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New company to manage PVTA vans By G. Michael Dobbs
Managing Editor
SPRINGFIELD The announcement that a new management company will operate the door-to-door van service provided by the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (PVTA) has caused concern and confusion.
"Certainly, my phone has been ringing off the hook," Bill Lyons, the chair of the PVTA's paratransit committee, said at a meeting of the committee on Aug. 11.
PVTA Interim Administrator Richard Kos said the new contract will save the PVTA nearly $500,000 and provide a "level of uniformity" for the pick-up service.
The service provides van service for the elderly and the disabled in the 24 communities served by the PVTA and has an annual budget of $6.8 million. The new management company will begin supplying service on Oct. 9.
Kos said there is an effort to try to insure the new company hired as many of the current drivers as possible.
The paratransit committee met with Kos to discuss how he decided to switch from the three companies that operate the vans now to just one management company, MV Contract Transportation of Fairfield, Calif.
Lyons said that "all hell broke loose at the end of last year" when Shepard clashed in November with PVTA attorney Kevin Walkowski over former Administrator Gary Shepard's selection of Hulmes Transportation Services of Belchertown to continue to operate part of the paratransit service.
Kos explained that in March the Federal Transportation Administration told the PVTA it was not going to fund the authority for its paratransit program because of the on-going investigation into Shepard's operation of the authority.
A bid process was begun in December after federal agents raided the offices of Hulmes Transportation. Shepard was suspended from his job in February and Kos was hired in April as the interim administrator.
Kos formed an independent review committee to assess the seven proposals the PVTA had received. The committee included Sandra Sheehan, the PVTA's director of procurement and transit; Mary MacInnes, the administrator of the Worcester Regional Transit Authority; Tim Doherty, senior planner of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission; Marilyn Isler of the PVTA Advisory Board from South Hadley; and Sandra Lapollo of the PVTA Advisory Board from Chicopee.
They considered bids from Community Transportation of Springfield; East Springfield Transportation of Springfield; Hulmes Transportation of Belchertown; First Transit of Cincinnati, OH; Mass Services for Seniors of Springfield; the Valley Opportunity Council of Chicopee; and MV Contract Transportation of Fairfield, Calif.
Doherty explained the proposals were evaluated on a system that placed 70 percent of the decision on technical issues and 30 percent on cost issues.
Although the Request for Proposals issued by the PVTA did not specify the authority was looking for one management company to take the place of the current system of three providers, the review committee members explained they came to the concept at the end of the selection process.
Lapollo said the review committee had no agenda to switch to one provider and added that making the change was the "best shot" the committee could make in holding off a fare increase.
"This is the right time to make the change," Lapollo said.
Hulmes Transportation and the Valley Opportunity Council both appealed the review committee's findings, but Kos denied the appeal.
Stephen Huntley, the interim co-director of the Valley Opportunity Council told Reminder Publications that the lack of the contract will not affect the anti-poverty agency's finances. He expressed concerns about the future of the 57 drivers involved and said that he hopes the new company will provide the same level of service.
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