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The strange and telling story behind the regional planning merger deal - Part II
The plan to let the powerful MTC take over regional planning is on hold--but by no means dead--and local control and social equity hang in the balance.
In contrast to the sparse public attendance at the Admin Committee, the MetroCenter auditorium was packed, just as it had been for MTC’s September 23 meeting, with people in the overflow room where the proceedings could be watched on close-circuit TV. Unaware of what had just transpired at the Admin Committee, most of the audience assumed that MTC would be deliberating unmodified 4210.
Early on, Cortese set them straight. He told the crowd that due to some “very productive discussions between the two agencies” that had occurred over the past week, he “would be formally proposing and moving some changes to Resolution 4210,” changes that had been “approved word for word by ABAG’s Administrative Committee this morning.”
To “set the context for the changes,” Cortese had Heminger set out the “base proposal,” that is, MTC’s plan to absorb ABAG’s planning staff (summarized above under “Principles for Consolidation of ABAG-MTC Planning Departments”). MTC’s Executive Director delivered an abbreviated, twenty-minute version of the hour-long address he’d given at MTC’s September 23 meeting.
There was one notable change: before MTC had targeted 15 ABAG planning staffers; now it had designs on only 13. As indicated by Principle 6, MTC wanted to leave the planners associated with the Regional Housing Needs Allocation—a contentious process that occurs every eight years—with ABAG. In other words, unstated by Heminger, MTC is only interested in the ABAG staff involved with Plan Bay Area, which, while contentious, also offers an opportunity to make major land use policy.
Otherwise, Heminger struck the same notes as he had a month earlier: the current state of affairs is unacceptable, replete with inefficiencies—specifically what, he didn’t say, just as hadn’t said since he first made the inefficiency charge at the MTC’s meeting on June 24. ABAG’s finances are “precarious.” MTC’s 167 employees do have representation. When MTC took over the collection of toll revenue from Caltrans, the toll collectors, who’d been members of SEIU, moved into MTC’s employee bargaining unit. No problem. A merger between MTC and ABAG would be challenging, given the disparate cultures of the two agencies. “It’s not like merging airlines.” (Actually, it seems a lot like merging airlines: think the United-Continental union.) And exhibiting his—let’s call it impressive purposefulness—Heminger showed a visual that, he said, his staff had asked him not to use, because it looks as if “MTC is the Death Star, and ABAG is the rebel planet fighting for freedom in the universe.” So it does:
Cortese then announced that he would depart from the usual order of the agenda, in which a staff report is followed by public comment, discussion and possible action. Instead, he would make a motion prior to public comment so that people in the audience would have an idea of the modifications in red-lined Resolution 4210. He proceeded to repeat what he’d told the ABAG committee—with one exception: he stated that “the modifications were discussed in a public meeting at 8:45 a.m. on the ABAG side [of the MetroCenter].” Maybe he didn’t want members of the public wondering how ABAG officials could have possibly given due attention to such convoluted legislation in a mere 45 minutes.
He read the modified text, called for “a spirit of transparency,” cautioned that nobody knows what a merger will look like, and, before inviting Pierce to comment and second his motion, repeated his sermon on the necessity of “a collaborative tone”:
I’ll speak for myself—that tone starts with us….If this direction is adopted today, and it turns into anything but a collaborative process, it will probably be because we allowed a non-collaborative or adversarial tone, or an emotional, accusatory tone. I think it’s up to us as elected officials to assure that doesn’t happen for two reasons: it’s unhealthy for the region….and there’s no time to spare. Any minute going forward on this integration merger and implementation process that’s lost due to infighting or external fighting or distractions that are unnecessary—is literally a minute that could upset the entire process.
I think Cortese was daring Pierce to mark the contradictions between the Resolves and Whereases and Resolution 4210 and what the Admin Committee had approved and thereby lay herself open to the charge of being non-collaborative, adversarial, emotional and accusatory.
Not to worry. Pierce took all of his cues:
I would be honored to second this motion. Thanks, Dave, for the integrity and your hard work during this past week for a resolution that puts us in a place where we can walk together side by side and try to come up with a genuine plan for a merger that this time is going to work….Our ABAG committee heard this proposal this morning , as Dave said, at 8:45. We had a unanimous vote….We didn’t have a copy of it, but he read it to us.
