SEATs users urge officials to keep door to door service

Johnson County SEATs users urged city and county officials not to get rid of door to door service in order to cut costs of the program, which serves as transportation for the elderly and disabled throughout Johnson County.

The comments came up during a forum sponsored by the Johnson County Task Force on Aging Monday afternoon following months of disagreement between officials with Iowa City, Coralville, North Liberty and the Johnson County Board of Supervisors over how much each entity could afford to pay to keep SEATs going at it's current level of service. Though the county funded Iowa City and Coralville's portion of the costs up until fiscal year 2014, supervisors have said that the program is now too expensive for them to fund on their own as a result of  population growth and gaps in county income from the use of tax increment financing.

 Most SEATs users who spoke were concerned with how a possible change in the quality of service - like only offering rides curb to curb rather than the current door to door, or getting rid of Sunday service - might disenfranchise some riders.

"It makes me cringe every time we talk about going from door to door to curb to curb because that simply would be a very dangerous change to make," said 60-year-old Terry Cunningham, who uses paratransit at least four times a week. "There are too many folks who use SEATs who couldn't do it. I'm lucky my bust stop would be right in front of my building, but for somebody older than I to go blocks from their home to a bus stop is again unreasonable and very potentially dangerous if they overheat, if they fall, if something happens so I just want to make sure changing from door to door to curb to curb is one of the last potential things that would be considered."

Though the cities have not determined exactly how much money a curb to curb service would save, that change is one of several each being considered in order to bring down the costs of the program. Cities area also considering cutting Sunday service, bringing maintenance in house and raising fares - though officials said they plan to hold more public forums before moving forward on any of those possibilities.

Some who spoke said that SEATs is what brought them to Iowa City, adding that they likely wouldn't be able to get around without it.

"I think SEATs is the best thing about Iowa City and I think many people moved to an urban area like this because they know they can't do their suburban town anymore," said 70-year-old Duretta Niemeyer of Iowa City, adding that taxi service is an option, but far too expensive to rely on. "The people who work for SEATs are so courteous and professional and so good to us, they are a wonderful group of people… I just want to say it's a valuable service to me and i don't really know how I could make it any other way." 

Following a joint work session on the topic last month, the Johnson County Board of Supervisors plans to vote on a motion to authorize the Chairperson to sign a letter to cities regarding a contract for paratransit services Tuesday afternoon. Under that contract, the county would enter into a five year agreement with the cities to pay $200,000 with a 3 percent cap on that amount. The contract would also require all municipalities to take over all maintenance requirements for their vehicles and orders a renegotiation of the contract in July 2016.

The cities and county will need to craft a 28E agreement and vote to pass it before funding for the program from any entity is final.