Lloyd Hara for King County Assessor

And what incredible changes! Friday the 16th at Mount Zion Baptist, I honored Martin Luther King Jr.‘s life and unfinished legacy. Days later I was parked in front of the TV, trying to figure out who’s who in the multi-ethnic family behind the man at the podium. Millions of Americans who share little of his politics still felt inspired, elevated and moved by Barack Obama’s Inaugural.

Astonishing changes are possible in the span of one lifetime, though we chafe at the pace of progress in one year (or four). Even when nothing moves, forces for change are constantly accumulating.

I came of age politically with John F. Kennedy.  (Today’s young voters can’t believe how controversial the “first Catholic” was in 1960!)  I have taken part in my share of “firsts” and first-attempts, and now witnessed the first African-American sworn in as President.

[In this regard, I also lived to see Bob Dylan's protest anthem of 1963 adopted as a commercial jingle for Coopers & Lybrand ... and saw Coopers spun off and folded into Pricewaterhouse in an industry roiled by large-scale lapses of institutional oversight ... small potatoes compared to the lapses that brought on a worldwide financial crisis beyond last January's wildest dreams ... and that lays down the perspective for our 2008 progress report.  Read on, "below the fold" as they say.]

By increments and by shock treatments, institutional change continued at the Port of Seattle in 2008.

Your Port now takes audit processes and audit findings much more seriously.  Last year (like every year on my watch) we strengthened the Audit Committee — and we needed it. Performance audits (the keynote of my 2005 campaign) delivered damning findings.  The follow-up investigation identified ten instances of civil fraud:  Port employees deceived the Commission to circumvent legitimate oversight. An even broader audit of contracting practices is underway, and DOJ criminal investigations are progressing on a separate track.

At times in this saga I found myself in Olympia, trying to counsel a credible, constructive course between the “circle the wagons” reflexes of Port regulars and “off with their heads” reactions of outraged legislators.

We revised the Port’s groundrules for delegation and oversight (reclaiming authority the Commission gave away in 1994), revised and extended thePort’s written Ethics policies, and sharpened the definition of misconduct in applicable Washington statutes.

As I do every year (and will do every year to come), I pushed for transparency and accountability — open government, public participation, and a more active, more capable Port Commission.

• We held joint meetings with the Port of Tacoma and the Seattle City Council.
• We extended outreach to often-neglected suburban city governments.
• Public input reaches us more directly, with less filtering through staff, as Commissioners become more visible.
• We improved access and visibility by email, web and TV.
• Public meetings are set at hours and locations more convenient to the public.
• The Commission now has seven direct reports, including shared support staff — up from just one (the CEO) when I came on board in 2006.
• We made progress on breaking the habit of backroom discussion, closed-door consensus, and unanimous votes. Voters deserve full public discussion of key issues. Differences of opinion, respectful debate, and divided votes in public session are the kinds of features that make your Port Commission worth watching.
  

In this connection, it’s never easy to get routine Port news “on the radar”, and it’s getting harder all the time.  Ports fans will miss the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, where Kristen Millares Young dug for answers and interpreted obscure Port proceedings for a wider audience … and EvergreenPolitics, where bloggers like “shoephone” held our feet to the fire. Surviving publications have narrowed their reporting assignments, and remaining staff works under increased pressure.

Active democracy will depend on new voices and new forums.  We don’t know how this will all work out, but we’ll do our small part here, and hope you will get in the habit of checking back often.

In the “change whose time has not yet come” department, the public will be better served someday by Commissioners with individual staff support and full-time pay. Each member answers to every voter in King County, and weighs billion-dollar decisions on an intimidating range of subject matter. With the Commission’s open-ended time commitment and token salary, most public-spirited citizens can’t afford to serve.

This change is politically impossible — for now. Family budgets and agency budgets are strained to the breaking point. No matter the merits, this is an argument for another day … like merging the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma.  (The merger concept is discussed at length in the November 2008 issue of Washington CEO Magazine – another publication now “disappeared”, with no archive link available.)

In year-over-year results,

• Container traffic sagged – though we strive to sign and retain leading carriers. [Top container carrier Maersk has announced their intent to do business here, but has not signed on at this writing.]
• The cruise business had a record year.
• SeaTac International inaugurated passenger service from Hainan Airlines, Lufthansa, Air France, AeroMéxico, Midwest, AirTran and Virgin America.
• We completed major projects at Fishermen’s Terminal and Shilshole Marina, light rail and expressway connections to SeaTac.
• The 3rd runway roared into operation – 20 years in the making.
• As our September newsletter discussed at length, the Port made environmental progress on multiple fronts.
  

Mindful that change takes decades, we are formalizing a 25-year plan within our Century Agenda.

In the meantime, our 5-year capital improvement plan is harder to keep on track. Bond markets are paralyzed, and the outlook is uncertain. We started construction on a $425 million rental car facility at mid-year – and put it on hold again in December, at great expense. Other big deals — like the grand plans around the Eastside rails/trails corridor — are stymied as well.

There’s not much relief in sight. When budgets are tight, other local governments look to the Port for creative financing.  Now things are tough all over.  The $825 billion economic stimulus package now before Congress includes “only” $850 million for transportation in our state.  That won’t stretch very far across the backlog of tunnels, bridges and other giga-projects. With earmarks out of fashion, it’s harder to anticipate where federal dollars will end up in local projects. We’ll revisit this topic often in the year ahead.

While you wait (and worry?), remember again:

• Not much gets done in a year.
• Remarkable changes come to pass in a lifetime.
• When things don’t move … that’s when the forces for change are accumulating.

Thanks again, and please share your comments below.

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