That should have raised some eyebrows in the room.
It puts in abeyance all consolidation of planning departments while we look at an integrated full merger….We trusted, so the integrity and the trust started right there this morning.
Concluding with a call for unanimity, Pierce asked her listeners to give ABAG and MTC “a thumbs-up.
During the ensuing hour-plus of public comment, most of them did.
San Francisco Planning Director John Rahaim, for example, who’d also spoken at MTC’s September 23 meeting, said he was “very encouraged by the motion you presented today and would very much like to be part of the discussion as we move forward.”
Also welcoming the motion was SPUR Regional Planning Director Egon Terplan. Interestingly, unlike Greenbelt Alliance, SPUR, one of MTC’s most vocal allies, had apparently been left out of the loop. On October 26 the San Jose Mercury published a letter from Terplan endorsing MTC’s take over of ABAG planning staff as a first step toward a fully integrated regional planning agency. On the 28th Terplan indicated that after hearing Cortese’s motion, he’d had to revise the comments he’d prepared. Stating that what he found most satisfying was the prospect of “action and forward movement,” he called for the merger study to be informed by “a very broad set of conversations,” presumably conversations that involve SPUR.
Terplan also asked the question that Pat Eklund had posed at the Administration Committee meeting. He pressed harder than she had:
If there is difficulty, then what happens? Does the functional consolidation go forward automatically? It seems like [the motion] says that, but it would be helpful if you would clarify what that is.
After public comment, Cortese responded to Terplan’s query. But where Eklund got the brushoff, Terplan received a respectful, marginally substantive reply. Cortese said he was reluctant to say “automatic” but allowed that in the event of an “impasse,” “obviously there would be an appropriations discussion” in July.
Most impressive of all the support for the proposal was that offered by ABAG workers. Many of them held signs saying “Vote for: FULL MERGER. Best way for the East Bay.” Some stood behind three of their representatives, who in turn hailed the prospect of the full integration of MTC and ABAG. “A partial merger is not workable for our people,” said Lee Huo, the president of the ABAG chapter of SEIU Local 1021, adding that he and his colleagues were “very excited” by the “partnership that’s been created by President Pierce and Chair Cortese.”
But it wasn’t all a lovefest. Joseph Chan, who served as ABAG Finance Director from 1983 to 2009, called the proposal before the commission “a step in the right direction” and then, responding to Heminger’s staff report, said, “I find the statement that ABAG finances are precarious to be very offensive. Heminger had written that ABAG’s overhead expenses were unfairly allocated, and that the land use agency “faces a $12 million unfunded pension liability and a $5 million under-funded OPEB [Other post-employment benefits] obligation.”
Chan contended that ABAG’s overhead was “not only legitimate but required,” given that the agency has a second location on downtown Oakland. MTC, he asserted, “has been working with this overhead plan for the past two decades or more.”
As for unfunded liabilities: “Every agency that offers these benefits,” said Chan,
has unfunded liabilities. MTC has them, too. ABAG has been current in its payments to CalPERS and OPEB, and so the unfunded liabilities will take care of themselves over time.
These two allegations are just misleading. The disappointing point is the disrespectful attitude displayed in this memo. This sort of attitude is going to hinder cooperation between the two agencies. If a merger is going to take place, it should be managed by people who understand the full scope of the two agencies and have the Bay Area’s best interests in mind.
Another speaker who coupled enthusiasm for the proposal with criticism of MTC was David Schonbrunn, the president of TRANSDEF, the Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund. Stating that he “strongly supports the modified resolution,” Schonbrunn averred that “MTC’s openness to merger must be placed in context”—specifically, the agency’s inveterate quest to increase its own power. He wasn’t only talking about MTC’s attempted absorption of ABAG’s land use planners—“a naked power grab”—from which, “[h]appily, MTC has pulled back.” Schonbrunn was also referring to “the 1991 report, Bay Vision 2020—in his view, “a great plan for merger” that “MTC systematically torpedoed”; and to the Joint Policy Committee, which, he said, was “systematically bullied” by MTC into giving up its oversight functions and…subsequently receded into obscurity.” Schonbrunn recommended the Bay Vision “work product as the starting point for the new project.”
