We want to thank STACC4J/Fix The Harm for organizing this October 22nd candidate forum with Port Commission candidates Toshiko Hasegawa, Ryan Calkins and Hamdi Mohamed joining 33rd LD Senator Tina Orwall with House candidates Rep. Edwin Obras and contender Kevin Schilling.
Our take
We counted perhaps 50 audience members. Most of the organizers and fund raising seem to come from primarily Seattle-based organizations sometimes known as STACC4J, FixTheHarm and NoAddedHarm. Residents near Beacon Hill and KCIA are strongly impacted by the airport, but this is worth mentioning given that the event was hosted in Burien and half the candidates were representing the 33rd LD. Every neighborhood in any large airport community will have different priorities, but more importantly, we think this says something about the current level of advocacy (or lack thereof). Previous airport expansions would usually draw many hundreds of residents from every fence line community.
To our knowledge, this was the only appearance by the three Port Comms. Since none are opposed, it is difficult to know what to think. All talk a good game. But progress on airport issues has been stalled for years. Hasegawa talks about a Land Stewardship Plan–that only applies to the airport property. Mohamed spear-headed the SIRRPP–which hasn’t repaired a single Port Package in almost two years.
Orwall is also running unopposed. But for a decade now she has been a consistent champion for airport communities, especially her consistent support for UWDEOHS national work on air quality.
In contrast, the race between Obras and Schilling is hotly contested, with both candidates spending over $250,000! (csv) Some fault lines are clear: Despite the obvious negative impacts to our area, Schilling has towed a very traditional pro-aviation line. Obras has focused on traditional human-service concerns–which are often not the same as airport community concerns. However, last term he was supportive of the Air Quality Monitoring Station in Des Moines.
Low information and distractions
When it comes to airport issues, voters are so low-information, they can be easily distracted by any and every buzzword. Residents know there are increased health impacts for people living near the airport. But so does the Port. Since audience members (and interviewers) generally don’t know what they should be asking for, candidates can get away with pat (and often factually inaccurate) answers.
The biggest enthusiasm we saw from the crowd was when all candidates enthusiastically called for siting a second airport. This despite the fact that the second airport myth has been utterly corrosive to any real progress on airport issues.
One community member stood up near the end of the meeting to blast the commissioners that there were more late night flights than reported by the Port’s Noise Department. Calkins promised to look into it–which the audience seemed to appreciate. Unfortunately, as with the second airport discussion, this is just another distraction. What Commissioner Calkins knows, which the community member obviously did not is this: Since 1990, it has been the law of the United States (not an FAA rule) to prevent any hard limits on how many flights can run at night–or any time of day for that matter.
We continue to call on every politician to stop encouraging people with false hope and misleading statements. No politician likes to disappoint. But above all else, airport communities deserve straight talk. Only by starting from a basis of what is actually possible, can we get to the real solutions we always should have been focusing on.
Transcript
machine-generatedMODERATOR (Marcus Martinez): Good evening everyone and welcome to the SeaTac4J candidate forum. My name is Marcus Martinez. I’m part of the organizing committee. I also work at Senasa. We’re grateful that you joined us tonight whether you’re here in person or tuning in online.
The SeaTac4J is the SeaTac Airport Community Coalition for Justice. SeaTac4J brings together residents, advocates, and community leaders, neighborhood leaders from communities most impacted by airport and port operations. We’re here because we believe that the people who live with the noise, pollution, and the economic effects every day should have a real voice in shaping the solutions.
Our candidate forums are not about party or politics. They’re about accountability, transparency, and shared problem solving. Every question tonight was built from months of community discussions with input from residents across the 33rd district and from groups working on health, housing, jobs, and the environment.
Our coalition’s goal is simple and powerful: to make sure that the experiences, data, and priorities of airport impacted communities actually guide policy. Not as an afterthought, but from the beginning. We recognize that environmental justice isn’t an abstract idea here. It’s about whether our kids can sleep, breathe clean air, and grow up in healthy neighborhoods. It’s about how public decisions and budgets reflect real life on the ground.
We want to thank our community partners, translators, volunteers, and everyone who helped make tonight possible, as well as the candidates who are here to listen and respond. And really, thank you so much all for being here this evening. [Applause]
This is a space for mutual respect, learning, and truthtelling. We may disagree, but we all want better outcomes for our communities.
So, here’s how tonight will go. Each theme, like environmental and health justice, workforce access, and community engagement will open with a brief summary drawn from resident experiences, and candidate questionnaire responses. Then, our moderators will invite candidates to respond. We’ll move through each topic with time rounds and we’ll leave space to highlight community voices and commitments at the end. With that, I’m going to be handing things over to our moderators, Lin Thai and Paulina Lopez. And thank you again for being part of this conversation and for standing with us in making policy transparent, inclusive, and community led. Thank you very much. [Applause]
MODERATOR (Paulina Lopez): Hello everyone. I’m very grateful with everyone for dedicating the time to this evening. Come and be in community. Come and hear from our wonderful candidates here. It’s a very important time I think currently that we have going on lots going on. So just these spaces are really really helpful to understand how are we choosing our strong elected officials? How are we choosing our votes? And so I really want to thank community for dedicating the time.
My name is Paulina Lopez and I am the executive director of one of the Sea-Tac coalition members for the Duwamish River Community Coalition. We have lots of information at the back with Joseph. Shout out there. Stop by if you want to learn more about us. But it’s wonderful that we are here and I want to thank also our staff members for putting all this together. And my co-moderator here, Lin, who’s gonna introduce himself.
MODERATOR (Lin Thai): Hello everyone. My name is Lin Thai. I’m recognizing many new faces, but also a lot of faces I’ve been very familiar with over the years working in community as well as a lot of folks here on the panel. So, I feel like this a reunion of some sort and I’m excited to hear and bring you guys up to speed and connect to community. I’m excited to accept this opportunity and I appreciate everyone coming to engage. Ballots should be in the mail already. It’ll be great that you guys are holding on just for another day or two to get the lists of candidates so that you can make the best decision for your family for yourself and for the community you serve. Thank you.
MODERATOR (Paulina Lopez): And of course before we move forward I do want to also acknowledge that we prioritize these type of conversations because of course environmental justice communities are still impacted by many different threats cumulative impacts. So the questions that you’re going to see today are going to be addressing some of that. I personally live in the South Park neighborhood and the Duwamish Valley as we call it that is impacted by the many different environmental threats and we work towards bringing health equity to our neighbors to our families our children. We’re talking about health and families. So that’s why it’s so important all the work that you are advocating for and working towards already some of you.
So we are going to start moving into the introductions for each the questions but I do want to also recognize that we are standing on the lands of our traditional Duwamish people and we always remember that they’ve been here for time and memorial and the ways that we present ourselves every time and the work that we do is to continue steward of the land that has been taken from them and there are some ways that we can support so and learn from the resistance of our indigenous native communities. I personally like encouraging everyone to learn more about the Duwamish tribe and learn how to advocate for all the different inequities that they have within them and there is a woman’s long house if you’re curious to learn more about how to take action as well.
So now we have to provide the microphone to our candidates right to introduce themselves. Yes and to be sure to include Commissioner [Hamdi Mohamed] – she’s not here in the courses but she’s online. So we will prioritize making sure each candidate will have approximately one minute or so to introduce yourself to the community. So we’ll start with since she’s online and then and then we’ll just go take turn starting from Kevin and your way down this way.
[Technical difficulties with Commissioner Mohamed’s audio]
MODERATOR (Lin Thai): Should we start with someone else? Yeah. Let’s go with Kevin.
KEVIN SCHILLING: Hi, everybody. I’m Kevin Schilling and I currently mayor of Burien and have lived in this area my whole life. Born to a family of Boeing engineers and Boeing machinists. So understand that this isn’t… Oh, slow down. I’m sorry. I didn’t know we had interpreters.
