Trumbull voters face 5-year transit levy

Staff report

WARREN

Trumbull County commissioners voted 3-0 Wednesday to place a 0.5-mill, five-year levy on the Nov. 8 ballot to fund a county transportation service.

The service would replace Niles Trumbull Transit, a transportation service the city of Niles started in 2001 and that grew larger with infusion of money from the Trumbull County senior- services levy.

The city announced early this year it would no longer operate Niles Trumbull Transit effective Jan. 1, 2012.

Commissioner Paul Heltzel said commissioners are now ready to hear from any Trumbull County resident interested in becoming a member of the seven-member transit board, which will run the service.

The phone number for county commissioners is 330-675-2451.

No more than four members of the board can be members of the same political party.

The levy, which would raise $1.7 million a year, would cost the owner of a $100,000 home $17.50 per year, said Adrian Biviano, Trumbull County auditor.

Niles-Trumbull Transit provides rides to senior citizens, people with disabilities and children age 2 to 12 for $1.50 per one-way trip for residents of Niles, Howland, Liberty, McDonald, Cortland, Warren, Girard, Lordstown, Hubbard Township, Bazetta Township, and Weathersfield Township. Those communities pay Niles-Trumbull Transit a membership fee, but the membership fee would be eliminated if the levy is approved.

A ride costs $2 for a senior-citizen in nonmember communities, and the cost can be as high as $8 per ride for other riders.

Heltzel has said the $635,000 in senior-levy money the commissioners awarded to Niles Trumbull Transit for senior citizen rides in 2011 will be used to create the new transit service regardless of whether the levy is approved.

But Tom Harwood, a former member of the Senior Services Advisory Committee, said the new transit service would be unable to survive on $635,000.