None of the MTC commissioners responded directly to Chan or Schonbrunn. But more than one of them rapped “personal attacks” on their agency’s officials. Neither Chan nor Schonbrunn, however, had attacked anyone personally: they’d criticized positions taken by MTC. If criticism of positions is taboo, the forthcoming negotiations are going to founder.
On the other hand, the commissioners lauded Heminger. Cortese was particularly praiseful, stating that “our executive director steadfastly said, despite the fact that we had a functional consolidation model already on the table: how can I support you and the commission in bringing forth these modifications”? You wouldn’t have known that from Heminger’s presentation, which barely acknowledged that their consolidation model had been, to borrow Cortese’s delicate phrase, “implementation-deferred.”
The actual deliberation on modified 4210 was scant but noteworthy. Spering declared that the MTC Planning and ABAG Administrative Committees should “convene as soon as possible” and recommended a “special schedule” of meetings devoted exclusively to the merger planning process.
Spering also reiterated his earlier remarks about “the need to stabilize ABAG” by finding a “reliable funding source” for the agency, “no matter what comes out of this.” Like Terplan, Spering was tacitly raising Eklund’s question about the eventuality of a failure to agree on a merger. He, too, did so without getting rebuked by Cortese. As at the Admin Committee, nobody followed up on his remarks.
By contrast, San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener struck a critical note that resonated with his colleagues. Wiener said he and Mayor Ed Lee “think a full merger could be a very positive thing. “But the devil is in the details….We’re dealing with two very different governing boards.” Right now, he opined, MTC has “a very good balance” between large and small cities. “ABAG has a different balance, to be blunt, between big and small.” He said he “would be concerned if we see the concerns of the large cities undermined.” It’s the big cities—San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland—“where most of the job growth is going, and where we’re absorbing a lot of the new housing, and so many massive infrastructure needs.” Stating “I’m not sure I’m sold” on the proposed makeup of the oversight bodies, Wiener pointed out that neither he nor Campos—the two San Francisco electeds on MTC—sit on the MTC Planning Committee. Ditto for Oakland’s representative on MTC, Mayor Libby Schaaf.
To laughter, Cortese quipped that San Jose Mayor Liccardo, who does sit on the Planning Committee, “assures me he’s happy to represent the interests of San Francisco.” Speaking seriously, Cortese said that Wiener had brought up “a great point,” one he himself would address with chairs of MTC’s committees, who make up the Planning Committee. He added: “That’s an internal commission matter, first and foremost, as opposed to a joint matter with ABAG.”
Liccardo echoed Wiener’s concerns. “When it comes to governance, it is important that these bodies represent people. We don’t just represent cities or towns.”
That proposition is arguable. As a Council of Governments, ABAG does represent towns, not “people.” It’s more akin to the Senate than the House of Representatives. How to maintain that politically based representation in a merger with MTC, which grounds representation more in demographics, will be a formidable challenge of the merger planning process.
Though the unanimous vote was a foregone conclusion, one aspect of that vote bears mentioning: the absence of two commissioners, Schaaf, who represents Oakland on MTC, and Marin County Supervisor Steve Kinsey, who represents the county and cities of Marin. Everyone knew that, however it played it, the action taken on October 28 would be momentous—and it was. So Schaaf’s and Kinsey’s truancy invites scrutiny.
I called the Marin County Board of Supervisors and asked where Kinsey had been on October 28. I was told he was at meeting of the California Coastal Commission in Los Angeles. According to the commission’s online calendar, no meetings were scheduled in L.A. or anywhere else on October 28. That was confirmed to me by Jeff Stabin, who works in the commission’s San Francisco office.
I’m going to guess that Kinsey and Schaaf didn’t show up because they both thought the commission would be voting on the Cortese-Heminger takeover plan—a vote they each wanted to avoid.
Schaaf had already twice taken a public stand in somewhat more obscure circumstances. At the September 23 meeting of the MTC, she’d endorsed the Cortese-Heminger proposal. At the Alameda County Mayor’s Conference meeting on October 14, she cast the sole No vote against a resolution opposing the proposed takeover of ABAG’s planning staff. All the other Alameda County mayors supported the resolution, save Tom Bates, who didn’t attend the meeting. (That absence is also problematic, given that on MTC Bates represents the cities of Alameda County.)
