OJAI, Calif. An attempt by a public transit agency to have a private motorcoach company removed from the federal list of willing-and-able charter bus providers has failed and may even have backfired.

Scott A. Biehl, acting chief counsel of the Federal Transit Administration, has ruled that Heritage Valley Bus Inc. of Santa Paula, Calif., can remain on the list of carriers that transit agencies in the area must notify when they receive a request for charter service.

At the same time, he warned the city-owned Ojai Trolley Service that it must abide by the charter regulation, including providing private carriers with all of the pertinent information when it notifies them of charters that might be available.

A complaint against Heritage was filed by Ojai Trolley, accusing the small operator of acting in bad faith when it responded to a notification for a charter that was requested in February by an area resort, the Ojai Valley Inn.

Ojai Trolley said it was informed by the resort two months later that it never heard from Heritage.

The Federal Transit Administration requires private operators that express an interest in a charter notice to contact the chartering party, negotiate in good faith and/or provide a proposal. And, they must do it fairly quickly.

In previous decisions, the FTA has determined that operators that fail to contact chartering parties and offer service have acted in bad faith and removed them from the Registered Charter Provider list (for up to three years).

Operators removed from the Registered Charter Provider list not only cease receiving charter notices, they no longer have standing with the FTA and are precluded from seeking advisory opinions from the FTA or filing charter service complaints.

"We recommend operators contact the chartering parties in these notices immediately," said Ken Presley, UMA vice president of industry relations, "It is also wise to document every attempt, every conversation and retain proposals.

"It appears at least a few transits are just waiting for an operator to make a mistake so they can have them eliminated from the list," said Presley.

Under the federal charter service rule, a private company has to notify a potential customer and provide it with a contract at least 14 business days before the date of the planned charter. If it fails to do so, the public transit agency can seek an exception and possibly provide the service.

Heritage maintained it was unable to contact the resort because Ojai Trolley provided an incorrect telephone number in its charter notice and did not include the firms e-mail address, the last name of the person who requested the charter, or a full street address for the resort.

It said the telephone number Ojai Trolley provided was answered by a recording with the name of an individual and that a message left on the line was never returned.

In his ruling, Biehl found the transit agency did, in fact, provide the carrier with erroneous and incomplete information, and he cleared Heritage of the complaint. "Because the charter request form was incomplete, FTA cannot find bad faith," he said.

Heritage owner Rob Jefferson welcomed the decision, saying he hopes it will lead to Ojai Trolley giving up what he says has been a long-time practice of providing shuttle services without following the charter rule.

"They seem to think they are above the law and can do whatever they want," he said.

Jefferson pointed out that the transit agency, which advertises charter services on its website, has six trolleys to operate a route system that requires only two. "Now what does that tell you?" he asked.

Additionally, he charged in his response to the bad-faith complaint that the lack of information provided by Ojai Trolley in the resort incident was nothing new, that the transit agency had done it before on other occasions.

Jefferson said the practice was "a coordinated effort between Ojai and several clients to rid the area of transportation that is not owned, operated or subsidized by the taxpayer as the rates charged by Ojai are far below market rates charged by the private sector."

To back up his claims, he said when he finally was able to speak with representatives of the resort, he was told they were not going to change vendors and were not interested in doing business with him.

However, just days after the FTA ruling was issued, he said they contacted him and indicated he might be able to do charter work for them in the future.

"Now Im looking for a trolley to buy for our business," he said.

Ojai Trolley operations supervisor Drew Lurie, who acknowledged he mistakenly listed some wrong and incomplete information on the charter notice for the resort charter, said the long-time dispute over his communitys use of trolleys for charter work has been a blow to everyone involved.

"It has been a triple loss," he asserted, adding that his agency has lost revenue, private carries that wanted to do the charters have not gotten any new business because the customers have not hired them, and the customers have not been able to hire any trolleys for their activates.

The use of trolleys by public transit agencies has long been a red flag for private carriers because they generally are more suited for charters, such as parties, weddings, business outings and sports events, than regular-route service.

Ken Presley, vice president of the United Motorcoach Association, said their use on regular transit routes appears to be declining throughout the country, although they still are used in a few communities like Key West, Fla., and Mobile, Ala., as well as Ojai.

"While we certainly do not want any further issues with the City of Ojia Transit, we are considering reviewing the (agencys) grant applications to make certain the service was properly represented to the FTA," he said.