Port viewpoint at ednewbold.com

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Why own a business that's set up to lose money?

We should accept the necessity of paying taxes--to help those in need of healthcare, educate the young, implement a justice system, help save endangered species,etc.-- but not to own a business that loses money every year! Most members of the Port Commission, (Alec Fisken & sometimes Lloyd Hara are something of an exception to this--scroll all the way down to read more about Fisken) don't seem to see this issue: What's the point of owning a business that schedules an operating loss for you to pick up the tab on every year? Private-sector investors make a great effort to never to be so foolish!

Were we to simply sell off the Port, we could earn a fabulous windfall that would easily finance among other things a wetland park on "North Bay," a piece of land that in its natural state was considered one of the most beautiful spots in Seattle. Now a huge parking lot, North Bay is tucked up against Magnolia (I live on Beacon Hill, btw). The Port wants to develop the 57- acre tract into office buildings and research facilities.

Norht Bay would make a great home for Great Blue Herons, but the Port would rather have a big development. There would be a point to all this, still, if the owners (which is to say us) were going to at least make a buck on the deal. But when all is said and done and this development is folded into the Port's overall operation, we'll be financial losers again, as we always are. Seattle's is one of only a few Ports around the country, including the Port of Houston, which require yearly handouts from their own taxpayers.

The Port sowed the seeds of the 2005 Southwest Airlines imbroglio by insisting on the Third Runway, the business sense of which I attacked in an ad in the Seattle Times on 8/27 in 2000. The following are more recent ads:

Put a Wetland Park in Interbay!
If you owned a business that kept losing money, wouldn’t you think about selling it? Well, actually, you & I do, and yet the idea of selling the Port of Seattle is rarely mentioned. This despite the fact we’ve had many examples, such as the Soviet Union, to show that gov’t. management of ordinary businesses rarely brings efficiencies. But the Port (though run by good & competent people) makes the old SU look savvy. And our laxness about this bespeaks an evil double standard: While our hard working state forests yield profits that pay for school construction, the Port, with all its business assets and land, not only fails to bring us returns but is actually on the dole itself. Like the Port of Houston it grabs a share of our property taxes. This burdens citizens trying to pay for legitimate gov’t obligations like healthcare and education. I’d like to see us give our Port a deadline to make money on existing operations like some Ports already do. Failing that let’s start selling off Port assets to the highest bidders. This would actually create jobs & efficiencies by removing subsidies that create unfairness and drag on the economy. But best of all we could have the financial well being to become masters of our city’s future. We could hold back one big chunk of land the Port owns--and wants to develop: the huge, ugly, blacktop parking lot adjacent to Magnolia. This land, perhaps once the
prettiest spot in Seattle, could become that again as a magnificent, restored urban wetland.
Ed Newbold—Wildlife Artist

The following is a draft of an ad being prepared a similar but shorter ad was placed in the Seattle Times:

It wasn’t looking out for it’s citizen-owners (or the airlines...)
Port has its own Agenda
Back in the 90s the Port of Seattle was facing increasing jet traffic at its modestly-sized airport at SeaTac, which held a practical monopoly on air access to the region. Had the Port been in private hands and concerned about getting a return for its shareholders, it would have been tickled pink--and simply let landing fees float up to elegantly equilibrate supply and demand. This would have nudged upward the size of planes using the airport, while increasing profits for the Port’s owners.
But the Port has its own agenda, which is not about getting a return for its owners--that is to say, you and me. Like the Army Corps of Engineers that loves to spend billions to turn rivers into bargeways, & Seattle Parks which wants to build a multi-million-dollar sports complex in Magnuson, the Port wanted to have something grand for itself to run, & so embarked on the Third Runway. Now that the airlines are struggling, those increased landing fees from the original scenario could have easily been lowered--but only as long as the Port wasn’t committed to a billion dollar runway. Southwest now wants out but this presents a new externality issue, i.e. bringing new noise to new neighborhoods. In 2000 in an ad in the Seattle Times I called the Port Seattle’s other Troll. In retrospect, that seems mean-spirited, because these are good & bright people making what they feel are the right decisions. But those dsecisions have lost Seattle a lot more than the old beat-up VW we lost to Troll # 1.
Ed Newbold—Wildlife Artist
ForYardBirdRace info & leaderboard see www.ednewbold.com Store: In the Pike Place Market just west of the newsstand. Prints, posters & notecards from paintings by Ed Newbold. Plus Violet Green Swallow nestboxes--(they work!) & shade coffee posters. Six new prints in July.

*The Alec Fisken exception
Alec Fisken may be the only commissioner who is looking out for the King County taxpayer. A March 29 2006 story in the Seattle Times details a case in point. The Port is planning to move a Cruise Ship terminal out of downtown (from Terminal 30), and relocate it to Magnolia while building a new cargo terminal. Fisken has charged theat the numbers the Port is using hide a 50 million dollar subsidy to the cargo and cruise ship industries, both of which should be able to pay their own way. Fisken is not against using public money to build infrasturcute that doesnt pay back its costs, according to the article (This website disagrees with Fisken on this point, but the other Commissioners are way further out in subsidy-land) but "is challenging the Port's analysis because it is misleading." In the last paragraph of this article by Alwyn Scott of the Times, Fisken is quoted as saying "I'm not asking for a return on the asset, which is the dock. They're still getting that for free. I just want them to cover the cost of the improvements."

In a more recent (8-7-2007) article in the Seattle Times, Fisken is quoted as calling the North Bay development a "goofy plan."