Board of Directors Meeting   2/22/2021

Georgia, that's right.

Okay, well, good morning, everybody, and welcome to the February meeting of the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority Board.

Just a few reminders, please do mute your devices to reduce any background noise.

We do have the ability to mute people if needed.

And just a reminder that today's meeting is open for public viewing and is being recorded.

The meeting will be on our DRPT YouTube website by tomorrow for public viewing.

Should you have any technical issues during the meeting, please let us know.

And we are going to have a designated public comment period today as well.

So first I have a statement to read.

On November 19th, Governor Ralph Northam signed House Bill 5005, Virginia's revised biennial budget,

which includes new language for meeting electronically.

In light of the continuing state of emergency declared by Governor Northam, we're conducting this meeting in a remote setting, keeping safety top of mind and mitigating impacts in spread of COVID-19.

With that, I would like to ask for a motion to approve the minutes.

Hopefully, you all had a chance to see the minutes from the January meeting.

All right, your second?

I'll second.

Okay.

Ms. Bulova?

Aye.

Aye.

I'm sorry, let me go back somehow.

It muted itself.

Mr. Cardwell?

Ms. Dorsch?

Aye.

Mr. Facet?

Mr. Hall?

Mr. Sadeed?

And Ms. Zimmerman?

Aye.

Okay.

That concludes the roll.

The ayes have it.

Did you, was I asleep or did you miss Mr. Mormon?

Great.

Well, thank you everybody.

And I have just a few updates that I'd like to give you all this morning.

Just first of all, we did present the VPRA budget to the Commonwealth Transportation Board at our last meeting.

Steve Pittard did a presentation.

The board will now be reviewing it and has until May to affirmatively approve the budget or make any comments on that.

In addition, we are in the General Assembly session right now, still.

Just a few items of note from the General Assembly.

There's two bills from both the House and Senate side, House Bill 1893 and Senate Bill 1212, which were introduced by Delegates Hurst and Senator Edwards, respectively, will establish a new River Valley Passenger Rail Authority.

And this is legislation that has been

pushed forward by the localities that are interested in setting up a joint authority to be able to help fund station improvements in the future.

So this is something that we have supported.

It has passed both the House and the Senate and looks like it is now headed for the governor's signature as well.

In addition to that, the governor did introduce a $50 million budget amendment which would support

and additional Amtrak frequency to Roanoke as well as extension of rail to the New River Valley.

That is in the House budget.

It was not in the Senate budget.

In the Senate budget, there was an amendment for some of the COVID relief funding that is available to the state with 137.6 million of that being available for a potential passenger rail extension to the New River Valley.

and the second Roanoke service, as well as potential expansions to the VRE Manassas Line.

So again, those were in the Senate version of the budget.

The budget is still going to be worked out and the countries have been named.

So we'll keep you all updated on that as that moves forward.

We have been working very closely with Norfolk Southern on that potential extension to the new River Valley and also on the second frequency to Roanoke.

We are very close and we hope to have something more solid that we can announce to you all very soon.

In addition to that, our DRPT staff right now are starting an update to our statewide rail plan that is required to be done by the Federal Railroad Administration every four years.

The last version was done in January of 2018 and so the rail staff is working on that

right now, so we will have more updates for you on the rail plan as we move along and as that progresses.

Next week, or no, this week, February 24th, we are going to be hosting, along with VRE, a Rail Industry Day, and this is something that we've been doing to help inform the contracting community about potential procurements that will be coming up from DRPT, the Passenger Rail Authority,

and also VRE.

So that will include many of the projects such as our Alexandria fourth track and our Franconia third track project, which are now moving forward into preliminary engineering and final design stage.

We also are just about complete with the procurement for doing the preliminary engineering for Long Bridge as well.

A little bit on the COVID.

through our COVID-19 impact.

There was in the last federal stimulus bill funding for states that receive, that have state supported Amtrak service.

It's actually funding that goes to Amtrak to help offset the state subsidies for that.

The total was about $175 million that was in that funding package of which Virginia will receive about $12.6 million.

And again, that's to help offset

our subsidies for our state supported passenger rail service.

With COVID-19, we still have our 50% capacity restrictions in place for Amtrak service.

All routes are back in operation with the exception of the one route that originates in Richmond and goes to DC that has not yet restarted yet.

Ridership is down about 71% from January of last year.

January ridership was down 15% compared to the December 2020 ridership as well.

And some of that, as you may recall, there were service disruptions during the inauguration period, which was also something that VRE had as well.

So with that, that concludes my report.

Okay.

Jennifer, this is Jay.

I actually did have a quick question about that New River Valley Rail Authority, which I haven't read much on.

So as I understand it and you explained it, it's not for any operating of any rail and it's limited to passenger rail as an authority.

