Editor,

Imagine my surprise to see a classified want ad for a “part-time, next-to-hire” driver for Island Transit in the same edition of the paper with the front page story about Island Transit axing the route to Anacortes/March Point.

Axing Saturday service apparently wasn’t enough.

Island Transit is looking to hire people? I don’t recall seeing or hearing anything about them calling back all the poor souls who were laid off in the Martha Rose “Where’d all the money go?” debacle.

Were those folks called back? And is there really anyone desperate enough to apply for a job with a company still so incredibly slipshod?

What’s also unbelievable is the vote to spend an outrageous capped $30,000 to do a study on whether charging fares would help.

They should take a lesson from Whatcom Transit, which charges a nominal fare and runs seven days a week…to a whole lot of places. Apparently it does so successfully.

Instead, IT would rather blame a “lack of cooperation” with Skagit and Snohomish counties.

I don’t and have never used Island Transit, but my children sure did, some still do and I know a great deal of people who heavily rely on the buses to get them where they need to go. What’s happened is so shameful, and I’m not sure IT can ever truly recover from the fiasco that was so carelessly created.

Luanne Raavel

Coupeville