Kinsey, too, had taken a public stand before October 28—but against the Heminger-Cortese plan. He and fellow Marin County Supervisor Damon Connolly had asked their colleagues to approve a letter urging MTC “to immediately and fully fund the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) for the 2015-16 budget year without qualifications.” The letter also asked that MTC and ABAG engage an independent management consultant to evaluate the two agencies, working closely with the public and the respective policy boards, in order to develop a shared course for the Bay Area’s future growth and mobility” and “participate in a broad-based study group” that would evaluate the possibility of a merger….The work should not be rushed.”
On October 20 the Marin Board of Supervisors approved on consent an even stronger version of that letter and sent it to MTC. Had Kinsey shown up on the 28th and Resolution 1042 had been up for a vote without modifications, he would have been under considerable pressure to vote No.
Schaaf’s absence on the 28th deprived her city of representation on MTC; Kinsey’s left every city and county in Marin without a voice. Cortese, by the way, did not take a roll call vote.
Enthusiastic applause greeted MTC’s approval of modified Resolution 1042. No doubt ABAG workers and retirees were relieved to see their jobs and benefits spared—at least until next summer. ABAG officials must have been relieved at having at least temporarily staved off the loss of their Plan Bay Area staff, the likelihood of bankruptcy and a costly lawsuit of MTC. And surely supporters of integrated regional planning were pleased that the two agencies had moved toward consolidation.
But the prospect entailed by modified Resolution 1042 and ABAG Resolution 1015 is cause for apprehension on multiple counts, starting with timing.
It’s already evident that the eight-month window for doing a merger study and implementation plan is far too short to allow for thoughtful deliberation, broad-based input, and democratically accountable decisionmaking—a predicament exacerbated by ABAG’s financial dependence on MTC.
Resolution 4210 stipulates that “the [merger] study and plan shall be governed by the joint MTC Planning and ABAG Administrative Committees.” The first meeting of those two bodies since October 28 is scheduled for Friday, November 13.
But on November 5, MTC sent out a Request for Qualifications (RFQ] for the merger project. Signed by Heminger, the document is posted on the ABAG website under “ABAG-MTC Budget Discussion Materials.” It looks as if it was originally prepared in accordance with unmodified Resolution 4210, which called for a merger study to be funded by MTC for $275,000. That’s the budget for this one, too.
To be sure, the RFQ references modified Principle 11 in Resolution 4210, which specifies the joint oversight by the two agencies. And it states that “Responsive SOQs [Statements of Qualifications] will…be evaluated by an evaluation panel comprised of MTC and ABAG representatives,” and that
[t]he panel will recommend the selected Consultant to the MTC and ABAG Executive Directors, based on evaluation of the written SOQ and oral interviews (if held). The MTC and ABAG Executive Directors will review the recommendation, the ABAG Executive Director will forward the recommendation to the ABAG Administrative Committee for concurrence, and the MTC Executive Director will forward the recommendation to the MTC Commission to authorize award.
But it also indicates in numerous ways that MTC will hold the reins—indeed, that it already does.
Under “Form of SOQ,” we read:
- MTC reserves the right to accept or reject all SOQs submitted, waive minor irregularities, request additional information, and negotiate with any or all Proposers.
- MTC reserves the right in its sole discretion not to enter into any contract as a result of this RFQ. All contact during the evaluation phase shall be through the MTC Point of Contact only.
Under “SOQ Evaluation”:
All contact during the evaluation phase shall be through the MTC Point of Contact only.
….
MTC reserves the right not to convene interviews and to make an award on the basis of written SOQS, alone….Any award made will be made to the firms whose SOQs are the most advantageous to MTC…
This last would appear to be qualified by a passage that subsequently appears under “General Conditions:
Any award made will be to the Proposer whose SOQ is most advantageous to MTC and ABAG based on the evaluation criteria defined in Section VIII.
But next comes this:
If the selected firm fails to enter into a contract with MTC in a timely manner as determined by MTC, in accordance with the terms and conditions of this RFQ, MTC reserves the right to reject the SOQ of the selected firm and enter into a contract with the next highest scoring firm.
Did MTC folks fail to modify an off-the-shelf, or was money just talking? And there’s the “Consultant Selection Timetable”:
| 4 p.m., Thursday, November 20, 2015 | Closing date/time for receipt of SOQs |
| Week of November 30, 2015* | Interviews (if held) |
| December 16, 2015* | ABAG Administrative Committee and MTC Commission approval |
*Interview, award and approval dates are approximate and are subject to change before or after the closing date of the RFQ.