Okay, great. I will slow down. I’m Kevin Schilling. I’m the current mayor of Burien. Born and raised in this area to a family of Boeing engineers and Boeing machinists, so know the value of the aviation and aerospace industry to our area. I also attended aviation high school in the Highline School District. So am keenly attuned to the workforce pipeline that goes from educating young folks into skilled labor in this area as well.
While I’ve been in city council since 2019, I’ve been over a few years on the airport committee and have worked on issues addressing growth from the airport. Making sure that Burien is at the table if there is aggressive flights over our community, working to shore up port packages for housing, and right now trying to work with the port over some issues around forestry and trees in some of our local parks.
I see a lot of Burien advocates here tonight who have issues with what’s going on. I’m happy to see you here as well as folks from the surrounding communities of SeaTac and Des Moines that I’ve seen be positive advocates for accountability and making sure that we can have strong partnerships as local municipalities with the port cuz as we know the port’s not going anywhere but our future I think is dependent on ensuring that we find solutions together in order to solve some of our most pressing challenges around health, workforce, and protection. Thank you.
TOSHIKO HASEGAWA: Good evening. My name is Toshiko Hasegawa. I use she/her pronouns. I’m a fourth generation Japanese American from the Beacon Hill neighborhood in South Seattle. I’ve lived there all my life in the same house where my father grew up, was raised by his parents, and today I’m raising my two children in that same house over the flight path and up the hill from our terminals, the T5 T18.
I ran for the port of Seattle because it’s the economic engine of our entire region. I’ve been here for four years. I’m the first woman of Asian ancestry to ever hold this position. And I’m running for reelection because it’s so much more than economic opportunity in the bottom line. It’s about environmental health and promoting equity throughout our region. I look forward to today’s conversation. Thank you.
SENATOR TINA ORWALL: Good evening. I have the honor of representing the 33rd legislative district in the Senate. You know, I raised my kids in South King County and I remember my son coming home from elementary school with asthma. And at the time, I thought, is it like mold in that school? It never really occurred to me that it could be the air he was breathing. And I can tell you since that time, we’ve learned so much about impacts on air quality in our area.
You know, in life when we have big things in front of us, it takes a team. And I’m really proud because for a number of years, I’ve worked with community leaders. We’ve worked with government at every level and our research firm because we call it trifecta change. But when we all work together, we can find solutions that can help make our communities healthier. So glad to be here.
EDWIN OBRAS: Good evening everyone. I’m Edwin Obras, state representative for the 33rd legislative district. Thank you to our organizers SeaTac4J for putting this on. It’s great to see many of you here. I am running because for the last 25 years I’ve spent my time in the human services area and that means coming up with solutions coming up with solutions with community to address the most pressing problems in our community whether it’s from homelessness to food insecurity to youth development and gun violence prevention and intervention.
I am here to ensure that those voices who I’ve worked with over the last 25 years and those in the 33rd are uplifted at each negotiation table and ensuring that your voices are all lifted up so that we can come up with solutions that because they impact you the most. So, thank you. Appreciate it.
RYAN CALKINS: Hi, my name is Ryan Calkins. I’m a commissioner at the Port of Seattle. I’m seeking my third term on the port commission and tonight feels like a little bit of a respite for me because I’m not driving one of my three kids around to lots of activities which is my main job these days.
And I came to the port from the seaport side. I was a small business owner who imported materials from around the world through the seaport. And over the last eight years, I have come to learn so much about the airport and aviation and in particular the energy economy that drives it. The things that we use to move the planes and the shuttle buses and the taxis and the TNCs and our cars to and from trying to figure out how we can reduce the impacts of those things on the communities around the airport in particular. And we have lots more to say over the course of the night, but that’s a quick minute.
[Commissioner Mohamed’s audio is restored]
HAMDI MOHAMED: Hi everyone who’s in the room. My name is Hamdi Mohamed. It’s such an honor to serve as one of your Port of Seattle commissioners. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there in person tonight. I am having some childcare issues but happy to join online and to share with you all and let me apologize to those who are listening to me online because I am shouting at this point.
You know just a little bit about myself – I came to this country as a three-year-old refugee from Somalia and one of my first memories in the US was arriving at SeaTac airport. The same place I help lead today. I take a lot of pride in that. I grew up watching my mom work long hours at that airport while caring for her family and showing me what both resilience and hard work looks like.
And today, as we face some of the most pressing issues around immigration and labor policies under this current national agenda, I am running for reelection to keep building a port that delivers for people, that delivers for workers, for our community, and for our future. And I believe that together we can protect opportunities. we can work together to uphold justice and ensure that our region is thriving for everybody.
And since I’ve joined the port, I must say I’m very proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish together from protecting North SeaTac Park to doubling our workforce development investments to launching programs like the maritime youth career launch program, doubling investing over $5.6 billion in our capital improvement plan. That’s more jobs and more opportunities for our small businesses. I love my colleagues who are with you all and I’m looking forward to continue doing this work now. I’m echoing so I’ll stop.
MODERATOR (Lin Thai): Thank you so much for that introduction and to everyone for introducing yourselves. We wanted to let you know that our forum is organized around several core themes including environmental and health justice, economic opportunity, policy, regulatory coordination, funding and of course community engagement.
So for each topic we will be asking for the port and the legislative different questions that we will be presenting to and answering if you could in about a minute max 1.5 sorry time is so short.
So there will be an audience Q&A in the second half of tonight’s event. If you’d like to ask a question, please write it on a posted note that is on your chair and raise it so that a volunteer could come by and collect them. For online viewers, please put your questions in the chat.
Candidates, you will have about one and a half minutes to respond to each of the questions we pose to you. Our time keeper will flash the card just as he has been doing. That was a practice for us in the introduction and then we’ll go to the next. We’re trying to ask that all of you to be clear, concise and action result oriented in your commitment tonight to the community. So thank you to all the candidates and the community members for making this a wonderful inclusive and constructive space. So let’s start.
MODERATOR (Paulina Lopez): Thank you Lin. So we’re going to start with the port of Seattle and the first question that I would like to refer. Even with FAA boundaries would you commit to recognizing and publishing community collected data or community science on peak noise particular matter and soil quality alongside with official data that the port brings. Most importantly acknowledging cumulative impacts that are visible to the public and would you ensure and how would you ensure information informs mitigation funding even if he cannot after FAA thresholds?
TOSHIKO HASEGAWA: I honestly I don’t do well with multiple part questions so I’m going to ask you to repeat the second part when I get there but for the first part of your question… I love the idea of embracing data from outside sources. So in fact we have had a conference as the port commission in as a retreat and decided to allocate substantial funds for our office proper to be able to do just that and be able to conduct our own studies hire mutual third parties that the community members and stakeholders would see as legitimate.
And we do add a lot to the realm of data. For example, in shore power when all of our big ships are plugging in and using electricity and cutting down on their pollution, we actually report that and show that in a public beachy dashboard. That’s the exact kind of thing that could be really good for tracking some of the different metrics that you mentioned.
Also this organizing committee recommended that we do something similar for trees. I love the idea of having a ported sample tree index that demonstrates transparently exactly what our plans are, what the progress is, including cutting down trees, and including planting. And we have a 4:1 standard. How many of those athletes are actually growing up to fruition, go old growth. So I think that the transparency aspect is a huge piece of accountability. That’s something became and should look into I think the second part of your question. I’m sorry.
MODERATOR: Should I repeat it? You remember community input?
TOSHIKO HASEGAWA: Yeah, it’s about the community with cumulative impacts that also these will be acknowledged through the data gathered by community that will help also bring funding for mitigation. You cover it a little bit.
