FORUM: Mattare designed an echo chamber

I was so disappointed in the supposed “transportation town hall” that took place on Oct. 23. Bruce Matare claimed to use data driven information, but he only chose to use data that supported his opinions. When we first arrived they handed us a survey. The survey questions were completely leading and designed to create the results they wanted. The town hall was Commissioner Matare giving us a lecture about public transit and then only opening it up to questions written on the survey. There are just a few problems with this. First, the survey was not created in an accessible format. There were a lot of people at this meeting who were blind/visually impaired who could not fill the survey out and, therefore, could not even ask questions.  

The second part of this is that people did not even know what to ask because the survey was filled out before Commissioners Mattare gave his lecture. It’ pretty hard to know what to ask before you know what he is going to say. It felt very much like he was designing an echo chamber to support his own personal bias. Without opening his mind to a bigger picture. It was a total waste of everyone’s time.  

Commissioner Mattare repeated claimed they are not trying to get rid of public transportation, yet he has repeatedly stated differently since he was elected. Commissioner Mattare have the dignity to, at least, say what you mean and mean what you say!

JACKIE STALLINGS

Hayden