official planning agency for the program in 11 of our 12 counties. Here in Alachua County, MV Transit is the provider of a private company. In Columbia, Hamilton, Suwannee County, the Suwannee Valley Transit Authority, which is a public transit authority owned by the Board of County Commissioners of those three counties, provides a service. In Levy County, Levy Transit provides a service, which is a county-owned transit service by the Board of County Commissioners. In Bradford, Union, Lafayette, Dixie, and Gilchrist counties, Suwannee River Economic Council provides a service, which is a not-for-profit community action agency, provides a service in those counties. Since they do operate in Gilchrist and Dixie and Bradford and Levy, and many of their trips are bringing their clients into medical facilities here in Alachua County daily, I did have a conversation earlier this week with the director of Suwannee River Economic Council to see if they would have any interest, and he indicated their plate is full. They would not be able to take that on. I have not reached out to either Levy County or Suwannee Valley Transit this time on a preliminary basis because decisions have not been made yet. Thank you for the information. Okay. Well, this doesn't require any action right now, but I assume that we're going to both go back to our boards and then make sure that our staffs are working together for a solution. Hopefully, you will include the folks here who are offering their services as well. But there are folks here who want to speak from the community, and so we'd like to hear from you. Come right on up. Before you want us to, you can come here. Okay, you've got me, and it's right here at this podium, and there's a microphone right there. I'm a broadcaster. Oh, right then. Thank you, Madam Chair and commissioners and everyone attending the meeting day. Thanks for having me. I'm Spencer Morton. I represent citizens with disabilities for the Alachua County Coordinated Transportation Disadvantage Board. A couple of concerns, a couple of things I want to talk about real quick is that I've been riding MV for 25 years or 20 years, since 2005, actually. I'm totally blind. I live right outside the city limits, right past Job Corps, almost a little past the airport, so I'm out of the city limits. I do provide, I do rely on TD services to do the things that I need to do in town to go to the medical appointments and actually to, you know, to help other people because, you know, I do some stuff in the community for, you know, people who are blind teaching computers and their phones and stuff like that. We all rely on these services, and MV has been outstanding since we've been getting that service. As Commissioner Chestnut pointed out earlier, CTS was a total disaster. I feel that we have reliable and safe transportation, which is imperative for our community. Most of the people that, you know, ride trust and know the drivers, because a lot of them are picked up by the same drivers all the time. One of the things that needs to be pointed out besides all that is emergency transportation to emergency shelters, which I hadn't heard yet mentioned in this meeting. MV provides that transportation, especially to the people in the rural areas of the county, to emergency shelters and special needs, you know, in case a hurricane or tropical storm approaches our area. So we need to look at that. I don't think it would be a real good idea to have that seven-month gap, because what if a hurricane hits us in August? Where are all these people going to go? I formally request that we all come up with some kind of an amicable solution, because it sounds to me that this change for the paratransit service has been rendered academic, that all of us come to a solution, the city, the county, MV Transportation, and all our advocacy groups to delay this onset for the gap in service and retain MV Transportation at least through October 2026. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next speak in about three minutes. We have a little timer up there, and you can just go for it. My name is Jeff Lee. I'm here in two capacities, really. I am the director for elder care, so in that respect, I'm a partner with MV, but I'm also the vice chair of the MPPO, and I would echo Commissioner Chestnut's sentiment. I started my job in 2003. Transportation was a train wreck. It was just – MV came in, and it took a while to get it right, no doubt, but they got it right. And there's two things that have been said here today that I thought were kind of telling, and one's kind of – I'm going to paraphrase that this group of individuals are making decisions about transportation without understanding the broader impacts of that decision. And I think it's important. The other thing that stuck out was – and I can't remember who said it, but the question was asked whether this was a financial decision. And the answer was, well, yeah, but not really. If it's not really, why are we having this discussion? It's not broken. Why try to fix it? If it is motivated by purely dollars, then I need to see black and white, side-by-side comparison of what the rides that are being provided now and the cost and what the new model is going to look like and the cost. Mr. Gomez threw out, and maybe I misheard, but I thought he said it would lead to 50,000 more rides. I find that really hard to believe without the data. That's a lot of rides. It's probably a huge percentage increase over what's being done now. And maybe it works out that's true. But if that's true, it comes at a cost. What is the cost? Are you now paying people less? You're eliminating management probably, but you're redistributing that burden on RTS. Is that going to happen without giving somebody a