The meeting began at 9:07 a.m. with a roll call, followed by a session of the Organizational, Services, & Performance Monitoring Committee. You can find the agenda for this meeting here. This featured a presentation on RTA’s customer experience and performance scores from the second quarter of 2025 (Q2). Then, the Committee of the Whole met briefly to review the Q2 Internal Audit Report. Finally, the Board of Trustees meeting included public comment, reports from the general manager and secretary-treasurer, and approval of several resolutions related to new or ongoing contracts. The meeting adjourned at 11:16 a.m. 

Board members in attendance: 

• Paul Koomar, board president, mayor of Bay Village
• Lauren Welch, board vice president, Say Yes Cleveland
• David Weiss, mayor of Shaker Heights
• Marie Gallo, mayor of Parma Heights
• Emily Garr Pacetti, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
• Jeffrey Sleasman, The Fund for Our Economic Future
• Anastasia Elder, UB Greensfelder LLP
• Deidre McPherson, Assembly for the Arts
• Stephen Love, Cleveland Foundation

Board Member Rev. Charles Lucas was not present. India Birdsong Terry, RTA general manager/CEO, attended.

Other key staff/presenters:

• Nick Biggar, senior director of Customer Experience and Performance Management
• James Rubin, TransPro Consulting from New York City
• Anthony Garofoli, executive director – Internal Audit
• Ida Marshall, senior manager of Talent Acquisition
• Rajan Gautam, deputy general manager, Finance Secretary-Treasurer
• Floun’say Caver, chief operating office, deputy general manager – Operations
• Michael Schipper, deputy general manager – Engineering & Project Management

Join the movement for transparency

Civic power can start with you! We train and pay Documenters to take notes at local government meetings and share them here. Learn more about becoming a Documenter.

RTA Organizational, Services & Performance Monitoring Committee

The committee approved the meeting minutes from Aug. 5. General Manager Terry presented results from this quarter’s TRACTION survey of riders, in tandem with Biggar and Rubin. 

Based on the organizational scorecard for RTA, measures of success include:

1. Customer experience – includes personal safety and security, cleanliness, on-time performance, drivers and other factors. 
   
   
2. Community impact –  includes how many transit-oriented development (TOD) projects have been launched, how many capital dollars are invested in low-income communities, and other markers. 
   
   
3. Employee investment – includes hiring, retention and promotion opportunities for staff.
   
   
4. Financial Health – includes revenue, expenditures and competitive capital grants.

Overall, according to the Q2 Quarterly Performance Report (on Agenda pp. 5-7), the agency has listed the following goals for 2025 as most important: “(1) reduce operating expenses, (2) employee retention, and (3) customer perception of safety and security.” 

Terry said, overall, “We’re doing a pretty good job now” with 88.5 points out of 100 for the Q2 score across the four measures of success listed above. For customer experience, RTA has hit its goal for Q2. As for community impact, “we’re getting there.” Terry said financial health is “tough” and RTA is “not quite there.” She remarked that this metric comes down to timing and depends on when competitive capital grants come through. As far as customer experience, we have knocked that out of the park with a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 54, officials said, compared to a goal of 29. This is the highest rating received by the agency in the last 4.5 years, according to Biggar. Historically, “on-time performance is overwhelmingly the most important thing to our customers,” said Biggar. [Editor’s note: NPS reflects the likelihood that RTA riders would recommend RTA to others.]

Regarding employee investment—this includes hiring, promotion and retention rates—the agency received a 19.7 out of 20 for its Q2 performance. 

Regarding financial health, RTA has an annual goal of getting $35 million in competitive capital grants. Through this point, RTA has accrued $22.5 million, Biggar said.  

Biggar proceeded to cover the scoring details of each of the four success outcomes, one by one. Then, Rubin presented the May 2025 Customer Experience Survey and its results in detail. This survey wave yielded about 1,270 responses from train and bus riders and about 400 responses from paratransit riders in this quarter’s TRACTION survey. More details can be found here.

