Funny thing about the P-I's editorial on the two Port of Seattle Commissioner races on the ballot: they're NOT backing the two candidates who are the darlings of the local liberal community. Instead they're backing Bill Bryant and Bob Edwards; a telling sign about the comparative deficiencies of their opponents.
Posted by Eric Earling at October 10, 2007 07:21 AM | Email Thishttp://www.metrokc.gov/assessor/AnnualReport/2007/07Pies.pdf
Answer: The port, at $68 Million. EMS was $61 million.
It is quite easy for people from Snohomish to make fun of this election, but they aren't the ones paying the tax.
What do you value more, medic one or Port real estate subsidies? Or subsidizing every cruise ship passenger by I think $100, though I don't have the exact figure handy.
Alec makes waves. Gael has great ideas and insights. They, along with John Creighton and Lloyd Hara, would be a formidable commission. This naturally makes a lot of people who benefit from the status quo nervous.
People who care about fiscal responsibility and accountability should strongly consider voting for Alec and Gael.
Posted by: Stuart Jenner on October 10, 2007 06:14 PMYour folks should be working to eliminate all property taxes. There is no reason for a property tax at the Port. With all their advantages (taxwise and bonding), they should be turning a profit (since that is illegal, at least breakeven) without a property tax.
Now that would be a good platform for a Democrat challenger and a good springboard for the candidates.
Posted by: swatter on October 11, 2007 07:13 AMDear Mark, I'm appalled by the PI's endorsements.
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mikerol
to Mark, (bcc:afisken)
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8:12 am (1 hour ago)
Bryant was put up to run by Mic Dinsmore and Pat Davis so as to keep the tax going which Alec Fisken opposes for the reason that the money is wasted by the port, in the sense that it goes to all kinds of projects in which Mic and his pals at the Chamber of Commerce have an interest!
If there is anyone who is independent of the semi corrupt nepotistic practices in this village, it is Alec. I've watched Bryant a couple of times, and I feel in the presence of a bit of a demagogue. If you take umbrage at John Creighton's preferences, since John is a Republican he also backs Bryant. John Edwards is one of the nicest men I've spent considerable time talking to in these parts in my fourteen years here, and I concur that John C., whom I have also got to know and like well, I like his temperament!, is thinking of the Edwards who seemed to go along too easily with everything that Mic wanted, a matter I cannot really judge but which John disputes. At any event, there is a new head of port, and the whole mood has changed. I don't want to repeat what I wrote in my proposed op-ed, but will resend since I don't expect you have a photographic memory for what was discarded. And your port reporter ought to stick around to the end of the meetings she reports on. How ill served the public is by the fourth estate in these parts!
And now do something about those early rains!
Sincerely,
John, if you could forward this to Mr. Yoshitani, for a more focussed and briefer version of what then spilled out of me yesterday late afternoon..it will endear you to me for a certain duration.
I certainly was impressed with the way your new CEO handled a number of issues.
Then had a wonderful two hour chat with Bob Edwards outside Pier 69 in the settling dusk which I will write you about separately.
xxx
michael
ED PORT [draft]
I became involved in Port of Seattle matters during the 2005 election as supporter of a candidate whom his firm then forced to withdraw when it prohibited all employees from holding public office. Meanwhile I've made pleasant and more or less thorough acquaintance with the various commissioners and the CEO preceding the ascendancy of Tay Yoshitani; and with the by no means uncomplicated issues facing the port in the world such as it is - ah, yes, "the world such as it is!" As the child of a father who ran a fishing fleet I have always found ports sexy, and I think, perhaps mistakenly, that my take on the Port is benign and not colored by immediate self-interest.
In light of these considerations, I am wondering whether the Seattle Port Commission is still able to do the job for which it was designed. Something certainly is quite puzzling, if not amiss, about the way it is currently set up. Judging by the 100s of thousands invested in the last and current commissioner campaign you would assume these offices to be worth more than 6 k per annum. What is really at stake? Not only does the job pay a pittance, commissioners who take their jobs seriously, lacking support staff or a budget for over- and insight, will - on top of whatever other job they have - spend many many hours at slave labor wages poring over contracts and the like; something only millionaires and the retired can afford - unless civic minded beyond the call of duty. The Port C.E.O., knowing of the comparative ignorance of the commissioners, has little choice but to want them to be compliant. However, under these circumstances the commissioners would seem to be easily beholden to the businesses with interests before the Port, which pour such large sums into these elections; certainly not entirely unselfishly I don't think.
The commissioners only perk are much derided junkets to air and sea port related cities where you can either have a good time or, once again, take your job seriously; that is, you can get yourself a translator and, say, haunt the docks; certainly a good thing to get out of Seattle to get an other than rain-drenched p.o.v.!
Thus I ask myself, ought not the commissioners, when their supporters' contractual interests come before the P.O.S., recuse themselves, as some candidates with multiple interest already promise to do? If the answer is yes, would the commission still be a functioning entity?
But what if it were an appointed commission of specialists in the various areas that the P.O.S. touches, and if such a commission were sufficiently funded and staffed, might it not do a far better job? And work far more cohesively with the executive? That certainly is the case at other Ports that also run their affairs far more efficiently per cargo ton.
The second matter of ethics that I find odd is that the previous Port CEO promised to raise money to defeat the re-election of a sitting commissioner, as in the 2005 election he had campaigned for the re-election of a different commissioner. Ought the Port C.E.O. be permitted political activity; no matter how justified it may seem to him from the point of view of running the port? The commissioners themselves also take action to support or defeat each other. Not the sort of thing that is needed I don't think in this instance. It strikes me as though the commission is about to implode.
Taking a less than Seattle-centric p.o.v., I also feel that a regional or perhaps state-wide perspective ought be taken. The age-old {!} competition between the ports of Tacoma and Seattle makes little sense; together they could draw far better contracts with the big stevedoring and shipping companies. Taking the ports of Everett and Olympia, and the birth place of grunge, Grey's Harbor, into state-wide consideration might even make better sense.
MICHAEL ROLOFF
Member Seattle Psychoanalytic Institute and Society