RYAN CALKINS: I feel like yeah so I agree with Commissioner Hasegawa and just to say we would be happy to post additional good sound scientific data that the community gathers. I think that’s a great idea. We have a good platform for it. I would even say that probably as commissioners, there’s a few commissioners who are rockstar social media folks. That might actually be a great way to disseminate some of the information as well to get it even further beyond what you know our port social media and communications can do.
I also want to say it’s a little bit of a pivot here, but I just want to recognize how much work was put into the questionnaire to the ideas that were given to the candidates before this forum. It is a remarkable amount of work that you all put in. So that even if this didn’t happen, the fact that we all got that information, you’re essentially giving us really good policy ideas and it was clearly reflective of a lot of work by organizers informed by the community and so you’ve already done this that a lot of this work.
And then on the question of how do we incorporate community input into that? I mean that’s part of the process we’re doing right now. We are here to learn from you all. And the other is we have tried to implement grant programs and other mechanisms through the port that allow us to use funds that are not bound by federal or FAA requirements around airport specific funding. And so we, you know, continuing to look at how we can use that kind of either levy-backed or general revenue funds to support community initiatives. We’re absolutely open to that.
HAMDI MOHAMED: Thank you. Well, both my colleagues answered that question really well and so the short answer is yes. And I’m hoping you can hear me. Great. I see nods. So it’s yes, I do agree that community data needs to be respected and needs to be built into our decision-making process. And when it comes to updating FAA boundaries, we have advocated for those outdated metrics to be updated through our congressional delegation talking directly to the FAA. Senator Orwall is there with you all and we’ve traveled to DC together with other elected officials advocating for just that. And so we’ll continue to push on that.
Recognizing and validating community collective data is very important. And when I think about funding opportunities, I would say any opportunities where we can leverage federal dollars, FAA funding, other other fundings, we will. Obviously, this administration is making all of that really difficult right now, but also partnering at the state level, looking for state dollars as well as looking at our own tax levy dollars at the port and seeing how can we use our tax levy dollars to go beyond what it is that we’re doing.
And we have been able to do that with the sound install the sound installation repair and replacement program. It’s a pilot program and where those dollars did come from is our levy dollars and when it comes to sound installation repair and replace that’s an FAA issue and we rely on the FAA to do that but…
MODERATOR (Lin Thai): For our legislative candidates… Kevin, Edwin. Edwin. See how I told already. Yeah. Coming from the history of being an army in the army, you can make me do however number of push-ups you want as a punishment immediately after this, Edwin. Sorry about that.
For a candidate here, would you fund a one-year collaborative pilot with University of Washington and local governments could test complimentary peak event monitoring methods that fill the gaps left by the FAA standards and use the findings to guide eligibility for state or court funded noise and air quality relief.
EDWIN OBRAS: The answer to all those questions is yes. I think we have this past session we funded through a local community project fund air monitoring for Des Moines. So that will provide additional data. The University of Washington has a ultrafine particle ultrafine particle advisory group that I’m part of and I’ve come to learn a lot of things about how our data is collected here in the port versus what the community is gathering. So there’s a lot of gaps that I think the FAA may not be monitoring and I want to ensure that there’s funding available through any kind of mitigation dollars that we use that data in a sound way that it has some credibility with our community partners as well.
I would have to say also that the work that Senator Orwall did in the last Senate in Senate Bill 5652 around environmental justice didn’t get didn’t make it out of committee but I think environmental justice is core to the work that you all are doing here. We need to ensure that that equal justice is centered in community and ensuring that you all have a voice.
SENATOR TINA ORWALL: Thank you for those questions. One I would say yes to all of them and I think the partnership with the community is so important. I think on something like this with our community, we need a neutral third party to really be gathering this. So that’s why I’m really proud that we’ve been working years with the University of Washington and the community members in government.
We do know we’ve learned through a lot of that research that there is particles related to jet A fuel and they’re associated with inflammation. We have very high rates of asthma. We’ve had children dying from asthma in our area. And when you look at the maps and from UDub that show the landing path, it mirrors children going to emergency department for asthma. So it’s just so important that we do have that really careful look at the ultimate particles and the impact and the mitigation from our partners.
We also know through the Department of Health in King County that the closer you live to the airport, the shorter your lifespan, the more likely you’re going to have asthma and heart disease. And so I think it’s really important that we do team up. I’m really proud of the monitoring that we got in place. It’s the first in the country that combines the EPA monitoring of pollution with ultrafine particles thanks to the partnership of the University of Washington. We do need to be collecting with the community in partnership to look at the pollution and then start working on mitigation.
KEVIN SCHILLING: This is going to be a really weird forum because there’s going to be so much agreement on what needs to be done because I think everyone up here has done a lot of work towards finding ways to improve the health of our communities especially when it comes to the ultra fine particular matter issue and noise and especially Senator Orwall who’s been working on it for so long. Edwin’s been at the forefront of this as well especially when we pushed back against FAA and the airport. Oh, I think I’m talking fast around the FAA and the airport for the Burien to turn when we successfully sued the FAA and the airport to say you can’t turn planes over Burien right away especially to address noise and altered particulates.
I would absolutely support all of what’s been asked here around noise and the studies at UDub. More importantly too, I think is our work to find future solutions around sustainable aviation fuels and that’s been a particular interest of mine with the work that’s been done with UDub and Washington State University and I think that that partnership is vital for our innovative and research efforts to find ways to get sustainable aviation fuels faster and used more often by our largest airline carriers, especially for the health impacts of our local communities.
MODERATOR (Paulina Lopez): Thanks so much for also acknowledging asthma and the asthma rates that many of the communities have. Yeah, some neighborhoods like mine have 10 years of life expectancy difference compared to other communities in Seattle and due to the big asthma disparity asthma rates. We’re going to move towards different of the sections on workforce access and economic barriers.
And I’m going to possibly start with you for Commissioner Calkins. As we know federal equity policies have been rolled back and limiting how local governments are acting and agencies are tackling these parties. Those protections are getting weaker and weaker. So we wanted to ask is within your first year what is specific actions would you take to safeguard equity gains in hiring contracting workforce inclusion? How are you committing the port to this? And and and this also case for state policy that would expand local equity funds to strengthen public reporting and committee oversight to ensure continuity and accountability.
RYAN CALKINS: We don’t have to wait for the first year of the next term. We’re doing it right now. We are in a legal dispute with the Trump administration around our office of equity, diversity, and inclusion and our approach to being a welcoming port. The immigration approach that we take at the airport. We were told that if we continue with those programs, we’ll lose $373 million in funds for the airport, additional funding for the seaport. And we said, well, we’re going to fight you in court over that. And right now, we’re winning. The first judge who heard the case said they enjoined the federal government’s actions, meaning they have to pay out those funds. So, the grants are continuing to come. And those grants include grants that help us to decarbonize airport operations, things like replace diesel equipment with electric equipment. And so we’re going to keep fighting on those things.
At the same time, we also have to be proactive. We have to be doing things that at the level of a local port authority to make sure that in spite of what the Trump administration is doing, we continue to work toward developing career options for kids in our communities that are lasting, that are living wage, that are meaningful, that and for me that means we really need to focus on those careers that AI is not going to take away, that aren’t going to get outsourced. And I feel incredibly blessed that at the airport and seaport we represent four career paths that are somewhat immune to that. So construction work, aviation, maritime operations work and work in the new green economy and I wake up every day really excited to work on those things and so I’ll continue to do that my next term.
MODERATOR: You can also respond that in the state policy. It wasn’t just for the port. was for everyone who would like to repeat the question.
