OAKLAND ­­­— Parents, students and community members affected by the proposed AC Transit cuts to Skyline High School, Montera Middle School and Park Day School lamented the service reduction at a community meeting at Oakland City Hall on Thursday night, saying it will affect the city’s most disenfranchised.

Speakers addressing the AC Transit Board of Directors also railed against the transit agency and the Oakland Unified School District for playing politics and not coming to an agreement that would continue service to 1,600 daily passengers, many of them students.

“I’m angry that we are here tonight because it shows a failure on both sides,” Doug Hamilton, a parent of a Montera Middle School student said. “We’re going into … us against them when it’s a community problem.”

AC Transit is planning on cutting 17 bus routes to the three schools because OSUD told the district in January that it will no longer pay about $2.5 million for the service. The two agencies worked under the agreement for 20 years until this abrupt end.

Speakers told the board that the cuts, which bring students from Oakland’s flatlands to the hills schools, is a “huge travesty” that will reduce people who live in poorer Oakland neighborhoods access to good education.

Ryan Majors said he lives in Oakland’s less monied flatlands and will start going to Skyline High School next year. A current student at Bret Harte Middle School, Majors said he is completely reliant on buses to get to school because of his parents’ work schedule.

“I have to take a bus. There’s no other way for me to get to school other than the bus,” he said.

He added that the three schools are highly culturally diverse and the buses are the reason why the schools are diverse.

“And that’s a beautiful thing,” he added.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf also weighed in on the issue Thursday night, saying that she appreciates it is a difficult fight between AC Transit and OSUD but there are ways to solve the problems between the two agencies. She argued to preserve the service to the community.

She said a mediator who specializes in public transportation has offered their services pro bono to help solve the impasse and keep the buses live for students.

“You are so close,” she said. “You want to make sure your students have some of the best educations in the city.”

She added, “I’m confident that with all the parties in the room, we can solve the problem.”

Ellen Murray, a retired bus driver and Oakland resident whose children took the bus to Skyline High School years ago, told the board that the issue is an “incredible squabble” between the two agencies that ultimately affects the lives of many children in the city. She advocated for AC Transit to get involved with corporations who use the bus services to pay for transit deficits.

Maxwell Spencer, the eighth-grade student body president at Montera Middle School, urged the AC Transit board to reconsider the cuts and consider how important it is for students to get to their schools.

“Why ask our struggling, underfunded schools to pay for service the state can no longer pay for,” he asked. “We will continue to fight for the rights of students … until justice is served.”

He argued that private schools, like Head-Royce School and others, should be charged for service rather than the city’s schools.

Still more speakers, like former AC Transit board candidate Dollene C. Jones, said the money from the AC Transit Measure BB passed by voters in 2014 should be paying for more service, not less.

“Where is the Measure BB money?” she asked the board.

Later Jones said, “I think the cuts are horrible” and said she constantly sees service discontinued in the Oakland hills.

“And I ask again, “Where’s the money?” Voters just helped pass Measure BB and I want to know why service is being cut,” she said.

The decision will be made at the AC Transit Board of Directors May 10 meeting. The meeting starts at 5 p.m. and is at the AC Transit.