ABOVE: Danville Mass Transit Director Steven White prior to Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
After quickly stepping up efforts the previous weekend to provide dialysis patients in Danville the rides they needed to crucial appointments, after Friday January 2nd’s announcement that CRIS Rural Mass Transit was ceasing services, Danville Mass Transit Director Steven White stated prior to Tuesday’s (Jan 6th) City Council meeting that efforts have only begun. Yes, Danville Mass Transit would love to serve those outside the Danville City Limits who relied on rides from CRIS. But White agrees with Mayor Williams that it will take time to acquire equipment, insure equipment, and secure intergovernmental agreements.
Right now, however, White says the plan is to get right back to work this coming weekend to continue getting residents to important appointments, such as dialysis. And they wasted no time getting ready for the next weekend coming.
AUDIO: In the beginning, we decided that the dialysis patients were the most important. So we reached out to Danville Dialysis and DaVita, and they worked with us hand in hand to make sure everybody was taken care of. But yes, it has been quite the experience. (So are you planning for this coming weekend now, or what’s next?) Yes. We started doing Saturday. And we’ll do it from now now.
Another short term/long term situation for Danville is definitely the Village Mall. Short term wise; Dunham’s Sports and Bath and Body Works are both closing this month. But long term wise, Community Development Administrator Logan Cronk is looking for a good result from the upcoming online auction for the interior mall; to give it some new life.
AUDIO: There needs to be some creativity thrown into this, instead of just reinventing the wheel over and over and over again. But first things first; we have to watch how this auction unfolds. We do think there’s still a good life. We need a movie theater in that mall. We need more retail.
It was announced during the City Council meeting that Bath and Body Works will be closing on January 24th.
