Managing entity. And the c. E. O. And the c. F. O. Of caltrain under this agreement must be the same individual as the c. E. O. And the c. F. O. Of samtrans. And samtrans has financial rights and interests stemming from its ownership and management of certain caltrain operating and nonoperating assets, referring to things like parking lot and resource and land parcels along the rightofway. Next slide, please, michelle. So thats the background. And so turning now to the San Francisco and Santa Clara County proposals for the governance provisions as written in todays resolution, there are i believe six provisions, a through f. And here are the first four. A, revenues will be held in a special account, an esco account, to be disbursed by the joint powers board only. For eligible expenditures at any time with a twothirds majority. Again, these would be the tax measures, should the voters pass the measure, in november. And up to the first 40 million collected of the tax shall be offset shall be used to offset the member operating contributions provided by samtrans, uni and replace the covid related costs if relief funds are made available before the effective date, january 1 of the if a governance solution is found, the special escrow account would be closed and funds would be transferred to the joint powers board regular use the regular account and administration. If no government solution is found by september 30th, the first date that is mentioned in the special provisions of 2021, then another 40 million would be made available. Again, for operations. And to ensure that there would be no disruption to service for riders. E, if no governance solution is found, all parties would then commit to working with the state delegates from all three counties on a legislative solution for the 2023 legislative session. Finally, the joint powers board shall appoint an independent special counsel and auditor, which are separate from the ones that are used by samtrans within 90 days of placement of this measure on the november 2020 ballot so that those those consultants could be available to advise the board immediately. So with that im happy to take any questions. Finally, okay, one last slide. I should note that our Citizens Advisory Committee heard this item at their 722 meeting, july 22nd meeting last week. And did vote 91 in support urging the San Francisco board of supervisors and sfmta to support this caltrain resolution as sponsored by supervisors walton, peskin and haney. And theres a joint statement from santa clara counties calling for this comprehensive approach to funding and reform. Thank you so much. President yee okay, thank you for your presentation. Any questions from anybody . No questions. All righty. Now we have Public Comments on this item. Madam clerk. Clerk thank you, mr. President. To operations, do we have callers in the queue . I understand that a moment ago we had about 9 callers in the queue. Yes, there are currently 11 callers to speak. Clerk thank you. Unmute the first caller. We welcome you, caller. Thank you for your comments. President yee madam clerk, remind the callers they only have two minutes. Clerk to all of the callers who are going to be speaking on the sales tax for the caltrain operations, the costs associated with it, youll have up to two minutes to provide your testimony. Welcome, caller. Caller hi, yes, steven miller. I wanted to call in support of the tax. Kind of disappointing that we have to play politics, especially supervisor walton, who actually sits on the board claiming unfair representation. Where in the slide presentation that you just looked at, its not onethird, onethird, onethird that goes into caltrain. We all pay our fair share in by that logic, we dont have a third of the ridership. Its ridiculous. You guys are playing politics. It is a power grab. You can say whatever statements, youre on damage control mode right now and you know it. The only reason this is here is because the public go got mad. You know why the reason that people got mad . Because the way that it runs is good. And you dont see the photos of the bart stations and the muni station and the metro train. No, people love caltrain and thats why there was so Much Community outrage when you guys tried to play politics and pursue your own agenda. Remember you work for us. Were the voters, we pay the salary. Clerk thank you for your comments. To future speakers, please address the board as a whole and not individual members. Operations, please unmute the next caller. Caller hello. My name is christopher peterson. I am a San Francisco resident and prepandemic, a muni rider and occasional caltrain rider. Thank you for holding a hearing on this measure. I urge you to place the measure on the ballot but to remove the conditions that require most of the residents in the measure to go into an escrow account. It would have samtrans and b. T. A. That we would spend on caltrain and instead to direct that money to bus service. It will also allow caltrain to rely less heavily on regressive fares and to establish discounted fares for lowincome riders. The escrow provisions, however, by preventing caltrain from establishing equitable fares, would harm riders simply to create the negotiating leverage regarding caltrain governance. Please reject that risky strategy. Its clear caltrains governance needs to change, but not at the expense of transit riders. And i pray that the negotiations dont create another transit bureaucracy. We have far too many of those in the bay area already. Thank you. Clerk thank you for your testimony. Next caller, please. Welcome, caller, you have up to two minutes. Caller hello. Im andrew sullivan. I am, members of the board, im andrew sullivan, a 20year plus caltrain rider and along with supervisor peskin a coauthor of the 2003 prop k which as everyone knows is a sale tax for transportation. I am calling to urge