Agenda 05-05-2026; 8-a - Minutes for April 7, 2026 and April 14, 2026

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30 Michael Hughes At-Large Second Full Term 09/30/2027 55.56% (Chair) Kaji Rashad At-Large First Full Term 09/30/2027 28.57% Chloe Pankratz Non-voting Youth First Full Term 09/30/2027 66.67% Delegate 1 2 NOTE: Memos from the Orange Unified Transportation Board Chair and Vice-Chair are attached to the 3 agenda. 4 5 Tara May introduced the item. 6 Commissioner Bedford asked if applying the current rules retroactively would be more lenient for 7 the members in question. 8 Tara May said that she and Chair Hamilton decided to implement the new rules going forward 9 rather than retroactively, but could do either approach. 10 Chair Hamilton said that the Board could also give exceptions to the policy. 11 Vice-Chair Fowler asked if one of the exceptions could be that their board wanted to keep them. 12 Chair Hamilton said to her, that's not a reason. She gave an example of the Advisory Board on 13 Aging with members who might have health issues, but are informing the work of the board. 14 Commissioner Carter said applying the new rules to last year would be a form of an exception, if 15 it meant someone would be eligible to stay on. She said she'd like consistency in how the rules are applied. 16 The Board asked Tara May to consider how retroactively applying the new policy to the members 17 under consideration in the agenda item. 18 Tara May asked if the new rules should be applied just to the people up for removal, or applied 19 to all advisory board members. 20 Commissioner Carter said if the rules aren't consistently relaxed,that complicates the discussion. 21 Tara May said it could be that the new rules result in fewer people up for removal, but she'd have 22 to check. She said they can keep using the new rules as of January for everyone else, but retroactively 23 apply it for the people up for removal. She said if it were applied for people who are not up for removal 24 tonight, there could be many more people to be removed. 25 Vice-Chair Fowler said some of the issues brought up were related to health and that other 26 members had requested an excused absence due to known conflicts. She said there were excused 27 absences in the policy in the past. 28 Tara May said that was true, but it was removed because "excused" wasn't defined and left 29 discretion up to the board chair. 30 Vice-Chair Fowler said changing the percentage to 50%would have solved most of the issues. 31 Commissioner Bedford said the question, can someone be present to serve or not. She said she 32 thought all members should be removed to be consistent with others who resigned. She noted that 33 people who are removed can reapply after a year. 34 Chair Hamilton clarified Commissioner Bedford's wishes to hold applying the 2025 criteria to the 35 members up for removal, and to apply the new policy going forward. 36 Commissioner McKee said that would best, otherwise the Board loses credibility. 37 Commissioner Portie-Ascott said she was initially considering allowing these members to stay on 38 the boards, but after hearing the comments from other commissioners it is best to be consistent. 39 Tara May clarified that the Board wanted to move forward with removal of the members at a 40 future business meeting. 41 Commissioner Bedford said she'd like for everyone to be encouraged to reapply in the future. 42 Tara May said it's not in the policy, but they generally advise people to roll off the board for a year 43 and then reapply.