Dear Menlo Park City Council,
Thank you and thanks to your staff for the consideration of Manzanita Works and specifically our establishment of the subregional transportation management association known as the "Ravenswood Transit Consortium" as a part of our Manzanita Transit program.
Tomorrow, April 13th (Agenda Item L-3), you will be receiving an informational item from staff that outlines their understanding of our organization and the opportunity to partner along the lines of 3 objectives:
1) Endorse & support regional and subregional efforts
2) Ensure transportation demand management (TDM) support is available for all Menlo Park businesses
3) City can serve as an example of an employers with a robust and collaborative TDM program
https://www.menlopark.org/DocumentCenter/View/27882/L3-20210413-CC-TMA-update
We are proud to share that private, public and nonprofit employers from diverse means are all finding a seat at the table with our subregional TMA including 3 existing employers in Menlo Park. In addition, we have letters of intent to join from 3 additional Menlo Park employers.
We hope that you find us to be a compelling and clear choice to partner with to ensure TDM support is available for all Menlo Park businesses.
The staff report commends the launch of our subregional TMA but does have several inaccuracies that I wish to clarify:
* Our organization was founded in 2014 as Bay Area Forward and changed its name to Manzanita Works in 2019 during the Manzanita Talks;
* Manzanita Transit is our organization's program and the 'Ravenswood Transit Consortium" was legally ratified with founding members in May 2020;
* Our organization already does outreach to all employers in Menlo Park including public, private and nonprofit on an ongoing basis;
* We were asked to propose what a targeted outreach effort for small and service employers and suggested $50,000 or $75,000 depending on whether the City wanted to sponsor 25 or 50 employers;
* We are doing bike program visioning and feasibility work with Bikes Make Life Better and offered that Council could also provide a grant of $25,000 to sponsor bike feasibility efforts to specifically include downtown Menlo Park;
* We are eager to partner with the City and can adjust the target stakeholder audience or scope to reflect Council priorities;
* We do not oversee Caltrain GoPass redistribution at this time as Caltrain staff are still deciding how to implement the recent Caltrain board policy decision to have TMAs play a role in promoting Caltrain ridership. Our organization is in an excellent position to partner with Caltrain and are in active conversation with their staff;
* The chart comparing our services to Commute.org doesn't reflect
1. we are a clearing house for programs where we can promote Commute.org's programs to all employers while we also
2. help employers collectively purchase additional programs that address specific problems they want to solve with private funding sources instead of only taxpayer dollars
3. and have capacity to create programs that do not require consortium membership and did so with our Essential Worker Commute Shuttle Pilot this winter;
* Due to the proprietary nature of our novel model and approach, our membership and structure are not publicly available at this time. We can assure you that membership cost is not a barrier to membership for employers. In fact, maintaining a low bar to entry is one of the ways we ensure we are upholding our commitment to social equity;
* We hope that when the City is ready to model a robust and collaborative TDM program, the City as an employer is more than welcome to join the consortium and we look forward to a collaborative working relationship with staff.
Overall, this consortium is an opportunity to have private parties truly come together for collective impact, mutually benefitting public parties and nonprofit employers of limited means in the communities they're a part of.
Our program is grounded in our guiding principles which the Menlo Park City Council helped inform - solving local problems that are inherently part of regional dilemmas, strengthening public transportation in the long run and social equity as a founding principle where employers regardless of their ability to pay for transit "perks of employment" have a seat at the table.
Thank you for your consideration of supporting our existing and future work in your community with Menlo Park employers.
With appreciation,
Mila Zelkha
Chief Executive Officer
Manzanita Works
650-518-0040
