Trust between islanders and Washington State Ferries has been repeatedly challenged in recent years, and last week’s meeting about the proposed schedule dealt another blow to that relationship.

At the meeting, person after person spoke about their frustration with the format, an open house with those in attendance roving around the room, reading informational placards and asking questions of the ferry staff — small groups gathering in clusters to try to understand the schedule and share their thoughts.

We believe the meeting format was, at best, inefficient, and at worst, disrespectful to this community.

To be clear, each ferry official there appeared to be fully engaged and courteous throughout the evening, but the island deserves better. After so much struggle in recent years and the charged emotions over the draft schedules presented in August, a much different meeting was warranted. We would have like to have had a ferry official give a presentation on the schedule as a whole, explain how Vashon fits into the broader picture, provide the data used to create the schedule — and importantly — state the strengths of the schedule and be forthcoming about its weaknesses.

We would have liked to have heard one another’s schedule questions, concerns and compliments — and we would have liked to have heard Ferries responses, all of us together as a community affected by Ferries’ decisions.

WSF’s spokeswoman Hadley Rodero said Ferries has been using the open house format frequently in the past year, noting the format allows for people to attend when convenient, to gather information about a specific topic they are interested in and encourages people to comment who would not do so in a large group setting. Good points, all of them. But what she did not say is that the open house format diffuses a group’s energy and makes open conflict less likely. We understand the temptation to keep tempers from flaring, but certainly a well-moderated meeting could have kept even the most passionate islander in check and facilitated healthy dialog all around.

Adding to the sense that Ferries was not communicating in the spirit of full transparency were remarks by WSF’s Ray Deardorf both in a KIRO news segment and in a conversation at the meeting.

The proposed schedule drops three runs in the evening from Vashon and gives them to Southworth, although Southworth does not need them. The purpose is to get the boats back to West Seattle quickly to clear out Fauntleroy. On camera with KIRO, Deardorf disagreed with the idea WSF had reduced the island’s service.

“It is not a service cut in the sense there is still a way off the island during that time period,” he said.

Similarly, in a conversation toward the end of last week’s meeting, he refused to acknowledge what is evident with even a quick look at the proposed evening schedule: It cuts service substantially between Vashon and Fauntleroy. He was polite and sometimes used humor to sidestep questions in the cordial conversation, but, a loss of direct service to Fauntleroy deserves an honest acknowledgement for what it is.

What happens next will be telling, as WSF makes adjustments based on what it has heard in each community. We hope the path forward will be one where WSF officials communicate frankly with islanders about the service we all depend on.