Members of the Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners will spend more time interviewing candidates for the three slots the county is to fill on the new Central County Transportation Authority.
The board’s Appointment Committee will pare what is expected to be a sizable list of prospective representatives for its three slots down to six.
Those candidates will then be interviewed by the entire board before it chooses its three representatives and announces those choices – as well as those the board approves for the entire 11-member authority — on Sept. 16.
The County Commission must approve all recommendations to the Central County Transportation Authority made by: the city of Kalamazoo (which will recommend three people), the city of Portage (which will recommend two), Comstock Township (1), Kalamazoo Township (1) and Oshtemo Township (1).
The Central County Transportation Authority is being created by the Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners as part of an effort to regionalize public transportation in Kalamazoo County.
A leadership team of city and county administrators is working to transition public transit from a city-operated system to a countywide system. Under an executive services agreement, the Kalamazoo County Transit Authority and its executive director, Sean McBride, will take over oversight of Metro Transit from the city of Kalamazoo.
The new Central County Transportation Authority’s duties will include planning, promoting, financing, acquiring, improving, enlarging, extending, owning, constructing, operating, maintaining, replacing and contracting for fixed-route bus service within the boundaries of the authority. The district includes: the cities of Portage, Parchment and Kalamazoo; as well as Oshtemo, Comstock and Kalamazoo townships; Texas Township Precinct 3 (near Kalamazoo Valley Community College) and Pavilion Township Precinct 3.
The county board will appoint the 11 members who sit on the new authority and it will function as a separate entity from the KCTA.
The CCTA is necessary to recognize different levels of service in the county in urbanized areas, county officials have said. The CCTA will also have the authority to levy millages for fixed route services.
Commissioners Julie Rogers and John Taylor pushed to have the entire County Board interview candidates for Kalamazoo County’s three slots, telling the board’s Committee of The Whole on Tuesday that they did not want to approve three people they had never interviewed.
The board faces some aggressive deadlines in order to have the authority established in time for May elections. The authority needs to be in place and making procedural milestones in order to roll out a millage request for the new Central County Transit Authority District by March.
The new authority is expected to ask voters to approve a millage to fund its operations, said board attorney Thom Canny. That would be placed on the May 2015 ballot.
Kalamazoo County residents currently pay a 0.4-millage for countywide service that will expire at the end of 2016. Kalamazoo residents pay a 0.6-mill levy to finance Metro Transit operations through 2015.
In October of 2013, the County Board approved a resolution endorsing a transition plan to move public transit from a city-operated system, to a countywide system. Their hope was to make regionalized public transit in a reality in Kalamazoo County by October of 2015.
Source: Mlive.com