raise? Probably not. So that's all I would ask. If you're going to make decisions based on narrative, which is what sounds like it's happening right now, where's the black and white comparison? Don't have that. You cannot make an informed decision. You just can't. That's all I'm asking. Well, I want to see the numbers. If it makes sense, it makes sense. If it doesn't, why are we changing? Because it works right now. It works. It's not great. It's never going to be great. Because the money is just not there. It just isn't. But it's the best we have, and I think it works very, very well for this community. So, thank you. Speaker? Mike? No, I don't see the email. All right. But you can let them know about the email. I think we all, county commissioners, received an email from Jackie regarding an alternate solution. Kathy Penny, the commissioner from Archer, had to leave because she ran out of time. But she did say that she was here to represent the city of Archer because they have multiple citizens that utilize Embiid Transport. And she wanted to verify that they were not going to lose their access to transportation. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner? Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to, you know, I know we're ending up, ending part of this conversation. Thank you, Council Member Taylor, for talking about that kind of on-the-ground experience. I know that I, when I first moved to town, I had a roommate who used Embiid to get two medical appointments. That's what she had to do. So, I kind of got an early taste of, because I was very confused. Like, what do you mean it's door-to-door, and how does this work, and how do you schedule? And it made her be basically an independent person who was in a power chair. But she could get to all of her appointments, and her power chair would get her from where we lived to downtown, to Depot Park, go experience the city, and then get back home. And this was all within the city. But I, you know, though some people have said it is perhaps not only financial, but I know that the Gainesville, from the City Commission side, for me, definitely it is financial. If you see the cost of what it, the increase per ride, particularly the difference between what RTS paid versus what out-in-the-county TD paid in 2024, for ambulatory, meaning, you know, they can walk, it's not a wheelchair, RTS, the City of Gainesville, paid, I think, 42% more per ride. So, it really is a big difference. So, when Commissioner Prigio, when you say, well, why is it going to cost so much more? Maybe because the city, the rides inside the city, they've been subsidizing the system the entire time, potentially. We have real dollars and cents when it costs $64.80 for an ambulatory ride in 2025, basically in the city, or within, it's a half mile, three-quarter, half mile of fixed routes. So, some of those are outside of the city, just on the outside edges into the county, versus the TD at $45.61, $64.80 versus $45.61. I mean, that's where we saw on the city side that there's some potential for us to save some money, and we did budget it as a savings to RTS to help prop up RTS. I just want to make sure that some people that are all of us know that on the city side, we did look at numbers, and we did try to figure out how we can, you know, in the end. The part that we can say is not financial, but saving 30 people's jobs, I mean, it is finances because it comes from, you know, it comes from money. But just to be clear, we also, like, in this whole transition on the RTS side, we leased out buses that are off transporting people at theme parks, I think. And so, like, we made real decisions with real numbers that we had to, on a dime, figure out a new way to make RTS solvent. And that includes transferring out, you know, those buses that are being leased, and then internally figuring out how, in 2025, our, just to be clear, our RTS ADA contract with MV was estimated at $3.2 million. So I know 1.5 sounds like a lot, but the roughly 46,000 rides on the RTS side needed through MV that through ADA came to $3.2 million. So to put some numbers onto the scope on the city side, what we were trying to work with as it got every year, just much, much more expensive to run this program. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. If there is a gap in between the services, would it be possible to take, I guess you would say, the best drivers, the most well-trained drivers from MV, bring them over to the city, what all the city didn't take while I was there working and bring over to RTS, that already have their fixed routes because the ones that usually run, you run in Hawthorne route, you run in the Archer route or something like that, you have a fixed route. To bring them over to RTS, already have, I guess, that little special department as you're starting to work on it and carve it out. Again, so there is no lapse in service in the unincorporated rural areas so that everything will still keep moving smoothly until everything has transitioned over properly, if it has to transition over. I think that would be a good idea. It might not hurt to have you on working with our staff, you know, as a former driver, as they're trying to negotiate some solutions here. If you all, you know, work with the county or the city, you choose. But, you know, it would be nice to have your input, I think. Okay, anything else? Madam Chair? Yes, Commissioner Cornell. