No bus for Senior Center

During the recent County Commission meeting, the commission killed the motion to purchase a bus for the Senior Center.

The proposed expenditure would have costed $123,887 with an additional amount of $4,565 for a seven-year warranty plan.

Funding had been set aside with the funds gained from the recent sale of the Good Will building; however, the commission decided against using the allotted funds.

Finance Director Phyllis Ayers discussed reminded the commission of what the original plans were.

“This is under old business because we have looked at it several times,” Ayers said. “It originally came on here (the agenda) because we were going to use the funds from the Goodwill building sale for the bus.”

Commissioner Dean Scarborough, who was in favor of using the allocated funds to purchase a new bus, had originally made the recommendation.

“I still plan on using those funds…that’s why I made that recommendation to get the bus with it, instead of using taxes,” Scarborough said.

However, despite Scarborough’s recommendation, Commissioners Michelle Ivester and Dennis Bell felt that the funds should be used elsewhere.

“To me, I think that we need to put $25,000 back to the Meals on Wheels program and wait on this bus,” Bell said. “We should do the $30,000 to use the bus at the airport for the charter bus. If we do that it’s going to help in a lot of ways…to be honest, when we looked at this, I didn’t know our budget was in such bad shape until we got to the dollar and cents of it. I don’t want to see the seniors do without, but I hope that they understand, that to me, feeding people is more important out here than a bus.”

The commission did decide to move forward with adding $25,000 back into the Meals on Wheels Program.

The Commission approved a motion, 2-1, to spend $30,000, annually, for the seniors to use the airport’s transit system bus for their transportation needs, with Scarborough voting no.