IMPERIAL COUNTY TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION

MINUTES FOR February 26, 2025

6:00 p.m.

__________________________________________________________________­­­­___________________           

VOTING MEMBERS PRESENT:

                                                                City of Brawley                                       Gil Rebollar

                                                                City of Calipatria                                    Javier Amezcua

                                                                City of Calexico                                      Lisa Tylenda

                                                                City of El Centro                                    Tomas Oliva

                                                                City of Imperial                                      Robert Amparano

                                                                City of Holtville                                       Mike Goodsell          

                                                                City of Westmorland                           Laura Fischer                                             

                                                                County of Imperial                                John Hawk  

                                                                County of Imperial                                Martha Cardenas-Singh

                                                                Imperial Irrigation District                 Absent                                                                        

STAFF PRESENT:               David Aguirre, Cristi Lerma, Marlene Flores, Gustavo Gomez, Esperanza Avila

OTHERS PRESENT:            Eric Havens: Counsel; Davis Salgado: SCAG; Ann Fox, Melina Pereira, Sylvia R. Chavez, John Garcia: Caltrans

PUBLIC:                                None.

The following action minutes are listed as they were acted upon by the Imperial County Transportation Commission and as listed on the agenda for the meeting held Wednesday, February 26, 2025, together with staff reports and related documents attached thereto and incorporated therein by reference.

I.                    CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL 

Chair Amparano called the Commission meeting to order at 6:01 p.m. Roll call was taken, and a quorum was present.

II.                  EMERGENCY ITEMS

                There were none.

III.                PUBLIC COMMENTS

There were none.

IV.               CONSENT CALENDAR

A.                 ICTC Commission Minutes:                                             January 22, 2025

B.                 Receive and file:

1.                  ICTC Management Committee Meeting:                 January 08, 2025

2.                  ICTC TAC Minutes:                                           December 19, 2024

3.                  ICTC SSTAC Minutes:                                       December 04, 2024

A motion was made by Goodsell and seconded by Cardenas-Singh to approve the consent calendar as presented, roll call:        

V.                  REPORTS

A.           ICTC Executive Director

Mr. Aguirre had the following updates:

-          Unmet Transit Needs Survey and hearing/meeting information: In recent years, the public hearings have been held in the March to May time frame at the ICTC Offices in El Centro, at approximately 3:00 p.m. ICTC is required to select the Hearing Panel from the elected official members of the Commission. Additionally, staff is collecting the public’s feedback by completing a survey on the ICTC by 5 p.m. on March 17, 2025. The feedback collected will be stated on the record at the hearing date and time established by the Commission. Flyers for the survey are attached to the report. The proposed public hearing is anticipated to take place on April 7 or April 14, 2025, and the findings meeting is proposed to take place on April 29, 2025.

-          CMAQ and STBG Call for Projects: ICTC in accordance with SCAG guidelines will be implementing a call for projects for the Congestion Mitigation Air Quality (CMAQ) and Surface Transportation Block Grant (STBG). SCAG is anticipated to approve its CMAQ and STBG at its February 2025 Regional Council Meeting. The funding years associated with this call for projects is FFY 2026-27 and FFY 2027-28. ICTC will be updating its program guidelines to incorporate SCAG guideline provisions and is anticipating beginning its call for projects in March 2025. ICTC is anticipating adopting its scoring framework at the March 2025 Commission Meeting. SCAG’s is anticipated to open its call for project nominations on March 31, 2025, and its project submittal deadline is May 16, 2025. SCAG is anticipating adoption of the CMAQ/STBG Guidelines at its March 6, 2025, Regional Council Meeting. This item will be on the ICTC TAC agenda in February, and on the Management Committee and Commission agendas respectively in March 2025.

-          Calexico Intermodal Transportation Center (ITC): It is anticipated that the project will start construction in early March 2025. The project is anticipated to take a year to complete. A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled to take place on February 28, 2025, at 11 a.m. at the project site. Several of our partners will be present to give remarks about the project including Congressman Raul Ruiz, MD.

-          Calexico East Port of Entry Intermodal Transportation Center: . ICTC is working with Caltrans Staff on project award document completion. More information to come in the coming months. 

-          All ICTC Executive Directors’ updates can be found on page 23 

B.                               Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG)

                                Mr. Salgado had the following updates:

-          2025 SCAG Scholarship Program Now Open- The 2025 SCAG Scholarship Program is now open. The program, in partnership with the California Transportation Foundation, provides nine $4,000 scholarship awards for high school or community college students from the SCAG region. Students of any field of study are invited to apply; however, preference is given to applications that demonstrate a commitment to community planning, regional planning, urban planning, civil engineering, political science, public administration, sustainable development, or other related fields.

-          2025 Regional Conference & General Assembly- SCAG will host the 60th annual Regional Conference and General Assembly on May 1-2, 2025, at the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa in Palm Desert. Celebrating its diamond anniversary, the 2025 conference is a unique opportunity to gather with other local and regional leaders to collaborate on fundamental issues such as mobility, housing and communities, the environment, and the economy. Subscribe to updates from SCAG for information about registration as we get closer to the event. Please be on the lookout for notices regarding selecting your cities representative to the 2025 Regional Conference and General Assembly and contact SCAG GAO David Salgado with any questions.