EDWIN OBRAS: Okay. So, I’m sorry. All right. Of course. Within your first year, what specific actions would you take to safeguard equity gains in hiring, contracting, and workforce inclusion so they are sustained regardless of changes at the federal level? I’m going to stop right there.
We’re fortunate enough here in Washington state to have a well-resourced staff attorney general and ensuring that he has an ability to push back on any of the mandates coming down from the federal government. Grateful for Nick Brown’s leadership there as well as Governor Ferguson’s. So at that level we have the utility of the attorney general to ensure that we’re protected there. I think we have opportunities to ensure that our workforce through the support of labor through the work that’s being done in our workforce agreements can solidify any of those issues that are deemed we I on the I sit on the labor committee and we we I was able to pass a couple pieces of legislation that included some workforce protections particularly for those who work in and around the airport. So it isn’t just the folks who work the airport. There are collective bargaining agreements that need to be honored. We have number of industry in the airport that unions are organizing. So we need to ensure that unions are also being supported in their effort to organize.
SENATOR TINA ORWALL: Perfect timing. It’s zero. Well, thank you for this question. You know, everything we do should be with the equity and social justice lens. It’s really important at the state level. I agree. We have great leadership that is fighting for human rights and the rights of every resident in our state. I’m especially like I love that every person, every student has a path to be successful. My son, he went through apprenticeship program and he’s in the trades. He’s a commercial electrician. And one of the things I saw when he went through it was there weren’t a lot of young people. And so we started setting up Running Start in the trades for juniors and seniors in the summer. And it’s six weeks program. and it gives silence because a lot of kids can’t participate unless they’re actually having money and it’s been a huge success. We’ve engaged students all over the area. We’d like to continue that. We have a lot of great careers and I appreciate the work that you’re importantly helping those tracks as well. And it’s also important when we see construction and projects building our schools that our kids are helping right and they go through these careers that they continue to build things in our communities.
TOSHIKO HASEGAWA: We think and talk a lot about this at the port and I’m going to expand on Commissioner Calkins answer and try to not be duplicative and fortunate to have five commissioners who share the same values. So where we disagree it’s a lot of stuff that really matters. It’s more the nuance of things. But what I’ll say is one of the things that we believe is that local government is exactly where we can and should be leading in this moment on our progressive initiatives. And so we are defending in court as he said our equity programs. We need to hold the line on environmental justice and also on our sustainability programs. Those are two line items that are actively under attack by the Trump administration as well as diversity and contracting.
That’s how many minority and women-owned businesses have a fight at the Apple including that 5.3 billion dollars in capital projects that we already approved. the port is in excellent financial condition, right? And so we’re looking at opportunities to be able to acquire land and double down on workforce development creating expanding opportunities for our local community members. And we’re doing things internally to make sure that we’re addressing not just entry-level jobs and workforce development. is the way that we are promoting and giving raises to women, immigrants, and people of color within the Port of Seattle proper. And then for our sea workers who are not for employees, we have a committee that is working deliberately to make sure that we h they’re understanding how they have access to benefits that they need. We’ve already delivered on an Orca free Orca pass pilot program. We are on our way of making sure that we’re setting up child care so people have that sense of balance and stability and then we’re also thinking of how to get folks access to healthcare. There’s much more to say than I’m sure Commission Mohamed will be able to play as well.
KEVIN SCHILLING: I think first to start off and thank the current port commission we have right now where a lot of these concerns aren’t concerns for me because you guys have been championing fighting for for the things that asked about. So thank you for standing strong on that. And also as has already been said, our state government and our folks in the attorney general’s office and in the governor’s office have worked really hard to ensure that those protections are in place. When it comes to workforce development, obviously this is a huge opportunity for our region. I got the opportunity in high school to have an internship at the airport. And I think having that early engagement with the workforce at the airport, especially for the Highline School District, is a massive opportunity for us right here in our backyard to get young people engaged and connected to workforce skill training opportunities as early as freshman year of high school. So that that’s a big that’s a big opportunity we have due to the airport’s presence in the Highline school district. And that’s how we can take full advantage of that and ensure that those workforce opportunities are for as many young people as possible.
HAMDI MOHAMED: Commissioner Mohamed, would you like to finalize your thoughts? Yeah, I’m a lot of great things have already been shared and what I will just add is even as the federal government is rolling back on funds and putting out a lot of threats will continue to protect equity by also expanding local partnership. I think this is when we have to look internally and even look within our state and our county. How can we work with our local cities, our community colleges to co-fund and sustain job training programs and ensure that workers feel prepared in these very high demanding sectors. And at the Port of Seattle, we have continued to double down on workforce development as Commissioner House and Calkins have already shared pre-apprenticeship programs. There’s a $14 million investment in the South King County Community Impact Fund. We continue to support priority hire program that hones in on zip codes by impacted community members, the maritime innovation center. So, we’ll continue to make these investments regardless of what chaos is happening in that other Washington.
MODERATOR (Paulina Lopez): Thank you so much. And I really enjoy learning more about the priority on youth and opportunities for workforce development and most importantly from communities that where the needs are the greatest and impacted by work. So hopefully yeah those jobs get to facilitate better life and then with a little bit of that schedule which is amazing. So at this point we’ll take a quick 10 minutes break for everybody to maybe less when you can just kid.
[Break]
MODERATOR: How would you make port decision making more transparent and reciprocal so that impacted residents are informed about real streams and agency staff or policy makers better understand realities? And can you give me an example of how would you institutionalize that kind of learning change?
We’ll start with Commissioner Mohamed and then we’ll go back this way.
HAMDI MOHAMED: I hope you guys can hear me. Oh god. Well building transparency and trust is so important. I believe that all residents should be able to see how and why port decisions are being made. It was one of the reasons I ran for office. Being one of the only port commissioners living in South King County, lived right across the street from SeaTac airport. I always felt like we needed representation from all of our residents on that commission. I think some of the ways that we can continue to make the port more accountable and more transparent to its constituents is by publishing things like public reporting, making sure that we have dashboards, tracking different either investments we’re making, tracking environmental issues that we may be working on. making sure that we also are providing real-time access and pushing for more clear, more plain language when it comes to the decisions that are being made at the port. And we’ve been able to do that. I feel like protecting North SeaTac Park and that commission order as well as our sound installation repair and replacement program. Both of those included a lot of what we heard from our residents. I’ve held listening sessions with constituents and a lot of what we heard were were part of those final decision making processes. There’s obviously like…
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RYAN CALKINS: Sorry, we needed to go to the next meeting. All right. I’ll take it up there. I’ll continue to So, one of the challenges about running an enormous public agency like the Port of Seattle is that on the one hand, we want to disseminate all the information we can. On the other hand, there’s so much going on that sometimes, I’m afraid, we obfuscate by inundation. We put out so much information on so many things that we end up flooding every channel that we have. And so part of what we would love to hear from you all is what are the mechanisms for communicating that are easiest for you to access and we’ve been thinking a lot about is you know historically 50 years ago it would have been a column in the paper. Obviously we aren’t doing that anymore as our principal mechanism. We’re trying to use social media, our website, email newsletters, advertising in on TV and in the newspaper to get information out around airport related community impacts, port seaport related community impacts. But we really want to learn from you all where how do we do that? The other thing that I think commissioners Hasegawa and Mohamed have been extraordinary about is reminding the institution that just because it goes out in English doesn’t mean it’s going to be accessible to huge parts of our community. And so really figuring out how to make sure that we have translation services available that we or interpretation services available and that we’re translating as much of that information as possible. Excuse me.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: What’s the best way for us to reach out to you about our complaints right now? What is the best way?
RYAN CALKINS: rcalkins@portseattle.org. You can you can email me directly. And I hate to say this, but I don’t get a ton of email like maybe a city council member might. And I read all of it. So if you send me an email, I’m going to read it.
