If Kitsap Transit set out to botch moving the mall bus stop, it did a bang up job. Truly, this is a triumph of bureaucratic incompetence.

That Kitsap Mall wanted poor people out of the way wasn’t surprising, but Kitsap Transit did them one better.

As if moving the temporary stop to its windy, noisy NW Randall Way location wasn’t enough, transit officials figured it would be too much of a hassle to actually provide shelter for riders waiting in the March weather. Keep in mind that for the rest of March, fare-paying passengers will have to hoof it from this far flung outpost to the mall for work and shopping.

How could this happen?

If one were inclined to do some betting, a safe wager would be that those in charge of Kitsap Transit, and our “honorable” elected officials who sit on its board, have no idea what it is like to wait in the cold and rain for a bus.

Likewise, it is not too much of a stretch to suggest they don’t know what it is like to be humiliated not only by a mall, but by the public agency that is supposed to serve them.

Currently, government and public employees are struggling to shed an image of being self-interested and out of touch.

This doesn’t help their case.