I am a 16-year-old high school student who attended the League of Women Voters forum in Oak Harbor. I don’t know any of the candidates, but I had to go to the forum and listen to what they all had to say and then once I was done listening choose who I would vote for.

Mary Margaret Haugen said that she was the most powerful person in transportation in the state of Washington, but then said the ferry thing wasn’t her fault.

Now personally I think you shouldn’t point fingers at others when you know something was partly your fault. Instead you should admit you were wrong and try to fix the problem.

The audience asked a lot of questions about transportation and congestion and she kept saying that she didn’t have any solutions. And then she said that she didn’t know what the plan was for transportation in the future.

I left quite bewildered. I guess what I wanted to know is if she is the most powerful person in transportation how can nothing about the ferry failure be her fault? And also if she is in charge of transportation how can she not know what the transportation plan is? Do we not have a plan? That’s scary, because we only have two ways off this island.

Also, she has been in office longer than I have been alive and talks about all the changes she wants to make but she has had my entire lifetime to make them. What’s taking so long?

Anyway, she seems nice, but I would not vote for her because she doesn’t take responsibility for her actions, makes excuses with her answers, and doesn’t have a leadership plan. Plus she didn’t really seem to care or know about what is going on with people and what they need. And with everything that is happening in our government I want someone who knows what the plan is and someone who is honest when they make a mistake.

If I could I would vote for Linda Haddon. She is new and she said she wasn’t a career politician, but that’s OK with me because that means she wasn’t part of making all the bad decisions that got us where we are today.

Linda Haddon was honest, in fact, when she didn’t know something she said so, and she didn’t point fingers, she wanted to fix the problem. More importantly, she made a great effort to listen and answer the audience’s questions directly.

I hope everyone who wasn’t at the forum will read this letter, because if you heard what I heard you would want Linda Haddon too.

Rosa Escojido

Oak Harbor