TOSHIKO HASEGAWA: Building off of some of what my colleagues talk about the question that was posed for those who are online from the audience was but how do I reach out to you and initiate the conversation and there so it’s not just about us pushing information out it’s also about how you reach into us there’s public comment for what we do convene on a weekly basis or bi-weekly basis at either here at the airport or at pier69. We have our email addresses. You can we can schedule a way to be able to meet in person. We like to come to communities and meet you where you’re at. So, it all starts with I would say either the phone call or the email address and all of that is available in public. But I wanted to also say that community accountability also looks like being geographically specific because the concerns that are impacting South King County who are experiencing impacts from the SBA airport are unique from the impacts that are being experienced on Beacon Hill or the Duwamish Valley who are in experiencing compounding impacts. pass from two airports. There’s certain guys in South Seattle that live in the Bermuda Triangle because they’re also impacted by the rented airport. I want to say is we need geographically specific engagement strategies. One wonderful model that exists that I want to make sure everybody’s aware of because everyone talks about start. But let me just set the table with PECAP, the Port Community Action Team, which is a port-founded, port-funded, community-driven and community-led organization that actually reports back to us in public forum on a regular basis. So another idea I’d just like to offer and I have time is that all of the different community groups come back and also present them for public work because that’s a form of accountability as well.
MODERATOR (Paulina Lopez): Speaking of community groups and sustainability grants and funding I think I’m going to switch us a little bit with thinking after doing some community engagement and conversations as we all know community based organizations nonprofits are under attack under current administration. So it has been more more and more evident that it’s being harder for community organizations to be doing the work that we need to be doing. So this question is for you all and perhaps we can start with you talking about given specifically about the port financial authority but also the legislative budget setting power. How would you work together to move beyond the typical one-time funding to do certain things like GR models, competitive grant models, community guided funding, to do more participatory, to do more sustainability funding, the endowments or dedicated funds to ensure that impacted communities can plan for long-term rather than a year-to-year or matching funds and that are not realistic to community organizations.
TOSHIKO HASEGAWA: That’s a really wonderful question and the answer is complex because making sure that we’re standing up funding opportunities from the port to communities depends on the funding source. Is it a pass through grant from the feds? Is it something that came from our east funding? Is it something that comes from the state? those all have different parameters on what on what awards and on what reporting and qualifications look like. And I think what’s most important is making sure that it is being designed and assessed in iterative consultation with the target communities that we’re hoping to be able to serve. A great example is we’re very proud that we expanded the port community at South for community impact fund to $13 million over five years. But we’re still learning about the barriers for that people to be able to access it to be able to maximize that opportunity much less be able to draw on that for multiple years. And those are lessons learned for us. But that’s in consultation with the court and beneficiaries. It also means that we need to continue to work with our other partners as well. One thing that Hopefully we can talk about I’ll just say it. One of those barriers is that 3 to one matching grant barrier that we were able to thanks to our legislative champions changed to 2 to1 matching but that’s also still a barrier. So we partnership and continue to come together.
KEVIN SCHILLING: Thank you Kevin. I think we learned during COVID that the one-time funds from the federal government to local governments, state government is difficult then to patch up with funds that are not sustainable or not progressively taken through economic activity or focus on user fees associated with report. I’ve been talking a lot from the city of Burien about the negative externalities associated with port growth and how we can ensure that using taxation around user fees can minimize that. But certainly right now we’re seeing sustainable budgeting in a difficult pinch because federal money is drying up with the current administration. And we need to do more not only with partnerships from local, state, and port governments, but partnerships between the public and private sector in order to find ways to continue to grow jobs, continue to grow economic activity so that those user fees are taken in so that there’s growth and not just wages, but an investment. And through that economic activity, through that more sustainable budgeting and changing from aggressive taxation to more aggressive taxation can be helpful to fill budget gaps when we have…
SENATOR TINA ORWALL: Yeah there’s so much impact in our community having here and look you know we know there’s the stamp and our colleagues have been working on that and I’ve been to many forums and I think what where I struggle is the stamp is it really acknowledging the harm we know is occurring and saying that the 20% expansion should not impact us.
It is so important for us all to work together and I have tremendous respect for everyone on this panel to come up with real funding sources for real solutions. The reality is there are things we can do. We took some of the climate change dollars which again aren’t sustainable. We had six million to go to air filters and we did a asthma intervention and you’ve done a study and they found when families end up kids with uncontrolled asthma had a hepa filter and a hepa vacuum their use of a relief inhaler went down 80% they went to school more they had fewer sick days and less time in emergency care. We know our families need clean air. We know that this mitigation around air purifiers around fixing support packages needs to happen from the current level, let alone the expansions. I think I think there are ways we can partner for funding through the state. We can look at the aviation fuel tax which has the perfect nexus. We can be looking at user fees and other things, but we need to bring a lot more resources to help our community.
EDWIN OBRAS: Thank you, Senator. What else can I say? I’ve done my own community engagement and talked to folks at the doors and just meeting with clinical data experts around the issues of the airport. And what I’ve also what I’ve heard is access to the grants that port has is not it’s not very easy to access by our cities and our community based organizations when it comes to mitigation. And we I think Commissioner Hasegawa had pointed out the matching program the match was lowered and I would like to see that lowered even more to even maybe zero. That would increase your city’s ability to get more dollars where it’s deserved. I really am so grateful for the leadership of the 33rd district delegation in the past president. Senator Orwall mentioned things around hepa filters and the flight paths and what we’re really saying is let’s continue to center the lives the health of our residents in coming up with some real solutions. if you really get caught up in a lot of some policy ideas that may never come to fruition. But if we lean on a community, if we lean on the folks that have been doing the work to help us get there, I think we could directly impact our 33rd district citizens and the state.
RYAN CALKINS: So, I’m a huge fan of community organizations as mechanisms for real change in our communities. In 2007, I founded a nonprofit that was focused on micro finance here in Seattle. And, a number of lessons I learned from that experience and I’ve learned as a port commissioner is that many of these scrappy early stage community organizations aren’t like the United Way. When when we started, we had zero paid staff. It was all volunteer. We didn’t have a lawyer, an accountant, anybody who could help us with the compliance that’s necessary when you take public funds. And so at the port, what we’re trying to do now as we get more sophisticated in how we work with community organizations is not just simply give a bunch of money, but also really try to do capacity building for these organizations. And in fact, in the s in the same sense of that, give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. teach him to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime. I think if we can work with community organizations to build their capacity that and instead of simply just you know providing a little bit of funding for a year’s budget that’s the kind of impact that will last a decade or a generation because you will allow these organizations to become much more self-sufficient in terms of whether that’s compliance to you know the the requirements of public dollars or getting better at doing their own fundraising or just getting better at the management and execution of their missions. So that’s what we’re really focused on at the port.
HAMDI MOHAMED: Yeah, I I mean here here’s what I’ll add. I think we have to advocate for fair share fund funding. I see that the airport benefits the entire region and not just South King County. So, the state must also reinvest more of its dollars back into our environmental mitigation for airport impacted communities. And when we were pushing for the sound installation repair replacement program, Representative Orwall at the time, now Senator, we heard during those those sessions how many other legislators across the state weren’t in support of the state making those investments, although the Port of Seattle gives the state of Washington millions of millions of dollars in taxes to the to the state, whether that is sales tax, use tax, BNO taxes, other statewide taxes, And so I think we do have a responsibility both the state and the port es especially our legislators who are here to to talk in one voice and speak in one voice and to advocate for this community. I’ll continue to push for the port to use its own dollars to invest in communities. I commit to that and there’s a lot of ways that we’ll we’ll continue to do that work. But I think going beyond that, it really takes a regional approach and all of us being on the same page.
