Check out the article by Steve Pent in the December 7th Santa Maria Times (courtesy of EdHat). Santa Barbara City Councilmember Grant House's comments in response to the article: COAST's work on Unmet Transit Needs (UTN) in North Santa Barbara County revealed the need for this kind of van service stemming from farmers' unwillingness to provide rides to backbreaking work in the fields due primarily to liability concerns.  Public transportation seemed unable to deliver regular transit service to frequently changing seasonal destinations. After providing white papers on Unmet Transit Needs to the County from 2002 to 2006, the hard work of project leader and board member Alex Pujo uncovered models in other rural counties, idle vans sitting in neighboring San Luis Obispo County, and possible sources of funding to initiate the program. Melinda Burns, then with the Santa Barbara News Press, reported extensively on the workers living in Santa Maria.  The McCune Foundation provided funding to assist in the research and outreach for COAST's UTN project which also resulted in the start up of The Breeze bus service between Lompoc, Vandenberg Air Force Base, and Santa Maria. The program has been modeled after the successful farmworker van program in Kings County.  The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors with leadership from Supervisor Salud Carbajal supported using vans with drivers recruited and trained from the affected population.  A win-win for all involved, we wish the project continued success. Grant House Councilmember City of Santa Barbara ghouse@santabarbaraca.gov 805 564-5319 Click here to see the Santa Maria Times article

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 8th, 2008 at 10:30 am and is filed under Archive, Press. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.