• Rubin shared “good news” that the NPS for fixed-route bus has increased from 27 to 61 since the last wave of surveys in March. 
  
  
• He said results show that personal safety and security, cleanliness, and on-time performance are most important to those riders. 
  
  
• Bus Rapid Transit riders appeared to be slightly less satisfied with these factors as of May compared to data from March. For rail transit, survey results showed a 10-percentage-point increase in overall customer satisfaction in Q2. For paratransit, customer satisfaction has been consistent at about 90% over the last few quarters. 
  
  
• Rubin said that, overall, RTA users seem to be experiencing an improved perception of personal safety and security, cleanliness and on-time performance. 

To close the presentation, Biggar offered the board a deeper educational session on TRACTION going forward, in partnership with Terry and other staff members working with the data.

• Sleasman asked about gaps in ridership and survey data, requesting that losses in ridership not go unexplained in survey data.
  
  
• Terry responded that future presentations should include hypotheses around why performance metrics are shifting one way or another, not making decisions only based on “the whim of the customer” from survey data. 
  
  
• Sleasman asked about paratransit riders having a different set of preferences and important considerations compared to other modes of RTA transit.

The Quarterly Management Report (QMR) from 2nd Quarter 2025 Results was presented by Terry.

Organizational, Services & Performance Monitoring Committee adjourned at 9:54 a.m.

Suggested Reading

Free legal clinic and career resources at Cleveland reentry event

by Olivera Perkins January 15, 2026

Committee of the Whole

The Committee of the Whole started at 9:55 a.m. with a roll call.

Executive Director of Internal Audit Anthony Garofoli presented the Internal Audit Report. Garofoli briefly directed the board through the table of contents of the Internal Audit review, covering ongoing and new projects. “Everything we expected was covered. Nothing out of the ordinary,” said Mayor David Weiss. 

The Committee of the Whole adjourned at 10:04 a.m.

RTA Board of Trustees

The RTA Board of Trustees meeting started at 10:04 a.m. The certification regarding notice of meeting was read by staff member Avis Lyons.

Public comment started at 10:07 a.m.: 

• One Cleveland resident thanked the board for repair work on the East 79th Street station. The resident expressed dismay at the working conditions of transit operators, saying, “Operators are only receiving two paid personal days per year … and some operators are working 8-plus hours—including 12 hours—without a break.” The resident closed by saying that, “We are not tolerating violence in our transportation system.”
  
  
• Kevin Hinkle, a longtime Cleveland resident and RTA rider, spoke about removing snow when snow mounds build up near transit points, making conditions unsafe, especially for senior residents.
  
  
• One Cleveland resident talked about keeping the transit system clean. She expressed that there isn’t enough janitorial staff, as well as a need for hand sanitizer and paper towels so that riders can wipe down vehicles themselves. She shared that she would like to see more income from sports arenas and other major businesses to support RTA services. 
  
  
• Cleveland resident Chris Martin expressed frustration about a few items, including what he said was a lack of an answer from the board about tax rates intended to boost revenue. Also, Martin said, “Please talk to [Mayor Justin Bibb], make sure he is still in support of bus routes on [West 25th Street].” Also, “the RTA projects always seem to be about capital improvements, never about service improvements.” He also requested an update about the microtransit project.
  
  
• Another resident of Cleveland spoke about paratransit services and the survey questions asked by RTA. The resident expressed a need for survey questions that offer more choice for customers to respond. The commenter also said Clevelanders for Public Transit has been offering ideas to bolster sources of revenue and asked the board to consider those ideas. 
  
  
• A remote caller, Airric Stewart from Cleveland, asked Rubin about the number of survey respondents leading to the 75% satisfaction rating for rail riders in Q2 and told Terry that her salary should be reduced. This was the most contentious point in the meeting. The commenter expressed frustration about the practice of ending caller access to the meeting after the public comment period.
• Two written comments submitted online were read aloud by a staff person, one from Stewart and one from another resident. 

