Area Transit Management loses contract to run casino shuttles

Area Transit Management, which operates the city's BlueGO bus system and the South Shore casino shuttle, is under fire for allegedly eliminating casino shuttles in violation of its operating agreement, not maintaining buses and losing a Chevrolet vehicle.

Andrew Morris, president of Area Transit Management (ATM), declined to comment Tuesday on the allegations.

But according to transit officials, the South Tahoe Area Transit Authority (STATA) Board of Directors, which oversees BlueGO, held a closed-session meeting Friday to discuss reports of ATM mismanagement.

As a result, ATM's casino shuttle contract was terminated Tuesday, and the casinos may seek restitution for services they didn't receive, said John Andoh, BlueGO transit administrator.

The BlueGO casino shuttles were not running Tuesday and aren't expected to run today, but they are expected to resume operating at 3:30 p.m. Thursday.

BlueGO runs a variety of transit services at the South Shore and has seven different contracts with transit operators. One contract is with El Camino Trailways for the Kingsbury Express, and six are with ATM, which includes the South Lake Tahoe city bus service and casino shuttles.

The casino shuttles take passengers to the casinos from stops that include The Ridge Resorts, Lake Tahoe Vacation Resorts and Campground by the Lake.

The city bus service provides fixed routes throughout town.

With the ATM casino shuttle contract terminated, El Camino Trailways will assume interim operations while the contract is bid out, Andoh said.

Instead of running three shuttles as called for in the contract, ATM used one or two shuttles for prescribed routes, Andoh said, causing a slowdown in transit service.

The casinos still were charged $45 per hour for all three shuttles, and ATM received $102,000 annually from the fare box, Andoh said. Andoh said he asked ATM for its financial records, but the company declined to provide the information.

STATA Secretary Stacy Dingman said replacing ATM will give BlueGO an opportunity to improve the casino shuttle service for the peak summer season.

As interim contractor, El Camino Trailways will operate the BlueGO casino shuttle for the next six months. That will give other contractors time to bid on the casino shuttle contract, after which Andoh will recommend a company to STATA.

Dingman said questions about ATM's practices weren't brought before the board until recently.

"You assume in good faith that everything is operating accordingly," Dingman said.

Apparent problems came to Andoh's attention in May, but he said the route changes could have been occurring longer.

Andoh said an ATM employee contacted him with allegations of mismanagement, saying the shuttle routes had been combined and that his hours were cut.

ATM's contract expired in September, but since nobody discussed renegotiating, renewing or discontinuing the contract, the original contract agreement still was in effect, Andoh said.

Meanwhile, South Lake Tahoe Assistant City Manager Rick Angelocci sent a letter dated June 9 to Morris detailing concerns about ATM complying with its contract to operate the city's transit buses.

Two of the seven 35-foot transit buses in the city's fleet are inoperable, even though they were purchased in 1999 and 2000, and are expected to be in service for 10 years, according to the letter.

The letter also alleges that two paratransit vehicles are not operating and one Chevrolet vehicle is missing. Fares, routes and schedules were modified without the city's approval, the letter states.

Angelocci has asked ATM to provide him with maintenance records for the vehicles by July 11.