So it's not really like NVTA up here either.

This authority or the other regional authorities which are more around

the broad array of transportation resources.

So is there a reason why it wasn't a more broad authority that was included transit for that part of the state as well?

So you're correct.

There was no funding associated with this bill.

So this is purely just

the establishment of the institutional mechanisms for this group.

It would actually be housed and supported by the New River Valley Planning District Commission.

So there isn't any funding associated with it.

It's really a conduit for the localities in that area, the counties, the towns, as well as other potential organizations as well, to be able to provide funding into a single

agency that will then be able to help fund any passenger service improvements or a new station in the New River Valley.

So it really is just an organizational, I think, I'm not quite sure how to put it.

It really is just to set up the organization, but there were no new taxes created for it or anything like that.

We could kind of do it anyway without the state statute.

You could still do it within the Planning District Commission is my guess, but whatever.

I just am a little miffed why it wouldn't be more broad than passenger rail to actually make a difference in that part of the state.

It really is created specifically for this project and this potential extension.

Okay, any other questions, comments?

Okay, so with that, one more thing real quick.

Sure, Jennifer.

As you know, we've been in a process with

Greg Moser at Krauthammer and Company, our recruiting firm, and he has been soliciting resumes for people who are interested in the executive director's job.

We had a meeting of the committee with everyone in attendance on Friday, and we started to look at those resumes with the goal of trying to winnow them down to five or so.

I think we said four to six.

We had a very good session.

We did get the number down to that range anyway.

And I think we all were in agreement that we have a very good list of candidates.

And it was interesting in the meeting that there was a very high degree of consensus on the part of all five of us on who the really best candidates were.

So our next step is to start an interview process, which I guess, Jennifer, if I got the dates right, is next week.

Is that right?

Yeah.

And we will have a Zoom interview, the committee will, with each of these candidates.

We're hoping that one interview will be enough for our purposes then to take that number down to two or three.

the two or three candidates that we think are best for the role, and then we will arrange for a final round of interviews with everyone on the board who wishes to participate.

We're having some conversation about the mechanics of that, so it will work well and everyone will have a chance to ask their questions and get their input into the process without it gumming up as, you know,

things can occasionally do with too many people involved.

I think we have some good techniques to do that that everyone will be comfortable with.

But the overall message is we have a good group of candidates.

We're well into the process now, and you'll be seeing two or three, I think, excellent candidates for the position in the near future.

And I'll ask.

I see at least Sharon and Deb on the screen.

Thank you, Whit.

I think Sharon is trying to talk.

Sharon's getting frustrated.

She'll be dialing in on the phone here shortly, it looks like.

No, good report, Wick.

Sharon, you want to try again?

I think that if you unmute yourself now, it might work.

No.

Okay.

Sorry, Sharon.

There, that should be working.

Okay, I think I'm unmuted now.

Yes.

It was saying that I was muted by the organizer.

Who's that?

Anyway, I just was very impressed with the candidates who were interested in this position, and I thought that

WIC did a great job chairing our committee meeting.

And I think we've got really good candidates to interview.

Great.

Thank you.

I'm all about committees.

Okay.

Any other questions, comments?

All right.

So now we are going to have an opportunity for any public comment.

Sure.

All right, everyone.

So at this point, we are just going to open the lines for public comment.

If you have any questions or comments, you have three minutes to give your remarks.

and we will do this by raising your hand in the participant column.

I'll give it a second just in case anyone's having difficulties.

Great.

So with that, we are now going to go into a closed session.

I do.

I move that the Board convene in a closed session pursuant to Section 2.2-3711A6 of the Code of Virginia for the purpose of discussing potential transactions where bargaining is involved and where the financial interest of the Commonwealth would be adversely affected

if the discussion were made public at this time and pursuant to Virginia Code Section 2.2-3711A8 for the purpose of consulting with legal counsel regarding provisions in the agreement requiring legal advice.

And additionally, I move that staff and attorneys attend the closed session because their presence is deemed necessary and will aid the Board in its consideration of this matter.

Great.

Bridget, could you please take a vote?

Ms. Butler Painter?

Aye.

Mr. Cardwell?

Ms. Dorf?

Aye.

Mr. Facet?

Aye.

Mr. Hall?

Mr. Moorman?

Aye.

Ms. Moses-Ned?

Aye.

Mr. Spore?

Aye.

And Ms. Zimmerman?

Aye.

That concludes the roll.

Okay, great.

So, you all could have received a separate link.

I believe

It's a Google Meet link.

And if you did not receive that, please let us know.

But with that, I would ask that we go ahead and log off of this link.

And we're going to go over to the other one for the closed meeting session.

Thanks.

I didn't get it either.