Gears are grinding at Newton County Senior Services, where vehicles are breaking down and space is so tight people with walkers are having trouble getting around.

Tuesday night, Senior Services executive director Josephine Brown said she understood the financial reasons why vehicles she requested in 2014 were turned down, but that was before the existing fleet started falling apart.

“My fleet of vehicles are next to none as we speak,” she said Tuesday.

Wear, tear and distance have taken their toll, she said. In the past, Snapping Shoals Electric Membership Coalition has given her department excess vehicles, but no more are available and of the two vehicles they’ve given recently have broken down.

She asked the commissioners to somehow, somewhere find the money to provide Senior Services with a truck, “preferably a new one.”

The need is there, she said. Ten people recently asked to participate in the services the department provides, five of whom will need the transportation it tries to offer with its dying vehicle fleet.

Commission Chairman Keith Ellis said he’d start working on finding vehicles for the department’s use as soon as possible.
While she had the podium, Brown broached the topic of expanding the senior center. Ellis agreed with that necessity, too, telling commissioners he’d visited and seen people with walkers or in wheelchairs truly struggle to move through the crowded building.

“We’ll try to work on (both things) for you,” he promised.