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a quick question for Commissioner Willis. You had mentioned saving 30 jobs, and I heard 10. I'm just trying to understand that. The second question is, of the $3.2 million, how much of that comes to state and federal funding? Federal funding obviously comes to the MPCO, but we know about $3.2 million. How much is the city paying versus state and federal funding? Well, I can answer at least the... And then the other question for Mr. Gomez. He had mentioned that to add the county's piece of the service was 50,000 trips. I thought it was 15,000. I was trying to understand what that number is. 50,000 or 15? Thank you, Madam Chair. That's one floor. One, 15. I'll clarify at least my comments. So it's roughly 10 filled positions that we were looking to potentially, I believe, potentially fire October 1st. If we didn't plan a budget that had a plan into the future, and then an additional, let's say, 20 positions, I'm making some rough numbers of listing, you know, job listings that we're hiring to make that transition. So that's a total of 30 jobs, 10 people who are in those jobs. But that's only because we're not fully staffed at RTS. If we had those 20 other positions, had we been fully staffed, it would have been probably 30 positions roughly when we tried to balance the entire budget at RTS. Sorry, I've been following this way too closely. And it sounds like Mr. Gomez confirmed it was 15,000 additional rides in TD out in the county. And then of the $3.2 million, where we get those funds, Mr. Gomez would have to confirm exactly where those funds come from on the city side. But then it ends up costing us that $3.2 million. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Cornell, are you willing to wait until our staffs work together to come up with a clear explanation of who, what, where, and when? No, they made a financial decision based on $3.2 million. I want to know who pays it. Mr. Gomez can answer that question. Okay. Mr. Gomez, would you repeat your question one more time, please? We just want to make sure we heard that clearly. Yes. Yes, I'm sorry. So I was told that what Commissioner Willis just said was that the amount that they paid MD Transit was $3.2 million. The question is, is that paid for from the city's budget or some of that federal and state budget? Sure. It's recording you? I don't think it's that. Okay. It's a combination of funding. You have the local funds. You have the federal funds. Some of the formula, we can use 20% of that total grant to pay for ADA services. So it's a combination of state, local, and federal funds. So 20% of $3.2 million is $640,000. Is that what the city paid and the rest was paid by the federal and state funds? You can say that. We don't have any detail on the $3.2 million, only that we can get a portion of the locals and state funds and also the revenue collected, all that as to the $3.2 million. We have some funds that we initially used for that, too. You know, when we do the COVID funding that is still using, but that's going to expire. So, Commissioner Cornell, it sounds like you're asking a little bit about, like, is it coming from general funds or not? It's not going to detail on, you know, exact number. It goes into, Mr. Gomez, it goes into a lot of these funds go into our, is it a proprietary fund? Am I saying that right? It's the RTS fund. It is not general fund. It is a fund by itself that has a lot of different revenue streams. Is that right, Mr. Gomez? Yes. Okay. So it may be hard for us to know exactly where every dollar that then goes there, but it's all legal. We're allowed to spend these funds to make ADA transit happen. I think, would you like to follow up? Yes, ma'am. Respectfully, if it is a budgetary concern, it is public record that on September 18th, we wrote, Cynthia Curry, I write on behalf of MB Transportation to offer a contract adjustment that would allow the city to achieve 100% of its budgetary savings it needs without negatively impacting the paratransit service upon which riders of Gainesville and Alachua County depend on. They asked us for 2.7, 3.2 to 2.7. We offered that on September 18th. So we offered to make them whole on September 18th from 3.2 to 2.7. Any response? You guys? I guess. I guess, you know, I just, again, I guess I'm just, it's like listening. Listening to this conversation and, like, digging into it now feels very after the fact. It's like playing Monday night, you know, baseball or whatever, youth football or whatever you say. I don't even play sports, but it's like Monday night quarterback. Thank you. Yes, that. And I just am like, I've lost my own metaphor. But anyway, my point is, like, we're doing it after the fact. And it's really frustrating because I feel like if we, if, if what the city of Gainesville's goal was is saving money and, and finding that, I think that, like, collectively, like, the county and envy and us could have come to the table and renegotiated something that could have worked. But it sounds like really what it was about was saving jobs. It wasn't necessarily about saving money. It was about saving the jobs for RTS because we just heard that they, that you were offered the savings. So it was about saving jobs, which I think is a very admirable thing. Like, we want to save our local jobs. We want people employed. And we want to make sure our local jobs, especially with our local governments, provide good benefits and, and fair pay are, are solid and that they're there. And so, like, I appreciate that that was a goal. I just wish that all of these conversations could have been thought about and we could have all been weighing in on them because while it was a city decision, it is impacting everybody so much, you know. And it's, it's impacting us and it's impacting people outside of the city in major ways. And it is state and federal and local dollars that all feel like they're all tied up together. And I'm not even clear. Are those state, for the paratransit piece, are those state and local dollars, like, I don't understand how those go to RTS. Are those