Under “Period of Performance”:
MTC expects the work to commence on or about January 1, 2016, and to be completed no later than June 30, 2016.
So the selection of the consultants is going to take place during the holiday season, the time of the year when public attention is least likely to focus on politics.
When I told ABAG Deputy Director Brad Paul that the RFQ seemed to be controlled by MTC rather than the joint oversight committees, and that the timeline was too short, he said that he and another ABAG staffer had been consulted in the document’s preparation, that the RFQ alluded to the possibility of changes, and that given the terms of 4210, they had to act as quickly as possible.
I see two passing references to changes. There’s the asterisked statement cited above about the “approximate” nature of the dates on the “Consultant Selection Timetable.” And under “Requests for Clarification or Exceptions,” the RFQ states that “[a]ny addenda to the RFQ will be posted on MTC’s website.” Seriously, with the joint oversight committees meeting only a week before the deadline for the receipt of SOQs (November 20), how likely is it that any changes are going to be made, especially since only the appendix to the RFQ, “Preliminary Scope of Work,” is posted on the committees’ November 13 agenda?
I also wonder if the choice of a consultant is a done deal: had MTC already decided whom to hire for the year-long merger study specified in unmodified 4210? And how many local firms can meet the following minimum qualifications?
- The Proposer’s Project Manager has a minimum of five (5) years’ experience within the last ten (10) years managing public or private sector merger studies and/or similar work for public sector transportation and/or planning agencies; and
- Each key personnel has a minimum of three (3) years’ experience working on public or private sector merger studies and/or similar work for public sector transportation and/or planning agencies.
It’s clear that ABAG President Julie Pierce is dedicated to her agency. It’s also clear that she lacks the requisite nerve and political savvy to effectively defend ABAG’s interests. This is the second time in the current ABAG-MTC tug-of-war that she’s been badly out-maneuvered by MTC: on July 16 Pierce revealed to the Executive Board that for the past three months she’d been meeting in a secret ad hoc committee comprising herself, Luce, Haggerty, Spering and Cortese. That was three months wasted on futile insider negotiations. As soon as Pierce learned about MTC’s designs on ABAG’s planning staff, she should have told her colleagues at ABAG and started strategizing with them and with the cities and counties in the region.
But the leadership deficit also reflects the weakness of the ABAG Administrative Committee and Executive Board. The only members who regularly stand up for ABAG are Eklund and Luce. That’s partly Pierce’s fault: subject to the advice and consent of the Executive Board, she appoints four of the committee’s ten members. The other six seats are reserved for specified individuals—for example, ABAG vice-president and immediate past president—who cannot be removed by the President. Pierce needs to start treating one of her four appointees, Eklund, as an ally instead of an irritant. The other three either need to start advocating more forcefully for their agency or be replaced.
The terms of standing committee members expire every two years following the annual meeting of the ABAG General Assembly in which the new president takes office. When Pierce’s second term starts in January, the standing committees, whose chairs automatically serve on the Admin Committee, will be nominated and their chairs elected.
Which brings us to the real source of weakness at ABAG: the cities of the region have not been paying enough attention to ABAG. With good reason, they’ve viewed monied MTC as the power agency. But as the events of the past four months have made painfully apparent, without strong leadership at ABAG, their interests—above all, local control of zoning and planning—are going to suffer. They need to attend more closely to the makeup of the Executive Board and the attitudes of the ABAG committee chairs.
The issue of divided loyalties has got to be addressed, most obviously with respect to Cortese, who automatically sits on the Admin Committee because he chairs the Regional Policy Committee, but also Scott Haggerty, who chairs the Legislative and Government Committee. At both the Admin Committee and MTC meetings on the 28th, Haggerty fawned over Cortese, stating that his colleague had “taken a bullet” and had been under a great deal of stress. No doubt this is true. But it’s also true that as MTC Chair, Cortese fired the first shot at ABAG—and the last.
With the ABAG committee nominations coming up in January, this is an opportune moment for the cities to be lobbying Pierce to make the strongest possible appointments to the Administrative Committee. They should be studying their own appointments to the Executive Board with an eye to obtaining vigorous and effective representation.
