Belleville’s ‘Wheels for Independence’ sets special meeting Nov. 13

A special meeting of Belleville’s “Wheels for Independence” Senior Citizens Transportation Committee has been set for 5:30 p.m., Monday, Nov. 13, at the Brown Family Center, 678 E. Huron River Dr. The public is invited.
After an hour-long discussion on how to solve the senior transportation needs in the city at the Oct. 9 meeting, the group agreed to meet in November to assemble information and make concrete plans on how to proceed.
Wheels for Independence provided senior transportation for 27 years before COVID paused the service and then the six-foot rule was enacted and only one person could ride in the van at a time.
“It’s been close to a year without transportation,” said committee chairperson Jennifer Delano, who has been trying to work with the city to get the service in operation again.
She said Peoples Express does not want to work with Wheels for Independence and no longer picks up riders at the library. That ended in June, she said.
She said Peoples Express is a business and, “We aren’t in business to raise money, but to offer a service.”
Delano said before COVID they transported 20 to 30 seniors and disabled a week in their wheelchair lift vans. On Fridays the van was full for grocery shopping.
She said after COVID, the ridership was down to 12 to 20 a week. She said there were riders from Columbia Court, the Co-Op, two on Biggs Street and two on Loza Lane. She said now, Tuscan Manor has residents who need transport.
Committeeman Randy Priest suggested seniors shop for groceries by phone and have it delivered.
Shelly Brown-Chudzinski, who has a funeral home, said she was against seniors doing everything by phone. She said getting active keeps them alive.
Delano said they also had a lot of runs to dialysis appointments and doctors’ offices and fit the grocery runs into those.
Brown-Chudzinski said the funeral home had grief care at Columbia Court and she saw how the residents needed to get out and move around and socialize.
Delano said they had three SMART vehicles at one point and an accident took the first one and it was not fixable. They took parts from the second one and the third blew an engine and it couldn’t be fixed.
Belleville’s Acting City Manager Steve Jones said the final vehicle couldn’t be fixed because replacement engines for that vehicle are no longer being made by Ford and are not available. The $5,000 the city council allocated for that has gone back into the general fund, he said.
He said there has been a lot of turnover at SMART and the city was waiting for a call from one person and then that person was replaced by someone else.
“Vehicles seem to be available, if we need it,” Jones said.
He said he is trying to digest all the details about transportation in the city, and noted the city does not want to be in the transportation business. Former city manager Dave Robinson did not recognize the Wheels group as a legal entity.
“Belleville is going to take care of its seniors,” said Brown-Chudzinski. “There are lots of seniors.”
“I was shocked to hear that Kerreen (Conley, the mayor) was a member of this committee,” Jones said. “I was not aware of this committee.”
Delano said the city clerk always did the paperwork for SMART and Brown-Chudzinski said that was because they claimed the money from SMART for the transportation.
Jones said that was a small amount from SMART, about $4,000.
Delano said one of the city managers after Diana Kollmeyer took the senior transportation out of the budget.
Many options were discussed, including getting donations to buy or lease a van, and Jones said he would get copies of the former city budget numbers and other information for the next meeting.
The CDBG funds, formerly used for transportation, were used for park upgrades in the most recent budget. The next application for CDBG funds is in March, Delano said.
The transportation budget had been $10,000 a year, after being trimmed by the city from $20,000. Delano said she paid the annual state license fee of $20 out of her own pocket.
Jones said there are lots of strings with a SMART van now.
Delano said when Keith Boc was DPW director the DPW was able to fix the SMART vans, but now SMART requires all repairs to be done by SMART.
Because of the small staff at city hall, Jones said Delano would have to do all the paperwork and she said she did do all the paperwork. Then she would give payroll to the treasurer and other work to the clerk. But the present clerk was overwhelmed by having to do police work too.
She said it had always gone through the city in the past and when there were budget problems they cut her salary. She said riders paid zero at the beginning, then it was $1-$4 and then $2-$5 to ride and now it should be raised to $3 -$6.
“I dread the day I ever say, ‘We’re done,’” Delano said.
Brown-Chudzinski said the committee needs to get younger members to learn what they’re doing. She said there has been too much turnover at the city and at SMART.
She said the focus is on: “What it would take to get a bus.”
“We have to keep going,” she said, adding once they know how much money they need they could raise money. Many other ideas were offered, including going to the corporations that own Columbia Court and the Co-Op for help.
“I think we’ve taken the parking brake off the Wheels for Independence,” said Randy Priest.