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2 countywide issues on Trumbull ballot
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Two Trumbull County-wide issues will be on the Nov. 8 general election ballot including the 0.5-mill, five-year additional transit levy, which would cost the owner of a $100,000 home $17.50 per year.
The service is designed to replace and expand the transportation now offered by Niles-Trumbull Transit, a transportation service run by the city of Niles.
Niles Mayor Ralph Infante, who started Niles- Trumbull Transit in 2003, told county officials early this year that Niles- Trumbull Transit would come to an end Jan. 1, 2012.
He and Warren Mayor Michael O’Brien are proponents of the levy, which Infante says is needed to allow Trumbull County transit services to continue and expand. The levy would raise $1.7 million annually.
In 2011, the county commissioners authorized use of $635,000 from the countywide senior-citizen services levy to Niles- Trumbull Transit to provide $2 one-way rides to senior citizens.
But Niles Trumbull Transit also provides rides to other county residents, such as disabled riders.
In 2010, Niles-Trumbull transit provided 64,249 trips: 18,922 for senior citizens, 21,013 for the disabled, 16,131 for students, and 8,183 for other residents.
Passage of the transit levy will enable the system to provide 27,000 additional senior trips annually, including 13,000 now provided by the Trumbull County Office of Elderly Affairs, Infante said.
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 non- member communities, and the cost can be as high as $8 per ride for other riders.
The 0.75-mill seniors levy, first approved in November 2005 and renewed for five more years in May 2010, generates about $2.3 million a year.
In addition to transportation, the seniors levy provides services to senior citizens age 60 and over such as home-delivered meals, activities at senior centers and in-home services.
U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, said the new transit service will attract millions of dollars in matching funds from Washington and Columbus, just as Niles Trumbull Transit did.
The other countywide levy on the ballot is the one-year, 0.23-mill additional levy to maintain and improve buildings and real estate at the Trumbull County Fairgrounds. It would raise $785,931.
The levy, if passed, would cost the owner of a $100,000 home $7.04 in 2012.
Among the fairgrounds improvements planned if the levy passes is a new perimeter fence, a fence in the grandstands to protect spectators from racing-related accidents, post replacement on horse barns, repair of cracks in the concrete steps in the grandstand, electricity upgrades, restroom upgrades at two locations and replacement of roofs on four horse barns.