MODERATOR (Lin Thai): You all going to just go in? Yes. Okay. So I I’m really thankful to hear the responses. We’re going to change a little bit because two of our poor commissioners had to leave by seven, but they both have expressed that they’re staying until the very end. So I’m very grateful. right there. There’s already commitment. I just didn’t realize it was going to be this fun and now I’m like I’m I’m going to stick with my next thing. Oh, good. This is great. And so we’re going to transition a little bit to questions from the audience. We’re thankful for putting them together.
All right. And thank you the audience for you know raising questions. I’ve done my level best to divide into me. two and a half buckets. The two big buckets are mainly for our port commissioners. A couple of questions for our legislative candidates. I think I’m going to make a decisions to ask the questions for our legislative candidates first. There are only two questions and then the remaining will give more time for our four commissioners to address. depends on your level of expertise or you know your chairmanship in each of the committee if maybe that would be best to address that. All right. So questions toward our legislative candidates. Do you think the current lease hold excise tax is fair to school and if so why? If not why not?
EDWIN OBRAS: Great question. of my understanding these school tax will negatively impact the number of citizens as this is a regressive tax. any regressive tax has to be looked at with some just be spec skeptical about it. We are the 49th state regressive taxes and ensuring that we don’t go down a path of having services paid for but on the backs of working folks and folks who most of us aren’t those multi- millionaires and large corporations. So, I would definitely take a look at it and see if we could, find ways to come up with the progressive taxation.
SENATOR TINA ORWALL: Yeah, I would I would add that as well. We’re having a lot of conversations right now. We have a state where some working families are burdened and with taxes, with cost, the cost of living, it has become very difficult. So, we are trying to find other ways of having more fair tax structure that’s distributed to people at the form of…
KEVIN SCHILLING: I certainly agree with that especially this last session the legislature raised taxes $9 billion worth of taxes all all regressive in most a lot of ways and school funding has been discussion for over a decade now in order to find ways to more progressively fund it and have it more sustainable. So absolutely.
MODERATOR (Lin Thai): A second question, what is being done regarding funds being pulled from public from public health especially for work supporting people with respiratory diseases like asthma. What is currently being done? I’ll let Senator Orwall talk about that first because she’s currently senator from the 33rd. So, would you like to go?
SENATOR TINA ORWALL: Yeah. So, we started with this asthma intervention study and again, it’s our community based organizations are actually doing the intervention with families, both medical staff and with the capital filters. We’d like to expand that. We had limited funding and we’re going back next year. We’d like that to be stably funded. We like to explain it to adults. We talked to so many adults struggling with asthma as well. So, we really want to make sure that we’re using the hepa filters, that we’re doing medical interventions that we know and have already found are very successful. So, we started the other thing that they’re really looking at, there’s two articles out now around pre-term labors. And so again, we’re looking at could we do more intervention for for young families and people with children are about to have children so that they can also get healthcare and have the filters.
KEVIN SCHILLING: I would just add to that that as the city of Burien, we’ve been working hard in partnership to distribute the filters and work to get those in the communities and homes. would be proud to continue to work with that and I know that Senator Orwall has been doing that fantastic work over years in the legislature to to make sure that we have those public health interventions. Certainly I hear too from our local hospital. We hear all the time from doctors and nurses that they see people coming in who have severe respiratory problems. asthma. I talked to my own sleep apnea doctor about the increase in sleep apnea in in the surrounding areas of the airport. And so certainly we need to continue doing that and several does a great job that over the years and hope to continue to partner.
SENATOR TINA ORWALL: I think I would add maybe my speak to it also is we’ve gotten a lot of cultures in schools but they should be in all the daycares or the senior centers.
EDWIN OBRAS: Not much more to add other than the cherry that we had some data that our community could accept as as some credible data that would ensure that you all are being heard. the port has data sets and I’m sure that the those data sets are as credible as can be but we need to make sure that they’re being used. data that Rick that for example is collecting is also part of the decision making process.
MODERATOR (Lin Thai): Thank you everyone. So the recipes are for our commissioners. I devised them into there are three questions. generally about noise. and in terms of what are some of the work being done as well as future you know ideas and proposal in terms of trying to reduce noise pollution you know that are impacting residents in in our communities. and with one question asking if any of the commissioners will come and take a look at I’m going to say Martha Martha Park yep so that’s to any poor commissioners who want to address the noise issue
RYAN CALKINS: yes I would love to come see Martha Park I’ve got an email at the very top of my inbox right now from a community member asking about that very thing and so yeah I’ happily accept an invitation to see it
MODERATOR: yes the rest of the question was about and is any work that’s being currently done to mitigate noise that would impact that are impacting Commissioner Mohamed has been a champion on this and so I want to see if she wants to lead in answering the question.
HAMDI MOHAMED: Yeah. Yeah. And to answer the the first question, I’m also a yes on that. I’d love to visit the park and if someone is organizing it, happy to participate in that. You know, I think some of the ways that we’ve addressed noise related to the planes flying over folks’s house, the runway use agreement with the FAA through that program and it was through the advocacy of many community organizations and groups. We’ve reached a major milestone by establishing the voluntary agreement asking air traffic control to avoid using the third runway. And that is the one that is closest to the neighborhood between the midnight and 5:00 a.m.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I went to 150 and was told that three airplanes a night fly over that completely wrong. I think somebody interrupted me, but I’ll pause. It’s completely wrong. It’s four times that. So, they’re not upholding whatever they said they do in the runway. How do we make them uphold what they said they would do in the runway? How can we as a community make sure that we hold the people?
HAMDI MOHAMED: It’s so I think I heard the question is maybe the airlines are not or the air traffic controllers are not upholding what they’ve agreed to. Is that what I I’m hearing? If the monitor if you want to restate the question the comment I’m happy to listen.
MODERATOR: So commissioner we have somebody in the audience here who feed for the data that is actually four times the number that they’re seeing and so they are in that way in violation of their voluntary commitment. And so what does accountability and adherence to their commitments look like? So that So that was a interjection and I know you were mid thought in his sentence.
HAMDI MOHAMED: That’s a that’s a good good comment and question and I think the the key thing here is we establish that program as a voluntary program. And so that’s this the challenge or the reality of being a special purpose government. And I often explain to people the port of Seattle manages what happens on the ground and the FAA and the federal government manages what happens in the sky. But I still think we have a moral obligation and a responsibility to work with these partners to deliver for the community. So we will continue to partner with the airlines to prioritize whether that’s you know pushing for quieter aircraft, newer ones and encouraging earlier adoptions of their next generation technology. And so if there are specific cases or incidences that you all are experiencing, feel free to email me or any of the other commissioners and we could help elevate those those issues as they come to us.
TOSHIKO HASEGAWA: I’ll build off that and say that’s a really good example of community based data helping us have more situational awareness. As court commissioners, we heavily rely on what our staff is able to share with us. And so, so keep doing that, right? Keep keep being vigilant. I know you mentioned that you were going to write into Commissioner Calkins, but if you could cite the source, that will be helpful, too.
RYAN CALKINS: shot at all. Okay, that’s that’s that’s helpful. One of the things that the port has done is like they they are very into carrots and not so much into sticks if you’re if you catch up on what I mean. They like to give awards to airlines who have made investments into their fleets and are demonstrating they’re reducing the noise impact as opposed to sit saying here’s what accountability looks like if you’re having these standard impacts on our communities. So I think what you’re asking million dollar question is what does the stick look like violation of sound impacts and then the other thing that I wanted to mention is this part 15 study but anecdotally and I do think that anecdote matters for communities that live under the flight path we are hearing from more and more people who are bothered by the airport operations as far as north Seattle and the river neighborhood Right. And so this is the other piece of the conversation that has not been mentioned here at all but you have how many of you have written the report about sound mitigation in this in this room? How many of you attended the forum with Congressman Smith? So that you know that we’re I’m here to share that everything that happens in the air is the jurisdiction of the federal government. there’s what we can control and then there’s what we can influence. There’s what we have to do together in order to get meaningful changes. But the fight path and the and and the the cadence of the flight is something that’s a that’s a really fact. It’s the that’s a conversation to have.