just allocated to RTS because it's the local transit option that's within. And so, it's automatically to you all because they have the transit, like, system set up. And so, I mean, like, or do we have to apply? Are we going to, like, if you all take that over, are you going to automatically get that funding from the TD as well? Or are we going to have to be, like, applying for money that we may or may not get? That's going to be determined, I think, as we continue the conversation. Mayor Ward, do you want to? So, if I could try to bring this into some context. It seems very, very complex and complicated because it is very, very complex and complicated. And it is not something that you can pop on the table and say, okay, tell us about these fine points of this huge system in a short period of time. It is ridiculously complex. And the people who do it for a living don't see it as complex. People who have a vested private interest in the contracts continuing to work don't see it as complex and difficult. They want to get paid. And I understand that. That's okay. But this is, this was a long decision. They went back to the beginning, a very public long decision. They went back several months. And to try to piece it together right here, right now, is going to frustrate everybody. I would suggest that our staff is more than willing to meet with folks and work through the numbers with you. But if we all try to understand it here, we're all going to be very frustrated. We're going to walk out just as, with just as little understanding as we started with. I agree that there are lots of things that, lots of things that are not transit related, that are interrelated throughout our community. And I wish that a lot of that were more clear. But all this goes back to when you pull a big chunk of funding out of the funding formula for any process, it is going to create downstream impacts for everybody involved. And we've seen this in housing. We've seen this in a variety of things throughout the community. This is just the latest example. And I wish that that were not the case. But when you pull millions of dollars out of a system, it's going to have downstream impacts. And that is what we're working through right now is the downstream impacts of that. With the commitment that we are here to make sure that people get served, that people who need to get served get served, as long as that doesn't happen. And not as long. But we have to do it in a way so that it's only on the backs of one kind of taxpayer. We have to be careful about that. And we should be careful about that. And this is a complex system. But what we're dealing with right now is the result of one partner pulling a huge chunk of money out of the system. And there is no way that that can't be discussed in this. But I would encourage everyone to talk to staff individually, and they will spend time with you to give you the information. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Any further discussion? So we're just going to take it back to our boards and put our teams together. All right. Let's see what we can do. All right. Well, moving on. Mr. Gomez, do you have any ridership trends information on RTS? Something happy? Mr. Gomez. Not really. Mr. Gomez, would you like me to rotate and try to zoom in? Or are you going to just speak to the numbers? I'm just going to talk in general. Yes. We rotate it for us, please. Yes. September was the last month of the fiscal year 25. And we see 30,000 hours less of service compared to last year. 30,000. The majority, of course, are coming from the University of Florida. So we have a 500,000 decrease in ridership, all related to those 30,000 hours. So we put it back to our 2023 level of service when we're recovering from COVID. But since we cut that many hours and we have a major service adjustment in July with summer B. So we'll see for next year it's going to be trending even lower because we're cutting another 20, 25,000 to 27,000 hours for next coming year. So we expect probably to have back to 4.5 million probably projected for FY26. The productivity is still good. You know, it's still moving, you know, 4% increase in productivity compared to last year. But ridership's not because we're providing a lot less service. Have you all heard anything from the University of Florida about restoring any of the services? They did restore some of them during the summer. They added some service, and the city commission also added even more service. But with that, it's still going to be 20,000, 27,000 hours less next year compared to what we have now that we already cut it, 30,000 hours. Do you have an increase in ridership during bowl games? Yes. We don't include those as a part of the federal report, but, yes, we work because we run service to the games. Is there any – go ahead, Linda. You finish it. I just – you know, again, the school bus – I don't know what the situation is with school buses. I know in the past there have been, you know, problems with not having enough buses or not having enough scheduling for that. Drivers are the problem. Drivers. It has been the problem. Okay. And have you got it – is that in good shape? Because I didn't know if we could use some of our city buses, you know. I've tried to get our folks in the city – in the schools, the high schools and the middle schools, so kids can be trained and taught how to use the bus service. You know, I was hoping that we could get some more collaborations. Increasing the ridership, yeah. But our school bus ridership has improved. The level of service has improved because we've done some rerouting, which has been good. And I think probably the need probably is outside of school hours, you know, with children's trust. And I think the city funded, you