In response to public comments, Terry said the Adopt-a-Shelter program is still in effect. She explained that the Microtransit Program showed not enough ridership, so that project is currently being reworked.

According to Ida Marshall, senior manager of Talent Acquisition, the shortage of operators is down to 35, which Marshall said is strong. RTA is actively aiming to recruit on both the East and West Sides of Cleveland. She introduced all new employees and recent promotions. 

Several resolutions related to RTA’s insurance and contract services were then considered by the board, as seen on this page in the agenda:

• A – Contract with Oracle America to provide infrastructure as a service (IAAS) for one year, not to exceed  $305,830. (Approved)
  
  
• B – Contract with Televic US Corp. to provide a multi-tenant hosting solution for four years, not to exceed about $1.05 million. (Approved)
  
  
• C – Contract with DLZ Ohio for architect and engineer services for two years, not to exceed $400,000. (Approved)
  
  
• D – Increase cost of existing contract with Future Age (doing business as Provide a Ride) to provide paratransit services by about $6.8 million. (Approved)
  • Terry discussed this resolution. She spoke of paratransit services as “not necessarily [public transit’s] bread and butter” but stressed how important it is to continue funding paratransit. RTA is on track to surpass 100 paratransit vehicles in operation by 2028, a staff member in the audience said. 
    
    
• E – Increase the cost of an existing contract with GC Logistics of Mississippi to provide paratransit services by an amount of about $4.4 million. (Approved)
  
  
• F – Increase the amount of an existing contract with Senior Transportation Connection to provide paratransit services by an amount of about $1.06 million. (Approved)
  
  
• G – Purchase of casualty insurance from various insurance underwriters for a period of 12 months, not to exceed about $2.3 million.  (Approved)
  
  
• H – Authorized revisions to Personnel Policy 400.04: Payroll deductions of the personnel policies of RTA.  (Approved)

All were passed without discussion or clarification.

Secretary-Treasurer’s report 

Presented by Rajan Gautam, deputy general manager and finance secretary-treasurer. Gautam spoke about economic conditions and consumer confidence. In line with reports from the previous board meeting, ridership levels and passenger fares as of July 2025 were slightly below those year-to-date numbers for July 2024. 

RTA General Manager/CEO Report from India Birdsong Terry

At the request of the chief of police, Terry shared an update on an incident where officers apprehended two individuals on the East Side of Cleveland at Hayden District. She named the officers involved to recognize their efforts in the incident. Chief Deirdre Jones spoke briefly about the department’s commitment to public safety, and then Koomar extended thanks on behalf of the board. 

Terry highlighted the RTA staff engagement with students from the National Urban League and with aspiring workers in public transportation tech at the Tech Talk Recruitment Event at Midtown Tech Hive in July. She shared another field experience in the community with first-year medical students at Case Western Reserve University. Terry also went to Washington, D.C., in July for a conference hosted by the American Public Transportation Foundation (APTF) about scholarships for professionals moving from operations to administration leadership in this sector. 

[I excused myself here at 10:57 a.m. to fill the meter with my car, and I returned at 11:07am.]

Terry and Gautam discussed the GCRTA & Cleveland State University U-Pass Agreement signed on Aug. 14. It is a one-year deal with CSU agreeing to pay rates of $57.50 per eligible student per semester, in line with last year’s rates. CSU updated the definition of eligible student to full-time student.

A Summer Rail Shutdown Update from Caver and Schipper covered engineering work on the Red, Blue, and Green lines.

Terry and Caver fielded questions from board members, with only one from Pacetti on a lapse in communication with the Blue & Green line shutdown. 

Meeting adjourned at 11:16 a.m. 

The next regular board meeting is scheduled for Sept. 23 in the board room of the authority’s office at the Root-McBride Building, 1240 W. 6th St.

These notes are by Documenter Tommy Oddo.

If you believe anything in these notes is inaccurate, please email us at documenters@signalcleveland.org  with “Correction Request” in the subject line.