Prospective LI Bus bidders visit Mineola facilities

Prospective bidders considering taking over a newly privatized Long Island Bus got a look Thursday at what exactly they would be taking over, officials said.

Nassau County, which is accepting bids from private bus operators to run the financially ailing county bus company, gave some of those operators a tour of LI Bus' Mineola facilities, county officials said.

County and MTA sources said the tour, attended by more than two dozen representatives from about 10 different private bus operators, was intended to show the representatives LI Bus' vehicles and other assets before the operators finalize their bids.

The move to privatize LI Bus comes after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which has run the agency for nearly 40 years, announced in July its plans to withdraw all financial support from LI Bus.

MTA officials have said they no longer can afford to make up for the funding shortfalls of Nassau County, which contributes just $9.1 million to LI Bus' $133-million annual budget. Nassau would have to come up with about $25 million a year in new funding for the MTA to continue operating the system.

MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin said Thursday that the authority remains "prepared to help and do whatever needs to be done" to privatize LI Bus, and that included helping organize the tour.

A spokesman for Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano declined Thursday to comment on the status of the bidding process.

Candidates to take over LI Bus also got word this week that they have more time to enter their bids. The deadline for bids has been extended from Monday to Nov. 1. County officials didn't explain the extension.

Meanwhile, opponents of the move to privatize Long Island Bus continue to reject the plan, which they say will lead to substandard bus service for the agency's 100,000 daily riders and layoffs and deep salary cuts for bus drivers.

Cynthia Tropeano, an LI Bus operator and member of the Committee to Save Long Island Bus, said her group will hold a pair of rallies in Mineola on Monday. In the morning, demonstrators plan to be at the Mineola Intermodal Center and in the evening they will protest outside Mangano's offices.