-          All other updates can be found on the SCAG report on page 35 of the agenda.

C.                               California Department of Transportation (Caltrans)- District 11

                Mr. Garcia had the following updates:

-          Lithium Valley Projects by County of Imperial: Currently working on an MOU draft between ICTC and County of Imperial to incorporate District 11 Modeling findings to be used.

-           A list of completed projects is listed in the report on page 40. 

-          Stakeholder engagements are listed in the report on page 42. 

-          City of Calexico and District 11 staff met on November 17, 2024 to go over the short-term alternative proposes travel circulation improvements near West Port of Entry.

-          All other updates can be found on page 40

         D.       Commission Member Reports

-          Updates were provided by various commissioners.

VI.                ACTION CALENDAR

A.                   Active Transportation Program Award

The Technical Advisory Committee met on January 23, 2025, and the ICTC Management Committee met on February 12, 2025, and forwarded this item to the Commission for review and approval after public comments, if any:

1.            Approved the Project Nomination List for the year 2025 Active Transportation             Program (ATP).

2.            Approved the recommendation of funding for the project listed in Table 2 in the amount of $338,000.

                               3.            Directed staff to submit a Formal Nomination List to SCAG and proceed with the State/Federal programming and documentation.

A motion was made by Oliva and seconded by Goodsell to approve the consent calendar as presented, roll call:              

                               Motion Carried.

          B.                Appointment(s) to ICTC delegated SCAG Policy Committees

It is recommended that the ICTC Commission take the following actions after public comment, if any:

1.          Appointed two ICTC Commission Members or other nominated elected officials to the SCAG Policy Committees of Community, Economy and Housing Development Committee (CEHD) and Transportation Committee (TC).

A motion was made by Oliva and seconded by Rebollar to nominate Mr. Javier Amezcua for the SCAG Policy Committee for Transportation Committee (TC):

                               Motion Carried.

A motion was made by Cardenas-Singh and seconded by Amezcua to nominate Mr. Tomas Oliva for the SCAG Policy Committee of Community, Economy and Housing Development Committee (CEHD) :

                               Motion Carried.

       C.                     Approval of Reimbursement Agreement between the Imperial County Transportation Commission (ICTC) and the County of Imperial – Imperial County Transportation Model (ICTM) Updates – Lithium Valley Programmatic Environmental Impact Report (PEIR)

The item was introduced after the completion of the Management Committee meeting in the month of February 2025. Therefore, ICTC Staff forwarded this item to the Commission for their review and approval after any public comment, if any:

1.            Authorized the Chairman to sign the Reimbursement Agreement between the County of Imperial and ICTC to reimburse ICTC for any cost associated with the completion of the required transportation modeling services. Said services are to be completed by Caltrans.

A motion was made by Goodsell and seconded by Amezcua to approve the consent calendar as presented, roll call:       

                               Motion Carried.

            D.               Passenger Statistical Summary Project for FY 2025-26 for Imperial Valley Transit (IVT)

Given the project’s timing constraints, staff brought this item to the commission for their review and approval after public comment, if any:

1.                   Authorized the Chairman to sign the Passenger Statistical Sampling Project Agreement with the firm of Rea and Parker Research Inc. for the not to exceed fee of $139,000 for FY 2025-26.

                            2.             Directed staff to include this project budget in the FY 2025-26 ICTC OWP Budget and Transit Finance Plan

A motion was made by Rebollar and seconded by Amezcua to approve the consent calendar as presented, roll call:       

                               Motion Carried.

VII.              CLOSED SESSION CALENDAR

A.                 Motioned to Adjourn to Closed Session (Oliva/Beltran)

B.            CONFERENCE WITH REAL PROPERTY, Government Code §54956.8

Property: 2204-2208 La Brucherie Rd., El Centro, CA, Assessor’s Parcel Number

#064-450-076.

Agency negotiator: David Aguirre. Negotiating parties: Sandra Joy Hoskins et al.

Instructions to negotiators will concern price and terms of payment.

C.                 Announcement of Closed Session Action(s)

Mr. Havens stated that the commission met in closed session to discuss the following:

CONFERENCE WITH REAL PROPERTY, Government Code §54956.8 Property: 2204-2208 La Brucherie Rd., El Centro, CA, Assessor’s Parcel Number #064-450-076.

Agency negotiator: David Aguirre. Negotiating parties: Sandra Joy Hoskins et al.

-          Direction was given and no reportable action was taken.

VIII.            MEETING DATE AND PLACE

A.                  The next meeting will be on March 26, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. at the ICTC Offices, 1503 N. Imperial Ave., Suite 104, El Centro, CA 92243, and via Zoom Meeting for the public.

VIIII.      ADJOURNMENT

A.                 Meeting Adjourned at 7:59 p.m.