BOOSE
TO CHAIR RAIL SAFETY TASK FORCE
The Times
Junction
1/7/00
By: Clifton Spires,
Jr. - County Editor
Huron County Commissioner
Terry Boose will chair a rail safety task force that will
identify local concerns about railroad crossings.
At Thursdays commissioners
meeting, Boose accepted the chairmanship invitation of country
Emergency Management Agency Director Bill Ommert, who is
in charge of organizing the task force.
Ommert reported
at least one other person, Ronald Atkins of Willard, volunteered
to serve.
The task force is
the county's response to Tuesday's meeting with Dennis and
Vicky Moore, a Canal Fulton couple who co-founded the Angels
on Track Foundation. Through the foundation, the Moores work
to upgrade safety signals at all the unmarked crossings in
Ohio.
Angels on Track
is funded with $5 million the Moores won from Conrail in
a Stark County Common Pleas Court civil case. The case stemmed
from a March 25, 1995 accident in which the Moores' 16-year-old
son and two of his friends died after a Conrail train stuck
their car at an unmarked crossing on the Stark-Wayne county
line. Another Moore son and two other young people received
serious injuries in the accident.
One of the county
commissioners will be traveling to Columbus next week to
discuss Senate Bill 207, introduced by State Sen. Jeffry
Ambruster, R-North Ridgeville. If passed, the bill would
hike the fines for blocked crossings from a fourth degree
to a first degree misdemeanor. The offending railroad company
also could be fined $1,000 for blocking longer than five
minutes.
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