About 20 people attended the meeting hosted by Open Plains Transit to start work on a 5 year development plan on Thursday morning at Mid Plains College. Director Jonnie Kusek presented board members of the local Pestel Foundation with a certificate of appreciation. The foundation pays for local rides and has paid for over 4,000 rides in 10 months.
The meeting was for government and hospital officials, business leaders and other service providers. The first questions were of course, about the suspension of services to the area in early December. Kusek reported that the suspension was because of a delay in reimbursement from Nebraska Department of Transportation. She did report that they are just now getting reimbursement for December of 2023 and could resume services soon. She reported there have been 5 changes in guidelines, in a short period of time, for public transportation in Nebraska. Other transportation system have also been impacted. Kusek stated “we just want to get people to where they want to go”.
There was discussion about more communications about the services they offer and possibly more access on the Rosebud reservation. The public transit system does not fit the needs of everyone 100% of the time. There were similar comments and discussion during the public meeting held afterwords. Most of the comments were supportive and wanted to get the program back up and running.