SUN CITY – According to the four candidates for Grafton Township Supervisor, recent rumors of the township’s bus service being scrapped are false.
Candidates gave insight into what they plan to do with the bus service through interviews with the Sun Day and comments made during a Feb. 6 candidate forum at Drendel Ballroom.
Current supervisor Linda Moore said she would like to see the bus become more efficient. Her plans include running the bus so that it carries as many passengers as possible during peak times, rather than carrying a few riders to their individual destinations.
“We can’t have inefficient programs as government. We do need to serve the seniors and the disabled, and we need to do it wisely. If additional funds are made available, we could expand the services, but until then, we have to do the best we can with what we have. It’s the only thing that makes sense,” she said.
Another of Moore’s goals is to fix what she calls disproportionate funding–as 30 percent of riders are Grafton residents, yet 80 percent of the bus’s funding comes from Grafton Township. To address this, she proposed looking to local businesses as funding partners.
Republican candidate Pam Fender, who previously served on the Huntley Village Board, wants to see the bus service expand. She opposed Moore’s plan for having the bus serve higher volumes on set schedules.
“I don’t think the bus should be on the convenience of the township schedule; it should be on the convenience of the riders’ schedules,” Fender said.
Fender’s ideas include making the service more flexible, possibly with drivers available on call for more hours, until “natural” routes develop. She also is considering adding possible routes like rides to Friday night high school football games, and possibly increasing the service’s range by taking riders to spots like Spring Hill Mall which connect to larger public bus systems.
“We need to look at it with an eye of helping people, not an eye of ‘Oh I want to do less,'” she said.
Fender, along with each of Moore’s challengers, added that once township legal fees and bickering are finished, the township would be able to move forward on the bus service and other issues.
Candidate Marty Waitzman, a CPA and attorney on the Republican ticket, did not have specific plans for the bus service as of yet.
“Since I’m not involved with it at this point, I just know in general that obviously you want to enhance the ridership, enhance the service, and make the bus cost effective,” he said.
Waitzman said his first priority would be ending the litigation and current culture in the township, but that seniors and services for them are important to him.
“Obviously the seniors, they’ve earned benefits, they’ve paid their dues to their families, to their communities, and they’re entitled to have some enjoyment and [an] enhanced lifestyle,” he said.
Pet food business owner Jim Kearns is running as an independent in the race. He said he falls somewhere in the middle of the two visions of the bus service proposed by Moore and Fender.
“We need to listen to the people first, the people who use the bus or want to use it,” Kearns said. “We need to listen to them and say, ‘OK, how can we be more efficient for you?’”
Kearns cautioned against expanding too much and making promises while the township is still unsure of how much it can afford to spend on the program.
“I will look at programs, but I will not just say and make a promise that we’re going to open this up to everybody and spend us into oblivion again because that’s not the right way to do it either,” he said.