HAMDI MOHAMED: Can I just add quickly to Ryan Commissioner Calkins? Yes. And maybe maybe you’ll add this too, but also I forgot to just say the noise monitoring and community reporting. I know we need to upgrade those noise monitors around the airport to better track those impacts. And so that that is something that as commissioners we can also advocate for and can look into in the coming year.
RYAN CALKINS: Yeah, I would I would say we aren’t here to excuse what the FAA is doing or to to shuck the responsibility. I do want to highlight where success has happened and that has been as a result of community driven demands through public comment, through emails to commissioners, through the actions of of folks like Senator Orwall bringing this up over and over and over again and finally getting the powers that be back in DC to pay attention to it. And I think one of the most successful examples of that is when as a result of all of this community action, the port went with the communities to DC to say, “We need you to address X, Y, and Z things.” And there was a list of items that the port said, “We’re going to lobby with you for and we didn’t get everything we wanted. We got some, but it is not we’re not giving up. We’re going to keep working on this.” And this is the first I’ve heard of that. So the fact that and and I know it’s a lot to ask but when you get this information send it to us. I’ll send it to you. Great. Really appreciate it.
MODERATOR (Lin Thai): There’s a questions added from online contributor to to it and it’s basically it’s also around the noise issue as well with an extra caveat and that is we hear a lot about added insulation and special windows. Is there any programs or activities around that that the fors are working on?
RYAN CALKINS: Do you want to jump in? I mean, we we do have an active sound insulation program for houses within the the DNL that are federally authorized to receive funding for that and have continued to work with the state to try to expand what’s eligible for that kind of funding and find new sources of funding to to address failed port packages where insulation that was installed years ago has failed for one reason or another to make sure that those legacy projects are are fixed. And then also to address to make sure that we have accurate science on because the the what is used to determine who’s eligible is a model. It’s not the actual measurement at a house. And so to be able to say what if the model failed? What if there is a house that’s you know just outside the the boundary but in fact you could sense it and detect that it is above the threshold that’s appropriate? Would that be eligible? And so we’re working to to make sure that that’s could could be funded as well.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: But they don’t allow you to present a normal like or something like that. How can we provide our own information to prove that things are too loud when there’s like unrealist
RYAN CALKINS: You’ll have to forgive me. You you now you are getting way beyond my personal expertise around sound sensing, but we do have a a a sound program. There’s a team including some experts and we’d be happy to get you in touch with them. So that and not that their job is to shoe you away. Their job is to to listen and to try to address these concerns. But also I love that now you have the email for the process. I see very soon a meeting with you to talk very specific things.
MODERATOR: Actually the question was most related to what about activities outside when we talk about noise pollution and all the impacts of it but are we considering also protecting community when they’re outside in communities that are impacted by this or any related to that?
RYAN CALKINS: This is a hard one. so the on a plane by plane basis things are getting quieter. however you then layer on top of that an increase in the number of operations and gains that are made you know per plane are either sort of swamped by the total number of operations or eventually you reach a point where even all your efforts to make planes quieter you sea is not the only airport trying to address noise. you get to sort of this physics problem where anytime you have something that big moving through the air as fast as it is, it’s going to make some noise. even if you turn the engines off, they’d still be there’d still be noise associated with it. So figuring out how to address some of that noise on takeoff and landing is going to be a really hard problem to solve. to the extent that you know we can work with community on particular locations I don’t know playgrounds other things I would be open to to hear what we can do you know we we can’t move this airport but we want to continue working on mitigation for for sound and and air pollution
MODERATOR (Lin Thai): yeah thank you any commiss just want to add anything before I move on to this?
HAMDI MOHAMED: Yeah. commission and happy. Perfect. I couldn’t unmute myself, but I’m I’m here. Well, you know, I the sound installation repair and replacement program. Let me just say 90 9,400 single family homes have been received window installations or installations as a whole. 240 somewhere around 240 condominiums and a dozen schools and colleges around the airport. I we recognize that some of those homes need repair and replacement. which is why the commission last year or in 2024 we passed an order that launched the pilot program. It’s a $5 million investment funded entirely through the port’s levy dollars for the first time and it’s one of a kind compared to airports across the country. It’s the largest investment that any any port airport authority has done. And through that program we’re doing data collection, assessing the homes and ensuring that we also apply an equity lens. And so making sure those who have the greatest need, the most impa impacted individuals can receive those installations. And so I’ll say I am open to the idea of partnering with even nearby cities around installating homes outside of the 65 DNL. But I will say that even within the 65DNL, we do hear from a lot of families and even from electeds who are sharing concerns and saying that there are homes even within the 65 DNL that need help. And so that is where our priority is right now. But that doesn’t mean we’re not open to partnering outside of that.
TOSHIKO HASEGAWA: And then I just wanted to add a couple thoughts myself. So somebody in the audience mentioned them move the flights themselves. So, let’s talk about that. What does it look like to move the flights? A, you can change the flight path, but the state legislation can’t do that. Port of Seattle Commission can’t do that. As we talked about earlier, that’s a joint advocacy effort with the FAA, who is the one that is in charge of determining flight path routes. So, that’s that. The other thing is all of you know that the flights have there are so many more of them. And once again, the port of Seattle the SBA airport has broken the record for the most flights three times already this year. That’s before the holiday season. I am not here to gaslight you. You are right. It is getting intense. And the PSRC projects that another million people are going to move to this region by 2035. We are the primary airport unless you demand servicing the travel demands of the entire region. And the state of Washington has not yet identified the location for another airport. So if you’re talking about let’s move the slice, there has to be a real conversation and leadership from the state of Washington and we are leading into with the governor. We are leading into with at the Senate and the and and the House about what it takes to identify another location that can serve the needs because this community is already overburdened. We already have that data that the environmental health disparities map of the state says it. The equity index of the Port of Seattle says it. We know it, right? And so that’s the if we’re talking about the move the flights, then we have to think about where else these flights are going to go.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I don’t understand the money to build another northern terminal gates. They could use that money to build the terminal field. There’s the money. They use it field. There’s so many other fields around and they’re already putting millions and millions of money. Don’t tell me there’s no money. Stop putting there’s no capacity. Don’t tell me there’s no capacity. You still have to land there.
TOSHIKO HASEGAWA: That’s she’s we have somebody in the office that says there’s obviously money. If we have money for a second terminal, then then put that money towards somewhere else. Well, that money is all part of the operation that we operate out of SBA airport. That’s that’s not other people’s money. That’s the part of Seattle. So, I’m hearing you suggest that maybe we should go into business with Snohomish County, right? Or maybe we should go into business with you know, somewhere in Pierce County if it ever gets approved to be able to share airspace with the military. And it’s not going to go out county. It’s not going to go to the middle of the country because that’s not where the population travel is. Realistically, you’re right. It’s field, but that’s I have a novel idea and I don’t think we’ve talked about going into business with them. What does it look like to divert our funds into growing their operation over there?
SENATOR TINA ORWALL: I think the state should be able to answer this question. Is that okay? Yes. I missed it on the the first group to look at the second airport and I guess there’s a couple things I would say. Yes, the FAA has control over flights and they’re learning how to stack them, but when you create more gates, then you’re allowing all those flights to land. I mean, it is working on those sites because if there weren’t the gates, they wouldn’t be landing. And we didn’t have a lot of support from our our airlines. I actually a lot of them suggested that SEA operate a second one that you try to go in the paint and do an expansion because you could be a regional or other areas expanding. We do need a green field site, but we could do a lot expanding. We could also cargo and some’s in the belly of planes. A lot of it’s not that a lot of different airports for cargo and a lot of those are evening flights and allow the old airplanes. So, I I do want to sit down and try to figure that out and it would be great if you guys led the expansion of airports around the state.
