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Trumbull commissioners award contracts to three more senior-citizen ride providers
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The Trumbull County commissioners awarded contracts Thursday to three transportation companies to provide rides to senior citizens through the end of June.
The money for the rides comes from the countywide senior citizens levy.
In late June, the commissioners hope to award senior-citizen transportation contracts lasting through the second half of the year and beyond following a bidding process.
Mike Salamone, administrator of the county’s public transportation system, which is called Trumbull Transit, said the goal of the bidding is to offer senior citizens more options for rides than just Trumbull Transit.
Riders will still contact Trumbull Transit for rides, but Community Busing Service will refer riders to one of the new providers if CBS is unable to provide the ride. The number is 330-369-2600.
The contracts awarded Thursday pay $10,000 each to All American USA Taxi of Warren, Garwin Inc. of Hubbard and Comfort Care-A-Van of Youngstown.
Each company will provide medical and nonmedical nonwheelchair, in-county rides and out-of-county medical trips. The rides are for Trumbull County citizens age 60 and older.
In recent years, the commissioners have awarded $425,000 per year in senior-citizen levy money to Trumbull Transit, which pays Community Busing Service to provide the rides. But the commissioners have expressed dissatisfaction with the Trumbull Transit board and CBS and hope to redirect $195,000 of the $425,000 this year into rides to companies other than CBS.
The commissioners also announced their intent to ask voters to renew the existing 0.75-mill, countywide senior citizen levy for another five years.
The levy generates $2.4 million annually to pay for low-cost senior-citizen rides and other services, such as in-home and protective services. It also pays for operation of senior centers around the county. The levy was first approved in 2005.
Also, the commissioners voted 2-1 to remove Marlin Palich from his volunteer position as a member of the Trumbull Transit board after a county board of elections hearing earlier this week in which Palich was removed from the voting rolls over his residency.
Palich, a Realtor who serves on the Trumbull County Land Bank board, has to be eligible to vote to be a transit board member, Commissioners Mauro Cantalamessa and Frank Fuda said.
Commissioner Dan Polivka, who voted no on Palich’s removal from the transit board, said he believed Palich should be given more time to appeal the elections board’s decision to remove him from the voting rolls.
Niki Frenchko of Warren, who ran unsuccessfully as an independent candidate for county commissioner last year against Fuda, raised the issue of Palich’s residency to the elections board, alleging Palich had not lived at his home in Cortland for several years but was still using it as his voting address. Palich did not attend the residency hearing to rebut Frenchko’s allegations.