HAMMOND | Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. on Thursday announced bus service won't end in Hammond in June.
McDermott's remarks were made at the Mayor's Commission on Disabilities annual breakfast, attended by some 400 people.
McDermott later confirmed the change of direction, saying he had never been comfortable with eliminating bus service because, unlike with the former Hammond Health Department, bus service had no safety net. Health Department services by law had to be taken over by the county, he said.
McDermott said the city has been working with the Northwest Indiana Regional Bus Authority to continue service in Hammond, possibly in a partnership in which the city temporarily will turn over its dollars to the RBA to run the buses until the RBA has a funding mechanism.
A similar plan, which also involved Gary and East Chicago, had long been floated by the RBA as a means to continue service until a regional system can be established.
On Thursday, McDermott said such a working relationship with Hammond could serve as a model for expansion.
With gaming dollars supporting the bus system only until June 30, McDermott said funding may have to come in the form of appropriating dollars from other accounts with the cooperation of the City Council.
Raymond Fletcher, a disabled Hammond resident who attended Thursday's breakfast, said McDermott first had conveyed his intention not to shut down the buses last Wednesday after giving his State of the City address.
A wheelchair-bound community activist, Fletcher said he had taken the bus to downtown Hammond to hear McDermott's address, but was left stranded at 7 p.m. when bus service had ended for the day. McDermott called to his chief of staff, Marty Wielgos, that they needed to find him a way home, he said.
On Thursday, several people reported McDermott singling out Fletcher and also telling the story of his coming upon a woman and two children waiting for a bus in freezing cold and rain.
McDermott said the incident happened about two weeks ago on Calumet Avenue. "It was just a freezing, windy horrible day," he said. It caused him to ask himself, "What are you going to do for these people?"
Fletcher said he was pleased the mayor had given his word that he will not let transportation go under in Hammond. Yet he was not so pleased that people have had to endure the stress of months-long uncertainty and service reductions, he said.
"I've been under a lot of pressure just trying to figure out how to get to the grocery store," Fletcher said. "It takes a toll on someone like me."
