Jay Vidheecharoen
Seattle Port Commission candidates. Top: former Microsoftie Jack Jolley (left) and Pat Davis, his incumbent opponent for Position 4. Bottom: former Seattle City Treasurer Lloyd Hara (left) and maritime lobbyist Rich Berkowitz, vying for Position 3.
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Why should you care about the races for Seattle Port Commission? Because the quality of air and water around Puget Sound, thousands of blue-collar, family-wage jobs, and $64 million in property taxes are in play. But there is, of course, much more to the largely invisible but extremely important King County government. Even its name obscures its function.
The Port of Seattle was created by the citizens of King County in 1911, and it owns 1,400 acres along Puget Sound, including:
• Shilshole Bay Marina in Ballard.
• Fishermen's Terminal on Salmon Bay.
• The cruise ship berths at the Bell Street Pier downtown.
• The cargo container facility at Terminal 46 in SoDo.
• All the shipping and other marine activity on Harbor Island at the mouth of the Duwamish River.
One million, eight hundred thousand cargo containers passed through the Port's terminals last year, and 560,000 cruise ship passengers visited Seattle. The Port also owns and operates Seattle- Tacoma International Airport, which was used by 28.8 million passengers in 2004.
All the airplanes, cargo container ships, cruise ships, trucks, and trains associated with the Port have a huge impact on our economy and our environment. The combined annual budget for operations and capital expenditures is more than $1 billion.
The Port's legislative body is the Seattle Port Commission—a part-time, five- member panel elected to four-year terms by King County voters. The commission has only two staff people. While the Port's 1,600 professional employees are supposed to do the bidding of the commissioners, it frequently seems like unelected Port CEO Mic Dinsmore and his people are the dominant members of the government.
Four years ago, a blue-green alliance of the King County Labor Council and Washington Conservation Voters set out to reform the Port Commission by electing candidates who shared a commitment to open government, family-wage jobs, and environmental stewardship. In 2001, the reformers got Lawrence Molloy, a voluble engineer, elected over longtime commissioner and union leader Jack Block. In 2003, the blue-green team won another upset when brainy, mayoral policy adviser Alec Fisken beat incumbent commissioner and venture capitalist Clare Nordquist.
This year, three of the five commission seats are on the ballot, and the reformers hope to take control. The labor-environmental alliance wants to re-elect Molloy over attorney John Creighton for Position 1 and oust 20-year incumbent Pat Davis in favor of former Microsoft assistant treasurer Jack Jolley for Position 4. But it hasn't come to agree on a candidate for the open-seat race between former Seattle City Treasurer Lloyd Hara and marine lobbyist Rich Berkowitz for Position 3.
Over the Past couple of years, Fisken and Molloy have pursued policies that are not immediately recognizable as liberal or conservative and sometimes don't even seem consistent or understandable. Fisken likes to joke that he is reactionary—and his opponents, like Commissioner Davis, insist that he is. Fisken's and Molloy's most important battles in the past few years have involved defense: They have stopped things from happening in real-estate development.
The Port traditionally has had two lines of business—marine and aviation. In 2003, the Port created a new Division of Economic Development to convert some of its extensive marine-industrial holdings into mixed-use waterfront yuppie playground developments. The Port did not make money on its previous effort at real-estate development—most notably along the central waterfront with the World Trade Center West and the Seattle Marriott Waterfront.
Naturally, the maritime unions supporting Fisken and Molloy are opposed to the conversion of industrial land to mixed use. Fisken and Molloy have been leaders in stopping developer Frank Stagen's conversion of Terminal 46 from working waterfront to a new-urban wonderland of shops, parks, offices, condos, and a sports arena. (See "So Long SoDo," April 28, 2004.) They prevented the Port from investing in Bellevue's convention center, and they have slowed and altered the Port's North Bay development, which would have converted 57 upland acres at Terminal 91 in Interbay to offices, housing, and retail.
Molloy and Fisken combine a back- to-basics approach with innovation. They want the Port to improve the bottom line in the marine-cargo and airport businesses, be a better environmental steward, extend benefits to domestic partners, and give up a $62 million annual property tax levy.
Unfortunately, neither Fisken nor Molloy has proved adept at using the commission as a bully pulpit to communicate with the public about their agenda. Fisken, who has a blog (seattleportwatch.blogspot.com), is so restrained that he almost seems embarrassed to draw attention to himself. He also revels in the obscure. In a recent blog posting, he suggested a top 10 list of reforms that included making commissioners appointed instead of elected and suggesting the commission of the rival Port of Tacoma come to Seattle for a confab. Molloy talks fast and throws out a million complicated, far-reaching ideas, barely able to contain his enthusiasm—and frequently losing his listeners.
Their failure to penetrate the voters' consciousness became evident on primary election night when Molloy trailed his main challenger for Position 1, attorney John Creighton, 50 percent to 34 percent. The blue-green team also suffered its first outright defeat that night when its candidate for the open seat of Position 3, union leader Peter Coates, finished fourth. The top two candidates in each advanced to the general election.