Many of the letters sent in protest of the Cortese-Heminger takeover of ABAG’s planning staff expressed support for some integration of land use and transportation planning in the Bay Area. But none of them got beyond a call for greater effectiveness or efficiency—the same unsubstantiated summons that was issued by Heminger and Cortese and that’s embedded in modified Resolution 1042:
WHEREAS, the current bifurcated structure between the MTC and ABAG planning departments leads to significant duplication, inefficiencies and missed opportunities in preparing the SCS and to best serve the needs of the Bay Area and its local communities;
(Was this one of the offending WHEREAses flagged by Pierce, Luce, and Eklund?)
What’s gotten lost in the tumult of the past four months is the fact that the fight at the MetroCenter has never been about efficiency. It’s about power and policy—ideology, if you will—the ends of power.
The most conspicuous, recent disagreement between the two agencies, flaring into public over the summer, was over whether the updated Plan Bay Area should retain the anti-displacement language in PBA 1.0. MTC staff wanted to take it out; ABAG staff thought it should stay. Thanks in large part to the vigorous campaign launched by the 6 Wins for Social Equity Network, the language will appear in the next Plan Bay Area. But the inherent, conflicting attitudes toward social justice persist.
In that episode, the line between MTC and ABAG was clear. But on other charged issues, that line blurs. I’m thinking about local control, transit-oriented development, and development per se—growth.
Over the past four months, we’ve heard numerous references to the agencies’ “different cultures.” As a Council of Local Governments, ABAG has a dialogical relationship with city and county officials; there’s a lot of negotiation. By contrast, MTC behaves like the big grantor it is: submit your applications for the funds we control, and we’ll decide.
Former Berkeley Planning Director Dan Marks emphasized that distinction when he commented on “MTC’s power play” in the September 2015 issue of “Northern News,” a publication of the Northern Chapter of the California Chapter of the American Planning Association:
If MTC absorbs the land use planning function,….[h]ow will it ensure that planners will continue to do what we do best: coordinate and integrate the messy and always challenging public and political process to create a coherent vision? How can MTC ensure that planning does not become a small cog in the transportation development/funding machine that has been MTC?
Good questions.
But when you look at the “coherent vision”—the future for the region projected in Plan Bay Area—the differences between the two agencies fade. Marks describes PBA as “a vision for how we as a region should—indeed, must—grow if we are to preserve what is special about the Bay Area and at the same time reduce our generation of greenhouse gases. I could argue about the details, but it is very hard to argue with the vision.”
On the contrary, it’s easy to argue with the vision and its driving premise: growth per se is good. During the preparation of Plan Bay Area 2013, people—community activists—did argue with it—a lot. They’re still arguing, and so they should.
Credit ABAG planners for at least recognizing that there’s a fundamental tension between growth—including so-called smart growth—and social justice. That realization apparently eludes their colleagues at MTC.
Nevertheless, the planners, too, continue to push for growth. When they nod to local control, they have in mind elected officials, not the citizenry at large, and certainly not anyone—elected or not—who challenges the growth god.
Last week the Bay Area Council Economic Institute published “A Roadmap for Economic Resilience,” a white paper on strengthening regional government at the expense of local control. I’m still digging into it, but you can get the gist of its recommendations from the headline for the Chronicle’s December 6 story: “Bay Area group’s housing solution: Punish cities that don’t build.” The report recommends, among other things, “the creation of more ‘by right’ zoning districts, or a regional hearing body to approve housing developments.”
The report was funded by MTC, but ABAG is a party to it as well. According to ABAG’s website, BACEI and the Bay Area Council, the lobby for the region’s biggest businesses, are the land use planning agency’s “leading institutional partners.” ABAG appoints one-third of the BACEI’s thirty-nine member Board of Trustees. Ezra Rapport is one of ABAG’s appointees. Rapport was also a member of the “Roadmap”’s nine-person Project Steering Committee. So was Heminger, who also sits on the BACEI board. If this is what the two executive directors envision for regional government in the Bay Area, we’d be better off with the current fragmented arrangement. Before the merger study gets under way, the cities and towns of the region, and the people who live and work in them, need to find out.
A good place to start is the November 13 meeting of the ABAG Administrative and MTC Planning Committees. It begins at 9:30 am at the MetroCenter. The merger study is the last item on the agenda, followed by public comment.