the supervisors to pass the sales tax with no incompan restrictio. Caltrain needs a dedicated Revenue Source and i look forward to supporting it. Caltrain is a critical part of our system and needed to reduce auto traffic and greenhouse emissions. I would like to express outrage that this board has chosen to hold riders, its constituents, San Francisco voters like me, hostage to a bureaucratic dispute that has nothing to do with riders, service or the climate. It is completely unacceptable that they have chosen this moment to put Caltrain Service in jeopardy because of land. Its not also conforming to bill 797, caltrain gets nothing. This discussion proves beyond a shadow of the doubt that we need to do away with bart and caltrain and create a unified agency under the principles of the bay area. I strongly urge the supervisors to move beyond parochial power gains and to support this approach. For now stop playing game with transit riders. Pass a clean sales tax measure that withstands scrutiny and conforms to senate bill 797. That means no escrow. And dont stop with the joint powers board. Lets get seamless bay area do done. And for the record, mr. Sullivan was never a board of supervisors and did not cosponsor prop k but much of the rest that he said, relative to having bart take over the entire system, i agree with. Clerk thank you to the caller and thank you, supervisor peskin. There are 25 listeners and 19 members of the public in the queue. Lets have the next caller, please. You have up to two minutes. Welcome. Caller hi. My name is Bethany Beacham and im a transit only community and im concerned about the future of Caltrain Service. Im calling to pass a clean caltrain measure with no restrictions that will retain the Service Without putting caltrain through uncertainty year after year. While i agree with many Board Members that caltrain governance does need to be reformed, i dont think that this measure is the appropriate avenue for those changes. So those are conversations that could happen at the regional level. So i urge the board to support the Reform Efforts currently underway as part of the Blue Ribbon Transit Recovery Task force. And the task force is working across the entire region to figure out how to build a seamless Transit System that serves all riders, including caltrain riders, both now and in the long term. Thank you. Clerk thank you for your comments. Next caller, please. Caller good afternoon, supervisors. My name is sarah bars. Im a board member of seamless bay area. And im also a San Francisco resident. And a transit commuter. And a prepandemic times i would run muni and bart and caltrain regularly. I applaud supervisors on the governance, however, unfortunately, i respectfully disagree that this proposal will resolve the governance issues that supervisors peskin and walton so eloquently described. This has the indiscernible and that will in the future make the Caltrain Service funding unreliable. Caltrain governance should be resolved via the regional blue ribbon Transit Task Force as the previous commenter mentioned. I urge the board of supervisors to support a clean tax bill to put those measures before the voters. And to not take any risks that could potentially harm Transit Service or transit riders in the region. Thank you. Clerk thank you for your testimony. Next caller, please. Caller hi, everyone. This is janice lee. I am speaking on behalf of myself. I thank you, supervisors, for holding this hearing. I am on the bart board of directors. Ill have a bit of topics beyond this. I dont think that you are playing games. I thank them for support and thank supervisor walton for really putting this issue of governance for quite some time now, maybe through different kinds of channels, but you have not been silent on this issue throughout. And i want to thank them for having a hearing on this and supporting this measure. Where i personally stand is that i support any path forward, including this one, to have the sales tax measure on the ballot. I dont need to tell you the importance of transit. Transit is part of the Pandemic Recovery and so is caltrain. With that said, i know this is a complicated measure and theres a lot, a lot of nuances and a lot of history here that cannot and will not be solved by one measure or in the next 20minute discussion. I recognize that transit is funded by regressive taxes and that caltrain has no dedicated revenue and muni and bart and m. T. A. Get to enjoy their dedicated sales tax revenues. Caltrains collapse and or lack of revenue has direct impact on muni, bart and beyond. And those systems were far more lowincome transit dependent demographics. And at the last bart meeting i asked the general meeting about the bart sales tax and he said that it was imperative that we keep that system moving. Its an important link for San Francisco and important to find a path forward. So i am committed to doing outreach with the state legislators, including senator wiener and i acknowledge they signed a letter that mayor breed signed on to. And will work with them to bring San Mateo County on board. I recognize that the governance provisions in this way are not ideal, but clerk thank you for your time. Caller thank you for hear ago clerk thank you for your comments. Next caller, please. Caller hi. This is adam, district 6. I wanted to speak on caltrain. One of the key things to remember is that caltrain brings more riders into San Francisco than out of it. San francisco benefits from this, especially here in d6, combined with the workers earning and spending money in the city. What is also important to remember, and contrary to the many Public Comments made over the past two weeks, mr. Peskin and mr. Walton, based on the last study, 40 of caltrain riders make less than the areas median income. There are many lowincome riders who rely on caltrain to get to work and school. And