Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties

McMullin, Hampston appointed to transit board

By RALPH ANSAMI

[email protected]

Bessemer — Two people were appointed to the Gogebic County Transit Board Wednesday by the county board.

Bill McMullin and Carrie Hampston were appointed, as recommended by GCT director Jim Mildren, who attended Wednesday’s county board meeting.

Two county board members, Bob Orlich and Dan Siirila, were critical of Mildren because he included negative comments about another candidate for the transit board, Larry Rovelsky.

Mildren, an Ironwood City Commission member, said Rovelsky has been involved in a dispute with the city about a water transmission line going through his property. Mildren said Rovelsky confronted him in his office because Mildren didn’t support Rovelsky’s position against Ruotsala Concrete.

The two county board members said that dispute with Rovelsky and the city shouldn’t have had anything to do with the appointment to the board, but Mildren said he felt it was his duty to point it out.

Mildren noted the transit service, operating out of McLeod Avenue in Ironwood, has been in business since 1981. He said interviewers from Michigan State University rode the little blue buses here for three days and the GCT “came out on the top of the heap in all categories.”

Mildren added, “We’ve managed to keep our customers happy for the past 37 years.”

In another item of business Wednesday, the county board authorized a credit card for new Friend of the Court Linda Dean for up to $2,000, as is the standard practice for department heads.