MODERATOR (Lin Thai): Thank you. And the really a separate question but this goes to a lot of what’s been said so far too and that is questions are the EPA the same and the are the EPA s yeah the yeah or FAA that is being written out exactly just that I’m not sure.
RYAN CALKINS: Okay. So, I’m going to I’m going to guess at what they’re asking here, which is so we recently learned that the FAA has announced its decision on the the National Environmental Policy Act review of what’s called the Sustainable Airport Master Plan. And so, I think it it referred to that. It came back to us. We were quite disappointed because under the Trump administration, the FAA had essentially crossed out two major components of the NEPA that we had submitted. However, we’ve got a little bit of a belt and suspenders here as we look at the potential impacts of the sustainable airport master plan and that is we’re now moving forward with the SEPA process, the state environmental policy act and that we are that is not going to remove those big chunks and so we will examine the elements through the SEPA that were taken out by the the Trump administration FAA. So I maybe we’re answering that particular question.
The other thing I want to say going back to the earlier question, there’s a really important point here, which is back in 2009, the Port of Seattle was opposed to the state looking at a second airport. And when I started in 2018, I asked the question, why are we opposed to this? It seems like we ought to be encouraging an examination of where to put this next one. We we have more demand than we can manage. The impacts are great. And so the port flipped the position to where we were now supportive of the a search for a second airport committee. And we really do need that to work to to happen. It got punted a couple of years ago unfortunately, but we need to get back to that. In fact, we were talking to the the congressional delegation just today about the need to put pressure on the state government to make sure that happens because with population growth and the increasing demand per person to fly, we can’t and shouldn’t accommodate all of the demand at at SEA. It does need to go somewhere else. And another point I want to make on this is right now the reason we’re here is because the impacts of an airport are unduly borne by the people right around the airport. What if airports were were supported in such a way where where the impacts were mitigated in such a way that airport communities would love to have an airport? What if we thought about that model for a future airport that would allow us at SeaTac to be right-sized for that kind of approach and that a second airport would be built in such a way that communities would welcome it there and that’s going to mean a lot of upfront investment, a lot of community engagement. And I think that’s the approach we take so that folks aren’t saying we don’t want it here. They’re saying we want the economic benefits, we want the work benefits, and we know that the environmental and and health benefits will be mitigated before they even build the thing.
MODERATOR (Lin Thai): Yeah. as as moderators is so exciting to know that there’s a lot more conversation to be had. I know it’s a it’s a strike of the court and and and folks are raising questions and members up here want to have conversations some more. We’re at time unfortunately. So with that I would like to you know and and feel free to submit written statement to steering committee so that we can you know or write directly to the the members any of the members that you have here so that they can address it. That’s just direct advocacy from what I’ve learned. But when it comes to close, I would like to invite members here as well as Commissioner Hamdi to have a one minute closing statement and we’ll start with Commissioner Ryan.
RYAN CALKINS: I appreciate it. And then I got to run out and pick up my kid from an activity. Thank you so much for the time today. As I said earlier, I really appreciate all the work that went in before this. You gave us a document that is a policy document for all of us to think about as we’re moving forward. how do we incorporate these amazing ideas into the work that we’re going to do over the next four years? And and like I said, please reach out via email. That’s the best way for me and I will happily read what you have to say and respond. Thank you again for having us.
EDWIN OBRAS: The wonderful conversation. We have a lot to do. Our communities are hurting. hearing it here and now in real time about what it means for you all to be impacted by the noise and pollution and other health related illnesses that you all are being impacted by. I do want to continue to work in the legislature to be a champion of of folks in the community. I have been endorsed by the Washington Conservation Action recently the J for the pack and numerous numerous colleagues care about our communities. November 4th is just around the corner. Make sure you vote. If you haven’t received your ballot, please make sure you contact the elections office and get them. Thank you.
SENATOR TINA ORWALL: Thank you. Thank you for being here tonight. your your boy AC stories do matter. I do have a bit of legislation this session which is really having the think health disparities evaluating our community before expansion and to look at what mitigation is needed and to really have that done by University of Washington and other entities. And I do want to team up with our partners looking for funding because we need substantial funding in our community to really address these health impacts which are both here. So again, I look forward to teaming up with all of you and everyone up here for how we do.
TOSHIKO HASEGAWA: I think I’ll close by saying that it’s insufficient in my view to justify airport and operational growth by saying that we’re going to connect communities to economic opportunities which is important and it is beautiful and it is valuable and it does matter. But true environmental justice requires a big disperate health and environmental impacts on communities. What’s hard about the Port of Seattle is that within our mission, we don’t include health. So whereas we can’t directly fund some of those health programs, we can fund air, water, land, and noise pollution. If we’re talking about growth, I’m interested in a conversation about how we scale that with understanding where those impacts exist. what Commissioner Calkins has said, not through the NEPA process, hopefully through the SEPA process with the additional data points that we do have and pairing that with congruent mitigation funding as well. That’s not a gift of public funds. I’ve had thought partnership with folks. We have public service from local government here who talked about creative uses of our tax levy, but it comes up with legal challenges with gift of of public funds. But we have good partnership with our local governments here and our partners at the state. committed to listening and doing everything that we can to make meaningful meaning meaningful moves for for community benefit. Thank you for hosting us tonight.
KEVIN SCHILLING: Thank you all for being here and spending your evening with us and thank you to the coalition for putting this together and having it here in Burien. This is a phenomenal opportunity we have to continue partnerships at the state, local, and court levels to to make sure that we’re addressing all these health disparities, but also to ensure that we are pushing for accountability court. making sure that we are finding ways to address the future needs with a potential second airport. that’s something that we need to continue as this impacted airport region here in Des Moines SeaTac Kent White Center this literal immediate impact area to push for as we move forward. thank you all for being here tonight. Thanks for being here. and like like some folks have said November 4th.
HAMDI MOHAMED: Commissioner Mohamed. Yeah. I’ll just say quickly thank you for this opportunity to share. there. I wish I was there with you all in person. And in closing, you know, I did not join the port because it was perfect. I joined the port because I felt like it needed change and to bring change. And the port is a special purpose government. It’s created under, you know, an RCW that was written more than a century ago. And I think it’s time we revisit it and that we look at port authorities not just as engines of commerce but also as guardians of equity, transparency, community well-being, community health. And so my commitment is to make the port of Seattle be a better neighbor to reduce burdens for those living in the airport community, including myself. And I have a a a one-year-old and I look at him and I wonder about his health and is he going to have asthma and what is the doctor going to say? And so these issues are are personal for me. I live them and I will continue to fight for solutions that make South King County stronger, healthier, and heard. Thank you for the time.
MODERATOR (Paulina Lopez): Thank you so much. The last round of applause to our candidates. Wishing you the best. You heard the message loud and clear. Please vote. Encourage others to do so. We need a strong local officials here. And there’s more food. There is information in the back. very thankful for staff for putting us all together and your time. Thank you so much. Thank you. Of course. Thanks so much. Absolutely. Let me know how many push-ups I need to execute. Yes. Next. I’ll let you off the hook now. Let’s do some kind.
[End of formal proceedings – informal conversation and cleanup follows]
1This is a machine-generated transcript generated on the fly by Google/Youtube/AI. Accuracy totally not guaranteed. Provided only as a convenience and to help people with disabilities. Caveat lector!