its also important to remember that caltrain when you look at the numbers, that those are household income. So a household falls into 100,000 bracket is not comprised of riders making big tech money or rich folks. Its likely that its two partners averaging 50,000 each. I dont think that anyone here would claim that 25 an hour is rich, especially com in the bay area. Especially last week when we were talking about bart drivers making 93,000 and being a middleclass salary. Were all on board there. Caltrain as it is, we need to pass a clean tax bill. Caltrain is consistently more reliable than bart or sfsta is. Im a former caltrain rider and i dont ride it right now but i dont trust San Francisco to have control of caltrain. We need a regional system that is above local politics, not one beholden to local whims. Samtrans runs the daytoday operations for exchange for giving up that 40 million demand. And the regional Blue Ribbon Task force is underway. Pass a clean measure for the voters to vote on and not one with this poison pill that puts caltrain funding in jeopardy. Thank you. Clerk thank you for your comments. Next caller, please. Welcome caller. You will have up to two minutes. Caller hello. My name is alan. And im calling in to express my support for the tax measure as a whole. But to express my i guess disappointment and disagreement would be added governance reforms have been added to this legislation. Caltrain needs to be treated as a transportation service. Right now where it is transporting people in this pandemic and not as a developmental opportunity where San Francisco can go and stick its nose in, in all of the other counties. We have not paid samtrans back and we accuse them of stealing our money. We cannot run our own Transportation System yet we try to extort a different one from a different county that has been doing it quite well for just shy of 30 years. It is wholly irresponsible to tie this muchneeded funding for Transit Agency that needs it in a time like this where funding is s so unreliable. Its unconscionable to tie it to governance reform down its throatthroats that may not be ie best of the agency. I need you as a board to pass a clean and the original resolution that was offered by caltrain staff and not to pass this one including the governance reforms now. Clerk thank you, caller. Thank you for your testimony. Before operations sends in the next caller, we have 26 listeners and 14 members of the caller in the queue. Okay, operations, unmute the next speaker, please. Welcome, caller. Caller hi. My name is indiscernible im a district 6 resident and before shelter in place i relied on caltrain for my daily commute. I ask you to pass this free of any escrow mechanisms. And im very grateful to supervisors haney for this measure, im disappointed that things got to this point. Playing games with the funding of a political link is not the climatefriendly Transit Service that we should have. And if you dont care about the governance, why are you engaging in a hostagetaking scheme that is proposed by a majority of the cacaltrain board . If you care about the governance of our system, why havent you ensured that our own system is having the nomination of the sfmta board . If you care about the governance, why do caltrain riders not only i ignored indiscernible and all of these funds are not about the governance. Theyre a power grab by supervisors walton and peskin. I urge you again to pass a clean tax. That escrow system will not pass muster, and a measure that would be a fair legal challenge is something that distribute help our Transit System. And for supervisors peskin and walton, turn on the news and try to look at what is really going on and decide that the republicans that are moderate indiscernible that we are emulating here in San Francisco. Thank you very much. Have a wonderful night. Clerk thank you for your comments. Operations, please unmute the next caller. Caller good afternoon, supervisors. My name is magi dogg and im speaking in support of the Caltrain Service. Obviously, without caltrain, traveling through San Francisco down to indiscernible would be difficult for those who do not have access to it, but at the same time im concerned that all of the restrictions that are placed that are proposed will be detrimental to transit riders. So i am urging for a the sales tax but without all of the restrictions in place. Thank you. Clerk thank you for your testimony. Next speaker, please. Caller thank you, board chair, president yee and members. My pronouns are she and her. This is very, very important. And i travel the bay area in a very regional way which includes caltrain. Im a modest person of means, i dont have a car and so caltrain is very, very important to me and i support this sales tax and i have always supported this sales tax. And theres different conversations for different times. Governance is important as well. But its a separate conversation for a separate time because we dont have a lot of time for all of these public bodies to pass identical resolutions in order to get this measure to the ballot. So if one of these boards was not passed then the public would not have a chance to vote on this very important and historic measure. I do not want the future of caltrain to be in question. Because i remember the 1970s in new york city and the crisis in 1975 when the historic new york subways future was in question. They had the broken lights and all kinds of other problems and plans were made to demolish Grand Central terminal. So much was this in the aftermath of six other eastern railroads including the pennsylvania and new york central. So as the railroad goes, so does the city. And almost a Million People moved out of new york city in the 1970s, most likely in part because of the decline of the subway. So this measure is extremely important. Lets say the lowest common denominator and focu