know, the free ridership program at one point in time. So – but during school time, the bus service, we – you know, some routes were changed last school year and this year. So that's gotten a lot better. Madam, we have the – we have the under-18 pass program that is actually being well-used by school kids. But are they taught in school how to use them? Yes. We have our – yeah, marketing communication team going to schools and – When I taught at Westwood, we took school classes on the bus up to the college. But, you know, I mean, we were able to get the whole group of kids on the bus from the class and use it that way. And I don't know if there's some way that we could encourage, you know, city ridership if there are not bus drivers available or – We do have some field trips that the kids come into RTS and they stay on the bus and we talk to them. Great. Thank you. Linda. I just wanted to comment. It's my understanding that our Associate Vice President, Kevin Sowers, who's in the Vice President for Business Affairs Office, has really kind of become the point person on this and has been keeping in touch with RTS, has been asking for data, I believe even kind of hourly by route data, so that the university can have a better understanding and work in partnership with RTS and keep the dialogue open in that way. But, you know, the university is in a similar boat as the city with needing to keep within resources available and with costs going up and the revenue source that the university uses to fund that partnership remaining flat and largely, you know, not within our ability to raise some of the student fees without even legislative approval. And, you know, the university also took a 5% across the board cut in budget this year from the state. So I think the dialogue is still very important to the university and trying to find solutions that work for both partners. But the university has some of the same budgetary issues that they're dealing with. I'm surprised. I really am. I'm surprised. I think it all went to vouchers. No, it's your job. You're supposed to say things like that. Let me put a piece of can in my mouth. That's right. That's what it's important. At least you get the metaphors right. That's fair. Dad, on to what Linda said, the debt program has been funded by student fees, by transportation fees that are on every credit hour. Okay. And the legislature has been generally unwilling, not generally, completely unwilling, to raise tuition or fees. The University of Florida is consistently a great bargain, which is one of the big reasons that it ranks as high as it does. And as a parent of a student, I find that wonderful right now. But it harms the ability of the university to do the things that it ought to be doing, including being a good financial partner in the community. And a good neighbor. That's a real thing. Good neighbor. Now, I'm willing to say good things whenever possible. But that's a reality they're definitely facing. I get that. But that's what it is, is fees and tuition are sacrosanct as far as the legislature is concerned. And that's not a real-world good solution. Someone else. Adrian. Thank you, Chair. I was wondering if it's possible to get historical. Like, at the airport, we're able to track every month and year, and we can see the trends. Like, oh, how did we do last August versus this August or first two years ago August to be able to kind of compare? Because at the airport, every month it's different for us and the same with RTS. You're August. You're not the same. So we're able to get that trend map. Yeah. This is a report that we've been providing for years, but we have a lot more analysis done. And we do work with the university staff every week we're meeting to review productivity and then to see what kind of potential adjustments we can do to the service. But it's coming cost-neutral. It's not being additional funds. Do we get data from UF on Campus Connector since they've now rolled out Campus Connector, just so we could kind of understand the volume that has shifted from RTS rides to Campus Connector rides? Before, when there was limited Gator cab and all that kind of stuff, I was less concerned. But, you know, is it tens of thousands of rides per month? I know we're only two months into the year or the school year. But, like, how successful has Campus Connector been? And I don't know, Linda, if you have that. Or eventually that could kind of make it to city people to here, county, MTPO to here. Yeah. I'm sure that could be provided if Jesus just requested. But, you know, that was – they don't go off of campus. So that was really just in lieu of the campus routes that RTS had run. Right. But when we see the drop of ridership, to understand that it's – these people didn't disappear and no longer have economic activity, right? And they're not all walking. They've shifted service potentially to the Campus Connector. A lot of these buses used to – people used to ride across campus on a bus that was really not – you know, they were catching it for a short portion just across the campus portion even though the bus went, you know, on campus, off campus. And so I'm just trying to understand what chunk of that has just found a good resource in Campus Connector. Well, I know a lot of people haven't because I've been doing a bunch of research on this. And so, like, a whole group of students I talked to have all went out and bought scooters. And so, you know, my concern here is that impact on safety. And the – more scooters on the road, more people not used to riding scooters on the road, more drivers with cell phones in their hands and all of that. So – but I think that it's – I've got a whole intern working on data on this. So I'll be happy to share that when she's