HCAOG (Humboldt County Association of Governments)
OCT. 15, 2015
- Eureka houseless children receive funding for after-school and summer programs
- Multi-modal corridor plan for H and I streets in Eureka
- $30,000 to conduct a countywide poll ?
The HCAOG Board adjourned and reconvened as the Policy Advisory Committee (PAC) – a combination of the HCAOG Board, a representative from Caltrans and one from the Humboldt Transit Authority Board.
After no public comment, the PAC approved the last month’s meeting record.
Consent Calendar
a. Apply for Allocation from the State’s Low Carbon Transit Operations Program (LCTOP)
Motion Passed
b. Letter of Support for City of Eureka’s H & I Street Multi-modal Corridor Plan
The PAC will recommend the Board provide a letter supporting the City of Eureka’s application for a Caltran’s Sustainable Communities Planning Grant for developing the “H & I Street Multi-modal Corridor Plan.”
The Board/PAC moved on a motion to pull its letter of support of Eureka’s H & I Street Multi-modal Corridor Plan because the scope of project will be more than H & I Streets. The City of Eureka is actually looking to expand the pedestrian and public transit friendly area to include J Street to E Street. The PAC approved of amending their letter of support. original letter
6. Action Items
a. FY 2015 – 16 State Transit Assistance (STA) Fund Allocation (encl)
Continued from last month, both HCAR (Humboldt Community Access Resource agency) and the City of Eureka were seeking funding for their respective programs from HCAOG’s State Transit Assistance (STA) funds, $35,000 of which has not yet been spent. The estimated amount of STA funds budgeted to the region for the 2015-16 fiscal year is $797,863.
The funds are provided by the state to local agencies for the development and support of public transportation needs. The City was seeking $25,000 in order to provide bus fare for houseless children to after-school and summer programs, while HCAR was asking for $35,000 to supplement their services [see last month’s HCAOG post for more details and links].
The PAC voted to grant $25,000 to the city program and held off from awarding the remaining $10,000 to HCAR until they could submit a goal oriented contract for services provided.
b. Local Transportation Revenue Options Workshop Update
(encl) The PAC will consider recommending an allocation of $30,000 for a local transportation sales tax public poll.
This is a continuation of last month’s discussion on whether HCAOG should use $30,000 to conduct a poll on voter sentiment towards a tax increase for county transportation needs, in particular the likely sales tax would go towards road improvements [see last month’s HCAOG post for more details and links].
HCAOG Executive Director, Marcella Clem, said the $30,000 thousand comes from two places:
HCOAG’s Local Budget, of which $10,000 has not been spent. The funds were originally earmarked by The Board to audit third party operators last year, however under the Transportation Development Act (TDA), California only requires cities to be audited, so the surplus funds have yet to be spent.
The remaining $20,000 would come from a 1997 allocation that not been repaid to HCAOG. As Clem explained in a follow up email with The Witness, a recent audit found that $50,000 had been allocated by HCAOG “to prepare for the enactment of Senate Bill 45 (Kopp). SB 45 gave regional agencies a say in how 75% of State Highway Improvement Program (STIP) funds are spent. Before that, Caltrans made all of the decisions.”
The funds originated from HCAOG’s annual Regional Surface Transportation Program (RSTP) budget, which “are required to be kept in a separate account until used. The HCAOG Board then allocates the funds to our local agencies. Once used, RSTP funds should have been transferred into HCAOG’s administrative account to repay what was spent. Our auditor identified $50,000 that has been in the RSTP account since 1997. It was never transferred out. He will make this an audit finding in this year’s audit that will allow us to transfer the funds.”
One of the first to speak up was County Supervisor Ryan Sundberg,who said his fellow Boardmembers voted 4 to 1 in favor of taking the poll, but didn’t think any one was overly excited about it.
Don Hindley, Mayor of Ferndale, was definitely not excited about spending $30,000 for on a poll, “Just because we have money, we don’t have to spend it. There’s a reason we didn’t spend it in 1997, because we didn’t need it.” He added that Ferndale was sure to vote down any new tax.
Fortuna’s City Council also voted 4 to 1 in favor of the poll, but they have a lot of concerns said Councilman, Doug Strehl. “We’ll have to wait to see what survey says, but somewhere along the line it’s going to have to be sold as a better project. We’ll need someone to run this campaign and figure out where funding for the campaign will come from. We gotta to sell it to the public.”
Strehl also implied that Fortuna citizens should play politics and back a new transportation tax or be left out in the cold when it comes time to dole out tax revenues, “We didn’t pass county’s sale’s tax (Measure Z) and didn’t get any funding.” Hindley then chimed in that Ferndale did vote in favor of Measure Z, but the out come was the same” We voted for it and didn’t get a penny.”
Sunberg added that he wanted an accurate poll because, “It’s a sales job at the end of the day and if you don’t trust the information your not going to get buy in from anybody.”
The rest of the board members all said they needed more time and the issue was tabled until next month.
7. Reconvening of the HCAOG Board
Requested Action: By motion, reconvene as the HCAOG Board and approve PAC recommendations.
Passed
8. Personnel and Administration
a. HCAOG Personnel Policies and Procedures
Held over from last month, The Board voted in favor of limiting new HCAOG employees from including accumulated sick days as added time towards their retirement compensation. [See our September post for more details].
All voted to approve the motion except for Don Hindley, Mayor of Ferndale, who said there was already a policy in place prohibiting HCAOG employees from using sick days for anything other than sick days and Board should not allow exceptions for current employees.
The Humboldt Witness 