County declines to get involved in public transportation

By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Stuart Hoff says he will keep trying to convince Fayette County officials that they should get involved in the public transportation process.

County commissioners last week voted to tell Hoff that he is on his own if he wants to provide bus service to Fayette County residents, but Hoff said the commissioners are being too hasty.

“Competition and the private market frequently works best when left alone by the government,” county manager Billy Beckett told the County Commission during a discussion last week of Hoff's request for county help in getting a bus system started.

But Fayette needs public transportation if it ever wants to solve growing air quality and clogged traffic problems, Hoff said, and government involvement is necessary to make that happen. “Nobody is going to come in and operate county-wide public transportation unless it's done under the [federal] 5311 plan,” he told The Citizen Monday.

The initial cost of equipment is too great, he added.

Federal funds are available under the 5311 program, he said, but the county must act as conduit for grant money and then, through a bidding process, must choose a company to receive the grant money and operate the service.

Hoff, owner of Phoenix Star Transportation Services, made it clear in a recent letter to commissioners' aide Chris Cofty that he wants his company to be involved in the process.

“We ask that we be permitted to be part of the organizational process as well as be the third party provider that implements the program that finally evolves,” Hoff wrote. “We are not suggesting that the county be in the bus business, but rather act as a conduit for funds available under the 5311 and other programs,” he added.

But if the county doesn't want to select his firm as third party provider, Hoff asked that his firm be hired by the county as consultants to help prepare grant applications at a rate of $30 per hour for up to $10,000 in charges.

If a grant application is successful, the county also would be liable for 10 percent of the grant, which would be applied to start-up costs of buying equipment, he said, but added that those costs might be recouped. “If it's operated the way that I'm talking about,” he said, “it could produce enough profit to pay back the county.”

In response to Hoff's letter to Cofty, commissioners said they aren't interested. The recently created Georgia Regional Transportation Authority is studying transportation needs in the entire metropolitan Atlanta region and will be in the driver's seat when it comes to public transportation, said Commissioner Herb Frady.

“GRTA is going to preempt anything we are doing here,” he said, before making a motion that a letter be sent to Hoff outlining the county's support of private companies that want to provide public transportation, but stating the local government's intention to stay out of the process.

“Until they hear the plan that I have, how can they turn it down,” Hoff said. “The county has to be a cog in the wheel. They have to be a player in order to get transportation accomplished.”

He said he will address commissioners at some future meeting in an attempt to get further dialogue on the matter.

Hoff's company recently started a shuttle service from Peachtree City to Hartsfield International Airport, and he said he will begin Fayetteville to Hartsfield service Aug. 1.