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Oct. 24, 2000 By Jim Mimiaga A tentative proposal may provide Montezuma County with funding to hire a consultant to draw up a practical transportation plan for the area. The county needs to submit a plan showing its transit needs to the Colorado Department of Transportation in order to become eligible for federal and state grant money supplied every year to help communities operate transportation systems. With that in mind, the Montezuma County commissioners submitted the county’s senior-citizens shuttle service as their 30 percent match for the grant, hoping that the already funded operation would suffice as an "in-kind" assurance that the county is committed to transportation needs to the financial extent possible. "We do not have the money to pay for something more than we do now," Commissioner Kent Lindsay said. "It would be helpful to have someone to first establish the need and then look into how to pay for it." Montezuma County has historically lacked the population needed to make a regular bus system profitable. The grant being sought for the consultant is $90,000. If an expert is obtained, he or she will be responsible for drawing up a plan for the county that would then be approved by the local Transportation Planning Committee and the commissioners before being sent off to CDOT for funding consideration. Public input would be sought on the plan. But without the expertise to get through confusing rules and regulations surrounding public-transportation issues, the county "is basically in the dark about it," said Commis-sioner Gene Story, also a member of the transportation committee. Story added that it is expensive for governments to subsidize public-transportation systems. "They always are needing money," he said. "But if we do not submit a plan, there is no chance to get the grant funding that is out there." The proposal, if approved, would be administered through the Southwest Colorado Region 9 Economic Development Council. |
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