finished. Anything better than that? We keep working and trying to improve the service. Your drivers are doing okay? Yes. All right. Thank you. Good note. All right, then. Attendance record. Ms. Moss, we are getting into people's supper time. So this is just sort of the mandatory reporting of attendance records. It's pretty small. And I'll just say, anecdotally, I think we need to figure out if there may be something going on with the airport rep and also school board for the technical advisory committee. Otherwise, we have consistent good attendance at those meetings. And then the CAC – I need that schedule if I could please. I didn't know I was supposed to be there. You're not supposed to be there. No, you are supposed to assign another school board member to the team. Well, it could be you, but it could also be another member. It's an alternate. Yeah. It's this schedule. And then the citizens advisory committee. I'd say we also have quite good attendance. The numbers, however, of participation are quite low. We did get a win recently getting the CAC to agree to a 6 p.m. start time here in Grace Night instead of 7. So I think that will be good. It seemed near unanimous that that was preferred. And we also have some folks from ADA accessibility communities who have kind of, you know, come to the fore in terms of all these discussions who are interested potentially in serving on the CAC. So that will be good. How many seats do we have? We have like 15 seats that could be filled on the CAC. And currently there's actually one additional member who just joined, so five. So a lot. So I had someone approach me about getting on this board, and I did not know where to send them. So what's the way for a citizen to get on the CAC? For right now, you could forward their contact info to me, and we are, yeah, we just track down where do these folks live because there's some geographic distribution, how long have they been serving, so trying to sort of create some records for this group and get it to be more robust because I think more folks would be interested. Next we have agency reports. So I don't know if you want to start. FDOT. You have anything? Nothing. Okay. Thank you. Tina, you have anything? I have a question for the school board. Do we know if for the Safe Street Solo, the Bike and Panette Ped Master Plan, if the lack of sidewalk connection on the road east of Westwood is on the list? There's like a sidewalk that ends at the end of the park, and then it picks up again after the school? 31st Street? 31st Street. I am almost certain that that connection is included, but I will check. There's a problem on 51st Street sidewalk, too. One of our blind residents has a hard time negotiating over that break in the road, and I didn't know if that was us or DOT. Well, we can use our map and find out. That's right. I'm so excited. 51st is a city street? Yeah, 51st. You could always put a park there by the restaurants. I think that, isn't that the intersection or like one corner of its city and one quarter of its county or something? The north end is this city. The south side is... Is it county? Is this? Okay. Yeah, it's a weird intersection. How about the regional airport? Have you guys got the parking garage up there functioning on there? Parking garage is... All right. Has it made a difference? We still... I mean, yeah, there's been an increased capacity. We still had an issue, I think, for one of the games recently. Actually, we were full over. We still have to go in the over for a lot as well. So it's helping, though. How about University of Florida now that we've made you feel bad? Nothing more to report. I don't blame you. I'm sorry, Linda. Oh, that wasn't directed at Linda. I know. I know. But it's hard to be in that seat. It's hard. Okay. Upcoming meetings. Work program hearing. What is that? Yeah. So that's the old October 21st meeting. So the flyer is included. I will go ahead and check to see if there might be any recording or way for folks to follow what happened at the hearing. The second meeting here is the Florida Metropolitan Planning Partnership. Which is more for staff. And then the MPOAC, more for the electeds. I could just query now. Does anyone know if you're a designated MPOAC? I think I was designated with our board, but I can never attend the meetings that might be that, what, are they the ones that are out of town? Yes. Yeah. And I, you know. And I would be able to do that, I think, once I come off chair here, whoever takes that then, then I can, I'd be glad to go to those meetings. I enjoy those people. I just hadn't been able to get down there. Yeah. And I, I'd be glad, I'd be glad if the chair were to drive and I was in the passenger seat for that. Okay. Okay. I think the issue is, is this, those meetings are on the same day as League of Counties or something? Yeah. Is the which days? The City General Policy Days. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. What's the conflict? Pardon? What's the conflict with the, what they were, they're scheduled on the same day as this City of Gainesville General Policy Committee. That's right. Needs to be a county person or whatever. So one of us can go, whoever would like to, but I, I enjoy those people, so I'd be glad to go. Okay. Well, I might do a call. Okay. To see if there are any that are interested in attending that meeting, so. Okay. That's all for the meetings. All right. Anybody from this membership board, comments? We warn you, Dan. It was a good meeting. It's a good meeting, you all. Thank you. I just have one comment. I don't know how this board is related to this issue, but I did wonder about DOT's roadside wildflower planting program and if we could, like, have a conversation about more of the roadways in our county being considered for those roadway planting opportunities for wildflower roadway plantings and also county and city roads considering the idea. Like, we just did 23rd and I noticed the whole entire thing is just turf grass all the way along and I was like, well, that was a really missed opportunity for us to seed with wildflowers and so just wondering if we could maybe find out how we, when we have new projects coming online and I'll bring it up at the county meeting for our roadways, we could either assess them for the opportunity for wildflowers or have that be sort of flagged as our priority if there is an opportunity for that. Yes, sir. