That sunset or termination date is June 30th, 2014 proposed by Commissioner Craig Lutz. According to the agreement Hall County would run the county wide Dial-a-Ride service, with Gainesville to take over the Red Rabbit bus service.
"It's time for the county to bring in the Dial-A-Ride service and for the City of Gainesville to operate the Red Rabbit, which is the fixed route service within the city," Lutz said. "We're going to put a June 30th, 2014 date on there as a termination date so that we will either have to come up with a new governmental agreement for 2014 or it will help us to complete what we pretty much started today."
Lutz said it's been his goal all along to shift Red Rabbit's liability burden over to Gainesville.
"That's a concern and the rolling stock was a concern," according to Lutz. "We owned all the buses and if those buses weren't used for whatever the life of the bus was we would be liable for whatever unused portion of the bus. By the City of Gainesville owning those now, that becomes part of their liability."
Lutz added that non transit services through the Community Service Center such as Community Outreach, the Senior Life Center and Meals on Wheels would remain jointly supported.
"It's still joint funded and I think going forward I think it should be joint funded," Lutz said. "It's just what we have to figure out going forward is it being administered appropriately, and what should the property funding mechanism be. It's convoluted under this whole community services umbrella. The Commission in the future would like to make direct payments or allocations for direct services. We are making payments today for services that the Commission may not necessarily support."
The State Department of Transportation set a Friday deadline for deciding who would apply for federal grant funds to operate the transit service next fiscal year. County officials worked with GDOT following the commission's decision not to apply for $400,000 in federal grant funds to operate the bus system.
The county contacted GDOT and inquired about the possibility of Gainesville applying for that funding and it was determined that the City could choose to apply for the funds.
Hall County also agrees in those resolutions to continue to administer grant funds pertaining to Red Rabbit through June 30, the date of expiration for that contract. The County is also moving forward with the executed contract they approved in March for the funding of new buses which would also be transferred to the City under the agreement.
Hall County Commissioners met Monday to consider transit operation changes
http://accesswdun.com/article/2013/5/261267