The South Portland City Council on Tuesday entered into a contract with Greater Portland Metro to temporarily take over bus services in the city.
The council reluctantly voted in favor of authorizing the 60-day contract, which will cost the city $2,000 per week, by a vote of 6-1, with Councilor Richard Matthews opposed.
Rick Sargent, longtime operations supervisor at South Portland Bus Service, retired last month. City Manager Scott Morelli explained that, after being alerted of his retirement, the majority of councilors were interested in a possible merger between Metro and SPBS. Then, Bus Director Donna Tippett resigned, which took effect on May 3.
“There’s no No. 1 person and No. 2 person at the bus service,” Morelli said at the meeting Tuesday.
Members of the city’s Transit Advisory Committee were concerned they were not consulted during the process of developing a temporary agreement with Metro.
Gabe Faulkner-Macklin, chair of the committee, said he first heard the city was pursuing a temporary contract on Saturday. He also noted the committee hasn’t met in a long time due to a lack of members.
“It’s very nice that Metro is stepping in to help us out, but I think we need to be cautious because if we give this away – there’s no point in that,” he said. “South Portland has a tendency to give away things and then we lose service, our level of service, and control over what we have.”
Committee member Greg Lewis said he learned the news from a bus driver last week. He noted Metro has made advances to take over the bus service many times in the past.
“We wouldn’t be in this position in the first place if Metro hadn’t been trying to step in for decades now,” Lewis said, including in 2018. “We listened to their proposal then, as a transportation advisory committee, and they didn’t bring much to the table … They couldn’t give us any greater benefits that we were going to get from them taking control and what would happen if we gave up local control.”
Glen Fenton, Metro’s interim executive director said, “We haven’t made any advances since we were here in 2018 and understood the council’s position during that time.”
Fenton also noted Morelli had reached out to Metro for the temporary service. Morelli said the city also asked Biddeford Saco Old Orchard Beach Transit if they were interested, but did not receive a proposal from them.
Metro is tasked with providing a presentation on what a merger would look like next month. The council could then decide to pursue a merger or to keep its independent service. With both options on the table, the city is advertising job openings for the two vacant leadership positions, Morelli said.
“I’m not exactly thrilled about how we got here tonight, but what we’re here to do tonight is to keep the bus service running in the interim until the council has the opportunity to make a decision on the future,” said Councilor Linda Cohen.
Councilor Matthews was the sole member of the council to vote against the interim contract.
“I don’t think Donna (Tippett) was ready to retire and, unfortunately, she didn’t like the thought process of us talking about a merger, and she took that to heart,” Matthews said. “This is still a tough pill to swallow for me as a councilor.”
May0r Misha Pride echoed the sentiment.
“I’m begrudgingly voting ‘yes’ on this,” he said. “We’ve got to have our buses running.”
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