Now, I want to be clear that I already said my piece about the Intercity Transit Authority and their once-a-month meeting situation back on April 1st — and yes, I am aware some of you thought the timing was funny, and no, it was not a joke — but here is the thing about being a person who pays attention: you do not just say something once and move on. You watch. And what I have been watching is that the third Wednesday of every month is now the only Wednesday that counts, apparently, and the rest of the Wednesdays in a given month are just — what? Regular days? Days when nobody needs to raise a concern about a bus route? I rode the Route 41 for eleven years before I got my current car and I can tell you that concerns about bus routes do not wait politely for the third Wednesday. They happen on a Tuesday when you are standing in the rain on Plum Street wondering why the schedule changed and there is nobody to ask — and another thing, the meetings are at 5:30 p.m., which I will note is exactly when a person who works a regular job is either still at that job or is eating dinner, and I have said before that meeting times tell you everything about who they actually expect to show up.
What is making me think about all of this again — and this connects, so stay with me — is that I remember when the transit authority used to hold what I can only describe as very well-attended sessions, sometime in the late nineties I believe it was, where people from all over showed up and argued about route changes for two and a half hours and nobody left early. Now I cannot tell you with absolute certainty what year that was or which specific routes were being debated, but I can tell you the room was full and the arguing was vigorous and that is the point. The point is that the room was full because there were enough meetings for people to find out about them and work them into their lives. You cut the meetings in half and you do not get half the public — you get the people who were already going to show up no matter what, which is a much smaller and frankly more patient group than the rest of the people who actually live here deserve to be represented by. And I will also say — since we are on the subject of things being reduced — that the Olympia City Council canceled their meeting on March 31st, which I mentioned last time, and I bring it up again only because patterns are patterns and the people who actually live here should be allowed to notice a pattern without being told they are being alarmist.
The unrelated grievance I have this week, which is actually not unrelated at all if you think about it, is about information. Specifically: both of the articles I read preparing for this column — and yes, I read the articles, I do research, this is a column not a diary — both of them ended mid-sentence. One of them stopped at "Residents can at" and the other stopped at "The next ITA meeting is W" and I just want to say that if we are already meeting less frequently, the least we can do is finish our sentences. I do not know who is writing these notices or where they are being posted but I will say that incomplete information about a public body that is already meeting half as often as it used to is — and I am choosing my words carefully here — a situation. It is a situation that compounds another situation. And the people who actually live here, who are trying to stay informed, who are standing metaphorically in the rain on Plum Street, deserve a complete sentence. They deserve to know what comes after "Residents can." I will circle back to this if anything changes.
That's all for this week. You know where to find me.