From The Daily News:
Andrew Saul, Donald Cecil and Susan Metzger failed to attend any of eight public hearings the Metropolitan Transportation Authority held during the past 10 days.
Some board members attended only one hearing, including Nancy Shevell, who didn't show up at sessions held after her relationship with Paul McCartney became public.
Millions of daily subway, bus and commuter train riders will pay more if the increases are approved by the board next month. Drivers using MTA bridges and tunnels also would be affected.
"Membership on the MTA board is a privilege, not a right, with awesome responsibilities," fumed state Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens). "Members who can't drag themselves to even one fare hike hearing to face the riding public not only shouldn't be allowed to vote for a fare hike, they shouldn't be on the board at all."
Notice Lancman's outrage, he lives in Queens and represents people that take the G, R, V, E and other trains every day. As the Daily News notes in their article, all three of the absent board members lives, for all intensive purposes, upstate. Metzger is in Orange County, 40 miles away. Saul is busy getting ready to run for Congress in the 19th CD as a (surprise!) Republican. Cecil is up in Westchester, the closest of the three to the mega mass-transit system that New Yorkers depend on. I wonder how often they ride the rails.....hmmmm.
Tell me why these three got on the board in the first place? Maybe they won't show up because they have nothing in common with the average straphanger. How embarrassing would it be if they had to ask what a Metrocard looks like. Ok, they might not be that ignorant, but you get my point.
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