[Colorado-Talk] Denver Area: OSCC Meeting Recap

[tkeenan79 at gmail.com]

Hi, all,

I wanted to post this while it's fresh in my mind.

Before the Committee could even vote on the Board's motion with the $2.50
fare and unrestricted area, Director Harwick amended it with a new proposal
which he called a compromise:

A $6.50 fare with no area restrictions but with hourly restrictions, which
would allow multi-stop trips.

I'm not sure how going from $2.50 to $6.50 can be defined as a compromise,
but I digress.

This proposal passed, 5-1, so that's what will be recommended to the Board
on September 30. Director O'Keefe was the lone no vote.

 

I should note that Director Buzek wasn't there, and he has always been a
supporter of keeping the program as-is as much as possible.

Also, several directors who have been supportive of our positions are not on
this committee. The original staff recommendation with the $6.50 fare and
area/hourly restrictions passed this committee 5-2 back in July, yet the
full Board significantly amended that proposal.

So, this is a setback, but there is every reason to believe we can convince
the full Board to amend this recommendation as well. One reason for my
guarded optimism is that Director Nicholson advocated for a $1.50 fare for
LIIV program recipients. He ultimately withdrew his amendment when Deborah
Johnson pointed out that LIIV fares are typically 50% of the regular fare,
and this would make the Access on Demand fare significantly lower than the
Access-a-Ride fare.

However, the solution seems simple. Make the AOD fare $4.50, and the LIIV
fare by definition would be $2.25, not much more than the $1.50 he was
advocating for. So, I think we really need to push that and that it should
make sense to the Board.

What I do not understand is the Committee's apparent willingness to accept
staff delineating the cost of wheelchair accessible vehicles as part of AOD
without accounting for this by lowering  the Access-a-Ride budget. So,
they're accounting for this money in two places, which is certainly not an
accepted accounting practice and appears solely designed to make the AOD
program seem more expensive.

Committee members were also silent on the inclusion of cutting bus routes in
the memo, which was slammed by a few public commenters, including our
Maureen, as almost a threat.

We even got admonished by Director O'Keefe to only attribute the best of
motives to what people are doing.

 

So, bottom line, we still have more work to do on September 30. Dr. Folska
hit the nail right on the head when she commented how stressful it is for us
to constantly be fighting to protect this program that has done so much for
so many so efficiently.

But we're gonna have to go back to the ring for one more round. Directors,
particularly Harwick and Nicholson, seem determined to move this forward.
They comfort themselves by saying that they can review it in a year and make
any needed changes, seemingly oblivious to the fact that a year is a very
long time if you suddenly can't use a service you've come to depend on.
That's exactly what's going to happen to me if Harwick's proposal is
adopted, since I work a lot of overnight shifts at Amazon, which means my
rides either two or from, depending on the shift, will not fall within the
AOD service hours.

 

So, please, let's have all hands on deck at the September 30 meeting.
Apparently, we're not getting through sufficiently, so we'll have to raise
our voices again, loudly and proudly, as we always do.

 

We'll have more specific info on the September 30 meeting in the next couple
weeks.

 

Thanks for all you do!

 

 

-Tim

 

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