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to, again, particularly with State, FDOT in the room, mention that Southwest 13th continues to be just a more busing and bustling and lots of people live down there now. Route 13, we now have four buses running in Peak Day. Lots of students get off right at La Tienda and they jaywalk across four lanes of traffic and a median to get to the metropolitan, very large apartment complex. This is, it's hard to, I can understand why because all the way up north where they'd have to get off the bus, they can't even get off. They had to get off at the old Ronald McDonald House, then cross 13th, then walk down the far side, instead they like to be on the bus to close to their stop and then make a jaywalk. It's a lot of people walking mid-block. It is a lot because they will get off and there will be 10 of them that need to cross all at once. And just that whole stretch from 16th down to 25th and past all the way to 2,900 block, it's just more and more people are down there on the scooters as Commissioner Offord mentioned because the 13 bus is now, it's now almost packed often during the day that people can't quite get on and, or they certainly can't drag their scooter on if they wanted to one of the ways. And so the number of scooter riders on the sidewalks and in the bike lane, it's just really, really increasing. So it is a road that is just really is an urban road. I'm seeing it before my eyes turn into an urban road, not a suburban road. So I just want people to pay attention to that. And what, what FDOT does in the future on that, um, it's 45 miles an hour and we just continue to have lots of accidents on that. It's just changing in nature. It's, it's amazing to see all these people in active transportation, bikes, pushing roller, strollers. Um, but it's just changing a lot. So I just want to keep on mentioning that. And if y'all ever want to come down and see it on any given day, even when I, I should be walking, but I drive three blocks to get a pizza. Uh, I will, I will see, I know, but a pizza is hard to carry sometimes. Um, I will see in that three block section, eight or nine active in just, you know, what 30 seconds, I will see eight or nine people between bikes, moped or little scooters, walking, pushing strollers. It is a truly urban and it's what it is. We, that's what it was up zone for in the past. It's turning into it, but the road itself is currently basically suburban thoroughfare, 45 miles an hour, uh, if they follow the speed limit. Thank you. Just Mayor Ward. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Um, just that underscores the importance for the 13th, Southwest 13th Avenue corridor study, um, that we're going to be increasing the funding for through the UPWP. So we hope to get that, um, out, uh, hopefully this year or early next. Mayor Ward. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, just, I, I won't take too much time, but the, the two things that I wanted to bring up are, first of all, we've talked about this before, 16th Avenue, 27th Terrace, uh, Northwest, it, there's a, a lighted crosswalk there. Yeah. Lighted crosswalk is not good enough, y'all. It is, it is dangerous. Fairly common for there to be traffic accidents, car collisions there. There are a lot of, we have a plan for pedestrian hybrid beacon there, but I'm not sure when it's getting installed. Yeah. I think we've had issues with getting the equipment. I can look up the date. There are children crossing that street a lot. Um, that's the most convenient place to cross, um, uh, headed, uh, up to, uh, to the Westwood. Um, I, we get a lot of calls from here. Yeah. A couple times a year. I've got it up like eight times or something. It's on there. It's just a matter of timing. Um, the other item, uh, we, I'm sure the county commission gets these emails too, but, um, we're getting more, uh, we're getting more, uh, attention on the Williston Road and the Gainesville Hawthorne Trail. Um, it continues to be a very dangerous spot, and I think that probably is an MTPO issue because it's not a county road, not a, not a city highway. That's, that's FDOT, and I don't know what the solution is. Um, a learning speed limit would, would help because it goes up right there. Assuming that people pay attention to the speed limit. Assuming that. Yes. It's a really good assumption. So, I, I know there are folks who would love for FDOT to build, uh, an overpass there. I can't imagine people using it, and I can't imagine how long that overpass would need to be to be usable as a, a cycling overpass. Um, so, I, I don't have a solution to offer. I just want to put it on the table as, you know, yes, we're aware of this, and, and we have, uh, discussions about it. We need a stoplight. I, I, I think that is the, I think the, the actual traffic. In Europe, that's what they do. They put stoplights at, at pedestrian crossings, and they put roundabouts everywhere else. That, that makes sense. And, and it's, it's a situation where cyclists are going to complain about that as well, because they'll have to use it too. But, uh, but I think that saves