Committee on Strategic Planning and Service Delivery; Committee on Finance, Audit and Budget; Board of Commissioners

The CTA Board has 7 members: 4 appointed by the mayor of Chicago - Chairman Lester L. Barclay, Alejandro Silva, Kevin Irvine and Rev. Johnny L. Miller - and 3 appointed by the Governor of Illinois - Rev. Dr. L. Bernard Jakes, Rosa Y. Ortiz, and one vacancy.

If I include any images in my tweets, I’ll go back to them after the meeting and add image descriptions as comments. I don’t think I can write a good image description and keep up with the meeting at the same time. I apologize in advance for that delay.

FYI if you’re not familiar with image descriptions, they make your content more accessible for blind & low visions folks. I highly encourage you to use them if you don’t already. To add IDs click “alt” on a photo you just uploaded. It doesn’t add to your tweet’s character count.

For full agendas, go to https://www.transitchicago.com/board/notices-agendas-minutes/. I’ll attempt to summarize the key points more briefly and with less jargon. Strategic Planning agenda: electric bus report presentation & Ventra app presentation.

Finance agenda 1: the first item after “financial report” and procedural items was a real “What in the world did I just read?” moment for me. I think it means allowing CTA to pay debts from the Sales Tax Receipt Revenue Bonds, or charge debts to them?

Finance agenda 2: Fiscal Years 2022-2026 Capital Improvement Program, ground lease of CTA property at Chicago & Franklin Brown Line Station (tenant can develop the property, landlord retains ownership)

Finance agenda 3: Right of Entry Agreement with Rebuild Foundation at 95th & Dan Ryan Red Line station (allows a developer to access part of the property to store construction materials or other items needed for work they’re doing on or near the property)

Finance agenda 4: review of proposed purchases: antifreeze recycling services, 100 diesel engine transit buses, 45 electric buses and 13 charging stations; inspection, maintenance, and repair of clean agent fire prevention system…

Finance agenda 5: semi-annual and monthly preventative OSHA inspections on CTA facility cranes, repair of electric motors, pigeon deterring devices, plumbing supplies, painting services; pickup, processing, and deposit of CTA’s bulk currency, and unarmed security guard services.

Regular Board agenda 1: executive session review of Section 28 hearing recommendation on Jonathan Tam (this means Tam was fired or demoted, filed a complaint about it, and now they’re deciding whether to uphold that decision or restore Tam to (pronoun?)’s previous position.

Regular Board agenda 2: committee reports, construction reports, new business.

The meeting started on time! They’re presenting on plans to switch to all electric buses over a period of severeal years. They’re starting on the South and West sides of the city because of air quality impacts.

Analysis included examining the area around both garage and the routes for “low income and minority” and air quality impact.