Area Transit District

MIDDLETOWN AREA TRANSIT Minutes for Wednesday, January 9, 2019 Meeting Thomas A. Cheeseman Transportation Center, Middletown Area Transit Maintenance Facility, 91 North Main Street, Middletown, CT 1. Call to Order - B. Lawrence called the meeting to order at 6:08pm. Board Members Present: Beverly Lawrence; James Dunn Board Members Absent: None Voting Members Excused: None Guests Present: Steven Bochinski; Jonathan Shapiro (Arr. via phone 6:53pm) Staff Present: Lisa Seymour, Administrator; Whitney Klare, Clerk Public Present: Aleese Lawrence 2. Public Comments - None. 3. Acceptance of Minutes of November 14, 2018 Meeting - Tabled. 4. Administrators Report- L. Seymour presents administrators report. Auditors are completing FY18 audit and will present to the board on a later date. There was one compliance finding that has already been corrected. There was an Auto Consortium review with GHTD. The Accounting Policy and Procedures Manual has been adopted per last meeting and sent to CTDOT as per the CAP. FTA drug and alcohol policy has changed. There has been an amendment to the drug and alcohol policy that all MAT employees have signed. MAT does not have access to capital money due to government shut down. MAT will have to use operating money for bus parts. A full time Mechanic has been hired. He comes with more than 20 years’ experience with the past 8 years on diesel engine experience with Sysco. The public hearing and comments for the Route Changes were extremely positive and in support of the changes. The Fedex employees that commented are very excited to have a direct route from the facility to the terminal. Other passengers from the Mlink were in support of having it be more of a direct route to lessen the travel time. A few people had some concerns but overall there was positive feedback 6. Financial Report- L. Seymour presents budget to actual. Fuel and Dial-A-Ride are low because MAT is waiting on a bill from Middletown. Materials and supplies are high but costs will go down with new full time mechanic. L. Seymour will email the board cash flow chart tomorrow morning. 6. Operations Report- L. Seymour presents operations report. There were problems with fareboxes so the data in operations report is not accurate.. Farebox company will perform maintenance in March 2019. MAT is trying to maintain their own repairs for the time being. L. Seymour will ask the drivers to keep a tally to accurately track how many passengers are riding. MAT will be using drop fareboxes on all the para transit buses. MAT currently has three drop fareboxes and eight more will be arriving. There were several MAT buses that broke down recently. DATCO can only repair one bus at a time. L. Seymour asked DOT if they could give MAT a loaner bus. Transfer tickets were recently redone with address stamps. There were fraudulent transfer tickets. An alert was sent out to let all drivers know. B. Lawrence inquires about how senior center trips are going. The numbers have not been high. L. Seymour has been working with the Middletown housing authority. L. Seymour states not a lot of people know Middletown pays for senior center fare. Discussion of need to advertise this service. L. Seymour wants the public to know that you don’t have to be ADA certified to go to the senior center without being charged. Right now only 20-30 people a month are using this service. 7. Old Business - L. Seymour speaks to the pending litigation. MAT is waiting for the judge to make a finding in February 2019. The judge may not find fault with MAT and may decide MAT’s involvement is irrelevant to the litigation. MAT did answer the FOIA. Discussion regarding the resolution that was adopted at the March 2018 Meeting: Resolution that MAT is in favor of extending membership to Durham, East Hampton, Middlefield and Portland. This invitation is subject to final terms and conditions. Review of MAT minutes from March 2018. (J. Shapiro arrived via phone at 6:53pm.) Forceful discussion followed. As result of the discussion L. Seymour resigned. J. Shapiro recommends B. Lawrence adjourn the meeting. 8. New Business - None. 9. Adjournment - B. Lawrence MOVED to adjourn. J Dunn SECONDED. MOTION PASSED unanimously. Meeting adjourned at 7:03pm. Respectfully submitted by Whitney Klare