lives. I think that's probably the, the ultimate solution. Uh, thank you all for, uh, for time and attention, uh, today. I, I appreciate it. We, we go through really complex stuff. MTBO is, is the, probably the heaviest headspace that, that, that we all have to, to work in with this stuff. So, thank you all for, for working on it. Adrian. Thank you, Chair. Um, just to Commissioner Willis, do you know, I, I guess maybe the FDOT, do you know, does the FDOT have a map of the trial classifications for each state row? Is that available on your website? I wanted to kind of take a look at that. Which ones are urban and suburban, those different tiers? Thank you so much. Yes, ma'am. The FDOT, also anyone I'd like to add with the, um, the Waldo area, we're grateful for the, the pedestrian beacons that we have that are up, uh, they're soon to start working. However, we would like some across the street, all the way across going, because we have a school, thank you, that's going to be opening in January, 2026 in Waldo, so we have a new school that's coming back. So, there will be a lot of children crossing. I'm just putting that out into the atmosphere. We will have all of our community going to school there, um, some of Hawthorne, and some of the other areas, because they'll do transportation. Um, so if FDOT can look into that, where you guys put it coming into Waldo, we have those two, and up by the hardware store, Coal Street, we like it across the street as well, because they have to cross to get over to the other side. So, we have it on one side, and across into the other. But I really like the pedestrian hybrid beacons, where they stop, like you have on Lake Grove, where you push, and the traffic has to stop for the kids and the, um, parents to get across the street. But we're happy with what's going on now. But our citizens also have questions about the, the big cement pillars that are there. Are they coming up, or do they stay once the, the lights go up, or? Um, I think what you're referring to, there are sort of pedestrian bulb outs that are meant to shorten the crossing, um, and I think some of the residents in Waldo, who are biking on the sidewalk, are finding them difficult to navigate. And so, the project was originally envisioned to have separated bike lanes, um, and so it wasn't really meant that people riding bikes would be on the sidewalk. But then when the project changed to not include bike lanes, the, the concrete features stayed the same. Okay, because, and it's not just dealing with the bikers, it's more so of the folks that are driving, because when they come in, it's for them turning in, and it's kind of short for them to turn. If you have someone that's right there, they have to come out if you're going to go across to the, to the store, either to the, uh, the railroad tracks, you have to, your car is sticking out, kind of. So the car that's turning in has to really swing out and turn in. It's kind of like a safety issue here that we're having in Waldo. Um, that's for it right now. I always still say that we need a, uh, a red light coming off of the bridge as you're north and south. They're saying that you cannot stop. Yes, you can, because there are several places here in Florida, and I know, for one, in Cocoa, as you're coming down from the beachway. It's slanted down, but there's a red light there. But you have flashes to let you know, okay, there's a red light. It's, it's, what's going on there. So that would be another, um, safety measure that could be implemented in Waldo, where the crossing lights were, the flashing lights, where they replaced. Um, yeah. So safety issues in Waldo, and that's all I have for right now. Yeah, because people still fly through there. Yeah. The, the blinking lights are helping a lot, though. Yeah. And, um, they had a crash that was, that happened there maybe about two months ago, three months ago. So, and it was, um, FHP figured that out in, like, maybe 15, 20 minutes from the cameras that were up there to see who actually caused the accident. And so, yeah, those were, they come in, they were in handy. So thank you. Good. Commissioner Pritzia, did you have something you wanted to share? I was just saying Commissioner Cornell. I don't know. Oh, Commissioner Cornell, do you have any parting words? There's nothing else. So I didn't say anything, but that 301 and Hawthorne, I, I didn't know we were going to be repeating that, but you know, the, the issues, that's still, right. 301 and Hawthorne. Yes. You're right. For the kids. No, you're right. I mean, it's, it's as dangerous there as it is on, on Northwest 16th Avenue. No, you're right. It's more dangerous. More dangerous than the trucks, not truck drivers. Commissioner Engel. Um, the corner of 441 and, uh, 222. Uh, 39th Avenue and, uh, 13th Street has been covered in yellow paint. I've been told by the state how dangerous it is to have an improperly colored, um, portion of the road. So I just want to bring that, uh, that safety issue up to everybody to, uh, to make sure that we got that back so it wasn't distracting for people that are driving through there. I just, I just don't understand why they scraped away all my green arrows and not anybody else in town. That bike lane, you know, off of, off 12th Street going around and that. They came in and scrubbed it out, but they haven't scrubbed it anywhere else. So I, I'm confused. Not a high priority. Not. Just the green arrows. Yes. Yes. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. We have public comment. That's right. Public comment. There have been people here sitting here all afternoon. Anybody have something they'd like to share with us? Anyone? Okay. If there's nothing more for us, then this meeting's adjourned. Okay. Okay. Thank you.